Customer Reviews

The Covert War Against Rock: What You Don't Know About the Deaths of Jim Morrison, Tupac Shakur, Michael Hutchence, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Phil Ochs, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, John Lennon, and .....

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Loaded in the CD player as I write this is the Okeh Rhythm & Blues Story Box Set. The music on this set spans the years from 1949-1957. It can be safely assumed that the musicians that played on these records had problems, however the situations they faced most likely pale in comparison to the predicaments that the subjects of Constantines book faced. While lost love, back stabbers and having your money "managed" by crooked labels, agents and other handlers was the rule back in the 40s and 50s, these folks didnt have to (for the most part) worry about being killed for their views. I am sure they were being watched by the powers that be, but as long as it remained out of the white bread mainstream, everything was fine. The problems started when some folks opened their mouths a little too far and spoke up a little too loud and the message made the top 10.

Its hard to put a finger on when it all went astray and became evident that something very wrong was going on. Maybe it was the plane crash that claimed the lives of the Big Bopper, Buddy Holly and Richie Valens. Maybe it was the 1966 death of Bobby Fuller, apparently from ingesting gasoline. Its hard to say if these deaths were the beginning of something very evil or just accidents or suicide. And while Constantine does not investigate the distant past, he does show that this phenomenon of suspicious death in the music industry has not stopped or slowed since the 1960s; in fact it has increased.

Rock musicians are famous for singing about the type of things that make the powers that be nervous. From the blatant lyrics about sex of the 40s and 50s R & B bands to Elvis gyrating hips, to the Stones drug use (and abuse) in the 60s. The 70s gave us the Doors, more Stones, and John Lennon before punk took it over the top. The 80s saw the birth of gangsta rap and grunge and the movements continue to this day. And while some may say that all the lyrics, political statements and political movements are all about image and posturing, someone obviously thinks otherwise.

This book takes a look at the someone else involved in the deaths of many of yesterdays and todays musicians. Instead of just jumping in with conspiracy theory, Constantine gives a good amount of well-footnoted background information and history before the death toll begins to mount. History is given on the Mafia and government involvement in the music industry. The author then takes great pains to show how the government was involved in the supply and use of LSD as a mind weakening and personality molding drug and not the alleged mind expander it was being hyped as. Constantine also points out how many of the underground heroes and their cronies had government ties.

And then the killings start and the truth gets stretched in the mainstream press. Mama Cass chokes on a ham sandwich. Brian Jones drowns in his pool. Hendrix chokes on his vomit. Jim Morrison remains alive. An obsessed fan killed John Lennon. Bob Marley dies of cancer. Peter Tosh dies by gunshot. Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls were gang hits and most recently Michael Hutchence was a victim of autoerotic hanging. That is what "they" want you to believe, but Constantine has made it his job to show you the places where these stories and reality dont agree. Constantine writes of the nervousness inspired by Cass political aspirations. How the murderer of Brian Jones confessed on his deathbed. How the development of the Jim Morrison lives theory was put into place to throw people of the scent of a possible murder. How Bob Marley suspiciously developed cancer and his more suspicious "treatment. Why Peter Toshs killers went uninvestigated. He points out the incongruities in the Tupac and Biggie murder investigations. And wonders how a severely beaten Michael Hutchence could hang himself with a broken hand? The clear message being that when you open your mouth too far, someone with the power and influence may be right around the corner to shut it for you, in fact you may even know and trust that person.

In the end does Constantine realize his goal of showing that "the Agency and Organized Crime have, for over thirty years, engaged in a program to silence popular musicians whose influence subverts the cynical thought control tactics of American Government and media?" That is up to the reader to decide. Do they buy into the story presented in the mainstream press of do they believe the theories that Constantine puts forth? Whichever side you as a reader fall on, the writing in this book will make you think and like all good writing that is the ultimate goal and that makes this book a success.

If this book does not become a classic, I will be shocked and appalled. The murder of political rock musicians has long been a subject of speculation. Wish I had a nickel for every time the death of Morrison or Lennon was brought up, followed by the refrain "I'll bet the government did it." Constantine not only lays out the killing program and operations in detail, he provides the intelligence community documents in which the deaths of outspoken musicians were mandated. Who can doubt it when the CIA's own files contain orders to kill? Some programmed zombies out there subject to media manipulation will have a hard time with the many epiphonies that Covert War offers, but reality is often hard to take, even many years after the fact. This is a dispiriting, and as Constantine keeps reminding us, fascist culture, but much needed reforms will never come about until people who have become complacent and satisfied with the status quo gather as much courage as writers like Constantine possesses in his little finger.The debunkers can eat cake - I'll take this feast of buried truths any day over the pablum the media turns out to quell the national conscience and turn us all into mindless ultraconformists. This is the dark side of the air-conditioned nightmare that is Amerika. A fine book, recommended to everyone who loves rock music.

Why has it taken so long for this book to appear? Obviously, Jimi Hendrix did not perish from a heroin overdose, as the media-at-large had it at the time ... so why have so few journalists bothered to investigate the true cause of death? The same holds true for the "death by misadventure" of Brian Jones, founder of the Rolling Stones. Several witnesses to Jones's MURDER were intimidated into silence, told to keep their mouths shut or they would be next, but have nevertheless recently come forward -- yet the VICTIM is still blamed for his own tragic demise -- to the present day. We, as a culture, revel in bullying, scapegoating and lying to ourselves. This book -- highly informative and colorfully-written -- is a case study in fascist conspiracies and the ""Good Germans" in the press who have allowed them to thrive like poison toads in America's tumultuous cultural garden. The Left should seize upon this book as an indictment of a criminalized intelligence community, and a lesson in journalism.

You will not find this book reviewed in the mainstream press. The fact of the government of the United States having an organized program to destabilize and assassinate (COINTELPRO,FBI; AND OPERATION CHAOS, CIA) individuals who the President, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies deemed "threats to the national security," is so outrageous and horrific a thought to most Americans (and so completely contrary to the fairy-tale history we are taught in school) that it is quite often dismissed out of hand. For those who wish to learn the hidden history of the Cold War, this book is superb. The author's range of knowledge and study and his excellent integration of myriad strands of that hidden history are a tour de force. Very highly recommended.

The revolution will not be televised, Alex Constantine is a writer who is exposing the right wing fasict (terrorist) intelligence agencies of the USA. Read this and you will be enlightened. And to those who call it Conspiracy theories??? These people are brainwashed by the corporate-owned media. ...

I have never picked up a book on rock n' roll deaths quite like this one. Each chapter is a gold mine of information, teeming with fresh insights on the deaths of John Lennon, Tupac Shakur, etc. There are many who would like to silence Constantine, and so some reviews will no doubt appear here criticizing the book erroneously. David Goldberg's review, for instance (above) makes false claims. This IS Alex Constantine's best work to date, and that is saying a great deal, because he is the most articulate anti-fascist researcher around. This book is long overdue, and yet it is far ahead of its time. Bravo, Alex, on an excellent read.

What a GEM! Alex delivers his evidence in his truly unimitable style once again. This is written by a true humanitarian who cares about our freedoms. There is an ability he possesses which shows where we will be headed if we continue to allow the various agencies to terrorize those it deems "dangerous". Even the arts are up for review! This book was riveting at each page and I recommend it highly.

I didn't know if this is just the run of the mill half backed crazy rant or some parody of a half backed crazy rant. I read up on the author and found out it was the former, unfortunately. Constantine seems to think that every influential and controversial musician who died early was murdered under the orders of an elaborate CIA conspiracy. Little evidence, as it were, is offered except for Constantine's paranoid opinions. In nearly every case cited by Constantine, Occam's Razor provides a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Is it more likely that self destructive alcoholic and heroin junkie Jim Morrison died in a bathtub after an OD, or that he was murdered by a satanic gang secretly controlled by the CIA? Is it more likely that Phil Ochs, a bipolar alcoholic suffering from depression, hung himself in a last act of despair or that his suicide was part of a mind control experiment?

I don't know who "Leppo Leppan" but the individual who killed Peter Tosh was named Dennis Lobban and he was sentenced to death for it. Constantine leaves out the relevant details surrounding Tosh's murder. He makes it seem as if "Leppan" and his "clean cut assassin types" came in, ordered everyone down and shot everyone within a few minutes. The truth of the matter is that Lobban and his "associates" were in Tosh's house for several hours and there is no mention that in any other account that Lobban's co-conspirators were anything other than bikers who died in a shootout shortly after the crime. If this were an assassination, instead of just another run of the mill robbery gone bad by cracked out thugs in a Kingston ghetto, why would they have stuck around for hours and left any survivors?

This book isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

The book is a valuable store of irrefutable facts that shatter status quo beliefs - and what could be better than that in an era of religio-political hypocrites, corrupt to the core, who presume to lecture on "values." Yes, the government often silences its critics, including activists and dissenters in the entertainment business. The CIA and Mafia run rampant, while the public yawns and squeals bloody murder about insignificant events. Okay, this book made me angry ... at the greedy men with no regard for human rights who run the show. Read this book. You won't regret it, and it could change your entire outlook on politics, as it did mine.

"the covert war against rock," raises more questions than it answers. Nevertheless, they are important questions to ask, and hopefully, in time, we will find the answers. It is difficult to find proof to substantiate some of the things he says because those in power are very good at covering up what they do. Nevertheless, it is the patterns in place that make the case, a consistent tendency to "disappear" those who have the most to offer in terms of information about what is really going on out there. They are all dead. That is why there is no proof. In addition to patterns of behavior, it is also wise to look to motive. Who benefits? Follow the money. Constantine knows what he is doing. I have great respect for his work. If you are of the opinion that something is not quite right in the land of the free and the home of the brave, read this book. Read them all. And then read some more.