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From: allynh@ucbvax.ARPA (Allyn Hardyck)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: New Order Rumor(actually only DK's)
Message-ID: <10011@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 20-Aug-85 08:07:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.10011
Posted: Tue Aug 20 08:07:55 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Aug-85 05:34:54 EDT
References: <433@sdchema.sdchema.UUCP> <9969@ucbvax.ARPA>
Reply-To: allynh@ucbvax.UUCP (Allyn Hardyck)
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 38

In article <9969@ucbvax.ARPA> rosen@ucbvax.UUCP (Rob Rosen) writes:
>>I heard that Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys wrote a song
>>about New Order entitled "Nazi Punks Fuck Off and Die" or 
>>some statement to that effect.  Has anyone else heard this?
>
>   The song's called "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" but from what I've heard, it's
>   an attack on the Dead Kennedy's followers (who tend to be rather hard-core),
>   not on New Order or any of the individuals who comprise New Order.

The song has nothing to do with New Order, and why should they alienate their
own fans?  The song has was especially written for the "Let Them Eat
Jellybeans" compilation, which was put together by Biafra as a sampler for
European audiences, as he was amazed when he was over there that there was
little or no knowledge of the American music underground.  The song (which
was written around 1981) concerns the then rise of the Oi movement in England,
many of whose members were involved in the ultraracist National Front. Of
course it could also be taken as a warning about the rise of a similar
movement here...

Some great stuff on the album - Bad Brains classic "Pay To Cum,"  the Feederz'
"Jesus Entering From the Rear," Black Flag's "Police Story", plus some
decided surprises:  Geza X's "Isotope Soap", and Voice Farm's "Sleep".

Now, about New Order.  They are not Nazis, nor have they ever been.  They have
been trading in various facets of Nazi imagery ever since their days as
Warsaw, true (the cover of the first Joy Division EP, recorded when they were
still Warsaw, features the famous photo of a stormtrooper holding a rifle at a
frightened Jewish boy), but I think basically the imagery is used in its sense
of the inherent cruelty of man towards (man, woman - cf. "Love Will Tear Us
Apart").  I doubt people would call Elvis Costello a Nazi, yet he used the same
sort of imagery in his works, especially "Armed Forces" (which was to be
originally titled "Emotional Fascism"), featuring songs like "Green Shirt" and
"Two Little Hitlers".

The Paul-Is-Dead-like clue-finding of New Order Nazism can get pretty
ludicrous.  Someone noticed on the label of the "Movement" LP, that the B in
Bemusic, their publishing company, was shaped like a digraph, which is used in
German in place of the letter combination "SS"...