Black Metal!

such a great album.

if i ever made a list of my favorite songs this would be in the top 100. actually the intro might take one spot in my top 100 and the song itself would take another spot. when i got this in 1984 i thought i had died and gone to heaven.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxqPfKiUGTg&playnext=1&list=PL266EB88E49CF72AD

scott what age are you?

i'm 42.

this killed me too in 1984! loved it! love the whole EP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OlkY9W92nE

http://opereamipapa.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/42.jpg

now playing!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3a85nIEiMtw/S8zZPqfZGnI/AAAAAAAAAK0/bI--vqBAo1E/s1600/slapshot.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqteDk15Ud8

http://www.metalinjection.net/announcements/black-metal-history-month-metal-injection

understand why US folks might be more OK with weird racist dude from Norway over racist dude from the US South.

It's easier to couch it as (possibly misguided) nationalistic pride that just happens to be about white folks since those countries are traditionally white whereas the USA has always been a melting pot (since we stole it from the Natives, but that's another kettle of wax) so being pro-America doesn't have those racist tendencies... Although sometimes it does - see Tea Partiers, anti-immigration zealots, country music. (Kidding on the last one... kinda.)

Also, race issues are really complex, rarely just (wait for it) black and white (see what I did there?) and there are often regional and cultural subtleties that make it hard for even the locals to understand it all, let alone those from outside the culture. I mean, I lived in the South part of America but I never been to Norway so while I might see things in a Confederate Flag that others don't, I don't know shit about Scandenavian culture and it's presumptuous of me to consider otherwise.

I find it interesting that Arghoslent rarely comes up in conversations. This band is from Virginia, has been around for the better part of two decades and released three albums. The last two - "Incorrigible Bigotry" and "Hornets of the Pogrom" - are actually quite good musically, though the lyrics are filled with racist ideas and the band has never shied away from expressing their views in interviews.

I stocked their albums when I worked at Magnolia Thunderpussy in Ohio. I wrote on the bin card "Warning: Racist redneck fuckheads."

But they are a perfect example of an American racist band, I think much more so than Phil Anselmo, whose entire musical output and the bulk of his views are not inflammatory (maybe dumb, though).

This brings me to another point that I am not sure I shoudl discuss but I will nonetheless because I think it's important:

When I was the buyer at Relapse Records mail order, a bunch of kids involved in some kind of anti-facist group overseas (don't know exact details) saw that we carried some sketchy releases and they bombarded the email boxes of current and past Relapse artists pointing them to the stuff we carried and how they were now associated with that.

This led to complaints from some bands which led to meetings with me about what we could and could not carry. We caved into the pressure. I hated it, because I feel that even idiots should be allowed to speak and I can appreciate the music of Arghoslent while still feeling they are redneck fuckheads and I simply don't like puttiong myself as the arbitrator of morality.

When I was quite frustrated about how we determined what was able to be sold and what was not (Drudkh was perfectly fine to carry but no Hate Forest, even though they shared members), I expressed my frustration to a good friend of mine named Evan, a huge metal fan from Ohio.

Evan, aside from being kvlt and troo, is also a Jew. A practicing one, keeps Kosher and fasts and everything. And I will paraphrase what he said to me, but I think it made a lot of sense:

"I don't understand why in Death Metal and Black Metal saying Christianity is horrible is perfectly acceptable, but say it about Judaism and it's a horrible taboo. I also don't understand why it's perfectly acceptable to be misogynistic and advocate violence towards women for that matter."

I think he makes a point. It seems hypocritical to me that bands as blatant as Deicide and a billion other death metal bands (and certainly a ton of black metal ones too) can blatantly be anti-Christian (and even anti-Muslim is pretty accepted in metal circles) and bands can even take anti-religion stances entirety. But specify Judaism and that changes things?

But that goes into the complex issues on religion which make race relations seem like a kindergarden exam in comparison...

I babbled. I hope some of it makes sense...

jews are a really small minority though in comparison to christians. and there were people who actually tried to exterminate every jew on earth less than a hundred years ago. so, there IS a difference.

its weird, cuz a way to be all white power and not have anyone get upset is just yell about your polish power or irish power or swedish power. same thing really. and nobody would care.

the amount of ACTIVELY ns/racist bands with a high profile or that people would actually here is so very small. isn't it?

I think your friend Evan isn't thinking through the problem very carefully. When Deicide says that Christianity is horrible they are doing so in a culture that is predominately Christian, where their statements are understood to be anarchistic or rebellious and their pose is carefully stylized and cultivated with that in mind. Tho there has been anti-Christian violence due to NSBM (primarily church burnings and other stuff covered in places like Lords of Chaos) there has never been an existential threat linked to a particular ethos (such as National Socialism in the 1940s). Nb I am very interested in nsbm and I don't think there's anything wrong with being curious about it and I'm certainly not trying to condemn it. But I think that Evan's statement is missing a lot of the subtlety. I think that the long history of anti-semitic rhetoric leading to actual severe anti-semtiic violence makes it more dangerous than anti-christian rhetoric which, at least in my eyes, can never be quite as threatening. YMMV, etc. (Kerr asked me to respond so... idk.)

aka what scott said

Do pagans and church of satan people etc get hassle from religious types?

I think there's a lot of truth to what scott and mordy said about why saying being an "anti-christian" band is quite different than an NSBM one due to extreme historical persecution.

but.

I also don't understand why it's perfectly acceptable to be misogynistic and advocate violence towards women for that matter.

this is something I can get behind. another group with no small share of historical persecution and pornogrind bands even get mainstream coverage in mags like decibel.

and arghoslent really are quite good but I paid attention to their lyrics once and it churned my stomach. haven't listened since.

I am half Jewish myself. On mom's side even. German Jew so I know I had relatives who escaped the holocaust. I am not insensitive to this.

I guess maybe it's also about what the bands espouse... Anti-Christian bands take on the institution of Christianity and the history, whereas the NSBMers take on actual Jews using the stereotypes and whatnot.

I am pretty sure that David Vincent or Glen Benton knows Christians and might even be friendly with them even if they find their religion silly. I don't see the Count or Arghoslent members from associating with Jews or blacks or whatever.

And I think a lot of bands do it for shock. such as:

http://arslibertatis.com/sources/jesus_is_a_cunt.jpg

dani filth is a cunt (uk kind btw )

most anti-Semites aren't hating Jews because of their Judaism, is the deal - it is racism. Hating Christians is like hating fascists -- if a fascist stops being one, you can't really call him a fascist any more. NSBM dudes are very into ethnic identity, eugenics shit, etc. One hates Christians for their track record of annihilating native cultures and institutions, complicity with evil governments, etc. Anti-Xian sentiment is political, not racial.

Goregrind seems a separate issue to me, you won't find a lot of goregrind dudes arguing that the shit that goes on in their songs is stuff that should be happening because women are bad or anything. It's purgative, cathartic, etc. (I take issue with plenty of that stuff too, I don't listen to much pornogrind but the anti-human stance of good death metal seems a thing apart.) When we're talking about nazis in metal, we are talking about people who believe that non-white races are inferior, and who espouse this belief. That particular stance is objectionable to my mind; "life is shitty and ugly and all kinds of horrible shit goes down, and also Christians fuck everything up" is a different deal.

i cant even remember what Pantera's lyrics were about

hes one enlightened dude

Politics? Feel like going off on our president or what we are doing in Iraq?
I just think that anybody that complains about what the President has done by sending over troops and kicking a little ass, they need to realize, y’know… let’em go cry and let’em go protest to the victims of 9-11 for number one. Number two, if we absolutely did nothing, then, I think most of America would be at the polls and all saying “We should do something.” So the President was in a no win situation. He HAD to go over there and fucking lay down the law and kick somebody’s fucking ass… he really did… by public pressure. If you fuck with the US, there is going to be a rebuttal. And thus far, we’ve been so, bit by bit by bit just chipping away at them. And being successful to a certain point. We are putting the fear back in the fucking terrorists. Because the countries that are harboring the terrorists, fuck, they are dead if we find out. And they know it. And so they don’t want the terrorists there. They are going to be saying, “Get out of here. You are not welcome here either. We don’t want America fucking kicking our ass. Get out of here.” And they are not going to be wanted anywhere. So I think by laying down a fucking offensive, we laid down a lot of ground rules about fucking with America.

Even if the reasons cited for War were the Weapons of Mass destruction (that have yet to be found)?
I think the media has a funny way of twisting what really is so. Anybody who pulls that on America is going to get their fucking ass kicked. I don’t care who you are… you are going to get blown up. It just reminds me that I don’t think there is any successful country that doesn’t have a backstabbing, bloody knife hidden in some drawer somewhere. Things have to get ugly. And they do. And they have for thousands of years.

The major press seems to be paying attention. You were in the Rolling Stone with the Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen cover! What’s your opinion of the major music media outlets?
Not much. After years of ignoring Pantera, who was a phenomena really, within itself, for how many records we sold, and how well we did, with as little media coverage as possible, at least the mainstream media, the radio, etc. Which to me is as mainstream as you can get, besides MTV. And then again, there is MTV.

I remember MTV giving you guys a nod back in the day.
Well, on Vulgar Display of Power… but the very first time I slipped up and said the word “nigger” or did something that may have not been politically correct, they were all over my ass like I was the guy who shot the president or something. And that’s what I didn’t appreciate. That’s what most media outlets do. They build you up only to tear your ass fucking to shreds.

while searching for online articles about phil's love of BM (he was the first american big name i ever saw talking about it way back) I came across this. Not linking it direct for obvious reasons
stormfront.org/forum/t585216/

dude's all about fucking asses getting fucking kicked.

why are we still going on about Phil anyway? is this thread just about racist musicians now? should we start talking about Eric Clapton, too? haven't we done this on other threads?

noone here has really heard actual nsbm bands most likely so we cant discuss them. We could just talk about good black metal bands that aren't neo nazi's..

It is after all
http://www.metalinjection.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/black-metal-history-month.jpg

i like graveland! he's "sketchy", right?

would much rather listen to graveland than varg. they can both can be pretty trippy, but the best graveland stuff is total hypno-metal. its one of the big reasons why i like a lot of the black metal that i do. the hypnotic repetition really does help some of these guys achieve some sort of actual trip into the void. you dig? they really do take me to another world at times. and i imagine that they take themselves out of the world when they're making it. but unlike committing suicide, they can come back! its an old trick teenagers have been using for years. see how close to the edge you get and then back away at the last moment.

i learned to embrace pantera's sound when it was combined with europrog and Abba.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcKoqGKuz6U&feature=fvwrel

Graveland is the only actual NSBM band I could name. Will never listen to them though.

i always got the impression that that dude just hates everybody. except viking ghosts. and wolves.

i think i read a varg interview somewhere where he seemed to hate everyone inc nsbm guys and especially "the jews running the world". He hasn't mellowed, he's still a racist anti-semetic prick. If that kind of thing was in his lyrics im pretty sure Burzum would sell about as many records as graveland. I cant imagine NSBM being that big a scene, though apparently there's a lot of polish/russian/ukrainian NSBM acts. Doubt they're very well known though.

Of course there's some "heritage" acts that seem a bit dodgy and are being evasive about it all. Cant help feeling it's because they're not daft and know it would hurt their sales and gigs would be banned in most places.

but you cant prove that they are racist or nazi pond scum either. So you kind of either give them the benefit of the doubt (like most do with drudkh as they at least made a statement denying it) or you ignore them completely if you're not sure about them.

Can anyone remember when the black metal bands went beyond the satanism & church burning stuff and started embracing extreme right wing ideology? or was it always there? I knew quite a few people into Burzum etc at the time and none of them are anything other than lefties. Infact every single Burzum fan i know is left wing, some aren't white either. Did the whole thing start when varg was imprisoned?

Grand Belial's Key! I've heard them. when i first went on last fm i was struck by the selections they had of some of this stuff. i'll bet that's the first place a lot of people heard Hate Forest. every time i searched for metal on there they popped up!

btw I have an anecdote for you via a former ilxor who, whilst born in Poland, but moved to Canada as a kid, went back to visit family in Poland in the 90s and he said that back then you had black metal kids walking around with SWORDS. Fucking swords!!! That's hardcore shit. Fuck your gun culture - SWORDS!! How mental is that?!
Now he's moved to Poland to live he says it's calmed down a bit and no BM swordsmen are to be seen. He says it is very NSBM country though. Eastern Europe must be crazy.

What would you do Scott if some crazy longhaired dudes with swords came into your shop looking for black metal albums?

nordic bm has always been pretty aryan. since bathory. as far as bm having the race theme. singing about vikings all the time and a wintry pagan past is "race" music of a sort. if you are from there.

swords? i dunno. if they had money i'd probably be good. i never have any black metal records though. i would have to go out of my way to get them and they cost too much. and they just cost more used. way more.

I thought you were going to say you would just check to see if it was Dan :)

dan my brother? he's crazy but he's not graveland crazy. i feel like i do give the graveland dude a pass of sorts because he's so nuts. but that's not right. but sometimes people that nuts do end up going further. i don't know. i'm not really one of those people looking for crazy outsider art all the time. but there is no denying it when you do hear or see something that was created outside of society. normal society? i don't need nazi stuff though. it should be about freedom not fascism.

no i dont mean that, i just mean he might turn up with a sword!

i know hes not graveland type guy (spoke to him in ilxchatz enough to know hes a good dude)

do you sell much metal btw?

This is an extremely silly thread and I shouldn't even weigh in, but I will. If you don't like Pantera, you don't like metal, and any opinions you may have about metal will fall on deaf ears with me. Everything from Power Metal (have you actually heard it, or just snickered at the cover?) through Reinventing the Steel is as metal as it gets. (Burzum, on the other hand, barely qualifies as music, let alone metal. Even if I had no idea what the guy believed about anything, his music would still be worthless. And anyhow, of the three extramusical reasons I'm anti-Burzum, RACIST comes in a fair distance behind ARSONIST and MURDERER.) Any fuckin' feeb who wants to whine about Phil Anselmo being a lunkhead who hangs Confederate flags up and pulls out the "Why isn't there a White History Month, maaannn?" card - can have at it. I've interviewed Phil Anselmo. I've watched him ramble drunkenly onstage. He is every bit the lunkhead you say he is. But Pantera's music is pure fucking metal. Loud, aggressive, ugly, crass, played with rare talent and skill. And that's my final word on this subject.

for whatever measly bit it's worth:

http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2010/07/interview-phil-anselmo/

If you don't like Pantera, you don't like metal

Sorry Phil, but that is nonsense. I already explained why i didn't like them musically, Phil Anselmo could be the nicest bloke in the world and i still wouldn't like their music. But I dont care if people say im not metal, never claimed to be and there's plenty of people who have said im not metal over the past 20 years, just like there's some who actually think all i listen to is metal, some think i only listen to funk & electronic music. Even jazz. But not liking Pantera will never be the reason "why I'm not metal".

and any opinions you may have about metal will fall on deaf ears with me

I'm sure that will have always been the case in that I doubt you have ever trusted a recommendation from myself but I really hope you're not making it personal against me. We're all entitled to our opinions.

it takes a phil to know a phil. i've never had any problem with people who like pantera. i can see why people like them. i've just always found them really easy to avoid. even phil anselmo has plenty of friends who don't dig pantera! pantera definitely inspired a lot of bad music, but you could say that about a lot of people.

a few thoughts

1. thx to this thread i hauled out slapshot - blast furnace and it holds up - thx scott!
2. (prob going to deindex this thread thx to this) as a dude who sold a lot of gear to p4nz3rf4aust dudes and still deals with the main dude in b0und f0r g10ry on a regular basis thx to being in mn, i want to say that A) this shit makes me uncomfortable and i think the vagaries of this kind of money changing hands can be very uncomfortable if you are a guy that uh doesnt really hate anybody B) I know for sure that 4ns3lm0 was very down with b0und4g because dude from b4g was very proud of the handwritten letter that was uh completely overt and ended with a keep up the good work, phil. also, according to same dude, there was def some $$$ changing hands, and iirc there were references to funding in the same letter.
3. aside from all of that, i'm kinda assuming that unperson is kinda fucking w/us, because i am pretty sure i like metal and racism aside, pantera leaves me totally cold.