I had a GREAT conversation with some fellows from Poland at the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library (New York) last weekend. We were watching Laibach videos in a exhibit room full of Eastern European Underground Theater (on view there for free until March 2010). (That branch and the main 'Stone Lions' branch of the NYPL both have exhibitions that rival regular museums! )
The conversation I had with the Polish guys'centered around the main question "how the heck do you know about Laibach?". My answer is that I was lucky enough to stumble across the band when I was doing interviews in the mid-80's. I took a tape recorder back stage after a Laibach show in Detroit (St Andrews Hall) and asked them a few questions. I mainly asked them "Why do you guys dress up like Nazi's and then sing such weird songs?"
They're a pretty weird band. And I'm not fascinated with them for any dark reasons. They seem to have history, anti-war, and a long-running joke all combined.
For the beginner, these are the main characteristics to know about Laibach:
1) They take their name for the Hapsburg favored name for the capital of Slovenia.
2) They have the straight faced humor of Eastern European political theater. I can confirm from talking to Laibach that they stay in character
all the time.
3) They take authoritarian imagery and subvert it. Their costumes, videos, music, all reflect a war state. What are they trying to say? It is definitely ironic -- they are not actually fascists. But what they are doing with the fascist imagery I am not sure. I know they played a concert for the people in Sarajevo several times after the wars of Yugoslavia last decade.
4) Spoken word samples in their songs seem to be martial, authoritarian political leaders: Josep Broz Tito, Benito Mussolini, and some terrifying French man on this, my favorite song by them,
les Priveleges de Morts. (Thanks Remi Valdolle).
Their logo is a suprematist cross combined with a planned-economy sprocket.
Their favorite musical material is appropriation of innocent banal pop tunes seemingly re-done as soundtracks for Triumph of the Will. (e.g. "
Life is Life." )
I don't have time to analyze here what exactly I get from listening to Laibach but let me just clearly say they are not really fascists nor am I. And whatever they're doing it's pretty unusual. I connect with it because I am a pacifist, deeply disturbed by war, and I like the combination of something awful with something that is joke-theater-irony (e.g. Bjork's Dancer in the Dark movie).
UPDATE: The reviewer at AllMusic writes an incisive sentence sweeping away all my confusion on Laibach's posturing: "Since fascism needs a scapegoat to flourish, the members of Laibach
mocked it by becoming their own scapegoat and willingly sought
alienation." -- David Jeffries
Recent Comments