black people and punk rock

Lester Bangs on punk racism: http://www.mariabuszek.com/kcai/PoMoSeminar/Readings/BangsWhite.pdf

Thanks, haven't read that for a while. It's odd, but what stuck with me over the years was the musicological aside, maybe because it seemed true but felt false, and my head took a while to catch up with my viscera. I now see it takes a peculiar filter to hear the Ramones doing girl-group as whiter than the Stones doing blues, or to equate macho with blackness. It's what I'd argue about with Bangs if he were still around, but I bet he'd have already argued himself out of this by now, in public and in print.

I need to re-read it myself, it's been a few years since I have. It just popped into my head when I saw this thread.

did any ilxors go to the Afropunk fest in NYC?

I always feel a little sorry for Miriam Linna whenever that Bangs article gets pulled up - I have to think she was just trying on some shocking "punk" shit at the moments he caught her in, she strikes me as a better sort than that in the long run

god, that lb piece is fantastic

oh yeah! The part about James Chance really stuck with me because of how much he appropriated/played with a lot of music by black musicians. There's a really interesting live(?) version of "Almost Black" that I keep hoping gets discussed here or somewhere.

I always feel a little sorry for Miriam Linna whenever that Bangs article gets pulled up - I have to think she was just trying on some shocking "punk" shit at the moments he caught her in, she strikes me as a better sort than that in the long run

You misunderstand the nature of the beast

I don't think so - I think Bangs was absolutely right to slam her in the piece. But I still think she was being a stupid kid and has done much to live it down.

According to a mutual friend, Bangs later came to regret that piece, calling it the worst thing he ever wrote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam_Linna#Allegation_of_Racism

not sure an appreciation of Andre Williams and Rudy Ray Moore would preclude questionable attitudes to race tbh

(that's a more general observation, I don't know much about Miriam Linna)

I dunno - yeah maybe Andre Williams and Rudy Ray aren't the poster boys for positive African-American role models or whatever but they're still pretty brilliant dudes and Linna and Norton Records just as obsessed with white weirdo reprobates like Hasil Adkins and Charlie Feathers etc. But yeah - sure there's maybe "questionable attitudes to race" at play among tons of big R&B fans...

beyond that I still think her Ramones "wonderful and white" quote and posing in front of the United White People's Party in a fanzine called "New Order" made her fair game for Bangs, but he could have given her a chance to respond - like he did with Legs Holstrom and others.

If Linna posed with the UWPP for shits and giggles isn't that an exact example of the "ironic racism" Bangs was addressing?

"No way in hell is Miriam any sort of racist and Lester knew it ... Lester later confessed to me that he thought it was the worst article he ever wrote and regretted the whole thing, but since the piece not only ran on the cover of the Voice (which everyone read back then), it was reprinted in Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung and Miriam's had to live with this accusation for all these years."

isn't this just that thing white people flip out over where someone points out that something they did, like for example treat white supremacy and nazism as recreational transgression, was dumb and unhelpful, and they think they're being accused of being rotten and evil in their secret heart and they're like no no no no no no no it was a goof! what matters isn't what i actually put into the world; it's how i feel about myself.

anyway if someone doesn't want to live for all these years under the accusation of having once posed in front of the headquarters of the united white people's party, i have a suggestion.

like even the word "accusation" there is p revealing imo. bangs doesn't accuse linna of "being a racist", whatever that means. he describes a photograph she's in and calls it an "affectation of kneejerk cretinism" and says that such affectations are frequent in the punk community and that this is not a good thing. guy who wrote that blog post reads this as an Accusation Of Racism and the klaxons start.

Reverend and dlh OTM.

Like, Bangs seemed very aware of the ironic/'goof' intent there:

I remember the guy in the American Nazi Party being asked, "What about the six million?" in PBS's California Reich, and answering "Well, the way I heard it it was only really four-and-a-half million, but I wish it was six," and I imagine you'd find that pretty hilarious too. I probably would have at one time. If that makes me a wimp now, good, that means you and anybody else who wants to get their random vicarious kicks off White Power can stay the fuck away from me.

And earlier:

But there's a difference between hate and a little of the old epater gob at authority: swastikas in punk are basically another way for kids to get a rise out of their parents and maybe the press, both of whom deserve the irritation. To the extent that most of these spikedomes ever had a clue on what that stuff originally meant, it only went so far as their intent to shock. "It's like a stance," as Ivan says. "A real immature way of being dangerous."

Maybe. Except that after a while this casual, even ironic embrace of the totems of bigotry crosses over into the real poison...

I was actually rather proud of myself for writing things like (in an article on David Bowie's "soul" phase): "Now, as we all know, white hippies and beatniks before them would never have existed had there not been a whole generational subculture
with a gnawing yearning to be nothing less than the downest baddest niggers. . . . Everybody has been walking around for the last year or so acting like faggots ruled the world, when in actuality it's the niggers who control and direct everything just as it always has been and properly should be."

I figured all this was in the Lenny Bruce spirit of let's-defuse-them-epithets-by- slinging-'em-out in Detroit I thought absolutely nothing of going to parties with people like David Ruffin and Bobby Womack where I'd get drunk, maul the women, and improvise blues songs along the lines of "Sho' wish ah wuz a nigger / Then mah dick'd be bigger," and of course they all laughed. It took years before I realized what an asshole I'd been, not to mention how lucky I was to get out of there with my white hide intact...

Another reason for getting rid of all those little verbal barbs is that no matter how you intend them, you can't say them without risking misinterpretation by some other bigoted asshole; your irony just might be his cup of hate.

(following the "affectations of kneejerk cretinism" line that dlh quoted)

"If Linna posed with the UWPP for shits and giggles isn't that an exact example of the "ironic racism" Bangs was addressing?"

yeah - that's what I said:
I think Bangs was absolutely right to slam her in the piece.

"I still think her Ramones "wonderful and white" quote and posing in front of the United White People's Party in a fanzine called "New Order" made her fair game for Bangs"

I just feel shitty for her whenever I read the Bangs piece.

she's really not who you should feel shitty about whenever you read the Bangs piece.

OK - sure - I'm not saying anyone else has to feel shitty for her or that "poor Miriam Linna" is the message of Bangs' piece.

I'm not going to argue about it - but I don't think it's unreasonable to feel some empathy for someone who did some dumb shit in their 20's almost 40 years ago. If people don't feel the same way, that's fine.

yes, i feel empathy for everyone on this planet. Sorry that some white person who did some dumb shit in her 20s still gets shit. I would argue it's not worth mentionng, considering how many non-whites are treated like subhumans by others from the day they are born.

sorry for being so racist about what I feel shitty about, brimstead

i just feel bad because Miriam is actually such a wonderful person and huge supporter of MUSIC, across color boundaries.

In other news, racist punk rocker publishes book of Sun Ra's poetry, plays drums for Andre Williams etc. Sure she may have been willfully "provocative" as a young person, but so were a lot of other people who weren't labelled racists by the "history books."

What I, and I think dlh and Rev, were responding to was the Wiki (reprinted below), not what you said, brio. LB was targeting wilful provocativeness, including his own. But, yeah, I do get how it could be seen as unfortunate that her name was printed in a famous article about this while the dumb shit I did when I was 20 will mostly be forgotten (unless I posted it on ILX):

Lester Bangs's 1979 Village Voice article "The White Noise Supremacists," a consideration of racist attitudes held by some participants in the mid-1970s New York punk rock scene, contains quotes from an article in praise of the Ramones Linna contributed to a Florida-based fanzine entitled "New Order." Bangs cites Linna's thoughts ("I love the Ramones [because] this is the celebration of everything American — everything teenaged and wonderful and white and urban") and the article's illustration — a photograph of Linna appearing with "a pistol in front of the headquarters of the United White People's Party, under a sign bearing three flags: 'GOD' (cross), 'COUNTRY' (stars and stripes), 'RACE' (swastika)" — as evidence that at least some in the scene around CBGB held overt and unchallenged racist and white-supremacist attitudes. However, Bangs' and Linna's mutual friend James Marshall refutes this accusation:
"It was obvious the photo was a goof, like trying to get close enough to a bear without getting bit by it. In reality, Lester was pissed at Miriam because Kicks mag (which she and Billy edited, still the greatest fanzine of all time) had rejected an article he wrote about No Wave. No way in hell is Miriam any sort of racist and Lester knew it (if you don't believe me ask Andre Williams, Rudy Ray Moore, the Mighty Hannibal, or any of the other black artists she's helped over the years). Lester later confessed to me that he thought it was the worst article he ever wrote and regretted the whole thing, but since the piece not only ran on the cover of the Voice (which everyone read back then), it was reprinted in Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung and Miriam's had to live with this accusation for all these years." [2]

as I say I don't know a great deal about Miriam but Norton seems like an uncomplicatedly respected record label and not one that people think "ok, but ran by a racist" when/if they have call to consider it. to that end I suspect she emerged from the 70s withenough dignity to carry her through to whatever she's doing now

Yes, I was addressing that portion of the wiki article, not anything anyone had said itt, but thanks for acting an ass.

"According to a mutual friend, Bangs later came to regret that piece, calling it the worst thing he ever wrote."

i don't like it all either. it bugs me.

why

sorry that a white person has to feel uncomfortable for something she said as opposed to a non-white person having to feel uncomfortable for their entire lives, brio.

Doubt he regretted it, it's one of the most incisive things he ever wrote.

And no one's said they feel bad for Ivan Julian and all the shit Bangs says he put up with.

i was arguing w the guy in the wiki yeah, because i read his whole blog post for some reason. there were some funny stories.

i regret posting on this thread, yall are welcome

you shouldn't

i also wanna know why it bugs scott tho; it read pretty intensely smart to me but i don't know much about the scene. i mean i guess that bobby womack paragraph is kind of a weird horrifying humblebrag.

I seem to recall DeRogatis taking (and encouraging) a dismissive attitude towards this piece in his Bangs bio. It basically boiled down to, "Come on, man, don't get all political and shit."

I think it's a great, and absolutely necessary, piece.

Brimstead, relax. I just made an off-hand comment about Miriam Linna because she runs a cool label and seems like a nice older rock n roll person now so I imagine it would suck to have flirted with some stupid racist shit that ended up in a famous piece of rock journalism... But who knows - maybe being called out on that shit was the best thing that ever happened to her in the long run. I really have no idea.

Because I mentioned one detail from Bangs' article, it doesn't mean I think it's the most important thing about it.

It would be crazy to argue she has it worse than people who have to face real racism as part of their daily lives. Nobody's saying that.

Like I said, I don't really think it's worth arguing about.

Rev - sorry if you thought I was being an ass - I thought you and sund4r and DLH made perfect sense.

Brimstead, relax.

Brimstead, relax. *

Brimstead, relax. #

Brimstead, relax.%

i have nothing to lose, shut the fuck up.

woah - hey look i clearly pushed your buttons in a way i didn't intend, sorry about that

leaving it at that

woah

let's all just sit down and enjoy some cookies, okay?

y'all

Do you get it now?

Doubt he regretted it, it's one of the most incisive things he ever wrote.

I'm really sceptical about this too. I'm sure not taking James Marshall's word for it.

I can only guess he regretted it because he named names.

He only called out people by name for things they had actually already done on stage or in print, i.e. in the public eye, right? I didn't think Miriam Linna was made to look worse than Iggy Pop or Ron Asheton, btw.

I don't even mean the 'calling out', I mean the conversations where the guy stopped him to say "hell yeah, I remember" sort of thing. Private conversations.

Of course, that's what Lester did, so if you knew him and had a converation about something, there's always a possibility that it will form part of his writing, like any writer might do so. It still might have annoyed a friend, though.

Doubt he regretted it, it's one of the most incisive things he ever wrote.

I think it's a great, and absolutely necessary, piece.

I went to Afro-Punk last Saturday. Saw Theophilus London and Big Freedia, but missed the little kids that play mean-sounding metal…

for some context: James marshall is a former WFMU dj known as the Hound who saw the Stooges as a teenager, and then became a CBGB's-era scenester, befriending all the notables of the time/place, including Dee Dee, Handsome Dick and Lester Bangs. He is married to Gillian McCain, authoress of of Please Kill Me, and was the proprietor of the Lakeside Lounge.

He is also a big pal, as noted, of Miriam Linna and Billy Miller, who had led their own band A-Bones for many years. I think it is worth noting here that its very very clear to me, based on personal and anecdotal experience with those folks and them who are in their orbit, that their crowd's view of african-american contribution to 20th century culture fixates on a notion of primitivism that seems condescending.

To be fair, that condescension extends to hillbilly singers like hasil Adkins, and also there's a sense that music/rock and roll has been on a downward slide since 1963, and rock and roll as the Sonics done it should be preserved in amber: this is the A-Bones rationale. Every musical occurrence since is at the very least suspect, but mostly —other than the CB's era— worthless. Any band in the Norton orbit has to adhere to the garage/rockabilly/early R&B template. This is conservatism in practice. (I'll add that Ira Kaplan is buddies with them, and he gets a pass because he knows all the obscure singles they revere, and he's been around for as long as they have, etc)…

But without going into details, there is similarly a sense in this crowd that dignity and pride in african-american artistic milieu is…I guess almost pretentious? It's as if the early punk rock they were immersed in, like the Cramps and the Ramones, were an argument against almost everything that happened after the Beatles, not only the Eagles and Reo Speedwagon, but Stevie Wonder and marvin Gaye.

It's like "y'know, when black people and rednecks drank moonshine and ate chicken backs, and this bluesman beat up this woman (he couldn't read, you know) …GAWD…that's when rock and roll was ROCK AND ROLL." There is something indeed racist about this attitude: "NO, you can't call me racist, because I venerate these noble savage type black people, and if I don't like any iteration of african american culture in the past 40 years, it's because everything since 1963/1977 is soulless, corporate crap, or pretentious twaddle, and Lloyd Price and Geno Washington got it right."

from the pov of a quote-unquote consumer I don't really have a problem w/ record labels that have a very narrow or defined focus - I think it helps them keep their eye on the ball so to speak. if, rather than a record label, they were a friend who kept rabbiting their musical philosophy or w/e in my ear, I would probably find it pretty annoying

There is something indeed racist about this attitude: "NO, you can't call me racist, because I venerate these noble savage type black people, and if I don't like any iteration of african american culture in the past 40 years, it's because everything since 1963/1977 is soulless, corporate crap, or pretentious twaddle, and Lloyd Price and Geno Washington got it right."

Yeah, but as you say yourself, they feel the exact same way about "white" culture as they do about "black" culture. I don't know any of these people, but I've attended my share of A-Bones shows, and used to fucking love The Hound's show on WFMU. And frankly, there are plenty of days where I'm willing to side with them on the idea that real rock 'n' roll has been dead for 50 years and the Beatles ruined everything.

In other words, disdaining disco doesn't make you a Klansman.

when hating disco is racist
only the racists will hate disco

Veronica raises a lot of good points - it's complicated stuff and sometimes ugly. I would also say it's part of a larger continuum of how privileged people feel about race & class & music today, and there's some similar dynamics around what sometimes gets celebrated in hip hop today, by Black and white artists. I can see an argument for Riff Raff as something of a modern Hasil Adkins. Not saying this stuff applies across-the-board, just that primitivism and exoticism and racism masked as veneration aren't limited to the Nortons of the world.

veronica & brio both otm. do wanna caution against tarring all crypt/norton-style veneration of "RAW! WILD! PRIMITIVE!" r&r/r&b as essentially racist. in most every musical niche there will be a few who dedicate themselves the genre's most unhinged expressions. i mean, i'm not gonna cast aspersions on mick collins or his audience just because he pursues a rather trashy and (arguably) conservative vision of rock n roll. partly that's cuz i'm a member of said audience, but still...

mick collins recording house music (both as a house artist and w/ the dirtboms) and bubblegum concept albums etc also points to the fact that a lot of people perceived as purists are also into and open to much more

yeah, otoh and in defense of veronica's points, i've been creeped out by the racial dynamics/implications of blowfly and andre williams shows

and on the other hand, they both obviously deserve whatever support (and $$$) they can get. like brio says, it's complicated.

some people just like some sounds

blowfly is funny

true

yeah, always found Mick Collins interesting from a remove in that I'm not in detroit, vs. the direct contact I've had with the people I mentioned above from 25 years in NYC. and yeah, I continue to listen to Blowfly, and his shit never fails to amuse the fuck out of me. But Blowfly is a figure that at least one of the people I mentioned above talked about in a condescending manner.

I listen to contemporary R&B radio all day long, and I suppose the fact that I never ever get tired of songs about strippers, going to the club, female singers singing from perspective of being strippers or aspiring to stripper-hood, the financial transactions that result in strippers doing certain thangs on the pole, smoking kush and drinking and fucking is but a more recent iteration of "ooooh look how REAL and unhinged black people are vis-a-vis my own privileged existence" mentioned above.

but to me, doing things that are, y'know, fun and bad and irresponsible is the subject matter that makes the ongoing 20th century american music experiment variously called "rock and roll" what it is. Indie rock often seems as polite, collegiate and responsible as Pete Seeger or Peter paul and mary. Like whether music is made with guitar or drums or in an archaic style is irrelevant. And the fact that a song involving the Future or Sevyn streeter or Juicy J about misbehavior is being created with the present in mind, not 1955-1975, couldn't seem more relevant.

PS: there is a sense that current R&B is redolent of 1975, in that coincidentally it sounds like Eno's shit 1973-1978, except with singers who learned how to sing in the black church.

I don't sniff glue anymore, but I still miss it, and don't mind reminiscing about those days and the kind of kids like me that used to do it.

Indie rock often seems as polite, collegiate and responsible as Pete Seeger

He was called before HUAC, told them to fuck off, and got blacklisted (among other things). Not exactly what I'd call "polite."

(But in terms of surface musical stylings, sure.)

Seriously, don't be dissing Pete Seeger!