"People who deem you a racist are being incredibly small minded" is what Slaves guitarist Laurie Vincent told NME when questioned about the connotations of his band's incredibly thoughtless if not racist name. For the lucky few that have managed to avoid Slaves' trashy, aimless and completely irrelevant take on punk music as well as their awful and totally predictable fake ironic social media persona, they're a two-piece white male band who call themselves Slaves because "slavery has happened to every single creed, race and religion" uh, white slavery? Let's not even get onto why suggesting that the slave trade can be compared to any form of white slavery is totally offensive. This is my issue with Slaves, not their name itself, but their response to the criticism it has rightly faced as the band's popularity has grown over the last few months. US post-punk act Viet Cong responded to having a show cancelled due to the implications of their name by saying "We never meant to trivialise the atrocities or violence that occurred on both sides of the Vietnam war. We never intended for our name to be provocative or hurtful", if Slaves really did feel no guilt for all for the upset that they provoked upon naming their band, could they not have just replaced a few words on Viet Cong's apology? Beyond their ignorance towards pretty perpetual racial issues, Isaac Holman and Laurie Vincent seem to have a problem with poor people, too. The last single from their debut record is entitled "Cheer Up London" and takes the viewpoint that the 63,367 Londoners that resorted to foodbanks last year alone should, well, cheer up. In the song, Slaves repeat the mantra "put another 0 on your paycheck, are you done digging your grave yet?" because, having grown up in Tunbridge Wells, Kent (a town which made national news with their disgust of a Poundland opening in the area, and not a Waitrose), they're well-informed on poverty and completely have the right to dismiss the effect of austerity on Londoners living below the poverty line and their desire to improve their quality of life. The track ends with Holman warning "Cheer up London, mind the gap".There's a strong argument that Birmingham band Peace are equally as problematic when it comes to classism, with the four-piece asking "Money, do you need it? Do you eat in when you're hungry?" on their inventively titled single 'Money'. The sad truth, though, is that there's a far bigger problem when it comes to the deafening ignorance of white male indie groups:
Belle & Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch's employed an entirely white cast for his film God Help The Girl which in essence puts forward the idea that indie rock and white people are one and the same, and it's that kind of entitlement mindset that so many white people are guilty of. How about Devin Ruben Perez of Diiv, the complete epitome of the cultural ignorance, and in this case even hatred, that people just don't want to believe exists in independent music. Devin's infamous 4chan posts (in which he uses the N word, homophobic insults and sexist slurs when referring to Perfect Pussy's Meredith Graves) have been well talked about. The band's frontman, Zachary Cole Smith, took to Twitter at the time to express his supposed disgust that a member of his band had been outed as an insufferable bigoted creep who uses 4chan. Despite Smith's claims that he would "never EVER" tolerate sexism, racism and homophobia in his band, Perez is still a member of Diiv six months later. Perez has furthered his reputation as a complete reprobate since the incident having stepped out of his 4chan cave and taken to Twitter to tell Hookworms' MJ "making you upset makes me happier than literally anything in this world but maybe a little less than watching you bleed actually" as well as his questionable syntax, that's a pretty warped thing to say. He also criticised ex-Joanna Gruesome member Alanna Mcardle for leaving the band due to mental health issues, justifying doing so by saying "Get it straight, this was after she called me a bellend". What does it take for one white guy to take action against another? There's also the complete plague over UK music at the moment that is Catfish & The Bottlemen, the band that offer 'cock snot' and 'signed titties' on their merch posters, which would be bad enough if a large majority of their fanbase didn't consist of 14-17 year olds. Their music is uninspired to say the least, but their lyrics are where the real problems lie, "You give me problems when you are not in the mood" stands out as being particularly worrying. The Orwells of Chicago are yet another white male indie group (they call themselves garage rock, but they're very far from The Sonics) with a sexism issue. Frontman Mario Cuomo told instagram users "stfu bitch go spill yer feminism shit to some dykes who care", not to mention that his lyrics to their track 'Southern Comfort' are way beyond problematic ("I can't walk and I can't dance, give me a smile and take of your pants").
I think it's pretty clear that straight white dudes think that they can get away with anything they like as long as they wear leather jackets and write the kind of generic indie rock songs that you got sick of in 2006. We need to stop overlooking discrimination just because the perpetrator can write a generic chord progression.
By Marty Hill
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