- Prussian Blue
-
For the color and iron–cyanide complex, see Prussian blue.
Prussian Blue 
Lynx and Lamb Gaede at the age of eleven.Background information Born June 30, 1992 Origin Bakersfield, California Genres White nationalist pop Years active 2003–2007 Labels Resistance Website none Members Lynx Gaede
Lamb GaedePrussian Blue was a white nationalist pop pre-teen duo formed in early 2003 by the mother of Lynx Vaughan Gaede[1] and Lamb Lennon Gaede,[2] sororal twin girls born on June 30, 1992, in Bakersfield, California.[3] The twins referred to the Holocaust as a myth[4] and their group was described as racist and white supremacist in nature, though they have always claimed to be nothing but separatists and nationalists.[5][6] In the years since they actively toured the twins have placed aside some of their previous politics.[7]
Contents
History
The band was named after the color Prussian blue. In an interview with Vice Magazine, the twins stated, "Part of our heritage is Prussian German. Also our eyes are blue, and Prussian Blue is just a really pretty color." They also remarked, "There is also the discussion of the lack of 'Prussian Blue' coloring (Zyklon B residue) in the so-called gas chambers in the concentration camps. We think it might make people question some of the inaccuracies of the 'Holocaust' myth."[4] This is a reference to the claims[8][9][10] made by many Holocaust deniers that the Holocaust either could not have happened as historians and observers have asserted or that the number of victims could have been far lower.
Lynx and Lamb Gaede first performed together by singing at a white nationalist festival called "Eurofest" in 2001.[11] They began learning how to play instruments in 2002 (Lamb plays the guitar and Lynx plays the violin). In the same year they appeared on a VH1 special called Inside Hate Rock. In 2003, they were featured in a Louis Theroux BBC documentary, entitled Louis and the Nazis, on racism and white supremacy in the United States. Lamb, Lynx, and their mother, April Gaede, also appeared in the low-budget 2003 horror film Dark Walker.[12]
The twins recorded and released a debut CD at the end of 2004 called Fragment of the Future (Resistance Records) which had both an acoustic folk-rock and a bubblegum pop sound. A year later, they recorded their second album, The Path We Chose, which has a more traditional rock sound including both acoustic and electric guitar. Most of the songs on the second album lack the racial and white supremacist overtones of Fragment of the Future and are about more mainstream subject matter, like boys, crushes, and dating. On October 20, 2005, Prussian Blue was featured in a critical segment on ABC's Primetime.[5] A DVD, Blonde Hair Blue Eyes, featuring three music videos and some live performances, was released in 2005. The pair toured the United States in 2005. On August 22, 2006, they were again featured in a critical segment on ABC's Primetime.
The twins moved with their mother and stepfather, Mark Harrington, and younger half-sister, Dresden, from Bakersfield, California, to Kalispell, Montana, in 2006; in their mother's words, Bakersfield was "not white enough." Some of their new neighbors did not welcome them; many city residents passed out flyers warning of the family's views, and signs proclaiming "No Hate Here" appeared on some windows around the town. Some of the people who passed out flyers received threatening letters from members of out-of-state white supremacist organizations.[13] The Montana Human Rights Network planned a rally in Kalispell to protest the family's racist views.[13][14]
The twins toured Europe in the summer of 2007, performing at events for white nationalist organizations. They also appeared as guests on The Political Cesspool. As of early 2009, the band's website and MySpace page are no longer operational.
Ideology
The group had strong ties to the National Vanguard organization, a "white nationalist" group formed by disaffected former members of the hate group National Alliance. Their ideology has been described as racist and white supremacist by some mainstream media outlets.[5][6][15] The Daily Telegraph reports that, on stage, the twins execute Nazi salutes.[6]
According to ABC News, the girls were homeschooled by their mother, April Gaede, an activist and writer for the white nationalist organization National Vanguard.[5] The twins' maternal grandfather, who lives in Squaw Valley, Fresno County, California, wears a Nazi swastika belt buckle; he also features the swastika on his truck and has registered it as a cattle brand.[5] During their ABC interview, the twins said they believe Adolf Hitler was a great man with good ideas, and they described the Holocaust as being exaggerated. They have also been criticized for stipulating that goods they donated to Hurricane Katrina victims should go only to white people: "After a day of trying, the supplies ended up with few takers, dumped at a local shop that sells Confederate memorabilia."[3][6]
A 2011 profile in The Daily describes the twins' rejection of some of their previous politics:
"I’m not a white nationalist anymore," Lamb told The Daily in an exclusive interview, the twins’ first in five years. "My sister and I are pretty liberal now." ... "I’m glad we were in the band," Lynx said, "but I think we should have been pushed toward something a little more mainstream and easier for us to handle than being front-men for a belief system that we didn’t even completely understand at that time. We were little kids."
Lyrics and influences
About half of the songs on Prussian Blue's first album are covers of other songs put out by other "white pride" bands with one (Lamb Near the Lane) co-written by David Lane and a few of the others by Ian Stuart Donaldson and Ken McLellan. One of their famous covers, "Victory Day" was a cover from the racialist band, RAHOWA. Two of Prussian Blue's songs on their first album are dedicated to famous German Nazi and white nationalist activists, including Rudolf Hess and Robert Jay Mathews. One of those songs, dedicated to Ian Stuart Donaldson, Robert Jay Matthews, Rudolf Hess and William L. Pierce which was written by Lamb, is "Sacrifice".[5]
Another song, "Gone With the Breeze," is dedicated to Robert Mathews. The cover songs on their album invoke ideas like Valhalla and Vinland, taken from Norse mythology and sagas. Several songs, including "Victory Day," refer to a holy war waged under Creativity (religion).
The lyrics to their song "The Stranger" are taken from a Rudyard Kipling poem of the same name.
Prussian Blue also released a cover of a song called "Ocean of Warriors" in mp3 format, dedicated to white participants in the 2005 Sydney, Australia race rioting.[16]
In 2006, a compilation album was released through the far right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) titled For The Fatherland.[17]
References in the media
Prussian Blue was parodied in Ryan J. Davis and Joe Drymala's musical, White Noise.[18] The show received mixed reviews despite being featured on Good Morning America[19] and ABC Primetime Live.[20] The show has been optioned for a major New York run.[21]
Prussian Blue has appeared in two British television documentaries. The first, 2003's Louis and the Nazis by documentary maker Louis Theroux, was an account of white nationalists, including Prussian Blue.[22][23] The second, Nazi Pop Twins, by James Quinn, was first aired in 2007. This documentary portrayed the image of stressed tension that supposedly existed between the twins and their mother, April. In this documentary, Lynx and Lamb disavowed white nationalism and said that they want to perform music that was more mainstream. Lynx told Quinn that they wore the infamous t-shirts bearing a smiley face that resembled Adolf Hitler because she believed they "were a joke" and said that "being proud of being white" did not mean she was a racist.[24] Louis Theroux later revisited the twins and their mother to collect material for his book Call of the Weird.
The twins were parodied in a Boston Legal episode entitled "The Nutcrackers," in which Alan Shore successfully defended a family from losing custody of their two daughters, a pair of white supremacist singers.[25]
The girls were also featured in a 2006 issue of Bernard Goldberg's book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America.
The two were noted in Jackie Mason and Raoul Felder's book Schmucks!.
Discography
Albums
- Fragment of the Future (2004)
- The Path We Chose (2005)
- For the Fatherland (compilation, 2006)
Singles
- "Your Daddy"
- "Keepers of the Light" (Battlecry featuring Prussian Blue)
- "Stand Up"
- "I Will Bleed for You"
See also
References
- ^ Lynx at NNDB.com
- ^ Lamb at NNDB.com
- ^ a b "Young Singers Spread Racist Hate". ABC News. October 20, 2005. Archived from the original on 05-11-2010. http://www.webcitation.org/5u0A26xl7.
- ^ a b Viceland - HELLO, WHITE PEOPLE! - Prussian Blue Look to the Future
- ^ a b c d e f Young Singers Spread Racist Hate, abcnews.go.com, Oct. 20, 2005
- ^ a b c d Elsworth, Catherine (2005-10-25). "Twin pop stars with angelic looks are new face of racism". The Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1501463/Twin-pop-stars-with-angelic-looks-are-new-face-of-racism.html. Retrieved 2009-03-27.
- ^ a b Gell, Aaron. "Change of heart: Former Nazi teeny boppers are singing a new tune". The Daily. http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/07/17/071711-news-nazi-twins-1-6/. Retrieved 7/17/11.
- ^ The Non-Existent “Auschwitz Gas Chambers” of Deborah Lipstadt, Part I
- ^ Germar Rudolf: The Rudolf Report
- ^ The Chemistry of Auschwitz
- ^ Prussian Blue - Content
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373782/fullcredits IMDb.com
- ^ a b Bill Redeker (2006-09-15). "Town Tells White Separatist Singers 'No Hate Here". ABCnews.com. http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2449483&page=1. Retrieved 2007-11-12.
- ^ Karina Shagren (2006-11-17). "Montana dealing with new influx of white supremacists". KXLY4. http://www.kxly.com/index.php?story_id=6348&view=text. Retrieved 2007-11-12.[dead link]
- ^ Yale Daily News - The bittersweet melody of racist tunes
- ^ http://prussianbluefan.blogspot.com/2005_12_01_prussianbluefan_archive.html Prussianblue.fan.blogspot.com
- ^ http://www.20min.ch/news/kreuz_und_quer/story/12368879 From the free daily newspaper 20 Minuten: Nazi-Twins-Album: NPD vertreibt «For the Fatherland» = Nazi-Twins-Album: NPD distributes «For the Fatherland»
- ^ White Noise On Playbill.com
- ^ White Noise On Good Morning America(Video)
- ^ White Noise On ABC Primetime Live (Video)
- ^ White Noise Ends Run Sept. 30; Off-Broadway Transfer? (BroadwayWorld.com)
- ^ "Those ugly Americans". New Zealand Listener. http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3386/tvradio/3708/those_ugly_americans.html. Retrieved 2010-10-04.
- ^ "Reich and wrong". Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/dec/22/broadcasting.tvandradio. Retrieved 2010-10-10.
- ^ "Nazi Pop Twins". IMG Media. July 2007. http://www.archive.org/details/MichielSmit.comPrussionBlueMichielSmit.com. Retrieved 2009-06-08.
- ^ http://www.tv.com/boston-legal/the-nutcrackers/episode/926122/summary.html
External links
- Prussian Blue Official Website (defunct) from Archive.org
- Prussian Blue at Allmusic
Articles
- "Change of heart: Former Nazi teeny boppers are singing a new tune"
- Nazi Pop Twins at Ourmedia (Documentary on Prussian Blue. In streaming Flash format.)
- Southern Poverty Law Center on Prussian Blue
- Anti-Defamation League article
- Tiny Mix Tapes parody article
- NYU Journalism report on Teen People's decision not to feature Prussian Blue
- ABC News article
- New York Daily News article
- Daily Telegraph article
- Interview with GQ Magazine
- MP3 of a call to Inga Barks Show on KERN Newstalk 1410(Bakersfield) from Lamb Gaede
- Interview with Vice Magazine on viceland.com
- Lamb And Lynx Gaede: The Children Of Hate
Categories:- 1992 births
- All-female bands
- American child singers
- Musical groups from California
- Girl groups
- Musicians from California
- Twin people from the United States
- Living people
- Musical groups established in 2003
- Musical groups disestablished in 2008
- Family musical groups
- Musicians from Montana
- People from Bakersfield, California
- Sibling musical duos
- American white nationalists
- Holocaust denial
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
