Iceage - You're Nothing

http://store.matadorrecords.com/media/catalog/product/cache/4/image/360x/85e4522595efc69f496374d01ef2bf13/i/c/iceage.jpg

1.Ecstasy
2.Coalition
3.Interlude
4.Burning Hand
5.In Haze
6.Morals
7.Everything Drifts
8.Wounded Hearts
9.It Might Hit First
10.Rodfæstet
11.Awake
12.You're Nothing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coVPmp3lmKk

come out, hipsters, wherever you are...

leak?

I like these guys and I'm looking forward to this. Decidedly not a hipster though.

like the new song!

i'm nothing!? :-(

all we are is dust in the wind

I really want to see them in New Haven in April but
am terrified at being pegged as "the old guy" in a roomful
of punk kids.

why, are you 106 years old?

Close.

just take some other old guys. or stop worrying about it, it's not like they're going to start yelling "BONK BONK ON THE HEAD" and attack you.

am terrified at being pegged as "the old guy"

i've gone to see em, so don't be a baby.

new track is so good

I'm going to see them in Philly in April; I can't wait.

new track is great, one hell of a singer. a competitor to Nick Cave Birthday Party era.

there are some other tracks from the album floating around via youtube and performed live, which aren't melodic as Coalition. or at least that's the impression with all that live chaotic sound around them.

a competitor to Nick Cave Birthday Party era

ok slow down there sparky

yeah, i exaggerated, but that's a rare voice anyway.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/14827-ecstasy/

i'm at work - how is the song?

i'll answer to myself: awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG-T316k9gc

leaked. the first great record of 2013.
as oppose to those 2 singles, the sound is cleaner and more accessible than New Brigade.

ilm's indifference is odd.

I like it

burning hand is awesome

whole thing is streaming on pitchfork advance now
http://pitchfork.com/advance/27-youre-nothing/

(also the new matmos and eat skull are on there ... lotta good stuff)

gonna listen to this when i get home

they've got everything going for them.

i listened to this on the bus the other day, too early to say but it was good first track was breathtaking the rest... maybe didn't have as many hooks as the last album?

i think it's better than the first album (which was good)

i agree, really digging this album

2 song preview up on spotify today

burning hand is awesome

― am0n, Monday, February 4, 2013 1:11 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

word. that one and the title track are my favorites so far (after 2 listens)

maybe didn't have as many hooks as the last album?

agreed, doesn't have that anthem quality as much (so far) but definitely plenty intense

Danish quartet Iceage are the standard bearers for "hipster hardcore", that being high-velocity punk rock played not for a grizzled crowd in Black Flag T-shirts, but (ostensibly) for the kids with assymetrical haircuts.

rmde at everything in this sentence

I mean I have sympathy for reviewers assigned stuff they clearly have little to no interest in, and ithappens esp because of his heroic clowning of the human trash that leave comments underneath most of his articles, but that sentence was not fun to read

I've never heard the phrase "hipster hardcore" and it seems far removed from what Iceage are trying to do, presence or otherwise of "asymmetrical haircuts" notwithstanding.

Not feeling the record.

170 words to play with: trying to reduce context to single sentence results in infelicities. It's not about me not being interested: I was interested. Then I was disappointed.

I first heard "hipster hardcore" applied to Flats (who I thought were great live but terrible on record; bet Iceage are a blast live, too). Makes perfect sense to me.

Poor album, anyway.

did you like the first album?

I remember being intrigued and thinking they would surely get better. I didn't relisten when reviewing this. If anyone accuses me of dereliction of duty, I will lay out my recent workload for you and ask you to suggest when I might have found time.

even though the difference between them, i don't think someone who didn't like New Brigade will like Youre nothing.

thanks for responding ithappens, no suggestion of dereliction of duty I don't think.

I suspect this may have something to do with most of the discourse about Flats being by music journos/bloggers and not people who actually listen to much hardcore. don't really think of Iceage's music as 'hardcore' either fwiw but I guess these aren't strictly measurable qualities. either way I am p confident that "hipster hardcore" does not have any real traction as an umbrella term or w/e, and yeah thx for replying etc

similar to "hipster R&B", and would no doubt attract similar levels of ILM vitriol if it became a thing.

Being an early adopter of this band - thanks I should say entirely to DJ 'Punk Rock's Golden Ears' Mencap - I'm really flattered by the description of me and him as being young, fashionable and in receipt of definable haircuts.

iceage: hipster - yes. hardcore - no. more like punk/post punk.

Flats are more hardcore, yes.

yeah I mean I think I know perfectly well which bands this notional term would refer to if it started getting used but am exceedingly unkeen for that to happen xps

the direction of this thread might literally decide if I can be arsed getting my hair cut tomorrow or not

thread tending towards asymmetry, I would say, possibly with a fashionable under-cut

six page hardcore primer in the wire this month, definitely thinking about some sort of shavey wedge thing here now, maybe neck tats too

It's an OK read, that hardcore primer.

Though I'm getting kind of irritated by the repositioning of Deep Wound as one of the key hardcore bands. Cos, er, they weren't, were they? That's a question more than as assertion - happy to be corrected by someone who was up to speed back in the day.

Re use of "hipster hardcore". I didn't use it because I want to champion the phrase, just to try to convey the approximate positioning of the band in as few words as possible.

xpost to Doran - But you're one of the beautiful people, John. A walking Arena Homme Plus cover.

Deep Wound were I think one of the earliest adopters of the "you guys play that fast huh? well we play THIS fast" approach, so probably deserve some recognition for that, although doubtless J Mascis and Lou Barlow being in the band serves to elevate them a good deal. beyond that I don't think they were esp key, no. ppl were into it when Dinosaur Jr did some DW song when I saw em the other day though

NB I wasn't up to speed bitd, on account of being about four years old, but that's how I see it

Deep Wound were/are nothing special

xpost to Doran - But you're one of the beautiful people, John. A walking Arena Homme Plus cover.

I fancy releasing a single, just so I can put that on the press release. My haircut is actually asymmetrical but only because my gf cut it.

Pitchfork review: 8.6 in numbers, 10 in content.

i'll never understand the logic behind those scores.

Has this been mentioned?
http://www.collapseboard.com/features/columns/this-blog-kills-fascists/

hipster hardcore? I feel like im reading viva la vinyl. Mind you half of the hardcore kids there admit to being hipsters.

The stuff about fascism is bullshit. Still is. Condescending in their understanding of Denmark, taking stuff out of context (the photo of a sieg heil looks an awful lot like a fistpump). Bullshit.

well this certainly doesn't look like a fistpump:

http://i.imgur.com/7C6Ho9i.png

"any questions from the audience"?

I think what pisses me off is something like this: 'I can’t help thinking of bands like Gang Of Four, Mekons, Delta 5 brawling with National Front skinheads in Leeds back in the late 70s. Compared to them, Iceage — in their silence, their unwillingness to say what they believe, offensive or otherwise — is truly pathetic.' Yeah, but they aren't from Leeds in the late 70's. Just a few weeks ago, one of the most virulent islamophobes in Denmark was shot at at his home adress. No one on the left wing is talking about 'brawling' at the moment. The discussion on freedom of speech - after the stuff with the cartoons on Muhammed - has been fucking frustrating, and the facile way this writer wants them to act has completely short-circuited. Everyone has been speaking out against the Danish People Party in ages, and it hasn't helped a thing.

What Iceage has done, taking all the turbulence and violence felt in society today on themselves, and linking it with right wing imagery, feels to me, as a Dane, as the only compelling and truly important critique of politics in Denmark today. It's fucking complicated, but so has the situation been this last decade, and it doesn't look like it's going to change.

Just an example: That poster in the blogpost, with the slogan: 'Give us back Denmark' That line is from an actual political Danish song about taking the country back from the right. And they just shamelessly co-opted it and threw it right back. Boo-hoo. That stuff isn't working, and at least Iceage is trying something new, confused as it is.

http://iceagecopenhagen.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/new-merch.html

Pretty not into the knife merch. Leaning towards fuck these guys.

There are people with big emotional investment in this lot, aren't there? Can anyone tell me why? Been listening more since my review was published and I just do not hear what is exciting people.

it feels like Copenhagen in 2013...

Also, I'm fascinated by falcons.

can someone scan / post the wire hardcore primer

ugh this is good

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2013/feb/22/iceage-rightwing-accusations

that article is terribly written

I think I like the first album a little more for it's sort of Sightings-level weird production and a little more obscure songwriting? But this is good.

now that i know they're nazis i find their music so much more compelling

Now that I know some people on the internet are deeply concerned over an underground band's poor usage of imagery I feel pretty much the same about them.

I doubt they're neo-Nazis. But the minute a band plays with that imagery, they deserve to be hauled over the coals. The defence of "they're just images … they don't mean anything" is no defence: the imagery matters, which is why people are getting annoyed about it.

The line I find particularly eye-rolly is the "I got a Death in June tattoo cos I liked the logo." Really? Just cos you like the logo?

"flirtation" of this callow sort vs other bands endorsing a mass murderer based in Washington D.C.

I'll just choose to flirt with this imagery

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m75h31hHfb1r4ox5co1_500.jpg

The line I find particularly eye-rolly is the "I got a Death in June tattoo cos I liked the logo." Really? Just cos you like the logo?

― Trans-Europe Stopping Train (ithappens), Saturday, February 23, 2013 10:47 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not sure what's implausible about this tbh? he obviously means he likes/liked the band as well. pretty sure bands w/ cool logos get turned into tattoos more than bands with boring logos

"A lot of people were mad at us for recommending Facta Loquuntur by the national socialist band Absurd in an interview," says Bender Ronnenfelt. "The fact is we were listening to that album a lot at the time, and I don't think you should do so secretly because of what people might think of you. I wouldn't dismiss great writers such as Knut Hamsun, Yukio Mishima or Louis-Ferdinand Céline just because they have fascist sympathies. Taking interest in the somewhat depraved is not a bad thing. I like the music of Charles Manson too, so am I in support of murder now?"

"hey guys! there's someone else in my record collection with a swastika carved into their forehead that you didn't even know about!"

the main objection I have to Manson's music is the quality of songwriting

yeah he's a classic example of "if you say you're just interested in it as music you're full of shit"

ha was just about to wonder aloud if I've been missing anything by not listening to Charlie's music on the grounds that people who are really 'into' him are so universally awful

Selling knives as merchandise might smack of a band trying too hard but that's Iceage's choice. Rock'n'roll is not a place for censorship.

Jesus, that article is so bad

Loved the first album

Lukewarm on this so far

But that's fine, there are a zillion punk bands you only need one album by

whatever they are doing with this little bullshit right wing crap is so played out and been done since Sid and souixsie used to walk around with swasticas in like 76

So sick of this shit

It's not even that I think these jive turkeys even remotely believe this shit outside of the usual latent racism of priviledged white kids, what's more offensive is how fucking fascinating these little shits think they are

are there any bands/artists with sincerely terrible politics that are any good?

ramones
burzum
neil young?
bowie?
eric cl... nah

idk what music you like but, as he's already been invoked, Burzum made some records widely considered decent. if you were thinking of politics in the sense of being part of active political organisations, this might be a tougher question

that was an xp as is probably obvious

Stravinsky’s association with Fascism (yes, with a capital F) is unambiguous: “I don’t believe that anyone venerates Mussolini more than I do,” he wrote in a 1930 letter.

i'll grant that johnny ramones' right-wing-derived discipline likely held the band together, but c'mon "bonzo goes to bitburg"

what's the appeal to burzum? I totally see the appeal to the visual aspects of evil imagery but sonically it's been all disappointing(/relieving) from whatever limited sampling i've had from classical onwards.

v good with the old atmosphere and ambience and suchlike. Filosofem didn't sound like much else around when it came out I don't think. esp in recent years it seems like indie-leaning sorts have got into it because it has shoegaze-ish qualities

obv there is also the possibility that people enjoy listening to a racist murderer because it makes them feel like a big man but I honestly don't think this is the prevailing reason behind Burzum's crossover appeal

I honestly have never met anybody like that

you know how metal had the reputation of being "hardmens music"? The only 'metallers' (all under 21 btw) i ever met like that were into guns n roses,motley crue and black album metallica.

big varg vikerness was one of egil olsen's mid-90s protegés

i dont think metal had the reputation of being "hardmens music" beyond the daily mail's editorial pages in the late 1980s

paul ince was a jazz funk kinda guy iirc

remember that gif that zooms in on his tactics notepad and it just says SHAKATAK

for real metalheads are some nerds

But for fucks sake, no one is walking around with swastikas. What is the kind of 'imagery' that they are using? Someone IN THE AUDIENCE heiled at a show. The leadsinger drew people in hoods, in a magazine that was pretty clearly about the world going to shit. And then there are the hoods and the runes WHICH HAS MEANING IN DANISH HISTORY APART FROM THE KKK AND THE NAZIS. Executioners wore hoods, and runes are pretty much the first language in Denmark. Like, the oldest runes are on the Unesco World Heritage List, are they nazis as well?

It's all bullshit. Completely bullshit. What pisses me off is people writing long posts about the 'context' for the use of this imagery, which is only tales of their own youth in california in the eighties. Without mentioning Denmark once. THINGS DON'T MEAN EXACTLY THE SAME OVER HERE! The band made 500 copies of their first album, they weren't trying to do anything to an international audience. Like, some of the stuff about this band basically boils down to 'You guys aren't british/american: You must be xenophobic fascists!!!'

Fuck off.

And yeah, Filosofem is absolutely amazing.

not talking about in the media. at school and after people thought metallers were hardmen (and some kids tried to live up to that but they didn't seem to listen to the heaviest stuff)
xp

It was probably the same a generation earlier with punks

yes hence 'late 1980s'

i agree filosofem is too tepid to appeal to anyone looking for transgressive thrills, but for that same reason, why would it be difficult to find a substitute if you didn't want to support the guy? is it really in a class of its own?

likewise, this band does not sound particularly indispensable, so what would be the great harm in supporting a different band that's sonically similar?

ONE OF THESE ARE A NAZI-MURDERER, WHILE THE OTHER ARE JUST BEING CALLED FASCISTS BY SENSATIONALIST BLOGGERS. THERE IS NO FUCKING 'LIKEWISE'

not sure most people choose to listen to bands in quite that rational a way. it sounds more akin to choosing which breakfast cereal to put in your shopping basket

I also doubt that Varg has seen a penny from most of the people who listen to his music at this point, altho I appreciate that there are other forms of 'support' than financial

'find a substitute' seems to me to fundamentally misunderstand listening to music, as a thing to do. we're not boycotting laundry detergent manufacturers here!

I don't mean to say Varg and iceage are the same that way (and from what little i know of the deal, i'm sympathetic to young bands wanting to play music and wear what fashions they like without regards to the politics of the outside world), but that both are a source of handwringing for their listeners. i agree that most people don't listen to music just in terms of sound, but when you remove the tribal and political affinities, what's left?

i'm saying, if you think removing those things leaves something that you can just substitute one for the other, you're not relating to sound in a way that i think is basic to the point of listening to music.

Dear Frederik B. Please stop shouting. Your writing in caps will not alter the fact that Iceage have chosen to publicly display imagery associated with fascism. I doubt they're fascists. I don't doubt they're silly boys who thought it was a laugh and didn't realise they would get popular enough that people who don't think it's a laugh would - wholly justifably - hold them to account.

And saying "It's Denmark" doesn't excuse anything. "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."

I wouldn't dismiss great writers such as Knut Hamsun, Yukio Mishima or Louis-Ferdinand Céline just because they have fascist sympathies.

all these guys can be completely dismissed btw

But much of that stuff isn't associated with fascism in Denmark. And yes, that excuses a lot.

at x-post, obviously.

lol i sincerely apologize for not engaging this matador records-signed band as if they are a group virtually unknown outside of denmark

"if you think removing those things leaves something that you can just substitute one for the other, you're not relating to sound in a way that i think is basic to the point of listening to music."
but those are pretty big and large-encompassing things. what sorts of things don't fall under that umbrella that's key to listening to music? even things like "it was part of a special time in my life because they played filosofem at my prom"

sounds, which is what you were just saying above: substitute one 'sonically similar' band for another.

"all these guys can be completely dismissed btw"

Really?

lol i sincerely apologize for not engaging this matador records-signed band as if they are a group virtually unknown outside of denmark

― call all destroyer, Saturday, February 23, 2013 3:34 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's a pretty big "lol," i think his point is ppl misinterpret the imagery via ignorance of the context of danish history the band are supposedly referencing

well how would you relate to sound in such a way that these bands wouldn't be interchangeable with a similar sounding band, providing they've already burnt their bridges in terms of having any affinity for the band itself?

what makes it so easy for you to treat sounds as interchangeable?

if i don't care about who made them or what they're trying to express with them or any narrative behind it, then sounds get pretty abstract and interchangeable, as i bet is the case with most people who find out something egregious to them about an artist.

Hey wait just a gosh darned minute now. Mysteries by Knut Hamsun was pretty good.

Pan!

you'd be hard-put to find a substitute imo; i don't think they're really reducible to their influences and i don't know any other punk bands that sound like them

Joey Ramone was a total leftie, so you can't really say the band had one set of politics

Aside from liking Reagan on a whim for the hour it took to troll an interviewer in the 80s, Neil's been pretty left/populist his whole life and sort of wary of politics. Its pretty amazing and dumb that AG lumped both these artists in with a fucking neonazi murderer.

Neil's biggest political crusade has been Farm Aid.

Bowie's nazi shit was lame and assholish but probably not real, Iceage feels more in line with that

Anyway Wagner is great but a total racist nazi shithead, and that stuff is very much a part of his work

Re: no other bands sounding like them -- which band comes closest would you say?

I forget which artist it was but someone did suggest a more palatable Wagner substitute in the Wagner thread.

Wait, Lambchop are nazis now?

they should prove they are not nazis by playing in Israel!

What are you guys talking about?

i) lambchop features a dude called wagner
ii) there existed an informal prohibition against wagner in israel until barenboim broke it a couple of years ago

i'm talking about iceage
nickb made a joke about Lambchop (they have a band member called Wagner haha)

thats good, but i didn't think about it
xpost

I bought the album yesterday and got a black-and-white banner with it; can someone just tell me it's not a White Power thing before I fly it from my window or something?

Joey Ramone was a total leftie

before Reagan went to Bitburg, he was a Republican like Johnny!

it seems very plausible that it's a white power thing

yeah he's a classic example of "if you say you're just interested in it as music you're full of shit"

This is really the dumbest opinion. I dislike this person or disagree with their politics or actions, therefore their music is worthless and no one can really like it.

think he was coming more from the angle of 'I've listened to his songs and they were so lame that I refuse to believe people are consuming it for its musical merit alone'

yeah he's a classic example of "if you say you're just interested in it as music you're full of shit"

This is really the dumbest opinion. I dislike this person or disagree with their politics or actions, therefore their music is worthless and no one can really like it.

― new hope for orang-utan (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Sunday, February 24, 2013 1:50 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nah people can be into Charlie, i don't really care. but there are people that insist that listening to him has nothing to do with any kind of morbid fascination with who he is, which is just difficult to believe.

i haven't heard enough of his stuff to say it's so bad that nobody can like it for ANY musical reasons, i just don't buy that you can know who he is and be interested for SOLELY musical reasons.

i wonder if anyone has ever shazamed a charles manson song at a bar

that's a pretty big "lol," i think his point is ppl misinterpret the imagery via ignorance of the context of danish history the band are supposedly referencing

― flopson, Saturday, February 23, 2013 3:44 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's a pretty big "supposedly"

Which I've argued for upthread. But hey, why would you investigate the discussion, when there are foreigners that need some namecalling.

Mordy weighing in w/ hard evidence, as ever

Obviously the band isn't obligated to entertain any journalists' reading of their work (and whatever surrounds it) for a second, but god knows if I had been dicking around with anything that could be interpreted as fascist-sympathizing for whatever reason, and I wanted to REALLY drive home the point that I hate that kind of thing, I might make a point to REALLY stress that with some slightly more committal explanation.

IMO there is a very simple reason why this stuff would come across differently in Denmark compared to elsewhere:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Population_of_Denmark_1.January_2012_by_ancestry_and_continents_of_origin..gif

If you aren't in a multicultural context, it's much easier to innocently flirt with all kinds of odious bullshit without having anyone call you on it.

this is a touring band though right?

I'm sorry I lost my temper yesterday, but the topic really frustrates me for a multitude of reasons.

When I first heard that they called the debut New Brigade, I thought it was meant as an attack on the right-wing. Sorta still do. I think there is an important thing to know here: there are no right-wing brigades in Denmark I say this because I've seen people discuss the right-wing movements in Europe as if they are all the same thing, but they are not. We've had no Breivik as in Norway, we've had no Golden Dawn as in Greece. There are no 'skin-heads' in the streets, as there was in Britain in the seventies. We have the Danish Peoples Party (we have like a whole lot of 'peoples parties', like Christian Peoples Party, Socialist Peoples Party, etc). They've worked really hard to seem as respectable as possible, and due to the whims of coalition-politics, they were pretty close to being the most important party in Denmark for ten years or so. As a result, the 'right-wing violence' in Denmark has been completely invisible. There has been left-wing demos on the street resulting in rioting and confrontations with the police. There are regularly failed attempts to bomb/assasinate right-wing newspapers/cartoonists/writers. The right-wing is the system, selling concertplaces for left-wing scenes and tearing them down, forcing refugees to live in cramped camps 'til they go insane etc. So creating a vision of violent right-wing brigades seemed... like a pretty left-wing thing to do. Still does. These bloggers always claim that the band should 'combat right-wing violence' but that won't work in Denmark, as the violence is connoted as left-wing in Denmark. This is specifically Danish situation, which is complex, confusing and frustrating. Unless the art is allowed to be the same, it will manage fuck-all.

And again, this discussion really seems anti-continental to me. Even you people who are trying to defend Iceage, are saying that it's just what Ramones/Siuxie Sioux/Bowie/Joy Division did (but I mean, thanks nonetheless). But why can't their inspirations be Bataille, Hamsun, Celine, Gainsbourg, Burzum, Sods/Sort Sol, Kliché, Ballet Mecanique? That is a pretty impressive list - and yes, massively problematic. I'm European, and I feel as if my entire history / culture / political reality is being condemned and diminished, without any attempts to understand or salvage anything. And I don't mean this in a mono-culturic way. I mean the multicultural, fragmented, complex Europe, parts Germanic, French, Danish, Pagan, Christian, Judaic, Middle Eastern, North African etc. It's not Britain. It's not America. Stop trying to police it, using you're own values and cultural systems.

"Stop trying to police it, using your own values and cultural systems."

Yep, cos the values and cultural systems of this northern European liberal democracy are AEONS apart from those of that northern European liberal democracy. That relativist approach doesn't really work when the contrasting cultures are, to all intents and purposes, identical.

Why, instead of tying yourself in knots trying to excuse this (probably non malicious) idiocy from a bunch of dicks, don't you just say: "Yeah, they were dicks over this and deserve to be called out on it, but on the whole I don't think it's malicious and I'm sure they'll grow out of it."

Because it's untrue. And because their music, in all it's frustrating confusedness, seems like a very fitting soundtrack to Copenhagen.

i agree that there's a narrower window of appreciation you can have for something when a lot of information is missing to you, but just as the band is entitled to make their art how they like it, so is the audience entitled to reject it as they like it. if the argument is that these listeners have neglected to fully understand or appreciate the band for what it is, i think it's valid but largely immaterial.

also sonically, is there anything particularly dutch about iceage? maybe it's more true with stuff like black metal, but i find geographic distinctions really hard to parse with this genre.

Dutch... Thanks for proving my point...

Can't count the times I've been called dutch when I lived in California. Or asked about windmills or wooden shoes. ffs...

why would they be particularly Dutch if they're Danish??

xp

they're singing about windmills?

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080411212620/uncyclopedia/images/3/35/Nazi-windmill.jpg

xpost You really think Iceage are completely innocent of all accusations of dickishness - not Nazism, but behaving like arseholes - over all of this? They're just the innocents where a number of things that indicate flirtation with fascist imagery happen to have accumulated around them through no volition of their own? Come on, you'd have to be their idiot younger brother who's never been let out of the attic to believe that.

Or when you say "it's untrue", do you mean its untrue that they'll grow out of it?

It's not Britain. It's not America. Stop trying to police it, using you're own values and cultural systems.

― Frederik B, Sunday, February 24, 2013 12:02 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hey guess what dude? these guys have toured in my country and are on the radar of a lot of ppl here. i'll use whatever value system i want to, thx.

sorry, i can't even correctly ID where this music is coming from, but is there anything about it that is distinct from say, similarly genred music from Florida?

like i don't want to be flippant, and frederik your posts abt how this plays in denmark are genuinely interesting, but this band has entered my cultural space. i didn't seek 'em out. my reaction is as valid as yours.

I think Frederick is bringing some good perspective

Though I can't really get past the audience heil hitler arm gestures

And I know now fredrick will restate the ” the audience was doing it, not the band” but generally that stuff doesn't just break out spontaneously at, I don't know, maroon 5 shows. So then the queston is why here?

Can't wait to read Lefsetz on this lot.

I think ice age has a unique sound

kind of doubt there's a conclusive and satisfactory answer to this question

but honestly to me the most likely one is probably that most people who went to their hometown shows two years ago were young, and young people have a particular propensity for being dickish and insensitive

xp to m@tt

i know this is somewhat ridiculous question but which band do they sound the most like, so I can get a sense of how unique the sound is by the gulf between them and their closest peer?

Iceage's new tour manager tells the crew what he expects of them …

http://www.planet-wissen.de/politik_geschichte/drittes_reich/die_ss/img/interview_ss_himmler_g.jpg

The heiling people are some quite specific dicks in Copenhagen. Like, they are apparantly nice people, but... The weird thing is, I think people thought heiling was allright, because the thought of a right-wing punkband in Copenhagen was just so ridiculous. There was a massive fight about the punk-scene in Denmark a few years ago, as the house where the concerts was, was sold to a religious sect and torn down, which resulted in riots and demonstrations for a year, until a new one was established. So punk in copenhagen was just thought of as being anarchic and ultra left-wing. Like, 90% of the audience at that show have probably voted for the old communists in the last election... Including the heiling people.

Apropos of nothing, this is who is kinda leading the ultra left-wing party:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Johanne_Schmidt-Nielsen_-_2011.jpg/250px-Johanne_Schmidt-Nielsen_-_2011.jpg

The cultural relationship between the UK/USA and the rest of europe isn't equal. Like, just to begin with, every conversation is always in English. When English people distorts Danish culture and writes about it, it's news and will be spread. If someone in Denmark did the same with an American band, nothing would come of it. It's fucking frustrating (on the other hand, we have free health care and education, so I should shut up...)

philip the transitive property is not valid here

The cutural relationship between the UK and the US isn't equal either: so what? The point I'm making is that you can't play cultural relativism because our cultures are not different enough. You wouldn't feel culturally alien walking round London, and I wouldn't feel culturally alien walking around Copenhagen. The cultures you are trying to say are mutually incomprehensible are built largely on the same cultural, political and religious building blocks. Therefore, it is perfectly appropriate to judge Iceage - the MINUTE they ceased to be the concern of 200 people at home – by our own cultural values. Because they are, too all intents and purposes, exactly the bloody same.

I've been to London several times. I've lived in San Diego for a year. It was different. Especially when you're discussing runes and pagan culture, it matters if this is mainly your own history, or if it's stuff you've seen in films about nazis.

If anyone is interested in Danish stuff, check out Under en Sort Sol by Sods, Supertanker by Kliché (it's more new wave, but I think Iceage learned from their artistic strategy. They put music to texts by Mao, and dressed as Maoists, and no one knew whether they meant it or not). New bands like Gorilla Angreb, De Høje Hæle or Cola Freaks (who toured with Jay Reatard).

maybe i'm deaf to whatever it is that makes certain bands sound unique. the replacements and the descendents sound the same to me (though i like the descendents much more, no small part of it is they seemed less dickish than the replacements).

heh I love the Descendents but Milo is a dick, albeit perhaps an in-character dick, in a great many of their songs

I identify with Milo because I also like food, food is good. I don't identify with replacements because after I eat the food, i'm not unsatisfied.

Frederik, I am not saying there are no differences, I am saying they are so similar that cultural relativism simply does not work as a get-out. Because it doesn't. Key point of shared cultural history here: world war II.

thanks for the band links, frederik! I think I might have heard cola freaks before, but like for a lot of bands, I guess I can't discern what makes them different more than what makes them the same, and for this kind of music especially, regionality is totally out the window.

And again, this discussion really seems anti-continental to me. Even you people who are trying to defend Iceage, are saying that it's just what Ramones/Siuxie Sioux/Bowie/Joy Division did (but I mean, thanks nonetheless). But why can't their inspirations be Bataille, Hamsun, Celine

sure, why compare one naive pop group with another when you can compare them to a philosopher or an early modernist novelist

They listed Absurd’s Facta Loquuntur as one of their favorite albums of all time, describing it as “Beautiful Norse sound filled with pride and emotion”. Absurd is one of the best-known bands in the National Socialist Black Metal scene.

this is so fucking stupid

Regarding World War II, I think it is quite a significant difference that Denmark - along with most of the rest of Europe - was occupied by nazis, while neither UK or US was. WWII is gestapos in the street, resistance fighters being executed, the jewish population being smuggled out (specific Danish happenstance due to the proximity to neutral sweden), collaborators, etc. WWII is a humiliating wound, which is not how it's seen in the UK, in my experience.

Shouldn't that make Denmark more sensitive to fascist imagery, not less?

'norseness' being a sort of autochthonism, a wanly sentimental, naively prelapsarian affection for some imagined and vital past as a defence against the living world

not all of its exponents are racists but they are all imbeciles

frederik i am intrigued by the way you structure this as anglosphere vs continental europe, even citing such ~controversial figures~ as bataille as fellow sufferers of anglo-chauvinism, despite having no similarity with the danish pop group iceage in terms of form, talent, cultural origin, disposition etc

They just quoted Bataille as being an inspiration in the interview they did with pitchfork...

yes well schizophrenic street preachers might claim afffinity with muhammad, ezekiel, wilhelm reich etc, but they are not reciprocated

it's not like bataille being dead is the only reason he appears to disinherit the danish pop group iceage

wait why aren't they allowed to cite their own references?

They claim he is an influence, I list him as a possible influence. Why are you being such an idiot?

at x-post, obviously.

frederik i am patronizing you because you lack intelligence, tact, discernment and so forth, not because you are danish

Nah, you're a pathetic troll, and I'm going to stop responding.

the notion that a shitty pop group from one bit of germanic northern europe inhabit an entirely discrete cultural realm from another part of germanic northern europe would of course be merely risible on its own terms, but i am intrigued by the way you sketch this anglo-imperial theory and hope you expand upon it

Even you people who are trying to defend Iceage, are saying that it's just what Ramones/Siuxie Sioux/Bowie/Joy Division did (but I mean, thanks nonetheless). But why can't their inspirations be Bataille, Hamsun, Celine

What Nilmar said, but also... why compare them to pop groups who flirted with the imagery but weren't Nazis, when you can compare them to artists who were Nazis? This doesn't seem like a good defence in any possible way.

I'm European, and I feel as if my entire history / culture / political reality is being condemned and diminished, without any attempts to understand or salvage anything.
I'm European, and I feel as if my entire history / culture / political reality is being condemned and diminished, without any attempts to understand or salvage anything.
I'm European, and I feel as if my entire history / culture / political reality is being condemned and diminished, without any attempts to understand or salvage anything.
I'm European, and I feel as if my entire history / culture / political reality is being condemned and diminished, without any attempts to understand or salvage anything.
I'm European, and I feel as if my entire history / culture / political reality is being condemned and diminished, without any attempts to understand or salvage anything.

there is an understandable wish to defend one's own, but naive pop groups flirting with ~problematic~ imagery and rhetoric is exactly the correct way to categorize this behaviour, but then you share this narcissism of attribution whereby claiming allegiance to bataille and celine, more lustrous than mere pop music or mere street naziism, automatically elevates iceage to their company

If any band had to be the Kula Shaker of hipster hardcore, why did it have to be Iceage? ;_;

http://www-deadline-com.vimg.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Ice_Age_2012_Continental_Drift_Trailer_Official_20110427061736-705x1024.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8451/7955421032_da778cdc19.jpg

Hey Nilmar you should opt for a less patronizing sarcastic tone, it might help you make your point better

fuck you

"naive pop groups flirting with ~problematic~ imagery and rhetoric is exactly the correct way to categorize this behaviour, but then you share this narcissism of attribution whereby claiming allegiance to bataille and celine"

i'd tend to agree with that categorization only because they sound like music in that tradition, but if Frederik has more contextual info about the band and where they're coming from, why not let him share it? i do tend to think that important stances end up being transmitted through the sound itself (laibach even sounds like its taking the piss), but there's a lot that doesn't.

contextual info might include their milieu, their friends, fellow travellers etc, not dead writers they namechecked in a p4k interview and with whom they could hope to share nothing other than a vague sense of outsider glam and political obloquy

the golden age of namechecking dead writers was of course the same 70s/80s mostly uk post-punk era that was the golden age for incoherently employing fascist iconography and incoherently attempting to disavow it

it's not they, it's he (the singer).and he is just a kid. those are his Facebook "likes":

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=567143682&sk=favorites

Hahahaha - his first 'other' like is "Fuck Bob Marley".

he also likes Wings of Desire. so confusing! lol

How come no one pointed out that one of the acts Frederik picked as a possible influence on these guys is Burzum, rendering a gigantic amount of the point he is making null and void?

There have been a lot of mentions in these articles calling these dudes out over one of them wearing a Burzum button.

theres thousands of bands influenced by burzum who are not nazis and hate nazism. Liking Burzum doesnt automatically mean you're a nazi.

if i were a nazi, i don't think i'd be into burzum any more than i'd be into eno. i might even find bob marley more my style.

well burzum itself is nothing to do with nazis. music or lyrics. But varg vikernes is a neo nazi murdering scumbag piece of shit who i will never give a penny too. but he did make some amazing records (that i avoided for a decade due to varg being a neo nazi murdering scumbag piece of shit) but his influence on so much stuff i like made it impossible to ignore.
Id imagine the relatively in the grand scheme of things few nazi metallers that exist listen to shitty NSBM that has no redeeming features whatsoever.

Well the other reason it hasn't been mentioned is that like emil.y says the fact that these guys might be "influenced" by the guy who wrote school of corpses is being offered as a case for the *defence*, so it's hard to see what "point" is being undermined

Frederik, if you think all the wounds of wwII are long since healed in the UK, then you are even more naive than your bizarre Danish Exceptionalism defence of Iceage makes you sound.

without wishing to speak for him I suspect 'humiliating' is the operative word in the sentence you're citing

There are probably dozens of bands that work Iceage's sound right now. Some are on bigger labels than Matador, some have a bigger cannon than two releases, some have sold more records.

Not all of them have contentious threads that get 212 posts and counting in six weeks plus mentions in both rolling punk / non-indie underground 2013 and Rolling Metal Thread 2013 threads.

Whether this attention is good or bad is up to the listened, I suppose. But nobody's ignoring them and that is saying something. Whether that was the intent of the band, who knows. They were teenagers when they started the band and are all still very young and I am not so cynical enough to believe that they are being purposefully manipulative rather than simply naive.

Based on the evidence at hand, Iceage is far less "sketchy" than a lot of black metal artists in my CD collection, so I won't have a problem picking their album up.

can you name one of them?

Lol

But nobody's ignoring them and that is saying something. Whether that was the intent of the band, who knows.

or perhaps their intent was for everyone to ignore them

The heiling people are some quite specific dicks in Copenhagen. Like, they are apparantly nice people, but... The weird thing is, I think people thought heiling was allright, because the thought of a right-wing punkband in Copenhagen was just so ridiculous.

This is so smug and annoying ”it was ok for danes to sieg heil because we are all so left wing and enlightened we couldn't possibly be racist so it was all just a laugh oh tee hee hee, just imagine left wing voting white people being latently racist, oh the thought just tickles me

Ha I just noticed the kid likes Rumble Fish on facebook, cute

his influence on so much stuff i like made it impossible to ignore.

no you can still ignore it

Burzum's music is terrible

That's really the punchline, so many times I've read/heard dudes doing backflips like ”oh listen I know he's terrible but the art can exist outside the artist or his intent and how could I not listen to the most powerful and influential music blah blah blah”

So then I listened on spotify like why not? Lmao at that tinny garbage which makes the whole thing even more sad....actually though the worst was his ambient synth stuff, was like this casio quality goth version of the type of music they play at a massage place

xpost Yeah, the "it doesn't count because it's Denmark and we're all good leftwingers and you can't comment because you are not Danish" defence has been riling me all thread.

So... is this record good or

Only heard one song, liked it more than first impressions of cuts from the first.

yeah i mean i do appreciate the perspective but it's like

a) is this the first time basically ever this stuff is being used as part of some valuable nuanced critique that is going over my head or

b) is this like the millionth time that some dumbass kids want to be "provocative" or something

Also the ”they all voted for communists” thing add defense

Cfe the totally racism free paradise that was communist soviet union

the biggest issue I have with Frederik's defense is that he is basically making me think that if I set foot in Copenhagen, a bunch of affably nice leftists will amiably lynch me in accordance with some benign, totally Danish historical tradition

Good news! Conclusive proof that Iceage are innocent: "Most of my childhood friends are either black or Arabs," says the bassist!

On selling knives: "The idea was to not to try to, you know, glorify violence or anything, we just thought it was a fun idea."

On the hooded murderers imagery: "And the hoods and stuff was just like, a good friend of ours … we just used them for fun."

Now I understand their nuanced and subtle critique of Danish political life.

First record slightly better than the 2nd I think, tho both are good.

Lol at the idea that they have to 'defend' themselves about anything to a bunch of music journos.

Who else gets the chance to pull them up on this idiotic crap, then?

frederik said it was weird that people shrugged off heiling at shows because it was coming from marxists, so tbf no one itt is actually making that argument. he did say that political violence in denmark is not associated with the right but the left & that the far-right have an influential popular political party. i don't think there's much evidence that they are doing any nuanced critique with these allusions, either, but i also don't know anything about denmark and have never pored over the band's lyrics. the more likely xp to me is that they're hipsters & just think it looks cool, maaan which is shitty & also ubiquitous in a certain tranche of the hardcore punk scene

xp people assigned to review the album in prominent national daily papers maybe

oh wait

Fair cop.

from that interview: Iceage is not political in any way, it’s only about music and, you know, feelings.

you can write what you like about them and have iirc. you reviewed the record right? But I don't really need them to respond to that.

xxxp

I haven't actually been calling on them to respond …

Does that mean you would describe the imagery the band associates themselves with as more of an aesthetic thing than a political thing?

It’s more like an aesthetic thing yes, for sure.

More fascists:

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/rocks/kiss%20moneyclip%20knife.jpg

Is there any object that cannot be found among Kiss's merchandise?

a good record?

very true

hehehe

b) is this like the millionth time that some dumbass kids want to be "provocative" or something

a sneak preview of old age is growing tired of hearing yourself think this fyi

Wait flopson just used xp as an abbreviation for explanation

This is HUGE

turns out I don't get this place at all

huh i wasn't digging this but right now it's ruling for me

Just saw Iceage tonight at the First Unitarian Church in Philly.
Saw zero people sieg heil, which was nice.
The singer was stumbling, barely in control, pummeling anyone who dared encroach upon his stage.
The band was less emotive but no less intense.
Girls screamed for them to take their shirts off. They did not comply.
The band was much better live than I could have ever hoped for, and I really enjoy "You're Nothing," so that's something.

i like this band less every time i hear them

I almost ended up going to this but ended up going out drinking with people I barely know and sitting awkwardly in the corner while nobody talked to me. WIN

so an authentic "you're nothing" experience without even going to the show

That is what the singer has done every time I've seen them. They also have a lot of teenage girl fans, which isn't strange, since the band is barely out of their teens. Iceage-mania is weird, though.

Yeah, I was easily the oldest person in the room, easily double the median age of the average attendee.
Not in the demographic at all but they just seemed an odd band to attract fawning co-eds.
I can see how the singer would be a polarizing figure, but I liked his crash and burn nihilism.
It seemed genuine to me, especially as he literally battered all stage crashers and divers.
I would imagine that in a less hospitable surrounding that someone might take him up on it and punch back, but that was not gonna happen here. Even though Philly can make some grade-A assholes, this crowd was too adoring.

somehow i forgot about this record, but i'll come back to it again, i think

Sounds like lil man is lucky they got indie fans now so he's not trying to do that tuff guy crazy man stuff with a real hardcore show audience

PRESSURE

[quote]Review: Iceage live at Bowery Ballroom

On every blog in the blog-o-sphere, they are unanimously up Danish punk band Iceage’s dress. Iggy Pop has raved about them. They are young kids, making it more impressive that they are rockin’ at such a young age. Most kids in this band are around age 21 now (approximately). Well that’s the legal drinking age in America and these punks decided to drink to excess before going on stage at New York’s Bowery Ballroom for a sold out show on April 20, 2013. Although lead singer Johan Surrballe Wieth made it though the show, he was so fucking drunk, he fell over into the crowd and onto the sound monitors – that had to have hurt- many times throughout the show. Really piss poor, according to G. I would have left almost immediately, but I was stationed a few feet away from Bjork and Matthew Barney, who were also in attendance, so at least I had some good people watching. I attempted to meet the lead singer once the show was over and after such a crappy performance, you’d think he would have been nice, but he was not. Well, Johan, it sucks for you that you won’t be photographed with me because I will never see your shitty band again. Best of luck. You’re going to need it.

According2G Blog[/quote]

For the record, I didn't make a connection that the kid was drunk at the Philly show. He might have been, I guess, but he seemed to know the words and he mumbles a lot on the album anyway and he didn't ramble on between songs. In fact, the only banter he had was after some stage diver tried to have a conversation with him before diving. As the diver leapt he said to the crowd "Don't catch him."

Also, that review is ridiculous.

Also, the lead singer of Iceage is Elias, not Johan.

Yeah, I noticed that in the comments section, haha!

the tone of that review is hilarious

Really piss poor, according to G.

gonna take a wild guess that he awkwardly crowbars the name of his blog into every post he makes?

or she

I could actually look at the blog but it's nearly 1am here yknow

Well, Johan, it sucks for you that you won’t be photographed with me because I will never see your shitty band again.

ooooh

As the diver leapt he said to the crowd "Don't catch him."

I picture him saying this in the voice of a young Werner Herzog, for some reason.

Most Iceage fans I've met/known are under 23. And they REALLY love them.

he made a mistake by name dropping Iggy Pop and Bjork: it makes his criticism much less effective for most of the readers.

Out of morbid curiosity, I read the "About" page for that blog.

http://according2g.com/about

It's also hilarious. It reads like someone played Mad Libs where you randomly filled in proper nouns.

oh it's worse than that:

Written by poet, t-shirt designer, lyricist and abstract painter Geoffrey Dicker, the site is personally curated with first hand experiences in the hottest music and art events

With over 20 years of experience of meeting thousands of celebrities, rock stars and artists, seeing the top bands and art shows all over the world, Geoffrey Dicker, the man about Manhattan, aims to turn readers on or help the viewer rediscover the very best of the art and music worlds as seen through the eyes of G.

Geoffrey Dicker was born with the gift of creative randomness. He has also designed a line of American Apparel “G-Shirts,” and when he is not attending art openings, meeting the rich and fabulous or standing in the front row at Rock and Roll concerts, he makes surreal paintings.

sounds like a cool guy

http://api.ning.com/files/91uzQ6gb-mndGG-WylcWjIuQxBWFvNgoGjpSDw7bcAENrfUfxk*gtNOqSDDoEw4PPK6xlWtWE6gDbipyQ3XJwKgfiX7kkTlh/Picture0045.jpg?width=184&height=184&crop=1%3A1

More like Dickest

where's your morals????

For reasons that I don't quite understand, Iceage just played a show in a West Philly basement:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/t1.0-9/1377397_10154178136205597_4744449277046705273_n.jpg

They played exactly a half hour and I didn't recognize anything from You're Nothing though I spent all of my time as an unofficial security guy trying to keep the seething crowd away from the guitar player's pedals.

It was a sweaty, physical show for everyone. The singer spent his time bouncing between the drums and the crowd and literally hanging from the rafters while atop the drum kit more than he spent on the basement floor. It was a blast, reminded me of my misbegotten youth.

Yeah, I like this band.

Wait I just got home from that show, who are you?

That was a REALLY good show! And I am not usu all that into punk/hardcore type shows, and I was underwhelmed when I saw them in Portland 3 years ago, but they were excellent and the crowd was energetic without being too violent.

I had a lovely time! I was right up front in front of the guitarist trying desperately to protect his pedals from the masses. I stood out if you were looking - I had the longest hair of any male there and I was also about 20 years older than anyone else there.

Oh yes I know who you are! I was also right up front for most of the set (though towards the right) and had a white t-shirt that said BUTCH QUEEN FIRST TIME IN DRAG in giant block letters.

Hahaha, I saw you! I saw you when I first arrived with the wife at 7:30. We stayed for the first band and then went out and got some dinner. Nice kind of meeting you! If you do the Facebook thing, I am TheNYCNative there. Cheers!

Is there still nazi baggage hanging around this band?

(Not being flip: Genuinely don't know what the deal is - I heard the first album but didn't even realize they had a second one and it's hard to tell from this thread where it all ended up. I guess the likely answer is 'it's complicated'?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roB4hRdLlas

does it sound like the strokes or is there another reference I'm supposed to get? very enjoyable song imo

Gun Club.

good song.

Aah thx! Gun Club sounds pretty cool too.

US fall tour

http://iceagecopenhagen.blogspot.com/2014/09/american-fall-tour-2014.html