"Only by discovering metal machine music can you appreciate that not only is the world not flat but it is also a machine, a machine for producing the dreams and nightmares we call reality. With this knowledge, you can exceed the timid nature of flat-world ordinariness." Paul Morley.
Friday, May 16, 2008
I.C.R.N. Editorial: The Right to Research
The Stewart Home Syndrome; Sol Invictus, "Intellectual decompostion" and other mindless projective tantrums.
So we should ask the question, who is Stewart Home and why is he getting so worked up?
Stewart Home, or Herr Heimat as perhaps we should call him, has been busy protecting the hapless, the stupid, the easily led, the politically unaware and the grammatically challenged from fascist art, worthless music and criminally superannuated academics. Stewart is an author, hoaxer, politico, public speaker and psycho-geographer. He considers himself to be one of the finest living authors since Alexander Trocchi, William Burroughs, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Irvine Welsh (to name a few) and has written books with evocative titles such as 'Cunt', 'Blow Job' and 'Slow Death'. He has a literary style that avoids complex narrative and plot for a type of writing that has been better expressed in hardcore porn. Here is an example of one of his finer pieces of text:
"Then she dropped her jeans and got me to lick out her funky twat. It tasted a hell of a lot better than the pre-packaged in-flight meal I’d just eaten. The girl sat down on the toilet bowl and I licked her clit while she took a shit. She stood up again and said I could fuck her up the arse. We didn’t need a lubricant, her lunch hadn’t agreed with her and she’d just had a very loose crap. The computer scientist’s sphincter was well stretched and I didn’t have any problems getting my cock up there. (Cunt, p.97)"
Stewie litters this tome with the sexual conquests and adventures of a character called David Kelso, possibly because Home’s obsessive character fantasises about being the libertine he has created; a character of misogynistic bent who uses women as disposable sex objects. Maybe Stewie, as a good left leftist, has always held a deep seated disgust and mistrust of women and this is his way playing out what would otherwise be an unacceptable position for a man of his high morals, principles and politics.
Herr Heimat also seems to be disturbed by people lying to him. Musician Tony Wakeford apparently lied to him about his involvement in the band Above The Ruins which seems to have led to Stewie disbelieving everything else Wakeford says and does. Wakeford was in a band called Above The Ruins, he was in the National Front (in the mid 1980s), was a member of IONA (Rightist cultural group who were taken over by the NF) and was a racist, he now claims that he deeply regrets his involvement in these organisations and has rejected the racism of that period of his life. He says he’s not interested in those politics, or in the brand of cultural, Gramscian, war of positioning that some rightist musicians such as Troy Southgate obviously are. If he is involved in any kind of fascist positioning in the neo-folk music scene he is keeping it well hidden from everyone around him and especially the musicians he works with. Caroline Jago and Lesley Malone (Sol musicians) would actually describe themselves as leftists.
Still, Stewart is not averse to a bit of lying himself: in an interview with Charlotte Cooper about his mother, Stewart discusses his public, obsessive vendetta with Michael Prigent and Larry O’ Hara:
“…my fun and outgoing side comes from my mom. She wasn’t judgmental but if it wasn’t for her there are individuals who I dislike who I’d have probably never had any negative feelings about. I’m thinking of people like the pro-situ Michel Prigent who she knew, and to the best of my knowledge his public vendetta against me stems from the fact he has some weird feelings about my mom who he seems to have met through people like beat writer/situationist Alex Trocchi.”[i]
In truth, 1) Michel Prigent never knew Home’s mother, and therefore, 2) cannot harbour any feelings about her, “weird” or otherwise, and 3) it is Home who is pursuing the “public vendetta.” Why the vendetta? Because in the mid-nineties Prigent, along with Larry O’Hara and myself [David Black – author of the piece] called Home to account for his strange associations with the fascist rock scene, in particular, one Tony Wakeford.[ii] The article goes on to examine Home’s love of Sol Invictus and Tony Wakeford even mentioning that Home did a piece in a Wakeford book of song lyrics. Here are some surprising highlights from his three page introduction to "Above Us the Sun" (a Tony Wakeford lyric book):
"Kierkegaard long sought but never found an example of a knight of the faith…..Tony Wakeford is the knight of the faith, he has gazed into the black abyss at the heart of our century and his penetrating eyes have exposed the emptiness of this world…..Wakeford is a genius….just look once again at his lyrics and you will see that this is true." (Home, 1996, pp1 – 3)
The principiadialectica article also has a discussion of Wakeford as being a fascist in the mid eighties period i.e. roughly 1982 – 1987. So it turns out that Herr Heimat was in fact a Death In June, Sol Invictus, Current 93 loving fan who was chastened by people in his political and social milieu enough to make him rethink his position and deny his true musical love. All of this maybe explains the lengths to which a busy, media celebrated author like Home, has gone to pursue the obsession with Wakeford et al even further. An interview with Wakeford[iii] suggests that he is over his fascism in all its different guises and we would go further to say that he has realised the error of past associations with the NF, IONA and Evola and that area of political or philosophical thought. If we’re wrong then it is a cover up that Wakeford is doing so well that there is no trace of any fascist activity since IONA. So, while Wakeford clearly admits to and expresses regret for past errors, Home desperately attempts to deflect attention from his own past by tarring everyone and anyone with the same fascist brush in order to present himself as a doughty anti-fascist fighter. As for the Gramscian war of position that Home suggests is being taken up by many in the neo-folk scene; we would agree with him that some have taken that route very seriously. They; bands such as Herr and Von Thronsthal, have got a position in this scene but are not that influential as yet. The debate of ideas and challenging responses to them can be opened up by the promotion of work that disrupts and provokes these projects with alternative agendas and stimulating artworks. New agendas require new active cultural production.
Throughout these exchanges Home has shown complete disregard for the lack of any evidence of Wakeford’s current fascist involvements and also a high level of ego in wanting all around him to agree with what he says or risk being accused of being a Nazi sympathiser or of being used by the shadowy occult-fascist axis that stalks this twilight world of neo-folk. It is interesting to note that Home, in his article on Wakeford and fascism, names Gary Smith as a member of No Remorse (skinhead far right band) and bass player on some Above the Ruins material, and uses this individual as 'guilt by association' evidence for Wakeford’s fascist involvement. Yet it seems that in the mid to late 1980s when Home mixed with the Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill scene in London, Gary Smiths girlfriend used to regularly pop round to Home’s house to use the photocopier to copy material for Smith. Should we see this as another example of his own guilt by association that he now `projects’ onto others who disagree with him?
Finally, would-be Gauleiter Home wants us all to take his work oh so seriously and even suggests that people quote him as the ‘seal of approval’ for `their’ own work. His Anarchist Integralism being one work that he wants everyone to quote from as the authoritative source. The continuing theme here is that he suggests that anarchism and fascism are twin bed fellows because of Proudhon’s anti Semitism and Bakunin’s ‘proto-nazi conspiracy theories’ [iv]. Within this piece he resorts to a pseudo scientific explanation suggesting that Proudhon, Kropotkin and Bakunin betray a 'congenital weakness within the anarchist creed' by linking them to 'forms and practices' that bolstered the nation state. This again fails to take account of over 100 years of developments in anarchism, the rise of anarcho-syndicalism and its part in the Spanish Civil War plus the trajectories of anarchism in Britain through a variety of groups ranging from Class War and Direct Action Movement through to the Anarchist Workers Group amongst many others. Home’s attention to minutiae distorts his ability to see difference and change within political movements that are operating in very different circumstances to the anarchists of the 1800s and the position of anarchists in revolutionary Russia. Home seems obsessed with a continuing identification of the stable subjectivities of those he criticises that are patently unsustainable even for him. To use his own pejorative term he has himself been an 'obsessive fanboy' of the works of Douglas P, Tony Wakeford and others in this scene. He idolised their work when Wakeford was a member of a fascist organisation (mid eighties when he still liked DIJ) and he has now become their most obsessive critic and stalker at a time when Wakeford has publicly disowned his fascist past. In fact, the more he harks on about this issue the more he holds up a distorted mirror to his own contradictions and hypocrisies.
It’s interesting to speculate why he should feel the need to exhume this issue (which has its roots in an obscure personal vendetta) at this time. Could it perhaps be that he wants to reassure his new fans in the mainstream media that he really is more ‘accessible’ and less tainted by now embarrassing sub-cultural connections? Curators and literary types seem quite susceptible to his shtick but it’s probably safer to distract them from some of the more interesting aspects of his past: they don’t like it too transgressive!
[i] http://www.charlottecooper.net/docs/archive/stewartmum.htm
[ii] http://www.principiadialectica.co.uk/blog/?p=88
[iii] http://www.eveningoflight.nl/en/interviews.htm
[iv] http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/ai.htm
Monday, April 07, 2008
I.C.R.N. Newsflash: Gerechtigkeits Liga play Wave Gotik
Please check for updates on the time and venue on the WGT website. This is a rare live appearance for GL and coincides with the imminent release of their retrospective double LP and DVD set on Vinyl on Demand.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
From Crisis to Death in June
From Crisis to Death in June
We present an extract from I.C.R.N. member Peter Webb’s new book, `Exploring the Networked Worlds of Popular Music: Milieu Cultures’.
This section is taken from Chapter Four of the book: Neo-folk or Post-industrial music: The development of an esoteric music milieu and addresses directly the ideological controversies surrounding DIJ.
The full chapter contents are:
1 - Influences, musical milieu, musical lifeworld,
frameworks.
2 - Death In June and the developing esoteric music milieu of the 1980s
underground.
3 - From political crisis to the creativity of the `petit mort' of
punk.
4 - From Crisis to Death In June.
5 - Paganism, Heathenism and the spiritual element.
6 - Politics, philosophy and ambiguity.
7 - Conclusion.
(http://www.deathinjune.org/modules/mediawiki/index.php/Interview:
The main symbols used by the band to identify them and their releases is a modified Death’s Head or Totenkopf which was used by the Prussian army under
Take a walk down
The soil is soft and the air smells sweet
Paul is waiting there
And so is Franz
Now only memories run on railway tracks.
This road leads to Heaven.
Waiting feet frozen to the ground
The earth exploding with the gas of bodies
Rifle butts
To crush you down
Now only flowers
To idolize.
This road leads to Heaven
(Taken from the DIJ website – www.deathinjune.net )
The material refers to the period of history that would dominate many discussions of the group who deliberately were ambiguous about any political meaning that they may be conveying. The rise of Nazi Germany and the period of the Second World War was one that was pertinent to all three members of the group.
The connection with World war 2 was a very real thing for me since my father fought through from Dunkirk onwards and beyond and so stories around the Sunday roast from my father , uncles and others infused a memory that very much connected me to a romantic but realistic awareness about that time. Wearing a German helmet and playing with old
Sometime late in 1979 I'd seen a documentary on television about a woman who had survived the war by working in the Kanada Kommando of one of the death camps. As you probably know, this was the work detachment of inmates that basically cleaned everything up in the camps from the latrines to the corpses and was so-called because it was like a 'holiday' in Canada in comparison to whatever else was going on in these places. Why
On the strength of the documentary I was moved to write the song 'Kanada Kommando' which was the last song I wrote for Crisis and was released on the 'Hymns of Faith' album in early 1980. Shortly after, the group split and Tony Wakeford and myself agreed that we should take a few months off from music, etc and reconvene down the track to see how we could carry on with something different - whatever that would be.
I was working as I petrol pump attendant in this period and during times when no customers would come in I read books. One of these was obviously 'Into That Darkness' which I had found in the local library. I began to write lyrics inspired by this book on FINA note paper, which I still have, and very soon I had the basics of what was to become the very first song I wrote for the still unformed Death In June, 'Heaven Street'.
In the late Summer/early Autumn of 1980 I took my first, of what was to be many, visits to
Whilst visiting a toilet in one of the wineries a local man stood next to me and started humming and whistling. He eventually turned to me and said something along the lines of "We Austrians love music!" When I left the winery shortly after on the opposite side of the road was the street sign reading; Himmelstrasse (
Eventually, when the first rehearsals and then recordings and then performances took place of Death In June I noticed that "Paul is waiting there and so is Franz" sounded very similar to "
The lyrics to the original 'She Said Destroy' were written entirely by David Tibet in 1983 and he claimed he based the title around the French novel 'Destroy, She Said' but obviously tipped his hat in the direction of 'Heaven Street' and its influence in the rest of his text. (Email 16.04.07)
Douglas describes the taking of pieces of information and emotive material from a number of sources here to produce a lyric and piece of music that reflects his reading of the documentary and the book `Into that Darkness’ and some of his experiences whilst traveling and reflecting on the material. He is also developing his own understanding and poetic take on the events that he is referencing. This method of creating lyrics and music and juxtaposing different elements is like a more structured version of William Burroughs and Brian Gysin’s cut up method (Calder, J. 1982). It is also located in a particular time period where, as we have seen, the shadow and effect of World War Two was still being directly felt by the group of young people of
The title of the book; `Into that Darkness’ would appear as another Death in June lyric on the track `She Said Destroy’ which became the third single and marked the groups move towards the use of more acoustic guitar work than the more heavy drum, bass, electric guitar and militaristic trumpet of the early recordings. This approach was coupled with tracks such as `C’est un Reve’ (It’s a dream) which would appear on the bands second LP `NADA!’ and contained the lyrics:
Ou est Klaus Barbie
Ou est Klaus Barbie
Il est dans le coeur
Il est dans le coeur noir
Liberte
C'est un reve
(Taken from the DIJ website – www.deathinjune.net )
The lyrics here suggest that we will find Klaus Barbie (Chief of the Gestapo in Lyon, France 1942-1944, responsible for many deportations of Jews to the concentration camps) in the dark heart and that
….i would like to submit some ideas to you. I wouldn't want to stress these questions (that you certainly used to hear all the time, often asked in a tendentious manner) but I feel the paramilitary image as a symbolic warning against all the things the uniform represents. The provocation is a way to incite reflection, not remaining passive, not being easily influenced or manipulated, with a personal and omnipresent rigor and will. But, on the other side, and don't think that there's a mental reservation; the fact that you are homosexual could make the uniform a simple fetish object, indeed sexual (as I’ve read in an interview in '84).
(http://www.deathinjune.org/modules/mediawiki/index.php/Interview:
In response to this
Except for the idea that anything to do with DEATH IN JUNE is "fun" then I can't disagree with the other theories you forward. There is more, much more but, I draw the line at "explaining the line of DIJ". This is because I find that demeaning. Those who understand do and those who don’t won't! Life is too short to spend too much time talking, until you are blue in the face. The time for pontification and overindulgence in analysis are over. Actions speak louder than words! Time is running out like water from a sink.
(http://www.deathinjune.org/modules/mediawiki/index.php/Interview:
The milieu of Industrial music culture, punk and post-punk contained many contradictions, philosophical and political discussions, use of imagery and aesthetics as provocation and stimulation or questioning, and the exploration of many positions of different politics, ideologies, spiritualities and esoteric matter. Throbbing Gristle, pioneers of British avant-garde industrial music had used a lightening flash insignia which had been used by many different militaries across the world but because a variation of it had been used by the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s questions were raised in the press about Throbbing Gristles politics. The band themselves adapted it from their look at military insignia and David Bowies flash make-up used during his Ziggy Stardust period (Ford, S, 1999). Joy Division, the post punk band who had taken their name from the concentration camp inmates who were used as prostitutes for the guards of the camps, were also accused of fascist sympathies simply on the strength of their name and the groups on stage 1930s look of trousers, shirts and ties. Theatre of Hate became Spear of Destiny in 1983 also were accused of flirting with fascist imagery because of the myths surrounding the Spear of Destiny and the Nazi regime in
Peter Webb’s, `Exploring the Networked Worlds of Popular Music: Milieu Cultures’, is published by Routledge. ISBN 0-415-95658-7. For further details see:
http://www.routledge.com/books/Exploring-the-Networked-Worlds-of-Popular-Music-isbn
9780415956581 It is available from:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/103-0336907-7782207?url=search-alias%3Daps
&field-keywords=exploring+the+networked+worlds+of+popular+music&x=0&y=