"Well, first of all I think you’re being overly kind say that it was a playful or aesthetic thing when there were a lot of people who were playing with really dodgy stuff. They’d try it explain it off but it’s like, fuck off, it’s just neo-Nazi crap, that’s what it is. That’s why I have a huge problem with neo-folk, you know they’re all like ‘It’s the runes’ blah blah – no it’s not, it’s fucking neo-Nazi crap. At least have the balls to admit it. Don’t give me this shit about it’s the European tradition, fuck off. I always call people up on that stuff, and I don’t get on with those kind of people precisely because of all that bullshit.
“I remember in the early days of SPK, we were on tour in Hamburg, and there were a couple of skinheads in the audience doing sieg-heils because they thought we were a bunch of Nazis. I was doing metal percussion that night, so I had a pair of metal bars, and I proceeded to beat the shit out of them with those. Which felt good. Needless to say our tyres were slashed that night (laughs).
“But to go back to your question, the truth is that the people who I consider my peers and friends don’t have anything to do with that shit. I know people who are caught up in it, but I don’t consider them my peers, for that very reason. I do have one very close friend Monte Cazazza, and he used to play with that stuff, but he’s Monte, he fucks with people, that’s why I like him. Some people think he’s a Nazi and he’s anything but, but he has fun fucking with people. It’s the same with Laibach, actually.”
~ read the full interview at FACT Magazine
~ the Lustmord site
Oh, a great quote, thank you!
ReplyDeleteAs a friend and collaborator with Brian back in the ‘80s, I’m pleased to see he’s come out and said publicly some of the things that we’ve previously talked about privately.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a shame the article this is linked to omits this particular section.
Sorry, but that's bulls**t. Saying all the neofolk stuff is facist and neonazi and on the other hand it's ok with monte cazazza because he's just fooling the people.
ReplyDeleteThis section is in the final part of the interview, here.
ReplyDeleteThe rather blatant hypocrisy is evident in the final paragraph of this. Not to mention that this is the bloke who did the soundtrack to the Church Of Satan's 6/6/06 rally. It seems the ideological demarcation point is whether he's a personal friend or likes your band.
ReplyDeleteIf you are genuinely looking for fascists, you are looking in the wrong places.
ReplyDeleteNo one really cares what pop stars like Laibach and SPK and DAF think, or the silly imagery they play with.
You might as well blame bands like Judas Priest or Black Sabbath for 'corrupting the youth', really.
In fact, why not blame Harry Potter for getting kids into magic.
That is pretty much the level, the effect and 'danger' of these pop groups your page is devoted to 'critiquing.'
These are carnival schlock artists, no more.
So many new revelations on this blog. Let's have a long article on those nasty nazis Laibach as well.
ReplyDeleteHey Brian, if you're reading this, you arrived late in the game when SPK tried to go pop and sucked severly at it. You made a couple of good albums by yourself but that was a long, long time ago now. Since then you've regurgitated your formula and signed to Hydrahead, the ultimate label for falses. In short, what you had you lost long ago so keep sucking Graeme's Hollywood owned cock and shut the fuck up.
ReplyDeleteI hear Brian Ferry likes the Nuremberg Rallies. And Lemmy Kilminster's got a Nazi dagger, I'll bet. Expose these men immediately!
ReplyDeleteThe mention of Monte Cazazza in the excerpted interview as blatant wind-up artist and not nazi fuckbulb reminded me of the case of Jean-Louis Costes versus various French antifascist organisations backed up by State law. A legal case based around the prosecution of his (wilfully offensive towards everyone in general) albums dragged on for years and cost him a fortune. I remember speaking to the guy in '99 about this and he was pretty convinced that there was no difference between fascists and antifascists, that each faction shared a common mental disease. I don't agree with him but I can understand why he felt pushed to this point.
ReplyDeleteAn example of the kind of lyrics which caused offence were some ravings on 'Hung By The Dick' about wanting to piss up the arse of a black man and create mystical yellow babies. On 'Jap Jew' (created before he moved to Japan for an extended stay - doh) he burbles in broken English 'The Jap is a fucking snake, he has a kind of brain, this CD is not a joke, I warn you my friends!'. He was parodying the rantings of Le Pen et al, whipping his brain into a frenzy with sexual and racial extremism, he was out there on the furthest reaches of the artistic lunatic fringe and I think some of his work from those days is still phenomenally powerful and radical as well as very funny.
In a rare episode of true shamefulness in the history of antifascism, the French government chose to test out new 'hate speech' laws on this guy, knowing that he had no money, few supporters, no network of nazi sympathisers behind him.
@Not a fuckin nazi:
ReplyDeleteIs it really 'shameful'?
There is surely no point in being a transgressive artist if nobody pays one any attention - much as an infant cries because it needs parental contact. Costes actively courts responses like this, it does him little credit to whinge when someone reacts. He talks about using his art to challenge "false taboos and uneasiness that exist throughout our society" - representatives of that society presumably feel they have been given the right to meet that challenge and assert that some taboos are there for a good reason.
"knowing that he had no money, few supporters, no network of nazi sympathisers behind him."
But he does have a mummy who apprently foots his bills... "And it’s my mother who pays. She sold her house, there is a lot of damage, because me, I haven’t paid a dime. In any case it’s my mother who pays for everything, even for the music."
I can't summon up a great deal of outrage on his behalf.
Quite right Bensusan, it's always great to see the state attack a single individual over their words. Sure the fight is a bit uneven but because he's a bad person who "actively courts responses like this" he had it coming. And fuck his mother too. Serves her right for raising that son of hers.
ReplyDeleteYeah he definitely deserved what he got just as Crass did when they were hounded over How Does It Feel. How lucky we are to have governments protecting us from music they don't like.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteThere is only the most tangential of connections to the cases of Costes and Crass. As you rightly pointed out, Crass were hounded by the state for attacking Thatcher... whereas the Costes prosecution was sought by the Union of Jewish Students of France who found what they perceived to be his anti-semitism unacceptable.
Costes published material in a country whose laws are coloured by France's involvement in the Holocaust. It was only in 1995 that Jacques Chirac, and therefore the French State, officially recognised some responsibility for the deportation of some 76,000 Jews to Nazi death-camps. A country where "“lies,” “Zionism”, “interests” and the dollar sign “$”" were painted on a monument to deportees to concentration camps. Swastikas have been painted on a dozen kosher stores in Paris and the Etz Chaim synagogue in Melun, 27 gravestones at the Jewish cemetery in Wolfisheim, near Strasbourg were smashed up or painted with swastikas and “Juden Raus”. This is also the country that has seen a 75% increase in anti-semitic incidents between 2008 and 2009.
I mentioned Costes' mother because it seems to me that his behaviour is that of an amoral trust-fund kid who knows that someone else will clean up his mess after him.
The fact that he has few supporters and no network, that he is "attack[ed as] a single individual" - if it proves anything it proves that his "art" has little currency, that it represents not much more than the tantrums of someone who should leave home and grow up a bit.
Sadly from a comment on one of his Youtube appearances, his attempt to put "under the spotlights the false taboos and uneasiness that exist throughout our society in order to better destroy them in public." has fallen a little flat, as this comment reveals:
"Costes is one of the best Far-Right artist of the 20th century... He has criticized with talent the humantitarian and anti-racist superficial culture of modern France, by revealing the conceptual flaws of the flashy left wing..."
Heil Costes!"
"It was only in 1995 that Jacques Chirac, and therefore the French State, officially recognised some responsibility for the deportation of some 76,000 Jews to Nazi death-camps. A country where "“lies,” “Zionism”, “interests” and the dollar sign “$”" were painted on a monument to deportees to concentration camps. Swastikas have been painted on a dozen kosher stores in Paris and the Etz Chaim synagogue in Melun, 27 gravestones at the Jewish cemetery in Wolfisheim, near Strasbourg were smashed up or painted with swastikas and “Juden Raus”. This is also the country that has seen a 75% increase in anti-semitic incidents between 2008 and 2009"
ReplyDeleteCostes caused that? Not bad for an artist whose art "has little currency". Amoral trustfund kid who knows someone else will clean up his mess after him? I don't know if he is or not but it's possible. What I do know is that it sounds a lot like many a lefty I've come across slumming it in squats.
"Costes is one of the best Far-Right artist of the 20th century... He has criticized with talent the humantitarian and anti-racist superficial culture of modern France, by revealing the conceptual flaws of the flashy left wing..."
Heil Costes!"
Are you saying that someone expressing an opinion on him on the internet is proof of his political leanings? It's the opinion of that person and it reveals fuck all.
@ bensusan
ReplyDeleteI saw that youtube comment too and dismissed it as an obvious attempt at trolling.
You're entirely correct that Costes did indeed court this kind of response. For a long while he was never happier than when his live shows get stopped, usually due to bar staff in tiny venues objecting to nudity and general mucky behaviour.
The French State went after legal costs from his partly estranged mother as 'next of kin' as Costes himself lived in penury before his more recent successes as an author and actor (Ireversible, Baise Moi). He 'got out more' quite a lot though, regularly touring North America and Europe with mini-troupes of theatrical weirdos drawn from multi-racial backgrounds. Lisa Carver's 'Drugs Are Nice' already cited here paints him to be clearly undodgy in his politics in contrast to her second husband Boyd Rice.
@Anonymous
ReplyDelete"Costes caused that? Not bad for an artist whose art "has little currency".
No of course Costes didn't cause that, I didn't suggest that and it is ridiculous to infer from what I wrote that I was. I was talking about anti-semitism in France and why a Jewish Student organisation might not have much of a sense of humour about his work.
"Are you saying that someone expressing an opinion on him on the internet is proof of his political leanings?"
No, but I am suggesting that taken at face value - (@not a fuckin nazi - I take your point that it could be a troll... as could the comment from the same poster [groslucas] on the Youtube video of Costes : "Où sont partis les nazis ? live"): "The nazis are not gone they are here at all of you concerts...and the nazis love you.... Costes, you should have been Minister of Culture under the 3rd Reich !!! Sieg Heil!!!") it suggest the monumental failure of his infantile provocations. If by attempting to critique fascism he merely attracts an audience of fascists I think he's failed.
For what it's worth, I don't think he is a fascist - I think he is an ego-driven provocateur whose derivative art practice is largely pointless and irrelevant.
I may have missed the mark with the comments about his mother, about whom Lisa Carver speaks of visiting in Chapter 13 of Drugs Are Nice "We visit his parents, in their mansion." I admit it led me to think that he was cushioned by parental wealth... and actually that appears to have been the case, although perhaps unwillingly.
So we agree he's not to blame for racist and in particular anti semitic attacks in France. Why then use those examples as a justification to why he deserved the mighty wrath of the French government.
ReplyDeleteNo one is asking any jews, or anyone else for that matter, to find him funny. They are free to take it anyway they like but dragging him to court for hurting their feelings is piss weak. To quote Stephen Fry: So you were offended, so fucking what?
So someone claimed the nazis love him. A strange claim in the first place unless that person speaks for all the nazis but OK, let's pretend it's true. So fucking what?
So it's possible his mother funded his artistic explorations. He's hardly the first or the last artist with a privileged background living off mummy and daddy. Does that make him less tolerable? Does that make it more justified for the state to silence him?
Everything about all of this is so far up it's own ass it's ridiculous. The irony of it being the more people have these knee jerk reactions to any element of neo-facism in music, the more bands that are going to crop up doing it, and the ones already doing it just become more committed to it. It's funny because since the 70s people still don't get it. Your self righteous anger and shrill diatribes aren't going to stop people from buying the albums.
ReplyDeleteThe Neo-Fascist, Neo-Nazi, whatever crap adds a certain dark forbidden glamor. That's why it's there. It's supposed to be morally wrong. That's the point. It's just like metal bands when they played around with Satanism. Kids wanted to find the most evil, the darkest, the most taboo. Same with all this Nazi shit. Whether the musicians are heavy into it or not what it boils down to is a way to sell albums. They're offering a slice of forbidden fruit to typically harmless kids in black t-shirts who want something a bit naughty. Sometimes it's tongue in cheek sometimes it isn't, but for the most part these eccentric musicians in reality are hardly a danger to anyone.
Brian Lustmord is up his own ass. I still love the guy though. But damn, get off your high horse B.
I guess what I'm saying is, You're all a bunch of friggin hippies.
As it happens, I am a bit of a hippy at heart. Some freaks and hippies had real nous when it came to politics, while post-Industrial culture sometimes seems obsessed with moralism (either the super-sensitive liberal moralism of those that complain about having ideas imposed on them when anyone puts forward a argument, or those Fascists who fetishise moralism so completely that they base their entire philosophy on their rejection of it (Satanism, Social Darwinism, etc.)
ReplyDelete@ Bensusan: "the Costes prosecution was sought by the Union of Jewish Students of France who found what they perceived to be his anti-semitism unacceptable."
ReplyDeleteI find it far more likely that some budding career politicos within that group perceived his ridiculous work as an easy target for a test case. Which rather begs the question of why they didn't go after a real nazi, as you point out there's plenty in France.
Great to see Ben Watson's piece here BTW
@not a fuckin nazi: "I find it far more likely that some budding career politicos within that group perceived his ridiculous work as an easy target"
ReplyDeleteVery possibly true, but you're in the realm of supposition now.
The fact of the matter is that work of Costes' nature opens its creator to the prosecution and to bleat about it after the event as some example of state repression is utter bollocks. He put his work out there and was called to account for it - no conspiracy required. Pretty unedifying all round really.
Glad to know this is his stance, as I've already regarded his output as actually being good, whereas i've come to realize that 99% of everything else in the ambient noise, neo-folk, post-industrial,whatever genres is absolute garbage....aesthetically and politically.
ReplyDeleteI heard Costes first in the 90s - I thought the sheer absurdity of his artwork and music was hilarious. I thought too that the struggle with the French Government and courts was absurd.
ReplyDeleteThen a long time later a frenchman 'who knows about such things' suggested that I look into Costes some-time management.
My opinion was changed - insofar as you can judge a person by the company he keeps, or in this case manages his affairs...
....irrespective of politics - can I just say I think it is stupid and pathetic of the above artist to co-opt a term adopted for the murderer Peter Kürten for the name of his group - and that his head (Brians) and that of the other filth - such as various Whitehouse people - should be struck so hard together as to cause permanent brain damage - just so that they might have an after-the-fact reason for their aberrant stupidity. Let it not be said I am a person of overly stern judgement or unfair attitudes - just a person who is content to say "enough is enough".
ReplyDeleteYou should rename your blog as "music that I don't like".
ReplyDelete