Boyd Rice

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Boyd Rice
Birth nameBoyd Blake Rice
Also known asNON
Born (1956-12-16) December 16, 1956 (age 67)
Lemon Grove, California, U.S.
OriginDenver, Colorado, U.S.
Genres
Occupation(s)Musician, composer, author
Instrument(s)Tape machines, turntables
Years active1975–present
LabelsMute

Boyd Blake Rice (born December 16, 1956) is an American experimental sound/noise musician using the name of NON since the mid-1970s. A pioneer of industrial music, Rice was one of the first artists to use a sampler and turntable as an instrument.[1] He is also an archivist, actor, photographer, author, member of the Partridge Family Temple religious group, co-founder of the UNPOP art movement and former staff writer for the formerly defunct but now active Modern Drunkard magazine.[2]

Biography[edit]

Rice was born on December 16, 1956 in Lemon Grove, California.[3] He became widely known through his involvement in V. Vale's RE/Search Publications. He is profiled in RE/Search #6/7: Industrial Culture Handbook[4] and Pranks![5] In this interview, he emphasized the consensus nature of reality and the havoc that can be wreaked by refusing to play by the collective rules that dictate most people's perception of the external world.

In the mid-1980s Rice became close friends with Anton LaVey, founder and high priest of the Church of Satan, and was made a priest, then later a magister in the Council of Nine of the Church. The two admired much of the same music and shared a similar misanthropic outlook. Each had been inspired by Might Is Right in fashioning various works: LaVey in his seminal Satanic Bible and Rice in several recordings.

Rice's Social Darwinist outlook eventually led to him founding the Social Darwinist think tank called The Abraxas Foundation, along with co-founder Nikolas Schreck. The organization promotes authoritarianism, totalitarianism, misanthropism, and elitism, is antidemocratic, and has some philosophical overlap with the Church of Satan.

Rice has documented the writings of Charles Manson in his role as contributing editor of The Manson File. Rice was a featured guest on Talk Back, a radio program hosted by the Evangelical Christian Bob Larson.[6] In total, Rice made five appearances on Larson's program. During an interview, Rice described the basic philosophy of his foundation as being "The strong rule the weak, and the clever rule the strong".[7]

Although Rice was sometimes reported to possess the world's largest Barbie collection, he confessed in a 2003 interview with Brian M. Clark to owning only a few.[8]

In 2000, along with Tracy Twyman, editor of Dagobert's Revenge, Rice filmed a special on Rennes-le-Château for the program In Search of... on Fox television. (The segment was later included in the 2002 version of In Search of... on the Sci Fi Channel.) Rice has done extensive research into Gnosticism as well as Grail legends and Merovingian lore, sharing this research in Dagobert's Revenge and The Vessel of God.[9] There is controversy regarding Boyd Rice's authorship and the authenticity of his contributions about Gnosticism and the Esoteric in writings during the phase with Tracy R. Twyman. There are letters which surfaced on the internet after Tracy's death, where she states that Boyd Rice took credit for her ideas, and that Tracy wrote the materials which Boyd Rice claimed for both Dagobert's Revenge and The Vessel of God. The website davincicodecoded.com [official website for Da Vinci Code Decoded by Martin Lunn] contains references to these letters regarding the authorship of The Vessel of God and Boyd Rice's working habits with regard to scholarly writing.

Rice was involved in creating a Tiki bar called Tiki Boyd's at the East Coast Bar in Denver, Colorado. Rice decorated the entire establishment out of his own pocket due to his fondness of Tiki culture, asking an open tab at the bar in return. Rice has long expressed a love of Tiki culture, in contrast to the other elements of his public persona.[10]

Tiki Boyd's was given its name in his honor.[11] Due to disagreements between Rice and the owners, Rice pulled out of the deal and reclaimed all of his Tiki decorations. The future of the bar as it remains now is uncertain. Rice plans to re-establish another Tiki Bar elsewhere in Denver.[10]

October 26, 2018, the teen magazine Galore premiered a music video for the song "Resort Beyond the Last Resort" by the band Collapsing Scenery that Rice starred in. The video was directed by Kansas Bowling and parodies Boyd's essay from Answer Me! "Revolt Against Penis Envy". In the video Rice goes to Casa Bonita in Denver and then is drugged and raped by a woman.[12]

Music[edit]

Rice creates music under his own name, as well as under the moniker of NON and with contributors under various other project names.

Early sound experiments[edit]

Rice started creating experimental noise recordings in 1975, drawing on his interest in tape machines and bubblegum pop sung by female vocalists such as Little Peggy March and Ginny Arnell. One of his earliest efforts consisted entirely of a loop of every time Lesley Gore sang the word "cry". After initially creating recordings simply for his own listening, he later started to give performances, and eventually make records. His musical project NON grew out of these early experiments; he reportedly selected the name because "it implies everything and nothing".

Techniques and implementations[edit]

From his earliest recordings, Rice has experimented with both sound and the medium through which that sound is conveyed. His methods of expanding upon the listening possibilities for recorded music were simple. On his second seven-inch, he had 2–4 extra holes punched into the record for "multi axial rotation".[13] Another early LP was titled Play at Any Speed. While working exclusively with vinyl, he employed locked grooves that allowed listeners to create their own music. He was one of the first artists, after John Cage, to treat turntables as instruments[14] and developed various techniques for scratching. Rice has been treating sounds from vinyl recordings as early as 1975.[15]

NON[edit]

Under the name NON, originally with second member Robert Turman, Rice has recorded several seminal noise music albums, and collaborated with experimental music/dark folk artists like Current 93, Death in June and Rose McDowall. Most of his music has been released on the Mute Records label. Rice has also collaborated with Frank Tovey of Fad Gadget, Tony Wakeford of Sol Invictus and Michael Jenkins Moynihan of Blood Axis. His later albums have often been explicitly conceptual.

On Might! (1995), Rice layers portions of Ragnar Redbeard's Social Darwinist harangue, Might Is Right over sound beds of looped noise and manipulated frequencies. 1997's God & Beast explores the intersection in the soul of man's physical and spiritual natures over the course of an album that alternates abrasive soundscapes with passages of tranquility.

In 2006, Rice returned to the studio to record raw vocal sound sources for a collaboration with Industrial, modern primitive percussionist/ethnomusicologist Z'EV. In addition, he and long-time friend of twenty years Giddle Partridge planned an album titled LOVE/LOVE-BANG/BANG!, under the band name of Giddle & Boyd. After the limited edition release of a bubblegum pink, heart-shaped vinyl E.P. titled, Going Steady With Peggy Moffitt. In early 2010, Rice announced that he and Giddle Partridge would focus on solo projects/albums for the time being.

Crowd control[edit]

Early NON performances were designed to offer choice to audience members who might otherwise expect only a prefabricated and totally passive entertainment experience. Rice has stated that he considers his performances to be "de-indoctrination rites". Rice has performed using a shoe polisher, the "rotoguitar" (an electric guitar with an electric fan on it), and other homemade instruments. He has also used found sounds, played at a volume just below the threshold of pain, to entice his audiences to endure his high decibel sound experiments.

Rice coupled his aural assaults with psychological torture on audiences in The Hague, the Netherlands, by shining in their faces exceedingly bright lights that were deliberately placed just out of reach. As their frustration mounted, Rice states that he:

...continued to be friendly to the audience, which made them even madder, because they were so mad and I didn't care! They were shaking their fists at me, and I thought that at any minute there'd be a riot. So I took it as far as I thought I could, and then thanked them and left.[4]

Other work[edit]

After dropping out of high school at the age of 17, Rice began an in-depth study of early 20th-century art movements, producing his own abstract black and white paintings and experimental photographs. Early on, he met European art historian and gallery owner Arturo Schwarz, with whom he began a long correspondence. Schwarz, a biographer of Duchamp and Man Ray, encouraged Rice to pursue his art, no matter what. And he did. Though he would later shift his focus to sound, he has never stopped creating visual art and has given a number of one man shows over the years.[16]

In the mid-1970s Rice devoted a great deal of time to experimental photography, developing a process by which he could produce "photographs of things which don't exist".[17] He had a one-man show of the photos in the early 1980s at Richard Peterson's Pink & Pearl Gallery in San Diego, which was documented in the local press, the San Diego Union and Evening Tribune. He has never revealed the means by which he made these photos, and has stated publicly that the secret will go to the grave with him. Some of these photos can be seen in his book Standing in Two Circles (Creation Press, 2008).

Over the years, Boyd Rice's writings have been translated into at least six languages.[18] His collected writings were published in 2008 by Creation Press. A French language edition followed on Camion Noir.

In 2009, his book NO was published by Heartworm Press. This was widely regarded[by whom?] as a book defining Rice's personal philosophy. Rice defined the book as merely a "laundry list" of things he didn't believe in.[citation needed] He later stated in an interview with WFMU's Beware of the Blog, "sometimes the things you don't believe are more important than what you do believe".

In October 2011, Heartworm Press published Rice's Twilight Man, a noir memoir about his life in 1980s San Francisco.[citation needed]

Views[edit]

Rice told one interviewer, "I'm utterly apolitical".[19] He is a registered Independent.[19] Rice considers all politicians to be "dissimulators".[20] Rice has also stated that he considers ideology itself to be toxic and that he rejects the concept of ideology; Rice has designed T-shirts that read "Ideology Is Toxic".[19] Rice has also expressed the opinion that "the far left and the far right [overlap]" because Rice considers both intolerant, saying that "both want to take away people’s rights if they have the power to do so".[19] In 2019, Rice said regarding the Presidency of Donald Trump that "It has made the United States into this kind of reality TV show where the populace is behaving like an audience members on a Jerry Springer show", which Rice considered "entertaining to watch".[19] Rice designed a T-shirt which reads "Victimhood is Powerful", and explained in an interview that the shirt was inspired by the MeToo movement, saying that "There’s a certain segment of the population for whom being victimized is the ultimate form of heroism, and I don’t understand that."[21]

Criticism[edit]

In 1989, Rice and Bob Heick of the white nationalist American Front organization were photographed for Sassy wearing uniforms and brandishing knives. While Rice would later recall it as a prank, the photo has caused boycotts and protests at many of Rice's appearances. When asked if he regrets the photo, Rice stated, "I don't care. I don't think I ever made a wrong move. The bad stuff is just good. America loves its villains."[22]

More controversy has resulted because of Rice's appearance on Race and Reason,[23] a public-access television cable TV show hosted by white supremacist Tom Metzger. Rice has claimed not to be a Nazi in numerous interviews[24] whilst his friend Rose McDowall has claimed he has never said anything racist nor endorsed Nazism to her.[25] However, Stewart Home has claimed that Rice is a supporter of Nazism.[26] Boyd Rice was associated with Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey[27] and has collaborated with Adam Parfrey,[28] who was Jewish.[29]

On August 8, 1988, Boyd Rice was among the performers at 8/8/88 at the Strand Theater in San Francisco, which was locally heavily advertised and sold out, billed as "An Evening of Apocalyptic Delight". Rice appeared with the band Radio Werewolf as well as Zeena Lavey, daughter of the founder of the Church of Satan, and Adam Parfrey. Rice reports that, "Minutes after they took the stage in their Teutonic garb, the audience fled in droves" though others present that night did not see anyone leaving.[30]

Discography[edit]

Year Title Under
1976[31] The Black Album Boyd Rice
1977 Mode of Infection/Knife Ladder – 7" NON
1978 Pagan Muzak – 7" with multiple locked grooves NON
1982 Rise – 12" NON
1982 (rec. 1977–82) Physical Evidence NON
1983 Sickness of Snakes / Nightmare Culture Boyd Rice & COIL / Boyd Rice & Current 93
1984 (rec. 1981) Easy Listening for the Hard of Hearing Boyd Rice and Frank Tovey
1985 Sick Tour – Live in Holland NON
1987 (rec. 1983) Blood and Flame NON
1990 Music, Martinis and Misanthropy Boyd Rice and Friends
1991 Easy Listening for Iron Youth – The Best of NON NON
1992 In the Shadow of the Sword NON
1993 I'm Just Like You The Tards (8" single by Boyd Rice & Adam Parfrey)
1993 Ragnarok Rune Boyd Rice
1993 Seasons in the Sun Spell
1994 The Monopoly Queen – 7" The Monopoly Queen (w/ Mary Ellen Carver & Combustible Edison)
1995 Might! NON
1995 Hatesville The Boyd Rice Experience
1996 Heaven Sent Scorpion Wind (w/ Douglas P. & John Murphy)
1996 Ralph Gean: A Star Unborn Boyd Rice Presents
1996 Death's Gladsome Wedding: Hymns and Marches from Transylvania's Notorious Legionari Movement Boyd Rice Presents
1997 God & Beast NON
1999 Receive the Flame NON
1999 Pagan Muzak – 7" with multiple locked grooves Rerelease NON
2000 The Way I Feel Boyd Rice
2000 Solitude – 7" with locked grooves on B-side NON
2001 Wolf Pact Boyd Rice and Fiends
2002 Children of the Black Sun NON
2002 The Registered Three Boyd Rice & Friends (C.D. Single)
2002 Music for Pussycats: Girl Groups Boyd Rice Presents
2004 Baptism By Fire (Live) Boyd Rice and Fiends
2004 Terra Incognita: Ambient Works 1975 to Present Boyd Rice/NON
2004 Alarm Agents Death in June & Boyd Rice
2005 The Very Best of Little Fyodor's Greatest Hits! Boyd Rice Presents
2008 Boyd Rice and Z'EV Boyd Rice and Z'EV
2008 Going Steady With Peggy Moffitt Giddle & Boyd
2012 Back to Mono NON
2020 Blast of Silence NON

Filmography[edit]

Film[edit]

  • Pranks! TV! (1986, VHS) (directed by V. Vale), RE/Search Publications
  • Tyranny of the Beat (1991), Mute Records
  • Speak of the Devil (1995, VHS) (about Anton LaVey, directed by Nick Bougas), Wavelength Video
  • Boyd Rice Documentary, Part One (1994), Joel Haertling
  • Boyd Rice Documentary, Part Two (1998), Joel Haertling
  • Pearls Before Swine (1999) (directed by Richard Wolstencroft)
  • Nixing the Twist (2000, DVD) (directed by Frank Kelly Rich), High Crime Films
  • The Many Moods of Boyd Rice (2002, VHS), Predatory Instinct Productions
  • Church of Satan Interview Archive (2003, DVD), Purging Talon
  • Baptism by Fire (2004, DVD) (live performance in Bologna, Italy), NERO2
  • Frank Tovey by Fad Gadget (2006) (documentary), Mute Records
  • Iconoclast (2011) (directed by Larry Wessel), iconoclastmovie.com
  • Modern Drunkard (directed by Frank Kelly Rich)
  • In Satan's Name (BBC documentary by director Antony Thomas)
  • In Satan's Name (Bob Larson's 31-episode television series), Trinity Broadcasting Network
  • Resort Beyond the Last Resort (music video directed by Kansas Bowling), Collapsing Scenery

Performance[edit]

Print[edit]

  • Perpetual Permutation Poetry, International Artist's Cooperative, (1976)
  • Painted Black, Carl Rashke
  • Tape Delay, SAF Publishing, (1987)
  • Pop Void, Pop Void Publications, (1987)
  • RE/Search No. 6: Industrial Culture Handbook, RE/Search Publications (1983, ISBN 0-940642-07-7)
  • RE/Search No. 10: Incredibly Strange Films: A Guide to Deviant Films, RE/Search Publications (1986, ISBN 0-940642-09-3) (joint author)
  • RE/Search No. 11: Pranks!. RE/Search Publications (1986, ISBN 0-9650469-8-2)
  • The Manson File edited by Nikolas Schreck, Amok Press (1988, ISBN 0-941693-04-X)
  • Apocalypse Culture: Expanded & Revised Edition edited by Adam Parfrey, Feral House, (1990, ISBN 0-922915-05-9)
  • ANSWER Me!, issue No. 3 (1993, ISBN 0-9764035-3-6)
  • ANSWER Me!, issue No. 4 (1994)
  • Death in June: le livre Brun, Camion Blanc, (1994)
  • Death in June: Misery & Purity, Jara Press, (1995)
  • The Exit Collection, Tacit, (1998)
  • Taboo: The Art of Tiki, Outre Press, (1999)
  • Lucifer Rising, Plexus Publishing, (1999)
  • Cinema Contra Cinema, Fringecore, (1999)
  • Apocalypse Culture II, edited by Adam Parfrey, Feral House (2000, ISBN 0-922915-57-1)
  • Paranoia: The Conspiracy Reader, issue 32, Spring 2003.
  • The Book of Lies, Disinformation Press, (2003)
  • 100 Artists See Satan, Last Gasp Press, (2004)
  • The Vessel of God, Terra Fria, (2005)
  • .45 Dangerous Minds, Creation Press, (2005)
  • Art That Kills, Creation Press, (2006)
  • Noise Music: A History, Continuum International Publishing Group, (2007)
  • The Book of Satanic Quotations, Purging Talon Press, (2008)
  • Bubblegum & Sunshine Pop, Les Cahiers du Rock, (2008)
  • Iron Youth Reader, Underworld Amusements, (2008)
  • Standing in Two Circles: Les Ecrits de Boyd Rice, (French translation) edited by Brian M. Clark Camion Noir, (2009, ISBN 978-2-35779-010-0)
  • Standing in Two Circles: The Collected Works of Boyd Rice, edited by Brian M. Clark, CTBKS, (2008, ISBN 1-84068-118-7)
  • No, Heartworm Press, (2009)
  • Death in June: Hidden Behind the Runes, Aldo Clementi, (2010)
  • Mondo Movies, Baazar & Co., (2010)
  • Charles Manson: Le Guru du Rock, Camion Noir, (2010)
  • Twilight Man, Heartworm Press, (2011)
  • Vlad the Impaler, Ian Allan, (2011)
  • No, Expanded and revised edition Heartworm Press
  • Death in June Songbook

References[edit]

  1. ^ Schurr, Maria (February 5, 2013). "BOYD RICE/NON: 24 JANUARY 2013 – BROOKLYN, NY". PopMatters. Retrieved March 20, 2023.
  2. ^ Modern Drunkard Magazine Online staff writer list Archived October 11, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ "Boyd Rice Songs, Albums, Reviews, Bio & More". AllMusic.
  4. ^ a b Vale, V. Juno, Andrea. Re/Search #6/7: Industrial Culture Handbook (1983) ISBN 0-940642-07-7
  5. ^ Juno, Andrea (Editor), Ballard, J. G. (Editor), Re/Search #11: Pranks (1987) ISBN 0-940642-10-7
  6. ^ "My Dinner with Bob Larson" Archived October 14, 2004, at the Wayback Machine, Snake Oil magazine (1994)
  7. ^ "Boyd Rice vs. Bob Larson Interview Talk Back Broadcasts 1-5". YouTube. October 25, 2013. Retrieved May 6, 2017.
  8. ^ From The Black Pimp Speaks, 2003 interview with Boyd Rice appearing in Rated Rookie magazine No. 6, 2004. Viewable online: "Archived copy". Archived from the original on October 21, 2004. Retrieved 2004-09-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. ^ "An Introduction to the Grail Research & Esoteric Writings of Boyd Rice". The Vessel of God. Boyd Rice. Retrieved July 26, 2012.
  10. ^ a b "Tiki Boyd's – Denver's Newest & Only Tiki Bar". Boydrice.com. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
  11. ^ "Tiki Boyd's". DISCRIMINATE MEDIA. Retrieved July 26, 2012.
  12. ^ Koczon, Mallie (October 26, 2018). "This young, female director just created this unreal video for Collapsing Scenery". Galore. Retrieved December 25, 2018.
  13. ^ "Laugh til it hurts". The Wire (256).
  14. ^ Zylo, Arvo (May 19, 2011). "Have A Nice Day: An Interview with Boyd Rice". Archived from the original on May 25, 2011.
  15. ^ Blood Book "Boyd Rice Interview" 2010
  16. ^ Press release from Mitchell Algus Gallery (NYC) for Rice's one man show of paintings.
  17. ^ Standing in Two Circles
  18. ^ Biography of "No", Heartworm Press
  19. ^ a b c d e Staff (March 16, 2019). "Culture Talk – Boyd Rice of 'NON' and Countless other Projects". The Aither. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  20. ^ Barry, Robert (October 3, 2012). "FACT meets Boyd Rice: noise pioneer, film buff, leader of the Church of Satan". Fact magazine. Retrieved March 20, 2023.
  21. ^ Hain, Stefan (October 19, 2020). "Interview with Boyd Rice". Caesura magazine. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  22. ^ "With Pity Towards None (interview)". Tangents. 1997. Archived from the original on June 6, 2011. Retrieved December 17, 2007.
  23. ^ "Boyd Rice's Race and Reason interview causes controversy" Side-line.com
  24. ^ "Boyd Rice". Boyd Rice. Archived from the original on July 3, 2016. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
  25. ^ "He's never said anything racist to me. I've talked to him about it and he's said he now has to be careful about things he says because people will misconstrue things. I'm sure he did wear swastikas when he was a punk, a lot of punks did" – Rose McDowall, more quotes like this in the interview also. Strawberryswitchblade.net Archived July 11, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  26. ^ "Tony Wakeford, Sol Invictus, Above the Ruins, fascism, Boyd Rice". Stewarthomesociety.org. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
  27. ^ Photo of Boyd and LaVey: Boydrice.com Archived September 23, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
  28. ^ "Hatesville at Boyd Rice and Friends's discography". Archived from the original on June 25, 2013. Retrieved September 20, 2010.
  29. ^ Boyd Rice on Race and Reason, Los Angeles, 1986{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  30. ^ No Other Radio Network September 22 Broadcast, San Francisco, September 22, 1988{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  31. ^ Boydrice.com

Further reading[edit]

Chad Hensley. "Non Sense: An Interview with Boyd Rice". Esoterra: The Journal of Extreme Culture 9 (Fall/Winter 2000), pp. 12–17.
Arvo Zylo. "Have A Nice Day: An Interview with Boyd Rice". WFMU's Beware of the Blog (May 19, 2011), http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2011/05/a-conversation-with-boyd-rice.html; retrieved October 10, 2017.

External links[edit]