INTERVIEW FOR PROFANE EXISTENCE
(Done by Flox and published in PE # 52/53, Spring-Summer 2007)
1- Alright so can you give us your identities you terrorists and what you each do in this band?
Adam (vocals), Cormy (vocals, guitar), Christina (guitar), Eyal (bass) and Yogi (drums).
Due to a lot of reasons, Yogi is having a break from the band so we have a good friend of ours, Jonas, standing in on the drums since the Visions Of War tour.
2- So you come from DENMARK; A very cold and dark part Europe if I am not wrong?
Can you talk to us a bit of what is going on over there? How is the punk scene, any good places, bands, fanzines, labels to make us discover? Except for acts such as Paragraf 119, Uro, and a few others I admit that it is a part of Europe that I really ignore. I know that the Ungdomshuset squat has been running for ever but can you talk to us a bit about this place as well? And of course I can't forget KICK 'N' PUNCH and PLAGUE BEARER records.
Christina: Well, if you missed out on the Danish punk scene, you still have a lot to discover! Considering that Denmark is a relatively small country and most of the outwards active (in terms of recording, touring etc.) part of the punk scene comes out of Copenhagen, we have a lot to offer I think.
Of bands that are active in the DIY scene today, I could mention:
BOMBEREGN (D-Beat stadium rock), MARERIDT (raw punk), NO HOPE FOR THE KIDS (melancholic punkrock), DEATH TOKEN (raw hc/thrash), SKARPRETTER (punkrock), POLITIET A/S (anarcho punk), HJERTESTOP (hardcore fucking punk), DØDSKONTROL (hc/thrash), SLØSERI (manic screaming drunk punk), THE ASSASSINATORS (melodic punkrock), GORILLA ANGREB (stripped down oldschool punkrock)
They are all very much worth checking out and all have releases out either by themselves or the local labels Kick N Punch, Plague Bearer, Hjernespind and Spild Af Vinyl.
The Copenhagen scene has always had it’s ups and downs, but I think the quality of the bands that come out of here are remarkably good – it’s just a shame that the bands don’t live that long. I guess that the size of the city has a share in that statistic. People tire out rather quickly and move on or move to bigger European cities.
2 of us (me and Adam) also used to play in Uro, but quit because two of our singers moved out of the country. Things like these are not uncommon to happen to bands around here.
About Ungdomshuset; it isn’t actually squatted, but was “given” to people from the squatter movement after negotiations with the city council about getting a house for the youth of Copenhagen. Back in ’82, there was a very powerful and big squatter scene and the mayor of the city saw it as the only way of putting an end to the squatting. Before he died, he said that it was the biggest mistake he did in his entire career :-)
The house is an all volunteer activist-run activity house for left wing radicals in Denmark. We have concerts, theatre performances, political meetings, a book/info café, a vegan soup kitchen, a screen-print workshop, rehearsal rooms for bands, a gym/martial arts group and a lot of other activities in the house.
Practically, we have a flat basic democratic structure based around a weekly open meeting where everyone interested in the house can participate. We discuss until we agree which is a sometimes slow and tiring process, but worth it in the end. Nobody said anarchism would be easy, did they?
As for my involvement with the house; it’s my life and what I’ve been spending most (or all... hehe) of my time doing since about 1999. Before that, I was just a regular concert guest. What really attracted me was the connection between music and politics and I saw the house as the place at the end of the rainbow. This place just gave me everything I needed.
As the situation is right now, we can’t really say how our future is going to be – or if there even IS a future for the house. We have reached the end of a 2-year long court case, filed by a Christian sect called Faderhuset (the house of the father) that bought the house from the city council in 2001.
We got the verdict on the 28th of August and unfortunately it wasn’t in our favor. The court decided that we have to leave the house. Of course we are all frustrated and angry about this, but it was entirely expected since it’s more a political than principal discussion. We don’t recognize the justice system and won’t allow them to decide on our future, so we are working on other solutions – but we’ll keep them a secret for now… Definitely you can expect lots of demonstrations and actions in the summer! Check out www.ungeren.dk for more information about this.
One thing I can promise is that we’re not going to let them try to take our house without a struggle! There’s never going to be a Christian sect in that house – that’s for sure!
In the last 2 days since we got the verdict, at least 15-20 banks have been smashed and paint-bombed, the courthouse has been paint-bombed 2 times, container fires in the middle of roads have been observed, a few spontaneous demonstrations have been happening, the city is filled with fresh graffiti, the Danish embassy in Oslo was squatted and there’s been numerous solidarity actions and happenings all over Denmark. And this is just the beginning…
Cormy: I’m actually from Ireland but I moved to Copenhagen 3 summers ago. Very cold and dark, fuckin' right, winter in Denmark is icy, harsh and continues pretty much up to May.
The punk scene is excellent and that's why I moved there; after traveling across Europe it was my favorite city, so... Ungdomshuset was a large part of my decision to move there and stay there. It's an incredible place, the most active and organized autonomous centre I've ever encountered. Like all places it has its problems and in-fighting, but it's I reckon basically the main reason there's such a large fiercely independent and militant anarchist punk & hardcore scene in the city.
I knew a few bands from Denmark before I moved there -Amdi Petersens Arme, Asebia, Young Wasteners, URO, Gorilla Angreb... The scene is fuckin great in terms of music. There are dozens of bands playing all styles of punk, extremely good & cheap practice facilities available (4 practice rooms in Ungdomshuset), and labels like Kick 'n' Punch and Plague Bearer putting out consistently good material.
Jakob helped us put out the demo after seeing our first show and has driven us on 3 or 4 tours now, he's been a good friend of all of us for a long time. I thought URO were fuckin' amazing too, so it's sort of mental to end up playing in a band with the same people and have our LP out on what I consider to be one of the best crust/raw punk labels in the world.
There's some excellent bands around in K-Town right now; Hjertestop play aggressive and catchy hardcore punk (ex-member of Young Wasteners), and much better than all the Swedish yankee-punk revivalists since, a) they have some original ideas and style and, b) they actually think and act like punks. Death Token play razor-sharp jagged thrash. Something like as if Septic Death was from Japan (they share a member with everyone's darlings No Hope for the Kids). The Assassinator's play Burning Kitchen/Blondie style punk rock with 2 girl singers, really catchy and rocking, I'll say no more cause I played bass for them... Other bands worth checking out are Mareridt, Dodskontrol, Sloseri, Misanthropic, Politiet A/S, Skarpretter...
Unfortunately almost nobody in Denmark gives a shit about zines. I do one called Bite The Hand That Feeds The Poisoned Food, which is a mix of reviews & interviews, socio-political writings and personal-type writings. Aside from that there seems to be no zines released on a regular basis, although there are a handful of people who occasionally put out one-off zines, though mostly of a more "personal" nature.
3- As well I must admit that I do not know much on the country either except for maybe a book I read on Christiania that was some time ago. Can you present this place of the country "Christiania" how it works, how did it come to existence what takes place there in activities and what you think about it?
Christina: Christiania is a huge village located on the grounds of an old military base. It covers 85 acres and almost 1000 people live there. It was squatted in 1971 by hippies, squatters and other people from Copenhagen that wanted another life based on communal living. In the beginning, it was “allowed” as a social experiment by the government, but has ever since been tried shut down. They are also in the middle of a court case against them. The city wants to “normalize” the place, tear down odd houses and make everyone pay taxes, raise rent and make the place into a trendy neighborhood – they are as us in Ungdomshuset just the victim of our governments fucked up cultural politics, cutting down and shutting down everything remotely alternative or progressive culture.
Since Christiania is such a huge place, it covers an enormous amount of activities. The place is fully self-sufficient and you won’t have to leave the village ever if you live there. They have their own food-supply, workshops, tool/craftsman shops, kindergarten, venues (quite a lot), theatres, restaurants, bars, gallery and much more.
They make their own jobs and even have their own currency, which of course can only be used in Christiania.
The place in itself is pretty amazing and the nature is beautiful, but it’s rather hard to get a foot inside if you want to be more than just a guest. A bunch of people from “our” part of the scene has tried doing stuff out there, but it’s my impression that you get a very skeptical attitude which makes it hard to join in.
I’ve made one concert out there which was a big success and I think we’ll do more in the future.
Generally, the friendship between Ungdomshuset and Christiania is very strong. We always support each others demonstrations and make sure to make support statements to the press as often as we can get away with it.
But Christiania suffers from a total lack of energy to resist.
A few years back, this place was a free-zone and the only place in Denmark where it was declared that hash was legalized. They even had a street they called (it’s still called this actually…) Pusher Street where you could go and choose between hundreds of different types of hash, pot and mushrooms.
When the case against them closed in and our “new” government decided to take all the necessary measures to get rid of the illegal hash trade In Christiania, the authorities at first met a lot of resistance, but it faded out because there were spent so many resources that they killed the resistance. These days, when you walk the streets of Christiania you will meet a cop every 2 minutes and if you look suspicious near Pusher Street (which is by the way the most tourist friendly part of Christiania – it is the biggest tourist attraction in Denmark!) you can be sure they’ll search you. There is police present 24 hours a day since a few years now and it’s tiring people out.
Cormy: Yeah, I didn't know anything about Denmark either before I met punx from there. Except for Lego. Christiania is pretty crazy. When I first came here I wanted to get some weed, so people sent me there. I'd never even heard of it: "Oh, it's this 3-km squared squatted village in the city centre" -WHAT!!? So I go there and it's amazing, all these funny little houses on a long cobbled street filled with stalls and little huts with mad bastards selling dozens of varieties of hash & weed, and not a single cop in sight. Then the next time I was in Denmark it was all fucked. The pigs had raided the place with 100's of riot cops, arrested dozens of people and held them for months in detention, and since then maintained a constant presence with bands of 4-6 riot cops constantly patrolling and a reserve of 30-40 always nearby. They terrorize the population and ruin everything. The whole atmosphere is changed (obviously). There's constant small-scale riots and violence. At the same time, the hash trade has moved into the streets, and in this city hash is big money, leading to a lot of violence between immigrant, biker, and wanna-be gangsta ("pusher") gangs, with shootings and beatings having even taken a few lives in the last year or so.
Aside from all this bullshit, the place has its good and bad sides as with all things. It's the most tranquil and beautiful place in the city, when you walk away from the touristy areas, with a lake in the middle surrounded by
little paths, overgrown vegetation, and all sorts of crazy big & little witchy old squat houses. It's like being in the middle of the countryside, in the middle of the city. I had a dishwashing job in a restaurant there for a while and some other random work, which was all real easy-going, fairly well paid, and consisted as much of getting stoned as it did of actually working...
Unfortunately, most of the residents there are maybe a bit too comfortable & content with their personal situation, and the "radical" aspects of the place are minimal. A year ago there was a bunch of us living in a trailer park in the North Harbour docklands of the city, rented officially as an "art-space" and lived in illegally. When they realized what we were up to they evicted us with 3 weeks notice. I was away on tour but when I got back I found out that Christiania had said that we could move our trailer park there -amazing! There was chance the pigs would try to evict us from there due to an "agreement" with Christiania that there would be no new buildings there, but they said that they'd help us resist and defend us if the cops came. I was living with my mate Ian (another refugee Irish bastard) and both of us were out of work and fuckin' broke, so when it came down to it we didn't even have the money to rent a truck to get our trailer towed there, and neither of us were confident that it was going to work out well as we saw things progress. So we sold our trailer to some girls we knew who wanted to move there. One month later and the pigs move in, fuck everything up, steal everyone's homes and arrest 134 people (including a whole class from the school I was working at!) and I was pretty glad that I'd gone to live in a friend's attic instead of Christiania. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Christiania people either did nothing, or else arsed around with flowers and sang dopey hippy songs at the cops. So, it's a nice place, but it's got no teeth anymore. I reckon the government is just going to play the divide-and-rule card. Gradually de-radicalize it by stages, and legalize it by selling the properties for cheap to the squatters, as they did with much of the Dutch & German squatting scene. At that point, some will flat out refuse to and continue to squat and live as they do. Others will give in, buy their homes and continue to live as they do. And the others will buy their homes and sell them for many times the price to yuppie scum.
4- I saw a documentary once called " voyage au bout de l'extreme droite " in it's French title that was a English/French co-production on a reporter that interviewed some of the most radical extreme right wing parties all over Europe and when they got to Denmark I remember them going to see the representatives of the national front over there that was being accused of being a negacionist and apparently in Scandinavian countries people that say such things as "nazi camps haven't existed" or "the extermination of Jews in the second world war is a detail of history" or other such absurdities get away with it without being confronted with law or whatever?
And in another documentary on nazi skinheads in Europe I saw the same headquarter place for the national front used by the Danish extension of the "Blood and Honour" group with the Swedish leader hiding himself from justice for anti-Semitism, etc...Is the liberty of expression in Denmark much more tolerant towards this kind of accusations than other countries?
What do you think about this situation? And are there a lot of confrontations with nazis in Denmark since it seems that a lot of them try to be refugees in your country?
Cormy: When the neo-nazi scene was at its peak in the early 90's, Denmark was a sort of base of operations for many German nazi groups, since their freedom of information laws were a lot looser than Germany's (as you're probably well aware in the wake of that ridiculous Skuld Records “Police Bastard” incident). So a lot of groups would print, store and distribute hate-literature and propaganda from Denmark. The anti-fascist scene here though has always been strong and militant, and basically beat the nazi bastards off the streets in the 90´s, and has kept a constant vigilance since, with good information, infiltration and plenty of anti-fascists ready to fight. Censorship is a thorny issue...as with most nazis, these revisionist assholes' arguments are childish, reactionary and easily dealt with, but when disenfranchised people want an excuse to hate & blame, skin color and race is an easy option. So, rather than censorship, I think that the No-Platform way of approaching these fucks is best. Win the argument intellectually while at the same time kicking fuck out of them, NOT to try and make them change their opinion, but simply because they’re evil fucking scumbag nazi bastards spreading racial hatred. It's hard to say how the law works in terms of censorship. About a year and a half ago there was an action where we learned of a meeting of Danish nazis in a library in the suburbs. Twice as many of us than them turned up quietly and secretly, and surrounded the building (empty except for them since it was after-hours), conveniently made almost entirely of glass, and then smashed our way in all at the same time with bricks and lead pipes. The cops had been tipped off and were watching in secret, after less than a minute they charged at us and drew their fuckin guns, so only a few nazis got bashed. A few of us were arrested and the rest got away, and it was a big issue for the next few days in the Danish media. People were disgusted that the public library was made available to an explicitly right-wing race-hate group, and a new law was passed that people must now state what their group is and why they want to use a facility like this.
Is this a good thing? I don't think so -more restrictions, more control. These are complicated issues, but at the end of the day, the nazis need to be violently confronted, and these tactics have kept Denmark mostly free of this shit. There are frequent enough backstreet confrontations with the nazis and though it seems AFA almost always underestimate their numbers, we still always win.
Christina: Denmark has witnessed a general move towards the right, as seen in most European countries over the last decade or so. In 2001, the Social Democrats lost the election and was replaced by the Neo-Liberal Right (same shit on new bottles) fronted by the Liberals, the Conservative Party and the ultra right wing Dansk Folkeparti (The Danish People’s Party). The latter have had quite an impact on our foreign- and immigration politics which has given room for a radical change in what is considered acceptable in forms of behavior towards immigrants, refugees and people of other ethnical origin than white European.
Many official statements from elected politicians have ended up in court with the politicians being prosecuted with the anti-racism law; some even ending up in prison.
These days, there’s a lot of focus on Dansk Folkeparti. A journalist from a big tabloid paper posed as being an outspoken nazi and member of the DNSB (Danish National Socialist Movement) He found that most of the local offices welcomed the nazis and just told them to keep a low profile. Even though they ended up excluding a number of members after the exposure it still says a lot about the nature of the party.
We recently experienced a major crisis with another newspaper publishing a series of satirical cartoon-drawings of Mohammed. It caused a lot of frustration mainly among the muslim part of the Danish population but also from a series of Middle Eastern countries that officially started boycotting Danish companies and demanded an apology from the government. This raised a lot of debate about the freedom of expression. People were furious about not being able to express themselves freely without being “threatened by terrorists” and unfortunately it ended up benefiting the right wing a great deal. Dansk Front (The Danish Front; a right wing umbrella organization housing everything from far right parliamentarians to members of Combat 18/Blood & Honour) in Copenhagen doubled the amount of attendants in just one meeting during the crisis.
5- You guys and gal (Christina) have your first LP coming out on Plague Bearer records in Denmark. I believe Mid told me he was doing the artwork for this one. Are you pretty happy with the sound and the art going on this release? It seems that you venture between good old late 80's early 90 English type crust punk, influenced I’d say by Antisect, Amebix, Doom, Extreme Noise Terror and the 80's metal touch made to a modern personal style of it. What ever happened to punk? Ha-ha.
Cormy: Yep, Mid's done the art and it's fuckin amazing! I'd written to him some years ago after reading an interview in No Barcodes Necessary (a fuckin brilliant old Irish zine, Mel who wrote it now occasionally puts out Direct Hit, another great hcpunk zine) to see if there was by any chance a book released of his artwork. He wrote back and we stayed in touch. Then when we were discussing artwork for the LP, we were going to use a chap who does a lot of amazing stuff for Games Workshop (particularly the Chaos and Chaos Beastmen stuff...I was a Warhammer nerd when I was younger!) who I'd been in touch with, but then I think it was Christina mentioned maybe trying to get in touch with Mid, so we decided to do that since I vaguely knew him and he's a punk. Got in touch, finally met him when we did the UK tour, and it went from there. We were sort of nazis about insisting it be in the old Deviated Instinct pen & ink style rather than some of his more recent stuff, and I think we drove the poor cunt half mad with the amount of time & effort he ended up spending on it! Thanks again Mid, fuckin amazing job. As for the sound, we're as happy as we're going to be with it after a lot of arsing around mixing and that. Our friend Rodrigo recorded it over 2 days in his studio in Sweden and we're really happy with how it turned out. Some of the playing could have been better since it was Yogi's birthday the night before and we'd been doing too much drinking & drugs, and in a colossal stroke of bad luck both myself and Christina's amps broke the week before, hers in the practice room and mine when we were playing a show in Gothenburg (with Jakob & Rodrigo's band, Mareridt, excellent raw d-beat kängpunk). We both had to record using Marshall heads, and since we both usually use Laney heads the guitar sound was a lot less dirty, raw and blown-out distorted, and without as much low-end as we'd like, but for the most part we're pretty happy with it. In terms of the sound you described, that's pretty spot on.
Add to that the usual suspects from mid-80´s Scandinavia, and the newer songs have a touch of UK shit like Bolt Thrower and Sacrilege, with a smidge of Japanese shit like Bastard or GISM. We didn't set out to sound like this, it just kind of came out that way, but we wanted to play a more raw and brutal style of crust than a lot of the bands we'd been seeing and hearing in the last few years...far too many bands trying to play epic-stadium-emo-crust in the wake of Tragedy & From Ashes Rise (as much as I like those bands) that we found pretty lame and boring. We're not trying to do anything new, just to do it well, though I think we have our own sound & you wouldn't too easily mistake our songs as being by another band.
Whatever happened to punk?! Hah, I dunno, it grew up, fell in love with itself and started endlessly incestuously reproducing itself. I'm into almost all styles of punk and play in lots of different bands, but I've been trying to have a band like this for years before finally doing it with the right people.
Christina: It’s been taking us forever to get things done for this LP. We recorded last winter and as I’m writing this, the record is still not out and we have September coming up in a few days… but we hope to have the record out soon… phew – we’ve been saying that for months!
We had a ton of problems before and during the recording. My precious guitar amp broke just a week before the recording and I didn’t have time to fix it – ironically the same thing happened to Cormy’s, so we ended up recording the whole thing on the same style Marshall 900 which is so much more clean in the sound than our own. I must admit that I didn’t expect much from it, but it turned out real good after the mixing and “dirtying up”. I have a bad habit of being overly self-critical towards everything I do, but I’m very happy with it. I’m a big fan of Mid’s artwork and think that the record is going to be just as we wanted it to from the beginning.
You pretty much named half of our favorite bands there :-) I’ve always been a sucker for that early UK sound… I couldn’t hide it if I wanted to! Haha! I think we are all well aware that we’re not doing anything especially unique or groundbreaking, but that’s not really what this is about anyway! We just play the music we like and do it as loud, snotty, dirty and aggressive as possible!
What happened to punk? Cormy’s so right! I also think we have just hit the lucky wave of people discovering our kinda music. When we first started out, nobody seemed to give a shit in Copenhagen, but they do now. Things go in circles…
6- Any news about the split with VISIONS OF WAR that you are supposed to do? How was the tour with them in Scandinavia? Why such a close relationship with those wankers? (Don’t take it personally Steve and Lolo I love you guys...) Hasn't Steve done any artwork for you people ? If there were to be an alcohol contest between you two who would finish it winner? Ha-ha
Cormy: I think I first met those filthy bastards when some of them used to come over for the Warzone Fest in Belfast, trying to sell cheap tobacco to impressionable young Irish punx and scaring small children with their unpleasant stench, and got to know Arno after meeting him at a punk festival in Croatia maybe 4 years ago or something. We played with them last summer in Liege when we were on tour, ended up having a bit of an alcoholocaust and mounting a drunken midnight expedition to an old haunted hospital before staying in Belinda & Arno's squat, but only really started to realize the heights of our mutual drunken stupidity when we played with them at a punk festival in Muelheim (Germany) with them last January, and they seemed to be just as drunk and possibly even stupider than us. So that's when we decided we should do a tour and a split 7" together.
The tour was good but strange; our friend Jonas was standing in on drums with only 2 weeks notice because of Yogi's drug problems, and I just seemed to end up constantly talking about it when people would keep asking where he was or what was wrong with him, and then just get melancholic and introspective drunk rather than party drunk and not able to stop thinking about it...so that all sort of soured things a bit. But we still had some fucking cool gigs and good nights, really nice to finally see Blitz in Oslo too and play there.
Yeah, Steve did some fucking cool artwork for us. We'd started e-mailing each other after the show in January; he'd gotten a copy of my zine and wanted some older issues I think. Anyway, I loved his art, so I mentioned that if he was in the mood it would be cool if he'd like to do an N.D.T. skulls-and-banner type thingy, something scratchy and crap but cool, like the Crude SS or Discharge style ones. Then a few days later he sends us the picture he's done -amazing!! We made t-shirts of it. Steve's a legend. I think in any alcohol contest between us we'd probably all be winners...or all losers...let's see...well when we met them in Germany I remember Eyal sprawled on the floor passed-out with bottle-in-hand, and Christina was going bonkers, throwing chairs at people (mostly me), smashing bottles and puking...but then on the Scandi tour we brought a few more crates of beer than they did (cos the beer is so shitty & expensive in Sweden and Norway).
I think we need a few more rounds to be sure of it! Let's just say that we're a bit more out on the frontlines, but they've got the years of steady dedicated experience (and the bellies to prove it!).
The split 7" idea has turned into a 4-way split LP together with Guided Cradle from Czech and Instinct of Survival from Germany -fuckin deadly! I can't really think of many other European crust bands I'd so much like to share a slab of vinyl with. Dunno who's putting it out yet.
Christina: We had a lot of fun playing with them on the tour. It was only a shame that it didn’t last longer! I think we had our rehearsal for the alcohol contest in Halmstad and I have to bow my head in awe and hand over the trophy to V.O.W. since they outlasted us…They’ve had years more practice than us! Ha-ha! We’ll take revenge sometime soon! That’s a promise!
It was fun doing the tour with them and to see a bit more of Sweden. There aren’t actually many places in Sweden that are entirely run by punks – and only very few squats. A lot of the places we played (and also the ones we didn’t) are very institutional looking kinda places that you can rent for a night. You can’t drink in many of them and the gigs are on quite early. In Copenhagen and most European cities, the music at gigs starts around 23:00 and then you drink and party afterwards. It was a lot different there. It was the same feeling we had during the UK tour. You really see exactly how fuckin’ privileged you are to have a place of your own without any boundaries. I have so much respect for the punks doing the hard work of putting gigs up in places like that and trying to build something rather than giving up because it’s hard!
I think we all had a really hard time on the Sweden tour because of Yogi not being with us. We had a great time with Jonas as a stand-in drummer and things were better than ever music-wise, but it all kinda peaked around that time with all of us spending enormous amounts of energy trying to help Yogi and at the same time not bothering too much about our own mental state of mind. You really just want to go 110% for your friend and forget about yourself in the process. It’s a hard choice to make, but I think it was for the better that Yogi didn’t come with us. We all hope he’s going to be back at some point when he’s clean.
Right now, we have plans of making a 4-way double LP split with Visions Of War, Guided Cradle and Instinct Of Survival some time next summer… if we get our acts together that is! Maybe we’ll also do the split 7” with them, but we haven’t really decided if we should just do the 4-way split or both yet… in time…
Me and Arno from Visions Of War have been friends now for some time and since we played a few gigs together with our bands at festivals before, it seemed like a natural thing to get a tour together as well! I hope there’ll be more!
The first Visions Of War gig I ever saw still stands out as one of the best gigs I’ve been to.
Me and my boyfriend went to Holland to see Crude from Japan play with a bunch of other bands. The atmosphere was weird and full of clean-cut kinda types, but the bands we’re ok. Not really worth the entire trip though… After the bands had finished, rumors we’re going about a free afterparty with more bands. It was December, cold, wet and nasty weather and the gig was in a basement with no air and tons of drunk people. Water was dripping from the wall and the ceiling, people were going mental and Visions Of War played an amazing gig! It was the best gig ever and by far the best that night!
7- I got to know you guys through a trade getting your demo tape and was blown away ... I'd say fewer bands today do demo tapes and I kind of regret it seriously. What do you think about the professionalizing of punk bands and labels doing glossy flyers and going through distribution on bigger independents just to sell their shit? I mean is the punk scene loosing the authentic way of being self sufficient when we go through exclusive distribution or selling shit on E bay, selling stuff through Pay pal, doing myspace pages and by the same occasion making Rupert Murdock richer ? Is there just an access to facility that makes punk just loose its rebellious identity and that we are not asking ourselves the right questions anymore? Should we take a more radical stand towards all of the consumerist bullshit and bring things back to the roots?
Ignorance is Bliss?
Christina: I do a lot of artwork myself and love it when things are done properly. I love good old fashioned black and white photocopied flyers, covers and inserts, but I also like covers with good quality paper, different types of ink and embossed letters! Basically, I think that bands should choose whatever they feel the most comfortable with. Wouldn’t it be boring if it was all the same? As for doing glossy flyers as opposed to photocopying them – I have found out being involved in printing for many years, doing posters, zines and record covers, that it is quite often a lot cheaper to get your stuff printed en-mass than photocopying yourself. And you cannot argue that it also matters that things are affordable to people. For example, I was doing a zine some years back called Thoughts Of Visions with a friend and when we did 500 copies anyways it was cheaper for us to get them printed than copy them ourselves.
We love demo tapes and we’ll make sure that whatever we do will always be available on cassette too! There’s so many poor debut 7”s and LP’s coming out these days. A tape is affordable for everyone to check out and doesn’t require much economy to do a tape release.
Generally, easy living consumer culture is taking over too many people’s lives – including punks. Everything is so easy and available these days. You just pick your lifestyle on a tree and throw it away in the bin when you get tired of it.
Being a punk isn’t in itself a threat anymore in most of the world – it’s what you do with it that will make it a threat! Radical thinking isn’t easy accessible… and it actually requires thinking!
I think it’s really important not just to take the easy way, but think of how you want to get where you’re going and still be able to look yourself in the mirror. It’s not only a matter of knowing where to go and getting there fast, but rather spending the time it takes to get there without hurting anyone on the way. I appreciate the process a lot more than the actual product if it.
A scary example of modern consumer culture; in Denmark these days, we currently have a newspaper war going on. A few years back, 2 free newspapers hit the streets. Basically, they’re crappy no-brain papers with absolutely no real issues in debate (so-called objective), just fast and easy digestible news articles in less than 7-10 lines. As if 2 wasn’t enough, the other big newspapers soon found out that there was a lot of money to be made in selling ads in the free newspapers (they consists of more than 50% of it) and started making plans to release their own versions of it.
Now we have 5 free newspapers, for a country with only 3 million citizens, with pretty much the same content and 500 tons more paper waste per year. People don’t give a crap because it’s easy and convenient to be able to flip through the news in less than 10 minutes on the train to work and don’t have to think about it or spend money on it – just throw it away after use.
I must admit that we as a band have a myspace account and that I also have one myself. I did decide to cancel it though! I recently found out that it was sold to that fuckin’ media fascist Rupert Murdoch and that it allows for right-wing people and outspoken nazis to network. The site is also packed with porn and a gross amount of commercials… It actually represents everything I don’t like about bullshit consumer culture!
Just because it’s easy and convenient (it really is!!!) doesn’t mean that it’s good and that we should support it! Just the same way as I don’t think people should have hotmail accounts or shop their groceries at 7-11 or other capitalist chain stores that drive independent shops out of business.
I was rather impressed with the whole myspace thing at first. It’s a real easy way to communicate with new people and bands. It’s cool that it’s free and that you don’t have to put up a website in order to promote your bands music. It allows bands to put up songs for free download which is cool… but it ends right there. Knowing that you post money in some rich bastards pocket and that your DIY project benefits capitalism at it’s best – just isn’t cool!
Cormy: Yeah, fuck-all bands do demo tapes anymore and I think it's shit. Any band I've been in that's gotten as far as the recording studio has done a demo tape before any vinyl output. Tapes are just cool, plus they're fuckin cheap and hard to break. CDs just always seemed like disposable crap to me. Dunno why. Maybe because they break so easily.
I think professionalism in punk and over-commercialization/consumerism are 2 different matters. I'm all for people doing their bands, labels, zines etc to a high degree of quality, working and putting their own money into equipment and so on, that to me shows that they really believe in it and it's not just some half-arsed hobby, and to me it's more of a problem that there's so many half-assed shitty records by shitty bands coming out on shitty labels.
I think the internet and its widespread use in punk is both a curse & a blessing. Punk to me is mostly about communication, and the internet makes that infinitely easier. Just click on a button instead of having to go to the post office. But at the same time, it's like everything (food, transport, money) -just cos it's easier and more convenient doesn't make it better or even just okay. It's just a further "speeding up" of our lives, and I don't think that's such a good thing. So while organizing shows, tours, traveling, staying in touch with faraway friends and trading music is now a lot easier, it's also a lot more disposable. A kid downloads some bands' music, looks at their pictures and gets into the fashion of it, buys the t-shirt and paraphernalia online, gets burned out on it and moves on to the next thing in 6 months, having gotten all the surface-area cosmetic aspects of it without experiencing the real essence of it that comes with time & effort. And simultaneously older people who've been into it a long time become more disdainful of expending their positive attitude on someone who soon won't give a shit and will quite possibly look down on them.
I think E-Bay record collecting is boring. I've never bought any records there, maybe sometime I will, but I find it sort of lame. It's harder and harder to make amazing finds in obscure little record shops -I've seen businessmen with lists of rare records buy up lots of rare stock from punk record shops to sell on the internet. But if people want to feed that kind of shit, fuck it, it's their problem, not mine. There'll always be someone looking to make fast money off whatever and it was no different "back in the day", probably even lamer and more transparent. To me it's bullshit if it's not D.I.Y. but I'm not losing any sleep over it.
8- Your lyrics are as cynical as can get on the stupidity of human kind and the horrendous apathy of our lives, be it through politics, religion or a common social "laissez faire" about things that touch us and surrounds us on a daily basis. What are the goals you try to achieve through the explanations of certain frustrations of this world we live in? What kind of actions do you think are useful on a day to day basis, personal and global attitudes to adopt? Are we doomed to hell and condemned to sit on our asses?
Cormy: The lyrics are more portraits of the horrendous inequality, violence and this miserable lack of regard for anything other than individual selfish whims and desires which infects the human race, rather than any sort of "call to arms" or plea towards people to change their ways, such as the lyrics of Conflict or Oi Polloi or whoever (not that I don't admire such lyrics, they're just not my point of view). When I was younger I wrote more general "protest" lyrics, but with this band I've tried to be more concise in the sentiments expressed, instead of going off on tangential rants about "authority" or "them", as can often be the case. Generally I can only write about the themes that make me feel sick in my stomach with the most raw, choking desolate rage (otherwise I just can't scream or roar the words properly). Things like the State's efforts to destroy attempts towards autonomy such as Ungdomshuset ("In the Shadow of the Gallows"), war propaganda & "War on Terror" bullshit ("A Storm of Lies"), sexual abuse ("Life of Pain"), and all the other cliché bullshit that pisses me off -environmental destruction, police terror, war, the threat of nuclear devastation, the oppression of filthy depressing cities, blind punk conformity, politician scumfucks, fear of god and relgious idiocy... I guess some people empathise with the emotions I try to express when they read the lyrics. They're not just catchy phrases to go with ugly music, but neither are they written with any delusion that they'll make any difference to anything.
In regard to the second part of the question, yes, I think we're all doomed to hell, but no, I don't think we're condemned to sit on our asses. Again, when I was younger I had more hope and belief in protest and demonstration, which I think began to fade and become more cynical and negative after I'd been at the G8 in Genoa. Though I still feel it's essential to resist authority & control, I've got no hope that anything will change for the better. The only change any of us is surely capable of making is in ourselves and in the way we act towards others -by being vegan (or vegetarian), by recycling the waste of society by squatting and skipping
("dumpstering" for you yankees!), by not participating in blatant consumerism, and by generally treating others as you'd like to be treated yourself, with kindness and respect. I still think that protest resistance is vitally important -we might not make things any better, but we'll certainly prevent them from getting far, far worse, as they will without our efforts, and much worse for the underprivileged in the shittier parts of the world than they will for us. Similarly I believe that autonomous organizing is essential for setting up alternatives to this fucked system, for those who wish to leave it behind, and for when the collapse comes.
9- This one is for Christina. What are your views on feminism in the punk scene? I do not know if I should assume that you call yourself a feminist or not but I'll try this one anyway. As a woman do you feel any discrimination inside the DIY punk scene towards yourself or friends? Is there a combat to continue to get women to feel safer and more implicated into the punk scene? What do you think about collectives such as EMANCYPUNX in Poland, or the BREAST BRIGADE in the USA or other feminist punk associations around the world that try to put forward a strong women voice into the scene? What are your thoughts on the equality of genders and the respect that we should all share men and women into this scene that proclaims itself less tyrant than the general society? Personally I've heard some crazy shit from proclaimed anarcho punks saying for example "my wet dream is to lay a punk girl singer" or "that girl put out that punk record is weird" or "that girl on stage is so fucking hot", etc...I'd say that physical attraction is normal kind of...but it seems that a lot of guys (and I am concerned as well, I don't believe being better than anyone else but these kind of things still my brain do not comprehend ) assume that a women is a sexual object first and then can be something else. What do you think? Same way around, as for some women sometimes acting like groupies, wanting to get laid by some crust punk star because it is cool. I guess I made a sexist remark there?
Fuck yeah, I’m a feminist, but I’m not organized as one. It’s a real shame that “feminist” is such a dirty word in Denmark! The most visible and active part of the feminist scene here has a bad reputation of being extremely narrow-minded, aggressive and not willing to cooperate with people of slightly different opinions. I think that collectives such as the Emancy Punx and the Breast Brigade are fuckin’ cool and really nice examples of what constructive attitudes can accomplish. I can’t really relate to many of the feminist groups and initiatives in Copenhagen, but I think they do a great job anyway. It’s important to keep together as women activists and support each other.
I didn’t always have such an easy time in the punk scene, mainly because of my own insecurity, but you strengthen over the years and I must admit that I don’t think about it too much any longer.
You can’t argue with the fact that it’s a very male-dominated scene and it’s often very difficult to feel heard as a woman. Me and my female friends make an effort to try and let the younger girls in the scene know that we are to be trusted and that we will always support them if needed. I experienced so many times, being a lonely young girl, that I was alone with my problems and couldn’t confront them by myself. I think that guys generally shout louder and have an easier time getting attention when they want it.
I think that some girls getting into the scene can easily get caught in the wrong company of guys letting them know that the only way to get accepted is to sleep with them. Seriously! I mean, we are not free of all the issues that we try to address in the scene and we have to be aware of this.
There are so many expectations on how women and men should behave that have a direct influence on the way we behave in the punk scene. When playing in bands, I have often felt those expectations holding me down or getting me confused. For example, when a guy sings or plays guitar in a band, he’s expected to go crazy, rock out and put on an act. If he doesn’t, people will mention it or think it’s weird. “That band was amazing, they had so much energy” or “that band was so bad, he was just standing still looking bored”. The other way around if it’s a girl; “She was so hysteric and attention-seeking”.
I often get comments just for being a girl in a band. I don’t know how many times guys have come up to me after a gig saying that I was the best guitarist they ever saw. I know I’m not! I’m mediocre at best… haha!
I have always had most male friends and I guess that has also shaped me in a lot of ways, but I know that a lot of my female friends don’t feel the same. I have once experienced one of my close female friends being called a man at a political meeting, by a group of organized feminists. The conclusion that she was a man, was based on the fact that she had a very strong base of men supporting her and therefore her female identity was dissolved and she was now effectively a man when participating in political discussions.
Fuck that – anarcho punks with that kind of attitude, you describe, towards women just ain’t anarcho punks; they’re macho shitheads! I know, physical attraction is completely natural no matter what sexual orientation you have, but there’s a big difference in how to approach another person or even talk about him/her. It all comes down to having a basic respect for other people.
Ungdomshuset, where I volunteer, is the only bar in the city where you can kick a person out of the place for making you uncomfortable by giving out sexist/homophobic comments or being physical.
But it really requires an extensive amount of talking and debating about the issue of sexism/homophobia. We don’t just kick the person out at first. If he/she has been told several times and doesn’t stop, we ask the person to leave to give room for the offended person. After that, we will talk things over so nothing will ever pass as just another routine that can’t be changed.
Equality within the scene is fuckin’ vital if we are trying to pose as a direct alternative to this fucked up world. I mean, it doesn’t get us anywhere, isolating and dissociating ourselves from each other. We still have a lot to learn…
10- What are your future plans with NDT? Any last words to add? I try to ask this question to a maximum of bands...
What are your favorite beers and what are the best ones from Denmark? A special alcohol that we don't know around here, that we should discover? An original Danish insult? A good veggie recipe? Etc... Cheers for your time and answer...
Cormy: We've been talking with our friend Will who does No Options Records about doing a U.S. tour next summer and hopefully getting our LP out in the States, and also with our friends from Pisschrist about a possible Australia and South-East Asia tour at some point. I'm going to be returning to Ireland in September for 8 months with periodic visits to Denmark to play, write, record and tour, because I want to finish a University degree in English Literature I've studied in Dublin for 4 years and put aside for the last 2 years. It's just hanging over me and I want to get it over and done with.
But I for sure want to dedicate a lot of time to N.D.T. and keep writing music and playing shows everywhere we can until it gets stale and boring. My favorite beers, well, sorry to be a cliché bastard, but it has to be Guinness. Never from a bottle or can though, only from the tap, otherwise cider (Stonehouse or Strongbow). Favorite Danish beer, everyone in Denmark will hate me for this, but it's Tuborg, 'cos that's the cheapest 6-pack you'll find in most of Ireland. I don't really rate Danish beer so much; I'd rather Czech or German.
Special alcohol, has to be Fisk. Basically vodka with Fisherman's Friend flavoring, cool and minty, goes down far too easily (make your own with crushed-up mints in a bottle of cheap vodka and leave it for a few hours).
Either that or Mexicanos (tequila, chilli and tomato juice, but not actually Danish), these two have left me with many's the black hole in many's the cold Nordic night!
Original Danish insult? Din mor er en polsevogn.
A good veggie recipe, well, just a tip instead...when you make hummus, after you've soaked the chickpeas, use fresh water to cook them in. Save the smelly-water after they're cooked and add some to your hummus mix. It makes it so much better.
Anyway, fuckin' thanks for the interview and sorry about the far-too-long answers. Get in touch if you want a copy of my zine, #5 was out a couple months ago, interviews with Martyrdöd and Doomtown, zine & record reviews, writings on queer and gender politics, disillusionment with punks & humans in general, and lots of other egotistical moaning. #6 will be out soon, a long interview with Bolt Thrower and also some European crust bands, writings about the traveling I've been doing this summer, and the usual moaning and bullshit about punks and humans pissing me off.
Take care; see ya, and STAY FUCKIN' PUNK!!
BTH c/o Cormy, 45 Beech Hill Drive, Donnybrook, Dublin 4, Ireland. razethestray@hotmail.com,
Christina: Future plans? As it is right now, we’re on a semi-break with Cormy being in Ireland, but we’ll hopefully get to tour a little and maybe record some stuff every time he’s off on vacation. The energy is there and we already have new material, so we’re just trying to get the most out of it!
Also, we have offers to go on tour in the US, Australia, South/East Asia and of course Europe… Hope we get to take advantage of that!!
I’m gonna join Cormy on the favorite special alcohol! But I guess I should be the one to suggest a nice vegan recipe since I work as a chef in a vegetarian restaurant… A recipe I love suggesting to people is my red wine mushroom sauce. It’s very delicate, but takes a bit of time and patience to do.
For 2-3 people you need:
2 big onions (very finely chopped), ½ liter red wine (doesn’t need to be expensive), 500 grams of sliced mushrooms (if you also have shiitake, oyster mushrooms etc. it just makes it better!), 3 teaspoons of tomato paste, 1 teaspoon of boullion powder/paste, 2 bay leaves, 2 deciliter water, salt + pepper, oil, maize starch.
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Fry the onions in the oil over medium heat. You need to fry them for at least 10-15 minutes until it starts to mash and get sticky without burning.
You then add the tomato paste and let it burn slightly. Also fry it for some time. It shouldn’t burn and start to smell, but it should stick to the pan.
Add the mushrooms and fry for a minute. Then add wine, water, boullion, bay leaves, salt and pepper.
Let simmer long enough for the wine to loose the alcohol and the bitterness; at least 15 minutes.
When it’s tasty enough for you, thicken with the maize starch. It’s very important that you don’t thicken it too much. It’s supposed to be quite thin and delicate.
Lovely!
Danish beer sucks! There’s only one really good beer here – we sell it in Ungdomshuset and it’s an organic strong beer called “Humle” by the brewery “Thy”. Try it!
Usually, I avoid drinking Danish beers if I’m not in Ungdomshuset. I have a real nice organic shop around the corner that offers delicious international beers! The blond beers from Belgium are my favorites!
And as the last thing – thank you so much for doing this interview with us!
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