The Ian Curtis memorial thread

Gone, but never forgotten.

(Ian deserves two memorial threads)

Ian Curtis's memorial stone stolen

Poor show.

"It remains baffling and leaves you asking 'Who?'

I really think Macclesfield Borough Council spokesmen should be better briefed about their musical heritage.

Pete Townsend has a good alibi.

Oh and this: Ian Curtis' Gravestone Stolen

Oh, whoops.

Easily done!

Is he the only famous person to ever have come from Macclesfield???

I expect Macclesfield residents to chip in on this one.....

Mr Methane and Peter Crouch are both from Macclesfield, according to Wikipedia. How much more famous can you get?

Oh yeah, and I for got about the Macc Lads.

Jesus, what giants that small town has produced!

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/video/?bcpid=1586371503&bctid=1646075702

30 years ago

RIP

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SvsaNpaytxU/S5JglvgJuXI/AAAAAAAAHpM/vWJaq_TWhFY/s400/2010-02-17Bunny-2-23.jpg

Joy Division inspire school symphony

And an exhibition will include items such as letters, posters and set lists.

It will include a handwritten note from Curtis about the group's acclaimed second album Closer, in which he wrote: "This LP is a disaster."

lol, he was pretty much always wrong about everything.

Christ, it does not feel like 30 years ago.

What the hell is with that shirt...?!

xp

There's a bit in the Joy Division doc (I think) where Wilson imagines Curtis crossing paths with Mark E on their way to their respective workplaces. I expect it's a reference to that. Or it's from Hong Kong.

it's a thing

http://www.metalinsider.net/site/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/bob-marley-jimi-hendrix-t-shirt11-300x300.jpg

The Joy Division / MES one was a legit mistake by a Thai factory though

It was? Excellent!

Taking the dude's headstone was straight tacky, but its pretty sweet about that symphony. Perhaps a seance with Mahler is in order as a consult. I would like to think Joy Division would not have made it as far down disco-droid road if Mr. Curtis had survived.

Listening to "Dead Souls" right now. The force of this seems never to decay.

It's what he would have wanted...

http://www.salfordstar.com/images/l/peter-hook-poster.jpg

a friend pointed out this morning that peter hook is kinda the ray manzarek of his generation now

harsh but fair imo

I know people need to eat (and drink) but Hooky's just a embarrassing these days.

just embarrassing

He came across as someone I'd like to go down the pub with in that docu.

Did they ever recover or replace the headstone?

it's been replaced. it's now a headstone for Bernard Sumner

rip

i loved your band dude

Likewise. Joy Division is a very important thing in my life. They're another one of those bands that comes along & renews one's faith in music.

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r262/solemndance/cleantee.jpg

roffle

loooooooool

you monsters
(lol)

LOLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!

http://animatedalbums.tumblr.com/post/589366997

it's been replaced. it's now a headstone for Bernard Sumner

That got a hearty real-life chuckle from me. Good on yer!

OK, I want one of those.

i want that shirt bad but would settle for the MES one too... where to buying?

it's been replaced. it's now a headstone for Bernard Sumner

A+

xpost: http://africanapparel.bigcartel.com/product/known-pleasures-by-christopher-wright

I never tire of listening to Joy Division, although there is only a small repertoire and I return to them often. There's no-one else I can say that about.

Not even Oingo Boingo?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81nw4IBnWMs&feature=related

so how much of a Nazi/Thatcherite/right-winger was this guy, really?

on, say, a scale of Joe Strummer > Nico > Skrewdriver

he was a nativist tory voter who compelled his wife not to vote labour as it would cancel out his vote and played with nazi aesthetics in an edgelord manner

Ian Curtis, founder of 4chan

yeah, definite alt-right vibes

was that before or after Devo founded the MRA

xp

search results on the internet (as you might expect) are all over the place - you have leftists (and fellow bandmates like Morris) defending him as actually being anti-fascist, actual Nazis/racists being all "what's the big deal" or "YOU BET, ONE OF US!"

it's always rubbed me the wrong way and I've never been that huge a fan, but it does come off as in the lineage of Ron Asheton, Dee Dee Ramone, Lemmy, Nico, etc. Nazi-apologias disguised as "shock tactics" or "intellectual curiosity" or whatever. tbf Nazis *are* pretty fascinating, but to traffick in imagery simply to provoke seems at best to be sympathetic to fascism.

the most sympathetic angle that I've heard that seems like it could hold water is that as baby boomers, children of the greatest generation, growing up in the stultifying cultural climate of post-war provincial britain, and then being into this supposed great cultural rupture and rebellion of punk, nazi imagery was them thumbing their noses at their parents' generation, bratty transgressive posturing and nothing more.

im not hugely sympathetic to that myself

yeah I've heard that too, usually combined with a "youthful indiscretion" defense, and proferred re: Siouxsie, Sid Vicious et al parading their Nazi armbands

yes to shock tactics and trafficking in imagery and provoking as was pretty popular in 1978 or so but I think the actually lyrics among other things leans more towards morbid fascination than sympathy.

Pere Ubu too. It was quite popular.

hasn't this been discussed somewhere here before?

not terribly sympathetic either, like "ooh my 'orrible parents when will they shut up about how their friends all died to defeat fascism *rmde*" just seems like entitled bullshit

xp

Pere Ubu seems like a different thing

actually thinking Rocket From the Tombs
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9b/13/6b/9b136b1e3714eb6b8f65745d893729bb.jpg

oy

(as in oy gevalt)

"ooh my 'orrible parents when will they shut up about how their friends all died to defeat fascism *rmde*"

tbh I think this dates back to:

[Man on Train: I fought the war for your sort.
Ringo Starr: I bet you're sorry you won.

at least...

isn't the punchline of that joke on... Ringo? because of what a disappointment he must be to the elder generation?

nah it's cheeky young lads ribbing the olds IMO

my point is more that kids were *already* sick of hearing about it in 1964!

yeah well the olds were right and the young'uns were wrong

yeah I should clarify that the only good response I can imagine to "why did you wear a swastika in 1977" is "because I was a stupid kid"

guy was dead by 23. It's unfortunate that we can't ask him now.

well, I haven't read any particularly convincing mea culpas from Hooky or Sumner fwiw

Does anyone know much about his religious beliefs? I've been a bit curious. There are a lot of often p intense Biblical references in JD lyrics.

and here's the still alive Siouxsie Sioux:

“It was an anti-mums and dads thing. We hated older people always harping on about Hitler – we showed him – and that smug pride. It was a way of watching someone like that go completely red-faced.” She goes on: “The culture around then, it was Monty Python, Basil Fawlty, Freddie Starr, The Producers’ Springtime For Hitler…And you know what? I have to be honest, but I do like the Nazi uniform. I shouldn’t say it, but I think it’s a very good-looking uniform…It’s almost like you feel like saying, ‘Aw, come on. Nazis — they’re brilliant.’ Political correctness becomes imprisoning. It’s very…what’s the word? It’s being very Nazi! It’s ironic, but this PC-ness is so f..cking fascist.”

so judging by his peers (perhaps not entirely fair, admittedly) would we be reasonable to expect any maturation in his views had he lived?

I often get the sense of a guy who really wanted to be able to hold onto and find satisfaction in traditional values but was never quite able to.xps

In the commentary version of Twenty Four Hour Party People, (the actual) Tony Wilson talks about his interpretation of punks using Nazi imagery. His version is much better articulated than Siouxsie's, but it's essentially the same thing: shock those who are susceptible to such reactions, simply because you can.

Not sure it was really about "shock the olds" in the case of Curtis though. There are clearly a few songs that show a fascination for Nazi violence and degredation (They Walked In Line, that one with the long quote from House of Dolls, Warsaw I think?, Atrocity Exhibition etc). And I think there's also a tie-in with the nihilistic romanticism of the Nazis (Decades, which embodies that, was originally called The Iron Cross)

Atrocity Exhibition is just cribbed from Ballard, surely?

and nothing to do with Nazis as far as I remember

My fiancee pointed out tonight that "blood of Christ on their skins" and "one-sided trials" could take on really dark connotations if one considers Curtis's Nazi fascination. Hope it wasn't his intention (and it probably wasn't).

(lines from "Wilderness")

xpost

Atrocity Exhibition takes its title but not much else from the Ballard book. The lyrics themselves seem to have a concentration camp vibe

first verse of atrocity exhibition seems to directly refer to the asylum tourism of the 17th and 18th centuries

Asylums with doors open wide
Where people had paid to see inside
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, "I still exist"

second verse seems to refer to gladiatorial combat

In arenas he kills for a prize
Wins a minute to add to his life
But the sickness is drowned by cries for more
Pray to God, make it quick, watch him fall

last two verses are a bit more opaque and there is definitely something of a concentration camp vibe to the third verse

You'll see the horrors of a faraway place
Meet the architects of law face to face
See mass murder on a scale you've never seen
And all the ones who try hard to succeed

And I picked on the whims of a thousand or more
Still pursuing the path that's been buried for years
All the dead wood from jungles and cities on fire
Can't replace or relate, can't release or repair
Take my hand and I'll show you what was and will be

from hooky's book

ah yes, the old "art is not political" defense

Re: "Atrocity Exhibition", it's always struck me as a close relative of the United States of America song, "The American Metaphysical Circus".

But, wow, yes, Sven Hassel books were everywhere in the 70s. Probably only the Richard Allen Skinhead/Suedehead were as widely read.

xpost
Yep, agree with your analysis there. I didn't mean to say Atrocity Exhibition is explicitly Nazi-related but I do think this fascination for public torture and punishment is somehow related to his interest in Nazi imagery

I think I read also that Curtis saw the movie Cabaret a dozen times or something, that might also play into the whole 1930s aesthetic of Joy Division (severe haircuts, trench coats etc)

... Sven Hassel, who only died in 2012! (xp)

There was definitely a strange kind of Nazi/fascist chic thing going on in the 70s which predated punk, and seems to have been more about style, fashion and eroticism - which surely influenced Siouxsie Sioux's look - which you can trace to arthouse/semi-arthouse movies like "The Damned", "The Night Porter" and, not much remembered now but significant at the time, "Salon Kitty". All of which are Italian, interestingly enough.

... and then there's Bowie's Nazi salute @ Victoria Station, Bowie moving to Berlin, Bowie prancing about as a Prussian in "Just a Gigolo".

Wow unfamiliar w Hassel. What a weird story.

fwiw the swastikas on the rocket from the tombs gig poster are as far as I know related to the headliner Electric Eels

(xp) You're American, that's why.

(xp) Yeah, the Electric Eels def. used the swastika to annoy people, annoying people was their whole shtick.

I mean yeah they had a song that's basically just the phrase I See A N-word over and over

Yep Bowie is definitely in the mix there. He had that whole 1940s look going in his Berlin years which probably influenced Joy Division. Kraftwerk Man Machine look probably an influence too. Although Kraftwerk is more about what came just before the Nazis, nostalgia for the pre-Nazi world

Sparks too

Sparks, not really, that was more obviosuly jokey, plus didn't people suspect they were Jewish all along?

(xp) Absolutely, though I'm not sure how adept some random tossers from Macclesfield were at recognizing nostalgia for the pre-Nazi world when they saw it tbh.

Idk I wasnt there obviously, I thought Ron’s leering hitlerstache schtick and songs like Girl From Germany ruffled some feathers

I've really enjoyed reading the recent posts in this thread

on this subject I often think of the lyrics to Walked in Line, which doesn't seem sympathetic to nazis, while being interested in them:

<i>All dressed in uniforms so fine,
They drank and killed to pass the time,
Wearing the shame of all their crimes,
With measured steps, they walked in line.</i>

forgive my coding but you get the point

In more recent years Bryan Ferry was on the Nazis look sharp train.

on this subject I often think of the lyrics to Walked in Line, which doesn't seem sympathetic to nazis, while being interested in them:

oh definitely. Nazis are an interesting topic! Why wouldn't someone be interested in them? They're like cults and serial killers ... aspects of humanity at its worst.

I like most of Joy Division's output, but the early punkier stuff I like best. "An Ideal For Living" is an all-time favorite EP.

Have not read any of Ian's political essays.

Hey, I've been getting into Motorhead lately you don't think Lemmy was into anything proble-oh jesus christ

Nazis are definitely an interesting topic! I am fascinated by them. I have also never felt compelled to cosplay in Nazi regalia or deliberately make people wonder if I was maybe a Nazi. Those activities go a bit beyond being "interested" and cross the line into "asshole" territory imo

you're also not a 20 year old in 1977 manchester? I'm not sure there's any worth in staking the claim that your less of an asshole than Ian Curtis.

https://external-preview.redd.it/1OLj4ZYhUO9Ewtf68UPruKbKpOY5sCQQlYbThrr4xVA.gif?format=png8&s=a012f22b2392e05f9d65a95701809f6c1536457a

I think it's weird that 40 years later people still make lame excuses for it, is all.

I also think it's interesting that there wasn't really a similar current in the US, where we also had a generation of parents that fought the Nazis and constantly went on and on about it, but I don't really remember many baby boomers flirting with Nazi iconography just to piss them off. The Americans of that generation that flirted with Nazi iconography (the aforementioned Asheton, Dee Dee Ramone, etc.) weren't trying to annoy their parents, that was not their goal. They had genuine sympathies with Nazis/Germany ("little German boy, being pushed around...")

lol moodles

Electric Eels didn't have genuine sympathies with Nazis.

I don't think people are excusing it, it was dumb, most of them stopped doing it. Would Ian Curtis have further developed his nazi intrigue into a career as an actual nazi? We'll never know. But they fucked around with the iconography for an EP and a year or two and moved beyond it. Not sure what the point of endlessly debating it is, when Ian's not here to defend his choices.

well my original post was just about trying to tease out what his actual politics were, since they're obscured by a lot of hagiography and I can't really tell what they were based on his work with JD. the more general Nazi trope discussion spun off from there, I'm not in control here.

The Americans of that generation that flirted with Nazi iconography (the aforementioned Asheton, Dee Dee Ramone, etc.) weren't trying to annoy their parents, that was not their goal. They had genuine sympathies with Nazis/Germany ("little German boy, being pushed around...")

Bollocks.

I don't even know whether Ian Curtis's parents were old enough to fight the Nazis, tbh.

Asheton just seemed like he was a jerk. Dee Dee's angle (which is p clear from "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World") is obviously sympathetic to hapless Germans being pawns of Nazi machinery. I don't think Dee Dee was a Nazi by any means, but he wasn't writing that song to piss off his German forebears, he was expressing empathy for their situation.

OK, you got us, the joke is on us.

I think there's more to it than that:

This song was written by Dee Dee Ramone about growing up in Germany and being bullied (...) Dee Dee was also bullied when he moved to the US for being of German descent as discussed in the documentary, “End of the Century”.

https://genius.com/Ramones-today-your-love-tomorrow-the-world-lyrics

so far the consensus of this thread seems to be that a) Ian Curtis' actual politics are a bit inscrutable (aside from the oft-repeated Thatcher-voting anecdote) and b) the Nazi stuff was youthful idiocy, attempts at being "provocative"

xp

I do remember in elementary kids def drawing swastikas on stuff as a sorta shock thing, often alongside a pentagram, anarchy symbol also (weirdly) the Dead Kennedys DK symbol was popular even though i'm not sure anyone in my small farm town had ever actually heard them, just the name Dead Kennedys was known

haha yeah I def recall that kind of thing

also OZZY with the Z's having those little cross bars through them

the Van Halen logo

I guess now we're just listing things that were easy for kids do doodle while bored in school

so far the consensus of this thread seems to be that a) Ian Curtis' actual politics are a bit inscrutable (aside from the oft-repeated Thatcher-voting anecdote) and b) the Nazi stuff was youthful idiocy, attempts at being "provocative"

xp

― Οὖτις, Friday, January 4, 2019 9:54 AM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i wouldn't call his politics inscrutable. if his widow is to be believed he was a strong supporter of the tories with vehement anti-immigration views. he was a right-wing conservative.

I can't argue with m@tt's post about the prevalance of "shocking" iconography in grade-school vandalism in the US around the same time, but I def don't recall anybody in the US ever being so aggravated by their parents (or grandparents) going on and on, smugly or otherwise, about how they beat the Nazis/how awful the Nazis were that they felt compelled to dabble in Nazi regalia/iconography/media representations as an adult in an effort to shock and horrify them. Like, that just was not prevalent in the US to the extent that it seems to have been in the UK, this desire to provoke the elder generation by playing at being a Nazi. Whereas in the UK you had pretty big punk bands getting a lot of attention putting it front and center, and I'm not sure why that is. You didn't even really see it with US metal bands (which was definitely a genre with a "let's be as shocking as possible!" contingent) until, what, Slayer?

americans don't like a wind-up as much tbh

Idk but, just riffing, one factor might be that the UK had actually been bombed by the Nazis. Another might be the larger Jewish population in the US?

Whereas in the UK you had pretty big punk bands getting a lot of attention putting it front and center

Who did this?

americans don't like a wind-up as much tbh

I think Οὖτις does because I have no other explanation for some of his wide-eyed idiotic comments in this thread.

I def don't recall anybody in the US ever being so aggravated by their parents (or grandparents) going on and on, smugly or otherwise, about how they beat the Nazis/how awful the Nazis were that they felt compelled to dabble in Nazi regalia/iconography/media representations as an adult in an effort to shock and horrify them.

Jesus, this has to be a wind-up.

in the late 70s/early 80s? who did this? the sex pistols were on a huge night-time talk show with a member of the crew wearing a swastika. what was comparable in the US at the time? I can't think of anything.

granted punk wasn't as big here as it was in the UK at the time, but you didn't see the NYC or LA contingents (such as they were at the time) running rampant with this imagery like the UK did

here's some relevant links:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/feb/27/never-mind-swastikas-secret-history-punky-jews

an entire academic paper here:

http://usir.salford.ac.uk/23153/2/Punk_%28IWM_2009%29.pdf

I'll finish off with a quote from Hebdiger's Subculture : The meaning of Style " We must resort, then, to the most obvious of explanations - that the swastika was worn because it was guaranteed to shock...The signifier (swastika) had been willfully detached from the concept (Nazism) it conventionally signified and placed in an alternative context ( ie punk music)...it was exploited for an empty effect."

https://www.punk77.co.uk/groups/punkswastikafashion3.htm

that Hebdige book is so good. I found a copy lying in the street decades ago, having never even heard of it, and was amazed at how well thought out it was.

in the late 70s/early 80s? who did this? the sex pistols were on a huge night-time talk show with a member of the crew wearing a swastika. what was comparable in the US at the time? I can't think of anything.

One of their fans, you mean?

granted punk wasn't as big here as it was in the UK at the time, but you didn't see the NYC or LA contingents (such as they were at the time) running rampant with this imagery like the UK did

'Running rampant' lol.

Dick Hebdige OTM, nothing to do with Ian Curtis's dad.

dumb question, but how deep was the knowledge of the holocaust back in the '70s? i mean how all-pervasive was the awareness of it at the time, vs now. obviously people knew about it, they knew about the cost since the histories and the statistics and what not were out there, but at the same time back in the '90s i certainly remember knowing people who weren't fully aware of the details of its execution and the true horror of Nazi evil til much later than one would imagine. like til they saw Schindler's List or something.

i wonder if it felt a bit more abstract and removed then in a weird way? This isn't to excuse ignorance, i'm more wondering about how aware people were at the time of the full scope.

multixp, what about these guys. Given that half of the band were Jewish, I suspect it's because they thought it looked cool rather than any attempt at provocation and zero chance of any genuine identification with them.

https://botw-pd.s3.amazonaws.com/styles/logo-thumbnail/s3/0018/9377/brand.gif?itok=rGTpQ4ja

Curtis seems to have gone a bit farther than the armbands and fashion statements though - the name of the band, the lyrical references, the EP sleeve, the anti-immigrant Tory politics. By contrast with an avowed idiot like Sid Vicious it seems like in Curtis' case there was maybe more there. idk.

KISS logo is a stretch as a Nazi ref imo.

xp

more like an SS logo...

https://p1.liveauctioneers.com/368/76396/39963210_1_x.jpg?version=1&width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&quality=50

One of their fans, you mean?

yes, this was what I meant by "crew", as in "entourage" or "gang of supporters"

but the lyrics aren't sympathetic so much as a morbid curiosity. I never read the wife's book so didn't know about the voting, but I don't see that showing up in the music.

yes I am familiar with the SS emblem thx

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kiss-nazi-logo_us_577430ade4b0bd4b0b13779c

yes, this was what I meant by "crew", as in "entourage" or "gang of supporters"

And that counts as the band putting Nazism 'front and centre' does it? Not to mention all the other leading UK punk bands who were doing the same?

how many pics of Sid wearing his swastika shirt do you want me to post

like are you seriously arguing this was not a thing in UK punk at the time, I am confused

xp i don't think it's a stretch, which at the same time doesn't mean Kiss are sympathizes. just morons.

do you want me to google "Siouxsie Sioux swastika" for you

KISS are definitely morons lol

xp

from the pdf I linked:

British punk was not being particularly innovative on this score, and its penchant for
swastikas can be directly traced to the early American punks, and in particular, I’d suggest,
to Dee Dee Ramone, who grew up in postwar Germany and became fascinated by the Nazi
paraphernalia such as gas masks, helmets and machine gun belts that still littered the former
battle fields in the German countryside.

Yes, I am arguing that this was nowhere near as big a thing as it seems to be in your fevered imagination.

that's horseshit, Dee Dee never wore a swastika or any other Nazi regalia onstage, and it sure as hell isn't on any of the Ramones LPs or posters or artwork. And they have a grand total of two songs about Nazis, one of which came out much later and is decidedly anti-Nazi

where were these early American punks with Nazi shit on, that did not happen

Asheton is like the lone standout, and even that wasn't really in public afaik

obligatory "not all punks" quote:

Activist, artist and punk chronicler Caroline Coon recalls rehearsals for the 100 Club's first punk festival in 1976. Malcolm started handing out swastika armbands he'd had made. Siouxsie of the Banshees put one on right away and some of the Pistols seemed ready to follow suit. Aghast, Rhodes blurted out that if anyone wore swastikas onstage, they couldn't use the Clash's instruments as planned. The Clash backed him up. The gig went on. No swastikas.

so it was far from accepted, even back then

How big does it need to have been? Several of the big name UK punk artists (Vicious and Rotten, Sioux, Capt Sensible, Poly Styrene, Billy Idol) clearly made use of swastika imagery, which a quick GIS will probably turn up. 4xp

I would also argue/question that UKs response to nazis and world war II was very different than the states. I mean, we hear a lot about the greatest generation, but I feel like maybe we had a lot less baggage. We went over there, kicked as and came back to word domination and domestic peace. The brits post WW2 had the results of the blitz and greatly diminished world power. No?

It's not that clear because I've never seen Capt Sensible, Poly Styrene, Billy Idol making us of swastika imagery - not saying that they didn't.

regarding the American punks, also from that pdf, sorry it formats a bit weird:

The hardcore punks The Dead Boys, for example, presented The Ramones with Nazi Mother’s Crosses
as gifts for helping them to settle into the city: this was the new band’s way of showing The Ramones
that they belonged.
And it didn’t stop there. After one gig the lead singer of The Dead Boys, Stiv
Bators, is said to have shaved a swastika into a fan’s pubic hair with a razor, then led a naked
rampage round the Chelsea Hotel, draped in a Nazi flag and carrying a whip while singing
the song ‘Springtime for Hitler’ from the Broadway musical
The Producers.

I imagine all the Nazi memorabilia in the US had been bought up by Hell's Angels anyway!

https://www.punk77.co.uk/graphics/swastika/damnedswastika.jpg

https://www.punk77.co.uk/graphics/swastika/poly.jpg

Re Idol, there's this but I didn't find the actual interview: http://rockdirt.com/billy-idol-interview-turns-icy-after-nazi-confession/12330/

I did not know that about the Dead Boys (who I’ve never listened to tbh). Interesting! I doubt Joey was stoked about getting an iron cross lol

Cps

Xps

I guess that's actually Styrene's friend who's wearing the swastika there, tbf.

Well, first of all, I don't think that's Capt. Sensible. Secondly, that looks like Chrissie Hynde wearing the swastika, Poly Styrene is the mixed race woman in the middle. THirdly, and I hate it to seem as if I'm defending these idiots but Siouxsie and Billy Idol were not big name punk artists when they were traipsing about wearing swastikas - they weren't even in bands.

(xp) I think it's Chrissie Hynde!

Two other sources on Sensible fwiw but yeah, I was hasty about Poly Styrene:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=tAKSNLj1wGEC&pg=PT150&lpg=PT150&dq=captain+sensible+swastika&source=bl&ots=BJs7unYs5M&sig=D05bVD7zms-5Xa-a7dwUZqi5WWQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwijubLo8dTfAhWr6IMKHan_AWUQ6AEwEHoECAIQAQ#v=onepage&q=captain%20sensible%20swastika&f=false

https://books.google.ca/books?id=4GN8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT129&lpg=PT129&dq=captain+sensible+swastika&source=bl&ots=wd9eLslbXj&sig=zFrgY66_X0ZvRenNQBCdPfRJypU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwijubLo8dTfAhWr6IMKHan_AWUQ6AEwD3oECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=captain%20sensible%20swastika&f=false

lou reed's iron cross hair.

I don't know about Capt. Sensible, seems out of character for him, my point was that this was not 'running rampant' on the UK punk scene and was mostly confined to the Sex Pistols and their early entourage - apparently encouraged by McLaren in a spirit of epater les bourgeois.

So where does JD fit into that schema?

Lou Reed said that iron cross haircut was supposed to be a flower lol

Joey Ramone being Jewish would seem to be a knock on his Nazi cred

THirdly, and I hate it to seem as if I'm defending these idiots but Siouxsie and Billy Idol were not big name punk artists when they were traipsing about wearing swastikas - they weren't even in bands.

― Never Turn Your Back On Virginia Woolf (Tom D.), Friday, January 4, 2019 1:43 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also I understand what Tom is saying, there was a point when "punk" was what? 200-300 ppl in London?

(xp) McLaren was Jewish and he was, apparently, handing out swastikas to all and sundry.

So where does JD fit into that schema?

I think partly a clumsy provincial stab at what various arty-farty London poseurs and provocateurs were up to, partly a more morbid interest in a dark subject and, possibly, an interest in the ideology... from Curtis.

I can't really see Hooky reading Mein Kampf tbh.

he'd do lines on it though

Didn’t the Skids also get into some bother for using nazi imagery for the Days In Europa sleeve? Also they had a record called Strength Through Joy and their logo in the early days echoed the SS insignia

“The Aryan thing?” says Jobson. “I thought that sleeve looked great – but I was probably, I dunno, 18 then. But is it in the songs? I don’t think it is. I mean, there’s a song called The Olympian and there’s a sense of Europe… To be fair, I think what had happened is that we’d gone to Europe. We’d gone to Amsterdam and it was such a modern place. Britain during the 70s was still kinda like, post-war, even London – you almost felt like you were still on rations. But Amsterdam felt modern. You had all these Bauhaus buildings and everything – and then you’d go to Germany and it had all been rebuilt and was sparkling and exciting. It made a big impression on me that there was this other place out there that was full of excitement and possibility and much more about the future than the past.”

interestingly, there's a bit about pre-Bromley Contingent UK punks and Nazi fetishism in this Clash bio I just started reading (Marcus Grey's "The Last Gang in Town", which is ok but hardly great, frankly). I had never heard of this London SS nonsense, but Grey frames the Nazi-dabbling as being tied to Bowie/Stones positioning Nazi imagery as both decadent and transgressive, specifically cites Guy Peellaert and Cabaret. Also notes that it was engaged in by Mick Jones and Bernie Rhodes, despite their Jewish heritages.

Sad to read how afraid he was of being mocked by audiences for his epilepsy on the upcoming american tour. Hadn't heard that before. I like to think he could have had a long and healthy life but I don't know how much the best treatment and attention could have done.

I had childhood epilepsy and luckily grew out of it and my son has it as well - it's a lousy deal and being on the deck in a post-ictal daze and not knowing wtf the has just happened is not a good feeling. But I don't think Curtis would have been a particularly nice person if he was still here, his politics sucked arse - he might have even been a prominent covidiot if he was still here now! Pure conjecture like, but I don't think he would have aged like a fine wine.