Steve Hackett, You F**king ARSEHOLE – Doing A Cruelty To Tarantulas Promotional Video For Your Next Album!

I am beyond angry about this (in tears), and it says a lot about YouTube this shit has been allowed to stay up beyond twenty four hours.

The third and final video for Steve Hackett’s forthcoming album ‘At The Edge Of Light’ came out yesterday, for the track ‘Beasts In Our Time.’

One minute and eleven seconds into the video, a man sees his daughter afraid of a tarantula. How does he deal with it? Show her it was harmless? Trap and remove it? No, he crushes the spider in his hand and throws it away like it was a piece of rubbish!

Coming from a musician who likes to flaunt planet friendly eco-credentials, this is beyond f**king belief!

I’m fond of spiders. I admit it took a while to be. I understand people are scared of them – used to be myself, until I watched one spin a web outside my classroom window one rainy afternoon many years ago, and felt guilty for ever having hated and feared something which could produce something of such delicate, exquisite beauty.

But you live and let live – and actively encouraging people to be cruel to spiders as ‘normal’ behaviour is as shitty as encouraging people to torment animals (or worse) on the internet for hits.

There’s a lot of people who keep tarantulas as pets – and that undoubtedly WAS a pet tarantuala, bred in captivity for the purpose, which was used in the video. How do you think they feel about people posting shit where tarantulas are made to fight with other spiders, or wasps, or other cruel shit, then some touchy-feely ‘artist’ does something like this!

A pet tarantuala, killed to make a poxy pop video for an artist whose last album I loved to bits. Thanks a bunch, you skeet!

The blurb accompanying this song says :‘the track ‘Beasts In Our Time’ is the main thrust of this album, exposing fear, greed and intolerance.’

All the video exposes is the immature fear and intolerance of spiders from morons whose knowledge of one of the most important parts of our eco-system appears to have been derived from far too many late night Hammer Horror movies.

In the British Isles since medievel times, we have a saying: ‘IF YOU WISH TO LIVE AND THRIVE, LET THE SPIDER RUN ALIVE!’ – in the days before pesticides, the spider was the best protector from disease carrying, food despoiling, crop ruining flies and beetles. Their webs were used to staunch wounds sustained in battle or from accidents (loaded with blood clotting Vitamin K, many of our ancestors owe their lives to some conveniently nearby spider’s web), and are still used in both medicine and optimetrics.

In California, it is the Black Widow spider’s messy cobswebs over the grape crops which provide the best protection against parasites than any pesticides. They may be feared for their venom, but there are many Americans who owe a lack of a cockroach infestation to some busy black widow (or some other spider’s web in the cellar, or any one of the many varieties of wolf spider) for ensuring these disgusting disease spreaders don’t get past first base.

Across the world, many types of frog live in close proximity to large spiders such as the tarantula for mutual protection – the frogs eat up the ants and small insects which prey on the tarantulas and their eggs (including certain types of wasp), and the tarantulas are a deterrent to snakes, rodents and other creatures which prey on the frogs. They can coexist and work with other creatures. However with humans it is all too often one way – as exemplified by this stupid video.

If you are on Twitter, let these morons know this sort of shit is not on – ever!

https://twitter.com/genesis_news/status/1086569325836816385

https://twitter.com/HackettOfficial/status/1086209498967146496

info@hackettsongs.com – Hackett’s website

or: Hackett Songs, 5 Bure Way, Aylsham, Norfolk, NR11 6HL.