What is all this fuss about Whitehouse?
 

People go on about them and they seem to create very divided opinions. I've heard one album which i listened to once, felt that I got the basic idea and have since filed away. I've also read some interviews with them, after which I felt thoroughly patronised. Obviously though, there's something going on. I just don't know what it is. Seriously though, I'm sort of curious to know what it is about them that attracts certain people to gravitate towards them so enthusiastically.

It's probably the same qualities that make people listen to Dio, just louder.

because dropping their name in a conversation gets you +20 hipster points

It's a cost thing too. Holy Diver's only £2.98 on Amazon. Whitehouse albums go for about £30. Maybe Dio are just the poor man's Whitehouse.

Dio are the rich man's Queensryche, surely?

I'm massively biased on this one - I'm a big fan of Whitehouse and the
relative bands. I like the power, timbre, density and velocity of their sound; I enjoy a lot of their lyrics (some of them very funny to my ears), and William Bennett, if nothing else, has been an inspiration one way or another to a many great musicians and artists. To me, liking Whitehouse is something that is immediately visceral and adrenalising - an emotive response rather than an intellectual one.

As for the controversy surrounding Whitehouse, well I always take Bennett's interviews etc with a pinch of salt...he certainly knows how to sell an album, that's for sure. The thing about Whitehouse being fascists is TOTAL bullshit - I can't emphasise this enough. Are they misogynists? I don't think so, at the end of the day, although I can see why people do have a problem with them on this point.

Whitehouse for the hipster-point win? Jeez, when I first found out about them, they were "underground" to the point of invisibility, and even then I got a fair amount of shit for liking a bunch of allegedly racist, woman-hating paedophiles. Oy vey.

Anyway, I can't imagine many people on this board being into them, to be honest, which is fine. Still, I'm interested to hear what others do think of them (if indeed they do).

By the way, I'm listening to the Ting Tings album as I write this. Surely that's the real horror, a 37 year old man listening to pop music for 14 year olds...

Reading what Mr Singsdoom wrote, I'm thinking they might be a formative years band. You get into them early and you're hooked. I'm a bit like that with Marillion. Fully aware that deep down they're pretty shit, but I got into them young enough to always have a soft spot. I'd like to hear Whitehouse cover Kayleigh. That'd be brilliant I reckon.

I've got three words in response: Avril, Lavigne, Concert.

"Kayleigh. - I never meant to say 'I'm sorry'....you cheap whore!"

Ha ha ha - a priceless comment, sir Demon.

I'd like to hear Steve Rotheray and the boys whip out their prog moves on "You Don't Have To Say Please". I'm sure their filligree moves would throw a new light on this tune.

They're like the first harsh noise band ( = proto harsh noise ).

she was better before she got on the booze and that. And her hair's shit to boot

Mr Singsdoom aside. Having watched some of their live clips on youtube, while Whitehouse may not be Nazis, i have definite doubts about certain sections of their fanbase.

This clip is a mixture of silly, brilliant and scary. http://youtube.com/watch?v=-Bw9M1tMIWU

I've always found Whitehouse a smidge boring. Sometimes I quite enjoy that, and it's definitely part of their agenda. And for all the rhetoric surrounding them, I still like to read their interviews. I disagree with their (particularly Best's) 'philosophy', but it's well-articulated and lucid - moreso than a million pubescent American 'nihilists'. They're also a fantastically British proposition in a musical world often blighted by the overbearing influence of large-C American Culcha.

Ultimately though, I don't really like too much agenda in my music, even if that's a hyper-libertarian agenda. But then, if you like something, you're often blind to an agenda (this is certainly true of my John Cage liking).

Anyway. I wanted to ask if anyone's read Sotos, because I think I might get one of his books soonish. Does it stand up to Artaud, de Sade or Bataille (swoon)?

I have Total Abuse, which is quite the read.
Haven't been in the mood for it in quite some time, but that guy's rep is not undeserved in the least.

I've read some selections of his stuff. In answer to your question: absolutely not, on all three counts. I wouldn't mind checking something more substantial by him though. Not being as good as either Artaud, de Sade or Bataille hardly makes someone bad, after all. Have you read Deleuze's essay 'Coldness and Cruelty'? It's about the only thing of his I've ever actually liked (or, I should say, remotely understood). If you're into your French libertarian stuff, you should like it quite a bit. Was flicking through Bataille's Visions of Excess anthology today - just to maintain contact with my inner ponce. Brilliant stuff.

Regarding your point about Whitehouse's Britishness, I entirely agree. There's definitely something of the 17th Century Ranters about them.

EDIT: I think I just managed to use up all my twat cards in a single post.

To be honest I never heard anyone making a fuss about them ever apart from some stuff written about their records. Where is the fuss about Whitehouse happening?

If Philip Best had shelved the 'Consumer Electronics' project in 1984 and left it at that, Id have had a lot more respect for him. Consumer Electronics was truly groundbreaking in its time, and for it to be the brainchild of a 14 year old is amazing. He should have quit while he was ahead.
I have no time at all for William Bennett.

simply put, theyre fucking amazing.

arguably first, or one of the earliest power electronics bands.

still one of the heaviest, most brutal noise bands today.

extremly confrontational, controversial, and offensive to those who dont understand tongue in cheek humour. their name was a reference to the brit morality pain in the ass bitch mary whitehouse, which is also the name of a porno mag of the time. thier lyrics go on about sadistic sex and s and m, misogyny, eating disorders, serial killers, child abuse, and all sorts of weird violent shit.

they are the best power electronics band ever in my opinion.

i quite like whitehouse, and i think they broke tons of ground both stylistically and musically; but i find myself liking ramleh or sutcliffe jügend a whole lot more.

part of their appeal for me is that it is too much of it's time while being ahead of it's time; meaning nobody sounded like them when they started (the distorted synth barrage, the high pitched electronical screeches and the vocal attack) but it has become so much as being part of a post-pistols, thatcher britain that i often think of them as a nostalgia act. they were all about report stuff like the yorkshire ripper and the nazi aesthetics of london underground punk but never commenting on it, it's like a time capsule.

another part of their appeal to me is that, in said chronicals, they go to the deep end like nothing before, there's a bit of a scary movie part, listening to stuff about rape and serial killers; listening to the lunatic minds of fringe people you're not supposed to know about for your own good (of course, all being an act).

after all, they are pretty entertaining and you can count on them to deliver what you know they do well (except for racket, which i have avoided like the plague). they did influence merzbow and hijokaidan back in the day and established power electronics into a proper sub genre (so to speak) which has given more extreme bands like grunt and taint.

they do push an agenda and always have, like glice noted, and when that happens, people tend to divide into followers and rejectionists; when it comes to whitehouse, both sides tend to go to great extremes. to me, what's very interesting is that there's a lot of people who are not taken by either side, preferring to stay in the middle, enjoying their tyrades and not taking their neurological programming and morbosity drenched spiel very seriously.

You make them sound like an episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show.

hahaha

i love burmese too, like a whitehouse tribute band with weasel walter.

huh? i guess i have heard a different burmese because the ones i know sound as much as whitehouse as avril lavigne.

i didnt mean they sound like them, theyre just always mentioning em.

im talkin about this one:http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...id=142 050680

yeah, that's the same burmese, and yeah sounds more like scum grind than p.e. but whatever.

twodeadsluts onegoodfuck are great, playing grind-like p.e.

---

by the way, i think i will stop writing lenghty posts just for them to be ignored; i will start doing one liners like "rape mgmt" or "you are poop" from now on.

Nowhere, really. I just wanted the thread to sound more significant.

I think I managed to use up Europe's international reserve of twat cards in the last 3 years of messageboarding, and neologising verbs with the abandon of an A-level Derrida fanatic does nothing to assuage that fact. So I shouldn't worry if I were you.

Prima: You should read Deleuze on cinema (1 & 2) because he's got a fairly nervy grip on its various mileus (certainly over Badiou, with whom I agree because I don't really like cinema).

Further: I haven't read that particular Deleuze, because I'm of the impression Lyotard had a much better grip on the so-called 'philosophy of excess' without falling into the insouicance of the sado-dilletante (and this statement does L the disserverce of debasing him to a narrative that he merely glanced at).

Sunburn: It's not what you were saying, but I never saw Bataille as a Libertarian in the simple sense; there's too much of the Christian struggle to his writings (Madame Edwarda's Godcunt, the endless deification/ apotheoses of sex, sex-organs, sex-practises, sex-tension [etc, probably]).

Corrolary: The problem with 'simple' sadism in art (which is necessarily distanced from the sadism associated with sex) is that people like Whitehouse (and I imagine Sotos' writings) rarely go further than the first argument. Where batreleaser says,

"[Whitehouse are/ were] extremly confrontational, controversial, and offensive to those who dont understand tongue in cheek humour."

I think that's a perfect summary of Whitehouse - however, the problem is that there's plenty of people who get their humour, who appreciate their aesthetic, who appreciate the notion of 'sado-masochist' music/ lyrics who still don't find them that exciting. That's not to say Whitehouse are boring - the problem is that they create this polar narrative whereby the individual is supposed to either love them or hate them. The truth of the matter is that, to someone like me, the force of their rhetoric only perpetuates the fact that Whitehouse, to a great many people, simple aren't that good.

I do admire them for their agenda, and I like the idea of what they're doing, and as I said before, they're legions more articulate than the noise scene over which they stand, sentinal-like. The problem is that they seem to think they're forcing people to have an opinion. And it's true, I do have an opinion on them, but that's not because of the excess of their aesthetic (either their lyrical or musical), that's because I'm a gobshite, and the majority of record 'obsessives' are gobshites too (hello, internet messageboard).

Theta: In other news, international reserves of 'internet-twat cards' are at their lowest level since the internet was invented.

Bennett sure has a habit of contradicting hmself - on the one hand claiming that only a select number of people will ever "get" Whitehouse, then having a throwing-toys-from-the-pram moment when some journalist or other expresses an opinion less than flattering of WH. You can't have your sadist cake and whip it, Billiam...

I really enjoy Peter Soto's spoken word albums... I'd like to read his books.

i actually always thought twodeadsluts:onegoodfuck and burmese werent that far off soundwise. both to me sound they like they take equally from early power electronics and early grind to make on brutal clusterfuck of a sound. and yeah, the twodeadsluts record that came out this year is one of this year's best.

haha twodeadsluts used to be a weird cybergrind band, they were into my first band stagedive suicide and sent me a free cd like 6 years ago.

they're supposed to do a split with scissor shock but they're really slow. it's taken them 2 1/2 years to record a full length and they've been meaning to do a split with warmth for many years now too.

where does story of the eye stand in the overall goodness scope of bataille's work?

I've not read everything, but I'd say that if you don't like that, you won't like anything of his. He's a pretty superlative writer, but something like Eroticism is far more cold and academic than a lot of people enjoy. I'd go with Madame Edwarda/ My Mother/ the Dead Man collection for my personal favourite (but he's someone I'd very much like to learn French for so I could read everything).

you deserve to be patronized

I'M COMING UP YOUR ASS

ohh

seriously, the whole point of whitehouse is to be patronized. if you feel that way after reading interviews then good. twodeadsluts are fucking amateurs, all flash and no substance which may be ok if the flash was the least bit interesting... you say faggot all the time... cool

Story of the Eye is great but, despite being Bataille's most famous book, it isn't his most representative. His novels and short stories are quite different from his non-fiction stuff (which I tend to prefer). Even saying that though, he's a definite case of someone you either like or don't like (be it in fiction or non-fiction). A number of people whose opinion I greatly respect dismiss his 'philosophy' as pap. And yet I love it.

I think has very fashionable in the 80s, amidst all the body politics and sexuality stuff, but I don't think he's thought of as that big a deal now.

Aside from the various collections of his essays, his book Eroticism is probably my favourite.

I still can't my head around his 'blind spot' theory on Hegel. I wouldn't say he's written off now. I wasn't around in the 80s to comment on his popular time. I do think most people should read him, but as you say, he can be quite divisive. But, y'know. Madame Edwarda.

I think it's a shame the way he became hijacked by the whole body modification scene - who strike me, by and large, as a rather witless bunch at best.

He has a complex, and quite interesting relationship to Marxism compared with the 'official position held by most other surrealists (including the arch bore himself, Andre Breton.) His essay 'The Old Mole and the Prefix-Sur' is one of the best things I've read, and something that I still apply to a whole host of seemingly unrelated areas in my life.

Today on syg is whitehouse day!

Since this thread I have read Sotos - pretty close to everything he's written, thanks to a certain Bristolian musician. And he's fucking awful.