Industrial music and its relationship(??) to fascism

[killer b]

because it doesn't sound like being in Crass was much fun.

no, they always sounded so angry. (< a member of crass, yesterday. Still furious then)

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

no, they always sounded so angry. (< a member of crass, yesterday. Still furious then)

Aren't they mostly being furious at each other these days?

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I'm a bit wary of people saying you have to have gone to art school (or any school) to do creative things.

When I was involved with the Association of Autonomous Astronauts we had some art college twat saying it was a shame we were getting so much coverage because it could be given over to "real artists" instead.

The main issue is that after the early eighties, arseing about with totalitarian aesthetics was incredibly derivative, it had been done.

 

[killer b]

I dont think so. Penny & Steve shared a stage at rebellion a couple of years back. I think they just dont want to play together anymore.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

One of Crass (Pete?) threatened the others with legal action over remastering the LPs last year. The documents were all up on the web and were fucking boring, even for someone slightly obsessive about subcultural gossip.

 

[killer b]

 

[Casually Red]

I was wondering how long it'd be before Black Metal came up. There's a definite fash undercurrent there, and I try to avoid it so I can't give many examples but Varg Vikernes the convicted murderer is definitely a good example (he says he's 'moved away from' Nazism but you know .. they always say that)

NSBM (National Socialist Black Metal) is definitely a thing, sad to say. Some of those guys think they have to be nazi or at least sympathetic, in order to be true to their pagan roots and culture (which is a far more important aspect to black metal). BM is notoriously anti-religious, and the religions that are especially hated are christianity, islam and judaism - for a lot of reasons, some of which for them verge on (or are actually) racist and antisemitic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_black_metal

Anyway, ETA, this kind of thing is largely limited to scandinavia, though it's fair to say that there are racists who like all kinds of music and the various genres and subgenres of metal are certainly not immune - unsurprising, when you consider how popular metal is globally, as an artform.

that stuff gives me the chills . Many years ago I found myself up a very high Norwegian mountain , being escorted down a very narrow and winding path in the woods in the middle of the night by a dude I had thought was just into a bit of heavy metal . He was going on about his favourite Black Metal bands and their lyrics when he casually informed me that Satan was his saviour and Adolf Hitler was his Messiah...no less . This went on for a good ten minutes before his matter of fact take on the subject turned to killing and how he would like to personally kill different groups of people, and how . All like it was a completely normal and everyday subject.
Id become acutely aware not only was I up a mountain in the middle of a forest in almost pitch darkness with an obvious lunatic, with the nearest electric light about 3 miles away, but that it was the habit of folks in those parts to openly carry a knife on their belts and he indeed had one . Started to remember that Che Guevara t shirt id been wearing earlier in the week mightnt have been a good idea . And that thered been a bit of a ruck in a nightclub the week before with a few full on saluting fash that a local bouncer wed been knocking about with had broken up . Got so scared in fact that Id bent down as if to tie my shoe only to grab a good sized rock ,that I kept in my hand in order to just brain the fecker the second he made a funny move, kept myself just right behind his shoulder from then on . I was absolutely convinced he was going to kill me, he just reeked of absolute evil . Its hard to describe, he looked absolutely harmless , very soft spoken etc...but the fucking evil he was coming out with absolutely chilling . I was shitting myself .

Needless to say Im not a big fan of that particular genre .

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Sounds pretty heavy, Casually Red

 

[Chick Webb]

I know a bit about pagansim (I read some of the classics as a teenager) and plenty about metal, and I don't see how being into paganism would make you a racist. As a pagan you might feel that Christianity is a Middle Eastern interloper, but I'm pretty sure the forebears of all the European paganism probably came out of that neck of the woods too, around the same time as agriculture.

I don't know a lot about industrial. I liked it when I was younger but that was in the days before the internet, so I only know the most obvious bands from the 90s, and I've kind of gone off the sound a lot these days. I never really saw much serious fash imagery in the stuff I listened to, just the usual type of posing as mentioned numerous times above.

I'm getting seriously into black metal though, and I'm trying hard to avoid politically dodge stuff. It's a bloody minefield though. If you buy something you haven't heard of and know nothing about (as I did two weeks ago with a Watain album) be prepared to read nazi controversy about them the minute you type their name into the internet. Watain deny it, but not in strong enough terms as I would like. There is plenty to non-dodge stuff as well though.

Scary story, Casually Red!

 

[butchersapron]

I know a bit about pagansim (I read some of the classics as a teenager) and plenty about metal, and I don't see how being into paganism would make you a racist. As a pagan you might feel that Christianity is a Middle Eastern interloper, but I'm pretty sure the forebears of all the European paganism probably came out of that neck of the woods too, around the same time as agriculture.

The paganism these clowns are into is derived from ariosophy, that is the racist and fraudulent 'research' of racists like Guido Von List into runes, ancient religious history in Germany and austria. This is where the Swastika and other nazi symbols came from and where the idea of a superior aryan race entered into politics. You don't get into that stuff without being dodgy. When these people talk about paganism they mean racism based on ancient racial superiority (and today racial struggle) not a pre-christian idyll of brotherhood.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

This is a good book:

Mattia Gardell - Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism

If I remember rightly he goes into some detail about how the runic/odinist/asatru revival in the UK and US had racists involved with it all along. It has become a cornerstone for a "spiritual" white identity politics.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

There is a particularly odd bit in the book where some ancient grave sites are found in the US with what seems to be Viking types in them and some knob insists they were killed by native americans "so who holocausted who"?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Just about every single interview with these people (on all sides) about this issue goes along those sort of evasive ambiguous lines.

Hardly surprising. Being unambiguous would narrow the potential audience/buying public.

 

[ViolentPanda]

This is a good book:

Mattia Gardell - Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism

If I remember rightly he goes into some detail about how the runic/odinist/asatru revival in the UK and US had racists involved with it all along. It has become a cornerstone for a "spiritual" white identity politics.

Yep. Organisations like Odinic Rite always had racist elements, here and in the US, but here in the early '90s, the racism went from fairly inchoate "send 'em back" stuff to "Norse Power"-type bollocks, not helped by the likes of Freya Ascwynn giving succour to their politics.

 

[Casually Red]

Sounds pretty heavy, Casually Red

yeah...the guy just looked like a scrawny long haired nerd, was a bit of a loner . He was someone youd barely notice much less perceive as any kind of threat. Id been at a house party with some Norwegian people and set off on a late night search for some alcohol and he just sort of appeared beside me on the way down the mountain . Hard to describe how scared I was after 10 or 15 minutes of listening to that shit. A very deeply disturbed young man . With a big knife..up a mountain in the dark .

Bastard .

 

[ouchmonkey]

new Watain interview on the Quietus....
he reasonably clearly slaps back the nazi thing

I’m slightly reluctant to bring this up as I’m sure you’re probably sick of hearing and talking about it, but obviously the whole Nazi thing that got throw at you in the early days, wearing the [Nazi black metal band] Absurd t-shirts giving the Nazi salute – looking back on it now is that something that you slightly regret and want to get away from?

ED: No, no, it’s definitely not something that we regret, it’s the misconception of other people and the lack of intellect and childish approach that people have to it that is debatable and a bit sad. But we are who we are and it’s other peoples problem if they don’t want to understand it. It’s like this: when you all of a sudden reach a bigger audience, who are not used to the devil being a big part of a band, they understand that there is something wrong with this band. They understand that there is something very dark and disturbing at the heart of this band, and they try to find that devil in Watain and they try to understand. And I think that what a lot of people do is that they go for the only evil that they know; the only devil that they know, which in Western society is very much the Third Reich and everything that happened there. And it’s a bit laughable to me how people can take such an easy way out, I mean c’mon, dig a little deeper and you’ll understand that we would be amongst the first in line to get shot in the Third Reich; what we want is chaos, anarchy and disorder and for the world to go up in flames. What Hitler wanted was a nice little paradise for Aryan fuck-heads to flourish in, where law and order would be the common denominator of society. So it’s a bit ridiculous to me, and, y’know, people just have to think a little bit deeper if they want to concern me with what they think.

 

[Chick Webb]

Fair enough, Mr Watain!

So he's basically just saying he was being a bit of a Sid Vicious? That's good enough for me I suppose. I find their music slightly bait, but I do like them, and I will be able to like them in peace now that I'm not worrying about them being fash.

 

[butchersapron]

new Watain interview on the Quietus....
he reasonably clearly slaps back the nazi thing

That sounds to me like he is the one who looked for something dark and disturbing at the heart of his band and could only come up with nazism rather than other people. Total projection there - and a bit cheeky to be going on about lack of intellect whilst trying such a transparent maneuvere.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

1. Wear t-shirts of a nazi band, give nazi salutes.

2. Accuse people of being childish and having a lack of intellect if they think you are a nazi.



This "oh well we'd be first up against the wall if nazis took power" is beyond cliche now as well. And ignores the fact that many people who actively supported the nazis' rise to power were also amongst the first to be its victims.

 

[Chick Webb]

Yeah, it is shite, really. Damn you, black metal

 

[butchersapron]

How could i possible be a nazi - i'd be the first to be murdered in my bed if the nazis took over!

 

[TruXta]

yeah...the guy just looked like a scrawny long haired nerd, was a bit of a loner . He was someone youd barely notice much less perceive as any kind of threat. Id been at a house party with some Norwegian people and set off on a late night search for some alcohol and he just sort of appeared beside me on the way down the mountain . Hard to describe how scared I was after 10 or 15 minutes of listening to that shit. A very deeply disturbed young man . With a big knife..up a mountain in the dark .

Bastard .

Just out of curiousity, was this on the west coast somewhere?

 

[Chick Webb]

Do you think you know him, Truxta?

 

[mojo pixy]

That guy from Watain has at least been saying the same thing since 2007...

http://www.metal.de/heavy-metal/interview/watain/36518-watain/

What do you think of NSBM Black Metal at all and should BM follow a political ideology or include them?

NSBM is a joke, a desperate attempt by people who are incapable of fathoming the perversion and the madness of Black Metal. They want to appear extreme and limit themselves in their conception of this kind of society, which is something that we could not care less about. Fuck the world! Black Metal has nothing to do with the world as you know it.

Original:

Was hälst du von NSBM und sollte Black Metal überhaupt einer politischen Ideologie folgen bzw. diese beinhalten?
NSBM ist ein Witz, ein verzweifelter Versuch von Leuten, welche unfähig sind, die Perversion und den Wahnsinn des Black Metals zu ergründen. Sie wollen extrem erscheinen und limitieren sich in ihrer Konzeption an diese Art von Gesellschaft, was etwas darstellt, was uns nicht noch weniger interessieren könnte. Fuck the world! Black Metal hat nichts mit der Welt zu tun, wie ihr sie kennt.

(I cheated and used Google translate, with a couple of tweaks but my German is fairly rusty)

 

[TruXta]

Do you think you know him, Truxta?

I might well know someone that does.

 

[Casually Red]

Just out of curiousity, was this on the west coast somewhere?

yup, twas . Near a fishing village on a fjord, you could only get to the place by boat . Why do you ask ?

 

[TruXta]

yup, twas . Near a fishing village on a fjord, you could only get to the place by boat . Why do you ask ?

Mostly idle curiosity, also the fact that most of the proper nutters have traditionally hailed from that part of Norway.

 

[Casually Red]

well he was a proper nutter and I was proper scared

 

[Idris2002]

There is a particularly odd bit in the book where some ancient grave sites are found in the US with what seems to be Viking types in them and some knob insists they were killed by native americans "so who holocausted who"?

I presume this is related to the case of Kennewick a recovered precolumbian skeleton, the reconstruction of which appears to show physical features consistent with European rather than Native American ancestry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man

It's not in thon wiki link, but I think some group of "Odinists" wanted to claim the remains of Kennewick man so that they could bury him with honours.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I presume this is related to the case of Kennewick a recovered precolumbian skeleton, the reconstruction of which appears to show physical features consistent with European rather than Native American ancestry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man

It's not in thon wiki link, but I think some group of "Odinists" wanted to claim the remains of Kennewick man so that they could bury him with honours.

Yes that sounds like it. They also objected to him having a christian burial I think.