Okoi Jones, guitarist and vocalist of Swiss black ‘n’ roll alternative rock band Bolzer, declared on the band’s Facebook page that he and Bolzer are in no way racists, sexists, fascists, or Nazis in response to Paul Resnikoff’s apparently libelous virtue signaling:
It is disgusting, totally infuriating and frankly embarassing the lengths some people will go to in gaining themselves “social” and “political” credibility, in an age where everybody is a nobody, armed with an internet connection and a questionable education.
My music, my baby, my means of absconding all this mundane human bullshit is being slandered and jeapordized by individuals who think they know something but in reality are absolutely clueless to who I am.
My name and that of my band BÖLZER is being smeared via a number of online platforms for alledged white supremacist leanings and a glorification of nazi symbology…just yesterday we were threatened to be met with serious violent opposition once embarking on our pending tour of the eastern US. Certain persons have even pushed to have Spotify remove our band from it’s listed artists…
All this in the light of what evidence you might ask? My various “nazi-era” tattoos, looking european enough to be guilty (despite numerous “dubious” claims to a partial african heritage) and an “incriminating” taste in music.The line of decency and common sense has well and truly been overstepped, leaving me with little other option but to present a case any person of sound cognitive ability could understand:
– My name Okoi is of nigerian origin, as was my grandfather of the same moniker. Not colonialist africa, native africa. I am therefore one quarter black.
– My ever controversial tattoos are actually very benign and most definitely not of a “nazi” ilk which would be simply unthinkable given who I am. The swastika, fylfot or sunwheel has a very rich history that long preceeds it’s brief albeit tragic appearance within the national socialist regime of 1940s Germany, sharing a place within countless cultures the globe over as a symbol for the solar power, eternity and the elements amongst many other cosmological and existential theories. Despite this stigmatization there are a growing number of people willing to rescue it’s reputation and I am one of them. The BBC have even compiled a BASIC lesson in it’s history for the poorly informed which I urge the doubtful to read before taking up further research on the subject:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29644591
– I do not condone racism nor do I condone fascism. I promote intelligence and individuality, both of which cannot exist within the limited confines of the aforementioned.
– I support male rights
– I support female rights
– I support gay rights
– I definitely support animal rights.
– Neither my band nor it’s members promote hate or intolerance. We are on the contrary open-minded, tolerant individuals with friends of many colours in many countries. We judge a man by his actions and conscious behaviour, not his genetic traits.
– I reserve the right to listen to whatever music I see fit as a fortunate advocate of free speech and democracy. The individual beliefs and views of an artist do not impede my enjoying his/her work. Art is the sacred bastion and to censor it would be the death of free speech.
– I retain the right to oppose and fight ignorance in all it’s forms for it is the death of freedom. This would include organized religion, racism, fascism and sexism.
Above all I would like to apologize to my father Paul Ubana Jones for being forced to involve him directly in this. You have always been and remain my largest inspiration musically and personally, thank you.
Okoi Jones /// BÖLZER
Paul Resnikoff of Digital Music News defamed Bolzer yesterday as one of many “hate groups” he claimed were still on Spotify but not on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s proscription list. Bolzer probably had to promptly respond to the accusation to keep their fanbase assured of their political correctness. Death Metal Underground predicted this hipster and indie rocker support might wither away on account of Jones’ pagan tattoos despite the great probability of most of them purchasing or downloading at least one Burzum record or shirt over the past few years.
Tags: alternative rock, black 'n roll, Bolzer, censorship, crypto-indie, cultural marxism, digital music news, funderground, hipster bullshit, metalgate, news, okoi jones, paul resnikoff, sjws, trends mosh core fun
People shouldn’t be forced to make public declarations of their political right-sidedness (define however it pleaseth you) to avoid ‘economic sanctions’ by perfectly private other people. This is no different from requiring them to make public vows to the sanctioned deity of some cult. There is no such thing as “freedom of opinion” if this doesn’t include the freedom to be silent about it (or the freedom to avoid having an opinion on some topic).
Sometimes silence is enough for people to condemn others. Sort of the you’re either with us or against us mentality that has reared its ugly head at recent political events. People with this mentality don’t actually support freedom and I believe are brainwashed by whichever side they find themselves on
I thought he’d show some spine and tell them to fuck off, this ‘I support ..’ capitulation is rather pathetic.
Indeed. Title of their debut album was not chosen well. They should call their next Cunt
I understand why you’d have negative feelings for your own female progenitor, but don’t spread those connotations upon all female genitalia.
Oh, this one seriously hurt. Did your mother help You to write it?
I like cunts
LOL at quadroon Okoi.
Anyway – Bölzer are in that awkward, transitional stage of visibility within the modern ‘underground’ metal world. Not so big where they can ignore this sort of thing and continue on unscathed, but not so obscure where ‘disavowing’ is utterly fruitless. That’s the issue for these ‘career-ist’ sort of bands – they owe a lot of their success to leftist media outlets, and not capitulating is tantamount to career suicide for them. I mean, Bölzer have been championed by NPR for fuck’s sake…
These people have you by the balls if you’re still suffering delusions of making bank playing this kind of music. We’ve seen the same sort of thing with numerous bands in recent years – Drudkh, Inquistion, Disma.
Underground metal is at a sort of inflection point. If it wants to remain a sort of lawless ideological frontier where anything goes then it needs to retreat back underground. I can’t see any other way forward. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Bandcamp, no Reddit, no Youtube, no labels in bed with the ‘metal media’. Restore the barriers to access.
Hmm I like your idea at the end. Underground metal returining to absolute freedom. No restraints of political pressure, thought policing and so on. I’m not sure it would be completely possible though. Someone would eventually post the music on YouTube and others would find out. I suppose that wouldn’t matter though as long as the band remains anonymous and personally releases all music without the help of sites like bandcamp or any known label.
Nothing ever ‘survived’ by committing suicide: The internet is the current state-of-the-art in communication technology, nothing more. It’s nominally private, hence, subject to random political inteference at the whim of individuals with an axe to grind who happen to know someone who happens to know someone who happens to know someone etc. That’s a problem and the situation will certainly not improve by people these ‘someones’ would like to see banned from using for perfectly legal purposes voluntarily banning themselves.
There were no more “barriers to access” than obscurity in older times, anyway: I (somewhat theoretically) own one of the first 1000 Merciless debut albums because someone sent a letter to DSP and ordered it. No one ever met in person here. And ‘obscure stuff’ is just as obscure on the internet as it used to be in a public address book. It’s just more convenient if one doesn’t have to wait for pieces of paper being physically moved around the globe in order to send words to interested parties.
A present real problem would be that (fairly small-scale) black metal live events are forced ‘underground’, that is, have to rely on direct inter-person communication in order to inform interested parties about events, to stop even smaller-scale ‘local political activists’ from trying to shut them down by exploiting their backroom connections (and a healthy doses of “alternate facts”) because of the feelgood factor inherent in forcing others to do one’s bidding. And this problem ought to be solved, not tacitly accepted “we just can’t win!”-style.
Oh dear, nice!
I didn’t work hard enough to prove I’m not a racist therefore….I must be a racist. Fuck off with this retard logic.
We are dealing with retards, so chances are their logic is gonna be well…retarded.
>despite the great probability of most of them purchasing or downloading at least one Burzum
In the last few months, Varg made jewtube videos doing the following:
– praising leftists
– shitting on nationalists
– conjecturing that white people “deserve” to die out because of the pollution they create (nevermind India and China pollute much more…)
Funny how Varg is somehow still the symbol of white supremacism in metal. Meanwhile a lot of these hipsters give GBK and M8l8th (literal 1488 nazi larper types) a free pass. Memes are terrifying, they’re beginning to replace real thought.
European countries generally have a birth rate of 1.8 children per couple. This is good. If we had fewer humans, all of our problems would be solved.
And yet, the human population is growing. We can thus conclude that it isn’t because of Europeans breeding out of control.
Ehh… bolzer are Nazi as shit dude, at least judging by what I know of them IRL. this band statement is just laughable. Laughable and sad. Fenriz did it better
If they cower at nazi accusations, they’re not nazi. You wouldn’t see Skrewdriver, Skullhead or Max Resist giving wishy washy apologies about their swastika tattoos & citing “the symbol’s rich history in Jainism and Hinduism.”
Truth is probably something in the middle: like Death in June they were probably attracted by the naughtiness of fascist aesthetics but now that the heat’s on they can’t handle it.
Likewise they’ll never discover cool websites like http://www.666blacksun.net
Dude, I just discovered I might be a Nazi, or Satanist, idk
Death Metal Underground:
We will always stand against your veiled racism!
No more Nazis in America!
Redemption for the enlightened only!
From a higher moral ground,
C. Rosenkreuz, GIRGOTS
You think too highly of yourself and your music isn’t metal. This is clearly shown through your black and white, good vs. evil mentality when things in the world are much more nuanced
AFAICT, all people are more or less ‘racists’, or, slightly more generally worded, they’re naturally inclined to hate and fear/ despise and belittle whatever appears alien to them and will convince themselves that they’re acting rationally in some suitable way. Eg, to left-leaning a Hindu nationalist living in the UK, immigration from India implies more desirable, social diversity while immigration from Poland is an invasion of aliens with ulterior motive which has to be stopped (pierced together from newspaper statements of different people).
And that’s a pretty harmless example as it only manifests itself in large-scale policy. People have literally been beaten to death on their own doorsteps in the name of good causes for no worse, real offences than “being somehow weird” while the police was busily looking the other way.
your “music” is boring and self-indulgent.
life is suffering. you’re not helping. grow a pulse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulzYMopWtxs
A higher moral ground? Hahahaha faggot
so he can drop rocks on us
in my home country, croatia that is, we have two great sayings to describe the situationsiscussed here.
– you can’t put your finger into a pile of shit and afterwards complain it stinks
– for women the sort of bölzer they say she wanted to fuck without getting penetrated
its absolutely disgusting to see these spineless people aching to be recognized and acknowledged through provocation reacting so infantile and unauthentic to reactions on their own provocation, thats as pop as it gets, and as disgusting as it is
I have seriously thought that metal should go more underground and start to resemble feral war gatherings, private shows in the woods with torches and bonfires – bars fucking suck anyways and fuck every single fucking venue staff fuckhead in the entire world, fuck all venues, ESPECIALLY fuck all promoters and their bloated sense of importance, none of this shit is fucking needed, no one barely goes to fucking metal shows anyways, how could you not get away with it, metal must stop being docile and timid
Promoters are at least 50% of the promoter. If they told antifa or any other PC type that the band is still playing and to go get fucked, this would not be an ongoing problem.
Metal shows may consist of private gatherings in the woods the way things are going. We’ll just have to keep our fascism confined to the forest hahaha.
It’s not that simple: One will rarely find a live music venue, especially a small one, which doesn’t have a signficant amount of revenue from events organized by and attracting members of the self-accused “progressive left” (vomiting in a distance). The threat is usually “Either you refrain from booking anything we disapprove of. Or we’ll take our money elsewhere”. That’s obviously nothing but blatant art censorship but pub owners etc can hardly be faulted for considering their own business interests more important than lofty ideals like “freedom of creative expression”.
Especially as this is also asymmetric: Refusing to do business with people labelled as “enemies of the progressive left!” masks itself as “freedom of private enterprise” and not “art censorship”, however, private enterprise are much less free in case the policy choices of their owners are different:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37748681