My friend Stephen Sigl and I decided that the once respectable Ministry is now dead to us after seeing the video for their (well, his) new song, “Antifa.”
I think, if you’ve read this blog before, you’re aware of what Antifa is, and you’d thus be against it. But, just as a reminder, Antifa is the far left group of so called “activists”, who claim that they’re fighting “fascism” by using coercive tactics, such as violently attacking people, starting riots, and just being an overall public nuisance, in the name of spreading “tolerance.”
Watch this travesty of a video, which so far has garnered 5,000 down votes (one of which is mine) and only 2,000 up votes, on youtube:
Ministry is of course the one-man industrial metal project from Al Jourgensen, who over the years has put out many fine albums, including Twitch, The Land of Rape and Honey, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, and Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs.
He’s also put out ones with FUNNY titles like Dark Side of the Spoon, Houses of theMolé, and Rio Grande Blood.
And Jourgensen HAS delved into politics before; in fact, just about every song on every album he made during the 00s was about George W. Bush and the Iraq war. But, where those were just criticisms, albeit repetitive ones, of an unpopular policy, Jourgensen, who now has hideous dreadlocks and a tackle box face, has gone full nut job, actually ENDORSING the Antifas in his latest music video, which was made to promote his new album, cleverly titled… ready for this… AmeriKKKant.
I wonder if my reaction to Jourgensen’s taking on a pro-Antifa stance is similar to how some people reacted when Skrewdriver became a white power band in 1983.
Nah, I’m guessing not. See, I’m not offended that he took this stance; after all, I bought the Brujeria t-shirt, that has Donald Trump with a machete through his head because, after all, it looks fucking cool! And, if I was Trump, I’d WEAR the shirt. No, my problem with Jourgensen taking on a pro-Antifa stance is that he cheapened his art by OFFICIALLY endorsing a side. You see, JUST criticizing an unpopular policy need not be a partisan act. After all, I AGREE with Jourgensen that the Iraq war was a big ol’ waste, leading to the needless death of Americans and Iraqis, while shooting our national debt sky high, and helping to create a whole new group of enemies for the world to have to deal with in the form of ISIS.
But, then, when Obama took over for Bush, he shot our national debt even higher, droned and bombed MORE countries in the Middle East, and even helped depose Muammar Gaddafi, effectively destabilizing Libya for reasons unknown. And where was Jourgensen then?
Then, Trump gets elected, and everyone who hates him calls him “literally Hitler”, even though he’s really just a fun ‘n’ boorish New York multi-billionaire with a loose mouth, but an otherwise populist platform, that threatens the globalist elite. Then, in an act of “protest”, Jourgensen decides to endorse a violent, left-wing extremist group. My guess? He’s trying to stay relevant. Otherwise, I’m at a loss for words; he can’t be THAT dumb, can he? But, I do know one thing; it’s going to be difficult to listen to “Jesus Built My Hot Rod”, “Stigmata”, or “New World Order” ever again.
I’m truly thrilled that The Red Pill, the documentary from Cassie Jaye about her “journey” from being a feminist to not being a feminist via the Men’s Rights movement, has received an 8.7 on IMDB and a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. Honestly, I am. It means people are opening their eyes and starting to listen to something other than the mainstream, “women is so oppressed” narrative.
But let’s be honest here; unless you’re an anorexic, nerdy sissy boy, who only hung out with kinda cute, glasses wearing hipster gurlz, the ones that LOVED being your friend, but made you wonder why YOU’RE always being friend-zoned in favor of guys with a fraction of your intelligence, and THEN made you feel GUILTY for complaining about it, there is nothing particularly groundbreaking about The Red Pill. The movie treats feminism as if it’s the main problem in our society, rather than one of the many weapons used by the cultural Marxist and globalist beast to try to destroy Western civilization; in fact, the notion that it could even BE a left/right, or rather globalist/anti-globalist issue, isn’t even touched upon. I’ve never considered myself a Men’s Rights activist. Many of the figureheads in the men’s movement don’t even see it as a left/right issue. I’ve actually known many “anti-feminist” men who don’t realize that feminism IS a form of leftism, and that supporting anyone on the left IS supporting the very ideology they say they’re against. Or to put it more succinctly, A Voice for Men editor Dean Esmay’s support for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in the 2016 election is tantamount to a civil rights leader in the 1960s supporting George Wallace.
There is a segment that lasts all of one minute – among 120 of them – that addresses how, in the 60s, the equality warriors switched their target from capitalism to patriarchy, but it’s so dinky, that one wonders why Jaye even bothered putting it in the movie in the first place.
But if we’re going to REALLY be addressing the elephants in the room, and if above all else, film is a visual medium, where the images are intended to elicit a reaction, it’s actually kind of infuriating watching shots of the cutie Cassie Jaye, who resembles a plumper, rounder Christina Applegate – don’t worry, Cassie, I wouldn’t make you lose 15 lbs. to have a seat on MY casting couch – interviewing pathetic looking, depressing old men, as they tell their stories about losing everything to a system that’s stacked against them. I mean, JUST THE FACT that she’s IN the frame with them getting all misty eyed, listening to them talk about how they got royally screwed, while not addressing how incredibly privileged she is in our society by being blessed with hotness, struck me as painfully disingenuous. I mean, sheeyit, lady, you may be a narcissist, but do you have to make it that obvious? But who knows? Maybe this will lead to other women joining in an anti-feminist insurrection.
In The Red Pill, Jaye interviews key figures in the Men’s Rights movement; honestly the only ones I recognized were Paul Elam, Dean Esmay and Karen Straughan; I’m too lazy to look up the rest of ’em. One of them was a 60s male feminist, but changed tracks when he realized all that “freedom” women achieved by tossing off the “shackles” of their normal, middle class lives in favor of becoming spinsters and cat ladies didn’t provide the satisfaction they once imagined it would. But basically, we learn about all of the typical men’s rights talking points; women who trick men by not taking their birth control and enslaving them to a life of child support payments; men who see their coffers depleted in custody battles only to get to see their kids a couple hours a week; female on male spousal abuse not being taken seriously; male rape not being taken seriously; lighter prison sentences for women for the same crimes men committed; men working life threatening jobs to provide for their families only to be told they’re oppressing women; the male/female wage gap myth; and of course there’s a bit of male circumcision thrown in at the end for all the mondo fans. Don’t tell the Jews, though; they may get this movie shut down in your town (psst, I’m allowed to say that because I am one)!!!
We’re also given the counterpoints to these arguments from some harpy at Ms. magazine, some gay Jewish guy and of course the loud, shrill and obnoxious Big Red, who kinda resembles my former friend Sarah.
But another thing that bothered me about the movie is that it didn’t really address how feminism negatively affects women. Maybe Cassie Jaye hasn’t learned about hypergamy yet or that the only things feminism really accomplished was making it easier for men to get laid since it made women sluttier, while boosting the sales for antidepressants and keeping pet store owners in business. At VERY least, Jaye addresses that getting catcalled and having to look pretty (aww, poor baby) don’t really seem to be that big of problems in comparison with getting crushed to death in a coal mine avalanche, getting blown to bits on a battle field or having your life savings drained. And hey, in about 20 years, once the flesh starts to sag and wrinkles start to show, she won’t even HAVE to worry about getting catcalled.
A decade ago, when I was at Grand Valley State University, I picked up a book from the women’s center called Transforming a Rape Culture. At the time, I thought it was the stupidest thing I’d ever seen, and most people balked at the suggestion that all men are rapists or predisposed to commit rape. Also, apparently it wasn’t considered “oppressive” to refer to slutty women as sluts; it was just honest. In fact, I LOVE sluts! They put out the quickest, and thanks to all that female empowerment, they’re not just damaged women with daddy issues! All of this was before Obama was even President. A lot has changed since then. Men can now put on dresses and call themselves women; women who get gang-banged by twenty dudes are considered “empowered”; men who ask women on dates can be accused of sexual assault; man, has society progressed! Thank you Cassie Jaye for setting the clock back about ten years.
If the left can politicize everything, than goddamn it, so can I! Below is a video of the Monks performing their classic “Boys Are Boys and Girls Are Choice.”
The song is from their 1966 LP, Blank Monk Time, one of the many fine additions to the more obscure cannon of 60s rock, right along side The Village Fugs Sing Ballads of Contemporary Protest, Point of Views and General Dissatisfaction and The Fugs by the Fugs, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators and Easter Everywhere by the 13 Floor Elevators, The Seeds and A Web of Sound by the Seeds and Here Are the Sonics!!! and Boom by the Sonics.
You can read all of the Monks’ biographical trivia at their Wikipedia page. The important thing to know is that they dressed like monks when they performed, and they had a unique approach to the two and half minute song formula that focused on rhythmic hooks and utilized the fun “chinka-chinka” sound of Dave Day’s banjo, somehow making the songs so stupidly catchy that there are times when I could listen to Black Monk Time on repeat for days at a clip. Also their sound influenced the deliberately repetitive “vamping” of German “kraut rock” bands like Can and Neu!, and the Fall site the Monks as a huge influence and have covered several of their songs.
Now, obviously, there’s nothing political about the song “Boys Are Boys and Girls Are Choice”; it’s just a song about the joy of being a guy going after a girl (presumably when it was more fun and wouldn’t get you accused of rape). But in the current year, when “transgender” freaks are pushing an agenda that says a person can now choose his, her or its gender, rather being ASSIGNED a gender at birth by, ya know, having a set of cock ‘n’ balls or a wet, oozing vagina, the song BECOMES political.
On top of that, it celebrates heterosexuality; I mean, if you’re a straight guy, girls are choice, aren’t they? Provided they’re not fat or ugly, that is. And don’t get mad at me for saying that; being fat and ugly are problems that are relatively easy to fix.
Ironically the people at Light in the Attic records, who released phenomenal vinyl and CD reissues of Black Monk Time, probably think I’m a “transphobic” bigot for writing this piece. Or maybe they secretly believe in the song’s message and are trying to push the Monks’ evil and vile agenda.
The worst thing about people who are full of shit is when they become fans of things that you both enjoy and are a much, much greater expert on. I think I’m in some position of authority to state that most punk rockers don’t know as much as I do about the Alternative Right or the general umbrella of the new right. And similarly I think it’s safe to say that most people on the Alternative Right have only a cursory knowledge of punk rock. So, as someone who is a damn near expert on both of these topics – not saying I was ever on the vanguard of either of these movements – I think I’m at least qualified to call bullshit on a recent article published by Playboy magazine.
Is Playboy not the magazine that 13 year old boys jerked off to for the first time? Is it not the “classy” boobie mag that was started by a pipe smoking, middle aged-cum (no pun intended)-dirty old pervert, who would feature pictorials of attractive women with their beach blonde hair and big, fake boobs? Wasn’t Hugh himself the subject of the wrath of second wave feminists?
Yeah, I know… Playboy has articles too; and there are people who actually read the articles, rather make their fathers question why all the pages in his books are stuck together. And, from my understanding, there was even an era when Playboy actually had good articles from “legit” writers like Woody Allen – who, liberal as he might be, bless his soul, never became a feminist or stopped being a pussy chasing dog – and Gore Vidal. But that was the 60s, and you had to feign intellectualism in those days.
Regardless of its praising of certain liberal causes, Playboy has long since been just a porn mag-lite (no beaver shots), known for launching the careers of airheads like Jenny McArthy and Pamela Anderson.
So why, all of a sudden, do they fancy themselves the authority on punk rock and feel that they can decide that “the Alt-Right’s ‘Punk Movement’ is Garbage”?
First of all, there IS no AltRight punk movement, because if there was, then my name would be in the article. Not only am I the guy who printed the first ever Punks for Trump t-shirts (only 50 left as of this writing; BUY BUY BUY!!!), but that’s Matt Forney, one of the definitive AltRighters, in the picture below wearing one.
But, even if the article’s writer, Michael Tedder, was aware of this fact, he still misses the point entirely:
Members of the alt-right have of late made the argument that “conservatism is the new punk” and that gadflies like Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos are the modern day truth-telling equivalents of the Sex Pistols and the Clash, pushing back against social justice warriors and political correctness culture. In their eyes, their old, retrograde ideas—which inevitably manifest as fear and outrage at attempts to curb white male privilege—have suddenly become avant-garde because of…safe spaces or something.
Neither Alex Jones nor Milo Yiannopoulos are “AltRight.” They’re libertarians. They’ve adopted some of the less extreme views of the AltRight – that cultural Marxism sucks, that SJWs of all stripes and shades are stupid and that Islam is a threat to Western civilization – but they were never considered part of the movement; to call them AltRight would be like calling the Cars a punk band. Sure the Venn diagrams overlap, but they’re not one and the same. To be honest, I’m not considered “AltRight” by some of the more radical elements either because I’m not a White Nationalist, I don’t believe that all ethnic groups need to be separated at all costs and I don’t fit the proper genetic stock. The AltRight actually has quite a bit of diversity of thought under its umbrella, but a person on the left will never take the time to investigate any of this.
But I digress. As far as the “new right” (which includes the AltRight) being considered “the new punk rock”, well… I suppose that depends on how you define “punk rock.” And that’s where we get to the meat, spikes, leather and chains of the article; unless, of course, you’re a modern day vegan-feminist-hippie-crust-punk, who dodges showers the way the hippies dodged the draft. Then you probably think the original punks were fascists for wearing and eating dead cow.
Most AltRighters don’t know that much about punk and all of the bands it produced or its various sub-genres and their spin-offs. If ANYTHING, while AltRighters might espouse the general, “offend the easily offended” attitude of the Sex Pistols, and while I think Trump is pissing off all the right people, AltRighters specifically probably have more in common with the Oi! band 4Skins, who wrote this wonderful anti-immigrant slam “One Law for Them”, in which they quote the “rivers of blood” speech by Enoch Powell, or the Canadian punk band Forgotten Rebels, who have the hilarious “Bomb the Boat and Feed the Fish”, in which they advocate a rather more, um, violent solution to the problem of mass immigration from third world countries. Hell, I’d even say they have more in common with hardcore punk bands like Agnostic Front, who have the anti-welfare screed “Public Assistance”, which got them in a heap of shit with the PC brigade, or Minor Threat, who mince no words in “Guilty of Being White”, or Black Flag, who sing about the changing ethnic demographic in Southern California in “White Minority” (oh, but they’re being ironic, cantcha tell?!).
But, instead Playboy claims they found the TRUE representatives of punk rock, and these people, who quite obviously have next to no knowledge of the AltRight, explain why someone on the AltRight can’t be punk.
First they get a quote from Victoria Ruiz from some band called the Downtown Boys. (And if you leftist fags say, “uh, what a POSER, you’ve never heard of the Downtown Boys?”, I’ll say, “go fuck yourself, you’ve never heard of Aryan Disgrace, Metal Urbain or the Mentally Ill.”)
Alice Bag, who has actually done the work of being a punk rock star, recently said via Facebook: “Punk has been portrayed as music by and for angry white males, but in its inception, it was a rebellion against all rock cliches. Gender, ethnic, sexual and class taboos were all challenged by our early punk community and that is a story which is not very often told. People of color, queer folk, women—all were present from the very beginning of Punk.”
Yeah, fine, Alice Bag and the Bags are actually really good – how can they not be? They had Geza X on guitar! – but Republican Johnny Ramone has done WAY more work of being a punk rock star. Not to mention Lee Ving of Fear, who wrote the classic “The Mouth Don’t Stop (the Trouble with Women).” And so has leftist clown Jello Biafra. So what? Okay, fine, Darby Crash, the singer of the Germs, was a fag. And their guitarist Pat Smear is black. And Ivan Julian, the rhythm guitarist for Richard Hell and the Voidoids, is also black. And the Bad Brains are all black and were known for their queer-bashing because they “be Rasta, mon, and Rasta don’ like no bloodclot faggots!” Again, so what? That changes precisely what again? The answer is coming; wait for it:
I think that this is exactly why it is nonsense when the alt-right strings together vapid words to try and incite a playground fight with those of us who put blood, sweat and tears into creating an expression that is the antithesis of everything that these alt-right meatheads represent. They are simply a distraction to the women, femmes, queers and people of color filling the columns of Spin, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, the New York Times and numerous other publications that report on culture. I don’t see actual alt-right bands headlining Coachella, I see Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar—two of the most punk in terms of crystallizing dissent about the status quo —artists taking the stage. Real punk is and will always be a total threat to the alt-right and their culture, which is based on white supremacy. Otherwise it isn’t real punk. The alt-right’s tactics are FAKE PUNK. The alt-white (I mean right) want us to sip tea, but we are drinking fresh water from a firehose.
In other words, according to this person, the AltRight DOESN’T represent the punk rock ethos because they AREN’T represented in corporate mainstream media and DON’T perform at corporately sponsored music festivals. I think even the old timey leftists at Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll would raise an eyebrow at that. But more specifically, AltRighters and anyone who espouses views that are heretical to the PC establishment need to be purged from all mainstream discourse. Also probably the main reason no “AltRight bands” have ever performed at Coachella is because THERE ARE NO ALT-RIGHT BANDS to speak of. And even if there were, they wouldn’t be invited to play these festivals. In fact corporately sponsored festivals like the Scion Rock Fest has dumped bands when they were suspected of having “nefarious” connections. But apparently Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar are totally punk as fuck, man.
Next we have Chris Freeman of Pansy Division, the only name on the list I recognize. Feel free to read his lengthy, bitchy diatribe yourself. The only thing that stuck with me was this:
Punk rock for me was about free-thinking more than free speech, and I say that not to minimize free speech but to point out how robotic life had become in the 1970s.
Uh, oookay…. moving right along then…
Well, what do we have here? Erika M. Anderson seems to be the only person of the bunch with a brain!
I think if you define punk as simply being a group of angry young men wanting to say “fuck you” to dominant societal norms and current values, then the roots of the alt-right are definitely one of the most punk things going on right now.
AGREED… but:
But that’s like narrowing your definition of punk down to the Sex Pistols—which was basically a boy band put together by a pair of London clothing designers who wanted to use shock tactics to promote their fashion line. I much prefer Crass (who were anarchists, feminists, environmentalists and better songwriters!), X-Ray Spex or even Pansy Division. But my guess is that if you are truly invested in the theory of alt-right as new punk, then facts about the diversity of the movement aren’t really going to appeal to you.
Oo, calling the Sex Pistols a boy band… them’s fightin’ words! Julian Temple’s 2000 documentary The Filth and the Fury puts that myth to rest. Plus, even if it were true, that doesn’t change the fact that “No Feelings” is one of the best songs ever. To be fair, Crass makes some pretty righteous noise even if they’re views are stupid, and X-Ray Spex tear it up with their noisy, bleating sax and Poly Styrene’s caterwauling; I don’t think I’ve ever heard Pansy Division. Regardless, I AM invested in parts of the alt-right, but as proven above, I’m aware that there were black, gay and gurl punks. Her rant concludes with this:
Indeed, it’s all keks and lulz until a con man takes office and fills his cabinet with incompetent billionaires who don’t actually care about free speech, poverty, or really anything but themselves. Turns out there is a thin line between being punk and getting punk’d.
Oo, she’s clever!
Some guy named Andy Nelson at least gets one thing right:
It is no great secret that for all its posturing and incremental progress over the years, underground punk is still, regrettably, a culture dominated by straight whites males.
I wouldn’t say “regrettably”, but:
The notion that expressing all the hateful bigotry that the entirety of American society has been reinforcing forever would resemble the anti-establishment in any form is a premise so asinine and feeble-minded it is nearly beyond comprehension. Insofar as “Alt-Right Punk” is a real thing, I remind you that we’ve seen this type of thing before, and we’ve seen how it ends: Just ask Dave Smalley and Michael Graves what kind of traffic that moronic website ConservativePunk.com is getting these days.
Hey, if you don’t like it in the United States, you’re free to live in such tolerant countries as Iran and Saudi Arabia. As for Dave Smalley and Michael Graves, I’m not sure what kind of traffic they get on their moronic website these days, and I’m too lazy to check.
And finally Patrick Stickles of some band called Titus Andronicus (isn’t Shakespeare racist or something?) begins with:
In determining if conservatism/“alt-right” is the “new punk” or “political punk rock” or whatever they are saying, we must first address the distinction between “punk,” the ideology, “punks,” who practice said ideology, and “punk rock,” the musical genre/fashion template with which we associate acts like the Sex Pistols or Ramones or Black Flag and “punk rockers,” those who adhere to those templates.
No, we mustn’t. Well,you can if ya want, but I’m going to listen to this here Dictators song and have myself a vodka/diet coke mixer.
Nope, not thinking about how she looks at all! Totally just admiring the playing of Alice Cooper’s guitarist, Ms. Nita Strauss!
What do comic books, science fiction, roll playing games, anime, video games and heavy metal all have in common? Think really hard about it. So, where most intelligent people, I would think accept the fact that men will outnumber women in all of these nerd intensive hobbies by default, there will still be that Social Justice parasite, that interloper that exists for the sole purpose of ruining the fun and joy that these things bring by accusing their practitioners of not being inclusive enough.
I stumbled upon this article titled “Metal’s Problem with Women Is Not Going Away Anytime Soon“, written by a Kristy Loye for the Houston Press. With her obviously lazy research and her almost entirely complete lack of knowledge or insight, she levies some strong accusations against the metal genre and the people who listen to it.
In the article she concludes that:
Many bands either openly encourage violence against women or fail to support legitimate female fandom, but it certainly doesn’t end there. Female metal bands are rarely booked on national tours and practically ignored by the media — and worse, the ones who make it that far get ridiculed or sexualized.
In other words, as of November 11, 2015, according to the article, metal has their proverbial Jodi Fosters up against the pinball machines. Now, how much does the article reflect reality? Before one even gets to the actual article, there is a picture of a band called Halestrom, who feature three faggy looking guys with nice, swooping hair cuts and a hot broad with fantastic legs, wearing those hot patterned tights that do wonders for my libido. Beneath the picture, the caption reads: “Question: how many metal bands featuring female members — besides Halestorm, shown above — can you name?”
Let’s see. I can name Girlschool, Rock Goddess, Bitch, Bolt Thrower, White Zombie, Blood Ceremony, Kylesa, Electric Wizard, Acid King, Arch Enemy, Huntress, Demonic Christ, Triptykon, Nashville Pussy, Jucifer, Madam X, Lita Ford and, if we want to plumb the depths of shittyness, we can even dredge up nu-metal bands like Kittie and Otep just to prove this point. But, what point are we trying to prove? That metal music doesn’t have enough women participating in its creation? That this in and of itself is some sort of indication that the metal genre, as a whole, is deliberately trying to keep women out?
She then continues with this “observation”:
Even metal fandom is exclusive. Women who are metal fans come under the constant scrutiny of male metal fans, and have their motives questioned. They’re either assumed to be a poser or a girlfriend, no more than a fan by association. Often they must prove their fandom to suspicious men who require authenticity. Ridiculous.
Is that how it is? Because, this very weekend, I was at the mighty Detroit metal/hardcore/noise/whatever festival called Berserker fest, which a.) was run by Child Bite singer Shawn Knight and his wife Veronica, b.) had plenty of women at the gig, c.) had no instances that I recall where men accused women of not being “legit” and d.) involved me partying and drinking with two metal loving women, my friend Wendy and the mighty Dawnowar, former fan club operator for Manowar. And if there’s one band a person can claim to be blatantly sexist, it’s them. According to Dawnowar, her experience working with Manowar might have involved quite a bit of assholishness on the part of embarrassingly not-self aware bassist/spokesman Joey Demaio, but sexism and sexual harassment were not part of her experience. And we’re talking about the band who wrote this song:
But, assuming that is the case, where women are scrutinized more heavily to see if they’re truly part of the club or not, that’s par for the course. Metal – and we’re talking the more extreme side of metal, not mainstream hard rock bands like Def Leppard or Motley Crue – is an outsider form of music. Outsider music, art and hobbies always attract more men than women. Studies show this. In fact, you’re more likely to find women who listen to extreme metal than who like the confusing, often messy sounding jazz-fusion noodlings of Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart. Sure, you will find women who are into these things, but, if we’re going by the law of large numbers, it’s not as likely.
Then of course the author brings up the obligatory “objectification” argument:
For many years, metal’s message to women has been one of assignment: you can be a groupie, but not a fan or serious musician. It has failed to support women in any capacity besides as live props — objects, not subjects. It’s also guilty of encouraging a Hooters-like, bikini-model, stripper-girl atmosphere in general.
Maybe that attitude was more prevalent among glam metal musicians, so she’s not even really attacking her intended target, since anyone can attest that none of what she described happens at thrash, death, doom or black metal concerts (I wish it did, though!), but, if they did, there’s two things to say about this. 1.) When women decide to strip onstage or expose their breasts while perched atop their boyfriends’ shoulders in the audience, that is their decision; the band doesn’t make them do this. In fact, a member of the Scorpions said that it is only in North America where this occurs. On top of that, the groupie phenomenon is another example of the genetic differences between men and women. Women who become groupies want to be groupies. Popularity makes a man more desirable; or as Paul Stanley of Kiss once said, “we can do in one evening what several men spend weeks or months trying to accomplish.” But, 2.) that “objectification” alone never prevented women from participating in music. Lemmy, the biggest hornball of them all, still backed all girl band Girlschool simply because he liked them. While, there aren’t many women in hard rock and heavy metal dating back to the 70s, except for maybe Heart, there has been considerably more involvement since then, and I still put the onus of becoming a musician and being in a band strictly on the women.
She continues with more tripe about female bands not headlining festivals and male fans not cheering for women. Again, while the former is true; not many women headline metal festivals, it’s not out of some alleged discrimination; there just aren’t that many female musicians in metal and no festival promoter is going to top bill a band just to fill an affirmative action quota. As for the second case, get over it; men cheer for bands they like regardless of the genitalia of the members. If the members are attractive, then it’s a bonus.
And then comes the argument of the lyrics, which allegedly promote rape and violence towards women. She makes some reasonable observations, siting some pretty damn violent lyrics by Cannibal Corpse. But, does the band harbor an anti-woman agenda? Are they trying to get their fans to rape and murder women? Hardly. I saw Cannibal Corpse once and singer George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher said onstage, “this one’s for all the ladies, it’s called ‘FUCKED… WITH… A… KNIFE!!!'” Did the male audience members start fucking all of the women with knives? No. Did women feel that the male audience members would go and fuck them with knives in the parking lot? No. Has “Fucked with a Knife” by Cannibal Corpse led to a rise in husbands fucking all of their wives with knives? No. I maintain, that if you’re offended by what you hear, then don’t listen.
But, because the author of the article isn’t even good at cherry picking her “evidence” of a prevailing anti-female lyrical trend – I can find a few more examples of anti-female attitudes from metal bands, like the above Manowar song or just instances of violence towards women, such as in the rape themed, “Sex, Murder, Art” by Slayer – she sites the profanity free, PG-13 lyrics of Alice Cooper?!
The problem is nobody is taking offense to these violent lyrical themes. And if they are, they’re not speaking up about it. Alice Cooper was once quoted as saying, “There’s more blood in Macbeth than in my shows, and that’s required school reading.”
Yet there’s a stark contrast between the macabre theatrics of Cooper’s guillotine and lyrics that detail physically ripping open a woman through forced sexual contact and watching her die as a result. And even if Macbeth was bloody, it was a statement on the will to power and the attraction to corruption…and did Alice Cooper just compare himself to Shakespeare?
This last part about “forced sexual contact” is a lie. The woman was dead for crying out loud! And, on top of that, the theatrical piece was set to “Cold Ethyl”, a song about fucking a corpse. So, if anything, her beef should be that Alice is promoting necrophilia! But, on top of that, she has to throw in some slick, snarky condescension. Alice indeed compared his show to Shakespeare, which was the popular entertainment of the Elizabethan era, and also featured some tasteless humor. Alice has also been praised by Bob Dylan as an underrated songwriter, so you can take your “intellectual” credentials and shove ’em up yer arse!
Ah, but there’s hope after all!
Believe it or not, some bands do self-correct. Some men will stand up for women and understand that women can be equal partners in artistic expression, even in death metal. We love those men.
Speaking to Andy Marsh, guitarist for Thy Art Is Murder, he makes no attempts at backpedaling or defending the lyrical content of his band’s 2008 release, Infinite Death, which contains lyrics like, “I’m inflicting bloodshed upon bitches/ just because I hate the female race…women were born to be fucked.” In fact, he agrees they were abhorrent, and his level of discomfort with the band’s previous sexism was apparent.
Abhorrent? How about just retarded? But, feel free to “self-correct.” Your lyrics will emancipate all of the women from this awful patriarchal society, in which women have their clits cut and are forced to wear burqas.
Even Whitechapel, due at Houston’s Scout Bar next Monday, has followed suit. The band responsible for such lyrics as “I ripped her fucking limb from limb,” from 2006 LP Somatic Defilement (“Vicer Exciser”), has now turned away from misogynistic lyrical content. It wasn’t easy move for a band named after the area of London where Jack the Ripper murdered at least five women, but the band felt it was a necessary move. (Right on.)
Right on! Don’t ever sing about anything unless someone with a vagina approves of it. You will be re-educated to think like them and they will arbitrate the correct things to sing about.
Metal is not alone in its ostracism of women — its close cousin, punk rock, was completely revamped 20 years ago. Back in the ’90s, female punk fans and musicians are credited for riding the third wave of feminism and forming their very own subgenre, Riot Grrrl, with bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile and L7, a spirit that even surfaced in Russia a generation later with the rise of Pussy Riot. When those women wanted opportunities in the punk scene that didn’t already exist, they simply created them. Yet even that scene wasn’t created in a vacuum.
This paragraph is a complete lie and further exemplifies the ignorance of the author. Punk rock NEVER ostracized women and, since the mid ’70s, had more women involved than metal on both of sides of the Atlantic; Siouxsie and the Banshees, X-Ray Spex, the Adverts, the Rezillos, the Slits, Vice Squad, Penetration, the Runaways, Blondie, Patti Smith, X, the Germs, the Avengers and the Bags are just a few examples; those don’t even count New York noise rockers like Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore or Boss Hog. Hell, if she wants to find the roots of all this turbo-slut, sex-positive feminist nonsense, she would do well to look up Lydia Lunch, the adorable looking, yet repulsively acting singer for Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. The fact that the author makes such an audacious claim, yet doesn’t even know some of the bands I mentioned, makes me wonder if she even listens to music or if she’s just trying to ruin things with her Social Justice agenda.
And, in the final section of the piece, she mentions… ugh, War on Women.
It’s not just women who need to fight misogyny in music. War On Women’s Shawna Potter encourages men to take up the battle as well.
“While women [with people of color and the LGBQT community] must fight for our rights and humanity, men must also fight,” she says. “They must [fight] against the insulting notion that they are animals have no self-control. But first, they must see it as insulting, I suppose.
So that’s the name of the hot singer for War on Women, whose gyrations made me tight in the pants.
When I see the singer for the Baltimore based, feminist punk band War on Women (good fucking god), I don’t think about “smashing the patriarchy”, I think about smashing between the sheets. Aside from those stupid, “tough grrrl” faces she makes, she’s got a good figure and made the smart choice of not doing her hair up in a punky style, letting it go all flowing and wavy. One would think a feminist punk band called War on Women would be some sort of parody, but this proselytizing, subtle as a sledge hammer nonsense is the real deal. Watch this.
God, look at the leggings on that slut on the left. And look at that all male rhythm section passionately bashing out a generic 4/4 pattern over which these sexy, young lasses can yell out their female rage.
Now, look, I’m all for the XX’s picking up the geetarz and bashing and smashing away just like the dudes do – I’m a fan of Girlschool, White Zombie, X-Ray Spex, the Slits, the Fall, Sonic Youth (even though their lyrics are retarded), the Adverts and the Rezillos, bands I listen to because of their music and not because of the genitalia of one or all of their members – but, once again, as the underground scene becomes more and more indoctrinated in Cultural Marxist, politically correct nonsense, the more we’re going to see bands like this who are “smashing” an imaginary patriarchy, when, in actuality, they’ve got Beta male orbiters just pining for their attention and white knights ready to protect them from “unwanted advances” at the drop of a hat. In a scene that’s still dominated by men, being a woman, especially one that look like the ones pictured above, gives you unprecedented levels of control over the dicks of the men involved.
All that would be fine if they were just bloody honest about it! Instead we get bogus articles such as this one from Bitchfork about the alleged “misogyny” in noise rock, singling out the band Rectal Hygienics, who I actually saw last night at Berserker Fest in Detroit. I tend not to take an article seriously when it includes a line like this one:
As a person living in a genderfucked body that was assigned female identity at birth and has been mostly read as female by society since, Rectal Hygenics’ lyrics are exhausting and painful in a very visceral way.
Poor baby being born a WOMAN in a Western country where you don’t have to worry about having your clitoris cut, being forced to wear a burqa or becoming the victim of an honor killing. She makes passing references to “Prayer to God” by Shellac and “No Pussy Blues” by Grinderman and acts as if respective singers Steve Albini and Nick Cave are doing something other than singing about praying to God that someone will kill his lying, cheating whore wife and her lover and the blues because he ain’t gettin’ no pussy. She then goes on to quote the “offending” lyrics of Rectal Hygienics:
“Spoiled fuck machine/ Think you’re on easy street/ You’re a slave to man and what he puts inside of you/ Stinking pack mule/ You smell like shit,”
Now these lyrics aren’t in the best of taste and I don’t know if they’re supposed to be for shock value or have a message or, in fact, even be understood at all because, when I saw them last night, I didn’t even hear lyrics; in fact, the singer wasn’t even facing the audience. All I heard for 30 minutes was “vrrrrroooossshhh” and “pound, pound, pound.” She does get one thing right though; they do seem like a blatant rip-off of tasteless Swedish noise rock gods, Brainbombs, who stole all of their lyrics from sick and tasteless “transgressive” shock writer Peter Sotos. But that’s all besides the point. Why shouldn’t “misogynistic” lyrics be allowed? If she really stands by the mantra of “freedom of speech is not freedom from criticism”, then why is she trying to be the arbiter of what messages are “acceptable” in any genre of music? Besides, what could she possibly have to complain about when she’s got a mangina band like Pissed Jeans emasculating themselves in the song “Male Gaze“?
it’s when a smile becomes a stare and it starts to burn
it’s when you ask him to knock it off and he doesn’t learn
the sad routine doesn’t change if he’s broke or a millionaire
there’s no getting through, that’s how it is
he’s never had to care
it’s when you’re judged before you even get to speak a word
it’s when you make the smartest point and it goes unheard
i’m not innocent – i’m guilty
i’m not innocent – but i’m sorry
it’s just the male gaze – it’s in me i know it
i feel it all around me – i wish i could destroy it
yeah it’s the male gaze – i’ve had it forever
Whoopdy-fuckin’-do! Men look at women when they’re attractive! Thanks for putting down your hammer on 100,000 years of evolutionary biology, ding bat! On the other hand, Pissed Jeans is a solid AmRep revival band and I enjoyed seeing ’em live. There was this super cute red head with glasses at the show in Detroit, but I was too much of a chicken to talk to her even though we shared a moment, making eye-contact, air guitaring and drumming in sync. Chances are she probably would have accused me of trying to rape her if I talked to her, though.
But, at the end of the day, there is no “war on women.” If you’re young and attractive and live in a Western country, the world is your oyster; if you don’t make stupid decisions, there is literally nothing easier than being a woman in Western society. As Iggy Pop pointed out in “You’re Pretty Face Is Going to Hell”, you won’t be young and attractive forever, so, instead of complaining about how it’s a burden on your existence, why don’t you celebrate your privilege and sing about cool stuff like death and Satan?
savagehippie 