Gasoline song, protest goes viral
By Matthew Ralph

When 29-year-old Indiana resident Jay Weinberg climbed on the roof of a service station earlier this month to protest gas prices, a campaign that started with a guitar strumming rant on $2 gasoline two and a half years earlier went viral.

Sporting a uniform synonymous with blue-collar anguish – a Cubs hat and shirt – Weinberg, aka Epoch Apostle, shouted the words of his gas price lament “Price Gouge’n” through a megaphone, leading a crowd of friends and rubber-necking bystanders in the middle-finger-to-the-man chorus. The impromptu 15-minute concert and subsequent arrest went even better than expected.

Within days of the Valparaiso resident’s staged act of civil disobedience, a YouTube video was attracting thousands of hits and mainstream media from as far away as India had given Weinberg and his gasoline song ink.

“I didn’t think it was going to blow up this fast,” Weinberg said in a phone interview from his apartment in a week that included interviews with a Detroit radio station and a Chicago ABC affiliate. “It’s just been like wild-fire.”

Though he was known as the shy kid in high school, Weinberg said he’s made a name for himself in his local music community for not being afraid to speak out.

“Basically, for the past 10 years I’ve been doing this music and it’s been in my blood and it’s been in my consciousness that I’m going to do more than just complain like the average person would do,” he said. “I don’t think all the money should be going to these oil companies and these big conglomerates.”

From the day he launched gasolinesong.com, Weinberg said the protest was about more than just the price.

“It’s about the price we are paying, but it’s bringing certain issues to the forefront like environmental issues, political issues, all the way down to war,” he said.

For Weinberg, his wife Danielle and his legion of musical comrades and friends, it’s also a kind of guerilla style way of getting their music heard and art seen. In an age where publicity stunts and viral marketing are used to promote all manner of commercial endeavors, this point has rubbed some people the wrong way.

Scanning the comments in a Chicago Tribune article about the protest, it’s not hard to find critics questioning Weinberg’s motives. In a space where even Mother Theresa’s intentions would have likely been ridiculed, Weinberg was called a “greedy folk singer” by one poster, accused of “trying to make a buck” by another and ironically enough told he should be thrown in jail by a poster with poor grammar.

Weinberg, who said he was inspired in part by George Orwell’s “1984,” Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train” and the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car,” isn’t apologetic about his goals as a musician. Since his primary eve stunt (about 15 minutes from a rally Hillary Clinton was at that day), he hasn’t been called back in to work at a local frame shop. With little money in the coffers, he’s working every angle to get his music and message out there.

“Ghandi said to be the change you want to see in the world and that’s the kind of thing we’re going after,” he said.

As for the stunt itself, it was anything but a one-man show. Like an Improv Everywhere skit, Weinberg enlisted the help of friends to spot for police, capture photos and video and sing. It wasn’t quite “we shall overcome” but even critics have to acknowledge it took some guts.

“As far as courage goes, it’s hard to say,” he said. “I feel like the truth needs no defense in a sense and I feel like the truth is on our side with this whole thing. Getting up there and doing it? I felt like it was going to fall into accord and harmony with what needed to be done. So I wasn’t too nervous. But my mom, she was freaking out.”

To download the song for about $3.50 less than a gallon of gas and to check out other merchandise, visit gasolinesong.com.

posted [5.19.08]

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