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Northern Hammerskins
Update : Heil to pay: Reich banned from Zuffa cards, Jake Rossen/Sherdog.com, ESPN, December 9, 2009: “Maggie Hendricks and MMAJunkie were first to notify the blogosphere — what a word — that Zuffa’s UFC and WEC banners would no longer be hospitable to fighters sponsored by the Hoelzer Reich clothing company… Of the major U.S. [...]
See : C.U.N.T., Hoelzer Reich, & Tomorrow Belongs to The Yes Men! (December 7, 2009) for background. A good summary of Zuffa’s (Zuffa LLC is the private, multi-million dollar Las Vegas-based company that owns UFC/’Ultimate Fighting Champuionship’) decision to authorise Hoelzer Reich is available @ Another Hoelzer Reich Post, Watch Kalib Run, December 8, 2009. Fortunately for Hoelzer Reich/Zuffa/UFC, the corporate media — with one exception — has ignored the controversy thus far. Note that “The UFC is holding a show in Memphis this weekend, which also happens to be the site of the National Civil Rights Museum. A story about the irony of the company having HR as a sponsor in that environment practically writes itself and plays into every negative stereotype about MMA.”
Oh, the ironing!
Notes
Niko Puhakka is a neo-Nazi MMA from Finland. He has 88 friends on myspace (arf arf), one of whom is Dieter Samoy, lead shouter for Belgian neo-Nazi oi! band ‘Kill Baby Kill’ (KBK). Puhakka’s current fave toon, ‘My Name Is Hate’, is by KBK, and is taken from their album Product of Society. The album was released in July 2009 by neo-Nazi label NADSAT Productions. When the band toured Australia in 2008, the tour was organised by the local B&H and Hammerskins franchises. In addition to prancing about on stage, the band also did a little recording while here, helping local Hammerskin Jesse belt out the smash pop hit ‘Oh No Here Comes An Abo’.
Not surprisingly, Puhakka is also a fan of West Wall.
Blood & Honour was established in 1987 by two (dead) boneheads from England: Ian Stuart (Donaldson) and Nicky Crane. Ian Stuart warbled toons for the band Skrewdriver. He died in a car accident in 1993. Nicky Crane’s main claim to fame was appearing on the cover of an album, Strength Through Oi!. He also died in 1993 (of an AIDS-related disease). B&H continues to operate throughout the world, including Australia and the United States. It is banned in Germany.
West Wall is the second band to have evolved from the ashes of the Minnesota-based Bound For Glory (BFG). Between the dissolution of BFG and the establishment of West Wall, the band was known as Before God. All three bands are featured on the now-defunct site musicalterrorists.com. BFG had its ups and downs during its brief existence, one of the worst downs occurring when the band’s lead shouter, Eric Banks, was shot dead on January 1, 1993. (His murder was apparently committed by anti-racist skinheads.) The guiding light in all three bands has been guitarist Ed Wolbank; Wolbank also performed with the neo-Nazi oi! band the Bully Boys.
The Hammerskins are a neo-Nazi skinhead gang established in the United States but one which, like B&H, has established franchises elsewhere in the world, including Australia (although it has recently been proscribed in Spain as a terrorist organisation).
The bizarro neo-Nazi political cult known as the Hammerskins was established in the late 1980s in Dallas, Texas, as the Confederate Hammerskins. The group’s name is derived from the film The Wall (1979), in which the fascist followers of Sir Bob Geldof’s character appear as crossed hammers: the crossed hammers have since been adopted as the group’s symbol. An overview of the group’s first, glorious decade is available in ‘Hammerskin Nation’ (Intelligence Report, Fall 1999); in October, the gang celebrated its 20th anniversary with a party in Florida. Among those performing was Melbourne band Death[']s Head.
See also : Fascist Fashion in Berlin, think demux, August 27, 2008 | Neo-Nazi Fashion: Thor Steinar and the Changing Look of the German Far Right, Rachel Nolan, Spiegel Online, November 20, 2008.
C.U.N.T.
Oh Noes! “Covert Undercover Nuisance Tactics” — a blog established in December 2005 and apparently maintained by two British neo-Nazis named Tommy Williams and Dave Howard — has passed on. The blog is no more. It has ceased to be. It has expired and gone to meet its maker. It’s a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. It’s pushing up the daisies. Its quasi-metabolic processes are now history. It’s off the twig. It’s kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile. THIS IS AN EX-BLOG!
http://covert-tactics.blogspot.com/
Why?
Dunno.
But it may have something to do with the alleged fact that Tommy Williams and Dave Howard attended the home of National Front functionary Eddy Morrison in late November (Eddy has been slightly unsteady in his precise political allegiances, having been involved in umpteen fascist groupuscules over his lifetime). Some further details are available here: BNP Life Member promotes rabid neo-Nazism, Edmund Standing, December 5, 2009.
Hoelzer Reich
In other nutzi news, the US-based clothing label Hoelzer Reich — founded by Jed Colvin and Jamie Vine — is coming under fire. See : Controversial Hoelzer Reich Clothing at TUF 10 Finale, Brent Brookhouse, Bloody Elbow, December 2, 2009.
While the company distances itself from neo-Nazism and fascism — and it, in turn has been repudiated by the UFC, at least in England — the fact is that HR has sponsored neo-Nazi reich ‘n’ rollers ‘West Wall’ in the past:
West Wall is a neo-Nazi metal band led by the former leader of the neo-Nazi skinhead group Northern Hammerskins [ie, Ed Wolbank, a former member of US reich 'n' rollers Bound for Glory*]. Hoelzer Reich’s website contained photos of the band in their shirts which the brand explains as the band buying the shirts and mailing them photos which were then posted and removed once it was realized who they were. However, in an interview the lead singer of the band said that they were sponsored by the brand. Add that to the fact that up until recent days the label’s blog stated West Wall as their favorite band and the fact that HR’s myspace page featured a playlist of West Wall songs and it becomes hard to think that the posting of the band in HR shirts was a simple mistake.
Like any good business — cf. The Birmingham Hotel and Hold Fast Body Art in Melbourne — Hoelzer Reich understands that, while it may be funs to flirt with fascism, beyond a certain level, honest confessions of racist political sentiment can be damaging to the brand, and hence profitability. It’s also standard practice, when sprung, for more intelligent businessmen to go into damage control mode, seeking to eliminate previously more-or-less open support for disreputable groups and projects; the shit-for-brains, on the other hand, tend to go out of business.
It’s also worth noting that of the thousands of nutzi musos making a racket in the ’80s and ’90s, some small number are now trying to go ‘legit’: that is, to make muzak and perform it without, for example, imploring their audience to go out and kill some Jews. In doing so, they invariably — and necessarily — seek to transform their img. Examples of this include bands like ‘Tattooed Motherfuckers’ in the UK and ‘T.H.U.G.’ in Australia.
The moral of the story is that if you’re a tweenage, or teenage, or 20-something, or 30-something bonehead, don’t be surprised if your devotion to the Master Race doesn’t come back to bite you in the arse later on in life.
And the silver lining? Watching with amusement as their pals jump in to defend them.
Anyway.
Tomorrow belongs to The Yes Men.
NB. “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” (Cabaret) was written by two Jewish d00ds, John Kander (1927–) and Fred Ebb (1928–2004).