Charley Crockett has revived a controversy that most people had assumed was long dead, using a lengthy Instagram post on Aug. 18 to dispute claims made by Los Angeles duo Twin Temple and to take aim at Jack White in the process.
The dispute dates back more than a month, when Twin Temple — known for cheeky, Sixties-style songs about the devil and the occult — said Crockett had dropped them from his tour because of their "Satanic imagery." The claim generated a wave of press for the duo, who turned it into an invitation to open for Jack White and an appearance on The Daily Show. At the time, Crockett responded with a lighthearted statement: "I thought they were like Black Sabbath, but they ain't. Not today, Satan."
That, it seemed, was that. But Crockett said it was time to "clear this up right quick," rejecting Twin Temple's account and claiming the duo "made it up and dragged me by a rope real good." He accused artists who had previously been "showering me with praise" of using the episode "to kick me in the dick."
He reserved particular criticism for Jack White, writing that White "used it to sell tickets too and I lost a lot of respect for him." Crockett questioned why White "wasn't so outspoken back when he was in the White Stripes 20 something years ago," claiming the band "purposely avoided political issues" and suggesting White "was worried about losing audience back when it was all on the line and he needed all the help he could get."
As for what actually happened, Crockett said he decided to drop Twin Temple about a month before their planned shows because "production requests raised eyebrows" and his team "couldn't accommodate them physically." He added that after noticing "some of the things they'd been doing on stage," he thought it over for a couple of days before cutting them loose. "We told em the vibe just wasn't right for an all ages audience, and we paid em in full," he wrote.
Crockett further accused Twin Temple and their team of having "plotted for days" before releasing a statement "designed for effect," one he says was meant to suggest he'd pulled them from an entire tour rather than a couple of shows. He also criticized the band for "dog whistling about religious and creative freedom" while disregarding his own "rights."
"It's my fault, I let 'em slip through and being that this here's my outfit, I'm the responsible party," Crockett wrote. "I reacted. I might respond differently now but everybody's got perfect vision in hindsight. I think the most difficult part of the whole deal was the way the media, save for one outlet, cared nothing for the truth. They sanitized these folks' image for their own uses in the click bait traffic game that is America's left-right culture war."
He said he "won't forget" the artists who "applauded" while he was, metaphorically, "face down in the dirt coughing up blood," closing with a defiant note: "Funny, I've got everything to lose right this minute and I still shoot from the hip. I've been speaking from my heart against the wishes of the machine my whole life. Real patriots think for themselves."
Photo: DONOSTIA KULTURA, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
