Queers to shut down Death In June in San Francisco on September 13th / DIJ exposed by queer anti-fascist

Due to a technical snafu we have only just been able to publish this iece today, the day f the protests - we publish it anyway because it is an excellent article and may be of use to anyone who wants to protest at future DiJ gigs

Bay Area Antifa alert!

An anti-fascist queer bloc has been called to protest and shut down the Third Position fascist band 'Death In June' concert on Friday, September 13th - 9 pm @ the Mezzanine in San Francisco. While there is a queer bloc all anti-fascists are invited but if you are a straight person please do not dominate the protest. As you can read below Douglas Pearce is a gay fascist so it is best if queer folks are on the front. Any homophobic remarks made by anyone in our presence with be dealt with accordingly.
Please contact the Mezzanine to demand they cancel they show or we will shut it down ourselves:

444 Jessie St (between Mint St & 6th St)
San Francisco, CA 94103
Neighborhoods: Union Square

info@mezzaninesf.com
415-625-8880
https://www.facebook.com/mezzanineSF

To get to the Mezzanine by public transport: Bart, Bus or Muni to Powell Street Stop (5th and Market). Walk down 5th toward Mission and take a right into Mint Plaza (near Chez Papa + 54 Mint) Continue down Jessie St. and the venue is on your right.

Why do we oppose Death In June?

Racist, Euro-centric, and Fascist statements made by Douglas Pearce.

1. The European Colonization of Australia
\
When asked Do you see Australia inescapably as an outpost of European colonialism? Douglas stated:
"As Dutch, British and French explorers literally put this Great Southern Land on the map it would be ridiculous to say that modern day Australia is anything other than a grand - and successful - outpost of Euro-colonialism and, more specifically Anglo-Celt British colonialism. It's a fact of life like the Euro-colonization of the Americas etc. If it was an outpost of, let's say, Iranian or Zimbabwean colonialism would so many people still be so desperately trying to get into Australia by any means necessary, legal or otherwise? It's doubtful. Thank the Gods for Euro-colonialism!" - Douglas Pearce ¹

2. Genocide

Q: How do you imagine these scents of genocide, what’s this “perfume”? What does it evoke to you, in real? What brings men to do that?

A: "I also say in the same song that “you can’t smell experience like that”! But, if genocide smells of anything it’s probably Nostalgia. Once men catch a whiff of that most will chase after it." - Douglas Pearce ²

3. Xenophobia

Q: Looking back and making some kind of the symbolic conclusion to the end of epoch, what are your present anxieties and prophesies about the future?

A: "IT'S HARD NOT TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT THE "END TIME" AS WE RACE TOWARDS THE END OF THE MILLENNIUM. I DO THINK ABOUT IT AND I DO WONDER IF ALL THE PROPHECIES FROM ALL THE DIFFERENT RELIGIONS IN THE WORLD WILL COME TRUE OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS/YEARS. I EVEN SOMETIMES WONDER HOW PROPHETIC SOME OF MY WORDS COULD BE. I FEEL THAT 'PURITY OF INTENT' SHOULD ALWAYS DICTATE ART OF WORTH - IN ALL ITS FORMS. I'M VERY CAREFUL WITH THE WORDS I CHOOSE. "EUROPA HAS BURNED AND WILL BURN AGAIN" BECAME ONLY TOO TRUE. UNFORTUNATELY!

THE WORLD SEEMS TO BE SO FULL OF SO MANY DANGERS THAT IT'S HARD TO SINGLE ANY PARTICULAR ONES OUT. CERTAINLY THE MOST OBVIOUS THAT SPRING TO MIND ARE THE GROWTHS IN ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM AND OUT OF CONTROL BREEDING. EVEN IN EUROPA, WITH ZERO POPULATION GROWTH IN MANY COUNTRIES, THOSE WHO ARE DOING THE BREEDING APPEAR TO ME, AND I THINK MANY OTHERS, TO BE OF DUBIOUS CHARACTER. THEY FUCK, THEY HAVE KIDS AND THAT IS ALL THEY DO! I DON'T BELIEVE THAT IS ENOUGH!! I DON'T THINK I NEED TO TELL ANY RUSSIAN ABOUT ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM. I ALWAYS BACKED THE FORMER U.S.S.R IN AFGHANISTAN AND FEEL THE WEST, BY BACKING THE WRONG SIDE IN THAT WAR HAS STILL YET TO PAY THE FULL PRICE OF THAT MISTAKE. I'VE NEVER AGREED WITH THE PHILOSOPHY THAT IF HE IS MY ENEMY'S ENEMY HE MUST BE MY FRIEND. THAT TRULY IS NAIVE. AUSTRALIA IS NOW EXPERIENCING THE CONSEQUENCES OF SUCH NAIVETY WITH INDONESIA. BY THE TIME YOU GET THIS WE COULD BE AT WAR WITH THEM. TRADITIONAL ENEMIES WERE NEVER FRIENDS!" - Douglas Pearce

Q: Some years ago you've left your motherland, claiming that England to your mind "isn't the best place for the spiritual development" in Europe because of the present degradation of the country and the nation. Can you comment these words?

A: "AS I'VE SAID IN A PREVIOUS QUESTION I TRULY FEEL THAT ENGLAND, AND PROBABLY TO A LESSER EXTENT, MAINLAND EUROPA, HAS SEVERE STOCK PROBLEMS. THAT, AS FAR AS I CAN SEE HAS ONLY GOT WORSE. THOSE WHO SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO BREED ARE DOING SO WITH SUCH FREQUENCY THAT THE UK IS BEING OVER POPULATED BY MORONS WITH NOTHING TO DO EXCEPT HARASS THE REST OF THE POPULATION. THERE IS NO OTHER PLACE FOR THEM. BRITAIN AS AN INDUSTRIAL POWER IS A THING OF YESTERYEAR. LARGE POOLS OF MANUAL, UNSKILLED LABOURERS ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED. HOWEVER, THE OLD HABITS LINGER ON. MONEY IS STILL GIVEN TO THOSE WHO BREED. THE MORE KIDS YOU HAVE THE MORE MONEY YOU GET. THIS IS TOTALLY UNREAL. IN A COUNTRY THAT NOW GAINS ITS INCOME FROM THE ARTS, HIGH TECHNOLOGY AND TOURISM THERE ARE FEW PLACES FOR THOSE CAPABLE OF ONLY PUSHING A BROOM IN FRONT OF THEM.

BRITAIN IMPORTED MILLIONS OF UNSKILLED LABOURERS FROM THE COLONIES FOR THAT KIND OF WORK AND LOOK WHAT A HUGE SUCCESS THAT WAS! THE HATRED IS BARELY RESTRAINED INTO THE OCCASSIONAL RIOT. I DON'T LIKE BEING IN A PLACE WITH SUCH AN ATMOSPHERE. EVEN GERMANY, THE FORMER RICHEST COUNTRY IN WESTERN EUROPA SEEMS TO BE TANGIBLY FALLING TO BITS. IT IS NO LONGER AS CLEAN AND AS WELL ORGANISED AS I REMEMBER FROM, SAY, 10 YEARS AGO. IT HAS BEEN FLOODED BY THOSE WHO WANT BUT, WITH LITTLE TO GIVE! THE WEST'S LIBERALISM WILL BE ITS DEATH." - Douglas Pearce ³

4. "Euro-centric Racialism"

Q: In interviews you've expressed Eurocentrism. How do you feel about fans that are Eurocentric/Racialist?

A: "Depending upon their ' version ' of Eurocentric Racialism, then 9 times out of 10 I feel very comfortable with it. This is how it's supposed to be. I would like to think that the Klu Klux Klan version isn't included in this. Eurocentrics goes beyond reactionary Christian, political militias. I believe in seizing the end of time, not being a passive part of it. " - Douglas Pearce ⁴

Q: Don't you think your vision concerning the history of Europe (which in your opinion is the best one) is nevertheless a European opinion? I'm not talking about the americans who have no past and who probably have no more future but about the Chinese, for example, who were in the past a very powerful nation...

A: "Yes, I am totally Euro-centric. I'm not overly concerned with the past but, I do care about the present and the future. European culture, morals, ethics, whatever, are under attack from all sides these days. Even, most dangerous of all, from within Europe. Whilst we have room for regret about some of the mistakes of the past (and of the present) regarding our treatment of the earth and some of it's peoples/wildlife, there is also plenty to be content about. I'm tired of being made to feel guilty about the sins of the world. Europe has contributed a MASSIVE amount to the world on ALL fronts. We will regret the day when we let that position slip from our hands and fade from our memory." - Douglas Pearce ⁵

5. National Socialism

Q: WHY HAVE YOU TAKEN SUCH AN INTEREST IN NATIONAL SOCIALIST GERMANY? DO YOU, FOR INSTANCE, QUESTION YOURSELF WHETHER YOU WOULD HAVE JOINED THE RANKS OR NOT?

A: "Yes, naturally. It's been an overriding interest since I was very, very young. My parents used to be quite angry about the morbid fascination I had as a child for this part of history. In the end, though, they actually gave up on it because I was so sincere in my interest. It wasn't just a passing dalliance but an actual obsession and I seem to be quite knowledgeable in that area. Outside of that, what are the reasons for my interest? I think, overridingly, that one of the main reasons is that you can still communicate with people who have taken part in these events. You just don't have to read books or see films about them, these people are very much alive today." - Douglas Pearce ⁶

6. The fascist symbol the "Totenkopf"

Q: Throughout the period of Death In June you have employed strong imagery - what is the significance of symbolism such as the Totenkopf, most commonly associated with extreme right-wing philosophy, to you?

A: "The Totenkopf is used all over Europe as a sign of total commitment, so I've never really had any problems with it. When I thought of Death In June it was really the be all and end all of my life - it still is - so that's why I chose to use that symbol, plus the fact that the simple symbolism reads easy. The Totenkopf for Death, and the six for the sixth month - June. I've always been interested, intrigued...and I suppose obsessive with symbols in so many ways and that particular one is a perfect representation. " - Douglas Pearce ⁷

Douglas P. being gay is not an excuse to promote racist or fascist ideas. One of the founders of fascism was openly homosexual.

While many claim that his work is clearly shock value because Douglas P. is gay, I am queer and recognize his aesthetic to be aligned with that of the SA who was lead by a gay fascist named Ernst Rohm. ⁸

Gay historian Frank Rector wrote "Although it was clear the Nazi party viewed homosexuals negatively, as was evident from the destruction of Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sexual Science in Berlin, “some gays [in the SS] may have been reconciled by the knowledge that Hitler’s right hand man, Ernst Rohm, was a homosexual," ⁸

"projected a social order in which homosexuality would be regarded as a human behaviour pattern of high repute... He flaunted his homosexuality in public and insisted his cronies do the same. He believed straight people weren't as adept at bullying and aggression as homosexuals, so homosexuality was given a high premium in the SA." ⁸

Gay columnist Johann Hari writes "Rohm often referred to the ancient Greek tradition of sending gay solider couples into battle, because they were believed to be the most ferocious fighters. The famous pass of Thermopylae, for example was held by 300 soldiers - who consisted of 150 gay couples. In its early years, the SA - Hitler and Rohm's underground army - was seen as predominantly gay. Rohm assigned prominent posts to his lovers, making Edmund Heines his deputy and Karl Ernst the SA commander in Berlin. The organisation would sometimes meet in gay bars. The gay art historian Christian Isermayer said in an interview, 'I got to know people in the SA. They used to throw riotous parties even in 1933... I once attended one. It was quite well-behaved but thoroughly gay. But then, in those days, the SA was 'ultra-gay.' " ⁹

The SA was one of the most violent fascist groups during World War II. In this 2011 interview Douglas Pearce acknowledges his interest in gay fascist Ernst Rohm:

INTERVIEWER: "I recently saw the Danish movie "Brotherhood". The Plot is that Lars has to leave the army after accusations of having made a pass at some of his men. Disillusioned he joins a Neo-Nazi movement, even though they practice gay-bashing. He and his peer Jimmy become embroiled in a secret love affair. Moving from hostility through grudging admiration to friendship and finally passion. Events take a darker turn when their relationship is uncovered. What's your opinion about Brotherhood/Homosexuality in the SA and how can be (if can be) mixed Nazism and Homosexuality?"

Douglas Pearce: "I’ve heard about the ‘Brotherhood’ film you mention but haven’t seen it. I do intend to get a copy of it on DVD soon. I’d be better placed to answer that question regarding that film after that. However, regarding being Gay in the S.A. the early Nazi movement and brotherhood etc. then at this late stage of the game with few, if any, surviving members that were involved in any of that at the time we can only surmise or read books and wonder. And, it is a big wonder! A truly fascinating question as to what was, and what might have been. However, it’s an impossible question to answer with any accuracy. The only thing I can say is that nearly 20 years ago I did have a conversation with a then member of the SS who later became in the war a very high ranking member of the Waffen SS and was around in those early days in 1930s Germany and he said that during the Night Of The Long Knives the question of homosexuality was never brought up. They weren’t sure exactly what was happening when they were told to be on alert at the end of June, 1934 and that they expected an attempt on Hitler’s life from elements in the Storm Troops (S.A.) The Gay angle appeared only after the purge of Ernst Roehm and his comrades as some sort of extra excuse made up by Goering and Goebbels as to why such a purge was necessary. About a year later homosexuality then also became officially illegal in Germany which up until then had no specific laws against being Gay. That was unlike Britain or the USA which had outlawed homosexuality for decades and where it was still punishable by imprisonment and sometimes death. Hitler doesn’t have seemed to have made any direct comments, or even be concerned, about any of his close comrades being Gay and, in fact, there are strong rumours that when he was a struggling artist in Vienna he did spend time being a male prostitute to help pay his bills etc. Being Gay and being aligned to the Nazi Party certainly didn’t become apparently mutually exclusive until the change of laws in 1935." [10]

Crisis from 'left' to right wing

"I think Crisis (Well Doug and me) saw Crisis as way of imbuing or infiltrating a distinct ideological strain of left wing politics into punk." - Tony Wakeford [11]

"At the start of the eighties, Tony and I were involved in radical left politics and beneath it history students. In search of a political view for the future we came across National Bolshevism which is closely connected with the SA hierarchy. People like Gregor Strasser and Ernst Röhm who were later known as 'second revolutionaries' attracted our attention." - Douglas Pearce

1. http://www.deathinjune.org/wiki/index.php/Interview:2011-NegativeGuestList
2. http://www.deathinjune.org/wiki/index.php/Interview:2010-Obskure1
3. www.deathinjune.org/wiki/index.php/Interview:1999-Achtung_Baby
4. http://www.deathinjune.org/wiki/index.php/Interview:1998-Scapegoat
5. http://www.deathinjune.org/wiki/index.php/Interview:1996-Descent
6. http://www.deathinjune.org/wiki/index.php/Interview:1994-Per_Nostrom
7. www.deathinjune.org/wiki/index.php/Interview:1996-Judas_Kiss
8. excerpt from - Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals by Frank Rector (New York 1981)
9. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-strange-strange-story_b_136697.html
10. http://www.deathinjune.org/wiki/index.php/Interview:2011-Pride-CulturaGay
11. http://www.deathinjune.org/wiki/index.php/Interview:200

Death in June will be playing at eight locations across the United States. Please contact the venues, tell your community, and organize non-violent direct action if necessary.

Death in June Tour Dates and Venue Information

• THURS. 12TH SEPT. THE VEX LOS ANGELES CA.
• FRI. 13TH SEPT. MEZZANINE SAN FRANCISCO CA.
• SAT. 14TH SEPT. INFEST AUSTIN TX.
• MON. 16TH SEPT. REGGIES CHICAGO IL.
• TUES. 17TH SEPT. RESPECTABLE STREET COCONUT CREEK/WEST PALM BEACH FL.
• FRI. 20TH SEPT. THE BELL HOUSE BROOKLYN NY.
• SAT. 21ST SEPT. OLD TOWN HALL SALEM MASS.
• SUN. 22ND SEPT. THE OTTOBAR BALTIMORE MD.

Further Reading

• Death in June - a Nazi band?
• Ex-Crisis member Tony Wakeford
• A great site exposing Third Positionist bands, Who Makes the Nazis?

James Cavanagh: Death in June Coming to Electrowerkz

Once again fascist-dabbling neofolk group Death In June are on tour in Europe, stopping off in London for their only live appearance in the UK on 15th December 2012 at Electrowerkz in Angel. 




Doug Pearce

Using a band name derived from June 30, 1934, the 'Night of Long Knives', Hitler's murderous response to the National Bolshevik faction in the Nazi party led by Ernst Roehm and Gregor Strasser, Death In June, long-term project of Douglas Pearce, are back to promote a new album and to mark 30 years since their debut release.

Pearce's long history of far-right agit-prop has garnered him notoriety over three decades, and caused his concerts to be cancelled across the world; in Norway, Switzerland and Germany in Europe and in Chicago, Seattle and Portland in the US. Last year the band played Camden Underworld, prompting Love Music, Hate Racism to call, unsuccessfully, for the gig to be cancelled.

In May 1999, a few days after BNP member David Copeland nail-bombed Brixton and Brick Lane markets and The Admiral Duncan pub in Soho, Death In June played The Garage in Islington (with fellow Nazi-admirers NON and Der Blutharsch). Copeland killed 3 people and injured 129. It has been widely corroborated that Pearce dedicated a song from the stage to the 'White Wolves' – a neo-Nazi grouping who had initially claimed responsibility for these atrocities. In much the same spirit, a valedictory message was posted to the Di6 Yahoo group forum immediately following Anders Breivik's Utoya massacre, and mainland bombing.

This year Pearce has chosen to play Electrowerkz, a venue that has often promoted fascist acts in the past, both in the Slimelight Club and in its main auditorium. Last year Slimelight hosted a concert featuring Sol Invictus, 6 Comm, Joy of Life and Freya Aswynn, acts that have fascist history, members with a fascist past or who have collaborated with fascist music projects. Tony Wakeford of Sol Invictus and Patrick Leagas aka Patrick O‘Kill of 6 Comm were both founding members of Death In June with Douglas Pearce, before going on to found their own bands, most notably in the case of Wakeford who founded Above the Ruins, a band that under his leadership donated a track to National Front benefit album No Surrender, Volume 1, alongside tracks by other overtly Nazi bands like Skrewdriver and Brutal Attack.

The event was written about in a guest post on WMTN, and was subsequently taken up by LMHR, an Islington councillor, the Unitarian Church, Unite Against Fascism and many independent protesters angry at the venue's decision to put on acts that promote fascism. Islington South Labour MP and Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry made this comment in the Islington Gazzette at the time;

"It’s a shame and a disgrace that these peddlers of poison are playing in Islington. We have a proud history of tolerance in this borough”.

The local press picked up on the campaign as did several prominent anti-fascist websites.

In the end a peaceful gathering of 70-80 people turned out on the night at Slimelight to protest. This largely took the form of discussion and leafleting.

NON / Boyd Rice

As long ago as September 2004 the Slimelight hosted a bill of far-right neofolk bands; Foresta Di Ferro, Ostara and Spiritual Front. Foresta Di Ferro and Spiritual Front appeared on a tribute album to the Romanian ultra-Fascist Corneliu Zelea Codreanu alongside the likes of Von Thronstahl, Dernière Volonté and Blood Axis. Codreanu was a Romanian anti-semitic fascist terrorist and leader of the notoriously vicious Iron Guard, also known as the The Legion of the Archangel Michael, active in the inter-war period. His antisemitism was so extreme that even the Nazis kept their distance from him. Ostara is the project of Richard Leviathan, who names among his influences in an interview in Heathen Harvest - Death in June, Boyd Rice, Changes, Blood Axis and Ain Soph, all pro-fascist bands. Leviathan also worked with Douglas Pearce on a project called Kapo. Ostara have been banned from playing for their far-right politics in Nuremberg and in the Netherlands.

In June 2005 Italian fascists Ain Soph played at the venue.

In 2006 a junior member of the Slimelight online forum called Tier posted about anti-semitic band Grand Belial's Key being booked to play the venue in February of that year. He comments; "Grand Belial's Key is a black metal band whose views border on National Socialist. One release of the band is named 'Judeobeast Assassination". He goes on to quote the band in interview expressing violent anti-semitism, their lyrics in the same vein, and mentions that various band members are in other racist far-right bands. A senior forum member CIW responds like this; "Well, fortunately for UK, this is a country where one can say what one believes, not in my country, where you get serious problems with it, just because it can't cope with its past... so, let em play, by forbidding stuff you just get what they want..." Another senior member Ecclecticbb makes this response; "It is not clear to me that Tier wants us to react against this event... I don't give a shit (not sorry) about it!"

In late 2007 Indymedia UK published an article about a concert at Slimelight in October of that year featuring NON, industrial/noise project of Boyd Rice, writing;

"The Slimelight event was headlined by Boyd Rice in his NON guise. An individual with a long and malicious history of fascist provocation and the focus of Anti-Nazi attention worldwide, it is particularly alarming that Boyd Rice, an acknowledged Social Darwinist and member of the neo-Nazi American Front organisation, has actually been given the all clear to enter the UK and perform in London as NON next week."

Non were supported by another fascist band called Luftwaffe.

In November of the same year promoters of far-right neofolk and Industrial music Hinoeuma The Malediction hosted an event at Slimelight that included Austrian fascists Der Blutharsch, Sutcliffe Jugend who contributed to a compilation cassette called White Power that had a swastika on the cover, alongside other groups closely associated with the fascist element of the neofolk scene.

In March 2009 Nachtmahr played the venue, a band criticised from the stage this year at the Kinetic Festival in Montreal for "the use of misogynist and racist tropes in (the) band’s music and publicity materials."

A quick look at set lists for DJ Blackdeath, resident Slimelight DJ for the past fourteen years, typically reads like a who's who of far-right neofolk, power electronics and black metal; Death in June, Burzum (aka Varg Vikernes - "the main person to have brought Nazism into the black metal scene", according to Wikipedia), Forseti, Sol Invictus, NON, Dernière Volonté, and Deutsch Nepal. DJ Blackdeath is also a Cold Spring record label DJ. Cold Spring have ultra-fascists Von Thronstahl on their books, along with H.E.R.R. and Seelenlicht, two musical projects involving racial seperatist Troy Southgate.

And now Death in June is booked to play the venue. That Death In June is a pro-fascist band has been disputed by some, but not by many of the band's most ardent fans. This very positive review of DIJ's latest album posted on Counter Currents Publishing by Greg Johnson describes the band's politics and influence like this:

"Death in June’s combination of acoustic folk and industrial sound collages, as well as its use of images and themes related to Nazi Germany and European fascism in general, have had an immense influence on the development of what is called 'neo-folk' and 'martial-industrial' music, which is the core of a world-wide youth subculture, characterized by racial consciousness, far Right politics, and inclinations toward neo-paganism and esoteric spirituality, including Esoteric Hitlerism, Traditionalism, and Aleister Crowley. Neo-folk and martial-industrial fans overlap significantly with the Goth scene and West Coast White Nationalism."

Neo Nazi music promotion network Blood and Honour published this description of the band on their website

"Two men take to the stage dressed in SS pea pattern smocks and start to pound a military beat on kettle drums draped in Totenkopf banners....and so twenty five years ago my musical world was turned upside down. That was Death in June (named after the night of the long knives) the band that kicked it all off. A rash of bands has followed including Above The Ruins (who were promoted by the National Front youth paper Bulldog) and Der Blutharsch. Images used of SS soldiers; runes and even the Horst Wessell sung on an LP clearly mark many of these bands as travelers (sic) of the right. "I think the black sun is the flag of the European Nations in mourning. It is blue, silver and gold. It is the true banner of a united Europe and it flies above us now." (Doug P) Modern bands in this genre continue this thrust of marshal (sic) music onwards and the history of fascist and national socialist movements to the attention of more and more."

Aside from the nazi imagery and lyrical references, Pearce is generally ellusive on the subject of fascism, but occasionally he makes a statement (in this case on the subject of protests by anti-fascists to his music) that reveals where he stands politically;

"I think censorship is essentially 'Communistic' and left wing. Censorship was one of the first things that happened in Russia after the Revolution in 1917 and continued until it fell to bits decades later. The way I understand it is that, to paraphrase Mussolini, the Fascists are the real anarchists for they truly did do exactly what they wanted. Libertarianism and Fascism are bedfellows no matter how some people might find that repugnant."

Of the Something Is Coming album, the proceeds of which were donated to the Bolnichi Clinic in Zagreb, Croatia during the Balkan conflict, Pearce has said "This was not purely a humanitarian gesture. It was a cultural one. A socio-Euro political one." The inference here is clear, despite the characteristic coyness; a diffidence which extends to the endlessly recycled back catalogue items listed for sale on the official Death In June website. "We STRONGLY recommend that all those living in Germany wishing to order 'BROWN BOOK' (Achtung!) UeBER DO NOT (!!) order direct from NER as random Customs checks do exist between the U.K. and the mainland of Europa... Talk to any of the million zillion illegal immigrants that now wander lonely as a black cloud through Europa's streets forlorn..... Those not living in little red angel's po-faced, goody 2 shoes Germany are also free to take advantage of these internet mail order firms...." he advises. The album in question, 1987's Brown Book contains a version of the SA anthem 'Horst-Wessel-Lied', and has therefore been totally banned for sale or distribution by the German authorities. In 2005, the album 'Rose Clouds Of Holocaust' was banned for sale to minors due to its questionable lyrical content.

Elsewhere, he has been keen to flaunt his personal association with veteran Nazis. From the Di6 blog:

"There was some discussion recently as to whether or not '18' (eg. Adolf Hitler) survived the battle for Berlin. As a close personal friend of someone whose last battles, in WWII at least, were in the Villa Goebbels, the Tiergarten and the Fuehrer Bunker itself ( which was evidently absolutely beautiful and filled with statues, paintings etc.) he maintains that during the chaos and confusion at the end it was ALWAYS possible to get out. As he, in fact, did himself. During rest periods within the Bunker he saw '18' go past him outside to have a look around several times and a double could have come back as his replacement – at anytime! During the last organised breakouts my friend was momentarily captured by Bolshevik troops who luckily became distracted by the bigger 'catch' of a Party Leader, the contents of the Party Leader's briefcase and his subsequent, on the spot, execution. This horrible incident, however, provided my friend and 2 of his kameraden the opportunity to escape and make their way West out of the city. He was later arrested at a railway station by British troops who had taken a keen interest in the design of his trousers(and later discovered blood group tattoo!) On 20th April, 1989 I remember well him saying to me that "if he wasn't dead then, he should be by now."

So Slimelight has long hosted fascist and pro-fascist musicians, and the club itself has long acted as a spiritual home for neofolk, black metal, industrial, martial, power electronics and other related genres. Genres that have a persistent strand of fascism running through them (I emphasise; a strand - the genres themselves are not political in this way). Despite protests over the years it continues to host fascist bands, and Pearce is more than aware of the reception which is likely to greet his own appearances. Of his 30th Anniversary live schedule, he stated that "we are trying to make performances as accessible geographically as possible. And we trust we 'let the right ones in'. Please remember that some performance locations will be kept secret until the last moment for very good reasons. Not everyone out there in internetland and elsewhere has our best interests at heart. Far from it! (.......) Careless talk can be the difference between a show happening - or attracting 'problems' for scurrilous reasons at the last moment - which could lead to cancellation."

Belarusian officials consider Death In June to be “British neo-fascists of international fame” who “openly promote Third Reich ideas”, and banned their Minsk concert which was timed to commemorate Germany's assault on Russia in 1941. It seems that Tidal Concerts and Electrowerkz have no such qualms.

Postscript 2012-11-19 

Facebook page for the Demonstration Against Death in June Concert in Wien >>

Peter Webb Investigates

In an earlier post I said of sociologist and Goldsmiths lecturer Peter Webb that "he is either unwilling or unable to do the work required to comprehend his chosen field". I think I owe it to Webb to bear that opinion out by looking more closely at his work. In a section of the book that concerns us, Networked Worlds of Popular Music: Milieu Cultures, he discusses the 'apocalyptic folk, postindustrial, folk-noir, neo-folk' scene through the work of the three core members of the group Death in June - Tony Wakeford, Doug Pearce and Patrick Leagas - who, he tells us, have been "central to the developing British underground and postindustrial/post-Punk milieu"¹. Webb is well aware of the controversy surrounding these musicians due to their use of fascist imagery and symbols², and their promotion of arguments associated with various strands of contemporary esoteric fascist and 'conservative revolutionary' thought derived from Ernst Jünger, Julius Evola, Savitri Devi, Otto and Gregor Strasser and others. He knows that Wakeford was a member of the fascist National Front, and he certainly should know of the fascist connections of some of the group's collaborators, such as Boyd Rice, Albin Julius and Michael Moynihan, since they have been widely publicised. Given this, what is staggering is the extent to which he accepts their excuses and evasions at face value and refuses in any way to critically examine the ideas they promote, or place them in a context that would make sense of them. Instead of challenging any of this he chooses to descend into the gutter with his heroes to join them in condemning the 'fascistic censoriousness' and 'McCarthyism' of the left³. The result is a complete whitewashing of the people concerned, and the corresponding destruction of any credibility Webb might have had as a researcher or commentator.

In his chapter on method ('The Theoretical Development of the Milieu'⁴) Webb says that his concept of 'the milieu' addresses "the networks of interaction, production and influence that music makers and actors in the particular music 'scenes' (are) involved in [and] articulates a set of overlapping levels of meaning, relevance, disposition and understanding"⁵. He argues that "there are three main levels of theoretical abstraction" that must be addressed in order to understand a milieu⁶, encompassing three sets of relations; those internal to the milieu itself, those between different milieus and different orders of milieu (specifically in this case, between the musical milieu and the record industry), and a third level of interaction between the milieu and the surrounding "culture, economy and politics"⁷. Anyone reading the latter might imagine that Webb would therefore want to examine - to pick some minor examples at random - what Patrick Leagas means when he says he has a "sense of being English" despite the fact that "I do not recognise this as England"⁸, or perhaps Doug Pearce's claim to have been part of a "reawakening of... Eurocentrism" in the milieu⁹, or any of the many similar statements that litter the interviews here.

Webb repeatedly mentions the group's interest in 'traditionalism'¹⁰ without bothering to find out if this might refer not to a vague hankering after Morris Dancers and cricket on the village lawn but rather the traditionalism of René Guénon and the 'super-fascist' Julius Evola¹¹ - who's work, after all, has been edited and published by a key collaborator of the group, Michael Moynihan (of Blood Axis), who is mentioned repeatedly in the book¹² and whose connection to Evola is even noted¹³. Similarly you'd expect that he might be interested to know whether the group's interest in "occult influences in the social and cultural order"¹⁴ might possibly be connected with Evola's idea that an occult war is being waged for control of society, in which Jews and Masons work for the "forces of subversion" seeking to overthrow the "forces of order"¹⁵. According to Evola this plan was revealed in The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, the infamous anti-Semitic tract for which he wrote an introduction when it was published in Italian in 1937, and the veracity of which he continued to defend long after it had been exposed as a forgery¹⁶ cooked up by the Czarist secret police. Since Evola's arguments on the matter are taken from a book edited and published by Moynihan there is every chance that this is precisely what was intended, but Webb is in no hurry to find out. Indeed, Webb seems not even to be curious about the politics involved: his bibliography lists none of the relevant texts by or about the fascist ideologues who have inspired so many members of this 'scene'.

Despite the constant use by the group of dog-whistle references to ideas from the radical right¹⁷, Webb consistently steers clear of any attempt to find out what the members of Death in June and their friends actually think. In fact, if we are to believe Webb his subjects have few real opinions¹⁸. Instead they seem to suffer from an incurable case of chronic ideological indeterminacy which prevents them from concluding anything at all; they are forever 'exploring' and 'investigating', apparently without arriving at any definite convictions. So, his musicians have "a thirst for esoteric knowledge, and an art of self-questioning and soul searching"¹⁹; they 'deal with' "the traditions of Europe"²⁰ and 'allude to' "paganism, heathenism, Europe, the West"²¹; they have "explored and looked at a variety of philosophies and pagan knowledges"²² and "sought out ideas and ways of understanding"²³; they are "searching for something else"²⁴; they 'take inspiration' "from a wide variety of sources and (show) "their thirst for knowledge and new ways of interpreting things"²⁵; and the neo-folk milieu as a whole has created a space in which "a variety of ideas can be explored and developed"²⁶. But it is impossible to imagine how any idea could be 'developed' if everyone involved in its development refused to say what they thought of it, how they interpreted it, or whether they believed it to be true. But, again, Webb puts his blind eye up to the glass and refuses to see.

To some small extent this dereliction of duty simply reflects Webb's declared methodology. In an early chapter ('A Journey Through Theories of the Intersection of Music and Culture'²⁷) he offers a potted overview of the history of popular culture studies in which, broadly, the (pseudo-) Marxism of Dick Hebdige and the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) is given a rap on the knuckles for placing undue emphasis on structure above agency, and a string of post-modernists are wheeled out to make a case for privileging instead "the subjective meanings of subculturalists rather than deriving these from a pre-given totalising theory"²⁸. While I have no interest in the minutia of such debates within the sociology department, it's clear from Webb's arguments that he simply wants to justify his preferred approach, in which he can tell his story from an insider's point of view, as a fan of the genre, its cod philosophy, kitsch aesthetics and atavistic politics. To some extent, then, the problem is that Webb, in his enthusiasm to paint himself as the hippest and most edgy sociologist in town²⁹, has simply 'gone native'. His 'phenomenological' approach is solipsistic, allowing him to seal off his favourite musicians from even the possibility of criticism. This is hinted at in the tendentious example he provides of a 'momentary milieu', in which someone from "a Socialist background", on meeting a Nationalist, may "respond with disdain and contempt", in which case their "momentary exposure to this other political milieu is... fenced off by the rigidity of his or her particular political vision"³⁰.

This relativism is mirrored by a corresponding blurring of moral lines. At one point he considers the lyrics to the Death in June track 'C'est un Reve' (It's a Dream):

Ou est Klaus Barbie?
Il est dans le coeur
Il est dans le coeur noir

Liberté
c'est un reve

Webb concludes that Barbie (an SS captain in occupied France known as 'The Butcher of Lyon', who personally tortured his victims and had as many as 4,000 murdered) is to be found "in the heart" of everyone³¹; a repulsive argument which attempts to capsize the moral distinction to be made between Barbie and his victims³². Webb offers this as an example of "the direction of Death in June's art" which works to "enliven, question, re-examine and provoke a response"³³. Certainly  arguments like this are going to 'provoke a response', if only because they are so repellant, but that hardly justifies the art. If it did then we would have to be similarly grateful to Barbie himself for also 'making us think'.

Another gear in Webb's machinery of obfuscation is his idealist concept of art. For Webb the aesthetic is a privileged domain in which no one needs to say what they think or be held responsible for the results. He claims that the racists and fascists who attend neo-folk concerts have "taken the symbols and references... directly and uncomplicatedly", not understanding that the bands are using them "for artistic purposes"³⁴, as if the re-presentation of an idea in the context of a song somehow means we can ignore its meaning or the intentions of the singer. Of course a song can express opinions on behalf of a character other than the singer, but in the case of Death in June the two may often coincide. If we were to rely on Webb we would never know: he might have tried to find out one way or the other, but instead he uses the idea of 'artistic ambiguity' to avoid the question. Similar feelings about the sublimity of art are common among those postindustrial fans who claim they are interested in 'the aesthetics of fascism' but not the politics, ignoring the fact that, as the anti-fascist critic Walter Benjamin argued, fascism crucially involves precisely the admixing of aesthetics and politics, such that the two cannot be so neatly separated³⁵.

Webb relies extensively on his half-baked notion of 'ambiguity' to provide cover for his pop idols. Of course such ambiguity can be central to the artwork, but it can also provide the perfect cover for supporters of the radical right pursuing a strategy of 'right-wing Gramscianism'. This strategy has been developed by Alain de Benoist and other supporters of the Nouvelle Droite / European New Right (ENR), whose ideas chime neatly not only with the 'third way' faction of the NF that Wakeford mixed with but also with the positions defended by him to this day. As Anton Shekhovtsov has explained, the aim of the strategy is;

"to modify the dominant culture and make it more susceptible to a non-democratic mode of politics... the adherents of the ENR believe that one day the allegedly decadent era of egalitarianism and cosmopolitanism will give way to ‘an entirely new culture based on organic, hierarchical, supra-individual, heroic values’. It is important to emphasize, however, that ‘metapolitical fascism’ focuses... on the battle for hearts and minds rather than for immediate political power. Following Evola’s precepts, the ENR tries to distance itself from both historical and contemporary fascist parties and regimes."³⁶

Webb notes that Death in June "deliberately were ambiguous about any political meaning that they might be conveying"³⁷, but fails to register that if someone dresses up on stage as a fascist and sings songs promoting fascist ideas while waving a fascist flag around, but then denies being a fascist, what they are engaged in is not ambiguity but subterfuge. He notes that "this milieu acts as a source of pathways into a set of... ideas"³⁸ but refuses to consider what those ideas might actually be behind the blabber and smoke.

If that were all there were to it this book would be just another example of the vacuity of academic sociology, the impotence of postmodernism and the dangers of letting a fanboy loose in the academy. But Webb's self-imposed myopia becomes a shade more sinister when you consider the gaping aporias he leaves scattered around his text so that his boys can emerge from it unsullied. For instance, in telling the story of the group's origins he omits to mention that their name commemorates the 'Night of the Long Knives', in June 1934, when the Nazi regime executed the leadership of the Sturmabteilung (SA - The Stormtroopers, or Brownshirts), including Gregor Strasser, a major influence on sections of the National Front with which Tony Wakeford has been associated. This event, in which the Nazi leadership dispatched the left-facing wing of their movement, was also known as Operation Hummingbird, which also happens to be the title of an album the group recorded with Albin Julius, whose band, Der Blutharsch have been banned from playing in Israel and elsewhere because of their stance. Such coincidences are certainly going make the audience think; unless, of course, they are sociologists or phenomenologists from Goldsmiths University.

Webb discusses Crisis at some length, since they were the band Wakeford and Pearce belonged to back in the days when they were, respectively, members of the Socialist Wokers Party (SWP) and International Marxist Group (IMG). Strangely, though, he has nothing to say about the group Wakeford formed on leaving Death in June - Above the Ruins - whose members reputedly (Wakeford will neither confirm nor deny) included Gary Smith, previously of the openly Nazi band No Remorse (who were part of Ian Stuart's Blood and Honor organisation and also, co-incidentally, recorded an album that referred to the Brownshirts; The New Stormtroopers) and Nazi activist Ian Read. The band contributed a track to an a album, No Surrender, which was produced as a fundraiser for the British National Front, and which included a track by Skrewdriver, the first and most notorious White Power band, and their name is presumably derived from the title of Evola's book, 'Men Among the Ruins'. None of this gets a mention from Webb. Perhaps Wakeford himself never mentioned the band or its members to him. This is possible, since Wakeford has admitted lying to and misleading interviewers in the past (on preparing for a particular interview he says "I better dig out my bumper book of fibs"³⁹), but then such evasions could be got around by a little independent research. But it seems that Webb has no interest in doing such research, preferring to base his work entirely on the say-so of his subjects - in the name of 'phenomenology'.

Similarly, when Webb discusses Wakeford's involvement in the online fanzine Flux Europa he tells us that the magazine "discussed postmodernism, art, literature, philosophy, film and music", reassuring us that "the content was diverse". He proves this by mentioning the articles it contained "on Camille Paglia, Jack London and Ezra Pound"⁴⁰. What Webb conspicuously fails to mention is that, as reported by Stewart Home, Flux Europa was an extension of the cultural activities of Transeuropa, which itself emerged from the wreckage of National Front cultural-intellectual group IONA (Islands of the North Atlantic) - both organisations that Wakeford has had some involvement with. And - a tiny detail but one that is highly revealing - while Webb mentions Camille Paglia, Ezra Pound and Jack London as artists about whom Flux Eropa had published articles, what he omits to mention is that they are among a small group of people who are included under the site's 'Personae' section, which is presumably how Webb came to choose them in the first place, and at the time Webb was doing his research that section contained biographies of just two other people; the Vorticist and fascist supporter Wyndham Lewis, and Ernst Jünger, the German Nationalist fanatic who celebrated war, death and pain, and whose Stirnerian concept of the sovereign individual as 'Anarch' has inspired subsequent generations of radical rightists and neo-fascists - including Troy Southgate of the neo-folk band H.E.R.R. In an act of blatant self-censorship, Webb chooses not to mention these names. Of course, if he wanted to exclude all of the fascist supporters on the list then he'd have omitted to mention Ezra Pound too - but that wouldn't have left him with much of a list.

Another curious omission concerns Death in June's album Rose Clouds of Holocaust, which was banned from sale in Germany by the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien (Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young People), who found that the title song cast doubt on the occurrence of the Holocaust on account of lyrics that run "Rose clouds of Holocaust/ Rose clouds of lies/ Rose clouds of bitter/ Bitter, bitter lies"⁴¹. As we have now come to expect, none of this is mentioned by Webb.

Boyd Rice

Webb applies his now familiar uncritical and tendentious attitude to Wakeford's supposed renunciation of his fascist past, hastily posted to the Sol Invictus website when the heat was beginning to be turned up on him, and which is worded so ambiguously as to convince me that he still holds to at least some of the core ideas he learned as a member of the National Front (NF). He says; "I have no connection with, or sympathy for, or interest in [the ideas of the NF], nor have I had for around 20 years"⁴², but then that would be true of other ex-members who also moved on to more diverse forms of radical rightist politics since that party's collapse. When Wakeford adds that "none of the artists I work with hold such views either" you know that he is throwing sand in your face given that he has worked with the likes of Boyd Rice, who is quite happy to promote the white power skinhead party, the American Front, appearing in full Nazi uniform alongside its leader, Bob Heick. Webb, on the other hand, accepts the statement as definitive proof that Wakeford has nothing to answer for. Stranger still, he continues to believe Wakeford's reassurances despite having been shown to have been misled by him. As Stewart Home has argued, Wakeford's attempt at rehabilitating himself falls a long way short of what you would expect from someone who had truly broken with their fascist past.

Apart from covering up for this gaggle of neo-fascists Webb has little or nothing of interest to say about the milieu or its art. His analysis of the music on offer would make even the the most lazy and inept music hack blush. Generally all he can muster is the observation that the music is 'melancholic': so Nico made "intense melancholic music"⁴³; Scott Walker's work combines "simple melody... with the melancholy of the words"⁴⁴; Death in June are attracted to "melancholic poetry"⁴⁵ and their work is pervaded by "a type of melancholia"; neo-folk has added "melancholia" to industrial music⁴⁶, and so on. It never occurs to him to ask what the artists are melancholic about. He doesn't bother to speculate about why folk music, which idealises the pre-capitalist past, should be so appealing to his subjects. His attempts at analysing the use of collage in art are laughable: he  manages to compare Death in June's deliberately evasive and dishonest jumble of fascist iconography with John Heartfield's superbly pointed and polemical anti-Nazi collages⁴⁷, and he thinks that what Death in June do "is like a more structured version of William Burroughs and Brian (sic) Gysin's cut up method" adding "(reference needed here)"⁴⁸. Indeed, a reference is the very least that would be required to make this argument get off the mortuary table - it's like saying that a car maintenance manual 'is like a more structured version' of an exploding library.

Peter Webb has written a book which deals with a milieu that is riddled with neo-fascists and supporters of the radical right. He claims that he wants to explain the milieu by considering the relationship between it and the wider 'culture, economy and politics', and admits that "there are many questions [concerning] the political and cultural implications of a scene such as this", but he finally concludes that "These questions are outside of the remit of this book"⁴⁹. To the rest of us this looks like exactly what it is; an attempt to justify an utterly craven and dishonest book that fails to meet even the most minimal academic or intellectual standards.


NB. Peter Webb subsequently replied to these criticisms in a statement that we have also published - Strelnikov, 11/10/10

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Evola, Julius. 1953. Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist, (2002: tr. Guido Stucco, ed. Michael Moynihan, Inner Traditions, Rochester NY)
Shekhovtsov, Anton. 2009, Apoliteic Music: Neo-Folk, Martial Industrial and “Metapolitical Fascism"’, in Patterns of Prejudice, Volume 43, Issue 5 (December 2009), pp. 431-457. This excellent essay is also available online.
Sykes, Alan. 2005. The Radical Right in Britain, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Webb, Peter. 2007. Exploring the Networked Worlds of Popular Music: Milieu Cultures, Routledge, Abbingdon.


1. Webb, 2007, p65
2. ibid, pp93f
3. ibid, pp94f. In an extraordinary page-long digression from his thesis, he also claims that these 'fascistic tendencies' are also behind the hounding of former members of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), who we must assume are his former comrades since I see no other justification for his dragging in them into the argument at this point.
4. ibid, pp29-38
5. ibid, p30
6. ibid, p37
7. ibid, p38
8. ibid, p96
9. ibid, p97
10. ibid, pp 98, 99, 105
11. Evola, Julius. 'Things Put in Their Proper Place and Some Plain Words', in La Torre, issue #5, April 1930, quoted in H.T.Hansen, 'Introduction', Evola, 2002, p42. Here Evola explains that he is an 'anti-fascist', critical of Mussolini and Hitler, only to the extent that he is a 'super-fascist' and wants to go much further.
12. Webb, 2007, pp 66, 67
13. ibid, p92
14. ibid, p97
15. Evola, 2002, p236
16. ibid, p239f
17. My use of the terms 'fascist', 'revolutionary conservative' and 'the radical right' is sometimes fairly loose since with many of the people concerned it is hard to say exactly where they stand in the spectrum of ultra-right thought. But I follow Alan Sykes in seeing the 'radical right' as a term that encompasses fascism. I also include within this the 'traditionalism' of Evola and others, as well as movements that could be described as 'reactionary modernist', 'radical imperialist' or similar. Sykes, 2005, p2.
18. Although in the case of Patrick Leagas this may well be true, since he admits that "coming to a conclusion about anything at all is beyond me!". Webb, 2007, p81
19. Webb, 2007, p66
20. ibid, p68
21. ibid, p68
22. ibid, p81
23. ibid, p85
24. ibid, p85
25. ibid, p89
26. ibid, p105
27. ibid, pp11-28
28. ibid, p21
29. "This book has been inspired by a love of popular music for over three decades", ibid, p7
30. ibid, p30-31 
31. ibid, p79
32. In April 1944 Barbie ordered the deportation to Auschwitz of a group of 44 Jewish children from an orphanage at Izieu. He was also responsible for a massacre in Rehaupal in September 1944. See Wikipedia.
33. Webb, 2007, p79
34. ibid, p92
35. Walter Benjamin, 'Epilogue', 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'
36. Shekhovtsov, 2009. Apoliteic Music
37. Webb, 2007, p76
38. ibid, p105
39. Wakeford, Sol Invictus profile, Facebook, 26 July 2008
40. Webb, 2007, p89
41. Shekhovtsov, 2009. Apoliteic Music, note #6.
42. Wakeford, 'A Message From Tony', tursa.com 14 Feb 2007
43. Webb, 2007, p61
44. ibid, p62
45. ibid, p98
46. ibid, p105
47. ibid, p93
48. ibid, p78
49. ibid, p105