Terence Blacker: The unique political vision of old rockers

Out there in the land of the straight and the grooveless, the news that rock 'n' roll has finally entered the Pentagon may be greeted with alarm. It appears that, deep in the heart of the military-industrial complex, down among the straights and generals, there walks a dude with a pigtail, shades, a walrus moustache and the long claw-like fingernails on his right hand of a serious guitarist.

He may look like one of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, but in Washington he is taken seriously. Skunk Baxter, formerly a member of the Doobie Brothers, a session musician who has backed artists and bands as various as Ricky Nelson, Julio Iglesias, Steely Dan and Elton John, has become a leading consultant at America's defence department.

His area of expertise, rather an important one under the Bush administration, is the development of weapon systems.

Skunk is no joke, nor is he a beneficiary of the way modern politicians like to suck up to rock stars of the past. He is adviser to Kurt Warner, chairman of the House of Representatives defence committee and sits on the board of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.

He talks to the Ballistic Missile Defence Organisation about the telemetric efficiency of the Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicle of a Minuteman III missile.

When Washington needs someone to explain the beauty of the Son of Star Wars technology to Whitehall warriors in London, it's Skunk who flies over.

At first, the idea that one of the great guitarists of the seventies has gone Republican and is working in the heart of government on weapons of mass destruction may seem a touch depressing or even scary – like Dr Strangelove rewritten by Dennis Hopper – but for Skunk it is part of a logical progression.

Some time ago, he had realised that arms manufacturers were more advanced in their use of digital technology than any record producer. He started reading the right scientific magazines, thinking, as he told a British newspaper, "I could find very pressing information for the next Dolly Parton album in the off-boresight capability of an Aim-9L air-to-air missile." He had the technical know-how and, more surprisingly, was an active Republican, so naturally he landed up in Washington.

"I see it as a maturation of a conceptual way of thinking," he has said. Like many musicians, he is able to "think outside the box" – an important asset, apparently, when it comes developing weapon systems.

Of course, Skunk is right. Anyone who has met or worked with rock musicians will know that they have few rivals when it comes to thinking outside the box – some of them are so far out of the box, that they have forgotten what a box looks like – and on balance, I think I would prefer the future of the world to lie in the hands of someone who played some of the best riffs in the work of Steely Dan than in those of a few nuke-happy crew-cuts on Capitol Hill.

In fact, we could probably use a few more former rockers to bring to government the maturation of their conceptual way of thinking. The notoriously tight-fisted regime of Gordon Brown would surely benefit from the generous influence of Elton John.

Any quango working with the Department of Health could use the detailed experience of self-medication that Keith Richards or Jimmy Page could offer, while Mick Jagger, with his new interest in educating young folk like Sophie Dahl in the ways of the world, could usefully help David Blunkett over at the Home Office.

For these are strange, exciting times. Back in the 1970s, Skunk Baxter played along as the Doobies sang, "I'm a music man baby, hangin' from a wire with no net". Who would have thought that, a few years later, the rest of the world would be up there with him?

Terblacker@aol.com