Laibach to play North Korea

[Machinesworking]

OK I know there's a no politics thing here, so let's keep this more philosophical since it does relate to a band, their ideology, and their ultimate role as pranksters.
With that in mind let's keep it from crossing Ableton's wishes, but still be able to talk about this stroke of pure genius.

One of my favorite bands ideologically for most of my life Laibach are playing North Korea.
http://mute.com/laibach/announce-the-li ... orth-korea

Laibach started in Yugoslavia under one of the more mild military socialist states, but all the typical trappings of such states, youth rallies, ridiculous ceremony etc.
Laibach started parroting this state, first calling all members of the band Ivan, dressing in paramilitary gear and throwing Tito speeches into their music.... but all the while taking it much farther, leaning it all heavily towards fascism. Their name is what the occupiers called Yugoslavia during the war, and their music was more militant and authoritarian sounding than socialist. They have an art 'division' that puts out totalitarian looking artwork mocking the east, west, all of us. The art collective called themselves NSK or New Slavic Art, and issued passports because they decided they were a country. They made a winning Youth Rally poster that had the artist who made the poster followed by the secret service for months afterwords. He had taken a Nazi Youth poster and put the Yugoslavian flag in the youths hands. Needless to say when they found out the government was horrified. They had printed some up and posted a few by that time.

So knowing all that, this odd little band from Slovenia is about to prank everyone. No doubt the west will be horrified, and North Korea doesn't fully realize how weird and opposed to all governments NSK and Laibach are. There's a connection between what they do and Andy Kaufman, where you're never to sure it's a put on. I know and appreciate the electronic musician who write instrumental music, but a good package, with a whole vibe from another planet type thing going on is just fun as hell to me.

I would take the risk of being detained to play there, and I'm not worried about Laibach, they played Sarajevo the day before the ceasefire in Bosnia.

[TomViolenz]

As an artist I wholeheartedly agree that this is pretty awesome

I mean many have fallen for satire, but I find it fascinating that apparently the North Koreans can't even separte out the Fascist undertones from the allegedly Communist ones (which they must see, otherwise they would never allow them to play in NK).
I wonder why that is... (No, I really don't )
I wonder though if the audience will not be too brainwashed already to detect the satire themselves.

But it's also a pretty ballsy move. I don't think fucking with Tito is even in the same ball park as fucking with the Kims (it's more like fucking with Stalin himself). And even if they succeed, they will just have all the secret organisations of our "free" world follow them for the rest of their lives.

KUDOS!

Disclaimer: I did not equate Fascism and Communism, I equated what NK does to Fascism!)

[beats me]

[TomViolenz]

No doubt the west will be horrified

As far as bands making political statements, the ONLY reason Pussy Riot got the global spotlight is because they are a easy on the eyes female band with Pussy in the name. Sad fact. Name one other political dissident band that has been paraded around the global main stream news and talk show circuit the way they have.

That may have helped some, but the main reason was IMO that they fit into the anti-Russian propaganda narrative that gets pushed so vehemently right now. It's the same with the very public protests of our CONSERVATIVE!!!! government against the gay oppression there.

They don't care one bit about gay rights, they just want to swing that dangerous "human rights" hammer to justify their land grab in the Ukraine and to restart the cold war.


Disclaimer: If this needs to be said, as I suspect, no Putin is no democrat and no I would not like to live in Russia and yes, it is sad that we still need to think in spheres of influence. That doesn't change the pretty obvious facts on the ground though. A Coup d'Etat was initiated by subversive organizations in Ukraine that have been largely funded by US money (to the tune of 5 billion USD). The public sentiment was purposely steered against the elected president, by giving him the poisoned pill of EU association negotiations that would have forced him to part from Russian influence. (That part is hardly mentioned anymore, I wonder why? ).
The whole West knew that Russia would see this as encroachment and would react as we see now. That's why they did it!

[beats me]

[TomViolenz]

I think the West, lead by the US, is thinking in long term empire building terms. Even more so than Russia (which we like to pin that motive on) and more than China.
The only ones that are trying to follow that route as hard are the oil nations in the Middle East. I'm not certain, if I should see them as just another part of the wests cabal, or as a separate entity though.

And to be clear, I'm not talking about the people in these regions, they mostly just want what everyone wants, live a normal life without too much interference.
I'm talking about all the shadow governments that sometime quite openly, and sometimes in secrete plot their strategic master plans.
All the Murdochs, Kochs, Springer and Mohns, all the Oligarchs and the leaders of the secret institutions that are watching us, the banksters and the professional liers they employ and buy before we even have a chance to vote for them.

But yeah, I expect to be called a conspiracy theorist any minute now

[beats me]

[H20nly]

This is clearly an ESL issue.

[TomViolenz]

This is clearly an ESL issue.

[TomViolenz]

I think the West, lead by the US, is thinking in long term empire building terms.

For the US at least I think it has nothing to do with empire building. It’s that we have a bomb based economy, delivery and cleanup afterwards. The only other real money is in speculative investment which is money that in fact doesn’t exist.

Well the fun thing is that these two things, earning lots of money with bombing and clean up and empire building go hand in hand.
And if the money exists or doesn't, also changes nothing about this.

One pretty concrete profit motif for instance for estranging Europe from Russia is the gas economy.
Almost all of Europe gets its gas from Russia for a very competitive price. The fracking frenzy in the US has led to huge amounts of gas in the North American market that therefore only sells for quite cheap. This has led over the years to the building of very expansive gas liquifying plants and shipping tanker terminals. These are finished now. But as long as Russian gas is so plentiful and cheap, the (comparably) strong EU economy was not a receptive market for it. Since all this shipping and processing makes it not competitive. This all changed very suddenly with all these economic
sanctions against the bad, bad Russians.
I'm sure I don't need to connect the dots any further....

[beats me]

[Machinesworking]

Jesus guys, could we keep it about the art of it? or do you all just want this topic closed?
I know it's really hard with this band to separate that, but we can at least try. I think the ban on politics shouldn't have to include discussion about political bands,
but if we go off too far then any topic headline like mine will bring the ban hammer.

I think it's very likely that the west will react to this. Laibach over the years have been accused of being that which they mocked pretty much to the point to where a certain demographic always equates your interest in them with your interest in totalitarian states etc.


I think if they play their cards right they could easily generate enough controversy by simply getting one of the more reactionary news outlets to comment on it.
It might be the one time that Huffington Post and Fox News agree on something. I've seen this in the past with controversial bands that people thought were something more than parody. Oddly enough the Mentors come to mind.


Also Helter Stupid - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkgILnh-lLU

[TomViolenz]

What happened to Russia anyway? Never followed it closely but it seemed for a decent amount of time they got their shit together. Now it’s a return to shenanigans.

That's just the propaganda picture. There were always shenanigans, we just had no reason to care.
Now we decided we do and that we would like to poke the nuclear armed bear and all the sudden we act like these shenanigans are an injustice we can't possible let stand.

It's just pure politically motivated hypocrisy.

And very belligerent and dangerous hypocrisy at that.

Just days ago there was a widely published PEW study, testing out how willing Europeans are to get into armed conflict with the Russians. It was of course framed as: would we stand with our Nato partners if Russia attacked the Baltics, but I think we are already being mentally primed.

It's already getting hot in here in this new cold war, I can tell you that

[TomViolenz]

MW I'm really trying, but this shit just really moves/scares me

(Not the Laibach stuff, but I already said my piece regarding that)

[Machinesworking]

MW I'm really trying, but this shit just really moves/scares me

(Not the Laibach stuff, but I already said my piece regarding that)

Here-

viewtopic.php?f=40&t=215822


Let's allow this thread to live, the new one covers the ground this one can't, and the tittle isn't so ban worthy.