FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
Penny Rimbaud of Crass imagines the other Rimbaud during the deadliest battle of World War 1
10.08.2020
08:29 am
Topics:
Tags:


Photo credit Maryann Morris  

Far be it for me to say that Penny Rimbaud—novelist, poet, painter and co-founder of the mythical anarcho punk band Crass—missed his calling in life, but whenever I listen to him speak, I’m immediately put in mind of such great actors as Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole and Richard Harris. My word does this fellow have a mellow bellow! And even if performing Shakespeare onstage wasn’t in the cards for this most radical of radicals, what about doing voice-overs for TV ads? He could’ve been rich!

But I don’t think it’s ever been money that motives our Penny, is it? But still… THAT VOICE.

Recently Rimbaud announced his new album Arthur Rimbaud In Verdun, out November 20th via One Little Independent Records, a series of poems set to music about his namesake, Arthur Rimbaud, witnessing the carnage of the battle of Verdun, where over 700,000 casualties were sustained by the French and German armies, with over 300,000 slaughtered and nine villages destroyed.

The work is described as: “a fiction constructed by Penny, out of interest as to the possible outcome, places the French poet Arthur Rimbaud (who died in 1891) at the historic and tragic battle of Verdun in 1916. The idea being that Penny found something to be explored in the possibilities of the young vagabond and his perception of such drastic events. Dark and vivid jazz-infused ambience is punctured by Penny’s spoken word lyricism painting pictures of the chaotic experience of World War 1.”

Rimbaud is joined on the recording by Evan Parker, Louise Elliott, and Ingrid Laubrock, all on tenor sax. You can preview “Part 6” below.

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
10.08.2020
08:29 am
|
There Is No Authority But Yourself: Rediscovering CRASS
07.31.2019
12:21 pm
Topics:
Tags:


 
Whereas I was not exactly a Crass punk myself, I was definitely sort of Crass punk adjacent. The image conjured up of a Crass punk tends to be one of a smelly squatter, a stinky dole-scrounging vegan anarchist smoking roll-ups and sniffing glue. In 1983 and 84 I was a teenage squatter in the Brixton area of London (and before that in the infamous Wyers squat in Amsterdam), but I was a well-groomed American kid who saw no reason to stop bathing, or to change out of my normal clothes when I went to see a punk band just so I would fit in. I found it funny to show up for a Flux of Pink Indians gig at the Ambulance Station wearing a pink tennis shirt or penny loafers and white Levis to a Poison Girls show. At least it was amusing TO ME. Plus I’d have looked like a dummy in punk clothes. I never had any interest in “being different” like everybody else. Wearing the uniform of non-conformity, one which was apparently collectively agreed upon, had little appeal for me. In 1984? I saw it a bit like I saw tie-dye to be honest. Perhaps I was just prematurely cynical. I’ve never been much of a joiner.

But many of the people I knew and interacted with daily living in squats were full-on, very idealistic Crass punks and through their influence I was introduced to the decidedly non-cynical ideas of communal living that the band espoused and inspired. Take for instance the daily ritual of “stolen stew” whereupon items shoplifted from Tesco, or discarded vegetables gathered from the dumpsters of Brixton market were thrown into a large cooking pot at the end of the day by two German girls, both Crass punks to the hilt. (On days where I was stealing sugar packets to keep my stomach quiet, these improvised communal meals tasted better than anything I’ve ever subsequently eaten in a three star restaurant.) Veganism, obviously was a huge part of that subculture and Crass were THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT REASON that the vegan lifestyle first began to gain popularity, initially in the squats of South London and then spreading out worldwide from there. (This is a fact, don’t argue with me, I was there. Where do you think Morrissey got it from?). Animal rights and the anti-vivisection movement. And oh yeah, all the politics, that was pretty big, too, what with the anarchy and all. Class War was read and discussed and Ian Bone (a truly great English character) was around at times. I took part in the infamous Stop the City demonstration, the first anti-globalist rioting that shut down London’s financial district—or at the very least annoyed and intimidated many bankers and stock brokers for the better part of a day. Stop the City was more of a CND thing, but was mostly populated by sulfate-amped anarchopunks and the Crass logo was seen on half of the backs there. (What’s amazing to consider in 2019 is how several thousand people, most of them with no telephones at home, managed to show up that day. I recall being there early, thinking it was going to be a bust and then suddenly BOOM, Threadneedle Street was packed with young spiky-haired weirdos looking for trouble.)

These things don’t ever leave you.
 

 
Although an inspiring flesh and blood political ideal—the notion of what Crass stood for was obviously very, very important to me when I was younger—musically they weren’t my cup of poison. PiL, Throbbing Gristle, Gun Club, Virgin Prunes, Nick Cave, Soft Cell and the Slits were what I was into then. I would rather read their lyric sheets than actually listen to Crass’ music. The thing was, none of the Crass punks who I knew really listened to Crass either. I realize that this will sound just plain wrong, but it was none other than early UB40 that seemed to be the preferred soundtrack to anarcho-punk life, and not the abrasive racket made by Crass themselves. The early Cult were another group that a lot Crass punks listened to. Crass gigs yes, Crass records not so much. That was my directly observed observation.

Fast forward to today and I hadn’t listened to an entire Crass album for… well… quite a long time. To be honest, I tended to think of their music as being a shambling low-fi mess with a yob from Essex screaming over the top. The only Crass CD I own is the Best Before 1984 compilation, but I will admit to having a look at Discogs a few months back to see how much copies of original Crass records go for, just to own them as objects of cultural importance, not thinking I would listen to them much. I’m glad that I didn’t do that because One Little Indian have repressed the classic Crass albums on vinyl for the first time since they originally came out and from what I have seen and heard so far, these releases are exceptionally well realized. Not only is Gee Vaucher’s artwork faithfully reproduced, they’ve been remastered by Alex Gordon and Penny Rimbaud at Abbey Road studios and they sound, dare I say it, GREAT. Picture an archival copy of Stations of the Crass that’s been given the Blue Note treatment! These pressings are ridiculously quiet 180 gram platters that allow the listener to hear deep into every particle of amp buzz on the master tapes. My memories of listening to Crass albums is of hearing scratchy records played on crappy record players in filthy places. Little did I suspect how well-recorded their albums were. They sound shockingly good, these new One Little Indian releases. I don’t want to overstate the case but these are legit near-audiophile pressings that seriously took my head off. It felt like I was spinning a buzzsaw capable of great violence on my turntable. It sucks to realize how little things have changed in the world since these albums were recorded, but it means their angry vitality, so unique at the time, is curiously undiminished, either as art or agitprop.

Penis Envy stands out the most among Crass’s albums, not the least for its lack of Steve Ignorant’s trademark ranting and the female voices taking over for the entire record. It’s their most experimental and avant garde work. The guitars are savage, lacerating, Rimbaud’s signature drumming is crisp and martial and Pete Wright’s bass is taunt. I’ll say it again: These albums were NOT recorded poorly, they were recorded very professionally indeed. If you believed otherwise, as I did, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Minimally Penis Envy and the Best Before 1984 comp (on 2 LPs for just $20 and offering the best of Steve Ignorant’s songs) are what you’d want to have of Crass in your record collection. I also have Stations of the Crass, and will probably pick all of them up save for the first album. That one sort of blurs into angry screamy white noise to my ears and live Crass is the bridge too far for my tastes. But the rest of it? Yes please.

Highly recommended.
 

Penny Rimbaud discusses remastering the Crass catalog in a recent interview.
 
More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
|
07.31.2019
12:21 pm
|
Sheffield Tape Archive, one-stop shop for the Gun Club, Rudimentary Peni, the Fall and Pulp


The 1985 compilation ‘Sheffield Calling’ (via Sheffield Tape Archive)
 
Sheffield Tape Archive collects demos and live tapes recorded in Sheffield and its environs between 1977 and 2007. Nick Taylor, the custodian of the archive, has assembled a bonkers array of musical goods: the 1979 demos of ClockDVA and I’m So Hollow, both recorded (at least in part) at Cabaret Voltaire’s Western Works studio; a 1993 Rudimentary Peni gig in Derby that opens and closes with back-to-back performances of “Teenage Time Killer” and “B-Ward”; a Leeds show from Screaming Lord Sutch’s barnstorming anti-Thatcher campaign in 1983; the Fall, live at Hallam University, 1993 (with a great instance of typo-as-rock criticism: “Why Are People Grudgeful?” is mislabeled “Why Are People Grungeful?”); Eighties sets by Crass, Eek-A-Mouse, and Chumbawamba at Sheffield’s Leadmill; a typically flattening 20-minute Stretchheads set from 1990; and much else.

For the Pulp fan, the compilation Live at the Hallamshire Hotel 1981-85 mixes dour performances from ‘84 and ‘85 gigs with live material by the Membranes, Bog-Shed, Heroes of the Beach, and the Wacky Gardeners. Speaking of the Wacky Gardeners, many groups are featured here whose fame has yet to reach our benighted American shores, such as the Fuck City Shitters, Naked Pygmy Voles, the Wealthy Texans and A Major European Group.

Some of the material at Sheffield Tape Archive comes from the collection of the late Sheffield music journalist Martin Lilleker, who suffered from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease before his death in 2016. Taylor donates the proceeds from Lilleker’s tapes to charity.

Here’s Jarvis Cocker playing guitar in ‘82 in one of Taylor’s groups, Heroes of the Beach. They’re doing an original number called, ah, “Psycho Killer” (so named “because it had a bassline similar to the Talking Heads song,” Taylor explains):

 
Listen to some Gun Club. Crass and Clock DVA, after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Oliver Hall
|
06.15.2018
07:44 am
|
New book collects every issue of the Crass zine ‘International Anthem’


The ‘domestic violence issue’ of International Anthem, 1979
 
This deserves more press than it’s received: a new book collects every issue of International Anthem: A Nihilist Newspaper for the Living, including two never before published. The volume is an official product of “the publishing wing of Crass and beyond,” the venerable Exitstencil Press.

International Anthem was Gee Vaucher’s newspaper, but denying its connection to the band would be a challenge. Its 1978-‘83 run coincided, roughly, with Crass’s (as opposed to, say, Exit‘s), and the Crass logo sometimes appeared on the paper’s cover (see above). Eve Libertine, $ri Hari Nana B.A., Penny Rimbaud, G. Sus (aka Gee Vaucher) and Dave King contributed to its pages.
 

Gee Vaucher collage from International Anthem #2 (via ArtRabbit)
 
The book contains scans of the originals (“bad printing, creases, mistakes and all”), reproduced at full size. If it is good to buy quality art books, it is better to buy them directly from the artist. Buddhists call it “accumulating merit,” and they say you want to do a lot of it in this life, so you don’t have to come back as Eric Trump. Below, consume two hours of Crass programming broadcast on Australia’s JJJ Radio in 1987, featuring some Crass texts read in Australian accents and contemporary interviews with Gee and Penny at Dial House.

Help Gee Vaucher collect 20 million hand-drawn stick figures for her World War I project.
 

Posted by Oliver Hall
|
05.17.2018
08:47 am
|
‘Satanic Panic’ era televangelist has the hippest ‘alternative rock’ record collection


 
Typically Christian anti-rock crusaders during the “Satanic Panic” era of the 80s were coming out strong against heavy metal and sometimes punk bands. The Hell’s Bells special is one of the classics in that field—a program which was actually screened at my college in the early 90s—with most of the “very secular” audience cheering for their favorite bands.

“Satanic” bands like Venom and Slayer were always go-to bands for 80s televangelists decrying the devil’s influence on music, but in the clip below, taken from Valley of Decision, a Michigan cable access show from 1991, Mark Spaulding (author of Heartbeat of the Dragon: Occult Roots of Rock and Roll) presents the case for alternative (or “college”) rock being a force of evil in the world.

The remarkable thing about this segment is just how fucking HIP Spaulding’s record collection (of blasphemous titles) is.

In this segment, he presents albums by Tragic Mulatto, David Bowie, Christ on a Crutch, Crass, The Damned, Jesus and Mary Chain, The Birthday Party, Jesus Couldn’t Drum, Bob Mould, Crown of Thorns, Severed Heads, Psychic TV, The Cramps, Jethro Tull, Blue Hippos, Wire Train, The New Christs, and Black Sabbath—a rather eclectic batch of records with some deep cuts that would be hallmarks of cool for any super-hip 80s music geek’s collection.

Like, WHERE did this guy hear about The Birthday Party and Psychic TV?
 

“This is a band called The Damned—which is pretty accurate if you ask me!”
 
If you’re a fan of dumb 80s televangelists being terrified of popular music like I am, you’ll want to see this hard-hitting exposé. 
 
Watch it, after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Christopher Bickel
|
02.02.2018
07:39 am
|
CRASSCAR: the mashup no one asked for
09.22.2017
07:48 am
Topics:
Tags:


 
Let’s see… things I am and am not a fan of: The UK anarcho-punk band Crass? Yes, I am a fan. NASCAR? No, but my parents seem to like it quite a bit. The fetishization of the Confederate flag? Nope, not a fan. Mashups? Not generally, but...

I guess every now and then there’s a mashup that is so exceedingly clever or well-done that it gets a pass based on those merits.

The CRASSCAR shirt is not one of those.

Still, though… I have to admit, this thing did make me chuckle. Quite a bit, actually. It’s like “who is the audience for this?”

This shirt with the Crass logo done in a confederate flag style with the stencil lettering (based on lyrics from Crass’ “Reality Asylum”) “Earnhardt died for his sins, not mine” is certain to piss off both racing fans AND peacepunks alike.

I guess that’s why I sort of love it. It’s just obnoxiously wrong on every level.

More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Christopher Bickel
|
09.22.2017
07:48 am
|
‘Yes that’s right, punk is DEAD’: Crass and other punk AF fidget spinners
06.16.2017
09:50 am
Topics:
Tags:


Do they owe us a spinning? Of course they fucking do! Crass logo fidget spinner. The final death knell of capital P, capital R, Punk Rock?

As fidget spinners are the latest inexplicable toy fad, the popularity of which most adults find absolutely confounding, I posted a couple of weeks ago about low-rent knock-offs in the style of “Nightmare Feddy,” “Robert Cop,” and “Anna Montana.”


PornHub recently revealed that in a May data sampling, during just a ten day stretch in that month, there were 2.5 million “fidget spinner” searches on their popular porn site, making it the top trending term and 5th most popular search for that month (ON A FUCKING PORN SITE!).

Clearly, these things have taken a place on the cultural zeitgeist mantle.

That brings us to this stupid thing which presented itself in my feed today: a Crass logo fidget spinner.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume this isn’t “licensed” merchandise, but nonetheless, you can buy it for $6.89 on Amazon. If that’s not anarchy, then WHAT IS?

Crass’ 1978 declaration that “Punk Is Dead,” may or may not have been a true fact, but here we have a prime indicator—something Crass themselves would have called “another cheap product for the consumer’s head.”

The Crass logo fidget spinner was not the only punk rock spinner I found in a casual search, but it’s certainly the most ridiculous. Of course, you may wanna pick one up to give to the next spanging Oogle you see. It’ll give them something to keep them occupied back at the squat. I’ve paired purchase links with a fitting song by the artist, starting with the aforementioned “Punk is Dead” by Crass:
 

 

 
More of these damned things, after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Christopher Bickel
|
06.16.2017
09:50 am
|
Honey Bane, the teenaged punk wild child who sang with Crass and Killing Joke
02.07.2017
09:59 am
Topics:
Tags:


 
The other day I was crate digging through some 45s when I was confronted with something I used to own, but had not thought about in many years, the You Can Be You EP record by Honey Bane that you see above these words. It was put out on Crass’s record label in 1979 when Bane—who’d already done a stint at the St. Charles Youth Treatment Centre in Essex—was a 15-year-old teenage runaway.

On You Can Be You‘s three tracks—the presumably autobiographical “Girl On The Run,” the menacing “Porno Grows” and “Boring Conversations”—she’s backed by members of Crass who are pseudonymously billed as Donna and the Kebabs. A year earlier she’d put out another record via the Crass Records imprint—well at least half of one, it was split with Poison Girls—with her punk group Fatal Microbes, who included Poison Girls leader Vi Subversa’s kids Pete Fender and Gem Stone. (Both later became members of dayglo punk group Rubella Ballet, another Crass-associated act.)
 

 
The Crass connection is where my knowledge of Honey Bane more or less began and ended. She was the sort of person famous more for being a “wild child” in the gossip columns of the British music weeklies like Melody Maker, Sounds, and the NME than for her actual music. Googling her today I see that the following year—after self-releasing an amazing single called “Guilty” on her own label (listen below)—Bane handed Sham 69’s Jimmy Pursey, who was then doing A&R work for Zonophone, a demo tape and he signed her and became her manager. This seems, at least in retrospect, odd, as her Zonophone labelmates would have included groups like Angelic Upstarts, the Cockney Rejects and other sorts of early Oi! skinhead bands who seem a bit of a stark contrast when compared to the UR anarcho-punks she’d previously been associated with.
 
More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
|
02.07.2017
09:59 am
|
Members of Crass, the Pop Group, Killing Joke, PiL, and Current 93 are the New Banalists Orchestra


 
Mark Stewart titled the 2012 solo album he made with Kenneth Anger, Richard Hell, Tessa Pollitt, Keith Levene, Gina Birch, Factory Floor, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Youth, et al. The Politics of Envy. A proper dialectician, he prepared the way by singing about the “Envy of Politics” on 2011’s Mammon, a six-track digital album by London’s New Banalists Orchestra.

The orchestra appears to be the musical component of the New Banalists group founded by Stewart and the artist Rupert Goldsworthy. The Bandcamp page says only that the New Banalists “formed an orchestra to proclaim [their] manifesto”—which is refreshingly concise, as manifestos go, and seems to be slightly different in each iteration:

TASTE IS A FORM OF PERSONAL CENSORSHIP.
DENY THE POLITICS OF ENVY
TECHNIQUE IS A REFUGE OF THE INSECURE
SHADOW WAR

 

Rupert Goldsworthy and Mark Stewart’s beautiful logo for the New Banalists
 
On Mammon, Penny Rimbaud and Eve Libertine of Crass, John Sinclair of the White Panther Party and the MC5’s management, David Tibet of Current 93, and Zodiac Mindwarp (“The trick is to tough it out, sailor”) of the Love Reaction espouse a bohemian, psychedelic anticapitalism over music by Youth of Killing Joke and Michael Rendall, some of which will sound familiar to fans of Hypnopazūzu. Ex-PiL guitarist Keith Levene and the late cannabis kingpin Howard “Mr. Nice” Marks are on there, too.

After the jump, watch the ad for Mammon and then stream the whole thing…

READ ON
Posted by Oliver Hall
|
02.03.2017
08:40 am
|
Crass anarcho-punk action figure: Do they owe us a plaything?
03.08.2016
11:16 am
Topics:
Tags:


 
Plastic Passion Custom Toys recently posted an action figure of Steve Ignorant, singer of the band Crass, to their Facebook page. As far as we can tell, this appears to be a one-off and not for sale to the general public. There’s also no word on whether or not Penny Rimbaud or Eve Libertine figures are forthcoming.
 

 
Crass, arguably the most important of the ‘80s UK “anarcho” or “peace punk” bands, excelled at “branding”—as evidenced by the ubiquitous “Crass symbol” which still adorns spray-stenciled leather jackets and squats almost four decades on. It’s unlikely, however, that the band would have ever chosen to brand themselves in this way, in action figure form, though they weren’t completely opposed to novelty.
 

 

 
Plastic Passion Custom Toys creates new figures by sculpting and painting over repurposed old figures. Check their page for more, including their terrifying Pope Ratzinger “Vintage Villain” figure.
 

 

Posted by Christopher Bickel
|
03.08.2016
11:16 am
|
‘Semi Detached’ Anarchy: Watch Gee Vaucher’s Crass videos, 1977-1984
01.29.2016
11:15 am
Topics:
Tags:


 
Gee Vaucher was a founding member of the anarcho-punk collective that produced Crass. She was responsible for most of the arresting cover art for their albums, although she wasn’t the one who came up with the band’s ingenious logo; Penny Rimbaud’s friend Dave King came up with that one.

Crass was one of the first bands to use bewildering back-projected films and video collages to enhance their stage performances. Vaucher was the woman responsible for those, and watching them today, it’s startling how little they’ve dated since their creation. The anger and the need to fuck with people, that seems very late 1970s, but the fast-cutting use of grainy archival footage seems perfectly contemporary today and indeed would seem vital and relevant at really any point between then and now.

Vaucher’s Crass-related imagery is collected in the volume Crass Art and Other Pre Post-Modernist Monsters.
 

 
Semi Detached collects all of Vaucher’s Crass-related videos for the the first seven years of Crass’ output. The full title is Semi Detached: CRASS performance videos 1977-1984.

The first third or so of the hour-long video features “Reality Whitewash,” “Shaved Women: 1979,” “Mother Earth,” “Mother Love” (the opening credits have it as “Smother Love”), and “Bomb Plus Tape (Well Forked—But Not Dead).” Then the rest is dedicated to videos for the entirety of Crass’ 1983 album Yes Sir, I Will.

As we head into the last days of campaigning before the Iowa caucus, enjoy this very different political message…
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘Our Wedding’: Crass’s magnificent romance-mag prank
Pranksters make a Crass logo crop circle, oblivious ‘astronomologer’ attempts to interpret it

Posted by Martin Schneider
|
01.29.2016
11:15 am
|
‘They wanted to be rock stars’: Crass co-founder disses Sex Pistols and Clash in Positive Force doc
12.16.2014
11:13 am
Topics:
Tags:

Positive Force
 
Positive Force is a Washington DC-based activist collective that’s been around since 1985. The documentary, Positive Force: More Than A Witness; 30 Years Of Punk Politics In Action, explores the history of this organization, which often stages benefits with like-minded bands to promote various causes. There’s a wealth of archival performances in the film—including footage of Fugazi playing in front of the White House on the eve of the Gulf War—and this updated edition of the DVD has another 30+ minutes of rare live clips. The documentary also features interviews with such notables as Ian MacKaye, Kathleen Hanna, Jello Biafra, and Dave Grohl, who talks about his first-ever live gig, drumming for the band Scream at a Positive Force benefit.

One of the highlights of Positive Force is the interview with Penny Rimbaud, drummer and co-founder of the UK group Crass. Rimbaud’s band, which existed from 1977-1984, very much influenced the principles of Positive Force. Crass not only put out their own records and were critical of the mainstream, but they were also activists, believing that it wasn’t enough to just sing about social justice, you had to practice what you preached. In the clip, Rimbaud accuses the members of the Clash and the Sex Pistols of not meaning it, man, as he feels their drive to make it as rock stars came before all else.

If you have any interest at all in the history of American punk and/or activism, Positive Force is definitely worth your time. Pick up the new edition of the DVD via PM Press or Amazon.

All right, here’s Mr. Rimbaud:
 

Posted by Bart Bealmear
|
12.16.2014
11:13 am
|
‘Merry Crassmas’ (or Santa died for somebody’s sins, but not mine)
12.11.2014
12:08 pm
Topics:
Tags:


 
From the Dangerous Minds archives comes this festival holiday favorite…

In 1981, anarcho-punk heroes Crass had had about enough of the increasingly commercialized holiday season—not to mention the mass slaughter of turkeys each year—and decided to protest musically with a Casiotone medley of some of their best-loved numbers. The two-sided single, “Merry Crassmas,” was the result. It is the only Christmas song I can think of that hopes you choke on your turkey…

“Merry Crassmas” was credited to “Creative Recording and Sound Services.” On the picture sleeve, ringing Gee Vaucher’s distinctive art were these words:

COLD TURKEY ONE. VERY MERRY CRASSMAS. HERE’S AN AMAZING XMAS MEDLEY OF CRASS’S GREATEST HITS. SUPER FUN FOR ALL THE FAMILY. PLUS…SUPER FUN TIME COMPETITION THAT EVERYONE CAN JOIN IN. HERE’S WHAT YOU DO…IT’S EASY. JUST LIST, IN ORDER, THE TITLES OF THE EXCITING CRASS SONGS ON THIS RECORD. THE FIRST THREE CORRECT POSTCARDS TO BE RECEIVED WILL BE SENT THE FOLLOWING GREAT PRIZES…1ST PRIZE… BATHSALTS, 2ND PRIZE…ONE EXPLOITED SINGLE, 3RD PRIZE…TWO EXPLOITED SINGLES. HAVE FUN. SEND ENTRIES TO “CRASSMAS COMPETITION.” PO BOX 279. LONDON N22.

Please note that back in 1981, kids, “bath salts” actually meant bath salts like you would put in your bath—not a drug that makes you want to eat people’s faces off—a shitty prize, in other words. I like how third place gets not one, but two Exploited singles!

Side A:
Jingle Bells
Big A, Little A
Punk is Dead
Big Hands
Contaminational Power
I Ain’t Thick, It’s Just a Trick
Nagasaki Nightmare
While Shepherds Watched

Side B:
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Securicor
Darling
G’s Song
Banned from the Roxy
Tired
So what
Silent Night

One of only two Christmas records I own. I guess you could say that I’m not big on the holiday myself…
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
12.11.2014
12:08 pm
|
Rondos, the punk band that made Crass ‘look like a vaudeville show’
09.03.2014
10:00 am
Topics:
Tags:


The Rondos’ Red Attack LP
 
“The Rondos were Maoists—bloody heavy,” Crass guitarist Phil Free remembers in George Berger’s The Story of Crass. “Jesus, they were frightening! Serious! They made us look like a vaudeville show! They’re probably still doing time for something!”

Contemporaries and comrades of The Ex, the Rondos (1978-1980) were a Rotterdam punk band that ran a record label (King Kong) and print shop from their communal habitation, Huize Schoonderloo. With the bands Rode Wig, Tändstickor Shocks, and Sovjets, they formed Rotterdam’s “Red Rock” collective.

According to Berger, Crass dates the beginning of the violence that beset shows throughout their career to a September 1979 gig at Conway Hall in London. There, they played with the Rondos and Poison Girls in aid of “Persons Unknown,” a group of anarchists facing conspiracy charges. The book does not explicitly state what the Rondos are supposed to have done at the benefit, but it implies that members of Crass believe the Rondos provoked right-wing skinheads in the audience. (Crass avoided taking sides in skirmishes between punk factions: “left wing, right wing, you can stuff the lot.”)
 

Poster from issue #4 of the Rondos’ fanzine Raket, published September 1979

However, Berger also quotes an eyewitness account by self-identified anti-fascist Martin Lux, who says he was on security that night and mentions no such provocation. Rather, in Lux’s account, a mob of fascists came out to bash heads, not to see the bands: “Around forty plus British Movement skinheads had barged in and were gathered inside the main entrance exuding menace[...] The organisation of the gig had collapsed, Nazis ruled the roost. The only thing holding them back from rampage was that they were waiting for Crass to come on for the finale, then they’d rush and take the stage.” Lux says that he met outside with SWP members he knew from “many a past expedition against the Master Race,” and agreed to their proposal: he’d “keep the lid on it for a couple of hours” while they rounded up an anti-fascist crew to whup Nazis.

The memoir of Crass drummer Penny Rimbaud, Shibboleth: My Revolting Life, gives yet another account of the Rashomon-like event:

[A]ll hell broke loose when we attempted to play a benefit for Persons Unknown at the Conway Hall, London. Sharing the bill with the Rondos, a Dutch band who we had thought were anarchists, but turned out to be hard-line Maoists, the gig had its tensions from the start.

“We are not in favor of patronising the Right,” they had declared on hearing about the skinhead faction of our following. “If there is trouble, we will reciprocate.”

By then, I was pretty certain that if there wasn’t trouble, the Rondos would create it, but I needn’t have worried, there was plenty of it without their help.

Throughout the evening rumours were flying that out of the audience of over seven hundred people, fifty or so skinheads planned to storm the stage during Crass’ performance. It was a rumour we’d heard many times before, one that I felt was not based on any tangible reality, but created out of a sad need for vicarious thrills. Of course some skinheads purported to support the British Movement, but then the Queen purported to support egalitarianism. Very few skinheads were convinced fascists, and even if they were, so what? They were the ones who could have most benefited from what we had to say.

Shortly before we were due to go on, a commotion broke out at the door. We were under attack, not from the British Movement, but from the Red Brigade, Trotskyists who, in their crusade for peoples’ power, had taken it upon themselves to rid the hall of ‘Nazi scum’. Anyone with hair shorter than half an inch, plus a scattering of those unfortunate enough to be wearing a hat that disguised their allegiance, were regarded as fair game. The resultant carnage was ugly, unnecessary and utterly indefensible. The Rondos were nowhere to be seen throughout.

A couple of days later, the ‘Guardian’ ran a report on the evening, claiming that the gig had been broken up by the British Movement who ‘stormed the door with broken bottles and cries of “red bastards”’, a report that created a reputation for violence that became the bane of our life on the road.

Despite several letters to the editor of the ‘Guardian’, in which I demanded that the truth be told, no correction was ever published. The delicate balance that we had been able to maintain between the opposing political camps had been irrevocably destroyed. From then on, believing that we had set them up for a beating, Crass and its followers became targets for repeated British Movement attacks. In one unthinking report, the ‘thinking man’s paper’ had wrecked any possibility of success for our commitment to open dialogue.

Finally, there’s the Rondos’ own account of the show, from the biography section of the band’s website. It’s the only version of the story that includes vegan spring rolls:

The day of the concert arrived, a benefit concert for anarchist prisoners in England. Crass practised the transitions between the songs, which they played without pausing, like they did on their records. We hung around in their delightful garden. Steve Ignorant, Crass’ brilliant singer, polished everyone’s Dr. Martens boots. He asked how we could remain so calm just before a performance. We smiled, because we didn’t understand the question. He told us he kept running to the toilet with nerves all day. We raised our eyebrows. That afternoon we arrived at the Conway Hall in Crass’ van. The place was swarming with skinheads. The fascist National Front had just held a big meeting. In the Conway Hall, of all places.

The atmosphere in the venue just before that night’s performance was vicious. Fights broke out near the toilets in the corridor between different groups of skinheads supporting different football clubs. They marched ostentatiously into the room, with bloody hands and faces. They raised their arms in the Nazi salute. The Rondos played. Apart from the odd broken string the gig went perfect. We got good reactions. Poison Girls played. There was a lot of Hex-like behaviour from female fans. Their vocals were rather theatrical, but still it was a great show, supported noisily by a gang of West Ham skins thrashing the balcony.

Then all hell broke loose. It all happened very fast. People were getting punched and kicked. Panic broke out. The audience scattered. We lifted small skinheads on to the stage so they wouldn’t get trampled. They cried with shock and fear and were barely eleven or twelve years old. People were lying on the floor. The police arrived and cleared the room. The skins were told to hand in their shoelaces. Peace returned and staff scrubbed the floor and mopped up the blood. Apparently, members of the Anti Nazi League and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) had clashed with skinheads of the British Movement and the National Front, who had stayed behind in pubs around the Conway Hall after the NF meeting to come to Crass’ gig that evening. A Jewish activist from the SWP walked up to the stage and pointed his finger at Crass. Your fault!

We grabbed our things and got in the van. We were packed together and very quiet. We went by a Chinese take-away for some vegan spring rolls. At Crass’ place a discussion ensued. The tone was friendly, but still. Shouldn’t you protect yourself from this kind of violence? They frequently wrestled with these problems. Crass had become a target for skinheads who were attracted to their furious music, militant appearance and swastika-like symbols, but who rejected anarchist and pacifist ideas. Crass refused to employ bouncers or let the venue hire them, even though that was a common thing in London in those days. It was a question of principles but should the audience be put through all this? You do invite them to come to your gigs, after all. Is it fair to deliver them unprotected to hordes of skinheads, fascist or not, while you are safely on the stage? It was fair, said Crass, for that was simply the situation in London at that time and they didn’t want to be ‘anti’. Crass said we didn’t understand, coming from the peaceful Netherlands. Crass’ pacifist anarchism, although admirable, opposed The Rondos’ more militant attitude.

We said goodbye the next day. We agreed to do more concerts in England together, organize a common tour of the Netherlands and there were plans to record an LP with Crass’ help. We’d talk about it all later. In the meantime the newspapers in England were full of the Conway Hall battle. The only venue, by the way, that had offered the National Front a space to meet, from the fundamental conviction that everyone has the right of assembly.

Here’s some surprisingly good-looking footage of the band performing three songs. If you like this stuff, there is a box set. A Black & White Statement: The Story of the Rondos contains the Rondos’ complete discography, a live show, a photo book, a comic book, a lyric book, and the band’s autobiography.
 

Rondos perform “I Got No Time” and “System”
 

Rondos perform “Russians Are Coming”
 
Hear the Rondos play a 1978 set of fifteen covers, including the Suicide Commandos’ “Burn It Down.”

Posted by Oliver Hall
|
09.03.2014
10:00 am
|
Christ the Auction: Crass drumhead goes up for auction at Sotheby’s
06.20.2014
03:20 pm
Topics:
Tags:


 
A stenciled Crass drumhead is going up for auction as part of Sotheby’s rock and roll memorabilia event. The estimate is that it’ll go for between $15,000 and $20,000. The “Presley to Punk” auction will occur on June 24. When I saw this, I have to admit, the collector in me swooned.

It’s a pity that this will probably just end up in some rich asshole’s house instead of in an anarchist museum or some place like that. At least I hope that it’s Penny Rimbaud himself who’ll be getting the money for this (it appears that he signed it recently). If anyone deserves to cash in on their past in this way—I really mean this—God bless them, it’s Crass. No one’s selling out here, they’re just clearing out the garage!

The auction also has some amazing signed items from The Beatles, one of Sly Stone’s vests, a jacket worn by Jimmy Page, several drawings and paintings by Joni Mitchell, as well as guitar straps worn by Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Garcia. A naughty comic strip from a young Jim Morrison and a semi-pornograpic collage made by John and Yoko for Elton John’s birthday in 1975. Several gold records belonging to Mick Jagger, even the Grammy presented to Johnny Cash and June Carter for “Jackson.” There are 145 items in all being auctioned off.
 

Sly Stone’s beaded vest, as seen during his infamous stint as co-host of The Mike Douglas Show.
 

Crosby, Stills & Nash by Joni Mitchell
 

Gary Panter’s original rendition of The Screamers logo

Thank you Luhuna Carvalho!

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
06.20.2014
03:20 pm
|
Page 1 of 3  1 2 3 >