Anal Cunt stuff

I've been fascinated for a long time by grindcore repeat offenders  Anal Cunt. Indeed, in 1999 I wrote an article on them for Index on Censorship  which never got published. Here's what I wrote back then:

Anal Cunt: How Bad Is Worse?

How far can a band go in causing offence?  That is the question to which American Grindcore band Anal Cunt appear to have spent their life's work addressing. 

Grindcore, an incredibly fast collision between Punk and Death Metal, is an underground style of music, whose rejection of conventional musical principles such as melody would be shocking already to many. Anal Cunt's latest release 'It Just Gets Worse' [Earache, 1999], has compounded this musical offensiveness with lyrics designed to cause outrage.  Most notable are songs with misogynist lyrics, such as 'I Became A Counsellor So I Could Tell Rape Victims They Asked For It' and 'Domestic Violence Is Very Very Funny', and songs about Nazism, such as 'I Sent Concentration Camp Footage To America's Funniest Home Videos' and 'Hitler Was A Sensitive Man'.

Anal Cunt's UK-based label Earache, ran into problems when they came to release the CD.  Their usual distributor in the UK, Vital, refused to distribute it and two pressing plants refused to press it.  The label also had problems distributing the CD in other countries, particularly Germany.  Earache were forced to sell the CD direct via mail order until a distributor (Cargo) could be found.  The band have also had problems finding venues for live shows, partly due to their history of on-stage violence. 

So far however, Anal Cunt have faced no legal problems.  Earache were careful to remove the title and lyrics for the 2 tracks that could have lead to lawsuits - 'Connor Clapton Committed Suicide Because His Father Sucks' and 'Easy E Got AIDS From Freddy Mercury'. Anal Cunt and Earache have been skilful in walking a fine line between a desire to shock and a desire not to provoke a destructive moral panic. Despite the distribution problems, the CD has already overtaken the 3000 sales of its predecessor 'I Like It When You Die' .

In interviews Anal Cunt portray what they're doing as a nihilistic attack on just about everyone.  A sense of humour is revealed on songs such as 'Into The Oven' - which is about cooking turkey - and they seem to be just as keen to attack a whole range of other targets other than 'PC' ones.  Previous CDs have sneered at pottery, softball, windchimes and the Grindcore scene itself.  As singer Seth Putnam was quoted as saying ('The Guardian', 12-6-99): 'If you're offended by us you deserve it - if you're not we haven't found something about you gay enough to expose yet'.

I was browsing the internet today and found something that has given me pause for thought. I've taken an indulgent attitude to their obscene offensiveness in the past but now I'm not so sure. I know that I should have kn0wn about this a long time ago (I'm supposed to be an expert on metal and racism for fuck's sake), but AC mainman Seth Putnam  has a side band called Vaginal Jesus Their lyrics cross the line from over-the-top offensive humour to out-and-out hate (albeit with a viscous satirical edge). They were signed to far right label Resistance Record, although apparently they were dropped for not being serious enough. Anyway, it's possible that Putnam may have been much more serious all along than wishy washy liberals like myself were prepared to grant.

On the other hand, Impaled Northern Moonforest , Putnam's acoustic Black Metal parody band is a blast. It's spawned an extraordinary cult of similarly silly acoustic Black Metal parodies.

As I said to Nick Terry a few years ago - what's a lefty who likes offensive Metal to do?

Comments

[Ms .45]

"what's a lefty who likes offensive Metal to do?"

Fileshare!

[Picard]

Well, seeing the links of Vaginal Jesus made me...Shuddering...
A few years ago, I thought of Anal Cunt as a joke. A morbid one, yet a joke. Now, I began to wonder...
On the other hand, I've never bought or lended any disc (or tape) by Anal Cunt. So, I shouldn't bother. Or should I?
I also remember that Putnam nearly killed himself by overdosing on ecstasy, cocaïne AND alcohol. He doesn't seem to be an even guy...

[Graeme]

Impaled Northern Moonforest are hilarious. I had my coworkers crying from laughter at their desks at my last job when I played that for them.

For my money, the most offensive Anal Cunt album was that "Picnic of Love" one--it was absolutely horrid.

It wouldn't surprise me if Seth Putnam decided to put a record out on Resistance Records simply for the shock value of it--though perhaps that's giving him more credit than he deserves.

That said, the question about reconciling left wing politics and metal is a really difficult one. I have a friend who works in a record shop and he was telling me about all these black metal records he picked up when somebody traded them in and one of them was a Graveland record. I called him on that and he said that he keeps his music and his politics seperate--he is left wing in most other respects. That's one possible answer to the question, but it seems really unsatisfying.

I'm just speculating here, but is maybe one of the pleasures of offensive metal in that there's something transgressive about it? I'm sure I could find some sort of quote in Bataille to give weight to this claim, but I'm too lazy to do that.

[Ethan]

Frankly, I've always thought Seth Putnam was an ignorant jackass, even before I knew he was a racist. That guy should be ashamed of himself.

[TheFuckingDevil]

Hmm... you know Anal Cunt are like... a real life version of a 4chan forum. Think about it, it's all chaos and hate, basically no positive goal whatsoever. BUT at the end of the day atleast Seth and his crew of butt fucking brady bunches know that they're being assholes on purpose unlike SOME band out there *cough* GG Nazi SHITHEAD Allin.

I don't know, they're not my cup of tea (More into Fuck the Facts, Disrupt, Fuck... I'm Dead)... but hey their random stupidity gives life to the boring scene I guess...

Cheers.

[sulfugor]

I think anal cunt have a sense of humour, are utterly insensitive yet capable of self deprecation and are really racist. They're also druggin and boozin scumbags . I see them as completely despicable human beings in general.
I want to stress that as far as I'm concerned, it's not being racist in isolation which makes them human trash.
Rob darken of graveland is racist and so is Varg but i don't see those people as despicable at all.
Then again i'm neither leftwing nor progressive :) I must be one of those people who make the metal scene not easily digestible by the hipster/media/art types :)

[zhaohui]

wadonxrum981
It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

[david ahriman]

You gotta just see it for what it is. It's nasty and offensive. Seth was kind of a inspiring in a way that he acted so blatantly ignorant that it became funny. He was the embodiment of everyone's hate in concentrated. He reminded us all that we should be laughing at these things not hating them and being offended by them. The reason all this hate in all it's forms still exists is because we treat it seriously, take offense by it, return the favor, etc. Sure it's terrible. But we should be laughing at it, because undoubtedly it's funny as fuck. And people need to learn to laugh at themselves rather than at the expense of others. Until then, you're the gayest fuckin hebe faggot on the planet. Fuckin' liberal hipster jew. I'll fuck your pregnant kike wife in the ass and make your kids watch. :))))) LOL

[Ax]

David's right even though his grammar is shit. Who the fuck cares if Seth was actually racist or not? It wouldn't change his contribution to music at all. The bottom line is, the guy was a total piece of human garbage regardless of his actual views on anything but if you're cool enough to not be a whiny pussy-ass PC faggot, you're well aware of the fact that the man was downright hilarious and listening to anal cunt is bound to put a smile on your face.