Faderhead against the world (and Nachtmahr and VNV Nation)

What was a small drama at the Kinetik festival last week - Ad·ver·sary's rather unnecessary publicity stunt on racism and sexism in Combichrist and Nachtmar's imagery (watch the video here), lyrics and promotional material - has now crossed the pond as a certain German musician found it necessary to jump on the wagon. Yes, some bands need all the attention they need or can get and some even go at great lengths to bash other bands in the process.

As it seems Faderhead's Sami Mark Yahya fell into that trap and felt the need to vent some of his frustrations in a recent blog post on his website. But we aren't so sure that it brought him many fans, especially not when the blogpost turned out to be nothing else but a public assault on other more well known musicians such as Ronan Harris (VNV Nation) and Thomas Rainer (Nachtmahr, L'âme Immortelle). And all this disguised under the label of 'a little guide to determining the truth about Faderhead'.

Read along what got posted on the Faderhead blog:

• "He said Thomas Rainer (Nachtmahr) is a Nazi!" - true. Listen to him when he gets drunk. I've personally heard him spout racist "Untermensch"-stuff on one occasion (Amphi 2010 backstage) and I know a bunch of others who have too. So I don't buy his "it's all provocation in the name of art!"-shtick. If I had known this in 2009 (when I met Thomas at Mera Luna) I would have never done the "Mädchen In Uniform"-remix. But hey, if you play in a band, dressed up as a Hitler-lookalike, you'll have to live with the fact that people call you out on your shit.
  
• "He's got beef with Ronan Harris!" - true. Actually, Ronan Harris has some sort of beef with me. I don't know what about exactly but I don't care either. I don't like the guy, but I respect him as a performer.

Honestly, who is waiting for such a rant? And who is benefiting from such a trash talk? Surely not Faderhead.

In short, Sami, maybe you should just have stuck to the Faderhead 'stories' on coke ("might be true, but very dependent on availability"), etc. Not that they bring any value to your work or the scene, but at least they wouldn't have caused so much image damage than the tirade against other more established acts. Perhaps you should just stop being jealous, and make music instead?

Here's the video which was displayed during the final minutes of the Ad·ver·sary + Antigen Shift performance at Festival Kinetik 5.0.



And here is that fine Nachtmahr video for "Can you feel the beat".

Posted by B. Van Isacker