OK, you rock 'n' rollers: It's all right to vote for Al Gore.
That's the word from none other than Twisted Sister, the 1980s heavy metal band cited by then-Sen. Gore and his wife Tipper as Exhibit A of what was wrong with popular music.
Despite the well-documented animosity between the Gores and the band, most of it generated by a 1985 Senate hearing on whether record albums and CDs should carry labels warning of graphic content, leaders of the glam-rock quintet say they plan to vote for Gore for president.
"I'm sort of supporting Al Gore, which is bizarre," said lead singer Dee Snider, who testified at the hearing along with Frank Zappa. "I don't trust the guy as far as I can throw him. He's a conservative liberal, but I think he's going to chew up George W. (Bush) and spit him out. He's an old-school, dirty-fighting politician."
Also, the vice president gets high marks on two major issues: the environment and abortion rights.
"To me, everything else is moot if you don't have a planet to battle on," Snider said. "He's a big environmentalist. He's stood up for environmental issues in the face of a lot of hostility."
It was 15 years ago that Tipper Gore antagonized many rock musicians and fans through a group she co-founded called the Parents Music Resource Center that urged the record industry to adopt a system of warning labels for albums that include violent or sexually explicit lyrics.
Performers cried censorship, but the Gores said they were only trying to help parents know what their children were listening to. The industry, with the threat of possible government action in the air, adopted a voluntary system shortly after the September 1985 hearing.