Bolt the door, Varg is loose!

to me, wearing a Burzum t-shirt means you are saying "on some level, I'm cool with racism"

To me it says "on some level i'm cool with people assuming that i'm cool with racism". Even if you aren't racist and can personally disassociate yourself from the band's political context, a pretty significant percentage of the people who are familiar with the name are going to take it as a deliberate show of far-right sympathies. Given the potential for that to make people who aren't white uncomfortable, it's kind of good manners to put fanboy support to one side and not wear the fucking things.

I just got my two burzum shirts because the design is cool/gross.

Fair enough. Does the potential for misinterpretation of what wearing the shirt signifies not bother you, though?

also the idea that praising his music ennobles the cause of racism is str8 up incorrect.

You do not understand my position, which is better stated as "I am cool with racists as long as they make awesome music", which necessarily involves tolerating the racism of the person creating the music.

Morrissey is a dick and a jackass and I have not spent a dime on any of his solo music and have purchased all of my Smiths CDs used.

Professor Griff is a dick and a jackass who got kicked out of Public Enemy for his racism, which tells me what I need to know about the band's position in order for me to feel okay with purchasing their stuff (which I've mostly bought used anyway, and only two albums).

I think about this shit a good 80% of my waking life (given who I am and where I grew up, this shouldn't be a big shock/surprise) and I try to avoid supporting artists who espouse racist shit as best as I can. The one blind spot I have is Siouxsie Sioux and it pisses me off to no end that I like that band so much given some of the shit she's said and done. I'm not going to lie and say I don't have some amount of envy for people who aren't in a position where they don't feel they have to obsess over this kind of thing and that that envy doesn't sometimes manifest as resentment, because it does. That doesn't change the fact that my first reaction to people talking about these artists is always and likely always will be "cool, you've made peace with racism".

the "ennobles the cause of racism" thing was more my argument tho

Professor Griff is a dick and a jackass who got kicked out of Public Enemy for his racism, which tells me what I need to know about the band's position in order for me to feel okay with purchasing their stuff (which I've mostly bought used anyway, and only two albums).

also, griff had fuck all to do with making any of PE's music

It seems like everyone feels enormous pressure to take a really definitive, ethically reasoned, intensely thought-out position on Varg/Burzum, in a way that we pressure ourselves to do very rarely in music or in anything else. I'm admittedly a n00b to it all and have just gotten into Burzum in the past few months, but I dunno, I just try and absorb the music and dig it for what it is. I really dig his shit, for the most part. It's singular and creative and homemade-feeling in a great way and just fun to listen to. Sure I'm interested in his backstory, but I try not to get too wrapped up in it. Maybe that's not right of me, but there's a part of me that's like, I just don't want all this baggage nor even the dude himself's fucked-up views and writings getting in the way of my engagement with the music he's made.

I just try and absorb the music and dig it for what it is.

Music and cultural "taste" is backed up with correct arguments and facts, not "digging".

"Correct"?

And I'd argue that taste has VERY little to do with facts--arguments perhaps, but definitely not empirical data.

Banaka!!!

Music exists, there for it is empirical and subject to logical discussion.

And yes, correct arguments. We are correct 99.6789997% of the time, so our word has more weight than an uninformed opinion. Consider this an opportunity to educate yourself.

Banaka, Burzum gets all the "this music is a cut above" love from people, even people who aren't that into black metal. But Mayhem's Ordo ad Chao seems leagues better than literally anything Burzum's ever done. Does the entity known as Banaka take a position on this outstanding Mayhem album?

We reject all guitar-based music.

burzum's music is so fucking corny

So much great metal is corny.

One of these days some AI lab is going to use this place as a Turing test and I hope I'm still here.

burzum's music is so fucking corny

― Fareed Zaireeka (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, August 16, 2012 2:35 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So much great metal is corny.

― Clarke B., Thursday, August 16, 2012 2:41 AM (30 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Perplexing. Do you have synesthesia? We normally would not have associated the aural experience of "heavy metal" music with the taste of maize.

I'm not a Burzum fan but yeah one of the very best things about being a metal geek is not needing to stress about what's corny

This apparent widespread cross-wiring of sensory inputs among listeners of "heavy metal" might prove to be worth researching for our database.

Aero mfotm re Ordo Ad Chao; anybody who says "But I dig Burzum's music" on a good day has taste in opposition to my own

See, that's my point! How many other musicians do we say things like that about, "taste in opposition to my own"? I'd rather listen to Darkthrone 9 times out of 10 anyway, but still.

That's my own "critical" language, public forum etc., I'd be just as charitable to say _________ who I despise utterly.

say

It seems like everyone feels enormous pressure to take a really definitive, ethically reasoned, intensely thought-out position on Varg/Burzum...

― Clarke B., Wednesday, August 15, 2012 6:02 PM (2 hours ago)

well, i'm really the only one doing that. it's part of the brand i'm beta-ing.

Not trying to single you out at all, tend... I just feel, from this thread and others, that a lot of folks like to make it very open and known to what degree they think Varg is a reprehensible guy. Some pals I've talked to IRL do this as well. There's another thread in which j0hn makes a point about the discourse surrounding an artist being a form of support--his point being (if I recall) that we don't just lend an artist "support" via directly purchasing his music or seeing him live, but also through contributing to a public discourse about him and keeping his profile at a certain level. That rings true for me, and part of me feels that harping on how much one finds him morally repugnant is simply stoking that fire from a different angle. I'd much rather just talk about why I think his music's good. I think there's plenty to talk about there, too.

aero's posting in that thread influenced my thinking on this, tbh. that's why i was saying earlier that i'd rather he was simply forgotten, thrown away. it's probably true that a negative stance pays reputation-burnishing attention just as a positive one does, but ideas like these have to be articulated if they're ever to take hold. simply ignoring the judiciously burzum-appreciating status quo only allows it coalesce into canon.

in a way, binning burzum is a gift to posterity. music nerds love to rescue stuff from obscurity, to reappraise the underappreciated. by passively insisting that varg's music is entirely without value, we give them something to rediscover, should they care to...

i'm skeptical of anyone who claims to like burzum and not be at least partially interested in the varg spectacle. also, it's natural human behavior to be titillated by crazy dudes burning down churches. u don't have to approve of an accident to want to rubberneck

How can anyone wear a Ramones shirt now we know about what they were like in person?

You wear the shirt because:
- you agree with democrat Joey
- you agree with republican Johnny
- you believe in a bipartisan utopia
- you support their living on a tour bus and not talking for nine years solution
- you like how the logo looks (potus etc)
- you like the music and you don't give a shit one of them was a (dem/rep)

?

Burzum is a special case, where you just can't separate the band/project from the asshole. Weird.

Hahahahaha

what if you don't like metal but you like the idea of nordic peoples throwing off their oppressors

i suppose there are other tshirts out there for you

I mean I'll admit there's not much difference between being 1/4 republican and being an unrepentant racist murderer and hate crime aficionado

i don't support the art of vocal, influential, philosophically committed bigots of any sort. a peculiarity of mine. i'll allow someone else to be "brave" enough for that, thanks.

what if you don't like metal but you like the idea of nordic peoples throwing off their oppressors

― goole, Wednesday, August 15, 2012 10:20 PM (2 minutes ago)

i'd be more down with this if these fuckers were in any sense oppressed - and if the church burnings weren't a crime against art and history on the level of the taliban's destruction of those buddhist statues.

http://av-geek.com/d/11345-10/Its+a+Joke+Son+1947.jpg

don't fuck with my opprobrium

seemed like a good excuse to work my "crime against art and history" thing in. you have to imagine the flash pots.

Burzum is a special case, where you just can't separate the band/project from the asshole. Weird.

I'd argue that there are probably two separate issues. One is the music, which boils down to individual conscience, the other is the t-shirt which, to some degree, might not. Someone wandering around listening to Burzum or Skr3wdriv3r on their iPod makes zero impact on the people they come into contact with, someone wandering around flashing a sign that they <3 those bands might not. If someone who isn't white walks into a bar and sees a bunch of guys in Burzum / Skr3wdriv3r t-shirts in there, or walks down a dimly-lit street and sees a dude in a Burzum / Skr3wdriv3r t-shirt coming towards them and is made to feel uncomfortable, or even threatened by that, it stops being all about the dude in the t-shirt.

I thought nobody actually listened to Skr3wdriv3r except actual racists because Skr3wdriv3r's music is hideously incompetent drivel

There are certainly some people who don't see themselves as racist who like the earlier work.

But Mayhem's Ordo ad Chao seems leagues better than literally anything Burzum's ever done.

I also find it somewhat disingenuous to make no artistic/moral distinction between Burzum and Skrewdr1ver, in the same way there's a difference between a Polanski film and actual kiddi3 pr0n. That said, walking around in a Burzum shirt *is* making a statement.

i'm skeptical of anyone who claims to like burzum and not be at least partially interested in the varg spectacle. also, it's natural human behavior to be titillated by crazy dudes burning down churches. u don't have to approve of an accident to want to rubberneck

― Mordy, Thursday, August 16, 2012 12:27 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'd never claim not to be interested in it; it's a pretty riveting story. Don't know if I'd go so far as to say "titillated", and I didn't check out Burzum *because* of the gory stuff surroudning him. I'd heard enough compelling stuff about his music from people I trust, and in fact in some other thread contenderizier mentioned I should probably check out some of his stuff since I was digging on Transilvanian Hunger so much!

I would probably never wear a Burzum t-shirt, though. Unless it just said "HØHHH" on the front and "WAUH!" on the back.

Ordo Ad Chao is a great and very underrated record, but that's just challops - I mean even if you're not really into the repetitiveness, consider the influence it's had on pretty much everyone that came after.

I seriously think Varg has a almost completely tin ear when it comes to atmosphere. He gets in some good riffs, nobody can deny that. You're right about the influence obviously, but mark s liberated me from placing too much weight on influence. Ordo stands with monuments of the genre as far as atmosphere & effect & album continuity imo, it's nearly flawless.

Oh man, I actually think he has a knack for atmosphere... "Tomhet" and "Rundgang der blah blah" being obvious examples, but, like, "Naar Himmeln Klarner"! He gets a lot done in the atmosphere department with very few ingredients. Have you listened to "Jesu Dod" or "Dunkelheit" on a decent setup? There are so many little micro-riffs and layers in there to unpack; I feel like I hear a new flourish every time I listen to those songs. I suppose that sort of complexity isn't at all synonymous with atmosphere but if you're gonna object to the word "influence" mark s-style then I'm not sure how much weight you should afford the word "atmosphere"...

Ordo stands with monuments of the genre as far as atmosphere & effect & album continuity imo, it's nearly flawless.

Tons of ppl stump for all skrewed up the ”pre racist” skrewdriver album

I think theres something gross about white dudes walking around with burzum shirts and not considering the message that could send to ppl for whom racism is more than some internet circle jerk debate club topic

Fair enough, but how many of those ppl really see a Burzum shirt as anything else but just another black t-shirt with a band logo in Olde English font?

How many is not relevant

99.9999% of people you see when wearing a burzum shirt will have no idea who they are, neither will they care.

Several people have said that in this thread... Really? The idea that people would buy a shirt with a word on it and not know what the word meant is very odd to me.