We’ve got a veritable Reuters news agency worth of items on the docket this week, folks. Everything from festival announcements to cool video game tie-ins to oddly messy limited edition releases are on the table in a news-heavy episode. Also, we’re tackling the thorny issue of Soleilmoon Recordings and Death In June being identified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a story which garnered attention well beyond the confines of Our Thing, but which we feel needs to be addressed by those within it. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music and Stitcher, download directly, or stream from the widget down below.
We Have a Technical 145: Oh, Umpire
I am really, really glad you guys addressed all of this stuff in the second part of the podcast. I’ve never understood the disconnect between the people who will listen to/excuse the DoJ/NON stuff and then decry bands for misogyny, etc. I wanted to rant at someone a while back for the whole idea when they were damning Funker Vogt for Sasha Korn, but i knew they listened to DoJ…
also heartbreaking insider news about Ka-spel: he is almost TOO nice. hate to tell you this.
noooooo…. my mighty heart
The SPLC needs to cast as wide a “hate” net as possible in order to stay in business.
I was pretty amused to see that the SPLC lists TWO black separatist groups located in PDX, one for each black dude living there!
The pacific northwest – portland in particular – has historically been rooted in black-exclusionist attitudes and policies. While soleilmoon may not be blatantly nationalist, racist, or whatever, its existence is partially made possible by the region in which it resides by virtue of its affiliations. The history of portland oregon is not dark at all. Quite literally the opposite! And when that is taken into account, it (in my mind at least) answers the question of “how could this kind of stuff reside here?”
Cant say im looking forward to seeing how this turns out, but im interested nonetheless! I always appreciate you two sharing your thoughts to the world and allowing discussion on your page here.
So, I’ve been pondering this for a while.
On the one hand, my first impulse as a long-standing fan of both Death In June and Soleilmoon Records was to leap to their defense. But on the other hand, it is true that Douglas P. does espouse an uncomfortably bigoted brand of right-wing Eurocentrism at total odds with my own ideals, and has been for a good long while now. On the third hand, if the DiJ show I attended a few years back is any indication, his audience is mostly made up of harmless goths, industrialists, and post-punk rockers; the white-power meatheads are a distinct minority, so if he’s really using his bully pulpit to preach race hate, he is not very good at it. On the fourth hand, your point about the “broken step theory” is definitely worth considering. On the fifth hand, so much of the criticism I’ve seen over the years is just too overblown to take seriously (“Why does he drink a GERMAN wine when the loneliness closes in, hmmmm?” And thank you for not harping on “Rose Clouds of Holocaust” – I, for one, am prepared to take the Masked Man at his word when he says it’s about something from his personal life and not, you know, the actual Holocaust or a denial thereof.) On the sixth hand, he does hang out with Boyd Rice. On the seventh hand, is it really necessary to brand Soleilmoon Records a “hate music label” based on two acts out of the myriad they’ve handled over the years? On the eighth hand, it seems to have had the desired effect, as Soleilmoon has pulled all DiJ music and merchandise from their website. On the ninth hand, where did all these hands come from? What am I, some kind of Hindu deity?
But in the end, what it comes down to for me is this: In spite of everything, the music of Death In June still sings to me. And just as one can praise Ezra Pound’s poetic gift while acknowledging that he was an absolute piece of work in all other respects, I can go on enjoying Douglas P.’s musical creations while admitting that the man himself could stand to let a couple more angels of ignorance fall from his eyes.
So I will not be discarding my DiJ albums, I will not be deleting any songs from my hard drive, I will not drop them from my radio playlists, I will go on wearing my Totenkopf T-shirt. We all have to take a stand on this issue; this, for better or for worse, is mine.
I’m tired of this half assed fence sitting bullshit.
This whole “hey man, I just like the music” crap is a total copout. When fans support assholes like Pierce they’re either directly or indirectly supporting his bullshit ideology whether they want to admit it or not. They’re part of the fucking problem.
Anyway, I think it’s this is an important issue that’s generally glossed over or outright denied among industrial fans and I’m glad that people of note in the “scene” like you guys are openly talking about it. Big ups.