Trevor Lunch
Active member
When did Whitehouse ever do White Power material? That never happened at all mate.
Whitehouse
- Thread starter labrat
- Start date
haven't heard the whole album but all the youtubes i've seen are interesting.
true it feels more clinical than wild...
but a bit less polite than say, what Jaki Liebezeit is doing with Burnt Friedman - saw them recently, Jaki's drumming increasingly more Afro sounding, and together with Friedman's pensive melancholic tones it was lovely... but of course very polite. no rough edges.
Cut Hands playing in Berlin soon, might try to go see it.
true it feels more clinical than wild...
but a bit less polite than say, what Jaki Liebezeit is doing with Burnt Friedman - saw them recently, Jaki's drumming increasingly more Afro sounding, and together with Friedman's pensive melancholic tones it was lovely... but of course very polite. no rough edges.
Cut Hands playing in Berlin soon, might try to go see it.
Martin D
Well-known member
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
john eden
male pale and stale
The full text of that Bennett "negroid" quote:
“It should be noted before continuing this article that in this work I turn not to strangers, but to those followers of the movement whose hearts belong to it and who wish to further its cause and study it more deeply. Less people are won ever by written matter than by what they see or hear. However, this will serve as a foundation and reference for new disciples.
Come Organisation is concerned with the struggle against the unhealthy negroid influences in all popular music today. These primitive forms have corrupted many generations of youth, in music and in word. The slogans of ‘peace and love’ and international friendship in the songs of the 60s and the 70′s are nothing but the disguised voice of pseudo-Marxists. the cancer of this type of music has made such inroads that it sill take a supreme effort to destroy it forever.
Nevertheless, its destruction is not enough – it must be replaced. In classical music we have the great works of Wagner and Richard Strauss, but nothing for young people who like ‘Pop’ and ‘Rock’. No! – The future must be embraced with both arms and a new form of power will be created which will win over the Anglo-Saxon youth for a New Britain.
We must blame the corruption of the negroid music and the Jewish exploitation for the reprehensible movements today like Anti-nuclear, Amnesty International, and feminist groups, to name a few.
The countries with strongest right-wing and nationalist forces in Europe are those countries where ‘Rock’ has made the least impression, I am thinking of Spain and Italy now, but there are other notable examples of the phenomenon. The political climate of young people today is moving away from us ; I hold the ‘Rock’ culture to blame.
The music of Come Organisation artists fulfills a twin purpose – firstly, to crush the disease we have discussed and secondly, to express the new movement in terms of power and strength of will. It is almost totally electronic in nature, extremely uncompromising and sometimes violent in expression. But brutality is respected. People need something that will give them a thrill of attack and make them shudderingly submissive. Why babble about brutality and get indignant about violence?
A recent released record ‘Leibstandarte SS MB’ ‘Triumph of the will’ juxtaposes a speech by Adolf Hitler with a powerful electronic piece by Maurizio Bianchi from Italy. This record has proved to be very popular especially in Britain and Germany. Other records will be released along similar lines.
If we have the will, we will have the victories.”
Page 9 Issue 1 of ‘Force Mental’ (1982)
Bennett subsequently said that the text was a parody and that he had also submitted a liberterian text and a left wing one, iirc. But only the fascist one got published, and indeed the magazine's editors denied receiving the other two texts.
(I've not seen the original magazine, this was posted as part of a comment on my blog a while back).
Obviously this was some time ago...
“It should be noted before continuing this article that in this work I turn not to strangers, but to those followers of the movement whose hearts belong to it and who wish to further its cause and study it more deeply. Less people are won ever by written matter than by what they see or hear. However, this will serve as a foundation and reference for new disciples.
Come Organisation is concerned with the struggle against the unhealthy negroid influences in all popular music today. These primitive forms have corrupted many generations of youth, in music and in word. The slogans of ‘peace and love’ and international friendship in the songs of the 60s and the 70′s are nothing but the disguised voice of pseudo-Marxists. the cancer of this type of music has made such inroads that it sill take a supreme effort to destroy it forever.
Nevertheless, its destruction is not enough – it must be replaced. In classical music we have the great works of Wagner and Richard Strauss, but nothing for young people who like ‘Pop’ and ‘Rock’. No! – The future must be embraced with both arms and a new form of power will be created which will win over the Anglo-Saxon youth for a New Britain.
We must blame the corruption of the negroid music and the Jewish exploitation for the reprehensible movements today like Anti-nuclear, Amnesty International, and feminist groups, to name a few.
The countries with strongest right-wing and nationalist forces in Europe are those countries where ‘Rock’ has made the least impression, I am thinking of Spain and Italy now, but there are other notable examples of the phenomenon. The political climate of young people today is moving away from us ; I hold the ‘Rock’ culture to blame.
The music of Come Organisation artists fulfills a twin purpose – firstly, to crush the disease we have discussed and secondly, to express the new movement in terms of power and strength of will. It is almost totally electronic in nature, extremely uncompromising and sometimes violent in expression. But brutality is respected. People need something that will give them a thrill of attack and make them shudderingly submissive. Why babble about brutality and get indignant about violence?
A recent released record ‘Leibstandarte SS MB’ ‘Triumph of the will’ juxtaposes a speech by Adolf Hitler with a powerful electronic piece by Maurizio Bianchi from Italy. This record has proved to be very popular especially in Britain and Germany. Other records will be released along similar lines.
If we have the will, we will have the victories.”
Page 9 Issue 1 of ‘Force Mental’ (1982)
Bennett subsequently said that the text was a parody and that he had also submitted a liberterian text and a left wing one, iirc. But only the fascist one got published, and indeed the magazine's editors denied receiving the other two texts.
(I've not seen the original magazine, this was posted as part of a comment on my blog a while back).
Obviously this was some time ago...
john eden
male pale and stale
Gary from Ramleh has been a lot more forthcoming about his use of imagery in the eighties than Bennett has:
“There was no right-wing viewpoint to any of the stuff – we made an error in judgment in testing out the bounds of offensiveness.” (interview in Grim Humour)
“The lyrics I write tend to come from a more miserable, sad place, I think. It’s not particularly violent. Although it’s noisy, it’s not a real in-your-face attacking kind of thing. [...] Someone once said – and I hadn’t really thought about it before – that our music is more from the viewpoint of the victim, rather than the aggressor.” (interview in Niche Homo)
“My personal outlook at the time was a kind of weird amalgam of anarchism, libertarianism and a warped kind of socialism. I sympathised with some of what was being done at the time but it was all so negative and humourless, and a lot of people involved with these left-wing organisations were such wankers, it was difficult to to want to associate with them.” (interview in As Loud As Possible)
“There was no right-wing viewpoint to any of the stuff – we made an error in judgment in testing out the bounds of offensiveness.” (interview in Grim Humour)
“The lyrics I write tend to come from a more miserable, sad place, I think. It’s not particularly violent. Although it’s noisy, it’s not a real in-your-face attacking kind of thing. [...] Someone once said – and I hadn’t really thought about it before – that our music is more from the viewpoint of the victim, rather than the aggressor.” (interview in Niche Homo)
“My personal outlook at the time was a kind of weird amalgam of anarchism, libertarianism and a warped kind of socialism. I sympathised with some of what was being done at the time but it was all so negative and humourless, and a lot of people involved with these left-wing organisations were such wankers, it was difficult to to want to associate with them.” (interview in As Loud As Possible)
Martin D
Well-known member
That made me laugh a lot, course he did but he seems to forget people he met at the time and who he hung out with, what a bell end.
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
William comes out (from Facebook) :
Sadly, there's someone unknown out there using anonymous scare tactics to try and get my shows cancelled, typically with threats made to arts venues that attempts will be made to cut off their funding, which seems to me especially cowardly. They are also trolling YouTube, Wikipedia, Fact Magazine, and other sites posting nasty comments. This is all done under the accusation that I have been a covert 'nazi/fascist' for the last 30 years and that Cut Hands etc is some kind of elaborate cover up for that.
I am not, never have been, nor ever will be, a nazi/fascist/racist.
I think and hope that would be without question obvious to most people that know me even just a little bit.
The evidence for the accusation seems to be based on an entirely satirical text I wrote around 1982 for an art magazine, Force Mental. It was written deliberately in a particular linguistic style because their requested theme of that particular issue of the art magazine was 'the New Right'. I had an interest at the time in the stylistic idiom of different political persuasions. It was not supposed to be taken seriously, and looking back, it was stupid of me to think that it wouldn't when taken out of context. My bad.
Likewise, the very name of the music group, Whitehouse, was not coined out of any admiration or respect to nasty moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse, it was also ironic and satirical, as was a hell of a lot of my musical output in the early 80s, in addition to the content in the label fanzine Kata. Like many other industrial and experimental projects of the time, a lot of wildly varying areas of human transgression were explored, there was much artistic immersion in taboo areas of human expression.
Not that I wish to emphasise great weight to my personal beliefs any more than the next person's, but just to clarify matters, these are a few examples of where I've stood and continue to stand since very young, even when they caused me trouble.
I am entirely non-religious.
I am anti-war, anti-military.
I am anti-capital punishment.
I am anti-corporal punishment.
I am anti-racism/xenophobia.
I am anti-nationalist/anti-colonialist.
I am pro-internationalist.
I am pro-animal rights/welfare.
I am pro-gay/lesbian.
I am pro-choice (re. abortion).
I am anti-censorship, pro-freedom of artistic expression.
If you feel you can help in any way, even by just showing support, it'll really mean a lot. Feel free to also ask me any question on anything mentioned, I'll do my best to answer. Huge thanks for reading this.
Warm regards, William
Sadly, there's someone unknown out there using anonymous scare tactics to try and get my shows cancelled, typically with threats made to arts venues that attempts will be made to cut off their funding, which seems to me especially cowardly. They are also trolling YouTube, Wikipedia, Fact Magazine, and other sites posting nasty comments. This is all done under the accusation that I have been a covert 'nazi/fascist' for the last 30 years and that Cut Hands etc is some kind of elaborate cover up for that.
I am not, never have been, nor ever will be, a nazi/fascist/racist.
I think and hope that would be without question obvious to most people that know me even just a little bit.
The evidence for the accusation seems to be based on an entirely satirical text I wrote around 1982 for an art magazine, Force Mental. It was written deliberately in a particular linguistic style because their requested theme of that particular issue of the art magazine was 'the New Right'. I had an interest at the time in the stylistic idiom of different political persuasions. It was not supposed to be taken seriously, and looking back, it was stupid of me to think that it wouldn't when taken out of context. My bad.
Likewise, the very name of the music group, Whitehouse, was not coined out of any admiration or respect to nasty moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse, it was also ironic and satirical, as was a hell of a lot of my musical output in the early 80s, in addition to the content in the label fanzine Kata. Like many other industrial and experimental projects of the time, a lot of wildly varying areas of human transgression were explored, there was much artistic immersion in taboo areas of human expression.
Not that I wish to emphasise great weight to my personal beliefs any more than the next person's, but just to clarify matters, these are a few examples of where I've stood and continue to stand since very young, even when they caused me trouble.
I am entirely non-religious.
I am anti-war, anti-military.
I am anti-capital punishment.
I am anti-corporal punishment.
I am anti-racism/xenophobia.
I am anti-nationalist/anti-colonialist.
I am pro-internationalist.
I am pro-animal rights/welfare.
I am pro-gay/lesbian.
I am pro-choice (re. abortion).
I am anti-censorship, pro-freedom of artistic expression.
If you feel you can help in any way, even by just showing support, it'll really mean a lot. Feel free to also ask me any question on anything mentioned, I'll do my best to answer. Huge thanks for reading this.
Warm regards, William
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
If he was racist, he'd probably go into industrial folk and be absolutely redundant. Just saying.
It just reminds me about how Steve Albini's assumed to be a racist (not saying he is or isn't) based on lyrics that 9/10 times are fictional characters that are supposed to be very unsympathetic.
It just reminds me about how Steve Albini's assumed to be a racist (not saying he is or isn't) based on lyrics that 9/10 times are fictional characters that are supposed to be very unsympathetic.
Martin D
Well-known member
Why? He's friends with a lot of the neo-folk anyway.
The thing is, this isn't an isolated incident, it went on for years.
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CrowleyHead
Well-known member
I'm aware of that. But if his whole project was a constant attack on conservative England, by the means of constantly parodying their behavior... Forgive me for my bit of Naivete, but it wouldn't ever STOP being a relevant issue for him to pantomime into even now. Though I think he halted that because of people who took him at face value, and then proceeded to both A) Think he justified their own possible feelings of latent racism or B) Think he was someone who had to be stopped.
As to the racism, that stuff always tends to override their musical interests. I mean, I'm a Burzum listener (not so much fan), so watching him commit commercial suicide by abandoning guitars because "It was too tainted by 'negro legacy'." only for him to return once he got out of jail to the guitar in order to make money was pure hijinx.
With Bennett, if he really was racist, then why make music so overtly indebted to non-Caucasian culture/music?
Martin D
Well-known member
Always the case when you choose not to explain things and hang about for three decades with people who love Himmler, think Triumph Of Will is the best film ever and release records by right wing bands. See, the thing is some people may make the odd mistake but racists and nazis tend to keep repeating the same shit and following the same path forever, which is why people struggle with people like Bennett and Wakeford.
There's a lot of people who feel what he's doing now is still racist or at the very least colonial.
john eden
male pale and stale
This is pretty good I think:
Fascism and colonialism in the work of Cut Hands and Blackest Ever Black
http://joshhall.net/post/81578386910/fascism-and-colonialism-in-the-work-of-cut-hands-and
Fascism and colonialism in the work of Cut Hands and Blackest Ever Black
http://joshhall.net/post/81578386910/fascism-and-colonialism-in-the-work-of-cut-hands-and
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
this is nail on the head for me, especially for him but in general for the milieu
"Instead, he skips perilously between two roles: that of the attention-starved teenager desperately trying to get a rise, and that of the carefully considered adult happily reproducing fascist and misogynist iconograph"
I now it's dated particularly badly but I have a hard time believing that the kind of "transgression" Whitehouse and etc power electronics were pushing didn't seem endlessly fucking puerile even 30 years ago. even, or especially, when it's passed off as satire.
the guy's bullshit...I read the interview that was linked from the piece John linked and it's unsurprising his antipathy for "rationality" and corresponding interest in pseudo-scientific irrationality like neurolinguistic programming, hypnotheraphy, EST and so on. one of the defining characteristics of much pioneering late 70s/early 80s industrial is fascination of the anti-rational (magick and rituals and etc esoteric bullshit - I'm sure John knows the details of this far better than I) in fusion, or in tension, with the technological rhythms of rationally-derived modernism from Marinetti and stuff like this all the way down, a tension which gives it, I think, much more power than this childish transgression to draw gasps from bourgeois art audiences. of course Marinetti and certain other futurists were drawn to fascism, and it's not hard to see a reflection in the affinities of certain industrial, p.e., neofolk etc strands with fascism in a tragedy/farce historical recycling. and it's not surprising that Cabaret Voltaire, much more affiliated to surrealism and (of course) Dada than esoteric futurism, comes out significantly better in this department and in its relation to black music.
but really, Bennett - always this two-faced vacillation. like he's actually confronting people's sexism or whatever, but Buchenwald is just a word. he also has a bit in the midst of complaining about rationalization about how Caravaggio didn't have to explain his art in interviews which, while true in the sense he means it, ignores the the fact that artists of his time still had to answer to the Church and/or secular authorities and of course their patrons. artists have never been able to just use loaded symbols at will and go totally unquestioned about it.
anyway, fuck him. it makes perfect sense he has another career doing self-help seminars, which epitomize snake oil hacks pushing pseudo-scientific solutions to the problems modernity imposes on the individual. I think the best thing would be if he'd fuse his italo disco DJ persona with his transgression and Africa ripoffs. like a Cecil Rhodes meets Ernst Rohm meets Moroder kind of thing. but with vodou drums, natch. fasicst colonial tribal cosmic disco. I bet Blackest Ever Black would still put out his records.
"Instead, he skips perilously between two roles: that of the attention-starved teenager desperately trying to get a rise, and that of the carefully considered adult happily reproducing fascist and misogynist iconograph"
I now it's dated particularly badly but I have a hard time believing that the kind of "transgression" Whitehouse and etc power electronics were pushing didn't seem endlessly fucking puerile even 30 years ago. even, or especially, when it's passed off as satire.
the guy's bullshit...I read the interview that was linked from the piece John linked and it's unsurprising his antipathy for "rationality" and corresponding interest in pseudo-scientific irrationality like neurolinguistic programming, hypnotheraphy, EST and so on. one of the defining characteristics of much pioneering late 70s/early 80s industrial is fascination of the anti-rational (magick and rituals and etc esoteric bullshit - I'm sure John knows the details of this far better than I) in fusion, or in tension, with the technological rhythms of rationally-derived modernism from Marinetti and stuff like this all the way down, a tension which gives it, I think, much more power than this childish transgression to draw gasps from bourgeois art audiences. of course Marinetti and certain other futurists were drawn to fascism, and it's not hard to see a reflection in the affinities of certain industrial, p.e., neofolk etc strands with fascism in a tragedy/farce historical recycling. and it's not surprising that Cabaret Voltaire, much more affiliated to surrealism and (of course) Dada than esoteric futurism, comes out significantly better in this department and in its relation to black music.
but really, Bennett - always this two-faced vacillation. like he's actually confronting people's sexism or whatever, but Buchenwald is just a word. he also has a bit in the midst of complaining about rationalization about how Caravaggio didn't have to explain his art in interviews which, while true in the sense he means it, ignores the the fact that artists of his time still had to answer to the Church and/or secular authorities and of course their patrons. artists have never been able to just use loaded symbols at will and go totally unquestioned about it.
anyway, fuck him. it makes perfect sense he has another career doing self-help seminars, which epitomize snake oil hacks pushing pseudo-scientific solutions to the problems modernity imposes on the individual. I think the best thing would be if he'd fuse his italo disco DJ persona with his transgression and Africa ripoffs. like a Cecil Rhodes meets Ernst Rohm meets Moroder kind of thing. but with vodou drums, natch. fasicst colonial tribal cosmic disco. I bet Blackest Ever Black would still put out his records.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
also about piece John linked. I generally agree but, maybe what droid was referring to as OTT, some things - "women can do this. men cannot". and "if we want to create a truly liberatory music". to categorically deny anyone anything is where PC censorship crosses the line for me. if a man uses a misogynist symbol (or a white person a racist symbol, etc) he must be much more ready to explain his intentions with it than a woman would be, but banning people from anything I'm against. and what is this liberatory music? who is it liberating? from what? to what? I just find nebulous shit like that, which rests on an assumed sharing of unstated values, to be ridiculous, like just b/c I agree w/the writer about Bennett we're together in some project to facilitate "liberatory music". but this is a different topic I guess. I just wanted to mention.
also, if it's unclear I'm not postulating above rationality as infallible or even superior, just elucidating some thoughts provoked by Bennett's focused antipathy on rationalization.
also, if it's unclear I'm not postulating above rationality as infallible or even superior, just elucidating some thoughts provoked by Bennett's focused antipathy on rationalization.
Leo
Well-known member
tend to agree, padraig, well said. makes me feel like a bit of a hypocrite, though: if someone else were making the same sort of raw, pummeling percussive tracks, i'd gladly listen to them instead of cut hands. but no one else is.
similar to muslimgauze, bennett is really just a lot of talk and posturing, isn't he? i mean, did either one of them ever actually DO anything subversive/oppressive/dangerous in the real world?
which could lead to the next question: is it ok to listen to/like vybz kartel?
similar to muslimgauze, bennett is really just a lot of talk and posturing, isn't he? i mean, did either one of them ever actually DO anything subversive/oppressive/dangerous in the real world?
which could lead to the next question: is it ok to listen to/like vybz kartel?