Blogcember: Assimilate/Sexism in Counter-Culture Music

jvmatucha asked a tough one:

In regards to Assimilate, the book you've read and that I'm very much enjoying, can you give me examples of your criticism of Reed's work and of industrial culture in regards to unadmitted mainstream western influences, gender, and ethnicity?

(I'm already working on my own rant! One theme: Industrial, the whitest music on the planet!)

Or just give me a rant about sexism in counter culture music!

So, first up, if I hadn't also read a book about Communist mysticism in Central Europe, S. Alexander Reed's Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music would rate as the best non-fiction book I've read this year, and, indeed, in quite awhile. It's fantastic and I highly recommend it.

Secondly, no post about sexism and racism in industrial music would be complete without a link to Ad•ver•sary's We Demand Better, which is both a great introduction to and critique of some of the issues we're dealing with here. He's also interviewed in the book, by the way.

Thirdly, a disclaimer of my own: I'm white, I'm female, and I haven't personally encountered any more overt sexism or racism within the industrial music community than I have in any other circle I travel in, and possibly a bit less, though that's largely a factor of preferring music identified with radical left politics. (Though not exclusively. I like a lot of really problematic, vaguely right-wing music as well. But there are some bands where I wouldn't go to their shows because they/their audience scare me.) I have encountered individual people who have shitty gender/race/class analyses and are also into industrial, but correlation isn't causation, etc.

( Much rambling. You've been warned. )

So that's it for Blogcember, unless anyone would like to suggest more topics.

2013 Book Log

New year, new book log.

Fiction:
1. The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch
2. Sashenka, Simon Montefiore
3. The Dark Side of the Earth, Alfred Bester
4. Red Seas Under Red Skies, Scott Lynch
5. Shadow and Bone, Leigh Bardugo
6. Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente
7. Havemercy, Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett
8. Bullettime, Nick Mamatas
9. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
10. Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
11. Homeland, Cory Doctorow
12. The Man Who Was Thursday, G.K. Chesterton
13. Old Man's War, John Scalzi
14. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
15. And the Ass Saw the Angel, Nick Cave
16. Gun Machine, Warren Ellis
17. The Ghost Brigades, John Scalzi
18. Sister Mine, Nalo Hopkinson
19. The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
20. Crisis in Zefra, Karl Schroeder
21. Through the Valley of the Nest of the Spiders, Samuel R. Delany
22. Zodiac, Neal Stephenson
23. My Name Is Red, Orhan Pamuk
24. A Delicate Truth, John LeCarré
25. Use of Weapons, Iain M. Banks
26. Look to Windward, Iain M. Banks
27. Ten Billion Days and One Hundred Billion Nights, Ryu Mitsuse
28. The Painted Bird, Jerzy Kosiński
29. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
30. Excession, Iain M. Banks
31. The Ocean At the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman
32. Love Is the Law, Nick Mamatas
33. Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks
34. Complicity, Iain Banks
35. Against a Dark Background, Iain M. Banks
36. Whit, Iain Banks
37. Matter, Iain M. Banks
38. The Algebraist, Iain M. Banks

Non-Fiction:
1. Against Security: How We Go Wrong at Airports, Subways, and Other Sites of Ambiguous Danger, Harvey Molotch
2. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco
3. Pain, Porn and Complicity: Women Heroes from Pygmalian to Twilight, Kathleen McConnell
4. 1848: Year of Revolution, Mike Rapport
5. Warrior Nation: Rebranding Canada in an Age of Anxiety, Ian McKay and Jamie Swift
6. Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia, Andrei Znamenski
7. Nick Cave: Sinner Saint: The True Confessions, Mat Snow (ed.)
8. Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History Of Punk In Toronto And Beyond 1977—1981, Liz Worth (edited by Gary Pig Gold.
9. Unbuilt Toronto: A History of the City That Might Have Been, Mark Osbaldeston
10. Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin, Mel Gordon
11. Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music, S. Alexander Reed
12. Bread and Roses Too: Studies of the Wobblies, Joseph Robert Conlin

Comics & Art Books:
1. Marshal Law #1-6, Marshal Law Takes Manhattan, Marshal Law: Kingdom of the Blind, Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill
2. Beautiful Stories For Ugly Children, #1-18, Dave Louapre and Dan Sweetman
3. Swamp Thing Vol. 1: Saga of the Swamp Thing, Alan Moore, John Totleben, and Steve Bissette
4. Occupy Comics #1, Matt Pizzolo (ed.)