Mojo Nixon was more than just a musician and a radio host. He was a larger-than-life personality who devoted his life to playing rock n roll without any concern for who he offended or whose feelings he may have hurt in the process. You don’t have to go very deep into his catalog to hear him call out pop stars, politicians (and their wives, in the case of Tipper Gore and Barbara Bush), banks, and hipsters. When you think about it, if he were to start his career now, he would probably end up on the canceled list. Not that he would have cared about that. In fact, he probably would have mined that for some scathing songs.
Mojo Nixon seems an unlikely counterculture hero when you consider that he was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. If you’ve ever visited Oxford, Ohio, you have to wonder how a sleepy college town could contain a personality as big as Mojo Nixon. And yet, for most of his career, Nixon spoke for the person who typically gets the short end of the stick, whether they are an employee reporting to an incompetent boss (“Ain’t Got No Boss”) or a musician trying to get paid (“Where the Hell’s My Money”). In the trailer for The Mojo Manifesto, Mojo proudly declared that a goal of his was to incite a riot and cause chaos by encouraging his listeners not to take any crap from anyone.
When he died this week while on the Outlaw Country Cruise, the world lost someone who was truly one of a kind. And frankly, it’s hard to imagine him going any other way than after (or even during) a performance. It is a fitting end for someone who gave his life to rock n roll. Mojo opened the door for other artists to sing about topics that aren’t always comfortable. That being said, there will never be another artist quite like Mojo. However, we can hope that, as the man himself sang about, somewhere out there is a 13-year-old kid with a rock n roll soul who will carry the torch of free-spirited, anti-authority chaos that Mojo voiced so well.
It seems only fitting to remember some of the moments where Mojo was at his iconoclastic best.
MTV, Get away from me!
It surprised exactly no one that Mojo didn’t embrace MTV like a lot of artists in the 80s. While other bands sought to increase their fame by landing in MTV’s heavy rotation, Mojo took quite a different approach. Even established bands like ZZ Top adapted their style to the new medium, but Mojo wrote a song called “Stuffin’ Martha’s Muffin”. At the beginning of the song, he muses about how he can get on MTV, and pretends to call the network to ask for veejay Martha Quinn (whose voice he also provides), who responds by saying that he is “too nasty” for MTV. Even if the conversation with Martha Quinn is something he only imagined, it doesn’t seem far-fetched.
Mojo did make a video in 1989 for “Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child”. He even got Winona Ryder to star as Debbie Gibson in the video, which also poked fun at Rick Astley. MTV, not surprisingly, took a hard pass.
Crossfire
Looking back on it now, appearing on CNN might be one of the more shocking things that happened in Mojo’s career. In 1990, he appeared on Crossfire with Pat Buchanan and Rep. Jean Dixon (MO), who was creating a bill that would require warning labels on objectionable records. On the rare occasions where he was allowed to speak, Mojo railed against this proposed censorship by pointing out that parents, not government or record labels, should decide what is appropriate for kids.
Don Henley Must Die!
Mojo famously had no use for The Eagles, who he referred to as “the country Monkees”. He reserved his most vicious vitriol for singer Don Henley. Somewhere around the time Henley was winning a Grammy for Best Rock Vocalist, Mojo was performing at a small club in Austin. While no video exists (it was long before everyone had a camera with them at all times) and the crowd who witnessed it couldn’t have been very large, Mojo told the story of how Henley came into the club and asked to sing “Don Henley Must Die”. Just imagine the social media frenzy now if some artist asked to sing along on the diss track of which they were the subject. Mojo was so cool that Don Henley asked him to sing along with the song that mocked him.
Getting Kinky on the Campaign Trail
In 2006, country singer and author Kinky Friedman announced his campaign for governor of his home state of Texas. At the time Mojo was the host of a political podcast called Lyin’ C—suckers (“cause that’s what politicians are”). But Kinky Friedman is not a typical anything and definitely not a typical politician. As a result, Mojo had no trouble coming out of retirement to perform some shows in Texas and support Friedman’s campaign. Friedman was not elected governor of Texas (although he might have been the best choice), but he had the best hypeman supporting him along the way.
A Portrait of the Artist
If you’ll indulge me, loyal reader, I’d like to finish, not with another highlight of Mojo’s career, but with an anecdote. Many years ago, I was presented with the opportunity to interview Mojo Nixon (and how does a music journalist decline that?). It was a thoroughly entertaining interview. Really, how could it be anything else? He was the same loud and outrageous personality that you could hear on Sirius XM. As we were wrapping up, I said, “I don’t normally do this, but could you sign something and send it to me?”
He replied. “Yeah, man! I’ll look in the attic!”
A couple of weeks later, a cardboard mailing tube arrived at my PO box. I opened it and unrolled the contents. It was a painted portrait of the wild man himself, the same portrait shown on the cover of his Whiskey Rebellion album.
Mojo Nixon was an original. There isn’t any mold to make another version of him. I have spent countless hours listening to his music and I’m sure I will continue to listen to his music for countless hours. He died doing what he loved and there is some real poetry to that. It doesn’t seem quite right to say rest in peace. Rather, it seems more fitting to send him off with, “Rave on, Mojo!”
