Lowlands cancels Chris Korda performance

Organizer MOJO shocked by Church Of Euthanasia website

July 17, 2002

The performance that American producer Chris Korda was supposed to give at the upcoming Lowlands festival has been cancelled by organizer MOJO itself. This is in response to an article in the Dagblad van het Noorden, in which Korda's ideas are denounced.

Chris Korda is not allowed to perform at the Lowlands festival. Organiser MOJO finds the producer's ideas 'distasteful'. Korda made several records for the International Deejay Gigolos label and explains his ideas on his website, Church of Euthanasia. The Church of Euthanasia is a 'religious' group in Boston that would rather see people dead. On its website, it promotes suicide, euthanasia, cannibalism and anal sex. It is not known whether the group actually exists. Het Dagblad van het Noorden presented Korda's ideas to organiser MOJO, who immediately cancelled the performance out of shock. MOJO booked Korda as part of a so-called DJ package and was not aware of Korda's strange ideas. Programmer Eric van Eerdenburg: "We looked at the website ourselves and I think it's just disgusting. The gentleman in question gets sexually aroused by people's suffering, which I find rather distasteful and that is why I don't want to give him a stage here." Korda's latest video clip for I Like To Watch, which included footage of the WTC disaster and hard porn, caused quite a stir a few weeks after September 11. In it, Korda denounced disaster tourism in his own very own, unvarnished way. Korda showed this video to the audience during his performances. The discussion about MOJO's decision has already erupted on the Lowlands forum. According to many, this cancellation does not show the rebelliousness that the visitors had actually hoped for from the organization. Van Eerdenburg disagrees: "I am not against controversy at all, I think it is a very nice instrument to get a message across. But I think that this gentleman does not deserve any attention as far as I am concerned. And all the attention that is now in the media, that bothers me too. He is just a sick pervert." The decision does not mean that other groups that sing about suicide or vomit blood will also be banned from the Lowlands stage. Press officer Hans van Rompaey: "It's a difficult discussion, because where is the line? But this was clearly way over the line as far as I'm concerned. With Marilyn Manson you could still say 'she's not completely okay either', but at least it's clear that it's a show." What may also play a role is that there was a suicide at Lowlands a few years ago. "Then you think about it again, especially when the slogan is: 'Save the planet, kill yourself.'"

The preceding is a translation. The original language is here.