unlistenable and pretentious (part 3): Whitehouse

basing yr entire career as a "rock" band around metal machine music = classic.

being outstripped by every japanese person to try something similiar = dud.

can whitehouse even be considered "unlistenable" anymore when we have merzboy as a yardstick?

I think what gets up my nose the most is the lack of percussion. It literally might as well be the sound of a Hoover through a digital filter. And we've got V/Vm to do that for us.

The only other show I've been to that ever came close to achieving the sort of impending-doom feeling I got at the Whitehouse show was Eyehategod at the Justice League in San Francisco last year. Eyehategod is better than Whitehouse, though, because the lead guitarist's facial expressions and gestures toward the crowd are very friendly,and quite hilarious. As the guitarist smiles and gives big thumbs-ups to the crowd, the singer is not merely berating the crowd, but doling out the most vitriolic verbal abuse his soaked brain will allow to dribble out through his lips. Awesome.

I now have everything they've recorded and released, along with a number of live recordings (audio and video), and bootlegs, etc.

No-one can comment on Whitehouse unless they've actually sat down and listened to them at a LOUD volume.

Most of the people who make comments against Whitehouse don't know enough about them, or simply just don't 'get' them, and probably haven't even tryed.

One thing is for certain is that the band remain utterly unique.

The following is part of early Come Organisation (Whitehouse's label in the 80's) propaganda. I think it speaks for itself...

"BRUTALITY IS RESPECTED. PEOPLE NEED WHOLESOME FEAR. THEY WANT TO FEAR SOMETHING. THEY WANT SOMEONE TO FRIGHTEN THEM AND MAKE THEM SHUDDERINGLY SUBMISSIVE. PEOPLE NEED SOMETHING THAT WILL GIVE THEM A THRILL OF ATTACK. WHERE THE VIOLENCE IS GREATER, THE SHOCK UPON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM WILL BE SHARPER. THE HARSHEST AND MOST FEROCIOUS WILL BE THE BEST. THE LISTENER WILL ALWAYS ENJOY THE MOST INTENSE REACTIONS OF ALL BECAUSE THESE ARE THE MOST VIOLENTLY REPULSIVE RECORDS EVER CONCEIVED."

And that's all well and good, but personally, I just like to listen to and make a fucking racket.

The official Whitehouse/Susan Lawly Records website is at : http://www.susanlawly.com/

and "wriggle like a fucking eel" wipes the floor with merzbow's latest humdrum computer bullshit. mwah!!

met a guy in toronto (he sold me a donald miller solo alb heh) who went to that show. he stayed on all the way. I think bottles were thrown at bennett (or somefink). anyway, I don't think they ever went back to the US after that(they did a gig earlier in the year, which i missed).

rubbish

all of it?

yes

unlistenable pretentious overrated rubbish

I used to sometimes use Dedicated to Peter Kurten in class as an example of 'the moment where music on the radio began to sound more like it does today'

what in the world is the name of your class?

ah. saw the other ILM thread.

Cut Hands has two records out but has anyone seen Best's new band Consumer Electronics?

i could never get into the ranting thing. don't have a problem with the noise. which is funny since i'm an uberfan of crass and flux of pink indians and the fall and all kinds of world-class british ranters. but he just sounds tiresome to me. and not scary. or funny. but maybe they have instrumental albums i would like. never delved that deep. i'm sure they were impressive if you saw them live in the 80's.

i heard some cut hands stuff that i liked.

nakh aren't you like a huge Gerogerigegege fan? Granted they are comedy not noise, but it seems like a fine line to me.

I have only heard old Consumer Electronics, I think they were on the Crimes comp LP.

The Gerogerigegege capture a different kind of energy than Whitehouse.

just watched this last night and i went whoooooooooooooooooo!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7L2uEUpirU

just so demented. and awesome.

done my Whitehouse rant years ago on another thread. i dunno, i like noise and stupidity. there's something genuinely unpleasant about some of their shtick tho. not disturbing, just unpleasant.

when i saw hijokaidan it felt like a helicopter was landing on my head - they're much more ecstatic and psychedelic than whitehouse, tho, who are def more part of the degraded, grim (yes, unpleasant) rancid stink of british serial comedy - harold steptoe-harold shipman

Consumer Electronics isn't Best's new band, he's been trading under that name since he was 14.

I'll always argue to anyone who'll listen that Whitehouse were a serious and important force in British music. I like the unpleasantness of it, it confuses me and makes me uncomfortable and I like music that can provoke such reactions. I don't discern much humour or stupidity in it until the latterday torrent-of-words style kicked in around the time of the Cruise album.

i meant genuine stupid stupidity, not humour

really like an old school merzbow-consumer electronics dustup called Horn of the Goat, easily one of the top hundred merzbow albs imho

it was prob me who crammed humour into this. but obv there's a continuity of some kind between bennett and punk and john lydon and yes, reflected through all that, a strain of the british comic grotesque that's kind of mirror reflected in things like 10 Rillington Place, Happy Like Murderers, Killing for Company etc - the sheer unremitting shitty grimness of british ways of life that again is very close to comedy

unlistenable pretentious overrated rubbish

― Nilmar Honorato da Silva, Tuesday, March 5, 2013 11:43 AM (1 hour ago)

lolderdash

i think 'wriggle like a fucking eel' is hilarious. that whole record is great imo (except the 14 minute long molest-y collage which is just ughh)

Ward Fowler otm

Nilmar Honorato da Silva otm

YOU HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA

nilmar's doing his shtick. there's something genuinely unpleasant about some of his shtick tho. not disturbing, just unpleasant.

*shrieks*

Why You Never Became A Dancer 2:50
Wriggle Like A Fucking Eel 4:43

^i have no real use for anything other than these two tracks? they're catchy. the lyrics are great in a disposable and ridiculous way imo. they sound like they're in on the joke.

first one's about Tracey Emin, second one's about the bloke who drowned in Michael Barrymore's swimming pool

and the digital noise sounds v punk xp

xp *takes note* *crumples note up and throws in garbage*

"Cut Hands Has The Solution" is my favorite Whitehouse rant. I like their early relentless burbling noise stuff.

I like New Britain, a lot. But that's kinda quiet and scratchy.

i really liked the 'extreme music from...' comps, but was never really sure what whitehouse had to do with them other than releasing.

nilmar's doing his shtick. there's something genuinely unpleasant about some of his shtick tho. not disturbing, just unpleasant.

― glumdalclitch, Tuesday, 5 March 2013 21:34 (23 minutes ago)

true

extreme music from russia comp is excellent

still prefer grey wolves to whitehouse tho

def more part of the degraded, grim (yes, unpleasant) rancid stink of british serial comedy - harold steptoe-harold shipman

always wondered if dudes' vocals are intentionally nodding to Monty Python pepperpot women voices

last Consumer Electronics LP 'Crowd Pleaser' is really great imo. was gonna go and see him play in Nottingham at the weekend but other plans have taken over :/

just noticed Michael Gillham from Drunk In Hell among 5000000 other things did a driveby post 11 years ago upthread

Not really relevant but stumbled across a huge collection of free to download compilations of music made by artists from the Baltic states and across Russia, many a gem to be found.
http://www.farfrommoscow.com/
http://farfrommoscow.bandcamp.com/

I feel dirty for even taking part in this thread.

loool at me starting this thread

i saw em live what 5 or 6 years ago i guess, one of the most impressive sounding shows i've been to. the early-mid period stuff doesn't do all that much for me but cruise onwards has lots of really great stuff, particularly the last two albums

lol yr screen name sounds like a whitehouse tour rider

okay first of all it's none of anyone's goddamn business what someone else decides to make the subject of their art. ever

literally the second they make it public it's everyone's business, and right, to to judge the shit out of it, you fascist-lover, you

any argument that it turns teens into evils or whatever is so so ass backward.

finally please cite evidence in thread that anybody said anything like this

even if you're a pure aesthete who's all for letting art be art, it's probably reasonable to suggest that william bennett's art has sometimes implied that perhaps he's a bit of an uncool guy more than he's letting on here.

Whitehouse never glorified or put any kind of positive spin on the imagery they used. They were basically rubbing our noses in the shit.

― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Wednesday, March 20, 2013 2:21 PM

One of the problems of this approach is that for people who can't conceive of any possible value in the rubbing, they assume the artist must think there's value in the shit....

if the artist doesn't think it has value, why is he trying to sell it?

okay first of all it's none of anyone's goddamn business what someone else decides to make the subject of their art. ever. and demanding that they answer for it in some way is staggeringly closer to fascism or w/e than exploring darker subjects in creative ways, which is afaic therapeutic for both creator and audience. any argument that it turns teens into evils or whatever is so so ass backward.

― Woody Ellen (Matt P), Wednesday, March 20, 2013 9:22 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what about that dude in phish who likes to take nudie pics of kids?

without having heard phish or much of whitehouse i do suspect phish might be more responsible for turning teens onto evils.

literally the second they make it public it's everyone's business, and right, to to judge the shit out of it, you fascist-lover, you

― not feeling those lighters (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, March 20, 2013 2:43 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/torture.jpg

xp idk ian, how much do you really know about that dude in phish who likes to take nudie pics of kids.

just what i read on the internet, matt.

but still a misogynist.

― i guess i'd just rather listen to canned heat? (ian), Wednesday, March 20, 2013 9:40 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol I have a lot of time for WB but when I saw this post yesterday that was basically my first thought also

(in the sense of 'hmm there's something missing from that list is there not' rather than anything more fingerpointing)

"expressing opinions is fascism" says poster on music discussion board

xp yeah that's what was notable about that response - he leaves out the gender stuff, which is 90% of Whitehouse - the fascism sympathy was brief and trendy, who among their peers wasn't flexing a little "oh but it's only an ancient rune!" line or w/e back then. But Bennett has hung his hat on either 1) "I loathe women" or 2) "let's explore woman-hating attitudes in a predominantly male environment and cheer at the end of each fascinating exploration"

all i'm saying is that this kind of knee-jerk judgment of what someone makes is a silencing move, not an engaging move, not a supporting move for anyone at all. *fin*

well, that's it, though, i think most ppl on this thread are NOT supporting whitehouse and do NOT want to engage whitehouse. he's not some marginalized guy without a public platform -- he's famous worldwide for saying vile things through harsh feedback, i don't think ppl on a messageboard are going to be successful in silencing him.

ppl who make music are not immediately deserving of gladhanding.

especially ppl whose subject matter is willfully offensive (or 'provocative' if you prefer); what does he expect? fawning admiration and an open venue wherever he goes?

*fin*

it always feels stupider and more lifeless than the thing it's taking to task. xxxp ok this is not going to get anywhere. ta

is whitehouse really that famous? i don't think i've ever seen a whitehouse record, even in the experimental ltd. edition handmade CD-R sections of a record store. i have seen veruca salt there though.

a bunch of the whitehouse catalog was reissued on vinyl over the last 4-5 years or so. and he's got that name recognition.

can wm. bennett fight the seether, though?

he sure is trying

I think he's more the "All Hail Me" angle

I always do wonder what he does for a day job

I don't mind his music, not my favorite or anything, though

this is nearly a decade ago and probably didn't pay the bills by itself but guess who 'William Benedict' is in this article

actually this is a better one, he is on his PUA ting here http://www.scotsman.com/news/chat-ups-and-downs-of-the-smooth-talkers-1-921749

afaik he runs his mother's antique shop in edinburgh.

i put him on several years ago and was called up by Glasgow CID and questioned over my political affiliations. The police sergeant even asked me who i'd voted for in the most recent election!!!

x post

Whoa, he is a PUA dude? I feel like we could have some amazing thread crossovers here.

Also wishing here was some eight year old one line post with "He is a PUA" from an ex-ilxor, like the mysterious Prurient thread declaration.

get the impression his involvement in it ceased before PUA culture became a thing like it is today. also he basically refuses to talk about it afaict

seems like the sort of guy who wld collect chaos space marines

afaik he runs his mother's antique shop in edinburgh.

amazing.

MY CLOCK'S ON FIRE
READY FOR ACTION

lol thank you so much for posting those dj mencap

That article is from 2004 and "The Game" was 2005 and mostly a document about a known community, so it's not like he prefigured it

oh yeah I didn't want to overstate that but it seems reasonable to say that 'The Game' was a watershed moment in it being talked about no? certainly if I read the acronym PUA off the cuff like that back then I don't think I would have known what it stood for

The chat-up stuff was kinda linked to his interest in neuro-linguistic programming. Those endless lists of insidious questions in recent Whitehouse lyrics.

afaik he runs his mother's antique shop in edinburgh.

That's not very macho

I am anti-racism/xenophobia.
I am anti-nationalist/anti-colonialist.
I am pro-internationalist.
I am pro-animal rights/welfare
I am pro-fessional chamber pot restorer.
I am anti-que guzunder specialist.

I'm Comin' Round Your House

why you never became a restorer

>>>I'm Comin' Round Your House

Has someone heard the Nicehouse tape ?

Dedicated to Josiah Wedgwood, Potter and Mass-Slayer

It's a song on the tape that came with the Still Going Strong book. Haven't heard it called Nicehouse before though?

xp

Best's is the Home Counties oik voice, Bennett's vox are more screamo.

I meant Home Counties as in middle class not oik-ish

afaik he runs his mother's antique shop in edinburgh.

― stirmonster, Thursday, 21 March 2013 00:21 (4 months ago)

this was slept on kinda but it's one the revelations of ilx

although i suppose not many even on ilx care about whitehouse

hahaha

i was more interested in the news that he worked briefly as a PUA/coach

yeah i wish i hadn't heard that

i don't like thinking about unsavoury things like that in relation to whitehouse

loooool

excellent, wide-ranging new interview. he talks about the PUA stuff and it sounds like he's still working as a motivational speaker. nothing about antiques though.

http://www.electronicbeats.net/en/features/interviews/william-bennett/