About this episode
What do Frank Zappa, Dee Snider, and John Denver have in common? A fierce love of the First Amendment. In this episode of Tape Spaghetti , Blake and Scott unpack the strange, star-studded circus that was the 1985 PMRC Senate hearings , where musicians faced off against Tipper Gore and her crusade for warning labels on music. Digging into the bizarre unity of avant-garde snark, glam metal fury, and folk-pop sincerity, the guys discuss how this unlikely free-speech dream team of artists spoke truth to power in front of a room full of very serious senators. Who gets to decide what’s “appropriate,” and what happens when government, art, and fear collide? Featuring testimony that still echoes today in an algorithm-governed media landscape, it’s part courtroom drama, part culture war, and part rock ‘n’ roll roast