Open Letter to k-punk.
Yes I've noticed the creeping reclaimation of those lot. Throbbing Gristle first (and easiest) then Nurse with Wound (integratable first elpee) then Current 93 (such strong links to NWW) then Coil (via Penman and more "palatable" later work Love's Secret Domain onwards). And now Whitehouse.
I still have MAJOR problems with this crew. I'm sure if I was from Portugal, America or the Netherlands then I'd be more open to them than I am as a British native. Many outfits and eras bear similarities. Stapleton's link to Krautrock (didn't he roady for Guru Guru and hang out with Conny Plank as a teenager) isn't just superficial. There is a occult grotesque dimension to Krautrock that gets glossed over. My friend The Black Dog was a Coil fan first and foremost. Likewise, their mythic magick rendering of London and their electronic gnostic creation of "worlds apart" must have struck a chord with him. Throbbing Gristle get props from a whole gamut of people, Basement Jaxx (of all people) were the winners in the hotly contested competition to re-rub "Hot on the heels of Love". Trendy, innit. Everyone squabbling: "I liked them first!"
I shouldn't be so appalled by the stuff this "Industrial" crew produced. Yeah I saw the Butthole Surfers with their nood dancers and medical dissection videos. I've even stumped up ca$h for Horse Rotovator, Scatology, A Chance meeting on an Operating Table and 20 Jazz Funk Greats. But I've always failed to LIKE this music. And actually the reason is, I think, that the aforementioned lot (TBD, TBS and Krautrock) have at heart a positive HOLY vision. I can't get away from the sordid trappings evident in the Industrial lot. The idea should be (and maybe it is) to *transcend* the base materials to suggest a better world, a more kind and generous world. I see this in the humour of The Butthole Surfers or the abstraction of The Black Dog. It's evident in the aspiration, even possibly re-visioned protestantism, of Krautrock. Elsewhere at the dark heart of The Stooges, there is a sheer love for mankind, in Pop's forgiveness for the bikers who anally rape him "Dirt", in our pathos for Iggy's self-mutilation that stems for our love of him "Poor old silly Iggy, bless him poor confused child..." Actually while the Industrial crew maybe "holy" they're certainly black occult. And that's not nice. Yeah, one has to be careful to read Coil's work against John Balance's homosexuality, but you know, I'm not convinced.
It's pathetically easy to be swayed by the effects which EVIL people create. It's easy as a hipster to wear those stigmatising signs. That'd be all very well were it not that this stuff DOES have a real-world corrolory. A friend works for Glasgow City Social Services. One of her ongoing, and miserable, tasks is to try and piece together communities rent apart by ritual murder and ritual abuse, often inflicted on children. These clearly articulate people aren't listening to Girls Aloud. It's a real thing evil. Talking to my friend Jonathon Selzer this weekend about Black Metal in Norway and the attendant culture, in extremis murder. Note all these semi-hilarious stories about old women in Wales being killed by "Vampires", that's someone's Granny.
You might think I'm over-egging it, but in the Industrial (I think they call it the "Fluxus" bin) at the M&V there was, on some limited edition record cover, for ages, the most horrible picture of some naked little girl stretched into some torture device. Nice! Great cover dudes! And actually Mark's (albeit sensitive and objective) discussion of the Professor Adolf McGroot's "All hail the Blessed Sutcliffe", with it's celebration of The Yorkshire Ripper's serial murder of prostitutes, makes me come to the same conclusions. Not how "Bad" and transgressive these people are, but how weak and stupid. Sure it's not fair to colour everyone with the same brush (here goes anyway), but I believe the whole "Industrial" project, neatly tied in a bow by David Keenan in his new book is, if not corrupt in intention, then corrupt in execution.
And you know what. I'll bet that saying what I've said here will be a mite more controversial act than trying to apologise or explain what this scene is up to. Fuck 'em. Fuck the whole lot of 'em.
Posted by Woebot at July 1, 2003 11:32 AM