When I was still at Primary School I asked my Gran to buy me 'Death Disco' by Public Image Ltd. To me, now, this seems completely mad! My Gran had asked me if I wanted a record, which were still a luxury for a pre-teen, and I had asked for this particular disc having seen the band perform the track on Top Of The Pops earlier that week (which now seems every bit as mad!!). The reason I say it seems mad is because 'Death Disco' is an extreme listen....to put it mildly! When people gush about how John Lennon's debut album 'Plastic Ono Band' is the ultimate example of Janov's Primal Scream Therapy within music, it often occurs to me that these people have never heard 'Death Disco'. 'Death Disco' is John Lydon's howl of rage at the slow wasting death of his beloved mother through cancer. It's a pretty tough listen even now, never mind for a child not yet reached his teens. But I loved it. Something about it's madness appealed to me directly and probably shaped my taste for 'outsider music' there and then.
The reason I mention all this is because it was actually the B-Side that would prove detrimental in removing the starry blue-eyed wonder of innocence from my child's mind. The B-Side was called 'No Birds(Do Sing)' and can really only be described as apocalyptic. Up until then I recall that I was safe in the knowledge that there would never be a third World War. The previous two wars now seemed so long ago, and we were friends with Germany now, and I had even once overheard my Granpa say to my Dad that "There'll never be another World War".....of course what he meant was there would never be another huge land war within the theater of Europe. 'No Birds(Do Sing)' was the first chink in the armour, the first sign that other people may not share my cheery Utopian view and that maybe some impending holocaust was just around the corner. Pretty soon the reality of Thermo-Nuclear Destruction would slip into my consciousness and soon, like everyone else of my generation, we felt like we lived in constant fear of annihilation.
The early 1980s in particular seemed a pretty worrying time to be alive; Thatcher would repeatedly tell us that "there can never be a nuclear war whilst nuclear weapons exist!" Um, no Maggie, I think you'll find that there's far less chance of a nuclear war if there are NO nuclear weapons....I mean, call me mad by all means! TV shows, especially political comedy shows repeatedly insisted that nuclear destruction wasn't just inevitable, but imminent. How on Earth did we stay sane in those days? Maybe we didn't!
The apocalyptic image of there being no birds in the sky, singing or otherwise, would be put to good use in another superb single of the times, 'No Doves Fly Here' by The Mob. The Mob were an Anarcho-Punk band and, though they had released a couple of singles on other labels, 'No Doves Fly Here' was released on Crass Records and would prove to be one of it's finest releases. First off, 'No Doves Fly Here' sounds nothing like what one would expect from a Crass Records release. Far removed from any kind of Punk-by-numbers, the song is a huge, slow-burning, atmospheric epic of a thing with synthesizers and sound samples creating a haunting post-apocalyptic vision. The lyric is set in the immediate aftermath of nuclear attack as the protagonist views the forever altered landscape; "The sky is empty and it's changing different shades of colour// It never did before and we never asked for war" before concluding every verse with an angry "AND NO DOVES FLY HERE!" insinuating quite correctly that all beauty, as well as all life, has been destroyed. Like 'No Birds(Do Sing)', something about this image of no birds in the skies must have triggered something in my psyche for I have always associated a lack of birdsong with the end of the world. Of course, The Mob could argue that the lyrics refer to there being a lack of 'doves' within the then current UK and US governments, that both countries military's were rather full up on 'hawks' with nary a 'dove' to be seen. Both analogies work perfectly.
The B-Side was a track called 'I Hear You Laughing' which seemed to suggest that too many people within the British Public simply weren't taking the whole nuclear threat seriously and that unless they did, the government were going to keep piling up the warheads. While less impressive musically as the A-Side, I think there is a fair amount of righteous, indignant anger within the vocal to give the song a vital edge.
'No Doves Fly Here' shoots down all the rubbish that right-wing music journalists used to fire at Crass and their record label that all they peddled was cheap imitators of themselves. A lot of records released by Crass Records(many of which I hope to cover here soon) were every bit as diverse as those released by Rough Trade or Factory. Bands like The Mob sounded nothing like Rudimentary Peni, who in turn sounded nothing like The Alternative. There was also the feminist soundscapes of Annie Anxiety; the experimentalism of Icelandic noise terrorists KUKL(featuring a teenage Bjork); Ireland's D&V who used nothing but drums and vocals(hence the name); future Pop star Honey Bane; the radical music and politics of Poison Girls; and the spoken word releases of Andy T. Crass Records really should have been taken a lot more seriously than they were at the time, not only as pool of diverse musical output, but also as a forum for radical leftist political theorising. Just the kind of thing we could be really be doing with today....
~Gordon~
Both sides of The Mob's single can be downloaded below:
If there's one thing we here at the ~Streetlamp~ love, it's a bit of diversity. So for every sun-dappled reminiscence about some beloved Sarah Record there'll be some wallowing in the grime of some caterwauling anarcho-punk scrawl; for every moody and pertinent piece on a new ukulele and autoharp duo there'll be a skreeeeee of nails-down-the-blackboard Industrial Post-Punk cacophony. And so it only seems fitting that, following some deeply ironic incense and Holy Water stained prattlings about apparitions of the Virgin Mary(see Blog here) that we should come to write about a band whose anti-religious fervour teetered on the brink of madness. Teetered...and then fell in!
Yes, welcome to the Rudimentary Peni Blog. Be warned....it's NOT pretty! I've always loved the diversity of music! When I was at High School it was not unusual for me to buy something by Japan or Blancmange one weekend, and something by Cabaret Voltaire or the latest release on Crass Records the following. Just last week Griff and I were discussing that many of Morrissey's fans seem to like the things that he does solely because he likes them! The trouble with this is that most of the things he likes aren't very good; thus The New York Dolls and Jobriath are held in high esteem by Morrissey's fans when in fact both are crap! Likewise, not everything that was released on Crass Records was necessarily all that good either, yet we still bought them. Some WERE good, some were very poor, and a couple were outstanding. And nearly 30 years on, Rudimenary Peni's 'Farce' e.p. still sounds magnificent!! A 7" single, featuring 10 songs and lasting around 14 minutes, 'Farce' is a volatile explosion of jagged edge music and some of the angriest vocals I've ever heard; and all housed in a sleeve that seems to have been designed by a very troubled mind (more on that later!) It's the sheer force of both vocal delivery and playing that propels this fine record along; the music, despite it's aggression, is very precise and very intricate with 1000m.p.h songs stopping dead on a sixpence. But the vocals, delivered by guitarist Nick Blinko, give the record a uniqueness that stands it apart from most other 'Crass' bands, and indeed most other Punk bands. For an easy introduction, let's try E.P opener 'Sacrifice'. Listen to the absolute rage in Nick's voice as he bids us in with "God is nothing more than an obsessive lie// While Sunday school children are brainwashed into the line//And presented with as truth what's really just a lie//Another childs' self-belief is sacrificed"....take it away Nick:
Then, we notch the outrage up just a smidgen. On 'Cosmetic Plague', Nick's anger is threatening to take over. You can almost see eyeballs popping from head, veins in the neck bulging to bursting point:
But for all out venting of spleen, it doesn't get any better than 'Mice Race'. Remember when Ricky Tomlinson, while playing Bobby Grant on Brookside, would go into one of those fully committed rants, usually in support of striking workers, a performance he would hone to perfection playing Mike Bassett, England Manager? Or one of those performances from Michael Caine when he REALLY loses it? Well that's what we're dealing with here. This is one of the most apoplectic rantings I've ever heard from a vocalist in ANY band. Check the moment out at 1min55sec when he goes up a notch into full screaming outrage....it's quite incredible. I wish I could have been in the studio to see him capture this performance. I can only imagine it must have been like watching some great method actor....or, he really was THAT angry at that moment.
Rudimentary Peni are John Greville on Drums, Grant Matthews on Bass, and Nick Blinko on Guitar and Vocals and worked with both Crass Records and Corpus Christi in the early 80s. They have continued playing, albeit sporadically due to health problems; Grant Matthews being diagnosed with cancer, and Nick Blinko's psychological illness. Over the years, Nick has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals, having been sectioned under Section 3 of the Mental Illness Act. As you can probably tell by the brilliant but troubling artwork that accompanies RP's records, and of course by Nick's manic performances on record, this is a man with serious issues. It has been said that he creates his artwork while NOT using the medication he has to treat him. He also once created an entire album while sectioned in hospital called 'Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric', and is still highly regarded as an artist by the Outsider Art Scene. Hugely influential upon many US Hardcore acts, RP are still viewed with great fondness by Punks and Outsiders alike. Probably because it was pretty obvious they weren't faking it, or indulging in bullshit platitudes. Rudimentary Peni....turning the act of 'losing it' into a work of art.
"How can you ban language? How can you suppress someone's opinions just because you don't share them?"
Thus spake John Lydon on one of those endless list TV shows, this time on banned records, as he discussed the convenient removal of his band's single 'God Save The Queen' from the top of the charts in the Queen's Jubilee week. But it's always easy to castrate artists who are outspoken and whose views upset the moral guardians that oversee our every movement, and under Thatcher's jackboot many who spoke out in the 1980s found their tongues cut or found themselves facing arrest. How dare we speak out! How dare we voice our opinions! And today we are here to look at Conflict and how one of their songs became a criminal offence. Aaaahhhh....don't you just long for the good old days...I Love The 1980s indeed! Conflict started out on Crass Records releasing 'The House That Man Built' e.p before branching out and forming their own Mortarhate Records upon which they would release all further records. Their full length debut album included a track called 'Meat Means Murder' a full two years before The Smiths would take a mightily similar title into the British charts.
Conflict's approach to music was quite different from that of their friends Crass, in that where Crass would apply a more minimalist approach to their music to let the lyrics be heard, Conflict applied far more bluster as though they were REALLY ramming the message home, taking NO prisoners. When Crass split in 1984 vocalist Steve Ignorant would go on to join forces with Conflict, adding a second voice to that of Colin Jerwood, as the lyrics became more frantic and more impassioned. In 1986, as Thatcher's reign ground agonisingly on into its 7th year, Conflict released their ultimate statement 'The Ungovernable Force'; housed in a provocative sleeve showing a close-up of an armed riot police officer, it was a complete statement of their political and aesthetic beliefs. Conflict had so much to say about the state of Britain, and its status as America's lapdog, that there are almost too many words on the album. Take for instance 'Force Or Service' and the moment at about 43 seconds in when Steve Ignorant (acting as the voice of a British Police Chief) proclaims: "The CND are communists, we're sick of petty pacifists, Greenham dykes, Trotskyites, Greenpeace and the rest of it Rioters, muggers, looters, shooters, niggers are the cause of it Repatriation for the nation, the simple way to deal with shit Rastas, punks, mods and hippies, students, queers and dirty pakis Demanding more than nothing less, but never want to work for it Miners, printers, paddies, pickets, givin' it all the demo bit We'll smash them back with our attack, because we're the guys to deal with it"
Now, I dare you to try and follow those lyrics while listening to the track. How does he fit all those words in?
But the album would also contain Conflict's most notorious moment, the track 'This Is The A.L.F", a song whose entire lyric gives both suggestion and information about how you, the listener, can fuck up all those who inflict pain and suffering upon animals in the name of health and beauty. This was deemed a step too far by the governing powers and the song was treated as a terrorist statement, meaning any reproduction of the lyrics, or any performance of the song was breaking the law. A song! An act of terrorism! Give me a fucking break!! Given that two thirds of the ~Streetlamp~ team are borderline vegans and passionate animal rights supporters, and have been for over a quarter of a century, and given that we are at present in fighting mood, we reproduce the lyrics here for you now:
"What does Direct Action Mean?
It means that you are no longer prepared to sit back and allow terrible, cruel things to happen. The camerman in Ethiopia took direct action, he filmed the worst disaster that has ever happened to human beings. He realised it was too enormous a problem to handle himself - so he took the films home in the hope other people would help. They did. Are you prepared to sit back any longer? Direct action in animal rights means causing economic damage to those who abuse and make profits from exploitation. START!
It's possible to do things alone, slash tyres, glue up locks, butchers, burger bars, the furriers, smash windows, bankrupt the lot. Throw paint over shops and houses. Paint stripper works great on cars. Chewing gum sticks well to fur coats. A seized engine just won't start, sand in the petrol tank means that delivery's going nowhere. When the new death shop opens up make sure you're the first person to be there. If the circus comes to town remember what goes up must come down. Stop contributing to the abuse yourself - don't eat meat, don't buy leather. Buy non-animal tested make up, herbal soap and shampoo's better.
Try and form a group of people that you know that you can trust and plan ambitious direct action, sometimes risky but a must. Only when you have animal liberation will we obtain human freedom, when the last vivisectionist's blade is snapped. It will be that one step nearer to peace. Direct action in the animal movement is sussed and strong, and our final goal is not far off.
Animal lovers, vandals, hooligans, cranks; recognise the labels? They say we don't care about human beings. We say all sentient beings, animal or human have the right to live, free from pain, torture and suffering. They say because we are human and speak the same, we matter more. Is our pain and suffering any greater or lesser than that of animals? Human v. animal rights is as much a prejudice as black v. white or the Nazis versus the Jews an affront to our freedom.
Vivisection is a violation of human beings, the same as it is for animals. We have a chemical world built on a pile of drugs to thanks for their experiments. Drugs are designed for profit, manufactured to suppress symptoms. Human freedom, animal rights. It's one struggle, one fight. When animal abuse is stopped then human abuse will soon stop also, an attitude of mind. "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind". Start by protecting the weak, the defenceless, animals, the sick, the disabled. Compassion and emotion are our most important safety values. If we lose them, then 'we lose' the vitality of life itself. Emotional? Hooligans? Cranks?...."
The song would prove to be detrimental to the existence of Conflict in its original guise as live shows were constantly under threat and the band's every movement surveyed with ruthless scrutiny. The world, especially Britain, needed bands like Conflict then, and we need them now. Under Major and Blair, Britain sat back on its fat complacent arse and let the world get into the state it has now. The student protests at the tail end of last year showed that a swing back to Direct Action is on the cards. Get ready to do your bit! For more information about the Animal Liberation Front please check out their website, and do everything you can to help them. They are a truly wonderful cause. ~Gordon~
As I stretch myself out across the chaise longue, sweet sherry in hand, I find myself once again reflecting back on my last days of High School; the rolling, sun dappled Balquiderock hills, my pressed linen shirt, my white sta-prest, my tennis cardigan draped over my shoulders, blonde fringe flapping in the breeze as Sebastian puts some Lotus Eaters record on the Dansette....and then I realise I'm mixing up a romanticised version of my last school days with an old episode of Brideshead Revisited!
But in truth, I WAS thinking back to final days at High School recently as Griff and I had been discussing writing more about the *ahem* 'angrier' music we used to listen to, and not just sticking to the Twee/Folk/Acoustic blueprint we had been following so far. I was compiling a list of tracks to write about and noticed that they all seemed to come from around the time that I was finishing school, and I was somewhat shocked and surprised to realise that in those last days at the old school, my favourite song at the time was 'Antichrist' from The Alternative's 'In Nomine Patri' EP. It has always troubled me, especially of late, that my last school days weren't the romanticised pastel hued remembrances of say, 'The Catcher In The Rye', Christopher Isherwood, 'American Graffiti' or even 'Dazed And Confused', but were in fact thuddingly underwhelming uncool days of badly dressed faffing about in a schoolboy Punk band. Good at the time....not so good to look back on whilst trying to crochet some Evelyn Waugh-meets-Él Records re-imagining, or reconciling one's self that Arthur Rimbaud had written Une Saison en Enfer by the time he was 16!
It was a strange time those last days of school; not only was the glue that had bound everyone I had known since the age of 5 coming undone, casting us all to the winds, some never to be seen again, but even the aforementioned schoolboy Punk band I spoke of earlier, The Cakes, was starting to unravel, almost as though the onset of serious puberty was causing a diastrophism amongst longtime friends.
But before all of that seismic shifting of lives, friends and tastes, all I would rave about was 'Antichrist' by The Alternative. It seems insane now, but I had forgotten all about it until I started researching this Blog. This was a song whose praises I hollered from the rooftops at anyone who would listen....which was often nobody. I was mesmerised by this song; by it's squalling atmosphere building intro, to it's snarled Scottish accented opening salvo, to it's cavernous drum heavy pounding rhythms and raging vocals....the kind of thing you REALLY wished U2 would do until you realise that what you actually wish is that U2 simply didn't exist! I think the word for this song is 'blistering'!
I remember putting it on EVERY mixtape that I compiled for people that Spring, and whenever friends came round to the house I would play it to them, insisting that this was the greatest record ever made....and it was by a Scottish band! Hurrah!! But nobody ever took any notice. Most sat there with glum bewilderment as I sat forever enthralled by such an exciting piece of music. Why didn't they get it? Why didn't they share my ferocious enthusiasm? It WAS good, wasn't it? No....it was BRILLIANT!! But only I seemed to get it. The Alternative came from Dunfermline and their first release was on one of Crass's 'Bullshit Detetctor' albums. Now usually these albums were simply unlistenable but on this instance the track by The Alternative is far and away the best thing on it. The 'In Nomine Patri' EP followed, again on Crass Records. In fact it could be argued that The Alternative followed the Crass blueprint a little too closely; Crass had the Dial House commune, The Alternative had it's own communal dwelling known as The Pad; Crass had the motto 'Anarchy & Peace', The Alternative had the motto 'Autonomy & Peace'....see what I'm saying? Nearly all of the 'Bullshit Detetctor' albums are rubbish, but a lot of records released on Crass Records by other artists were often very good indeed(more of which in later Blogs), and for me 'In Nomine Patri' was the best, and 'Antichrist' it's standout track. Listening to it now I still get a bit of a shiver at it's immense power, especially in the early section(a warning to anyone listening for the first time, you really have to get beyond the opening minute of build up to appreciate the actual song it's self), and it feels right that I should be using the ~Streetlamp~ to shout it's praises all over again.
Now if only Sebastian would put some Poison Girls on....the scones and cream are beginning to hum in the mid-day sun.
"Same old stuff// You've heard it all before// Crass being crass..." You may think that here at Streetlamp HQ we swan around in smoking jackets, sipping the finest Chardonnay, watching Bulgarian arthouse movies and trawling the Internet for Twee Pop and Folktronica....and tragically, you'd be pretty spot on. BUT....there was a time when we were prepared to get our hands dirty. Just like the shellshocked dead-eyes who returned from the Somme, we rarely speak of our time in the later stages of the Punk Wars....but we were there, and we've kept our silence....till now! For you see it's time for us to tell you about Crass, and Crass are a band who TOTALLY polarise people. You don't just like or dislike them, you either bought in totally to their ethos, their ideals, their way of life, their dark, uncomfortable, scary world view....or you listened to Sting!
It's not often that Griff and I admit to being wrong about anything to do with music, and we'd certainly never say it out loud, but we WERE wrong about Crass. Not just once...but TWICE! How so? Come with us on a journey into a black and white world of anarcho-punk and the small matter of the end of the world. Folktronica and Field Mice fans be warned....rudeness will most definitely abound!
"Said they only wanted well behaved boys// Do they think guitars and microphones are just fucking toys?// Fuck'em, determined to make my stand// Against what I feel is wrong with this land"
My first encounter with Crass was through Griff. He gave me a tape of himself accompanied by drums 'singing' Crass's 'Do They Owe Us A Living' from their debut 12" 'The Feeding Of The 5000'. Crass had emerged at the same time as The Sex Pistols and The Clash but had refused to sign up to any corporate record label. Many called them old hippies jumping on the Punk bandwagon, but in truth they were more university drop-outs who took John Lennon a little too seriously, and fed off the energy of Punk to deliver their anti-war, anti-government, anti-meat eating, anarchist message. They lived in an artistic community called Dial House in Epping, near Essex, dressed in black militaristic clothes, eschewed elaborate stage lighting for basic 40watt bulbs, and bedecked their stage in flags bearing slogans such as "Fight War Not Wars, Destroy Power Not People" and the Crass logo. Crass almost immediately began to criticise their fellow punks for selling out to the big record labels, and by waiting till they could press up their own records, their debut didn't arrive until the Winter of 1978. But, by almost constant gigging, they had built up a formidable following. Their opening salvo, a 7" single called 'Reality Asylum' was also given to me by Griff, and it proved a shattering and uncomfortable listen. As far removed from the music of Punk as it is possible to get(but force-fed by the energy of Punk)'Reality Asylum' is a disturbing sound-collage over which female vocalist Eve Libertine narrates a poem/rant decrying the use of Jesus Christ a tool to oppress women and keep the masses in line through the power of guilt. Uneasy listening indeed, but also quite far removed from Crass's usual fare.
"Do you get a buzz when you reminisce?//"Too much man, it was better than this"//I don't want a relativity talk//If that's the bus ride, I'd think I'd rather walk".
'The Feeding Of The 5000' and it's almost immediate follow up 'The Stations Of The Crass' pretty much set out the blueprint for Crass's oeuvre; from the black and white sleeves designed by Gee Vaucher, to main vocalist Steve Ignorant(Steve Williams) snarling, profanity-drenched lyrics, to the usual subjects like 'the system', the suppression and oppression of women, right-wing thuggery, media brainwashing, the nuclear arms race and the imminent destruction of the planet. Both albums sold in massive quantities, as did brilliant accompanying singles like 'Bloody Revolutions', 'Nagasaki Nightmare' and 'Big A Little A'.By this time Crass had set up their own record company, putting out releases by Poison Girls, Conflict, Flux Of Pink Indians, Rudimentary Peni, The Mob and Zoundz, to name a few.
Debunking The Myths Of Crass#1: Crass's music is basically Punk-by-numbers! Not so; for me, Punk-by-numbers is the rubbish churned out by The Exploited, GBH, Discharge, Chaotic Dischord and Disorder etc. What Crass tended to play was more Post-Punk, often the bass would form the basis of the 'melody' and one guitar would form some sort of backdrop while the other would become almost a percussive instrument.Sometimes Crass would show that they really COULD play and would pepper their albums with piano ballads, avant-garde soundscapes, and acoustic folk weirdness.
"They sell us love as divinity// When it's only a social obscenity//Underneath we're all lovable!" In 1981 Crass released what is my own favourite record of theirs, 'Penis Envy'. On this album ALL vocals were delivered by the two female vocalists, Eve Libertine and Joy De Vivre, and the album is pretty much an attack on the phalocentric media and it's depictions of women as nothing more than goddesses, mothers and whores. It contains some of my favourite Crass songs of all time such as 'Berkertex Bribe', 'Health Surface', 'Where Next Columbus?' and 'Bata Motel'. On some of these tracks the playing seems to have stepped up a gear; check out the Calypso introduction of 'Berkertex Bribe' or the eerie synthesizer on 'What The Fuck?'.
Second pressings of the album came with a new final track, 'Our Wedding'; this was an infamous prank played by Crass on a teen girl magazine called 'Loving'. Calling themselves Creative Recording And Sound Services they gave away a flexi-disc ('Our Wedding') with the magazine. The song features a sweet synthpop backing over which Joy delivers a simpering vocal parodying a young Bride promising to be forever true whilst all the while knowing her new Husband will soon be back out on the pull. Trust me, this could have been a chart hit!
"Good old Crass// Our make-believe secret society// Our bland passport to perversity// They're nothing but a caricature....and a joke!" Crass's next statement of intent was their own 'White Album'; a double set called 'Christ - The Album'. Two full albums, a poster and a book entitled 'A Series Of Shock Slogans and Mindless Token Tantrums' all housed in a jet black cardboard box sleeve which resembled the monolith in '2001: A Space Odyssey'. This was seen by many as Crass's ultimate statement, an unrelenting, pitch-black slamming of the world in general. The problem for Crass however was that the album had taken over a year to record, mix and then produce in full, during which time Thatcher had instigated a 'war' against Argentina over sovereignty of the Falkland Islands in a bid to sweep back to power in the following year's General Election. By the time 'Christ - The Album' was released it was already seen as out of step and redundant. This forced Crass to reassess their whole recording strategy. Records would be released more immediately now, like news bulletins.All that aside, 'Christ - The Album' is still regarded as their masterpiece, containing many favourites like 'Rival Tribal Rebels Revel', 'It's The Greatest Working Class Ripoff'(an attack on Garry Bushell's racist OI! movement), 'Major General Despair', plus a couple of left-field avant-garde pieces, 'Sentiment (White Feathers)' and 'Birth Control 'n' Rock 'n' Roll'. And in 'Reality Whitewash' there was ALMOST a commercial sounding 'rock' song, an excellent downbeat and melancholic track dealing with a young wife chained to the kitchen while her spouse drives up and down looking for women, or being seduced by the models on the billboards.
Debunking The Myths Of Crass #2:They are a bunch of humourless tossers! Again, not true. This criticism seems to stem from their own opening lyric on 'Christ - The Album'; "Same old stuff, you've heard it all before// Crass being crass about the system or is it war?// We ain't got no humour// We don't know how to laugh// If you don't fucking like it...fucking tough!". There is a lot of humour in Crass, from the 'Our Wedding' flexi to singles like 'Merry Crassmass' and 'Whodunnit?'(on shit-brown vinyl), from tracks like 'The Smelliest Arse' and 'Salt & Pepper' to Gee Vauche's surreal artwork. If there hadn't been any humour they'd have been practically unlistenable!
"If it's a fight they want, it's beginning// Throughout history, we've been expected to sing their tired song// But now it's our turn to lead the singing..." Almost as a direct response to missing such a target as the Falklands Conflict, Crass spent the rest of 1982 and all of 1983 singing about nothing else; 'Sheepfarming In The Falklands', 'Gotcha!', 'How Does It Feel To Be The Mother Of Thousand Dead?' and virtually all of their next album, 'Yes Sir, I Will'. 'Yes Sir, I Will' was their most extreme gesture to date, the album is practically one huge song stretched over two sides...this tested even their most loyal fans. I'm pretty sure I've only played it in it's entirety about three times.
"Surface agreements, statements of fact, trying to prove we can do it//But sometimes when I'm alone like this I wonder just who can see through it". Crass always said they would cease in 1984....and they did. One more experimental album, '10 Notes On A Summer's Day' and a final single 'You're Already Dead'. This last single, excepting the shouty sweary opening 30 seconds, was their most commercial song to date. Over a polished sound Steve Ignorant pretty much raps the lyrics. The song is practically saying "We've tried all we can, but we've as good as failed", the lyrics bear this out;"By letting it happen without a fight// You're already dead, You're already dead!" and "Four hundred thousand people marched for CND//They're already dead, They're already dead!". On the last verse of the last Crass song Steve practically shrugs his shoulders and gives in, "In a world where the people can't make it//They've simply got to learn to break it// And if the wealthy aren't prepared to shake it...//O.K., we'll simply have to take it...". And that was it!
Steve Ignorant would go on to join label-mates Conflict, whilst Crass founder and drummer Penny Rimbaud wrote and recorded spoken word and poetry albums, almost always voiced by Eve Libertine.
For me, Crass were a sorbet(I'm guessing the first time they've ever been described as such) between Adam & The Ants and The Smiths; cleansing the palate after the pantomimic fantasies of Adam before the emotional songs-as-lifeblood of Morrissey. Pretty soon Griff and I turned our backs completely on Crass. We began to openly criticise them, to admit we had been wrong. We spoke angrily of their awful music and their dodgy ideologies, we bemoaned all those teenage hours spent listening to their appalling drivel when we could have been listening to far better music. Griff even once suggested we burn all their records as a grand statement, we weren't going to listen to them again anyway!Then, we eventually just stopped acknowledging them altogether. We would never speak of them, we became like the battle scarred of Paschendale, never alluding to what we had seen or heard....Crass no longer existed to us. For the next 20 years or so we would remember Crass only through gritted teeth and clenched fists.
The change back happened slowly. A few years ago I bought Rough Trade's 'Indiepop' collection CD which came with a booklet with stories and essays by such Indiepop players as Stephen Pastel, Everett True and Matt & Claire from Sarah Records. Most of the stories came from main compiler Sean Forbes though, and in his stories of Tallulah Gosh, The Popguns, Modesty Blaize and Lush etc, he mentioned over and over again that his favourite band of all time was Crass. Huh?? How can that be? How can anyone possibly like Sarah Records and Twee Pop AND like Crass? That doesn't work! That cannot be right! Then it dawned on us....of course it was right! It was us who had been wrong!
And as the dark clouds of the Cameron/Clegg Utopia descend upon us with it's twin leaders looking like a pair of Uberstumpenfuhrers from the Hitler Youth, with un-reality TV brainwashing the huddled masses, with glamour models and football stars treated like royalty, with huge spending cuts in the NHS whilst money is poured into weapons and surveillance equipment, with Murdoch's media empire educating the populace of Britain which way to vote, with a ghostly terrorist enemy being used to keep the public in line....the time has never been more ripe for Crass.In a previous Blog I remarked that tragically The Beatles aren't coming to save us this time, and neither are Crass....BUT, to the kids armed with guitars and computer software, they may not become the new Beatles but they CAN become the new Crass. Already we've seen Botched Fairytale claim Crass as an infuence and their songs already grasp the nettle, and as Griff wrote in his previous Blog, female post-punk bands are on the rise....we need the new Crass NOW. Looking at you all, I know one thing...we CAN win! I want you to sense you're own strength....go back to your constituences and prepare for Pop Music! Crass are dead! Long live Crass!
"The rich are in their bunker, the poor are at the gate//Use our head to avoid confrontation// Our love to avoid exploitation// If the uniforms choose to stay//They'll have to learn to get out of the fucking way!" ~Gordon~
And to finish off, perhaps their greatest statement: 'Bloody Revolutions'
"The truth of revolution, Brother....is Year Zero!"
Crass Personel 1977-1984: Penny Rimbaud, Steve Ignorant, Eve Libertine, Joy De Vivre, Phil Free, N A Plamer, Pete Wright, Gee Vaucher, Mick Dufield
'Death Disco' is John Lydon's howl of rage at the slow wasting death of his beloved mother through cancer. It's a pretty tough listen even now, never mind for a child not yet reached his teens. But I loved it. Something about it's madness appealed to me directly and probably shaped my taste for 'outsider music' there and then.
First off, 'No Doves Fly Here' sounds nothing like what one would expect from a Crass Records release. Far removed from any kind of Punk-by-numbers, the song is a huge, slow-burning, atmospheric epic of a thing with synthesizers and sound samples creating a haunting post-apocalyptic vision.
Like 'No Birds(Do Sing)', something about this image of no birds in the skies must have triggered something in my psyche for I have always associated a lack of birdsong with the end of the world.
Just the kind of thing we could be really be doing with today....
