The Psychic Soviet and Other Works

by Ian F. Svenonius

A reissue of Ian F. Svenonius’s cult-classic debut essay collection, including brand-new writing in this expanded edition.

A new, expanded collection of essays and articles from one of the mainstays of the Washington, DC, underground rock and roll scene, The Psychic Soviet is Ian F. Svenonius’s groundbreaking first book of writings. The selections are written in a lettered yet engaging style, filled with parody and biting humor that subvert capitalist culture, and cover such topics as the ascent of the DJ as a star, the “cosmic depression” that followed the defeat of the USSR, how Seinfeld caused the bankruptcy of modern pop culture, and the status of rock and roll as a religion. The pocket-sized book is bound with a durable bright-pink plastic cover, recalling the aesthetics of Mao’s Little Red Book, and perfect for carrying into the fray of street battle, classroom, or lunch-counter argument.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Essays, Politics, Philosophy, Short Stories, Theory

270 pages, Paperback

First published July 24, 2006

About the author

Ian Svenonius is an American musician, notable as the singer and mouthpiece of various Washington, D.C.-based music groups including The Nation of Ulysses, The Make-Up, Weird War, and Chain and the Gang. With his projects, Svenonius has released more than 15 full-length albums and more than 20 singles, EPs, and splits. Svenonius is also a published author and an online talk show host.

Svenonius’ first band, The Nation of Ulysses, formed in 1988, and were influential in the early Washington D.C. punk scene. The band broke up in 1992 after failing to record their third studio album. After a short-lived side-project called Cupid Car Club, Svenonius formed The Make-Up in 1995, who combined garage rock, soul, and a so-called “liberation theology” to make a new genre they dubbed “Gospel Yeh-Yeh.” The Make-Up dissolved early in 2001, and a year later, Svenonius formed the band Weird War, who were also known briefly as the Scene Creamers. Svenonius’ solo work includes the 2001 album Play Power under the fictional pseudonym of David Candy, the book The Psychic Soviet, and as host of Soft Focus on VBS.tv. Svenonius’ projects and writings have all shared an anti-authoritarian, populist, tongue-in-cheek political agenda.

Reviews

[alexis · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the joke behind this collection of hyperbolic, intentionally antagonistic, leftist political pop culture analysis essays feels pretty straightforward (“Aside from the trilogy’s obvious eugenic overtones and Christo-Masonic symbolism, its hobbits, dwarves, and goblins—supposedly the benevolent domain of so-called nerds—are a cover for a cunningly constructed super-macho ideology. On careful inspection, one recognizes that The Lord of the Rings is the woman-hater’s bible”, etc etc), I feel like the joke probably lands better if you’re a Gen X music guy. I simply did not have enough of an opinion on The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, or The Beatles for most of these.

[Andrew Horton · Rating 5 out of 5]

OutSTANDING. Svenonius perfectly treads the line between schizo steve ranting on the street corner and overfunded "publish or perish" academician in this engrossing, insane, but relevatory treatise. This is the type of stuff that you used to get in The Baffler but dipped in DMT - the Beatles and Rolling Stones as opposing socialist ideologies, the death of the soviet union and its psychic fallout on the american populace, popularity of drinks as literal drinking of imperialist conquests' lifeblood (the popularity of beer after WWII was literally the drinking of kraut blood; the yuppie proliferation of vodka after the fall of the soviet union was the conquest over the soviet union, etc.). Right when you want to chuckle or laugh off such an association, he bombs you with literally 50 more, leaving you less dubious and a little more convinced that perhaps he's on to something. Cannot recommend enough.

- "Without Christ's supposed crucifixion, there would have been no martyrdom, and no burgeoning Christian movement to eventually unify Europe after spurring the disintegration of the Roman Empire. The Jews couldn't do it as they weren't an evangelical sect, and Zoroastrianism was too hard to pronounce."

- "While the two forms ["electro-clash" and semi-acoustic/psychedelic "folk" revival:] are distinct and even aesthetically in opposition to the other, their common aversion to acoustic drums reveals their shared genealogy: they are the fraternal twins of Alan Greenspan."

- "Americans began to worship Europeans and their supposed "authenticity." They desired the validity that history seemed to confer. They longed for the centuries of religious wars and class stratification that had made the "old country" so idiosyncratic, and had given the Euros their veiled neuroses and dark secrets."

- "Liberal academia contends that "rock 'n' roll" was heisted from black musical culture, the ultimate example of "blaxploitation." Rock 'n' roll music, it is insisted, is like jazz intrinsically black culture, and the white groups who use the idiom are exploiters.
This idea, whereby a music type is considered the intellectual and artistic birthright of one particular segment of society, is now culturally taken as truth, and license to sing or create art of a particular style is permitted only when a special series of criteria are met. Genetic testing is being considered."
...
In a startling turn, Jimmy Page was actually convinced by an angry undergraduate's essay and will now only perform with a harp and a lute: instruments particular to the druids of his genealogy"

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Ian Svenonius' now-disbanded rock outfit the Make-Up, there are things to take seriously about The Psychic Soviet and things to disregard. Just as the Make-Up half-ironically fused gospel and punk with liberation theology, the essays of The Psychic Soviet meld Marxist theory with pop culture, and the results are sometimes interesting and sometimes silly. Svenonis displays a formidable intelligence in using historical materialism to critique the eugenic subtext of Bram Stoker's Dracula, draw parallels between religion and rock 'n' roll, provide a revisionist protest against Bob Dylan's "going electric," and expose the exploited gay roots of punk. But he also offers lines like "The smell of coffee is the odor of the Sandinista hospital, maimed by Contra bombs. Ice-cold vodka is the blood of the Russians, raped and murdered by capitalism," or "Of course, Seinfeld's characters are supposed be read as the four principle psychological components of one person, with Jerry as the ego, Kramer as the id, George as the unconscious, and Elaine as the rationalizing superego" with a straight face. Still, a lot of The Psychic Soviet is also genuinely funny, as in the essay "A Warning to Swedish Girls," which cautions young, provincial Scandinavian women interning in London away from their British pursuers. In the process Svenonius lays waste to all of Anglo culture: "[The gay managers of the great British rock groups] whispered conceptual tidbits into the ears of their dashing young pupils, who would have otherwise have been exposed as crazed brutalists." In all, The Psychic Soviet is a rare example of critical thinking from the indie rock world, with Svenonius willing to engage history and myth where most would willingly ignore it. Oct. 1, 2007

[Rhi Carter · Rating 2 out of 5]

What the presentation and preamble promised was a rambling schizophrenic application of neo Marxism, what I got was dark Klosterman. Like, some of the essays in here weren't too bad, and most were at least a little thought provoking, but also it's just shallow musings about classic rock. I can think of people I'd recommend this too (who feel more strongly about the Beatles vs Stones of it all), but it really wasn't for me. Extra points for the "Little Red Book" binding, more books should do that.
Also he says multiple times that the Don Bluth animated film Anastasia was put out by Disney! It wasn't!

[Lisa Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute must-read for anyone with interests in world history, music, culture, and art. Ian F. Svenonius wraps it all in an informative, yet poetic, and witty sarcastic style. His level to articulate is baffling page after page. Anything else I could write just doesn't serve justice.

[Adam Meek · Rating 4 out of 5]

This maniacal little tome is the perfect cure for your PSD (Post Soviet Depression) procure a copy from your closest propagandist today!

[Nils · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tongue-in-cheek, punk-aesthetic excoriation of post-Soviet psychology across the world, ascerbic at every turn, casting the Soviet Union as the vengeful, abusive mother and the United States as the narcissistic, priapic father, with smaller states as their victimized children.

There are flashes of insight dressed up in over-the-top rhetorical flourishes. The essay comparing the Stones and the Beatles, for example, depicts the Beatles as the inventors of “intellectual psychedelia,” and thus the avatar of the Soviet Union, whereas the Stones (in the Sympathy for the Devil mode) represent the rural aesthetics of Maoism. If this sort of analysis is a joke, it’s hard to judge the register.

[Tiarnán · Rating 3 out of 5]

that one friend that's too woke

[David Selsby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Q. Why review this book now, so many years after it was published, so many years after Ian Svenonius and his bands were part of the zeitgeist?

That’s a good question. Mainly, I review it now for my own edification, for my own satisfaction. Secondly, and minimally, I review it under the vague notion that somewhere there’s a boy or girl discovering Nation of Ulysses or Make-Up for the first time and is going to be shocked to discover that that howling banshee Svenonius wrote a book with the quixotic title “Psychic Soviet.” If he reads the first two paragraphs of this review and it inspires him to buy the book, well, that’s good enough reason to have written it. So read it (the book)! Buy it! It’s wonderful, and even when it’s not wonderful, it’s interesting, confusing, and bizarre (in a good way).

But you’re right about the zeitgeist being over. Most of the spectacular music made in the 1990s was by people born from ‘66-’72. That was it. They’re all over 50 now. If they’re touring now it’s because they need money to pay bills or they’re doing it for the love of playing. God bless them; both are great reasons. But as far as being part of the zeitgeist, “speaking to the children,” influencing the culture, yeah, that’s ancient history for that cohort. Which is sad and weird, and part of the growing old process every human blessed to grow old experiences. But the dates that span this particular epoch are interesting insofar as sometimes things change monumentally in 30 years and sometimes things don’t change at all. I mean, things always change in 30 years, but sometimes they don’t change for the better, which is an utterly banal statement. Let me give you an example of what I mean.

“Plays Pretty for Baby” came out in ‘92, 30 years ago. Imagine what rock and roll looked like in 1962, 30 years prior. This was the year The Beatles recorded their first singles. Now if you brought “Plays Pretty” back to 1962 it would be incomprehensible to Americans and Brits; alternatively, if you brought “Love Me Do” to 1992, it would seem quaint and conspicuously sound of an earlier time. However, if Nation of Ulysses played at the Grammys, People’s Choice Awards, or MTV Music Awards (I have no idea if the latter two still exist), people would be confused, offended, shocked, annoyed. Their reaction would have been . . .

Q. What’s wrong?

I just lost interest in what I was saying because in the general scheme of things all of this means nothing.

Q. What? The questions? The answers?

Both, of course.

Q. But couldn’t you say that about any sort of cultural criticism? Any sort of music criticism?

To a certain extent, and perhaps it’s worth exploring to what extent (that things mean nothing in the general scheme of things) one can say that about all intellectual pursuits--to what extent does parsing issues closely result in something worthwhile? For you? For your family? For your community? I think that’s why the study of political economy and specifically understanding the conclusions of Marx are so important: Marx locates the most foundational relationships and instantiations of power and leverage (materialist, class, ownership of the means of production, reproduction of the mean of production) in the capitalist world-order and describes how understanding them and striving to change them brings about improvements for yourself, your family, your community, and the population at large.

But this is part of the problem and why I lost attention a few minutes ago. The conclusions I, Winston Plum, mortician, father of four, come to don’t matter to anyone except perhaps my children and some friends interested in my opinion. Our society is awash in opinions--all the different social-media portals are chock-full of opinions. Everyone is opining, everyone is writing pieces, everyone has an online journal. There’s great information out there! People are writing great things! I’m not denying that. Brains are expanding. Access to information is easier than it’s ever been. But what is the upshot of the ease with which information is accessed? How has the ease with which information, used loosely here--polls, articles, studies, essays, books, magazines, podcasts, Tweets, vlogs--altered the manner in which power is exercised? Has it diffused the concentrated, centralized power (Big Tech, the MSM, Big Pharma, finance capital, global trade and capital, the Pentagon's budget, foreign policy)? Has labor militancy increased or organized labor become a stronger vector of power that can alter the balance of class forces? No, no, no, and no to ten other questions. Perhaps all the information, all the great articles, journals, studies, and the ease by which we access it, has paradoxically had the opposite effect from increasing beneficial outcomes for average citizens and communities. Maybe we’re just happy to read, study, think, discuss, Tweet, post, speak, record. Ideally, all of the above activities by which Americans increase the breadth of their understanding of the political landscape are thought to affect the manner in which our elected leaders behave, vote, etc. But they don’t. Not really. And to believe otherwise is to have a parochial understanding, I would even say juvenile understanding, about how power is wielded. It also demonstrates an impoverished understanding of bureaucratic and administrative capture that is always active, not to mention the truth of the “iron law of oligarchy” thesis, which might be the least discussed and most poorly understood, yet vital and explanatory, concepts in political science in the last 100 years.

Q. So back to “The Psychic Soviet.”

Haha.

Q. Seriously, why is this book worth reading?

If you’re 19 or 29, it’s worth reading because it’s fun. The music of Nation of Ulysses is great. Make-Up is great . . .

Q. You’re not presenting a very compelling reason to read this book.

I don’t remember the book. It’s tiny, it's pink, it kind of has a rubbery cover. Svenonius said it was meant to be used like Mao’s Little Red Book. The book is sized so you can put it in your pocket and items in it can be looked up for quick reference, like a little Bible. If you need the answer to something, it’s in there. But nobody ever did that, right? It’s postmodern. It’s a simulacrum of the actual Little Red Book. This is all pre-”Brooklyn,” Brooklyn being metonymy for a particularly twee and cloying personality type and worldview. I can’t get through one book report without feeling compelled to take a shot at the left-liberal intelligentsia.

Q. What does Brooklyn have to do with Ian Svenonius or “The Psychic Soviet”?

Nothing really, except “Brooklyn” as an idea or as a mode of being--Jacobin, Dirtbag Leftism, DSA, “socialist,” “woke,” “Breadtube,” whatever--in some ways coincides with the death of rock and roll, to make the kind of grand, totalizing statement Svenonius makes in PS. When did rock and roll die? Do you know? ‘98? ‘99? With Britney Spears? Backstreet Boys? Nsync? Electronica in the late 90s? Does it matter? Who cares? The rock and roll album is dead. The the ascendent left-liberal intelligentsia that is driving “progressive” woke culture in the United States, and again “Brooklyn” is metonymic for an entire political project; well, that left-liberal intelligentsia came of age in the early aughts, perhaps some of the older ones’ teenage years were the late 90s. Millennials--the professional-managerial class that now increasingly makes up the administrative elite in the NGO-industrial complex, academe, publishing, journalism, Big Tech. They are the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. The liberal elite . . .

Q. I’m going to have to interrupt you here; what does this have to do with “The Psychic Soviet”?

Again, nothing really. I guess the reason I keep getting sidetracked is that I would have recommended “The Psychic Soviet” when it was originally published in 2006. Is it all tongue-in-cheek? I never believed so. I always believed Svenonius was serious about his political commitments (in the abstract way all of us are serious about our political commitments while we spend the majority of waking hours doing things only tangential to politics, per se). Anyway, I think he’s sympathetic to the Soviet Union; is he a “Tankie”? Who knows? Sort of, sometimes, depending on the discrete historical moment under discussion. But it’s all post-modern. It’s rock and roll, so regardless of how many fantastic liner notes he wrote for his bands’ albums, or how many clever lyrics he wrote, or how many clever things he said about “liberation theology,” at the end of the day, what did any of it mean?

Q. You seem to be referring to a theme you’ve touched on in prior book reports--namely, nothing really matters because nothing really changes? Is that fair?

It’s kind of fair, and I think it relates to the superstructural nature of existence, to be vulgarly Marxist. But isn’t that telling? There’s a symptom there--the fact almost anytime anyone susses a situation or dynamic out by using a Marxist logic, there’s invariably an aside about not wanting to be “vulgar.” But it’s not vulgar, it’s accurate. It’s true. All this culture, all the rock and roll, all the culture wars, all the sturm und drang on social media--all of it is just dancing on, above, suspended by (however you want to conceptualize or visualize it), but all of it is on happening on or above and in the last analysis determined by the base--the material conditions of our existence; the material conditions by which society reproduces itself. That is essentially what pundits, philosophers, political scientists, whomever, mean when they refer to the present time as post-political, which also lines up in important and explanatory ways with the term postmodern--namely that political contestation is no longer happening in the form of active participation by large segments of the population mobilized in order to effect a coherent political project geared toward determining societal organization and societal reproduction. This relates to the base and superstructure insofar as if we understand the aforementioned political contestation as ultimately geared toward determining the “base” of a given society, then our present period, in lieu of that contestation, is only left with various superstructural epi-phenomenon always already determined by the base.

It’s really true. I do believe it. It comes to me, and I’m sure it comes to many, as an ethereal sensation; a fleeting understanding; a glimpse of how things actually are and the logic actually propelling our world. Of course, to say that makes one sound almost loony, but that’s the point of the logic behind the post-political moment--everyone pretends as though nothing is settled all the while knowing, if only fleetingly, or only knowing insofar as experiencing an instinct that is inscrutable and resistant to logic or verbalization, that essentially nothing is up for grabs.

Q. I’d like to drill down a bit because I think you’re providing an interesting answer to, or at least an exploration of, something many people find vexing, which is the artificial nature of political contestation, where everyone knows there are no stakes involved but we all play our parts as if there are. Also, what dates are you talking about when you use terms like post-political, postmodern, etc.?

Dates, yeah, the Modern Era is from the Age of Revolutions in the late 18th century through the middle of the 19th, or if you wish all the way back to the philosophical and scientific discoveries and ways of understanding man and liberty that set the stage for those revolutions. The modern era continued on to at least the end of WWII, with the absolute hegemony of the American liberal imperium having been established. At that point there was still the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries in its sphere and also what was at the time called “third world” countries, which is its strict meaning were countries neither aligned with the West or the Soviet Union, thus trying to consolidate a political project not beholden or informed by either the governing logics of the West or the communist world. The point being is that there was still political contestation going on in the form of proxy wars, trade embargos, etc., so in light of that it makes sense we understand post-political in the same way the term End of History is used: post-Soviet, unipolar American imperium, and neo-liberal Washington Consensus.

However, domestically, the post-political really started to germinate in the early fifties and certainly had blossomed by the end of the sixties. Domestic political contestation in the mass mobilization of large segments of the population in the name of discrete political objectives, which had been the order of the day in titanic battles between labor and capital through the 1930s and 40s, had given way to the New Deal Consensus by the fifties. And so in the arts we see the beginning of the postmodern, again, if we understand the postmodern as the end of the Modern Era as the era in which political contestation took place in the manner I described. This contestation in the Modern Era took different forms--ancien régime versus classical liberalism; classic liberalism and burgeoning capitalism versus different tendencies that arose from capitalism’s internal contradictions--Luddism, Chartism, Social Democracy, Socialism; and then capitalism systematically destroying, coopting, and diluting all discrete political resistances to its hegemony.

Anyway, the point is, and bringing this back to “The Psychic Soviet” is somebody at some point needs to right a book about the fact that at the precise moment rock and roll took on it’s most vivid political saliency is also the precise moment when politics as a field of contestation, as field where different discrete political projects tried to gather power in the name of at most affecting the balance of class forces or at worst accentuating the contradictions of the capitalist political economy, disappeared from public life.

Q. But what about postmodernism in literature? That happened earlier than the mid-to-late seventies, which is the time period you’re discussing now and the political saliency of punk, post-punk, etc.

Yes, it did. And I don’t want to go too far afield, but I think there’s a compelling argument that regardless of what discipline your analyzing (literature, film, music, architecture, philosophy), its most notable and influential instantiations of what we’ll call for shorthand the postmodern sensibility were possible, gained momentum, multiplied, and ultimately ushered in a different epistemological register because of the material conditions, again, the base if you will, of the countries in which it was produced.

But I know, let’s get back to punk. I think if we look at that example specifically it will clarify what I’m getting at. Punk, post-punk, American hardcore, speed metal, the American underground, the labels that sprung up all over the United States in the 1980s--all of these phenomenon suggest the fact that because politics could no longer be politcal, then music and culture must become politcal. Must? No, they didn't have to, but they did. The righteousness people feel, the anger people feel about the way things are going; the manner in which people feel the public good is being upheld, propagated or rather despoiled and abandoned; notions of embeddedness within a community; thick relationships with discrete members of that community; the notion of a creed--living authentically in the name of something higher or even outside of yourself; the notion of the sacred, the true, the universal; in short, the path to meaning and salvation. All of these characteristics, all of these phenomena and affective states not only were present but drove the entire punk ethos if what we mean by the punk ethos is less a particular type of music played sloppily on specific instruments but rather a calling.

Q, That’s a really generative framing; how do Nation of Ulysses and “The Psychic Soviet” fit into that, if it does?

All the characteristics I described above about “political” communities of the American underground are the backdrop to which Dischord Records was created and obviously Nation of Ulysses and Make-Up came out of. I don’t know, perhaps Make-Up and the persona Ian Svenonius adopted in the era after NOU disbanded is akin, and I mean this in the most superficially analogous way and by no means as substantive compassion, to what Bono did after Rattle and Hum--I’ll get my political commitments to you, but I’ll to do so with a smile on my face and my tongue in my cheek as opposed to with a cross on my back. So the confrontation, adversarial, oppositional attack of NOU was substituted for the postmodern pastiche of Make-Up. But that analogy doesn’t withstand much examination because even NOU often operated tongue in cheek.

I think in the final analysis, “The Psychic Soviet” is fun; it provides succor in a fragmented, conformist world. It provides a salve similar to the relief the political communities of underground/indie music, culture, and art provide--a thickness of connections with co-conspirators; the notion of the sacred and authentic; a posture outside of the conforming mass of society, yet while standing apart also embedded in something particular and sacred (for its arcane and sacramental nature). All of that runs through the themes of Svenonius’s lyrics in both NOU and Make-Up--church, sacraments, belief, theology, baptism, etc. It seems like he was joking because of the outlandishness of his claims and the lack of self-consciousness of his delivery, but I do believe more often than not he wasn’t joking in that the content of his writing and the content of his lyrics reflected his actual political commitments as a citizen.

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've ever had the pleasure of verbal engagement with Ian Svenonius, you'd soon realize that this former singer of Nation of Ulysses, the Make Up and current-sometimes singer of Weird War has a different train of thought than the average man. If you've never had the pleasure of verbal engagement with Ian Svenonius, do read The Psychic Soviet or visit http://vbs.tv/ for videos of Ian's Vice TV series, Soft Focus (and hear me laughing like an idiot in the background of the Ian MacKaye/Henry Rollins episode).

In The Psychic Soviet, Ian effusively deigns marvels of modern chit-chat with more clever than thou ideas. Svenonius defines the psychological effect of the fall of the Soviet Union on Americans and therein the fall of a once great nation; somehow relates Vampirism as a phenomena erratically timely in nature; likens Hitler's regime to an experience irrefutably Wagnerian; guides us through the logical demise of folk music (the infamous fable of "Dylan goes electric", turning on his foundation for a ride with the sexy and glamorous); tastefully argues "Beatles vs. Stones"; Seinfeld Syndrome; the responsible use of Rock n' Roll; a look at a severely homo-erotic Mordor; and on into the depths. There is something for everyone in this thoroughly surprising pocket-size, hot pink book of essays. Brush aside any/all expectations and accept with an open mind the offerings of a hero of the modern day avant, a cultural symbol representing what could be, if individuals thought and spoke more freely without fear of criticism or judgment.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

surprisingly good little book. i was never a big fan of Make-Up, i liked what i heard of their records but they never thrilled me enough to make me scene cream myself. As a result, never really thought to pick up this book though i had heard of it from a few people. Finally, trapped in the netherlands with only books in dutch i was handed this and zipped right through it. Lots of funny, insightful, off kilter essays that read like they were written for some freak out acid bath yippie journal in the mid 70s, (though he holds much about those types against the flame in this book.) A particular highlight was the essay on imbibing the blood of yr enemies, coasting through coffee, beer and vodka as the drink of the defeated enemies we toast in honor of their defeat in effect consuming them. Lots of other weirder essays about rock and roll as religion, the rolling stones and what not that despite being BARELY INTERESTED in things like "rock and roll" (in fact, the idea of it seems totally deformed to me) his writing was always funny, witty and interesting enough to keep you on till the end. definitely an easy but not dumbed down read.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is more than a book. It is more like a pocket-sized invitation to an alternate psycho-geo-musico-cultural realm of Mr. Svenonious's creation. It includes a well-written and ironically stereotypical political tract, a series of essays explaining stylistic and cultural changes in the world of popular music (for example, explaining how Greenspans economics led to the rise of electronic music -- nobody can afford a garage anymore, so real drums are out of the question), and a well-thought-out series about the popularity of vampire mythology in a society (like our own) that ritually imbibes in the blood of its vanquished foes or colonialized serfs.

I read this little book several times after meeting Svenonious (also a musician and DJ who, surprisingly, appears as a vocalist on the incredible new Fort Knox Five CD) at a book-signing/slideshow/convocation of the Psychic Soviet, replete with banners and insignia.

The writing is a engaging mix of intelligent satire and engaging social commentary. Think Flight of the Concords meets Duck Soup, in vampire drag, and you are part of the way there.

Needless to say, I recommend it for music fans who enjoy oddball arcana.

[Jermaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this little pink book, Weird War front-man Ian Svenonius deconstructs pop culture with a hammer and sickle, with an eye for critical theory like a Gen-X Jean Baudrillard or punk rock Slavoj Zizek. Svenonius’ barbed humor rips open the hidden underbelly of innocuous entertainment, to reveal its sinister nature.

“Mordor Dearest” details the woman-hating homoeroticism of the Lord of the Rings films, while “The Bloody Latte” examines the historical relationships of imperial powers and their soft drinks of choice. In “Seinfeld Syndrome”, everyone's favorite “sitcom about nothing” is revealed as the blueprint for the gentrification of New York City. And there's lots more where that came from.

Often hilarious, always insightful, and tiny enough to fit in your back pocket, The Psychic Soviet just might be the ultimate mental survival manual for life (if you can call it that) in the Post-Post-Everything era.

[Con-core the Destroyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is heavy with the burden of history and yet weighs less than a pound. You keep expecting the punchline of a joke, but those kind of one-liners rarely happen. The ironic style sits perched on the shoulder like a hooded eagle ready to soar, but it never does. Instead Svenonous shows a suprising competence for adapting historical material (eg. the fall of the Soviet Union, the science of eugenics) to make a broader policital point. His essays read like a barrage on the West's most revered cultural institutions: Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Dracula,...no one goes unscathed. My favorite piece is about Hitler and Wagner in which he domonstrates music's ability to prophesize the future. You never know if Svenouis is serious or not, nor does it matter, you will be entertained and stimulated.

[Diane Ramirez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hated reading this book. Having had no context as to who Ian Svenonius is, I kept wondering -- idiot(ic) savant or boorish crank? Plodding my way through, while I found many of his (well-informed) ideas interesting, I decided that it just didn't matter to me. Svenonius (seems to?) mistakenly believe that his clever mapping of political, social, and artistic trends trumps complexities far beyond the scope of this work. I know that he intends for his readers to be riled up by his words; for that reason I was too bored to bother. And I don't relish being told that I'm an idiot for not seeing The Truth, any more than I enjoy being labeled "sheeple" by conspiracy cranks. I'd rate the book three stars on its own, but I'd give it one star on personal enjoyment, so let's call it down the middle at two.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

The myth of Dylan going electric and particularly the lamo reaction by the folk community was generated by the recording industry as a response to the threat that folk music presented to it. Right now we could have so much more live music in noncommercial settings had it not been for the triumph of electric music over shared acoustic music. But as it is, the tools belong in the hands of the few instead of the many, and I have to go to strip clubs to listen to music. Svenonius also saw through all the bullshit when it came to New York comedies. I saw him the other day but I didn't say anything too, which speaks to my integrity.

[Sapetron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fan bloody tastic. I took an especially long time reading this little sucker because it was so terribly entertaining. His theses are obscure yet ring true; in one essay he claims that the lord of the rings is a call to all boys to remain latent in adolescence, never to leave the comforts of platonic homosexuality, and another claims that the conquering peoples feel compelled to drink the beverage of choice of the conquered, as if drinking the actual blood of the vanquished. Except that he says it quite better than I.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine if a smarty-pants college sophomore tackled a paper for Modern Thought class by upending a basket of particularly diabolical kittens in a yarn shop. Besides being smart and pantsy, the author has been a credible participant in the art/culture/music history he's hired the kittens to cliff-note, which may be why he's actually right about whatever of it isn't bang out insane or snort-stuff-out-your-nose funny, and also most of what is.

Plus who doesn't love a little pink book. I still can't stop touching it. And people on the subway will think you're reading the bible.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm tired of debating whether or not Ian is crazy, a genius, or a crazy genius. He's probably all of those, and brilliant to boot. It kind of sucks when I listen to Make-Up now and it sounds a little dated, but these essays bring a totally fresh and unique perspective to topics as ubiquitous and analyzed to death as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. "A Warning to Swedish Girls" is an instant classic.

[Matthew DeCostanza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Svenonius' essays, while sometimes dubious (The Rolling Stones support Maoist agrarian development in China? Hardcore punk is an outgrowth of repressed homosexual barracks/locker room culture? I never would have known!) are consistently interesting and provide engaging "food for thought" for those done with their faux-occult, Illuminati-theorist phase, but not quite ready to move on to Philip K. Dick yet.

[Daniel Brockman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Total and complete genius. I'm sure that some would put this book aside as sheer folly and/or nonsense, but I see it as one of the freshest and most original takes on the place of pop music, as a phenomenon, in our Western society ever written. Many books are created out of a eureka moment, but "The Psychic Soviet" could only be the culmination of many many such moments stretched out over a lifetime.

[Greg Diehl · Rating 4 out of 5]

When read as satire it doesn't get much better than this. This is a book I never would have selected on my own - great recommendation. I laughed out loud several times on the Route 40 bus and even managed to draw a few skeptical looks (usually - someone needs to wet themselves or scream "bomb" to stand out . . . ). Quick read and worthy of a little effort.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful pop culture criticism that emulates academic and revolutionary writing with a sense of humor and sass. The ideas are absolutely audacious but are argued in such an elegant and witty way that they make sense. If you are a fan of Svenonius' work in Nation of Ulysses, this is worth picking up, as he is in top form.

[Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

nice, crisp manifesto-y tone works for this, and entertaining theories of the gay (and woman-hating) subtext of lord of the rings, the idea that the beatles are the only thing that made britain relavant in the last 50 yrs, and a deconstruction of the romantic notion of the artist.

[David Hickox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the top 5 books I have ever read. An absurdist analysis of art, music, and politics that toes the line between insight and insanity. As soon as you discount its maniacal ramblings, you realize they've just blown your mind. Intensely recommended.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Svenonius is alternately mad and brilliant in this tiny pink book of cultural criticism.

[Allan Hough · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think it's making of how in school you get all socialist and have to write lots of papers. i like how he really really commits. not as good as weird war though.

[Damian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book. Genius, Hilarious, Intelligent, Interesting!!!!
It probably doesn't help, that's how I would describe the author.
I need to buy a copy for myself to have around at all times.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dry witted and laugh out loud thesis from the U.S. & U.S.S.R. dynamic being a Jungian archetype of mother and father to the ever appropriate Rolling Stones vs. The Beatles.

[Matthew]

This modest book covers a lot of ground. With a slight, pocket-sized leatherette cover, it's not hard to see what sort of image punk-musician and fellow traveler Sevonius was going for. The Psychic Soviet is a collection of essays from various rock and culture publications that form a manifesto on capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy, and the rock-and-roll industry. In the introduction, he defines his little pink book as for "'street" use", and that, "None of this collection is to be confused with so-called academia. Instead, it is a kind of free verse, outside of science or respectability and at liberty to flaunt its diabolical exhumations on its user." (ix, second edition)

He certainly stands by that. The title essay posits that the world has been in a sort of psychic shock since the fall of the USSR and the absolute domination of capitalist overlords wielding the stained flag of the United States. From my albeit imperfect knowledge, there is some questionable history here, but it set the groundwork for a series of challenges to the status quo. The second essay, "Vampirism and Vampirology", takes a bit of a turn, breaking down Bram Stoker's Dracula (rightly so) as a white supremacist, eugenicist fable against blood mixing. Its a long way from rock music, but in hindsight prepares the reader for looking at popular culture as a tool of indoctrination. Things lighten up a little bit when he does a Marxist reading of the Rolling Stones Sympathy for the Devil against The Beatles Back in the USSR as a dialectic of "LennonMcCartney's industrial Sovietology vs. Mick and Kieth's agrarian Maoism, a direct reflection of the intra-Commie ideological conflict of the time." (66) Many of the other essays lean into how music, particularly rock-and-roll, but also movies and cultural production in general, are directly controlled by the U.S. government, taking usually minority art forms and warping them to create good, controllable consumers. Likewise, the "artist", going back to Michelangelo, had always been a brand, kept poor by the patrons so their output could be used to gatekeep the upper class.

I'm pretty sure the whole thing is satire. None the less I have a few issues with Sevenonius' arguments. He suggests that government insiders and plutocrats have absolute, monolithic control over popular culture, which they use to advance their agendas: a conspiratorial stance that assumes big systems are far to easy to manage. He also has very shallow views of things like American religiosity, which the way he writes it is on the way out, rather than a major force in American social and political life. And for all of his rightful bemoaning of the usurpation of Black art-forms by white producers, to my ears he fails to see much value in hip-hop beyond product placement. Often, his overarching statements are either obtuse or infuriating- for a while I was half convinced that he was trolling me.

As I finished his incantation-like closing chapters, though, it grew on me that, though he may not literal believe everything he is writing; it is closer to satire than farce. A literal reading of The Psychic Soviet may leave one thinking that all recorded music and culture is propaganda, and nothing made in the last century isn't soaked in blood. However, I think his goal is more provocative. Even if you disagree with his reading of history, these essays provoke critical thought on what is often the background noise of our lives in the West. I don't think the Feds are crafting music to make us more docile, but reading this book at this particular moment, during the accursed year of 2020, I feel that I am paying more attention. The Psychic Soviet may not have turned me into a chaos-magic revolutionary, but it did remind me to keep my eyes open. Try it out yourself, it is such a little pink book, after all.