Soundtracks
to the White Revolution:
White Supremacist Assaults on Youth Music Subculture
Edited by Devin
Burghart.
Available for a $5 donation from the Northwest Coalition For
Human Dignity, P.O. Box 21428, Seattle, WA 98111-3428.
On a Sunday afternoon, the wind howled maniacally outside
and I sat in a quiet cafe downtown. The Titans and Colts battled
on two mute TVs. Waitresses dealt with ebb-tide weekend traffic:
Two guys at the bar, a couple of tables here and there, me.
The Beatles and the Clash bounced through the speakers.
Here's what I read in the midst of that sleepy scene:
"Boots and braces/ Skinheads rule the world/ The Swastika
and Old Glory are unfurled/ Boots and braces/ The world
belongs to the white man/ And the left wing scum will fall/
The time will come to arm yourself/ When you hear the battle
call."
This dip into the lyricbook of Tulsa, Okla.'s Midtown
Boot Boys comes from the pages of Soundtracks
to the White Revolution, a short new book studying
the music of racist subcultures. Co-published by Seattle's
Northwest Coalition for Human Dignity and Chicago's
Center for
New Community, the book's a disturbing read--not
because of the Boot Boys' trite fantasy of white power,
but because it documents a complex shadow industry that's
become a cash cow for organized right-wing extremists.
It's a movement that includes small underground record
labels like Portland's very own Imperium and Strength
Through Joy, as well as bigger players like West Virginia's
Resistance
Records. It spans from bashed-out punk to folk.
It's increasingly internationalist, increasingly profitable.
According to Soundtracks, Dr. William Pierce,
the 67-year-old leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance,
bought out Resistance last summer. It's unlikely that Pierce
bides his leisure hours with the greatest hits of such Resistance
stalwarts as Skrewdriver or the Blue Eyed Devils.
However, when one considers that, according to Soundtracks,
Resistance expects to move 70,000 CDs and net up to $700,000
this year, the operation's appeal becomes clear.
These profit margins inspired Soundtracks. In an
era when American racists openly turn to record sales for
cash, European fascists fund parliamentary campaigns with
benefit CDs, Swedish neo-Nazi distributor Nordland
donates to the British National Party and a BNP-linked
English record company gives money to Louisiana bigot-pol
David Duke, a fresh understanding of right-wing music
is clearly in order.
"Organized bigotry has staked its claim here in the Northwest,
but it's a mistake to think that it's not a problem elsewhere,"
says Terre Rybovich, executive director of the NWCHD.
"It may not be on the front pages, but it's still out there."
While Rybovich talks up new recruitment efforts by white-power
skinheads, Soundtracks makes one thing clear: If
racist music ever confined itself to the shave-pated stereotype,
it does so no longer. Indeed, the booklet outlines an array
of music stretching from punk thuggery to esoterica barely
removed from stuff you could find at New Age or alternative
record shops and bookstores.
While it's not hard to tell what bands like Intimidation
One ("Die Jew") are up to, high-concept goth, black
metal, neo-Celtic and folk with a fascist bent wander into
murkier territory. In the realm of outré libertarianism,
radical thought, neo-paganism, avant-garde literature and
shock-value art, the extreme left and extreme right often
cross paths.
Oregonian Michael Moynihan, co-author of Lords
of Chaos, the controversial exposé on Scandinavia's
violent fascist metal scene, and leader of the band Blood
Axis, takes a starring turn in Soundtracks. In
the past, Moynihan has appeared at the hipster 'zine shop
Reading Frenzy, played at the Paris Theater
and received respectful coverage from the punk mag Hitlist
and Willamette Week despite his own rightward leanings--and,
as a provocative writer and musician, there's no reason
he shouldn't have. Moynihan's book appears on the list of
gonzo publisher Feral House alongside work by Eugene
anarchist leader John Zerzan and The X-Rated
Bible.
Soundtracks' righteous lefty tone has a hard time
with such nuances. Still, it does a real service in its
attempt to sketch a complicated underground. In its stylistic
fissures, racist music mirrors the far right's longstanding
splits between old-fashioned Euro-fascists, aging American
rednecks, off-brand Christians, extreme anti-Christians,
Hitler fetishists, wanna-be Vikings and oi-loving skins.
As Soundtracks makes abundantly clear, though, music
can provide a focus for hate in a way pure politics can't.
"White-power music appeals to young people who are open
to alternative types of music," Rybovich notes. "Far-right
Christians, for example, aren't likely to be attracted to
this sort of music. For them, it's just an instrument."
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Willamette Week | originally
published January 26,
2000
|
