A letter from Arthur subscriber Kris Thompson:

TV On the Radio opened for their friends The Yeah
Yeah Yeahs this past Thursday at a WFNX-sponsored
concert at City Hall Plaza in Boston.

I assume that it was uncomfortable for WFNX to
have one of their event sponsors held up to such
hostile razzing. WFNX is owned by the (alt.newsweekly)
Boston Phoenix, who made this mention of it in their
review of the event by Matt Ashare:

“…The sun had started to set, the heat of the day has lost its grip on the city, and thousands – 10, 12, 15 thousand — were filing peacefully into City Hall Plaza long before the headlining Yeah Yeah Yeahs were due to take the stage. All the makings of a perfect rock and roll evening were in place …

“And then TV on the Radio had to go and ruin the good vibes by ending their set with a salvo against the Marines, who had signed on as one of the event’s sponsors. Now this is no place for a political rant, but it’s worth noting — no, it’s crucial to understand, lest we fully repeat the mistakes of Viet Nam — that the Marines, Army reserves, and Navy and Air Force pilots currently fighting George Bush’s wars in the Middle East are doing just that, carrying out plans handed down by their commander in chief and doing their best not to get the asses blown to hell in the process. Soldiers take orders: they don’t make policy. To blame them for the mess in Iraq is to tacitly let the bureaucrats and politicians really responsible for the debacle off the hook. And both Adebimpe and Sitek know better: just check out ‘Dry Drunk Emperor’ a free MP3 they recorded before signing their own deal with Interscope.”

Umm, OK. This doesn’t explain to me, though, why it
was a good idea in the first place for WFNX/Phoenix to
want the Marines to be present and recruiting at their
“cool” “alternative” event. TVOTR were not “blaming
the soldiers” for anything — they were blaming the
recruiters for being there to ensnare more young
people in the morass that that Mr. Ashare admits is
not our war in the first place.