I'd like to ask a serious question regarding Punk Rock music and I need this to be clarified for all the heads that are into Punk Rock.

I've been doing a lot of research on Southern California Punk and Punk in general. I'll come across various websites and there'll be images and artwork of swatiskas and songs or albums with "Hilter," "SS" and "Nazi" in the title. Used by local L.A. groups like The Last (Manhattan Beach), The Stains (East L.A.), Billy Wizard (San Diego) had a song called "Nazi Love"

Since I'm not really deep into the '70s & '80s Punk rock catalog and its various nuances, I'd like to know if Nazi imagery was used in Punk Rock merely as a sign of teen/youth rebellion or is it a manifestation of outright hate and racial prejudice?

I know here in Southern California, there are white supremacist street gangs in the O.C. and the Valleys (just like Bloods & Crips in the inner cities) called the Nazi Lowriders, Skinheads, etc. and they'd antagonize black and other non-white residents in these outlining communities. There was a racial incident in Simi Valley this past Christmas 2004 where a black male was beaten up because he was soliciting for charity outside of a supermarket in lily white Simi Valley, California. I'm not attributing this to the Punk Rock movement, but I need some clarification.

I know there is an anti-racism/anti-Neo Nazi movement in the Punk Rock scene, and there IS a straight up white supremacist scene, but I just need somebody to tell me if ALL Nazi/Swatiska imagery in Punk Rock is overtly racial or does it have other meanings (rebellion, bucking trends, etc.) because I'm running into it a lot when I browse through past catalogs and it makes me weary.

a lot of it is just rebellion/shock value/posturing...if you see stuff like "blitzkrieg bop" by the ramones, or the sex pistols using nazi imagery in their songs and visuals, it is AT BEST a form of dark satire, and at worst, just dumb shock value.

Anxiety said:

defo no racism in punk rock !!! , listen to the clash ,...they were very anti racist !

white riot

police n' thieves

white man in hammersmith palais

the clash played a "rock against racism gig 1978" at there height !

sid from the pistols used nazi imagery and the pistols recorded a song called belsen was a gas , it was all stupid shock / get a reaction shit ,..... none o these guy's were racist just stoopid teenagers !!!


oh and listen to "doesnt make it allright" by stiff little fingers aswell !!!

When the SoCal punk movement originally appeared in L.A. (Hollywood), the skinhead/nazi crap and violence wasn't a part of it; that stuff came along later. My impression is that it was mostly the rebellion/shock value thing; hardcore is credited to (more like, blamed on) alienated suburban white teenage boys. I'd suggest reading the book "We Got the Neutron Bomb: the Untold Story of L.A. Punk" by Spitz and Mullen, it's a great history of the scene and would answer your questions and then some! Hope this helps.


(edit: corrected the book title)
[Edited 1/7/05 20:33pm]

just remembered ,... only last week i went to see a tribute band called the counterfeit-clash , one o the guy's who was black ended up on stage singing his lungs out to white riot !

black man gotta lot o problems they dont mind throwing a brick
white people go to school where they teach u to b thick
everybodys doin just what there told to
and nobody wants to go to jail
white riot , i wanna riot

white riot a riot of my own !

this song was written by joe strummer after taking part in the nottinh hill carnival riot in 1976 strummer and simonon from the clash took part in the riot they tried to set a car on fire , but couldnt get the matches to strike true story !, strummer said,....

"we knew all along this was a black mans riot but we got involved anyway"

don letts the legendry rastaman, uk dj/director dj'd in the punk clubs !!! and introduced guys like the clash to reggae and dub ,.....

bankrobber and guns of brixton r obvious songs by the clash to come from the reggae influence !

anyway enuf from me !!!

Remember Bowie in '76-'77? The facist salute at the train station, etc...? I think it's more about rebellion than any underlying Nazi/skinhead tendencies. Still disgusting, though...

danielboon said:

Sid Vicious was racist - referred to blacks as niggers, spades, coons and wogs. None of the other Pistols were though.

Siouxsie Sioux posed and preened around the 1977 London punk scene proudly wearing a Nazi armband. One of her early lyrics went: "Too many Jews in here ...".

I think in her case it was all done for shock value. Sid was just a misguided, fucked up, no talent moron. Loved "My Way" though.

There was PLENTY of racism around the UK punk scene in the early 1980s - especially and almost exclusively in the "Oi" (basically punk played by skinheads) scene. Far right parties like the National Front and British Movement used to recruit members at their gigs. 95% of the bands weren't racist, but there were notable exceptions from the overt (Skrewdriver) to the subtle (The Last Resort).

As with all social groups, some punk rockers were, in fact, racists. Most were not, and some seriously anti-racists.

The Nazi movement??

Well, it's like this . .Joey Ramone was a Jew from Forest Hills, Queens, NY. Dee Dee Ramone grew up playing on WW2 battlefields in Germany collecting trinkets that'd been left behind by dead soldiers. Ultimately they grew up to write songs that simultaneously referenced Nazis and touted the merits of Kosher salamis. Absurd, dadaist satire for a world gone berserk. . .a la the Marx Brothers 'Duck Soup.'

And you could dance to it.

Shapeshifter said:

your bang ob about the oi - skinhead movement being targeted by the nf etc , but this was really after the initial punk scene had ended , it was also quite embarressing for the ska movement which grew from punk,.. the specials, the beat , bad manners and madness , selector etc etc the racist nf/skinhead outfit tried to tag on to them ! even tough apart from madness the bands were multi racial !!! i remember suggs from madness being really embarressed by this !

i still think sid was an asshole rather than a racist strum/simo were best mates with him ! simo is always harping on about the black/reggae influence on him n' sid was his mate ! strum/jones even helped out on sid tour after he left the pistols , hateful by the clash is about sid i dont think the clash would have ,.....as the specials put it "a racist friend" an asshole maybe !

trashoblanco said:

i'm not long finished reading a book on the road with the ramones , it more than hints that, johnny was a racist , but in general terms you couldnt say punk rock was racist ! no way ,..... but like every movement you get your fair share of assholes !

controversial lyrics and clothing =$

danielboon said:

Fair point about Sid, Danny, although you couldn't really use Strummer as a barometer for consistency. Much as I love the guy (I was lucky enough to meet him, and he came over as a really genuine bloke) he did once say that the sight of English football hooligans running riot in European cities filled him with pride (!) - forgetting the fact that said hooligans comprised mindless thugs, psychos and members of racist organisations.

Otherwise, no way was punk racist. There was even a sort of symbiosis going on with the reggae movement of the time. Bob Marley wrote "Punky Reggae Party" about it. In the UK, first generation punk bands were closely aligned with Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League.
[Edited 1/8/05 4:45am]

I don't think that the better known punk bands really had nazi-sympathies, on the other hand, bands like the notorious Skrewdriver are really dickheads. These bands do nothing else than include racist, nationalist stuff into their lyrics. If you want them, they are pretty hard to find.....or, actually I don't really know!

abierman said:

Believe it or not, their stuff regularly appears on E Bay.

Shapeshifter said:

agreed 1st gen punk rock was very anti racist , and what was that line in bob marley's tune ,.... "punky reggae party with the jam , the damned and the clash " ?
[Edited 1/8/05 9:02am]

hey janfan4l , has any this info been any good for u ???
[Edited 1/8/05 9:04am]

There is a hardcore white supremecist movement but it's all underground. I remember hearing about a lot of these bands back in the mid to late 90's. They're all underground though. It's kinda like the band they show in the scene of American History X where Ed Norton's character goes to the compound looking for his brother.

CandaceS said:

Thanks for the book recommendation.

I find it interesting that the main ones playing up the "Nazi"/"Neo-Nazi" angle come from white kids that live in the suburbs. They supposedly come from the most "prosperous" areas of society, yet I feel that that same homogenity leads to that kind of sentiment.

I think some of the people who intelligently use the "Nazi" aesthetic are commenting on the homogenity, "lily white" and hyperconservative nature of the American suburbs. Suburbia tries to hard to be "perfect" and utopian. Therefore, the "Nazi" construct suggests a kind of landscape of fear and comments on class and race.

Hitler's Nazis were essentially clones that were fed propaganda, so are those living in the American suburbs. It reminds me of a song by the Descendents called "Suburban Home," the lyrics go...

I want to be stereotyped
I want to be classified
I want to be cloned
I want a Suburban Home!

That may explain why a lot of suburban groups used Nazi imagery a lot in the '70s & '80s, especially in Southern California, since the suburbs out here are notoriously conservative and lily white (especially Orange County). When you mix these areas with hostile cops, hostile parents, no transportation, and a hostile landscape (where you can't skateboard, you're on curfew, you're restricted in every sense) you start to rebel and challenge the system.

It reminds me of a quote I read by Dewar Macleod: "While suburbia had always been essential to punk, as the place to leave and destroy, now suburbia was subject to attack from within."


.
[Edited 1/9/05 14:19pm]

danielboon said:

Yes, it has. Thanks.

I've been doing a lot of research since this thread started and I ran into a book called American Hardcore by Steven Blush. In it, he gives a really interesting assessment of hardcore, skinheads and race in the punk movement.

"F*cked-up but intelligent white kids populated the Hardcore scene. Their legacy included the Cold War, inflation, industrial decline, post-Vietnam trauma, sh*tty music, bad cops and racial turmoil. Some were do-gooders who resented their own relatively high socioeconomic stats or harbored guilt over their forebearers' racism. Others seethed with hatred for the outsiders stealing jobs and ruining neighborhoods. Real or imagined, that was the vibe."

I'm very into punk rock, (or I was more when I was younger, but I still listen to the old albums that I love) but I made sure to steer clear of any bands that were into Nazi and white supremacist imagery. They are in the minority IMO. I hung out with the anti-racist skinhead scene here in the mid-west and no one was EVER into those sorts of bands. And if you were, you got your ASS KICKED.

My band (punk rock orchestra) currently does a cover of "Nazi Punks F*ck Off!" by the Dead Kennedys.

We also do "Suburban Home" by the way...

Shapeshifter said:

It was indeed just for shock value. The Banshees later recorded the song "Israel" as sort of an unofficial apology about the swastika thing. And the line "Too many Jews for my liking" from the song "Love In A Void," was quickly changed in the studio versions and can't be found on any official release. The band ultimately settled on the replacement line "Too many bigots..."

guitarslinger44 said:

This also applies to the electronic music scene. A lot of is pinned as "irony" though, in my own opinion it's rather dubious still. Some great bands though.

Hell, there are even nazi folk bands.

Novabreaker said:

Would Death In June fall into that category? We call them "apocalyptic folk" in the U.S. With songs like "Roseclouds Of Holocaust", you're bound to generate Nazi rumors.

wallysafford said:

That's the bottom line. There are plenty of anti-racist skinheads still out there (hint: check out the color of their shoelaces). Bands like Rancid or Fugazi will even look out over a sold-out, all-white crowd and say things like "stop racial hatred!" Rancid actually sells t-shirts that say that. Where would the ska-punk movement be without racial unity? Punk is one of the most anti-racist scenes out there. I don't mean like, "not racist," but "anti-racist." You know, "sporting anti-swastika tattoos."

Thunderbird said:

Yes. I think so.

Shapeshifter said:

you give sid too much credit. he wasn't a racist. he was a stupid junkie (sorry, i know he was iconic, but he was an idiot) who thought his only worth was in being as offensive and crass as possible, for the sake of being offensive and crass. it doesn't excuse his behavior, but to narrow his behavior down to racism would be like saying godzilla was anti-conservation or that mike tyson is a critic of feminism.

Anxiety said:

we already agreed sid wasnt racist he was an asshole ! read all the posts pls !

danielboon said:

i did read the other posts, and i still felt like putting in my two cents. so how do you like THEM apples?



one word for ya: DECAF.