sextonseven said:

Well, DIJ is the most prominent act in that whole movement, which officially goes by the name "neofolk" (seen as "throwback" subgenre for industrial music - without any real industrial elements left to it). Douglas P. (the head of that group) has issued quite a few comments that could be easily viewed as neo-nazist in interviews. Altough fans do regard them as "humoristic", many others find them just plain dubious. The group was even once banned playing in Switzerland.

And what I know from hanging at the industrial / gothic -discussion boards for years, many many fans of this neofolk type of music (which is closely associated with "martial" and "ritual ambient" as well) tend to be openly racist in their views. So even if the bands themselves wouldn't be wholeheartedly into their favouried "aesthetic imaginery", at least they attract all kinds of scum along with it.

None of those underground White supremacist bands have any talent. They all suck. I'm not saying saying that as a biased minority either because as much as I hate to admit it I can't deny that Johnny Rebel had an amazing sense of melody and an ability to write grea hooks in his racist songs. Just listen to "Coontown", that's a great song that works on so many different levels. The dude was even a decent singer.
[Edited 1/11/05 7:31am]

Novabreaker said:

LOL, my friends and I would feel so much guilt dancing to Death In June songs when we were all part of the goth scene a few years ago. We couldn't help it. "Giddy Giddy Carousel" is too damn catchy.

sextonseven said:

Well, even I have some DIJ records and a couple of others like stuff from Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio (I believe Anxiety likes Current 93), nothing wrong with that. It's decent music for the most part - it's just that the whole movement is quite irksome when you count in the fans and the whole scope of the different groups. To be honest, I wouldn't mind if the bulk of them just up and died.

Now try to spot the one person in this picture who might be into "apocalyptic folk":




[you can actually find me in this pic as well if you really squint your eyes - no, that goddamn jugend person is notme.]
[Edited 1/13/05 5:12am]

Novabreaker said:

Is that Prince Harry I see?

'Apocalyptic Folk' was what the DJs used to call DIJ when I was still part of the scene. It's probably 'neofolk' now like you said. I have one Death In June CD, the double disc, 'DISCriminate' with all their hits (at the time). That's as much money as I want to spend on them.

sextonseven said:

They also later included a Star of David in many of their logos/t-shirts/merchandise. Siouxsie was pretty embarrassed for ever having tried to court that image, and worked hard to reverse it.

As many have pointed out, the first signs of nazi imagery in Punk were primarily for shock value. It wasn't that punk fans were pro-nazi, but rather anti-establishment. Many of them were probably clueless to the ramifications of nazi-ism. They probably just knew it was "bad" and looked down-upon. Considering the whole anti-racism bent of the early years of Punk, I can't really buy that they intended any harm. No doubt, many of the bands were being ironic as well. The Nazi imagery could be viewed (especially when its coming from a band with a jewish frontman like The Ramones) as a statement on the establishment as "facist".

Unfortunately, there were several second and third generation punk bands who took the whole Nazi thing to heart. These were the morons who inspired Jelo Biafra to write "Nazi Punks Fuck Off". Mr. Biafra pointed out in his little ditty that the principles of facism and the Nazi party were directly the opposite of those of punk.

Today, you have punk pretty well fragmented into different camps. Even "skinheads" have pro-nazi and anti-nazi variations. Usually, in my experience, the anti-nazi groups are pretty violently oppossed to the white-supremesist movement, and generally want to kick the living crap out of them.

An example:

Back in high school, I had a group of friends who were punks. I remember one day, I rode along with a group of them that got wind that some neo-nazi skinheads were going to ambush a black kid after school (this kid was at least a couple of years younger than them). Well, we arrived right as they were surrounding this poor kid. Now, I'm not a violent guy, but I have to say...watching a bunch of racist bullies get the ever-loving shit beat out of them was one of the most satisfying sights I've ever seen.
In a bit of an epilogue to the story, a teacher at the school broke up the fight (at this point the skinheads were pretty much a bloody mess). When he found out why my friends were beating up the skinheads, he let them go (just gave them a "talking to"). The skinheads, however, got thirty days "alternative school" for fighting. Occassionally, justice prevails.