Arriving at the venue a few minutes before the start of Mojo Nixon’s late afternoon set at The Continental Club, I caught the tail end of the band getting set up before Mojo announced to the crowd that they were now going to pretend they were big rock stars and go off stage for five minutes before returning. Of course, that didn’t work out entirely as planned, since the drummer just stayed onstage, claiming that he was stuck, and kept on talking to the crowd. At one point, it seemed like he was about to say something about how he’d been coming to SouthBy since before some of us were born, but then had to stop himself, noting that it was a pretty old crowd.
He was right on both counts – it was an old crowd and Mojo Nixon and The Toadliquors have been coming to SXSW for many years, with this year apparently marking the 20th edition of Mojo’s Mayhem, the annual party hosted and headlined by Mojo and taking place on the final day of the festival.
As promised, Mojo and the rest of the band returned to the stage minutes later and launched into a cover of “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding.” And lest you think that his choice of cover material means Mojo’s gone all soft and hippie-ish, he still managed to fit a chant of “Donald Trump can suck my dick!” into the middle of the song. Yes, Mojo Nixon’s stage banter leans more towards the profane than the profound, but you’d expect no less from the man who wrote “Tie My Pecker To My Leg” back in the day.
Mojo would go on to play that song, as well as other hits like “Don Henley Must Die” and “Elvis Is Everywhere” while continuing to take shots at Trump throughout his set (“Donald Trump’s got a tiny dick!” was another popular chant) and even musing about the possibility of running for office himself.
Perhaps inspired by the town hall held earlier in the week at SXSW featuring several Democratic presidential hopefuls, Mojo figured he might have a shot too.
“Lot of motherfuckers running for president,” he noted before leading the crowd in another chant, this time of “Mojo in Two-Oh!” He even came up with the perfect campaign slogan – “Put another Nixon in the White House … ’cause Mojo’s not a dick!” – and also speculated about who his running mate should be, before launching into yet another chant: “Mojo and Beto!”
And while a Mojo Nixon run for the Oval Office seems highly unlikely, so did the chances of the man currently holding that position, or as Mojo referred to him, the “lying cocksucker who can kiss my hairy ass”. And really, if America is determined to have a buffoon in the White House, why not make it a much cooler, much more likeable one? Mojo for president!
