RUSH TO JUDGMENT

Members of the Bottle Rockets were a little surprised, and a touch miffed, when they heard that Rush Limbaugh was using a bit of their song “Radar Gun” as a “bumper” after commercials on his national radio show. At first the band, whose political views run counter to Limbaugh’s, considered asking the conservative lightning rod to stop using their music.

When Limbaugh got wind of that, he went on the air to say that he didn’t care what the band thought, he would keep playing it, adding that the song “kinda sucks”--even though in the past he had commented that he liked its sound.

Now the St. Louis band has decided that it’s fine with them if Limbaugh keeps playing their music.

“If he wants to play it, then go nuts,” says Rockets singer-guitarist Brian Henneman, who says he doesn’t listen to Limbaugh’s show. “If he’s making fun of us, so what? If he likes us, great. Anywhere we get played on the radio is great. More people listen to him than listen to us, that’s for dang sure.”

The punch line is that the very next song on the band’s recent album, “The Brooklyn Side,” contains a direct attack on Limbaugh. “Welfare Music” includes the lines “Angry fat man on the radio / Wants to keep his taxes way down low / Says there ought to be a law / Angriest man we ever saw.”

Limbaugh’s producer, Kit Carson, says his boss hasn’t heard “Welfare Music” and, in fact, was unaware of whose music was being used until Pop Eye called to ask about it.

Limbaugh, of course, has been using the opening riff from the Pretenders’ “My City Was Gone” as his main radio theme for years--with no complaints from Chrissie Hynde, Carson says. But it wouldn’t matter whether she, or the Bottle Rockets, complained, since radio stations and networks pay umbrella licensing fees to royalties collection agencies that allow them to use whatever music they choose.