The October 31st event features Chicago-based act Luftwaffe.  http://www.kalkisarmy.com/, who have in their decade-long career collaborated with the likes of NON, Death In June and others from the 'Neo-Folk' scene. As well as writing and releasing contentious material, Luftwaffe have been pictured in military uniform with members of Death In June. Regardless of whether Luftwaffe are merely flirting with fascism or are politically committed to it, they provide a real and malignant catalyst for far right extremists to gather, network and recruit at these concerts.

The idea of waging a right-wing 'cultural' 'war of position' emerged from the Italian fascist movement also responsible for many of the terrorist 'strategy of tension' outrages in that country during the 1970s and 1980s (including the Bologna railway station bombing in which 85 people died and 200 were injured). This cultural 'war of position' ideology was taken up by the faction of the fascist British National Front headed by Patrick Harrington and Richard Lawson, and a number of those belonging to the same musical circles as Luftwaffe ' including Tony Wakeford, Ian Read and Freya Aswynn ' were political activists in organisations (official National Front, IONA etc.) espousing this brand of 'right-wing Gramscianism'.

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.

Rice's politics go way beyond embracing a seriously negative and racist worldview. To quote, "As far as I am concerned, the intellect is a disease.
It imposes values where none exist. Values don't exist in the world, they exist in the mind and are purely imaginary. They're completely fictional and to project them onto actual things or situations can only result in fictionalizing the world and your experience of it."

 http://www.boydrice.com/INTERVIEWS/FifthPath/INDEX.htm

Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that Boyd Rice developed close ties to fascist philosophers; in fact he has claimed himself to be 'a fascist in art'. In 1984, Rice, along with a Holocaust denier, Keith Stimely, launched the Abraxas Foundation ' taking the name from Jungian philosophy ' which he described as a 'social Darwinist think-tank.' Abraxas hailed Malthusianism as 'Nature's Eternal Fascism.' During performances, Rice has read from the racist and anti-Semitic 'Might Is Right', by Ragnar Redbeard. The book's forward is by Anton LaVey, its afterward by George Burdi, founder of Resistance Records and former singer of the neo-Nazi band
RAHOWA (Racial Holy War).

Rice has also written a controversial article "R.A.P.E (Revolt Against Penis Envy)" in which he seemingly encourages men to rape women in order to show that men have a superior status. He has, however, stated that the article was written lightly, but still says it is based on facts. His former wife Lisa Crystal Carver's memoir "Drugs Are Nice" (Snowbooks, London 2006) provides an outline of the time she spent living with and financially supporting Boyd Rice. In her graphic account of their shared lives together Carver recalls how Rice was jailed for assaulting her.

Carver finally concludes that Rice is an alcoholic failure and an
'unemployed fascist'. Before and to an extent even after Carver came along, Rice depended on financial handouts from his mother. In her memoir Carver describes the fascist emblems with which her partner decorated their flat ' A giant Nazi flag is taped to the wall. Right next to the Tomorrowland Disney poster..." (page 146). Rice's mistreatment of Carver included physically restraining her and subjecting her to regular beatings and floggings. Carver, despite her growing fear of Rice, stayed with him for the sake of their baby until, in an alcoholic rage, he smashed her head against a nightstand until she became unconscious. This led to Rice's arrest, trial and imprisonment.

Rice does not conceal his hatred of women, as revealed in this quote from Misanthrope:

'Back to the rumours. Are you a misogynist?
"Yeah." Rice nods fervently for the record. [Laughs.] "Yeah, more and more all the time."
What makes you feel that way?
"Just a lot of experience with women. I don't think women deserve the same rights as men. I don't think women are on an equal footing with men. I think they're totally different creatures. I think the world operated better when they had less say over how the way things went, had less control."
And regarding his piece "R.A.P.E.", which is appallingly pro-rape but
allegedly tongue-in-cheek: "I was poking a bit of fun, but it's like there's more than a grain of truth in everything I said in there. I think all the stuff I said was basically true. Which is why it's funny when it's funny.
And it's why it upsets women, when it upsets women. Because, you know, they can't really deny most of that stuff. "
"Well that's why when women start having these intellectual arguments with me I say at a certain point, "Listen, I refuse to even argue with a woman."
They say, "Well, why is that?" and I say, "Because you overreact, you get all emotional, and fly into a tizzy."

What would the organisers and indeed participants involved with the
forthcoming Million Woman Rise event in which a planned a million women will march on Saturday 8th March 2008 in London make of Rice's misogyny? The women organizing the march say that "enough is enough' Never has the rape of a woman's right and dignity been so systematic and coordinated, the health and lives of women have never faced such peril." The women's march has been organized by ordinary women fed up with violence against women in all its forms. "Something has to happen for women and now" The Million Woman Rise is expected to include a day of speeches, activism and music. Hundreds of thousands of women are expected at Saturday's rally, which is aimed at addressing violence against women through a show of political, social and economic solidarity.

 http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=26
9137226


Rice was also close to Church of Satan founder LaVey, and rumoured to be a member of its "Council of Nine" and to have initiated others into it. Rice regularly visited convicted murderer Charles Manson (who had order his followers to murder actress Sharon Tate amongst others) and organised a campaign to free him. Through Manson, the group came into contact with James Mason, former member of the American Nazi Party and the National Socialist Liberation Front, currently a member of the Universal Order, which views Charles Manson as the next Hitler. Rice was also a member of the neo-Nazi American Front and was very close to its president, Bob Heick. The pair were photographed together wearing Nazi uniforms:

 http://www.boydrice.com/gallery/friends_gallery/1980-08.htm


This photograph was additionally published in the book Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture by James Ridgeway.

Heick was influenced by the racist National Front in 1980's Britain. Indeed Heick's group was unique in that it advocated a "third positionist" ideology combining both racism and a right-wing 'cultural' 'war of position'. The American Front led a nationwide rally December 9, 2006, on behalf of incarcerated members of The Order, a 1980s white supremacist terrorist group. While the largest gathering occurred in southern California, several banners describing Order members as "prisoners of war" were found around Orlando and Maitland.

Heick was present at an event, "8/8/88" which Rice explained "was a
recapitulation of a destruction ritual that Anton LaVey performed on August 8, 1969." It was shown on Geraldo Rivera's "Satanism" special. Perhaps not coincidentally, the eighth letter of the alphabet is H, and 88 is considered by many anti-fascists to signify the words "Heil Hitler."


Rice was interviewed in 1986 by the white supremacist leader, Tom Metzger of White Aryan Resistance. Asked whether industrial music is the "beginning of an Aryan underclass movement." he was quoted as saying, "I think so. It's engendering a new will among people. That's what I'm interested in." See video clip  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5aDHs0XuFc


Also mentioned by Rice within the context of this interview is the band Above The Ruins, featuring one Tony Wakeford now of London-based Sol Invictus. A London concert Wakeford's band gave in 2006 was, according to a blog posting, attended by Troy Southgate (another former National Front activist and Neo-Folk musician and more recently founder of the English Nationalist Movement and the National Revolutionary Faction; Southgate describes the latter as "a hardline revolutionary organisation based on an underground cell-structure similar to that used by both the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the IRA", operating on the principle of leaderless resistance. For information about the sell-out Wakedord concert in a mainstream Kings Cross venue see  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Southgate


Albin Julius of Der Blutharsch  http://www.derblutharsch.com/ who are scheduled to perform at Slimelight on Saturday November 24th has also made no secret of his involvement in ultra-right politics. Der Blutharsch, whose members invariably perform in black clothing and military belts, was formed around Austrian Julius, whose open interests include nazi occultism. Der Blutharsch have also utilised visual signifiers linked to nazi aesthetics. For a long time, the group logo was a Sig rune, the stylised 'S' in the SS insignia, but it has since been replaced it with the Iron Cross, a German military symbol originating from the Prussian liberation struggle against Napoleon at the beginning of the nineteenth century. After 1939, Hitler retained the Iron Cross as one of his most important Nazi military decorations and all kinds of Iron Cross-emblazoned nazi kitsch is touted for sale on Der Blutharsch's website.

Julius was a keen follower of the Austrian right-wing extremist, J'rg
Haider, and has stated that he did not regard Haider as a right-wing
'extremist' in any way. In another interview with the German Gothic magazine Black, he stated that he hoped that Europe would consist again of 'national states' and that there would be 'finally a halt to migration'. This xenophobic pan-Europeanism is the ideology which ties together many of the bands at the forefront of the Neo-Folk/Dark Wave scene, and proven links have been established between promoters, musicians, labels and genuine fascist movements working in the 'cultural' field.

Albin Julius has also collaborated extensively with Boyd Rice and Douglas Pearce (also known as Douglas P)  http://www.deathinjune.com/ ). Pearce has called Hitler "the most influential man of the century" who "shaped the world with his death and destruction." The band's name refers to the "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934, when Hitler killed Ernst R'hm and other leaders of the Sturmabteilung (SA), his opposition among the Nazis.

DIJ shows have also been cancelled and shut down or suffered protest
numerous times on the grounds that the band supports fascism. Concerts in cities including Chicago, Portland and Seattle and countries such as Germany, Switzerland and Norway have been cancelled or disrupted. In Chicago, the Metro venue cancelled a scheduled Death in June show, although it was hastily rescheduled elsewhere... and according to a promoter from American Gothic Productions, fascists did indeed attend the show.

During Der Blutharsch concerts, Julius is also sometimes assisted by
ex-Death in June member, Ian Read. On DIJ's 'Brown Book' album, Read sang the infamous 'Horst Wessel' song which is outlawed Germany. During the 1980s, Read was involved in rightist circles in the UK, notably the Rune-Gilde. He is founder of the bands Sol Invictus (Black Sun) and Fire + Ice, and was member of the British nazi crank David Myatt's Order of the Nine Angles.

Der Blutharsch recently released a joint album with the Italian fascist band Zetazeroalfa, part of 'Rock Identity Italy', a New Right music formation whose main aim is to present fascism in a 'palatable' way. This is not Der Blutharsch's first joint venture: it has, in fact, previously released a collaborative album with the Italian New Right band Ain Soph who are fond of quoting the fascist mystic, Julius Evola. Albin Julius also runs the Hau Ruck! music label which has released an album 'Odessa vine ill Bello', containing Italian fascist marching songs from the time of Benito Mussolini.


Julius and his band have also been subject to attention from members of the Israeli parliament. Der Blutharsch were forced to cancel a planned concert in Tel Aviv, Israel, following widespread protests and demands from members of the Knesset that it be banned.

Israeli MP Yossi Sarid, who had so petitioned the mayor of Tel Aviv and the country's justice minister, told the Jerusalem Post: 'It is clear why Der Blutharsch wants to perform in Israel. They want to be legitimate, have an 'Israeli passport' and then become persona grata everywhere else. Against their critics, they can then say 'Who are you to call us fascists? The survivors of the Holocaust invited us'.

The cancellation of the Tel Aviv concert was only the latest: in March 2003, a concert was cancelled in Clausnitz in Germany and, in December 2003 a concert was cancelled in Chicago after protests mobilised by Searchlight supporters and Antifa-Net and their affiliates in the USA.

It is inconceivable that events specifically propagating fascist ideology are allowed to take place in clubs throughout Europe, and that the avowedly right-wing Neo-Folk scene has been allowed to develop into a cultural force beneath the radar of the mainstream music press. Please do all that you can to spread the word about these forthcoming London concerts: mobilise, protest and petition in the short time available to give a clear message that imported Euro-Fascism is not welcome in this country .