Interview with Ian Svenonius

Wendy and I composed these questions for Ian Svenonius, who was playing at NYU with his new band Scene Creamers back in April as part of a mini K Records showcase, along with Dub Narcotic Sound System and Wolf Colonel. I approached Mr. Svenonius for his email address, he happily obliged, and I darted the following questions off to him. The interview is a bit old (it's from early May), so some of the questions are not as timely as they once were. Also, his answers appear exactly how they were received via email.

Male Mannequin: Index magazine called you an "amateur guerilla historian." What got you interested in history and writing? What is your educational background? Are there any authors or works that you find particularly inspiring or influential to your own writing? Have you read a lot of Karl Marx?

Ian Svenonius: Though I failed secondary school, I have taken some art school classes. Art School was an idealized place in my mind as a repository for would be rock n rollers, as evidenced by The Clash, Kinks , etc. who were all art school drop outs. An aesthetic training was foremost in my desire. From this stems political consiousness, as winessed by Wagner into Hitler and Constructivism into Bolshevism. My favourite writers are the typical ones, Appolinaire, Marinetti, etc. My interest in history stems from it's everyday perversion all around us; evidenced by the daily propaganda of the official news organs; the New York Times/Wash Post, "the first draft of History" (which is pure CIA horseshit) and in Rock N Roll by the fanciful idiocy of VH1 etc. Make no mistake, culture is the most important weapon in the nation's arsenal.

MM: Can you elaborate on this statement: "Make no mistake; culture is the most important weapon in the nation's arsenal."?

Ian: Rock n roll and jazz , and Hollywood movies in particular, reify american imperialism overseas. Witness 'Apocalypse Now' recasting genocide as a sympathetic good ole boy adventure and the spook soldiers as Mr Mojo Rising, hotdogging to a Rolling Stones soundtrack. The hep Coppola make-over saved the US army from their marginalization as killer jar heads by the protest movement.
Ultimately, that film did more for interventionist apologists than a million of Mr. Reagan's speeches. All of Hollywood's Vietnam films are instructive as per their focus on the plight of the psyche of the GI; the obvious analogy would be WW2 films bemoaning the intense pressure for the concentration camp guards at Auschwitz. "Poor Hans; it was so difficult to murder all those gypsies and jews"; the Vietnam war killed millions of people and obliterated the eco systems of three countries...
If Stalin had continued the avant art policies of the Bolsheviks instead of proclaiming the era of reactionary social realism, the Soviet Union may have triumphed geo politically.
Further, Hitler's obsession with Wagner led him to the tragic conclusion of his hero Siegfried.
The CIA of course understands the significance of art which is why the government funds and determines the content of war films, writing and high art (ala Abstract Expressionism).
The institutionalized philistinism of the culture is more complex than is immediately apparent.

MM: The word "hero" is being used today in a disturbing manner. For instance, Matchbox has a line of toys called "Hero City" that have a police and fire fighter theme. What are your thoughts on the word "hero"and its current use? Do you think that the Operation Iraqi Freedom POW's, such as Jessica Lynch, are heroes?

Ian:The policy makers and the soldiers involved in the recent invasion are mass murderers. The common soldier, though absolved by liberals due to their probable economical circumstances, should find a better way to pay for college than destroying a country, killing the people in it and wiping out an entire social infrastructure for the benefit of US Business men.
If I killed people to pay for college, I don't think these liberals would think it was sympathetic behaviour. If Killing people is OK due to poverty, than why prosecute the crack dealer killers etc.who are so zealously imprisoned and executed? They are just
making ends meet after all. The "support our troops" ruse must be destroyed once and for all. Based on some imaginary incident during the Vietnam war when hippies spit on veterans, it's absolutely subverted the discussion on the shame of international mass murder.

The troops don't need your support. They're probably safer killing Iraqi civilians than you are driving down the NJ turnpike. And besides , you already support them by paying for them and their future pensions, college funds, medical care etc.
The army is no longer the drafted "citizen soldiers" of Vietnam, hapless schmucks who were shipped away.
They are people who've chosen to join the aggressive invasion force of a nation which has bombed a country every year since WWII! (that's 58 years)

They are also cowards; People compare Bush to Hitler... but at least Hitler invaded countries which had armies!
The wermacht, in a strictly military sense, was fairly heroic to invade France and Russia, conquer Europe and fight a two front war against Great Britain, which was the foremost imperial power of the time.
The "heroes" of the USA bombed IRAQ with impunity, almost daily, for twelve years(!!!), then sent in their proxy forces (the hypocrite UN) to disarm the Iraqi army of anything but a few rifles and then unleashed a space age attack which included satelites, cruise missiles fired from Tampa, Robot aircraft etc. How pathetic. They are disgusting murderingimperialist larvae.

MM: In your interview with Howard Zinn last year in Index magazine, Mr. Zinn says he wants to "create a new set of heroes. Instead of Theodore Roosevelt, lets have Mark Twain....Instead of Woodrow Wilson...Helen Keller." Who would you include in a "new set of heroes"?

Ian: My Hero is Fidel Castro of course; Read "Nothing can stop the course of History" for an in depth interview with this extraordinary man.

MM: Are you at liberty to elaborate on the essays/interviews you are currently working on? I know you write for Index and BB Gun; do you write for any other publications?

Ian: I'm writing about the resposible use of rock n roll and the untold ingredients of music, respectively.
I've written for SOUND COLLECTOR, SUPER X , ARTHUR , BBGUN, DOT DOT DOT, INDEX SEX from Sweden and various web magazines. This is all I can recall right now...

MM: Do you have any plans to write a book or publish a collection of your essays?

Ian:I have another book which will someday be published when I find a publisher daring enough to touch it.

MM: How do you explain the sudden surge of Michael Jackson mania in the news: baby dangling, Fox specials, counter-Fox specials, etc.?

Ian: Michael Jackson as a deformed gay black man is a delightful demon for the fascist, conformity obsessed media.
MJ is most certainly a pedophile, but that's no suprise since Rock N Roll is all about pedophilia. However, noone cared when Bill Wyman married a thirteen year old. That was just considered the spoils of victory. All the rockstars who shook
their heads in consternation were made famous by fucking thirteen year old girls; Iggy boasts of it in "Please Kill Me" , Jimmy Page brags of it in "Hammer of the Gods", Elvis, etc etc. So why the vilification? MJ is an example of a child who grew up in fascism to hate his race/face , but who was then punished for attempting to attain the imagined ideal of the parent culture.

MM: Why is Scene Creamers "music for masturbation," as you said during your show at NYU's Thompson Center in April?

Ian: Modern Rock N Roll is obsessed with historical paradigms and standards of behaviour which ensure the "classic" and "timeless" nature of the work. Critically prescribed parameters are studiously observed while manufacturing these groups, explaining the absence of political content of any sort in 99% of groups for example. According to Mussolini, fascism is the collusion of the government and industry unfettered, with social control based on the intense pressure to conform to the commonality of the mass. In today's fascism, conformity is no longer the product so much of national feeling, as in the past, but sexual anxiety inveighed through breasts on beer commercials and the income obsession of SUV advertisements; the fear of being strange and therefore not getting laid.
In a culture where sexual anxiety results in fascist apathy and musical conformity, the music must now be for masturbation.

MM:Michelle is in the running for "sexiest babe of indie rock" on Playboy.com. The
"winner" will be asked to pose nude for Playboy. Did you know about this? What are your thoughts on this? What are Michelle's thoughts on this?

Ian: Playboy has established their critical criteria for their like/dislike of the particular groups: the interest of the readership in seeing them with no clothes on. This is actually more cogent than most music magazines who have no discernable aesthetic parameters and where the criticism is just based on the whim of the reviewer. Playboy is interesting historically as a key player in the hybridization of low and high brow post war culture, the infantilization of male sexuality in America and the cooptation of counter culture by the pigs.

MM: Do you think your music and/or performances are political in any way?

Ian: Music need not attempt to be political. It's enough to make something beautiful. Culture IS the weapon which is used to subjegate th world to an ideology / market system, so watch how you are utilized, Rock N Rollers. I like a performance to have a conversational aspect which might perhaps address topical events, but lyrics for me are never political.

MM: What's next for Scene Creamers?

Ian: SCENE CREAMERS are expanding our scope beyond songs and pictures and words and into smells.

THE END

See Also:

The Nation of Ulysses

Make-Up

David Candy

Weird War