NO PLATFORM – ¡No Pasarán!

All this about political views aside, there comes a point where we need to divorce the artist from the art. My favourite director, David Lynch, is right-wing. Public Enemy in early days endorsed the Nation of Islam, as do many “conscious” hip hop artists whose work I enjoy; a lot of hip hop is similarly misogynistic and homophobic. Even Kathleen Hanna made some stupid transphobic remarks when she was the same age as Ice Age are now; most people have forgiven her, she was young and misguided. These examples could go on and on: if I were to only listen exclusively to artists I enjoy who I agree on everything with, my listening material would consist of Saul Williams, Xiu Xiu, Bjork and Antony and the Johnsons. PJ Harvey’s out: she supports fox hunting.

There’s a lot of Nick Cave fans here: so they should be, he’s fantastic. He also adorned the Mutiny! EP cover with a swastika, wrote a song where someone is described as a “bad blind nigger” and has written lyrics that many have (in my opinion wrongly) read as the ravings of a misogynist. Dabbling in offensive imagery does not a fascist make: now, if Ice Age started talking positively about Holocaust revisionism that would be a dead giveaway. Using this imagery is definitely irresponsible and it can be easily misconstrued but isn’t punk MEANT to be irresponsible and shocking?

Personally, I’d take the band that inspires arguments like this over the twee, studiedly blank slush sloshing around the “indie” ghetto at the moment everytime. I’m not a big Iceage fan but give me them over the current crop of morons who consult their PR team before sneezing any day. As Europe’s far-right are enjoying a resurgence, now is the time to have this debate and talk about these issues. If the furore surrounding this band has opened one apolitical eye up to the reality that some seriously bad people are experiencing a groundswell of support due to the mess society is in, then they’ve served a valuable purpose (whether it’s the one they set out to do or not). If you’re going to slag this band off, don’t slag them off purely for using far-right imagery, do it because you think they’re shit.

P.S.
The far-right have more in common than they’d ever admit with the extremists they claim all Muslims are. Both the far-right and Islamic extremists (and ALL religious extremists, whether they be Muslims or Christians) espouse in incoherent ideology built solely on blind faith in an imagined past and hatred of the Other (i.e. everyone who isn’t a male heterosexual). It’s a good job they’re too stupid to realise this.

Death in June are not nazis, they’ve even played shows in Israel. You can debate about their opinions but they’re defenitly not nazis. Tony Wakeford was asked to leave the group when he joined the National Front. I’ve been to 3 Death in June shows (2 of them in Copenhagen actually. The guys from Iceage were at the first one) and there where people of non european origin at all 3 of them.

“How come nobody talks about Elias’ drawings of weather forecasts and football highlights? That’s what I want to know”
Do I even need to comment on how retarded this quote is? The drawings where made for an underground fanzine, not the morning paper.

Me and a couple of friends talked to Jakob (the bass player) after an Iceage show and my friend who is a communist mentioned something about politics. Jakob then said something like “I’m not a communist, but I have nothing against communists”. I doubt that a fascist would say that.

Anyway, what I’m saying is, if you believe in something, don’t just be passive and wait for events, do something active, which Iceage seem to have perhaps unwittingly done. Ezra Pound was an anti-Semite prick, so was Eliot, Ian Curtis voted Tory and coerced his wife into doing the same. If it’s any good it will float free.

To bring you my love by PJ Harvey
and
Stankonia by Outkast.
I’ve just started listening to them for the first time.
Thanks, Laila.
P.S. Also I read you didn’t like the smiths somewhere, why was that?