Viet Cong is one of the more talked-about bands playing South by Southwest this year, mostly for the wrong reasons. They’re a bunch of white dudes from Canada, named after the no-good army that fought against the United States during the Vietnam War. The group recently had a show canceled at Oberlin College because of the name, and they released a statement reading in part, “When we named ourselves, we were naive about the history of a war in a country we knew very little about. We now better understand the weight behind the words Viet Cong. While we don’t take any concerns about the name lightly, we feel it is important to let you know that we never meant to trivialize the atrocities or violence that occurred on both sides of the Vietnam War.”
It’s a shame they picked a sh*tty name (“okay, we’re either Viet Cong or Khmer Blush“) because the band itself is quite good. On Wednesday, Viet Cong performed a SXSW gig at Mohawk — the same venue that hosted Speedy Ortiz ft. Hannibal Buress — with a drummer, Mike Wallace, who could only play with his right hand; his left was in a sling. It probably spontaneously combusted.
Via Stereogum
