WHITE PRIDE
Formed: St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Nazi skinhead twats or piss-takers? Who knows?
I'll tell you who knows: Josh, who emailed me in February 2020 with these thoughts:
Knew the singer. The sole purpose of this band was to ruffle feathers. While they were certainly controversial in the St. Louis scene (some of their shows were cancelled due to local outrage), they were not a racist band per se.
They opened for some big names back in the day (Dead Kennedys, Circle Jerks, etc.), and I doubt those bands would have shared the stage with a committed, far-right band. Just a bunch of rabble rousers, whose recorded output has been consistently stolen (without remuneration) by far-right dickheads, who often create a false history about the band. Just to say, these kinds of lyrics cut little ice at the time.
[Regarding his comment "I've done lots of musical pranks in my life, but that record is not one of them... I'm not even sure it's a prank! Funny about that White Pride thing, because it DOES seem like the kind of prank I would pull. But in this case, I didn't"], Mykel Board did a lot of sort "Anti-Punk" Punk type stuff back in the day, 'When You're My Age, You'll be Selling Insurance' [on the Artless LP], stands out in particular. Anyhow, he's right, he had nothing to do with WP.
Quick rundown on the band. Mike Doskocil, later went on to play with seminal St. Louis bands Drunks With Guns and Ultraman. Jim played in a bunch of local bands. Bob (RIP) was of mixed parentage (Chinese or Korean.. can't remember) and also played in a few bands.
The thing with WP… They were a bit older than the most of Hardcore crowd at the time. This was also a time when the scene started to coalesce into a kind of… tribal attitude, so to speak. It was the Reagan years, the moral majority was in charge and certain people (namely, one washed up Yippie from the Bay Area) felt that "the kids" needed some kind of “positive” ideology to go with the look and music. The "anything goes, let's have fun" aspect became secondary and for better or worse, the scene became decidedly left-wing. If you know anything about radicals of any stripe, it's that they are easy to get a rise out of. That was the intent of WP.
Sorry if I can't recall more. This was so many years ago, and I was only in St. Louis for a bout a year 83/84 (moved there from DC) and then I moved to Portland and eventually enlisted in the Army.
PUNKY GIBBON THANKS JOSH FOR TAKING THE TIME TO EMAIL ME AND WISHES HIM A LONG AND FRUITFUL LIFE.
__________________________________________________________________________
DISCOGRAPHY
Singles & Albums
Peace My Ass (7", 1983)
Tapes
White Pride (Tape, 1983)
Bootlegs
The Early Demotrax (7", split with Agnostic Front, 1992)
Your Loss Is Our Gain (CD, 1995)
Various Artists
I'm Buck Naked! US Tape 1984 (BCT): Fuck You/ White Pride / Punk Rock Sucks
Parole Spass Vol. 1 Germany Tape ???? (no label): Fuck You / Jew Girls
Hyped To Death #31 : Punk 45s From The Northeast & Midwest V-To-Z US CDR ???? (Hyped to Death): Illegal Aliens
__________________________________________________________________________
Links
Assholes Unite: Hardcore, Violence, and the Denver Skins - an excellent article