New Magma!!!!!

[Scrotum Scissor]

new old album by der Übermenschen? Meh. Is this the long lost concept album celebrating the virtues of Vichy as the perfect form of the État français and the racial superiority of his hero, Philippe Pétain?

No, it's not that one. But please post a link to places where Vander expresses sympathy for Petain or the Vichy-regime or for the PPF or Doriot or for Dèat or Laval or even Valois or any of those other mofos. I'd gladly read it.

[TheH]

And in defense of my language it would be of course:

new old album by den Übermenschen? (if you meant the band)
new old album by dem Übermensch? (if you meant Vander alone)

[GuitarGeek]

new old album by der Übermenschen? Meh. Is this the long lost concept album celebrating the virtues of Vichy as the perfect form of the État français and the racial superiority of his hero, Philippe Pétain?

What in the wide world of sports are you talking about?!

[Scrotum Scissor]

What in the wide world of sports are you talking about?!

The ungoing dispute about whether or not Vander harbours fascist affections, sympathies or affiliations due to a set of bizarre stories and anecdotes covering the man's undoubtedly erratic actions and statements of conscious provocation throughout the years. As well as the ageold allegation of the Magma concept itself constituting and/or representing a fascist aesthetic and message.

Funny to think that when Magma played double bills with Heldon there was actually a grand fascist-council ensemble pumpin' alongside a gang of chaos-harbingers led by an anarcho-nihilist terrorist. Must have been a sight to behold, but hey - these were the 70s!

[unclemeat]

Looks like someone turned on the Vander Gaffe Generator again...
Listening to Magma, my desire to invade Poland is rather slight. I can deal with that.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Listening to Magma, my desire to invade Poland is rather slight. I can deal with that.

Yes, especially when the craft in question originates in a guy with Sinti genes whose ensemble largely consists of Sephardis, Azhkenazis, Turks and Arabs and whose artistic ideals are either Afroamerican or European entartete kunst.

[Zeuhlmate]

Several artist have been fascinated and used symbols from totalitarian ideologies that expresses power (like 'dark forces').
That doesnt necessarily make them subscribers to those ideologies, or fans of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot or concentration camps, but perhaps politically stupid or naive ...
Fascism, Nazism: Kraftwerk. Laibach, lots of heavy bands
Communism: Numerous bands (Henry Cow, Stormy Six, Area, etc, etc.)

There is repeated vonhörensagen that Vander have been fascinated by nazi symbols (Albert Speer, Swastika), and conspiration theories about hidden nazi symbolism in the music, lyrics and covers. It doesnt make Vander a nazi or his music nazi music, even it was true.
I have never seen Vander or his music as an intellectual excercise.
btw Isnt the Kobaia stuff about saving the good from evil?

Regarding the racist accusations:

Christian Vanders dad was of gypsy origin.
Christian Vander was for many years married to a jew - Stella Vander who has been in the band allmost constantly since MDK
His daughter is therefore also jew
He has had several musicians of jewish origin in his band
He has had several musicians of arab origin in his band
He adores John Coltrane and his music
He is very inspired by gospel and motown music
He was a big fan of and friends with Elvin Jones (american black drummer)

All this would hardly make him a fan of nazism, unless his intellect & knowledge is totally detached from his emotional life.

[Dana5140]

All true. As is the fact that one of his recent bandmates accused him of a drunken anti-Semitic rant that led to that musician, with others, leaving the band. As a long-time fan, this story, which seems to have legs, and which Vander himself at least acknowledged exists in an interview last year, remains a bit troubling. Since I'm Jewish.

Back on the actual thread, I know my copy of Riah has shipped, but is not yet here. Am eagerly awaiting it.

[Scrotum Scissor]

All true. As is the fact that one of his recent bandmates accused him of a drunken anti-Semitic rant that led to that musician, with others, leaving the band. As a long-time fan, this story, which seems to have legs, and which Vander himself at least acknowledged exists in an interview last year, remains a bit troubling. Since I'm Jewish.

There's no doubt whatsoever about the ambivalence as concerns Vander (and not least when the guy is on a binge), and that scene you describe gained notoriety rather instantly when reported a handful years back. Anyone remember Costello's racist rambling opposite Stephen Stills sometime in the 80s - both drunk and on the verge of a fistfight? How about Clapton's infamous "support" of Enoch Powell during a drunken rant in the late 70s - as of yet still not reputed by the man himself? Yup, artistic life is hard, as are the tolls of depression following its literal entoxication. These are aspects no one could want to condone with the tiniest hope of retaining a minimum of plain decency, and there is certainly a certain limitation to the roster of acceptable behaviour also from the pitiful artist. Still this is basically ALL there is to it - bad, disgraceful behaviour. And let's face it; we've all been there, done that, and some of us will probably keep at it - without there being some wicked "personal philosophy" behind the phenomenon.

[Dana5140]

I have never been there nor done that. But I take your point. However, I fucking refuse to listen or see anything with Mel Gibson in it, because of his drunken rants. His history is fairly clear, notably with his father. I love Magma, but this bothers me a whole lot.

[GuitarGeek]

I have never been there nor done that. But I take your point. However, I fucking refuse to listen or see anything with Mel Gibson in it, because of his drunken rants. His history is fairly clear, notably with his father. I love Magma, but this bothers me a whole lot.

Well, if it means anything, I asked Paul Sears, who actually knows the Magma crew all by first names, and he said "It's bullshit". I'll take Paul's word for it.

You may have never done it, but a lot of people do. You have a couple too many pints (or shots) or you get really upset and you say something in a moment of passion you shouldn't have. Ray Charles forgave Elvis Costello for his infamous rant.

Personally, I still enjoy that first Ted Nugent solo record (the one with Queen Of The Forest on it) as much as ever, even though I know the man is a total asshole who deserves to be placed on the streets of Pamplona with nothing but his own two feet to stop him from getting gored.

It's funny out of 44 years of being a top flight high profile career (well, high profile by "prog rock" standards) of working with numerous musicians, we have only instance of him ranting about whatever it is that's supposed to make him a racist or whatever. And has been said, he's worked with lots of Jews, including one that he was married to for many years. And it seems to me that if he was really an anti-Semite, at some point, Stella would want to disassociate herself with him and the band. And before anyone says it, I have it on good authority she doesn't "need the money".

[Scrotum Scissor]

I have never been there nor done that. But I take your point. However, I fucking refuse to listen or see anything with Mel Gibson in it, because of his drunken rants. His history is fairly clear, notably with his father. I love Magma, but this bothers me a whole lot.

I'm not thinking "been there, done that" in terms of each and everyone performing bigot attacks, I'm talking of the general tendency or risk we all share at making fools of ourselves, sometimes even knowingly if irrationally. It's never pleasant, but there's the overall agreement on a remedy - namely credible and convincing redemption through admittance of guilt and shame. You can never go back from there, but it becomes an integral part of your identity nonetheless, for better or worse - the point remains that you owe an apology.

As for Mel Gibson, that guy means exactly what he rants. I wrote parts of my thesis on comparative antisemitism, and I can tell the difference between madman provocations and an actual "ideology"; Gibson seems to combine the two quite organically, to put it like that.

I wouldn't worry about the accusations against Vander. Remember what Sinfield sings about Mr. Fripp in "Envelopes of Yesterday", or what just about everybody ever said about R. Blackmore (except for the guy's present wife), or, to mention the uttermost extreme - the stories about John Martyn; "I fell in love with a wrecked arsehole, and I continued loving him", I believe were the words of Beverly.

[Dana5140]

Guitar and scrotum (Well, okay, that sounds weird!): Yes. I agree. By and large. I have, believe it or not, never been drunk, so I have never said anything drunkenly. Anyone can make that kid of error, though. And a lot of the Nazi shit around Magma sounds more apocryphal than it does real- but I think both of you have seen some of the analyses on the link between some of the language ("manter kreusz") and artistry (on Udu Wudu back cover, for example), to at least wonder what Vander is playing at, since he consistently remains opaque. But the real kicker was that it was his own bandmates who made the accusation. And his other own bandmates who defended him, as well. That had to be ugly.

The fact that he married someone Jewish and had Jewish musicians means nothing, really. "Some of my best friends..." Moze, Cahen, Lasry, Seffer, maybe Popkiewicz. Who knows?

[GuitarGeek]

but I think both of you have seen some of the analyses on the link between some of the language ("manter kreusz") and artistry (on Udu Wudu back cover, for example),

I don't follow what you're talking about. I've heard vague rumors that some of the Kobaïan lyrics are derived from things from Hitler's speeches or whatever. I dunno, if I was gonna write a piece about the struggle between good and evil (with good presumably triumphing in the end), and if I had been clever enough to think of it beforehand, I think re-purposing the words of a known drannit like Hitler for such a goal would be worthy artistic endeavor. I like the idea that you could take evil things and convert into not-evil things, kinda like how matter and energy can't be destroyed but only converted in some other form of matter or energy.

[Mister Triscuits]

Guitar and scrotum

Isn't that a pub in Essex somewhere?

[chalkpie]

Isn't that a pub in Essex somewhere?

No, you're thinking of The Ovary and Tuba.

[NogbadTheBad]

No, you're thinking of The Ovary and Tuba.

Is that the one with the Snug with the open fire and the pickled onions on the bar?

[chalkpie]

Is that the one with the Snug with the open fire and the pickled onions on the bar?

Yes.

[Scrotum Scissor]

I have, believe it or not, never been drunk

What you state about personal jewish acquaintances not necessarily signalling a general stance against antisemitism, is very true indeed; in fact the guy who established and essentially defined the damn term itself ("antisemitism", that is), Wilhelm Marr, was in due course married to two jewish women. It had nothing if not a negative impact on the man's twisted interpretation of "reality" and society.

With Vander it is definitely a question of external aesthetics; the notion of bombast effect in both jargon and veneer, the gloss of spiritual "appearance" emannating from transcendental intensity.

But for the sake of it, Kobaïan borrows as much from slav and jiddisch tongues as it does from theatrical teutonics.

[Dana5140]

I would love to read your thesis. And I mean that sincerely, since I am an academic in real life. Did you ever read Kevin Holm-Hudson's pomo paper "Apocalyptic otherness: black music and extraterrestrial identity in the music of Magma?"

Here is an initial quote:

A related issue in studying the music of Magma concerns its intertextual aspects. How exactly do the styles of Orff and Coltrane, for example (in terms of race and ethnicity, two polar opposites), manifest themselves in this music? To answer this question, I will also analyze selected passages from two of Magma's best-known works, "Kohntarkosz" (1974) and "Mekanik Destructiw Kommandoh" (1973). By pointing out the formalistic (if not necessarily stylistic) parallels between these pieces and early twentieth-century art music and 1960s jazz, I will extend Corbett's argument to encompass Vander's work with Magma, representing the ultimate statement of "outsider" identity within the late-1960s counterculture.

[unclemeat]

I would love to read your thesis.

x2

[Scrotum Scissor]

Well, can you guys read Norwegian?

[Zeuhlmate]

Yes
(My mother was from Honningsvåg)

[Scrotum Scissor]

Yes
(My mother was from Honningsvåg)

HA, HA!

The town with its very own masterful progressive rock band, eh? Did you know that Thule's Natt was voted the 50-something best Norwegian rock album of all time by a tribunal of 100 musicians/"musical workers" gathered through a poll in Morgenbladet - the country's no.1 intellectual weekly? Not bad for a group whose name isn't even listed in national rock encyclopaedias.

My thesis is from 2001 and can be borrowed from the HL-center at Bygdøy; Quisling's wartime residence now converted into a Holocaust documentation and research facility.

[Zeuhlmate]

I must check that out !
Most of the family moved south, some as early and unvoluntary as 1944... tough times.