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 a writer, archivist, actor, and photographer.
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.[5] During an interview, Rice described the basic philosophy of his foundation as being "The strong rule the weak, and the clever rule the strong".[6]
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".[7] 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[8] and developed various techniques for scratching. Rice has been treating sounds from vinyl recordings as early as 1975.[9]
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/ethnomusicologistZ'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 psychologicaltorture 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.[3]
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.[10]
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".[11] 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).
Rice was arrested in 1995 for domestic violence, though never charged.[13] Carver writes in her memoir, Drugs Are Nice, that he physically abused her.[13]
Views
Since the 1980s Rice's music and art have been influenced by fascist and otherwise transgressive ideas and aesthetics. The packaging for NON's 1986 album Blood & Flame, for instance, included a Wolfsangel and a quote from Alfred Rosenberg.[14] He has often been accused of fascist sympathies as a result.[15][16] He also cultivated connections with neo-Nazis such as James Mason (who he began corresponding with in 1986[17]), Tom Metzger (whose TV show he appeared on in 1986[18]) and Bob Heick.[19] Rice introduced Mason to Adam Parfrey and Michael J. Moynihan, who would bring Mason's book Siege to a larger audience.[16] In 1989, Rice and Heick were photographed for Sassy wearing uniforms and brandishing knives. He has also expressed support for fascism in his writings, interviews, and public appearances.[20]
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.[21] In the 1990s he began to disassociate himself from the far right and to use fascist iconography with more irony.[22]
Rice has denied that he is a neo-Nazi.[23] 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.”[24] In another 2019 interview he described himself as "utterly apolitical."[25] A 2018 art show was cancelled because of protests over Rice's fascist associations,[23] as were some shows on Rice's 2013 tour with Cold Cave.[26][27]
^Sunshine 180. "During this period, the USA Today TV show ran a series called 'Racist Youth.' The third episode featured interviews with both Heick and Rice. Heick, Rice, and others were shown walking through the streets and toasting in a bar. For his sit-down interview, Rice wore sunglasses and his paramilitary uniform, with an American Front patch on the breast."
^Sunshine 179. "By 1987, Rice had already started referring to his views as 'fascist,' though not--in public at least--as a 'Nazi.' (He would continue to do so for many years)."
^Sunshine 188. "After 1993, Rice kept some of the elements of Nazism that he had already picked up, including uniforms and Hitler iconography, even as he moved on. His attention turned towards tiki bars and Holy Grail mysticism, cultivating a relationship with actor Tiny Tim, and collecting Barbie dolls as well as writing and making art. The Nazi imagery he used became blatant and--as he was no longer embedded in the neo-Nazi milieu--more ironic. He posed for a photo in the ANSWER ME! fanzine, in a T-shirt with 'RAPE' in large white letters, in addition to wearing a swastika necklace."
Hensley, Chad (Fall–Winter 2000). "Non Sense: An Interview with Boyd Rice". Esoterra: The Journal of Extreme Culture. No. 9. pp. 12–17. ISBN978-1-84068-166-6.
