If Kid Rock’s drunken aquatic Republican tomfoolery is the yin, the yang is Democrats like White House spokesman Jay Carney holding Guided By Voices (GBV) jam sessions in the garage. In a Friday Post fluff job, America learned what Jay does in his spare time.
In between Brady Room flayings, Carney pulls back the curtain for the Post and lets his puppets see his office. Proudly displayed, amid photos of his children and the crumbling Berlin Wall, is an autographed copy of GBV’s "Bee Thousand," the only GBV album anyone has ever heard of. Hence the reaction when Jay tries too hard to look "hip" by claiming GBV is "the greatest rock-and-roll band in the modern era."
No one in the press corps challenged him on the last part — "It’s not a particularly music-oriented crowd out there," Carney says — and the high praise quickly made its way back to the band.
While Nirvana is one obvious counterexample, we all know Jay doesn’t like it when he’s challenged with facts.
"I just think Pollard is brilliant and funny and has a level of creativity in abundance that is just astonishing. It’s all essential listening if you can keep up with his production," he says. "I used to until I had this job."
A moment of silence, everybody, for Jay not being able to listen to GBV's new album the day it comes out.
After Jay’s fandom was birthed at Black Cat with fellow hipster glasses wearer John Heilemann, he and GBV's other 30 fans trekked up and down the mid-Atlantic to watch the band play various shanty bars. GBV inspires something so primal in Jay, in fact, that he is compelled to wrangle his fellow GBV-heads to record music no one will ever hear.
I can picture it now, Jay jamming with his bros, all because GBV rawks so harrdd.
Apparently, one of Jay’s jammates is deputy national security adviser Antony Blinken, who helped Jay nab the job in Biden’s office that led Jay to position himself, Machiavelli-like, for his current job as top WH flack dog.
As the Post puts it, "If you look at Carney’s career path in a 'Lost' sort of way, he may never have been hired as the president’s mouthpiece." Jay Carney would be poor and destitute, out on the streets, if not for his charmed encounter with GBV those many, many years past.