"Now War is Declared, and Battle Come Down"
Taste in ominous, martial-sounding rock n' roll gets a British mobile phone salesman "hauled off a plane and questioned for three hours as a terror suspect." In the cab on his way to the Durham Tees Valley Airport in Britain, he played over the cab sound system both The Clash's "London Calling" with its warning that "war is declared, and battle come down" and Led Zeppelin's tundra-burner "The Immigrant Song" in which Robert Plant wails that "The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands, to fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!"
Harraj Mann, the man in question, says
he was 'frog-marched off the plane in front of everyone, had my bags searched and was asked 'every question you can think of'.
He added: "It turned out the taxi driver alerted someone when I arrived at the airport and had spoken about my music…..Durham Police said the action was taken 'as a result of information received' and the flight was stopped before take-off.
Old fashioned record geeks beware: Brian Eno's "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More" and "This Is Your Captain Calling" by Colin Blunstone (or even Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods!) are right out.
ADDENDUM: For nostalgia's sake, revisit this 2004 tale on Hit and Run of Syrian musicians creating a terror scare on a U.S. airline.
