Boyd Rice

Boyd Rice
Birth name	Boyd Blake Rice
Also known as	NON
Born	(1956-12-16) December 16, 1956 Lemon Grove, California, U.S.
Origin	Denver, Colorado, U.S.
Genres	Experimental noise industrial drone neofolk
Occupation(s)	Musician, composer, author
Instrument(s)	Tape machines, turntables
Years active	1975–present
Labels	Mute

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. He is also a writer, archivist, actor, and photographer.

Biography

Rice was born on December 16, 1956, in Lemon Grove, California. 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 and Pranks!

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 The Satanic Bible, and Rice in several recordings.

In 1987 Rice and Nikolas Schreck founded the Abraxas Foundation, an "occult-fascist" think tank that also counted Adam Parfrey and Michael J. Moynihan among its members. During an interview, Rice described the basic philosophy of his foundation as being "The strong rule the weak, and the clever rule the strong".

Rice has documented the writings of Charles Manson in his role as contributing editor of The Manson File.

Music

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

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

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". 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 and developed various techniques for scratching. Rice has been treating sounds from vinyl recordings as early as 1975.

NON

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

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.

Other work

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.

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". 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).

Views

Since the 1980s Rice's music and art have been influenced by fascist and otherwise transgressive ideas and aesthetics. He has often been at the center of controversy as a result. The packaging for NON's 1986 album Blood & Flame, for instance, included a Wolfsangel and a quote from Alfred Rosenberg. He also cultivated connections with neo-Nazis such as James Mason (who he began corresponding with in 1986), Tom Metzger (whose TV show he appeared on in 1986) and Bob Heick. In 1989, Rice and Heick were photographed for Sassy wearing uniforms and brandishing knives. He has also made expressed support for fascism in his writings, interviews, and public appearances.

Rice began to face a backlash for these associations in the late 1980s, when more left-wing avant-garde figures like Jello Biafra, Peter Christopherson, and V. Vale cut their ties with him. In the 1990s he began to disassociate himself from the far right and to use fascist iconography with more irony.

Rice continued to engage with the far right semi-ironically in the 2010s, joking on Instagram about holding a 'neo-nazi tiki torch rally' during the Unite the Right rally in 2017. In one 2012 interview he praised Arthur de Gobineau while adding, “I don’t think that to believe in the principle of natural inequality that necessarily equates to: you hate black people or you hate Jews or something.” In another 2019 interview he described himself as "utterly apolitical." A 2018 art show was cancelled because of Rice's fascist associations, while a 2013 show with Cold Cave faced opposition but went on as planned.

Discography

Year	Title	Under
1976	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 with Adam Parfrey
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

Film

• 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

• Live in Osaka (DVD) (features a concert performance from Osaka, Japan in 1989, with Michael Moynihan, Tony Wakeford, Douglas P. and Rose McDowall; also includes Rice's films Invocation (One) and Black Sun)

Print

• 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

Further reading

• Hensley, Chad (Fall–Winter 2000). "Non Sense: An Interview with Boyd Rice". Esoterra: The Journal of Extreme Culture. No. 9. pp. 12–17. ISBN 978-1-84068-166-6.
• Zylo, Arvo (May 19, 2011). "Have A Nice Day: An Interview with Boyd Rice". WFMU's Beware of the Blog. Retrieved October 10, 2017.

External links

• Boyd Rice at AllMusic