Al Weisel
Freedom Rock
By Al Weisel
Rolling Stone, October 20, 1994, p. 50
Andy Lee Payton and John Woods, cofounders of Rock Out Censorship and its newspaper, the ROC call their group "a national grass-roots anti-censorship organization." And it would be hard to get more grass roots than a couple of longtime activists in rural Ohio who cut and paste together their bimonthly at the dining room table. But while the ROC may not be the slickest periodical around—Woods hopes to "go computer" soon—there is probably not a better publication in the country for following the latest assaults on the constantly beleaguered First Amendment.
Woods, 43, and Payton, 39, started their organization in 1989 and took up the battle against the industry-watchdog group Parents Music Resource Center. But what first spurred them to action was a roadshow by an Indiana religious group. "They were going around to local high schools putting on this seminar about the horrors of rock & roll and Satanism," says Woods. "That made us decide to start doing something about it."
What began as a local organization soon branched out. ROC now has chapters in 19 states, as well as in England and Canada, and ROC has a circulation of 15,000. The paper includes interviews with bands like 7 Year Bitch and covers everything from police clampdowns on music clubs in Cleveland to feminists fighting Catherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin's anti-pornography efforts.
By setting up tables at rock shows, ROC has gathered a data base of almost 45,000 names. Bands that have hosted the organization at their concerts include Guns n' Roses, Body Count, Def Leppard. and Rollins Band Nailbomb, a side project by members of Sepultura and Fudge Tunnel, put the group's address on their album sleeve, drawing letters from as far away as Europe and Australia.
A lot of ROC's work is done at the local level. It was from the Nailbomb album that Ste Walley, 20, of Liverpool, England, first heard about the group. "We don't really have this kind of thing in England," says Walley about ROC. He has started organizing against the Criminal Justice Bill, a proposed act that would effectively outlaw raves by banning unlicensed gatherings of more than 10 people where music is "wholly or predominantly characterized by ... repetitive beats." Kenny Moore, 26, from Orlando, Fla., is helping compile ROC's data base and has testified in front of his hometown's city council against the curfew law that affected only the 12-block area in which most Orlando rock dubs are located. The law passed, and he has joined up with the ACLU to fight it in court. "It's been tough going," Moore says, "but we're still here,"
The face of censorship has changed considerably since ROC began. When the Recording Industry Association of America standardized advisory labels in 1990, having capitulated to the PMRC's demands, it lent a new respectability to censors. Now ROC is fighting bills like HB 2982, sponsored by Pennsylvania state legislator T.J. Rooney, a Democrat, which would criminalize the sale of labeled records to minors.
"The biggest difference between now and 1989," says Payton, "is now we find ourselves fighting these supposed liberals. It was a lot more fun when we were fighting these religious kooks. These other people, they're supposed to be on our side." ■
Al Weisel is the co-author, with Larry Frascella, of Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, being published in October 2005.