Eldon Hoke
The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was known as Il Duce.Eldon Hoke (
March 24,
1958 in
Seattle, Washington -
April 19,
1997 in
Riverside, California) was a
musician. Nicknamed
El Duce, he was best known as the
drummer and
lead singer of
The Mentors.
Hoke and the Mentors gained international notoriety in 1985 as a result of the
U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation's hearings led by the
Parents Music Resource Center's
Tipper Gore, the wife of then-Senator
Albert Gore, Jr. (D-Tennessee) into the proliferation of "
obscene" lyrics in popular music. During the hearings, the
Rev. Jeff Ling recited the lyrics to the Mentors song, "Golden Shower" to musician
Frank Zappa, who opposed the hearings. The lyrics, which included the line, "Bend up and smell my anal vapor/Your face will be my toilet paper" elicited howls of laughter at the Congressional hearing and prompted Zappa and others to denounce the hearings as a farce. The hearings, however, ultimately led the music industry to adopt voluntary labeling of records containing objectionable lyrics - the widely recognized "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" label (jokingly referred to as a "Tipper sticker").
In addition to his musical career, Hoke also worked as an
extra in many
television,
movie, and
music video productions. He was a frequent guest on
Hot Seat (a television program from Orange County, California hosted by
Wally George), in which Hoke would bait the
conservative host by boasting about the number of
crack babies he had fathered. Hoke's many appearances always culminated in being "forcibly" removed from George's soundstage by security personnel.
In the mid-nineties, after the death of
Nirvana frontman
Kurt Cobain, Hoke began making the claim that Cobain's wife,
Courtney Love, had offered to pay Hoke $50,000 to kill Cobain. Hoke vigorously promoted his story in such media outlets as TV's "
Jerry Springer Show",
The National Enquirer weekly tabloid, and in
Nick Broomfield's documentary film, "
Kurt and Courtney". On March 6, 1996, Hoke passed with 99.7% certainty a
polygraph test administered by Dr. Edward Gelb, one of the country's leading polygraph experts. Although the reliability and accuracy of
polygraph tests are not proven, and although Hoke's story was never credited by any reputable inquiry, the story coupled with Hoke's death soon thereafter served to fuel conspiracy theories regarding Cobain's death.
According to the book
Who Killed Kurt Cobain? by
Max Wallace and
Ian Halperin, El Duce showed up at his friend Drew Gallagher's home on
April 17, 1997, asking where he could go to get a fake Driver's License. Hoke was incredibly paranoid and nervous at this time. When Gallagher asked what he meant, Hoke responded "People get buried in cornfields, people get lost in swamps", meaning he was in fear of his life. The next things that Hoke said to Gallagher are greatly overlooked by the media, but seem to be groundbreaking in the case: Hoke secretly informed Gallagher of who he was told had "killed Kurt Cobain". Hoke never got to reveal this information to anyone else or take another lie detector test to prove this startling new information, as the next two days of his life were his last. Gallagher plans to name the "killer" in a book he's writing, which may have been abandoned, or is unfinished.
Hoke's final musical performance was given on Friday, April 18th, 1997 at
Al's Bar in Downtown Los Angeles. By that time, Hoke's
alcoholism had rendered him unable to competently play the drums, and forced his bandmates to employ a new drummer. In the final years of his career, Hoke rarely performed sober with The Mentors, and the band's show often had to be cut short due to Hoke's inability to perform.
He died on
April 19,
1997 in
Riverside, California, after being hit by a train while in a state of alcoholic intoxication. It has been hypothesised that he had actually been pushed into the train's path by someone on Courtney Love's behalf, in order to silence Hoke for talking about the solicitation of Cobain's murder.
*
Church of El Duce*
El Duce Myspace*
The Recording Industry Association of America's Parental Advisory page
