JULY 1993 …Rage Against The Machine’s naked protest

You want it starkers: (clockwise) RATM (from left, Tim Commerford, Zack de la Rocha, Brad Wilk and Tom Morello) on-stage in Philly; Tipper Gore (left) thinks of the children; upstanding protesters, earlier.

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JULY 18 There had long been nudity in rock. Ray Sawyer from Dr.

Hook, for example, or Hawkwind’s Stacia, or the infamous GG Allin, had proudly bared all on-stage. But few instances were as militant or unanimous as when Rage Against The Machine played touring alt-rock festival Lollapalooza this July day at Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium. Appearing on the main stage before acts including Primus, Tool, Alice In Chains and Front 242, their music-free show featured every band member stark naked, with gaffer tape over their mouths and the letters ‘P’, ‘M’, ‘R’ and ‘C’ painted on their chests.

It was all a massive two fingers to the PMRC, or the Parents Music Resource Center, a pressure group with the ear of government who sought to defend America’s music-listening youth from corrupting lyrics of sex, violence, drugs and ungodliness.

One of the campaign’s high-profile activists was Tipper Gore, wife of then-Vice-President Al: curiously, she had played drums in a band called The Wildcats in the ’60s and would later sit in with Grateful Dead successor group The Dead, Willie Nelson and Herbie Hancock. Yet, appalled that her daughter had heard Prince’s pervy Darling Nikki in 1985, she and some well-connected friends started plotting to get clunky ‘Parental Advisory Explicit Content’ warnings on risqué albums’ sleeves. Up against the free-thinking likes of Frank Zappa, John Denver and Twisted