So I've heard a couple of Danzig songs I liked: "Mother" and "Twist of Cain". I was thinking about downloading some because I've been feeling the urge to rock.
But then I made the mistake of reading up on ol' Glen. And I came across this thing about a song on the B-sides compilation called "White Devil Rise". Sigh. Apparently this is Glen's thoughtful response to Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam's whole "white man is the devil" thing. (Timely! The NOI has been spoutin' that stuff for at least 50 years! Way to be topical, Glen!)
Now, I've been known to pop off and say something stupid to piss off someone who annoys me, so I can kind of get the whole "oh, I'm the devil, am I? Yes, I'm a fearsome devil who's going to eat your soul!" thing. In fact, I seem to recall a friend of mine brandishing a broom, pitchfork-style at a fundamentalist classmate and shouting "I'm Satan!" and thinking this was pretty funny.
So, okay, I'm not expecting sophisticated, nuanced political debate from a metal band--indeed, I'm thinking metal bands should steer clear of politics altogether and stick to Satan, rock, sex and drinking as topics. (though if you want to stick it to Farrakhan, you could point out how he's the worst kind of contemptible hypocrite to cozy up to the government of the Sudan that trades black slaves today. But I digress.)
And I don't think this is any kind of serious white supremacist thing--it's just incredibly stupid. But can I purchase music by someone so dangerously dumb? (Well, I've bought Elvis Costello records after he famously dissed Ray Charles with a racist slur in order to piss of a member of the Stephen Stills band. I suppose I think there's a difference between spouting some idiocy when drunk in a bar and actually committing idiocy to tape in a recording studio, but perhaps I'm splitting hairs.) (And I saw Barbershop despite the presence of Ice Cube, who, you may recall, suggested that black folks should burn down Korean groceries in his song "Black Korea.")
And, I mean, surely Mr. Danzig isn't so stupid that he didn't anticipate the white supremacist moron crowd picking up on his little ditty. In fact, if you google "Danzig White Devil Rise", the first result is a chat board on a hate site. Oh, those pinheads are big Danzig fans. But, then again, I browsed around the site to see what other kinds of music the knuckle-dragging sheet-wearin' crowd was into. I found a lot of metal, but also Minor Threat, Cro-Mags (Do the idiots know they're Hare Krishnas? Do they care?) Husker Du (do the idiots know at least one member but probably more, I mean, come on with that handlebar mustache, was gay? Do they care?) and, on at least two posts, The Ramones (do the idiots know they're a bunch of Jews? Do they care?). Oh yeah, and Phil Collins. Not sure if they view his consistently ripping off the black man in his solo career as some sort of blow for whitey or what, but there he was.
So you can't dislike an artist because assholes happen to like them.
And if the artist being a nice person was a prerequisite for liking their art, we'd never look at another Picasso or listen to another Hank Williams song.
So can I rock out with impunity to songs from the first Danzig record? Or should I just go buy some Queens of the Stone Age and take my heavy rockin' riffs without the controversy?
