Does anybody else write in this thing anymore? Regardless, I felt it was important to shine some light on Boyd Rice's current rebirth of importance in the modern noise/indie scene. Pulled from the depths of isolated hibernation in Colorado by various NY/Philly minimal noise luminaries, Mr. Rice has once again graced us with his presence and who knows what the future holds for him or his various projects.One thing is for sure though... I patiently am waiting for him to go back into hiding. NON never impressed me, besides a few live renditions of "Total War" that I dug, and his works with my favorite band DEATH IN JUNE were always kind of bullshit in my eyes. But what really turned me off about Mr. Rice was his appearance on "Race & Reason" with Tom Metzger. Metzger is known for his formation of the White Aryan Resistance, a group that bred various smaller hate organizations across the country throughout the 80's and 90's. Boyd and Tom talk about using music to form an Aryan Youth Movement, writing off his works as propaganda, and I guess I would agree considering how unimportant most of it was to begin with. It's hard to say what were his true beliefs and what was just shock value... god knows Sid Vicious didn't know shit about Hitler when he donned the famous Swastika shirt in his Sex Pistols days. All he knew was it would shock people, and while I don't label myself PC and think shock value is important to some degree, this interview shows a man taking the joke a little too far. In fact, I think it was him openly embracing the hatred he hinted on that ultimately sunk him below the depths of "the pulse"... Boyd was all but forgotten by most, usually mentioned due to his weird fascinations with Tiki Culture or other idiosyncrocies that made him stand apart from the rest of normal society.
I think noise has done equal parts good and bad for music. For me it proved that 4/4 rock n' roll was a limiation, not the rule. It was not until hearing Throbbing Gristle and Whitehouse albums that I knocked down my own musical barriers in my mind and started to embrace the fact that anything is possible with sound. But it also has become a format for people to spout hatred, as well as pair shock value with audio extremity. I find nothing artistic, beautiful or intense about a woman ballgagged and tied up, or screamed lyrics about raping unsuspecting victims. This white, macho, embracing your most disturbed and perverted side is just as prevelant in high school lockerrooms as it is a PRURIENT concert. The same goes for talk of racial purity and seperating whites from the rest of the world via music. The National Front and WAR have used black metal, Oi!, punk rock, Skinhead culture and other methods to pull confused white youths into their circle. Why would you want to contribute to that? I truly feel Boyd Rice knew how limiting a career in noise would be and felt "why not alienate myself further?" but that would be a cop out. In reality I think he just decided to show the world what a piece of shit he truly had become, and it's sad, because I know his contributions to music and art have influenced many projects I hold dear to my heart. Wheras DEATH IN JUNE flirted with imagry, Boyd Rice took on the openly proud image of a neo-fascist Aryan purist. Douglas P sucks uncut dick... Hitler would have thrown him into the camps with the rest of the "undesirables", but Boyd... why do this to yourself or anyone else, and if you truly believe the filth you spit, good for you, just go back into hiding where I don't have to hear any of it.
Shame on the artists who I won't even bother naming for seeing importance in this man and going out of their way to help him resurface. Maybe I don't get the "joke", but from the punchlines I've seen and heard over the years, I'm not laughing.
I rank this guy, this type of music, fans of this type of stuff, somewhere between the Juggalos (and Juggalettes) and David Alan Coe.
ReplyDeleteThis post looks anonymous but I'm Carlos Silva, from Portugal - I simply don't bother signing up. It's rather typical of people who really don't spare enough time understanding this type of subtle statements, to over -generalize about sensationalist gutter-press fodder. Apart from his apparently right wing ALL-AMERICAN follies and pulling hatemonger personae, Boyd's richest assets and legacy are based upon his outstandingly sharp American common sense (something we Europeans lack in spades probably due to academic contamination...), so here goes a strongly plausible reason for our admiration towards the man. He makes us think the way our politicians don't (and I'm a Jose Barroso compatriot!! Congratulations Joe for the reeelection at the EUCP!) - therefore, every time Boyd comes to these shores there's a warm welcome, absolutely not leading to radical running riots in the streets of Lisbon or Sintra! The riot is internal, change begins within. People change and learn a lessons...
ReplyDelete"...learn lessons...", not " a lessons"- sorry.
ReplyDeleteHe's a brilliant man, and I hate to throw the cliche "so was Hitler" argument out there, but music is very important to me and someone going out of his way to pull youths into the white supremacist circle is pretty inexcusable. "Shock value" is awesome at times, but this in no way seems to be about shock value. This is a man genuinely speaking his beliefs on TV with one of the most notorious racists around... a man who helped piece together nazi skinhead groups responsible for the murder and terrorizing of non whites all throughout the 80's and 90's. So yeah man, sorry, fuck Boyd Rice.
ReplyDeleteI do not intend to provide feedback on a hopeless "debate" here, but if "People" think for a minute and if they bear in mind that mr Rice made a reputation on being a prankster, basically, I'm quite sure one would easily understand that the "tainted" interview, dating back to 1986, is proven evidence of his daring sense of humour - Metzger sounds like the "well-read" redneck he is but Rice is much probably on one of his "field-days", researching History live, meeting the real McCoy, thus becoming part of it, no matter how "tainting" it might turn to his side; his speech is not even that comprimising, and it is basically vague (he mentions Douglas as being a racialist - well, in 1986, he hadn't even met mr P. , let alone Fat Tony, who had just started the embryo for Sol, maybe in the company of the wrong crowd, yes, but always self-critical enough to point out his mistakes). "Shock value" is referred and I agree - 23 years ago, it was still on, not anymore, in the age of PC-hypocrisy. It's really a shame that the so-called libertarian people make their PC claim in lame mode, while in days gone by, B. Rice was more prone to pay deSade the Philosopher some tribute and honour his memory. Rice became a gnostic-hermetic researcher and "think-thank-er", just unveiling paths into different perspectives - the "aesthetic-fascist" he once claimed to be, the "headfuck-noisemonger" everyone loves to hate, I'm sorry to say it, never "went out of his way", being one of the most coherent characters in the "biz". As far as I remember, the unforgettable Jhonn Balance would make a crystal-clear explanation of his character, if he were still alive - hélas...
ReplyDeleteJocksilver, for fuck sake, are all you industrial fanboys dumb or something, or in denial. If there is a joke, the jokes on you. That entire scene is pervaded by Aryanism in various degrees. Not necessarily White Sepremacist, ie. Hitlers Lebensraum, but definately racial-purist, anti-modern, millenarian. Did you know that Current 93 have made perpetual references to Aryanist figures, like Francis Yockey, and Savitri Devi, and a sly reference to sergei Nilus (the man who probably penned "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"). It all ends up as a sort of counter-cultural breadcrumb trail. Exploiting mystery to coax the initiate with slow revelation. Its a seduction game, the one thing Occult societies specialise in, and most of these guys have done their time in the Occult circles. If you fool a person to believe they have discovered something themselves, it has all the more power. Boyd Rice has known this for a long time. He knows a few of Mansons ruses too.
ReplyDeleteTo quote Alfred Rosenberg on an album that also has the Wolfs-head Rune on the front cover is pretty blatant once you know what these things are...
Bit by bit people get drawn into the Racial vision because it has an unshakeble archetypal and religious power beyond the religions of the "Book".
Even a dude like Rune Guilder Steven Flowers who once reviled the Nazi's for perverting the Runes is having a turnaround...
Its called the cult of unreason, and like any confirmed nut will tell you, madness is a sort of liberation.