Last modified: 2008-07-05 by marc pasquin
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In an old issue of the magazine "Creem" was a feature on the Heavy Metal band Blue Oyster Cult. It had a photograph of the band performing live with a large Nazi-style banner or backdrop behind the band. It had a red field and white disc, but had in place of the swastika the symbol of the Blue Oyster Cult which is something like this: ż with a vertical line above the dot and a horizontal line on either side of the dot.
As at least one member of the band is Jewish, IIRC, they were almost certainly not making any nod to a band crypto-fascism. Rather, the band emerged in the wake of the so-called "Summer of Love" and their dark and brooding style was in direct opposition to the hippie notions of love and peace of that time.
You can see the flag here
For a closer look at the symbol, look here
John Evosevic , 18 october 2002
by Eugene Ipavec , 2 september 2006
This is a flag that appears in an animated music
video by the group Disturbed for their cover of the song "Land of
Confusion," originally by Genesis. Detail of screengrab here.
The video shows the masked allegorical figure of Anarchy leading a mob
into battle against the forces of the repressive, warmongering world
order, represented by caricatures of the leaders of the great powers and
presided over by a similarly allegorical Corruption. (I seem to recall
that the original 1980s Genesis music video did something similar with
foam puppets of Reagan, Thatcher and Mitterand.)
The flag of the world order appears several times - flying in front of
the UN, in particular - and is a rather unimaginative Nazi knockoff with
an oddly angular "$" sign in place of the swastika.
Eugene Ipavec , 2 september 2006
Marilyn Manson used a huge altered American flag in his concerts a few years ago. It featured his "shock symbol", a downward-pointing lightning-bolt arrow in a circle, in place of the 50 stars in the blue field. As far as an image is concerned, I can only point you to the website of one of his
T-shirt makers
Sean Wilkinson , 14 April 2003
I think he has also used this symbol on long vertically hanging flag- like drapings on his concerts. These were black with the symbol in red and white, IIRC, and reminded me slightly of the German flag of 1935-1945.
Elias Granqvist , 15 April 2003
A flag appears in the music video Prototype, that
sort of tells a love story between an alien and a earth woman. The flag is
white with a very small black 8-pointed star in the middle, which also
appears in the clothes (some kind of uniform) of the aliens. So it's meant
to be the flag of the aliens, I guess.
Jorge Candeias, 4 january 2006
The group also used a black and white US flag
pictured on their album covers and used as a stage backdrop. There
were two types of this flag. There was one where the stars were
upright and one where they were upside down.
Zachary Harden, 4 january 2006
What was meant with this design? Anything to do with Marilyn Manson
who used/uses a similarly described variation of the
US flag? What was the exact change? Blue and red as black?, or blue as
white with black stars?, and/or black and white stripes but starting
(and ending) with a white stripe?
António Martins-Tuválkin, 7 january 2006
In the music video for the song "Trouble", performed by American
singer Pink, there is a red flag with three black six pointed stars
in the centre, in the order one above two. Obviously it is a flag
for the people Pink fight in the video, because at the end she rips
the flag down.
Elias Granqvist, 1 january 2004
contributed by Alan Jenney, taken from a commercial site.
In the film "Pink Floyd; The Wall", there is a quasi-Nazi flag displayed that has been adopted by several Neo-Nazi groups in the USA. I recall the flag having a pair of claw hammers with handles over allping to form an X, and the head of the hammers facing the left, superimposed against a ring with gear teeth on the outside. The background had two bars, white (top) and red (bottom).
Use of this flag has inspired a movement known as "hammerskins".
Ironically, the film was meant as an attack ON fascism! Go figure!
Steven F. Scharff, 10 february 2001
The only graphic I
have seen of this flag is from some original artwork. The hammers are
shown as almost photographic, the flag is shown as a 1:1 scale,
pretty much as described in the posting but half grey and half red.
This grey colour may just be to give it a slightly older or
oppressive look.
The (light-duty) claw hammers have red painted handles with a black
rubber grip covering the lower half. There is a black band on the
top of the handle where it joins the hammer head.
In the promotional video to the single "Another Brick in the Wall",
in the film "The Wall" and at concerts, these crossed hammers are
shown in animation like the marching legs of soldiers in a
parade. "The Wall", these hammers and anti-facist sentiment played a
large part in Pink Floyd's works.
I have seen the toothed wheel mentioned as part of this image at
some other time, presumably to give it a "hammer and sickle" look,
but not in connection with The Floyd.
Alan Jenney, 1 July 2002
Site picture incorrect, flag pictured here
Rick Prohaska, 30 March 2008
From 1993.06.07 to 2000, US music perfomer Prince Rogers Nelson (born
1958), used as his career name an unpronounceable symbol, replacing the
former denomination "The Artist" (a.k.a. "The Artist, formerly known as
Prince"), which itself replaced the original name "Prince". This artist
is now Prince again.
Following a hazy recollection of this symbol on flags in a Prince clip,
I used the symbol I found here and
put it in yellow on a purple background. This is how I seem to recall
having seen this symbol used in flags, though I might be (quite) away
from the truth. For what is worth, the color purple is widely used in
the layout of the "artist's"website.
Anto'nio Martins-Tuva'lkin , 27 july 2002
Well, my not so fuzzy recollection of this video (a music clip produced as
if it was a live concert, or a real live concert, I don't really remember)
tells me that the symbol was golden on a white flag, waved proudly by
TAFKAP (The Artist Formerly Known As Prince). The symbol itself was
reflecting light as if it was made of little pieces of glass, I suppose to
give the idea of gold.
Jorge Candeias , 29 july 2002
The music band Rage Against The
Machine uses a flag (image taken from here) based on that of the
United States) during almost every concert as can be seen here (image taken from musicfanclubs.org). The sentence on top of the
upside-dwon flag reads : "something doesn't smell good"
Esteban Rivera, 27 june 2005
The flag for Vinnland, or more precisely "the people's technocratic republic of Vinnland" appears on the back of the three latest albums of the Goth-Rockgroup Type O Negative as well on numerous t-shirts. The flag is supposed to symbolize the republic of Vinnland situated in north America. Vinnland and it's flag are the brain child of the hulking blackhaired frontman of the band Type O Negative: Peter Steele. Steele incorporated his idea's of paganism, left/right wing political flirtations and his own heritage (his mother was part Icelandic) into a concept of a repubic named after the first name the Vikings gave to north America: Vinland. The Vikings landed in New Foundland around 1000 a.d. and built a colony there.Steele takes this idea and tries to imagine what America would be like if the Vikings had actualy stayed, and built a civilisation there. Based on that he designed a new flag in a scandinavian cross patern and gives it his favorite colours: green, black and white (which coincedently remind me of the german war cross). The concept of the people's technocratic republic only apears once in the songtitle "The glorious liberation of the people's tecnocratic republic of Vinnland by the combined forces of the united territories of Europa". In one of his interviews Steele says that he thinks the world would be better off if it were governed by scientists, hence technocratic. for more information see here
Jitse Verwer, 8 december 2000
It is a historical fact, that vikings really got to what now is called Newfoundland, and probably to Labrador and perhaps even more to the south of the North American coast too. However, they did not call that land "Vinnland" but Vinland. It is thought that the name came from the presence of currants ("vinbär" in modern Swedish), not of a supposed presence of vine or grapes.
Elias Granqvist , 9 december 2000
This flag is from a rap artist named Xzibit. He
used this flag in his video "X", and it has a
gaunt X on a yellow background. Four of these
were seen, all on cars owned by Xzibit.
Zachary Harden , 9 february 2001