Abstract
Blood Duster’s 1993 debut, Fisting the Dead is, in their words “pure evil filth” and the first Australasian ‘porno’ grindcore album. With tracks such as ‘Vulgar Taste of Rotten Cunt’ and ‘Raping the Elderly’ Fisting was deliberately offensive. Drawing on interviews with the band, this talk considers the subcultural work of causing offense in a sub-genre of extreme metal where offensiveness is a requirement. Through a consideration of how Blood Duster mobilized humour and exaggeration I consider how Fisting might work as a ‘stupid’ text in the, ostensibly, clever and creative Australian nation c. 1993. I ask: where does such sordid music sit within the context of the 1990s Australian iteration of the ‘culture wars’ when a progressive government was pushing for a rise of cosmopolitan middle class creative production? Fisting – in its vulgarity and contradictions – offers an insight in the subcultural politics of gender, taste and cultural value.