Artist: Laibach
Label: Mute Records
Release: 2006
DIVIDED STATES OF AMERICA (documentary film)
Laibach North American Tour 2004
(Razdružene države Amerike -Laibach 2004 Tour)
Laibach pulled off their first tour of the North American continent way back in 1989, two years before the breakup of their then home country, Yugoslavia. It was called the Sympathy For The Devil Tour. The next big run, the US – Kapital Tour, happened in 1992, and the Jesus Christ Superstars Tour followed in 1997. Then came the attack on the WTC, the revenge wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, and a blanket offensive against terrorism, a string of fateful events that radically shaped our times and slammed the door to the US pretty much shut. In November 2004, the band set out on their fourth American tour. The timing said a lot: it ran right after the US elections, when George W. Bush won the presidential race for the second time and plunged liberal-minded Americans into despair. Still, Laibach managed to squeeze through the eye of a needle and get into America again, and pulled off a grueling month-long tour of fifteen shows. The tour, which mostly hit cities in the “democratic” states and Canada, brought – and reflected – not just a musical performance but also an ideological charge and the traumatic post-election mood. The film is a telling document of that traumatic post-election atmosphere in the US, a country that has probably never seen such a radical split into two opposing political and cultural camps in its postwar history. That’s why the tour stuck with the name The Divided States of America Tour.(“Razdružene države Amerike”). It’s not just the band members who speak about the current state of the world, and especially of the US, through music and pamphlets, but also the concertgoers and random passersby. Prominent intellectuals, top artists, graphic designers, musicians and philosophers show up to the gigs, along with cab drivers and office clerks. The crowd is mixed in terms of both race and generation.
The film Divided States of America also features singer and cellist Madigan Shive (Bonfire Madigan), who accompanied Laibach on their American tour. Madigan also performed in Ljubljana as part of the Mesto žensk festival, on October 5, 2006 at Menza pri koritu in Metelkova.
The documentary itself is the work of acclaimed, established Slovenian director Sašo Podgoršek, who first made a name for himself with his student film (AGRFT) Koza je preživela (1992), which won the student film festival in Munich. Since then he’s shot a good number of TV shows, commercials and dance films (Vrtoglavi ptič, Dom svobode) as well as music videos. In 1999 he debuted with the feature film Temni angeli usode. About making the documentary, the director himself says: “A dry, genre-bound rockumentary doesn’t interest me much, I find it pretty boring; I think Laibach offer a lot more than that, and I just tried to make the most of it.”
Watching the documentary, you can conclude that Laibach fit right in with the mood in various American cities, and through the conversations with the audience at Laibach shows you can feel a totally schizophrenic, divided and at times panicky atmosphere. With this release, Laibach and Podgoršek step not only into documentary territory but also into topical, socially critical filmmaking. Divided States of America isn’t merely a music film about Laibach’s American tour; the music plays a side, almost illustrative role here and mostly paints a picture of the state of mind among Americans right after the presidential election. Perhaps it’s best to wrap up with the words of Laibach member Jani Novak:
“These weirdos who came to our show, this audience is the most normal of all the people you can meet in America.”
And RockLine second that opinion.
LAIBACH LIVE
13.12.2004 LA LOCOMOTIVE, PARIS FRANCE
The second part of the DVD is a live recording of a show that took place right after Laibach came back from the American tour in the fall of 2004. To be precise, it’s footage of the gig at the club La Locomotive (December 13, 2004) in Paris. The set is made up of 19 songs, or more precisely 19 political addresses. Laibach have always been known for their covers of well-known songs, which they’ve loaded with arrangements that add that hidden message of political totalitarianism and dictatorship the originals may not have. Germanizing most of those songs of course helps a great deal. Just think of the obligatory Queen – One Vision (album Opus Dei) and Geburt Einer Nation, after D.W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation, which they play here too. Then come B-Mashina (Siddartha), Dogs of war (Pink Floyd), In the Army now (Status Quo), and so on.
Most of the material, of course, is Laibach’s own body of work, which through its various songs shows the fruits of their labor and an evolutionary walk through the different musical styles Laibach have used over the past two decades. Remember, Laibach started out with avant-garde industrial rock, best described as “ambient noise”. But very soon they discovered the rugged beauty of military marches, and they’ve stayed true to them to this day. They released a few albums in a heavy military-march style, which carved their way to world superstardom and marked them out as pioneers of industrial rock. Then came the breakup of Yugoslavia, and under the influence of the political goings-on at the time Laibach released the album Kapital, known for some hip-hop elements, followed by NATO, which leaned more toward techno and a bombastic musical backdrop. After a short break came the release of Jesus Christ Superstar, which shocked some fans of metal guitar riffs. Their second-to-last studio album, WAT, put them back on the old tracks, and with that back among the old fans they’d somehow drifted away from during that stretch of wandering. Evidently, working under the baton of techno producer DJ Umek and electro beats was the right recipe. Their latest album, not yet covered on this 2004 recording, bears the simple but telling name Volk. It’s a reworking of 14 European national anthems and, in a figurative sense, Laibach’s commentary on modern pop culture.
Just like this short chronological overview of Laibach’s output, the recording of the band at La Locomotive on home European soil gives us the finest retrospective and at the same time a tribute to all the longtime fans. Besides the political side described and presented in Podgoršek’s documentary in the first part on American soil, I’d say Laibach, given the nature of how they’re perceived and their general intellectual bent (which they mention publicly in the documentary’s interview), preferred the solid ground of the old continent for this musical-message part. They know why, right?!
Lineup
Milan Fras – vocals
Ivan Novak – lights, projections
Matej Mršnik – guitar
Ervin Markošek – bass guitar, backing vocals
Eva Breznikar – percussion, backing vocals
Natasa Regovec – percussion, backing vocals
Roman Dečman – drums
Tracklist
1. B-Machina
2. In The Army Now
3. Dogs Of War
4. Alle Gegen Alle
5. Mars On River Drina
6. God Is God
7. Tanz Mit Laibach
8. Du Bist Under
9. Now You Will Pay
10. Hell-Symmetry
11. The Great Divide
12. Wirtschaft Ist Tot
13. Achtung
14. Das Spiel Ist Aus
15. WAT
16. Mama Leone
17. Sympathy For The Devil
18. Geburt Einer Nation
19. Opus Dei
