Chic Racism elevates hardcore band Iceage to hipster fame
June 25, 2011
It’s rare to see any band get the amount of press that Denmark’s Iceage has received for their first US tour. Demand for the band has been through the roof, with shows piling up including three (four?) in Boston and four in New York, including supporting gigs for Fucked Up. and Cult of Youth in the last week. Every review I’ve seen for the band has been all praise. WNYC said the Danish teens are “musically beyond their tender years,” Vice says their album New Brigade is “everything a good punk album should be.” And the Onion AV Club thinks they’re the second coming of Refused.
The Iceage phenomenon is not entirely out of nowhere. After a decade of folk punk and endless genre revivals, punk and hardcore fans have been desperate for something new and real to come along and reinvigorate their favorite genres. Over the last couple years the aptly mocking-named Mysterious Guy Hardcore has filled this void, with a few good bands like Fucked Up, Sex Vid, and Mind Eraser, all quietly determined to present their music as not merely punk, but a careful and cryptic statement on philosophy and mysticism. Most of the time the mystery is little more than a shell game for publicity and merchandise sales.
It’s likely Iceage is simply following in this trend; dressing up their sloppy but unique punk in Nordic Runes and Fred Perrys in order to keep their audience’s interest piqued. The hypemachine has come to expect such obfuscation, doing little or nothing to decode. This almost feels like the right way to treat the band’s imagery–intriguing, but ultimately meaningless aesthetics. At least, it would feel that way if that imagery weren’t consistently and overtly fascist.
Playing with fire and switchblades, they dress in crude Klansmen outfits in this video for New Brigade. Also visible at 1:30 is guitar player Johan’s tattoo for fascist band Death in June.
The Klan imagery in singer Elias’ zine 23.15.12.6 (available for download here) goes a bit further, depicting a Klansman with an Iron Cross logo on one page, and several Klansman restraining and presumably murdering an unknown individual on the next.
Another page depicts impending race war, with a mob of skinheads, armed with knives and crucifixes on the march on one end, and shrouded Islamist figures on the other. One of Iceage‘s favorite symbols, a switchblade, points business-end towards the Islamists. Notice that masked skinhead in the foreground wears the geometric logo that appears on Elias’ blog, as is the Klansmen on the above page.
The counterposition of a white mob and aetherial Islamists seems the closest to Iceage making a political statement. The tension between Muslim immigrant populations and the European Right has been increasingly ugly over the last several years, and this page seems more like a fantasy out of mind of an EDL member than anything else.
Without analysis of their lyrics (which I haven’t been able to find online), direct confrontation of the band members, and possibly arduous decryption of the pages written in Runes in Elias’ zine, it cannot be stated with certainty that Iceage has fascist sympathies or if they are, as the hypemachine intends to portray them, just angry Danish high school kids. It’s certainly the case, however, that their fetishization of fascist imagery is a disgusting erasure of the history of White Supremacy’s violence at worst, and at best, sadly ignorant and creepy.
The music may hold up on its own, but media fantasy about cryptically angry young aryans are certainly a huge part of the package. Cvlt Nation even predicts Iceage as the beginning of a “new age of punk.” Hopefully their prediction, along with the Onion AV Club‘s comparison of New Brigade (click to download album from Mediafire) to The Shape of Punk to Come, is off, otherwise we can look forward to a decade of nihilistic marketing schemes in the guise of punk rock.
I´m impressed by how naive you are…Do you know that the drummer is jewish???
i don’t know that. if it’s true i don’t see how it contradicts anything in the post or makes me naive, though.
haha i met them im a brown Mexican and i met them here in Houston Texas and no they were not fascist or racist for that matter and i think its vary stupid of you to judge someone by a drawing or music video apparently you are really naive so i believe it proves my point
As very close to the band I can assure that they are not facist in any way. They are – in an attempt to deceipher Iceage’s music – young danes that are worried about the increased political right wing tendencies i Denmark.
Flemming,thanks for the personal insight. Since this post is getting a lot of traffic I thought I’d ask you how you see that aspect of their politics expressed in their music?
Reagan Youth?
Reagan Youth made their politics pretty clear with songs like “Jesus was a Communist” and “USA’s for Anarchy.”
Iceage does not express political opinions, they express the chaos young people have inside their minds in this world of so many opinions. But one thing is for certain: they are not racist.
Iceage fucking blows. fuck those trendhopping nujacks.
yeah, suddenly EVERYONE forgot about BRAINBOMBS, regardless i was REALLY unimpressed, but they do have a couple tracks worth listening to. they’re adorable in their neo mod-skin costumes while blowin’ middle class minds with school notebook pettibone drawings. wow (yawn) edgy.
on the basis of a couple of short discussions with members of the band, I had no reason to believe that their politics are particularly dubious. nihilistic and a bit dumb maybe, fascist no.
you are an idiot. let me point out facts in your crying stupid unresearched rant that are wrong, apart from the general opinion:
“four in Boston ” no
“supporting gigs for Dinosaur Jr.” no
“Klansmen outfits in this video” guess youve never seen an actual klansman
“tattoo for fascist band Death in June.” come on…
that drawing is depicting a racewar, not endorsing it. do you think they hate dogs and ghosts too?
“Iceage making a political statement.” first of all Iceage and that zine has little to nothing to do with eachother +you are dead wrong.
“Runes in Elias’ zine, ” those are not runes and if you cant be bothered to and translate it dont even mention it.
“cryptically angry young aryans” their anger is not cryptic and their heritage is not aryan.
so please next time you write a judgemental article like this do a little research and think a little about things you stupid piece of fucking shit jesus christ you are a stupid fucking idiot
http://consequenceofsound.net/2011/06/iceage-announces-more-summer-tour-dates/ I count three here and at least one has been added since, according to someone following their tour. Perhaps I was off by one.
Someone told me they played that Terminal 5 show, guess they got Fucked Up and Iceage confused. I’ll edit.
Go to 0:20 and compare: http://i.huffpost.com/gen/145566/thumbs/s-KU-KLUX-KLAN-large.jpg
Come on what? Fuck Death in June.
I never argued they endorsed racewar, only that Elias has curiously depicted an image of it. If Elias said that the image was a satire of typical EDL fantasy I wouldn’t be surprised, but there’s no reason to assume that. This sort of drawing raises questions that beg asking.
The zine and Iceage’s videos and art have some of the same artistic themes, such as depictions of Klansmen, switchblades, runes (or runic things?).
If they aren’t runes then they are mimicking Runes. You seem to have missed my point though. Combining fascist imagery with a complete lack of (especially anti-fascist) politics and heavy codification such as those pages of the zine makes an anti-fascist like myself wonder what they’re all about. What is the point of presenting codes to the public if not to intrigue those unable to read them?
This is a comment on American media coverage of their tour. See the links posted. As for the inclusion of Danes as Aryans, refer to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_race
As an apparent devotee of the band, if you’d like to explain your take on them, please do. People in the US seem mostly into them because they’re angry and mysterious.
You seem to be reading a lot more “judgement” into the article then there actually is. Did you read this line? “it cannot be stated with certainty that Iceage has fascist sympathies or if they are, as the hypemachine intends to portray them, just angry Danish high school kids. It’s certainly the case, however, that their fetishization of fascist imagery is a disgusting erasure of the history of White Supremacy’s violence at worst, and at best, sadly ignorant and creepy.” The last point is one you failed to attempt to counter if you’d like to take a shot at it.
not only is this ‘article’ incorrect, it’s also extremely irresponsible.
‘Without analysis of their lyrics (which I haven’t been able to find online), direct confrontation of the band members, and possibly arduous decryption of the pages written in Runes in Elias’ zine’
it’s painfully apparent you are judging the book by its cover. and you should probably just give up writing this blog if you don’t intend on doing any research besides googling your subjects. oh, and by the way, fascism does not equal racism. shame on you for trying to smear these hardworking youngsters with half-baked snap judgments. ‘cryptically angry young aryans”? that’s some neon piss yellow ‘journalism’.
Read closer, I neither called them fascist nor racist. It is their questionable aesthetic choices (their “cover” as you put it) that is resonating so well in hip US circles that I am critiquing. Fascism and racism are inseparable by the way.
Right, you didn’t accuse anyone of anything, you used the pseudo-accusation, implication. “I’m not saying they are fascist, I’m just sayin they do all the things on the list I made of things fascists do, so ya gotta wonder.” No, actually, you don’t. I mean you can, but it would be more productive to do some reporting instead of just smearing some kids because you can’t tell the difference between references to fascism and pro-fascist work unless there is a statement of intent and copies of the artist’s AntiFa membership card.
I am accusing (but mostly critiquing) them for several things. Being political racist or fascists is only a possibility which I carefully admit is beyond me to say. Dressing like fascists is certainly what they’ve done though, overall I’m critiquing the media for eating it up without reproach. The Klan ought to be remembered as a horrific group that murdered (and continues to murder) countless people for the black, gay, jewish, union organizers, communists, etc. It’s not a goofy joke or prop for your video or scheme to make you seem more angry or cvlt or whatever.
I like this album a lot, but I appreciate your pointing this out. I’m not entirely convinced they are fascists, but I agree that a lot of what they are depicting needs some explaining. I don’t really feel like being a fan of some sort of post punk Odd Future.
death in june isnt a nazi band and mind eraser isnt “mysterious guy hardcore” but iceage sucks
it’s an aesthetic a lot of people are practicing at the moment, take a look at the publication nazi knife. why don’t you write an article about the australian band uv race calling their album “homo” – now that is reprehensible. not only that but that band has strong ties to other questionable australian acts like fortress, spear of longinus and silverchair. intolerant homophobes
Silver chair = Mysteriousguyhardcore/Nazihatemetal. I hate how they have been grooming young impressionable bands like UV race.
Good article and intriguing take on Iceage. I’m keen to find out more about them because I think the album is fantastic. Thanks for kicking off this discussion and bringing these things to light. I for one would like to thank you for your research.
Death In June are a third positionist fascist band that more or less romanticizes certain aspects of the third reich.
You make some good points here. I think that the little bits of information on their own don’t necessarily reflect too much, for instance I think it’s quite possible the drawing of the “race war” could reflect more the anxiety of the Northern European political climate (if you were seventeen and have an incredibly weak understanding of capitalism). However, when you add all the imagery together it certainly paints a more dubious picture. If nothing else, there is a certain level of fascist chic that’s emerged in the last few years as the generalized youth subculture has begun to find more interest in the more predictable shock shlock boring elements of noise, black metal, and neo-folk.
And to answer Geezer X, because Ice Age are getting a ton of attention stateside right now. You’re right, they do represent in many ways a larger trend. I recommend this essay, http://www.shekhovtsov.org/articles/Anton_Shekhovtsov-Apoliteic_Music.html despite some of it’s short comings.
I think it’s worth mentioning, though it’s mostly irrelevant, the other context this band’s members exist in; They are all members of a terrible band on Youth Attack records, the primary vendor of “mysterious guy” pretension. Perhaps that illuminates their somewhat predictable imagery.
Please remember, that these guys are from Denmark, not the US. So when you write “It’s certainly the case, however, that their fetishization of fascist imagery is a disgusting erasure of the history of White Supremacy’s violence at worst, and at best, sadly ignorant and creepy.” It kinda makes me cringe.
You are not talking about their history. You are talking about your own. And you are demanding that they prioritize that history over the context of their own surroudings. I can easily see, why you would think it is Klasmen, but to me, as a Dane, it could just as easily be Munks, Pagan cults, perhaps someone inspired by De Sade, whatever.
Also, could you please not call Danes for Aryans? That word has some very negative connotations, and it’s not very nice to have pinned on to you. It somewhat amuses me, that you call yourself anti-fascist, but still imediately calls major groups of people names.
I really apreciate what you are trying to do, getting to the bottom of their coded imagery, and figuring out if it’s actually good or bad, but as anti-fascists we are trying to create more cultural understanding, right? So, you know, investigate their culture before you start calling them names.
Best wishes
Frederick,
It’s obviously the Klan and from the art in the zine it’s clear they know what they’re representing. On your second point, I was facetiously mocking the media with that line to point out how their flirtations with fascist imagery and European culture is alluring to the media; a hip new angle to sell records and tickets.
How is that obvious? Guess all these guys are klansmen as well
http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/prisons/assets/executioner.jpg
http://www.trueswords.com/images/prod/c/ninja_hood_and_mask_540.jpg
http://www.kookieleather.com/hoods.htm
You say it’s a problem they flirt with fascist imagery and then you can’t even come up with any solid examples of fascist imagery that they use, it’s all just “these could be klansmen/skinheads”, this drawing could advocate a race war”, “these runes could mean something nazistic” – as someone said, we don’t have the ku klux klan in Scandinavia, and we learn about the futhark runes in grade school. OK you don’t like their aesthetic and music, and you don’t like that they arent some obvious anarchist/leftwing band with clear lyrics that you can read on the sleeve, but that’s your problem and you’re effectively sabotaging the anti fascist struggle by turning it into pety stuff like this.
So then I could be lead to believe that your blog title, “magic muscle”, is a reference to a penis, right? I mean there’s no proof, sure, but if you think about it historically people have certainly referred to their penises as their “magic muscle”. Keep in mind, I haven’t read any of your other posts, bothered to email you directly, or solicited you for an interview. I’m just going off of what I know to be true in the world around me. Now, if you’re high-faluting around calling a penis a “magic muscle”, some might be led to perceive that as just a wee bit sexist, or at the very least insensitive to women. Again, I’m not saying you are or you aren’t, just that it leaves questions unanswered.
Except that the penis isn’t actually a muscle, schmuck.
dear women’s studies major, please explain what is sexist about calling a penis a “magic muscle”.
How fucking retarded are you to think that Death In June is a fascist band?
Can someone explain to me how a band that makes records to benefit a fascist paramilitary hospital in Croatia, that romanticizes the third reich (before they sold out bro! If Rohm had been in charge the final solution would have been way more fabulous!), that constantly uses fascist imagery, that never cares to speak out against the fascists that organize around them, is not a fascist band?
What, because Pearce is gay? So what. So were many early nazi’s. Homosexuality and fascism make a lot of sense together with it’s valorization of masculinity.
If they’re just trying to provoke controversy, fine, but then don’t be surprised when their teeth get smashed out of their skulls because people took them seriously.
Stop trying to derail simply because you’re too stupid to engage with anything.
I was with you until you linked Nazism and homosexuality. That is a pernicious myth and a viciously untrue lie. Homosexuals were a group fiercely persecuted under Nazism and that is a fact. Linking the two is ignorant, inaccurate, and idiotic.
That being said, fuck Death in June.
Death in June is 100% nazi stop kidding yourself.
ICEAGE is playing at amoeba music on July 21st and it’s also streaming live. http://www.amoeba.com/live-shows/performances/hollywood/2011-july-21/iceage-live-stream-/artist.html
It´s so not cool that a mum of an Iceage musician speaks up, but in DK, for the past 12 years we´ve had a rightwing/liberal government that have only been in power because they have been supported by a minor anti-immigrant, rascist “Dansk Folkeparti”. They are nazis wrapped in the idyllic danish red and white flag.
Iceage bandmembers from when they were 12,13 years of age have been teargassed and beaten by the police while defending the “Youth Cultural House” – and that battle included young people of all colors.
“Can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding.”
This blog has to be run by either an American or a German. No-one else would freak out over this shit. You’re the one who has a problems with imagery that is anything but “PC Punk”. Most cultures are over this shit. Consider that before you make a similar post on the Ormeyngel collective/label in Norway or dozens of other creative efforts around.
This argument is ridiculous. People are over it? I’m not over murdering and authoritarianism because it’s still happening, it still has supporters. It’s not even over yet.
Do you really think Fucked Up would have them as a support band if there was even a hint of fascist sympathies?
I would find it less of a turn-off if Death in June had clearly-articulated politics. As it is, this tactic of “mysterious mysticism” (or whatever the fuck it is people are buying these days) is boring. It comes off as a posture – a quick way to get attention from people who would otherwise never pay attention to Iceage based on their music.
I honestly think that Iceage’s music elevated them to hipster fame rather than any racism, especially since I only have the record and have never seen any of this zine content.
fuck!
are one of them a jew!…that’s even worse than being fashist,in my opinion.
i mean,you can have all the jew in the world in the underground music scene,but to find a fascist you have to work your ass so fuckin hard!
if they ever came to italy i’ll bully on him
The sheer amount of racialist iconography this band employs is not accidental. Runes, baracuta and flight jackets, the boot the zine imagery- it’s all a not so subtle nod to a very specific right-wing skinhead subculture. Come on- even their song titles (“White Rune”) and choice of covers (“White Sails”) has got to be telling you something.
Also not surprising that this band is heavily hyped by Vice, members of whose staff have been pretty upfront about their racism in a whole bunch of interviews.
Remember guys, it is not what you think that makes you racist, fasci, etc, it’s what you DO. And these guys are doing it, they must stop.
Iceage are okay live. I saw them in a loft in Chicago last month with a few punk bands. I think The Onion’s assessment of Iceage is a tad bit off the mark. They were fun live, but nothing mind blowing.
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The issue is not so much as whether the young band members are consciously, politically ‘fascist’, but rather that aesthetics are important. If you are normalising what I would interpret- how can you not after the massacre by Anders Breivik in Norway?- to be tropes and imagery concurrent with ‘New Right’ and cultural conservative ideology, then people are right to call you out. If you have a Death in June tattoo doubly so.
And I would say that the band having a certain ‘mystique’ (that includes esotericism, paganism, the idea of the social ‘outsider’ etc.) is absolutely part of the appeal, but moreover it is using the supposed ‘amorality’ of the artist or claims about the ‘apolitical’ nature of art to create a climate- knowingly or unknowingly- which allows the social, aesthetic and cultural views of fascism to become normalised. [See the essay Apoliteic music: Neo-Folk, Martial Industrial and ‘metapolitical fascism’ for a detailed account http://www.shekhovtsov.org/articles/Anton_Shekhovtsov-Apoliteic_Music.html ]
There have been conscious attempts by the ‘radical right’ to make certain milieus pliable to such thought- see the likes of Julius Evola or Alain de Benoist. The bottom-line is aesthetics are important. Furthermore the get-out clause of ‘X is a Jew, Y is gay’ is not particularly convincing, there is no ‘fascist minimum’ so to speak, they are perfectly capable of incorporating, emphasising or disowning certain aspects of conventional fascist thought when necessary- particularly with the ‘New Right’ where anti-semitism, for example, is downplayed to further seize on Islamophobia (Israeli flags on EDL marches etc.).
Here is a link to a very informative site that deals with such issues in detail: http://www.whomakesthenazis.com/
Nah “Who makes the nazis” isn’t really a very informative site at all. Its run by a bunch of SWP trotskyists who continuously position themselves against anarchists and basically anyone who isn’t trotskyist socialist.
Also if we wanna play “guilty by association”, check out a band that is closely associated with Iceage, namely Sexdrome http://thesexdrome.blogspot.com/ “Left wing, anti nazi, pro-immigrant punk music from Copenhagen, Denmark ”
So yeah your case against Iceage is pretty bunk.
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Hey Magic Muscle person,
While I don’t fully agree with your analysis, I think you are getting way too much heat for this. I think it is absolutely critical to question the imagery (or lyrics) of ANY punk band or punk zine if you fucking want to, particularly if they are using anything racially charged. Question it all… Fully comprehending the meaning of these images, their history and what they mean to people shift to some degree country to country, culture to culture, but these images didn’t appear out of thin air. This kid and this band know what they are doing to some extent. We all know that using controversial or “shocking” imagery is nothing new to punk but at least it wasn’t used to sell records. Mysterious indeed…
Lastly, I like this record and I like the first 7″ more, but what I do in my home is my business. This band and it’s members use some fucked up historically racist imagery—why are people surprised that anyone would point it out and question it? Especially other punks—punk has always been political. Yes, it has. Also, pointing out that the drummer is Jewish as some sort of explanation is sloppy. Though the majority, punk has never been just a white thing (punk exists around the world, people) and it never will be. Get with the fucking times…
Great Post.
PS Fuck Death in June.
DI6 is fantastic, so is a lot of art made by people with unpleasant opinions. Iceage is rubbish and will be forgotten by this time next year.
MM, can you please remove the reference to Sex Vid from your article? We’d rather not be mentioned anywhere near your lame ‘expose’ of a Danish indie-punk group that we have nothing to do with. Thanks.
i dont know you or your writing, but common sense says that if you have to defensively explain your point in the comments section, you clearly did not do your job as a writer. This is a bullshit article, it doesn’t say anything, it ALLUDES to ALOT of things though, in some attempt to have clout or to have something for your resume?
Either way, it’s fucking bush-league for an author to be so defensive in the comment sections. People are going to disagree with you, especially with such a (and you know this is) a bullshit article like this one. Get over it.
Has anyone noticed that, in the race war drawing under discussion, one of the supposedly Islamic characters is, to my eyes, also wearing the band’s symbol.
may be of interest in this context:
in this interview (http://www.cvltnation.com/a-new-age-of-punk-cvlt-nation-interviews-iceage/) from April 2011, Iceage are asked for their top five albums. Their second reply is an album from the German band Absurd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurd_(band) ), maybe you can decide for yourself what to think about that.
‘it’s just a collage of things I was seeing on the TV’ – Elias in Vice magazine. I’m guessing the knife to the top-right hand corner occupied by muslims prolly has something to do with the media. all art is comment, ya know?
also, the record is fucken’ phenomenal and i, along with my friends, heard it before any of this blew up. before we saw the zine. before we saw the video. before we saw the tatoo which supposedly means the guy is a complete facist who agrees with everything death in june say (death in june = decent music and terrible ideals, like a hell of a lot of bands. burzum, anyone?)
Magic Muscle Media, you should be commended for pointing this stuff out in a calm and measured way.
It’s simple, if you set out to be controversial, there’ll be controversy.
If they’re not happy with being mistaken for fascists, Iceage should come out and say “we aren’t fascists” and explain their imagery, if they are happy being mistaken with fascists, they should carry on as they are, which would make them either; 1 – fascists or; 2 – silly children, playing with fire in an incendiary climate, who have no grounds to cry when they get burned (also applicable to all their creamy little hipster fanboys)
Don’t get me wrong, their music’s great, but they need to take responsibility for their position as (minor) public/media figures.
Cries of artistic licence just don’t wash when there are fascists on the streets (and in government/police) and people are dying:
http://www.afed.org.uk/blog/state/293-russian-anarchist-anti-fascist-murdered-request-for-support.html
the fascists are becoming confident now after fading into the background when they were confronted and kicked off the streets and out of venues in the 80′s, they are encouraged (however misguidedly) by anything that even looks fascistic, so we should question anything that even looks fascistic
Because everything evil and wrong in the world should just be swept under the rug and forgotten about because when you ignore something then it’s like… It never happened. Right?
Iceage are just drawing attention to something shocking, Douglas Pearce does the same thing in Death in June, he is a gay lefty pagan and, to my mind, uses nazi imagery to shock and remind people that, yes these things happened and there is no need to forget them but we can learn from them and hopefully move on and evolve in our ideology and outlook.
It is incredibly ignorant and prudish to deny anyone the right to their beliefs and their right to express them however they wish to, especially when you don’t know them or why they choose to think what they do.
Scandinavia and Britain are parts of the world so rife with horrible racism, facism and ignorance at the moment it is extremely prominent on the thoughts of young people. Maybe Iceage are just trying to shine a light on it?
wow, you’ve done an amazing job of attracting to your blog, every retarded racist white douche bag (and one mexican) that still listens to hardcore. basically, none of this even needs to be said. anyone with half a brain can understand that this band is bunch of disgusting loosers. but to say it out loud only attracts this kind of pathological and unintelligent crowd. i was around during the first wave of american HC in the early 80′s and this kind of non-debate was always there. when you have a bunch of low IQ angry white boys playing angry violent music you’re going to attract an element of fascist scum. no matter how many antifa lyrics and images a band can present, these morons will still be there moshing along. and whenever you start to think something’s not right and express the obvious out loud, they will be there to tell you you are a pussy pc faggot. the fact is, every generation of HC kids grows up and realizes this music is garbage. the most revolutionary thing a white antifa can do is start listening to jazz.