INTRODUCTORY DISCLAIMER

I started having plans on writing a sequel to The Militant Mainstream a while after I first published it. It contained some additional material plus future events that took place after 2019. However, I recently had the need to save the post-2019 parts for a separate story. As of now, I will just compile the stuff I wrote that took place during the events of the previous story, but that which I thought of during the writing of the sequel, plus I’ll be adding some new material to go along with it.
As always, the characters and organizations listed in this story are fictitious, and any similarities to any existing organizations is purely for the purpose of an allegory. Any names listed are entirely made-up, and if any actual names are named, they are only by pure coincidence that they appear. I’m never trying to expose any stranger’s names or anything like that, neither am I mocking any organization or group that has a name exactly alike or similar to what is written here.
For the sake of indication, anything that I deleted from the planned sequel will be marked with a dagger (†), but the new material written for this story will be marked with an asterisk (*).

INTRODUCTION*

Having its start in 2004, the history of the Pop Music Supremacist Movement is a rather lengthy one. This semi-sequel to the first Militant Mainstream tale contains additional pieces of information that I recently discovered about the Pro-Pop a while after publishing the first, plus a rather recent event that occurred sometime after the Trendy Day Out.

THE STORY OF HALEY ALEXANDRIA HOWARD AND HOW SHE CREATED THE POP MUSIC SUPREMACIST IDEOLOGY†

The story traces itself back in time to 1991, when Louis Arthur Howard, an Illinois real estate broker, truck-driving enthusiast and classic country music fan – whose parents were wealthy aristocrats – met his soon-to-be-fiancée Eliza Benchton, a regular performer at an open-mic club called The Golden Note. The Golden Note – located in the Illinois state capitol of Springfield – was founded in 1983 and was operated by Eliza’s father, Nathaniel James Benchton – a local celebrity talent manager – as a means to search for any potential star who would get one of the biggest surprises of their life; if their performance received massive acclaim from the audience, they would be called off stage and seek a record deal. It is still operating to this day.

Once commitments were made and plans were finally arranged, Louis and Eliza married in August 1994. After settling in Albany Park, a neighborhood of Chicago, Haley Alexandria Howard, the couple’s only child, was born on September 26, 1995. Her parents were hoping that she would become a professional singer like Eliza, and that one day, she would perform at The Golden Note and get a record deal if her performance was successful.

Like many young girls born in the mid-to-late 1990’s, Haley took up an interest in pop music in February 2000, with artists like Britney Spears becoming key influences in her life. She refused to listen to other types of music that were timely yet not in her pop standards – such as alternative rock and post-grunge – calling groups like Nickelback “gross” and “icky.” She started to adapt and implement many pop fandom-related trends and mindsets. Not only that, but she began to develop both intelligence and a rather snobbish personality, thanks to occasional visits from her wealthy grandparents.
Throughout the year, she would get into debates and arguments with various kids over what kind of modern music was better. Along with her friends, Haley would use trendy language to annoy grunge kids and young classic rock listeners, and would all sing the Britney Spears song “…Baby, One More Time” to add to the annoying effect.

Up until 2002, her fondness and devotion for modern pop music would increasingly amplify thanks to her exposure to trendy, anti-traditionalist rhetoric.

Sometime in November of the aforementioned year, Haley attended The Golden Note to watch some pop music performances there. The big act that was to come was a teenage, Springfield-area pop star-in-progress whose name was Mac Diggs. Haley knew about him for some time, after hearing some online demo recordings of his, and wanted to watch him sing. However, Diggs was sick with a cold that day, so he wasn’t able to perform at The Golden Note. To take his place was another – yet extremely different – act.
Haley got the most disappointing surprise of her entire life when a local teenage progressive rock group called St. Alban walked up to the stage. When they finished performing their rendition of The Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach, the group were called up from the stage to sign a record deal with Astralwerks, based out of New York City and known for acts such as The Chemical Brothers, as well as reissuing material from the likes of NEU! and Brian Eno.

Haley was understandably upset, and she wrote a little note to herself:
“These people think they can get away with listening to and performing old people garbage? Should these people go about in their musical lives unpunished? I THINK NOT!”

In December, Haley found out that St. Alban was scheduling a concert performance in the Chicago area. The performance was to take place at the Ping Tom Memorial Park, located in the Chinatown neighborhood of the city, and they were to perform Yes-style renditions of Chinese classical compositions.
On the 15th of that month, when the performance was about to begin, Haley tried to run to the stage and glitterbomb all the band’s members and equipment. Luckily, security personnel were able to detain Haley as she barely came into contact with keyboardist Chris Bannon, who had part of his hair messed up by a mixture of glitter, latex and glue.

Haley was charged with attempted aggravated assault, and since her crime led to no injuries or violent retaliation against the security guards that apprehended her, she was given ten days in a juvenile detention facility. During this ten-day sentence, she would write the basis of her book, On the Ousting of Obsolete Trends and the Establishment of a Trendy Earth, which would later be self-published in 2004. At the time she wrote her book, the term “Pop Music Supremacist” had not been coined by Haley as of yet, as she first used the terms “Pro-Commercial Resistance” and “Militant Obsolete Music Derangement” to describe her ideology.

Throughout 2004, she self-published and produced a multitude of copies of her book and promoted it throughout her school, giving it away for free. Soon, those schoolmates who took an interest in this book began exposing it to their friends. As a result, Haley developed a significant following within Chicago and some nearby cities.

Haley’s book was soon distributed to various places across America, and later on, the world. The rest, as people say, is history.

SOME MORE QUOTES FROM HALEY’S BOOK†

In the previous story, I included a few excerpts of what Haley wrote in her book, but there were plenty of other things that she wrote in it.
From these very quotes, you could totally tell that Haley heavily influenced her followers.

“A most egregious example of Pop Genocide would take place in a music stand, where a single Bruce Springsteen CD is placed among a multitude of Backstreet Boys CDs (sure, the Backstreet Boys were formed during the Obsoletoid Era, but they released their first album back in 1996, so they aren’t really an Obsoleto group).”

~~~

“Any attempt to create a kind of music industry in which the popularity, sales and style of an album – these three factors together – cannot be considered important issues will crumble under its own weight sooner than it would start.”

~~~

“If UNESCO designates any music-related spot as a World Heritage Site, they must be related to only post-1994 pop music. Otherwise, UNESCO will be one of the biggest victims of a Worldwide Pop Revolution.”

~~~

“In this age, if any kid claims to be a jazz fan, he is a liar.”

~~~

“One of the biggest sins a person can ever commit against the Gods of the Mainstream Music Industry is to pick up an acoustic guitar and play a rendition of ‘Gran Vals’ by Francisco Tárrega.”

~~~

“The best thing a classic rock fan can do for the world is to destroy his record collection and buy the latest pop music releases.”

~~~

“Elvis Presley is just as mythological as Bigfoot. There is absolutely no proof of his existence that could even be considered plausible to the common senses.”

~~~

“As an album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band should not have been relevant back in 1967, and it should not be as relevant today.”

~~~

“Everything people know about Woodstock was a lie. No such concert had ever taken place, and the people who claimed to have attended and performed there all need to be dumped onto the shores of Crazyhead Island.”

~~~

“Wake up, people! If you continue in your terrible musical eclecticism, the biggest music industry giants shall form a holy alliance with their respective artists, the fans, and the world’s banks.”

THE CATHERINE MARS STORY†

Early on, I discussed the two most infamous books within the realm of Pop Music Supremacist fiction, The Kitty Chronicles and Popstar, and how both books were annoyingly quoted by Pro-Poppers everywhere. What about their author, Catherine Mars?
We know that she formed the A.P.P.L.E. (Alliance for the Pushing of Pop and the Lessening of the Experimental), plus the Global Mainstream Coalition, but is there anything else about her that we didn’t know? What was her backstory?

Catherine Françoise Marburg, as was her birth name, was two years older than Ha-Ha, being born on January 24, 1993 in Norman, Oklahoma. Her mother, Charlotte Estelle Marburg (née de Laurent) was born into a wealthy family who owned a stock in RCA. Her father, Franklin, was a postal worker who – before Catherine’s birth – liked to dance at LeFritz, an old-fashioned discotheque in Oklahoma City, during his time off.

Starting in 2001, Catherine developed a keen interest in action movies, spy films, dystopian and science fiction literature and – you knew it was coming – post-1994 pop music……..all while she was only eight years of age. Like Ha-Ha, Catherine had no interest in modern day non-pop music, as well as an increasing disdain for all non-pop music genres and eras altogether.
Her overall geekiness at this point helped her earn the nickname “Catherine Mars” when she was at school. She thought it had a nice ring to it, and it stuck ever since.

In late 2004, after discovering and reading Haley’s book, she became a member of the Pop Fan Society of Oklahoma, but her time there was short, as their focus was not on the undoing of “old-fashioned” music within contemporary society, so in March 2005, Catherine joined Pop Pride for Oklahoma’s Future, which she transformed – with the help of her partner Chica Alvarez – into the Anti-Avantgarde Alliance, with the two of them controlling the two wings that held the party together.
However, in April, both Mars and Alvarez had a dispute with each other over something pointless and trivial; their personal preference of grape juice. As a result, Catherine’s wing was turned into the Alliance for the Pushing of Pop and the Lessening of the Experimental, or the A.P.P.L.E. for short.

Mars intended for her organization to be a cultural and political vanguard with one major goal: to violently overthrow the United States government and create an anti-traditionalist, Pro-Pop government in its place. To help get their message out, Mars set up the Global Mainstream Coalition as the main publishing arm of the A.P.P.L.E.

As a side note: In 2007, Mars bought a huge controlling share in the Spain-based Pro-Pop record label Pink Power Records. I brought that particular label up in the previous story, and I will list their complete discography later on.

WOODSTOCK DENIAL*

NOTE: I really should have brought up this subject in the previous story!

If one of Ha-Ha’s previously-mentioned quotes was anything to go by, one thing that many Pop Music Supremacists have in common is their refusal to believe that the first Woodstock (originally known as An Aquarian Exposition) actually took place back in 1969. The absurd and absolutely false statements Pro-Poppers make against Woodstock’s happening are as follows:
-New York state police were called in to stop the festival before it started, preventing any psychedelics from being consumed in the process
-the number of the attendees, at over half a million, is incredibly exaggerated
-Woodstock was a modern-day attempt to create false history in order to make the allegedly-performing acts relevant again
-Woodstock was nothing more than a hippie cash cow/reference pool

Of course, many rock and folk fans – including real life Woodstock attendees – came and spoke their rebuttals against Woodstock deniers.

To conclude this section, I would like to say that denying or refusing to accept the existence of Woodstock is like boycotting or using the Cancel Culture against your own parents, never wanting to love them again. Woodstock denial is a very serious form of generational bullying, and a monster as carnivorous and destructive as this needs to be stopped.

WHO ARE THE LEAGUE OF LIKABLE LIBERALS?

The League of Likable Liberals (LLL) was formed in April 2014 in Cleveland, Ohio. It opposes what they describe as “the mixing of various genres on contemporary radio” and “pitiful attempts to reissue doggy poo music” (as you can tell, they had to use the word “music” as loosely as possible within this context!).

Despite the group calling themselves “liberal,” many liberals, including American Democrat politicians, denounce such self-description, claiming that they insert the term “liberal” in its name to attract young people and left-wingers, luring them into giving them support for their mission. It’s president, Tamara Lewith, once held a mini-rally somewhere near the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, where she gave a scalding, hissy fit of a rant. Here’s an excerpt, and see if you can even survive quietly reading the trash that was spewing out of her vocal cords that day:

“The music industry should oppose all forms of music and support only modern pop acts! Their methods of making music are ethical; simple instrumentation, digital recording practices, easy-to-follow melodies and an attention-grabbing bite. It’s ridiculous that people – even young generations – would ever think to enjoy music made with jigsaw-puzzle arrangements, special effects, analog equipment, antique instruments, experimental sound machines, and everything that made all music before 1995 – including pre-1995 pop – SO unlistenable! Phil Spector was a mongrel! Alan Parsons was a colossal dork! The Beatles should’ve stayed in the dung where they came from! Elvis Presley is NOT REAL!”†

Of all Pro-Pop movements in the United States, the LLL are the most focused on changing the US government. They call their ideology “a mainstream, music biz-friendly alternative to American liberalism” and oppose most mainstream Democrats and other liberal groups, as the LLL are basically a gaggle of anti-traditionally conservative, mainstream-minded socialists. In their Constitutional Manifesto, they listed their major goals, and their plans for America in general:
-the merger of all major American music corporations with all three branches of the United States government; the Legislative, the Executive and the Judicial
-the transition from a federal government to a unitary government once the above merger is officially completed (this stands in some opposition to the A.P.P.L.E.’s Pro-Pop federalist agenda)
-the restriction of non-pop artists from performing at the White House, or at any presidential or other American political events
-the power to rule coming from the biggest pop acts in America
-the banning of all international cultural imports that are not of a mainstream nature
-a trendy form of nation-wide socialism
-the abolition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Uncle Sam, the Statue of Liberty and all traditional American symbols altogether

The LLL’s Constitutional Manifesto goes on to state:
“The biggest pop acts in the world are what made America’s economy fantastic! Together, we can make the music corporations and the American government meld into a pop superpower! The music corporations must take a stand, banishing and exiling any non-pop trash musician for good; they must be proud of their biggest sell-out acts to date!”

In a statement made on their website, president Lewith issued this decree:
“The LLL are one of the best-ever sources for the reporting and documenting of any major American non-pop activity that threatens our nation’s economy and our generation’s musical security.”

Yellow journalism is scattered throughout their site. Beware! Proceed with caution…….*

THE MORE INTELLECTUAL AND LESS MILITANT SIDE OF POP MUSIC SUPREMACY*

Even though this is part of the Militant Mainstream trilogy, there are those Pro-Pop groups who are only militant in their words, not in actions or deeds, yet have a massive degree of intelligence and philosophy within them. They don’t hold rallies or anything like that, but they do hold conferences, put out magazines, books, DVDs, CDs and other forms of media, but never would they try to overthrow musical diversity with any physical violence or death.

This is where I’ll be talking about them some more, continuing from where I left off in the first story, whenever I discussed the European Center for Music Research and the Interest of the Masses.

One of the most well-known of the Pro-Pop intellectuals is Monika “Lindy” Lindqvist, the founder of the Stockholm-based Voices for Artistic and Cultural Reformation (Röster för Konstnärlig och Kulturell Reformering), established in February 2008. This group, informally known as The Voices (Rösterna), is best-known for its Pro-Pop magazine Keys to Harmony (Nycklar till Harmoni), which is published and translated into tons of languages worldwide, and has its own website, mobile app and series of conferences.

Through Keys to Harmony, Lindy is able to uphold and speak out her belief that homogeneity within the music industry is the only way for musical diversity to truly thrive, and the publishing of pseudo-psychological studies about the nature, behavior and intelligence of music fans. A couple examples include Lindy’s “research” proving that Lynyrd Skynyrd fans tend to be “whiskey-drinking, wife-beating Klansmen, 99% of the time,” and that outsider music enthusiasts are “more than likely to be less intelligent or less mentally-stable than the average outsider musicians themselves.”

Something unique about Lindy is that she rejects the Pro-Pop stance against alternative rock, viewing groups like The Breeders and The Cranberries as being pop acts as much as groups like Maroon 5 and One Direction are. However, this view on alternative rock had led to Lindy being bashed by some people in the Pro-Pop community.

In 2012, Lindy published a free e-book entitled Crime ‘n’ Roll, in which she wrote that music genres can be a huge factor in being an influence on criminal history and criminal behavior among various demographics. She cited the Tate-LaBianca murders committed by Charles Manson as being “influenced more by The Beatles than anything else,” and the AC/DC-influenced(?) Night Stalker killings as “the reason why domestic safety and security within a powerful and highly-influential civilization depends on the monitoring and possible elimination of heavy metal.”

This book led to the publishing of many rebuttals against the book. So far, these rebuttals had much more of an impact than the actual book itself!

~~~

2015 saw the release of a “documentary” film, full of lies and distorted facts, entitled Shake it Off: Freedom from Musical Diversity and the Benefits of a Musically-Homogenous, Pop-Filled Life. This was written, produced, directed, narrated and presented by one Petunia Chandler, Jr., the founder of the Pro-Pop minded “New Age focus committee” known as The Stylistics Center for Mental Health and Happiness.

In regards to the film’s content, just imagine Hell’s Bells: The Dangers of Rock ‘n’ Roll, but full of irritating New Age quirks and philosophically-false, baseless, and utterly-annoying accusations against non-pop acts, all hosted by a Veruca Salt-turned-Jean Houston wannabe!

*sigh* That’s all I can say about it here.

~~~

December 2017 saw the debut of The Music Corporate Monthly, a Pro-Pop magazine that served as the epitome of a more academic type of Pop Music Supremacy.

The magazine – whose publishers are obsessed with collectivization – blatantly rejects the idea of indie labels, calling for the absorption of all indie pop acts into the stigma of the major music corporations, and also expressing the belief that American music economics are threatened by experimental and underground artistic tendencies.

OTHER PRO-POP TERRORIST GROUPS

The Green Sharks Basketball Club (Žaliųjų Ryklių Krepšinio Klubas), based out of Lithuania, was founded in Klaipėda by pop concert booker Bronius Butkus in June 2012. They were a Pro-Pop terrorist group that cleverly disguised itself as a basketball club; their headquarters was disguised both inside and out. They soon set up three more branches in the country, two on the north and south sides of the capital city Vilnius, and one in Tauragė.
The Green Sharks dressed up in Lithuanian military garb – discreetly loaned from a friend of Butkus (it was supposed to be a loan) – often using armbands and military caps that were adorned with the Pro-Pop cat, along with various other Pro-Pop symbols like the ones I talked about in the previous story.

In October, one of its members, Vaiva Nekrošius, armed with a stun gun, shocked multitudes of people at a Baltic folk festival in Šiauliai. When Lithuanian police came to arrest her, Vaiva chose not to resist, believing that she would be a martyr for Pro-Poppers throughout the country. The Lithuanian government under president Dalia Grybauskaitė was quick to action, officially shutting down the Green Sharks 12 hours after the attack occurred.*

~~~

Now, we move on to 4TH3W0RLD. This group of violent Pro-Pop misfits was formed on New Year’s Day 2013 by Maxx Money Baggs (alias of Maxwell Carl Brown), with its headquarters in a secluded area near Wellington, New Zealand.
4TH3W0RLD’s beliefs and objectives were highly influenced by their founder’s combination of New Age mysticism (particularly the teachings of Jean Houston) and the writings of who else but Ha-Ha herself.

In October 2015, in the course of a week, various factions of 4TH3W0RLD, armed with paddles, attacked the performers, audiences and security personnel at three separate concerts featuring local cover bands, those being The Kiwi Pink Floyd Show, a Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute act called Ramble Tamble, and the gold standard of Budgie tribute projects, Kakapo.
Everyone involved was arrested and were all sentenced to fifteen years in prison – as the violent attacks didn’t lead to any deaths – with Maxx Money Baggs being sentenced to twenty years for carrying them out.†

~~~

In July 2016, another, more infamous Pro-Pop extremist group (with similar mystic Pro-Pop beliefs) was formed in Cardiff, Wales. They were known as Ice Cream, Puppies & Money (Hufen Iâ, Cŵn Bach ac Arian), and their leader was Dwight Masters, who, with self-proclaimed “big money candyman guru spectaculaire” Jack Crewe, had previously spent a day in jail after the two were spotted tearing up a poster for a Celtic folk music event that was to take place in Anglesey. Masters and Crewe both gained the support of Janie Lloyd-Huws (a.k.a J-Lloy), the founder and self-proclaimed mayor of a Pop Music Supremacist commune near Tywyn, calling itself Surop-dros-Wafflau (literally Syrup-over-Waffles), and they were both mentored by Billie Brown, the older sister of 4TH3W0RLD founder Maxx Money Baggs, and Thomas “TD” Dennys, the founder and head coach of the Truro Trendy Team (TTT), a Pro-Pop football (i.e., soccer) club in Cornwall. Previously, Dennys had illegally distributed what British police described as “potentially harmful” Pro-Pop materials to juvenile detention centers across the United Kingdom.

Ice Cream, Puppies & Money had affiliations with a Northern Irish extremist group – established in Belfast and just as infamous – that called itself the Youth League of Pop Music Republicans (Sraith Óige Poblachtánaigh Phopcheoil), which had its start the same month as the former group. Together, these two groups concocted a highly-ambitious plot. This plot went like this:
-The creation of Flirtia, a 100% pop music homeland in the Outer Hebrides
-Through heavy diplomatic support, the government of Flirtia could begin Operation: MYTREHOWA (Mystically Trendy Holy War)

Operation: MYTREHOWA went like this, step-by-step:
-Flirtia’s military would raid the British Parliament
-All of the British Parliament’s members would be thrown in prison on an undisclosed island
-Young trendsetters would be installed in power
-Queen Elizabeth II and the rest of the British Royal Family would retire by force – being moved at gunpoint to a deserted area in northeast Siberia
-The United Kingdom would be re-christened as Greater Flirtia, with Flirtia’s original location being re-christened as Old Flirtia
-Death warrants would be issued against all non-pop musicians and fans across the British mainland, its Crown Dependencies and the rest of the entire British Commonwealth, which itself would be re-named the World Flirtian League

Both these groups were extremely violent in their actions and in their planning, and in September 2017, while in Belfast, three members of the YLPMR fatally shot local folk singer Siobhán O’Rahilly, who was 23 years old. They were soon charged with first-degree murder and were sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In November of that year, the YLPMR’s leader, Eomann Samson, was killed by British special weapons forces during a raid-turned-into-shootout outside his front yard swimming pool, as Eomann was the person responsible for the ordering of Siobhán O’Rahilly’s death. He also had a huge cache of illegally-obtained firearms and artillery, which were later confiscated.
As a multitude of bullets greeted the 19-year-old Eomann, his body became lifeless, falling into the pool, gallons of blood dirtying up the water. A team of maids had to come and clean it up, and it took hours and hours to make sure there was no more blood in the pool. With neither a leader nor candidates to elect a replacement leader, the YLPMR came to a sudden end.

In January 2018, the compound of Ice Cream, Puppies & Money, located at the aforementioned commune of Surop-dros-Wafflau, would also be raided by authorities. Special weapons officers found their illegally-obtained weapons (which included assault rifles, hand grenades, and missile launchers) and other material, such as counterfeit British and Australian currency and packages of cocaine, methamphetamine and other illegal drugs, which they were going to sell to some Colombian cartels for a huge sum of money as a means to support their Pro-Pop plots.
Ice Cream, Puppies & Money ended on an abrupt note, and its members were all given lengthy prison sentences.

As a side note, after her death, Siobhán O’Rahilly was given a very touching funeral service. Local newspapers throughout Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK called her “a daughter of Celtic song” and “an unfortunate victim of Pop Music Supremacist terrorism.” Her parents and grandparents started the Siobhán O’Rahilly Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping those who were attacked or abused by Pro-Poppers, as well as the families of those who were killed by them.†

~~~

There was a group in the Dutch province of Friesland known as Honor, Glory, Power, Sugar & Spice (Eare, Gloarje, Krêft, Sûker & Krûd, also known in Dutch as Eer, Glorie, Kracht, Suiker & Kruiden), who vandalized and robbed multiple suburban communities across the coastal parts of The Netherlands, often wielding baseball bats and toy guns so as to intimidate the residents they would rob from.

Why I brought these thugs up here was because they had apparent connections to a major Pro-Pop terrorist attack, one that I would discuss in the last part of this story. I will also be bringing up more about Honor, Glory, Power, Sugar & Spice whenever that section comes.*

POP MUSIC SUPREMACY AND ANTI-PROG SENTIMENT IN ICELAND*

Iceland, Europe’s northernmost nation, was the home to many organizations and terrorist groups, all united under a trendy, flirty, Pop Music Supremacist mindset and an intense hatred of progressive rock. Because of Iceland’s small population, however, these groups have a small amount of members, but they were the subject of the country’s nationwide news reports, to the point where they became somewhat (in)famous. Since I don’t want to get into them too much, I’ll be describing three of those groups here.

We can start this topic by bringing up the first such group of its kind, a street gang known as the Icelandic Mainstream Squad (Íslenskur Almennur Hópur). It was formed in April 2012 by two aspiring pop-producing twin brothers going under the aliases of Átótún and Twirk Swagsson. This particular gang was created to be the “Nordic Wing” of a similar gang, Vietnam’s Popstar Republican Battleforce (Ngôi Sao Nhạc Pop Cộng Hòa), and was even funded by the aforementioned group.

Soon, the Icelandic Mainstream Squad made national news when they began staging a protest outside the Alþingi, the Icelandic Parliament building. They were calling for the Icelandic government to take immediate action against the existence of prog rock in the country, and at the same time, threatening to blow up Alþingi if the government refuses to comply with their demands.

Fortunately, Icelandic police were able to save the day, arresting everyone involved and forcing them to listen to Rick Wakeman records for 8 hours straight. Members of this gang became immediate progressive rock fans, disbanding amicably in November 2012.

~~~

The ð (Letter Eth) Foundation (ð Grunnurinn) got its start in January 2015 at a small café known simply as ð. Formed a year earlier and located in the municipality of Strandabyggð in the region of Vestfirðir (Westfjords in English), ð was best-known as being a meeting place for pop music fans, both normal pop fans and Pro-Poppers alike. Pretty soon, the café’s founding manager, Britt Jónsdóttir, noticed that the numbers of visiting Pro-Pop patrons was steadily increasing, and soon decided that she wants to be like them, and therefore, join their cause.

After seeking guidance from them, a gang of Pro-Pop patrons performed a typical Pro-Pop initiation ritual; namely showering her with glitter and confetti and chanting the chorus of Justin Bieber’s “Never Say Never” in a circle. They then appointed her “Supreme President” of the newly-christened ð Foundation.

The first of the activities of the ð Foundation was the Symposium on the Subject of Progressive Rock Music and the Mainstream (Málþing um Efni Framsækinnar Rokktónlistar og Almennra Strauma), which was given in Reykjanesbær in February 2015. Several speakers included the previously brought-up Swedish Pro-Pop intellectual Lindy Lindqvist and Estonian pop music educator Eva Ojala Tammjärv, vice president of the Baltic Intellectual Commission for the Obsoletion of Non-Popular Music.

Anyway, during this event, Tammjärv called out “those mommies and daddies who torture their innocent children by allowing them to listen to mindless, complex garbage like Genesis, Uriah Heep and even Styx,” and going on to say “progressive rock multi-instrumentalists like Mike Oldfield are vastly inferior compared to the likes of guys like Ed Sheeran.”

~~~

The Political Strikeforce for Nordic Popular Music (Hið Pólitíska Verkfallsafl fyrir Norræna Dægurtónlist) were not a white supremacist group despite their somewhat-convincing name, but they were indeed a Pro-Pop group. They were formed in September 2017 in the municipality of Fljótsdalshreppur in the Austurland region. They use the slogan “Við Þökkum Þolinmæði Þína! Klíka Íslands Haley Alexandria Howards eru Hér! (We Appreciate Your Patience! Iceland’s Gang of Haley Alexandria Howards are Here!),” plus other visual activities as superimposing the Pro-Pop Cat’s Head in the center of the Nordic cross on the Icelandic flag and the proud displaying of their official logo, consisting of the Cat’s Head with a Justin Bieber-style bowl cut atop of two crossed olive branches with an Icelandic flag banner circling it all.

Symbolism aside, the PSNPM spreads and distributes pieces of militant flirtiness and hatred for non-pop music forms. Such works include cartoon posters that display the graphic bullying of Minutemen’s Mike Watt and the late Roye Albrighton of Nektar. Other posters carry vile, disgusting messages such as the following:
-Halda Tónlistariðnaðinum Avantgarde-Frjáls (Keep the Music Industry Avantgarde-Free)
-Brottvísa Öllum Aldursflækjum! (Deport All Age-Traitors!)
-Vakna, Herra Forseti! Lokaðu fyrir Dreifingu Elvis Hrossamunga! (Wake up, Mr. President! Block the Distribution of Elvis Horse Dung!)
-Ekta Lifandi Tónlist kemur frá Taylor Swift, ekki Bob Seger! (True Live Music comes from Taylor Swift, not Bob Seger!)
-Steven Tyler er ekki Mannlegur! Mick Jagger er ekki Heldur! (Steven Tyler is Not a Human! Neither is Mick Jagger)

Usually, these posters come with the caption “Komdu með Okkur, eða við Vörumerki þig sem Aldursflækju! (Join Us, or We’ll Brand You as an Age-Traitor!),” but these people are just too spiteful in their words to convince anybody to join them.

In January 2018, the group launched its own Twitter account, specializing in trolling non-pop musicians, fans and fan pages everywhere, but Twitter shut it down after only five days, following complaints against their trolling techniques. They set up secret Pro-Pop conversion camps throughout Iceland, often training new recruits to use armed force against any non-pop fan or musician.

As with the Frisian group Honor, Glory, Power, Sugar & Spice, the PSNPM also had connections to the terrorist attack that I’ll bring up at the last part of this story.

THE COMPLETE PINK POWER RECORDS CATALOGUE
(NOT THAT YOU WOULD WANT TO LISTEN TO ANY OF THESE ALBUMS!)†

2005
Pink Glitter Fist – Beating Up a Proggie is a Virtue! (PP-01A1)
Pophead – Old People Music Failing (PP-01A2)
Candymint Supreme – I Hate Classic Rock! (PP-01A3)
P.S.U. (Pop Soldiers Unite!) – Fight for Pop Freedom! (PP-01A4)
Autotune Republic – Burn Down the Record Stores (PP-01A5)
2006
Way to Fame – The Pink and the Cat Shall Wave (PPR-01B1)
Squirtgun Legion – The Way Pop was Meant to Be (PPR-01B2)
Trendiness Club – Pop Music Makes Me SO Happy! (PPR-01B4)
2007
Biz Support for the Pop Cause – Boy Band Uprising (PPR-01C1)
I Luv Pr0g Haterz – All Their Greatest Hits (PPR-01C2)
P.S.U. (Pop Soldiers Unite!) – The New Musical Century (PPR-01C3)
2008
Pophead – Teddy Bear Homeworld (PPR-01DA)
Squirtgun Legion – Matchstick Party Time (PPR-01DB)
Marshmallowhouse – Remembering the Fanatics (PPR-01DC)
2009
Biz Support (shortened from Biz Support for the Pop Cause) – Back in the Arena (PPR-2A1)
Bubblegum Squadron – Commercial Distribution is the Key (PPR-2A2)
Blonde & Handsome – Kitty Chronicles 2.0 (PPR-2A3)
High School Cheerbrats – Homecoming Party (PPR-2A4)
2010
Blonde & Handsome – You Just Got Glitterbombed (PPR-3A-A)
Way to Fame – After the Show (PPR-3A-B)
Peppermint Bullet Hell – This Music Stinks! (PPR-3A-C)
High School Cheerbrats – Junior Year (PPR-3A-D)
High School Cheerbrats – Graduation into Pop Extremism
(PPR-3A-E)
2011
Bluehairdye – Music Industry Hysteria (PPR-XA)
Pony Jackson – Country with a Touch of Pop Supremacy (PPR-XB)
Youth Force #5 – The Proggies Have Taken Over; What Do We Do? (PPR-XC)
Recordburner – Simulating the Last Chapter of ‘The Kitty Chronicles’ (PPR-XD)
2012
Extremies – Pretentious. (PPR-XX)
2013
Emoji Supersoldier – The Catchphrase (PPR-01B3)
2014
Cowgirl Union Local 3 – Mainstream Country Takeover (PPR-Z01)
2015
Cowgirl Union Local 3 – Horseshoe Attack! (PPR-Z02)

UNICORN BLAST RECORDS & ITS CATALOGUE

Pink Power Records was the most popular outlet of Pop Music Supremacist recordings, but other Pro-Pop labels began to sprout up as well. I’ll be discussing another one of these labels, give out some fun facts about it, as well as listing all the albums of its catalogue.

Established in October 2007, Quebec’s Unicorn Blast Records was created not as a rival to, but rather a “co-conspirator, siding with Pink Power Records as a means to carry out our Pro-Pop message,” according to the words of its four founders – who wished to hide their real surnames – Françoise Étoile de Pop, Daryl McAutotune, Chris Picard du Progshame and Marie Napoléon Glamorous. Their existence on the Internet was assisted by Anne-Beatrice de Sade.

Throughout Spring 2008, Unicorn Blast began a distribution campaign called Operation: Spring Breakthrough, in which they gave out free CDs of stuff from their catalogue to give away at popular spring break spots attended by middle schoolers, high schoolers and college students.

Some artists from Pink Power actually released some of their material on Unicorn Blast, as an act of what the label calls “diplomacy” with the former.

Their full catalogue shall be displayed here (as with the Pink Power catalogue, any eclectic music fan would develop goosebumps as they cringe when listening to any of these releases):

2007
Plush Kitten Grenade – Our Generation of Music, and Why it Must Prevail (UB-1)
Plush Kitten Grenade was another project of Pussycat Robert of Pophead, a group from the Pink Power roster.
Discokillin’ Krew – Disco is Dead…Kill it Again! (UB-2)
Active Music Industry Agents – Licensed to Destroy Pink Floyd’s Master Tapes! (UB-3)
Active Music Industry Agents contains members of three groups who released stuff on Pink Power, those being Biz Support, High School Cheerbrats and Extremies.
Legion of Manufactured Sound – Conform Yourself to Today’s Trends (UB-4)
2008
Pussycat Robert (solo) – Sentimentality Mode (UB-X-1)
Flashmob Front – Escaping the No-Pop Indies (UB-X-2)
Way to Fame – Race to the Musical Supremacy Finish Line! (UB-X-3)
Way to Fame – Breaking Non-Conformist Laws (UB-X-4)
Way to Fame were also on Pink Power.
Indie Record Store Bombers (I.R.S.B.) – Let’s Smash Frank Sinatra Records! (UB-X-5)
Pink Hoodie Girls Club – Pop Fan, Assist Us! (UB-X-6)
Cadets of the Loudness Wars – Kitty Smith, We Depend on You! (UB-X-7)
Mainstream Nationalist Street Force – The Glory and the Melodic Power of the Modern Pop Star (UB-X-8)
2009
Pool Party POPulace – Let’s Go, Prog Hunters! (UB-X-A)
One of the members of Pool Party POPulace, keyboardist Bruno Cassidy, violently glitterbombed 17 people at a progressive rock fan convention in Billings, Montana in May 2012. Bruno was apprehended by security, who turned him to the police, where he was charged with aggravated assault. He was given 20 months of community service, and later became an avant-garde electronic musician, primarily in the fields of musique concrète and ambient music.
Indie Record Store Bombers (I.R.S.B.) – The World’s Krautrock Supply is Now Empty…..Thanks to Us (UB-X-B)
Interolerance for Classic R&B – Who Needs the 60s? (UB-X-C)
A Nearly-Extinct Trend – Fallen Boy Bands, We Shall Avenge You! (UB-X-D)
2010
Way to Stardom – Commercial Enough, No Experimentation, Ready for Release (UB-XY-001)
Way to Stardom was a collaborative project, containing members of Way to Fame and another radicalized K-Pop group, Stardom Navy.
Bieber Hair – Trad Pop Dysentery (UB-XY-002)
Plush Kitten Grenade – Raising New Fans (UB-XY-003)
2011
Pussycat Robert (solo) – Strobe Light Diary (UB-YZ-001)
Ultimate Struggle Against Folk Music – The Battle will Be Won (UB-YZ-002)
Biz Support – Pop Freedom, Girlfriend! Woo-hoo! (UB-YZ-003)
2012
Pool Party POPulace – Summer Fun with Matchsticks and Styx Records (UP-Z-001)
2013
Ultimate Struggle Against Folk Music – Decrease the Timbre, for it is Righteous (UP-ZP-001)
Pool Party POPulace (without Bruno Cassidy) – Peanut Butter Artillery (UP-ZP-002)
Pop Language Glossary – s/t (UP-ZP-003)
Global Selfie Brats – We Will Prevent Woodstock from Becoming a Reality (UP-ZP-004)

THE POP MUSIC SUPREME! COMPILATION SAMPLERS*

In May 2017, a Bulgarian Pro-Pop record label, Millenial Whoop Publishing, released four Pop Music Supremacist music samplers from various artists across the globe, all in the course of the same month. These samplers and their tracklistings shall be listed here.

Pop Music Supreme! Volume 1: Punching Our Way Through Both the Prog and Punk Landfills!

1. Candymint Supreme – Fake Superstars (A Diss Towards Nickelback)
2. Ükssarviku Sarvebrigaad (Unicorn Horn Brigade; Estonian Group) – Kandes mu Traditsioonilise Popmuusika Ülimaitsvaid Värve (Wearing My Traditional Pop Music Supremacist Colors)
3. Emoji Supersoldier – Endure the Tantrum
4. Pink Hoodie Girls Club – Pop Supreme!
5. Pink Hoodie Girls Club – Vandalize the Wax Cylinders
6. Pink Hoodie Girls Club – We’re onto You, Folkies
7. P.S.U. – Mainstream Music Fans, Take Up Your Squirtguns!
8. Melodik Grevciler (The Melodic Strikers; Turkish Group) – Rock ‘n’ Roll Yalanlarını Ezmek (Crushing the Rock ‘n’ Roll Lies)
9. Melodik Grevciler – Candylips
10. Melodik Grevciler – Saç Spreyi Kaynaklı Yangın (Hairspray-Induced Fire)
11. Pophead – Old People Music Failing
12. Cartoon Cathead – Boy Bands Rule, Beethoven Sux!
13. Cartoon Cathead – 818
14. Cartoon Cathead – Tear that Deadhead Shirt in Two!
15. Cartoon Cathead – Matchstick Party Time
16. Way to Fame – Autotune Gives Us More Power!

Pop Music Supreme! Volume 2: Classic Rock is SO Half a Century Ago!

1. Cartoon Cathead – Selfie Junkie
2. Cartoon Cathead – Pledge the Allegiance, Honey
3. Active Music Industry Agents – Stupid Reggae Stoners
4. Active Music Industry Agents – 15 Minutes of Shame
5. Active Music Industry Agents – Don’t Let a Popstar Become Influenced by Phil Collins!
6. Гушкане на Нокти (Guškane na Nokti; Cuddle Claws; Bulgarian Group) – Кученце Кучешки Очи (Kučencje Kučeški Oči; Puppy Dog Eyes)
7. Гушкане на Нокти – Памучен Бонбон Плувка (Pamučen Bonbon Pluvka; Cotton Candy Float)
8. Гушкане на Нокти – Тъжни Пънкари (Tŭžni Pŭnkari; Sad Punks)
9. Autotune Republic – Say “No” to Lo-Fi
10. Autotune Republic – Failed Production (An Insult Towards Phil Spector)
11. We Don’t Care. – Pinky Pop Paradise
12. We Don’t Care. – (An Ode to) Haley Alexandria Howard
13. We Don’t Care. – We Salute the Cat Flag
14. Senjata Vanila (Vanilla Weapon; Malaysian Group) – Keadilan Terhadap Bintang-Bintang Rock (Justice Against Rock Stars)
15. Cherry Sundae Hurricane – Fangirl Ninja, Use Your Katana!
16. Cherry Sundae Hurricane – Don’t Fall in Your Struggle

Pop Music Supreme! Volume 3: Paramilitary Party Time!

1. P.S.U. – Napalm Darts (The Pro-Pop Fight Song)
2. P.S.U. – Signal for Cheerleaders
3. Nens Rics per la Independència de Catalunya (Rich Kids for the Independence of Catalonia) – Prohibir l’Experimental (Ban the Experimental)
4. Nens Rics per la Independència de Catalunya – En Benefici de les Grans Corporacions Discogràfiques (For the Benefit of the Big Record Corporations)
5. Dance Floor Fightclub – Talent Poll of Destiny
6. Dance Floor Fightclub – Summer Vacation Recruitment Station
7. Senjata Vanila – Mana-Mana Pengeluar Bijak Tahu (Any Wise Producer Knows)
8. Senjata Vanila – 2004: Ketika Haley Alexandria Howard Naik di Antara Kita (2004: When Haley Alexandria Howard Rose Among Us)
9. Lemonadeblitz – Sells Better Than Yours
10. Lemonadeblitz – Our Musical Culture’s Future
11. Bomb the Midnight Special – Protect the Homogenized Sound
12. Bomb the Midnight Special – Put Your Hand on Ha-Ha’s Book
13. Trendiness Club – Help the Record Execs, Baby!

Pop Music Supreme! Volume 4: New Musical Generation, Present Arms!

1. Blonde & Handsome – The Battle Begins
2. Blonde & Handsome – Into the Gymnasium, We March
3. Club di Soda d’Uva (Grape Soda Club; Italian Group) – Il Luogo in cui le Nostre Stelle Hanno Sofferto di Vergogna, Tutto per il Bene della Nostra Causa (The Place Where Our Stars Suffered Shame, All for the Sake of Our Cause)
4. Club di Soda d’Uva – La Scene Pop Italiana (The Italian Pop Scene)
5. Mandarino Košmaras (Tangerine Nightmare; Lithuanian Group) – Anticipating the Sunshine
6. Mandarino Košmaras – Dividing and Price-Fixing the Record Stores
7. Pastel Viking – Robin’s Egg Blue Pistol
8. Pastel Viking – My Style’s Preservation
9. ტუჩის ბალზამის რიტუალი (T’uchis Balzamis Rit’uali; Lip Balm Ritual; Georgian Group) – თინეიჯერული კერპის ამოცანა (Tineijeruli K’erp’is Amotsana; Teen Idol Task Force)
10. ტუჩის ბალზამის რიტუალი – პოპ ვარსკვლავები დაცლილი არიან მოძველებული მუსიკალური ტენდენციების დაბრუნებით, გაიფიცეთ! (P’op’ Varsk’vlavebi Datslili Arian Modzvelebuli Musik’aluri T’endentsiebis Dabrunebit, Gaipitset!; Pop Stars Disenfranchised by the Return of Obsolete Music Trends, Go on Strike!)
11. Projected Karaoke Lyrics – Radical Pop!
12. Projected Karaoke Lyrics – Establish the Constitution of the Times
13. Projected Karaoke Lyrics – Betrayed by Teenagers who Love the ’70s
14. Plush Kitten Grenade – False Pretentions Pertaining to Eclectic Musicians
15. Plush Kitten Grenade – Look at the Fans

Now, we come to the infamous terrorist attack I was going to bring up…..

THE MUSEUM OF ROCK HISTORY BOMBING*

On January 24, 2019, the Museum of Rock History was officially opened in Cologne, Germany. It’s similar to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, except that there were no induction ceremonies or special concert events. It was simply an educational museum dedicated to all forms of rock music, and no other genre.

The museum was a really popular attraction, not only in Germany, but in all of Europe. On special occasions, schoolteachers would love nothing else than to take their students to the museum. These teachers know what’s good, musically!

Then, it happened………

At 7:01 A.M., on the morning of February 10, 2019, smoke filled the skies of downtown Cologne.

Confusion, panic and screams were melded into a stew of fear.

The Museum of Rock History was the subject of one of the worst bombing attacks in European history.

It was no glitterbomb.

It was an actual bomb.

Over 120 people were killed.

Over 360 suffered from non-fatal injuries.

One third of the building was destroyed, so only some items of value were completely wiped out in the destruction.

Six days after the explosion, the four perpetrators were driving through Russia, as they were escaping to Siberia, hoping to get very far away from the site of their crime. They were soon stopped by traffic police in Gagarin, chief city of the Gagarinsky District in the Smolensk Oblast, several miles away from Moscow. Originally, they were stopped because they were driving at dangerously high speeds, but the police soon uncovered some shocking evidence; important pieces of information that would ultimately link the four troublemakers to their act of terrorism.

The evidence contained blueprints for the attack and an envelope containing printed copies of pages from The Kitty Chronicles.

I’m not even lying when I’m saying that an actual piece of Pro-Pop literature influenced the carrying-out of an actual Pro-Pop terrorist attack!

Anyway, within The Kitty Chronicles, Kitty Smith and her cohorts kickstarted a nationwide Pro-Pop insurgency by blowing up a rock-themed museum. Here’s a quote from one of the copied pages:

“Some time after the Pop Hijackings, me and Marcy both got word of the grand opening of a rock music museum in Atlanta, known as the American Cultural Institution for Rock Music. We had to act fast; if we didn’t blow it up within several days, the museum would become more and more of a cultural powerhouse within America. Pop music would’ve been more doomed than it was way back then!”

The confiscated blueprints also contained the specifics on how the bomb was to be built and ignited. Here’s another quote from one of the pages copied out of the book regarding the bomb’s ingredients:

“Marcy, Brendan and I thought of the perfect way to blow up that trashy rock museum! We bought plenty of radio-controlled toy cars and a diverse collection of illegal fireworks. We extracted some battery acid and placed them inside metallic containers, and we made our own napalm. To top it all of, we added a splendid combination of kerosene, nitrogen, and cow manure. The manure was added because of both the methane and the smell. What a stinky explosion it would be!”

The bomb in real life was made of just those components.

All the ingredients were stuffed in a large briefcase, placed on the seat of a moped, with plenty of fuel left inside its tank. The bomb was activated by the remote control used to trigger one of the toy RC cars, that one of which was modified so as to trigger the explosion.

Once all the evidence was collected, the four perpetrators were arrested by Russian police, who interned them to England, since that was where they originally came from.

The ringleader to this plot was a very angry teenager by the name of Lance Calvin. His three co-conspirators were the pre-teen Charlesworth triplets, Berry, Louisa and Tabitha.
The motive for Calvin’s evil attack was his continuous, undying support for the modernization of the big music corporations in their ditching of old-school artists. He felt like the Museum of Rock History was “a threatening stain” and “a stumbling block” to their cause, and he wanted to have his revenge. The Charlesworth triplets were not only Calvin’s friends, but they were also Pro-Poppers who wanted to participate in the bombing.

After a rather speedy trial, Lance Calvin and the Charleston triplets were all sentenced to 500 consecutive life sentences in prison. All of them will never receive parole.

A further investigation conducted in September revealed that multiple members of the Frisian terrorist group Honor, Glory, Power, Sugar & Spice and Iceland’s Political Strikeforce for Nordic Popular Music were involved in this terror plot.
The investigation shown that members of both groups helped to ship the supplies that were needed to build the bomb, although they had to mail them in as discreetly as possible, cleverly avoiding any metal detectors or anybody scanning the contents of the mail.

The additional co-conspirators were imprisoned in their respective countries, on charges of terrorist participation, the shipping of illegal materials and the manipulation of the examination of cargo. They are currently in the process of doing some of the heaviest time they had ever gotten!

On November 28, 2019, a month after the Museum of Rock History was reopened, a memorial for the victims of the bombing was constructed. It’s a very touching, very beautiful service to the families of these unfortunate victims.

IN CONCLUSION

I hope you enjoyed – or at least got informed by – the surplus bits of information that I was able to include in this tale.

FIN