 by Tom Hallet
I’ve always thought that the meaning to the above-mentioned Randy Newman song—a smart, funny, mean little jab at the proverbial Southern Man—was pretty damned clear: “We’re rednecks,” he sings cheerily, “rednecks, and we don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground/Rednecks, we’re rednecks, and we’re keepin’ the niggers
down ...” It was a reactionary song, written after Newman caught a particularly vociferous appearance by segregationist Georgia governor Lester Maddox on an episode of the Dick Cavett (or, as Newman’s character refers to him, “some smart-ass New York Jew”) Show in the early ‘70s.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “People are always labeling you as a performer,
rather than listening to whatever it is you're doing and accepting you for what
you are. They think...I know all about him! Well, you don't know shit.”
— Stevie Wonder
SONG OF THE WEEK: “Rednecks”
— Randy Newman
More amusing, perhaps, than the song itself was the reaction it got from Southern
audiences, some of whom apparently took it literally as some kind of Cross Burner’s
Anthem—sort of a piano-and-voice-driven “Freebird” for the mint
julep-and-white-suit set. When I was doing research for an interview with Newman
last year, one of the wackiest tales I came across was how, when he debuted that
song in Atlanta, Ga., at least half of the 99 percent white crowd whistled, cheered,
rebel-yelled, hooted and hollered as if they were hearing “Look Away”
in Dolby surround sound.
Newman remembered chuckling to himself and shaking his head at the time, figuring
that if only half the people “got” the song, he’d done his best.
But when he got backstage, he ran into one of the few African-Americans who’d
come to the gig—a young male fan who was clearly insulted and on the verge
of tears. After explaining the song’s actual meaning and reassuring the
kid that he wasn’t a bigot, Newman said he went through a period of questioning
whether or not he should continue performing it, but in the end decided that censoring
himself would not solve either the problem of bigotry or of modern society’s
ignorance on the subject. “Rednecks” remains in his live set to this
day, and will hopefully continue to enlighten and educate audiences for many years
to come.
I bring that story up not to insult or denigrate Southerners, who as a whole have
made great strides in self-education and racial equality over the past several
decades—maybe, in part, because Lester Maddox and his generation are dead
or dying—but to point out that people who think the way those audiences
did are still alive and festering in modern society. And some of them are right
here in the midst of a so-called “enlightened” Northern state like
Minnesota. People who, if they heard that Newman song, would surely fixate on
the word “nigger” and decide that its author must share their malignant
views. Ditto Patti Smith’s “Rock And Roll Nigger,” John Lennon’s
“Woman Is The Nigger Of The World,” Camper Van Beethoven’s “Take
The Skinheads Bowling,” and probably even The Ramones’ “The
KKK Took My Baby Away.”
The fact that these so-called “people” exist is no surprise, even
the fact that they exist among us (I’ve never thought much of the ol’
phony “Minnesota Nice,” anyway) is no shocker; it’s that they’ve
infiltrated our music scene that’s such a mind-fuck. I’ve been stumbling,
staggering, and generally bumbling my way through the Twin Cities’ underground
rock ’n’ roll scene since the early ’90s, and though there’s
always a few ignoramuses in every crowd, it’s been, hands-down, the most
accepting, open, bigot-free scene I’ve ever scene in any city, anywhere,
anytime. Nobody I know sits around and trades moronic racist jokes after bar closing;
I’ve hardly seen any fights, and absolutely none between people of different
races; and apart from hearing about the few, odd national hardcore, metal or punk
acts that might have come through town and attempted to spread some less-than-positive
vibes, I can’t ever remember seeing or hearing a band or artist around town
reveal even the slightest hint of a prejudiced attitude on an album, in a song,
or during a live gig. Ever.
That’s not to say that some of that doesn’t exist here—I’d
be a fool to believe, or to try and convince anyone else, that there aren’t
at least a few bigots around—but a “scene?” An actual, organized,
shit-together, on-the-move “scene?” Nawwww. Until a few days ago,
I’d have said exactly that. Nawwww. Unfortunately, as recent e-mail from
a fellow local music lover proves, I’d have been wrong. My friend, a New
York-to-Minnesota transplant, who’s made a career—at least for the
past seven years or so—out of unearthing new artists, promoting the arts
community, and supporting the local music scene, was absolutely outraged: “Hey,
Tom—I was at the corner of White Bear and Minnehaha on the East Side of
St. Paul yesterday and three skinheads were passing out CDs to motorists at the
stop light. I got a copy and it’s beyond belief. The message is ... get
rid of the Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, etc. This is part of their ‘Project
Schoolyard,’ where they’re trying to get these in the hands of school
children ...”
Isn’t that special? It’s a FAMILY picture. That’s right, your
friends and mine at PANZERFAUST, a neo-Nazi, racist music and propaganda network
(they describe themselves as a “... Minnesota-based music label which specializes
in the production and distribution of radical pro-white rock music ...”),
are targeting the next generation of music fans right outside of our schoolyards.
Over there on the East Side of St. Paul. You know, those areas where you get 30
extra years in prison if you’re caught dealing dope? Yeah—you can
deal hate there, no problem. It’s protected by the Bill of Rights and the
Constitution, and all kinds of other documents and laws and by-laws that also
make it legal to do things like torment emotionally-overwrought pregnant women
outside of abortion clinics, or protest and harass Democratic or third party political
rallies in ways that would certainly get you arrested were you to try them at
a Republican rally.
I’m not even going to get into the deep and varied problems facing St. Paul’s
East Side, not the least of which is a complete and total culture vacuum—some
people there actually still consider today’s lineup of Lynyrd Skynyrd to
be a viable artistic entity—but as a guy who lived there for a couple of
pretty rough years, I will say that this inbred hatred and ignorance is but one
of the horrid side effects of a city shoving all of its poor, socially-disadvantaged
and under-educated populace into one rotting, sprawling wasteland of burned-out
factories, dead, barren breweries, lop-sided, over-populated hovels and crumbling,
neglected local landmarks. Wake up, St. Paul—Detroit isn’t that far
away, after all.
But back to the music thing—of course the hate groups are going to use music
to attract younger members. The Christians do it, ol’ Scratch does it, the
Republicans do it, the Dems do it, the Army/Navy/Air Force/Marines (“yvaN
ehT nioJ,” anyone?) do it, Hitler did it, and these twisted scabs will,
too. And it’s probably not too hard to convince a 15-year-old white kid
in the ghetto, a kid whose dad’s been in jail since he was born, and whose
mom works two or three jobs to support him and his brothers and sisters, a kid
who’s been getting his ass kicked by black or Asian or Latino gang members
since he was in kindergarten (Jesus, has anybody else seen “American History
X”—and if so, why didn’t anybody learn anything from it?), a
kid who hates himself first and foremost, it’s probably not too hard to
convince that kid to come to some kick-ass thrash rock concerts, hang out with
some hard-ass, older dudes who’ve been to prison and joined the Aryan Nation,
get drunk, meet weird chicks, talk about Hitler, how cool is that? Well, for you
and me, it’s idiotic. But for that kid, it’s probably looking like
a way out—maybe the only way out—of a life filled with pain, misery
and solitude.
As adults who are aware that these people are trying to brainwash our youth, it’s
our job to let the kids know that there are other, healthier ways and that you
don’t need hate to ROCK. Don’t want to get involved? Fine. When the
skinheads beat the hell out of the 14-year-old Hispanic foreign exchange student
staying with you just because he’s “different,” don’t
ask why. When a desperate chase on the freeway between cops and some would-be
Aryan thug who just robbed a gas station ends up with your sister, or your aunt,
or your wife, involved in a horrible accident, don’t ask why. And when black
and white gangs are fighting for control of your streets to sell your children
hard drugs, don’t ask why.
My pal sent me the CD he’d been handed on that corner and it felt weird
just holding it. I thought about how many times I’d stood on that very same
corner, waiting for traffic, carrying a case of beer over to a buddy’s house,
or staggering home from some wacked-out Halloween party—never knowing how
many of the people I passed on that street might have been into this fucked up
shit. My buddy had said he thought it was a shame that the bands on this disc
played so well, considering their message, and that was what was on my mind as
I slid it in the player and eased up the volume knob.
Hmmm. First track sounds like your average, cookie-cutter thrash metal, can’t
even understand what the idiot is bellowing over shred guitar and staccato rhythms.
Guess that’s why the Panzerfaust folks so considerately included their website
(http://www.panzerfaust.com) on the CD jacket, huh? Oh, yeah—you can go to the
site to read the lyrics (I’ll get to those in a moment), or to join “Operation
Schoolyard,” listen to one of six streaming radio stations, get thousands
of free mp3s, read (fun-filled!) message boards, see (oh-happy-day!) photo galleries,
watch videos, and see catalog!! (Sigh)
Do I really want to do this? Hell no, I don’t. I know once I type that site
address into my browser, I’ll get even more pissed than I already am, and
what good will that do me? I’m a music writer, a perpetually-soused, certifiable
rock ’n’ roll nutcase—not some moral judge or defender of civil
rights, and even if I was, how much good am I doing by even talking about and
exposing this bullshit? But then I think back to Randy Newman, and his decision
to keep playing “Rednecks,” even though the people he was putting
down in the song thought it was a big booster for their cause and even though
the people he was defending in the song thought it was a big fuck you to their
race and their cause. He keeps playing it because you can’t stop this shit
by ignoring it. You can’t let slime like this slither back under their rocks
to keep growing and festering and polluting a new generation of kids.
And don’t fool yourselves, those of you who happen to agree with the hater’s
message—keeping the poor, the working-class, the uneducated, and the less-fortunate
factions of this country at each other’s throats plays perfectly into the
hands of the real “evil-doers” out there who are, every day, passing
unfair laws, changing historic documents and court rulings, sending your jobs
overseas, denying education to your children, pumping crack into your neighborhoods,
and forcing their religions and their social regimes and their plastic politics
on everyone who isn’t made up of—and filthy with—the one true
color that matters—GREEN! But there’s no point in arguing with the
primitives who are at the rotten heart of Panzerfaust & friends—I merely
point these facts out for the benefit of any young, impressionable eyes who may
be perusing this rant.
As for the website, it’s very professional-looking (but then, the trains
always did run on time in Nazi Germany, didn’t they?), and set up like a
virtual playground for demonic little would-be Fourth Reichers. It includes all
of the nasty little extras mentioned on the CD jacket, but is, in reality, exactly
what you knew it would be: An internet recruitment pamphlet. I’m not going
to justify the evil works done here by describing the site in great detail, I’ll
just say how incredibly sad it is that someone could put so much time and effort
into promoting such trash when there are so many good things that talent could
go to use for.
This shit is nasty, man. Propaganda for sale includes “literature”
like “Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell And The American Nazi Party,”
fun and functional swag like Swastika and Hitler T-shirts, white power bumper
stickers, buttons and badges and the handy, dandy Hitler Youth Knife—for
cuttin’ them pesky hangin’ ropes to just the right length, no doubt.
The radio stations pump out 24-hour, non-stop messages of hate and destruction—although
I found that they’re not just for Germans, anymore—one streamer was
playing Celtic Warrior’s version of the Welsh National Anthem, and that
got me to wondering if maybe some guy with an accent like John Cale’s was
sitting at his computer off across some foggy moor and dreaming of the day when
he and his fellow angry, coal-mining Welsh mates would RISE UP and kill everybody
who wasn’t—um—WELSH!! Hey, hate is an equal opportunity employer
these days, man. So I guess the Aryans won’t be too, too surprised when
they’re attacked on all sides by all the other marginal hate groups they
encouraged to get together and kill, burn, loot, pillage, and destroy, eh? Lord,
help us all.
The message boards are about what you’d expect—long litanies and screeching
screeds about how everybody but yourself is responsible for how fucked-up the
world is. Snore. It’s actually not too much different than your average,
teen-infested AOL chat-room—certainly, the same mind-set, maturity and IQ
levels are present in each. A quick glance at the PF “menu” reveals
your options: ‘Zine Reviews, Free Tapes, and, oh yeah- Nigger Jokes. I don’t
bother clicking on that one. I do check out a few of the messages. The boards
are divided into convenient categories. For instance, if you’re roaring
drunk and want to take your brown shirt off and rassle around (no fair using your
Hitler Youth Knife, though) with a fellow sloshed ideologist, why, you jes’
dive into “The Drunk Tank.” Wanna argue just for the hell of it? Slither
on into “The Snake Pit,” (yes, folks, this is for real) where you
can exchange witty verbal jabs with guys like smartasswhiteguy18, whose angry
post reads: “God, I hate niggers.” Which gets me to wondering, just
who is going to come into a white power chat board and ARGUE a point like that?
If you wanted to ARGUE, you’d post something like, “God, I love African-Americans!
Who’s with me?” “Yee-haw, Jews rock!” or, “Up with
Gay Marriage laws!” Are they all fucking brain-dead? Yep, you bet they are.
Ditto for the music—oh yeah, I said I’d clue you in on the lyrics
to some of the tunes included on that sampler CD, didn’t I? Well, guess
what? I changed my mind. I won’t even give ink to shit like that—suffice
to say that it’s like David Allen Coe, GG Allin and Johnny Rebel all rolled
into one, with both the hate factor and the volume/thrash level upped by about
a thousand percent. Ack. More interesting to note are the bands themselves—the
label is Minnesota-based, how about their stable? Most appeared to be from out
of state, but I jotted down a short list—if you see any of these acts playing
around town, or they hit you up for a booking at your club or venue, you might
want to know what kind of shit they’re laying down—it’s not
just the rock: H8 Machine, Final War, Grinded Nig, Rebel Hell, Brutal Attack,
Death’s Head and Aggressive Force are just a few of the “artists”
signed to—and touring under the auspices of—the Panzerfaust label.
The scary thing is, a kid who just wants to bang his head probably won’t
know what the message is behind this decibel-decimating music is until he/she’s
completely sucked into the lifestyle. To me, that’s just as bad as the Christian
“rock” shows, GOP fund-raisers, and other youth-oriented, fascist
mind-control rallies going on around the world. Yes, they have the “right”
to believe what they want to, but I question their right to hang around school
yards and promote that kinda jive.
I can only listen to a couple of the songs on the disc itself before my stomach
starts churning. Yes, it’s that bad. I hit the “stop” button,
but not before images of Dee Dee Ramone in Nazi regalia flash by my eyes. Bowie
with an SS armband. The Stooges’ Ron Asheton in a WW II-era German army
helmet. Artie Johnson on Laugh-In, popping his head up from behind a bush and
saying, “Verr-y interesting ...” The bungling Nazi dorks in “The
Blues Brothers” movie—I was barraged by this kind of shit, hell, I
had a whole plastic Nazi army (but no plastic molded toy concentration camp prisoners,
eh) before I was 8 years old! Watched—and laughed my ass off—at “Hogan’s
Heroes” after school (where we actually learned about stuff like HISTORY)
every afternoon with peanut butter sandwiches and watered-down Kool-Aid!
What was the difference? Why didn’t those images steer me towards a life
of bigotry and ignorance? Why, because it was all PRETEND, kids. We knew it was
pretend. And back then, I guess we were a little better able to tell the difference.
Maybe because, besides “Hogan’s Heroes,” we had Sgt. Rock and
Sgt. Fury comic books, which may have gone a long way to promote hawk causes in
some aspects, but which never failed to include the important moral message that
the world was fighting real EVIL in WWII and that a lot of innocent people died
to make sure it never reared its ugly head again. Or maybe it was because the
world was a lot warmer, people a lot nicer, time moved a little slower. Either
way, we grew up knowing that Nazis—the REAL Nazis—were the worst kind
of subhuman dreck to ever disgrace humanity.
You knew Dee Dee wasn’t really a Nazi—half the Ramones were Jewish,
for Chrissakes! And anyway, a real Nazi wouldn’t be caught dead in the same
room with a Jew as tall as Joey Ramone, man. Bowie? A stupid, foolish fad—thankfully,
more people associate Bowie with cross-dressing and sleeping with Mick Jagger
than they do Nazism. Ron Asheton? Come on, man. Ron’s a great guitar player,
but I think he still lives with his mom, and he probably still plays with HIS
plastic German army men. As for “Hogan’s Heroes,” well, I for
one think the only thing scarier than the fact that a whole new generation of
American kids was raised thinking the Nazis were simply a comedic, bumbling menagerie
of fools is the fact that, in Germany, the show is voice-dubbed and censored to
such a degree that EVERY SINGLE REFERENCE TO NAZISM HAS BEEN DELETED! Maybe we
shouldn’t have let the whole thing become such a light-hearted, entertainment-driven
piece of schtick, eh?
That kind of thinking, along with that of the bottom-feeding adults who set up
and run hate-filled, music-related websites and record labels like Panzerfaust,
may not guarantee another racially-motivated world war, but it sure doesn’t
bode well for peace, love and understanding anytime in the near future. So shame
on you, Panzerfaust. Shame on the bands who propagate your hatred and lies. Shame
on the mothers and fathers and big brothers and sisters who initiate innocents
into your web of evil. Shame on the teachers, pastors, counselors, aunts, uncles,
grandparents, cousins and in-laws who infect those young minds with this poison.
Shame on us as a society for allowing such a horrific beast as Nazism to become
a joke. And shame on anybody out there who takes one of these CDs—or even
reads about this—and doesn’t do something, anything, to raise awareness
of this situation in our community.
If you’re a musician, booker, promoter, web person, journalist, club owner,
artist, or even just a concerned fan, think of what you could do if you banded
together—just like these hate mongers did—and built a community of
progressive, informed, aware, intelligent, loving people who also happened to
have the ability to rock beyond belief? Think of how many young minds you could
positively impress by getting youngsters involved in such a community. It all
starts with you—somebody get the website set up. Come up with a cool name—they
use militaristic handles like “Panzerfaust,” which literally means
“armored fist” in German—so why not come up with something even
more bad-ass, and name the site after that?
Get together a shit-load of great local and national bands who stand against hate,
bigotry, and ignorance, and have them offer free mp3s, concert tickets, posters,
bumper stickers, and other teen-friendly swag to draw kids in. I know there are
scores of killer hard rock outfits in the Twin Cities who aren’t hate-mongers.
We need you guys to rise up and kick some musical ass here. Volunteer to stand
on street corners in crappy neighborhoods and pass out free CDs to the area youth.
After all, if the Sons Of Adolph can use this propaganda crap to make kids hate,
how can it be wrong to use it to help them LOVE? Dig.
As for me, I’d much rather have spent this time doing a few record or DVD
reviews, or writing a column for you about what the three worst Rod Stewart songs
of all time are (originals only—no fair including his current batch of covers
of old standards), or how I once, on a bet, ran a veritable gauntlet (drunk, of
course) of red-jacketed casino security ladies to get former Three Dog Night singer
Chuck Negron’s autograph (he told them it was OK, and signed a cocktail
napkin for me), both of which are pretty evil in and of themselves, but like my
old buddies in Faith No More once said, “It’s a dirty job/But someone’s
gotta do it ...” I only hope shining the spotlight of the ol’ Dial
on this nest of snakes will somehow help. If any of ya have any ideas, or think
I can help in any other way, give me a holler, y’hear?
That’s it for this week, folks. Tune in again next time, same place, same
time, for the latest in the music world, CD/DVD reviews, and more rambling rants
from your humble scribe. Until then—make your own damn news. ||
If you have local music
news, gigs, CDs you’d like to see mentioned in this column, or you’d
like to offer helpful suggestions on the above issue, send replies to: (temporary
e-mail) jamescrouch_1@juno.com.
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