greengalloway: Crass/ Conway Hall/ Statement/ KYPP 1

greengalloway: Crass / KYPP 1

greengalloway: Crass/ Conway Hall/ Statement/ KYPP 1

greengalloway: Crass/ Conway Hall/ Statement/ KYPP 1

Crass/ Conway Hall/ Statement/ KYPP 1

Just been reading through 'Southern Forum' on 'Story of Crass'
http://www.southern.net/southern/forum/viewtopic.php?id=469&p=3

and it seems the Conway Hall problem [violence at gig] is still being debated. In KYPP 1 , December 1979 , the text of Crass' response to the event was published. Here are scans of text, plus KYPP/ 'Buenaventura Makhno' [anarchist psuedonym] response. This in turn led to a reply from Crass in KYPP 2.

Which I can also scan in and blog here, , but very hard to

I have probaly scanned all this stuff before, but so what.

[ I did see here

http://greengalloway.blogspot.com/2005/10/kids-was-just-crass.html

love, chaos n anarchy

AL Puppy

Nuclear Socketts/ Honour before Glory

I should get the Anti-Capitalism cd soon. I have (almost) finished reading The Day the Country Died. I looked in my collection of vinyl and tried to listen to the few 'mainstream' anarcho-punk singles that I found. Oh dear. They really are dire.

Then I found a ep from 1980 by the Nuclear Socketts from Kings Lynn - not mentioned in Glasper book. It would appear to be typical example - a group of very young lads inspired by punk and living in west Norfolk. But it sounds ... different. Zounds would be nearest comparison.

It is musical and listenable, but still deals with same themes , e.g. titles like 'Spy in my Brain' and 'Potential Killers'. Makes me wonder.

Did Crass by encouraging via their Bullshit Detector series and promotion of (e.g. Dirt - I listened to their Reject Refuse Object Abuse single and it is as awful as I remember) Crass clones encourage rather than challenge the 'tuneless thrash' version of anarcho-punk ?

Compare and contrast All the Madmen. AtM did not release an endless stream of 'Mob clone' records. The Astronauts, Flowers in the Dustbin, Zos Kia, Blyth Power, Thatcher on Acid etc. and - the might have been - Anarka and Poppy ; were a totally diverse mix of groups and musics. None sounded like The Mob.

To which, to speculate wildly beyond the constraints of budgets and practicalities, one might add Blood and Roses, Hagar the Womb, the music Mouse created and later Amodali's music.

But then the past is another country and we are middle aged now. My kids and 99% of people I now know can't imagine that a flabby, boring middle aged git like me who is now (locally at least) best known for campaigning against Tesco was ever involved in anything which might just be called interesting.

Its all history now. Literally - as wehn my daughter came home from school four years ago with a handout about Greenham Common for her Standard Grade history class. I said "This can't be histiry, your mum was there". She shrugged.


It is all his (her) story. We are the wilting( shriveled up and turned to dust) flowers in the dustbin of history.

Anarka and Poppy BUY THIS RECORD

Just got Ian Glasper's new book 'The Day the Country Died: A history of Anarcho-Punk 1980-1984' Cherry Red : 2006 today.

I will review it here, but need to deal immdediately with something which has been pissing me off for 22 years - the failure of All the Madmen to release Anarka and Poppy's 'If it Dies, We Die' .

Ian rates this in his section on narka and Poppy as an 'unsung classic' . It was. It would have been the best record All the Madmen ever released. But it wasn't. At the time I was 'manager' [on £15/ week] of All the Madmen, but due to a situation beyond my control [I got sacked], I never got my hands on the master tape and so could not release it.

However, water under numerous bridges, the song is now available via Volume Four of Overground records 'Anti-Capitalism' series - see

http://www.overgroundrecords.co.uk/release.asp?Release=OVER111VPCD

also on Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anti-Capitalism-Anarcho-Vol-4-Various-Artists/dp/B000HIVH6Q


and other sources.

Ian's book covers 80 groups. Of these 90% were crap ( within which I include Crass, Conflict and Flux) - making a tuneless, noisy racket over indistinguishable, cliched and mindless lyrics.

A few , a very few, are still worth listening to : Rubella Ballet, Hagar the Womb, Youth in Asia, Flowers in the Dustbin, Blood and Roses, The Mob, Zounds and - Anarka and Poppy. I make that 10% of colourful, alive, meaningful, thoughtful, wonderful groups.

This list is based on memory. Sure, I never heard all of the groups, but I did have to listen to a lot of them at the 'Grimaldi' Church on Pentonville Road, Wapping Anarchy Centre/ Centro Iberico/ Zig Zag squat etc. Most passed in an indistinguishable blur of black/grey noise. The ones above did not. Think Meanwhile Gardens ... but then you had to be there.

Oh no, you say, surely not? Here is Alistair being an arsehole again. [Just as I was then] So buy Volume 4 of Anti-Capitalism and decide for yourself.

Anarcho- Punk? Ha Ha Ha.

Spectacular Times online

What a good idea. Someone has put Spectacular Times online. Spectacular Times were tiny pamphlets put out by Larry Law in 1980ish as a guide to situationist theory/practice. We recycled them in Kill Your Pet Puppy. Later Joel B. ran a series of furious letters between Larry and Bob Black in his Chaos/Kaos.

Heres the link http://www.cat.org.au/spectacular/e-life.htm

If I was really organised I would find a couple of STs to scan in, but they are bured in my chaotic anarchogothpunk archive. so realistically, it is impossible.

Amodali has website

http://www.amodali.com/

William Orbit/ Centro Iberico?

Idly googling on 'Centro Iberico' I found the following about William Orbit's early days which gives him a link to Centro Iberico.How strange, but is it true?



Torch Song Biography

Thursday night, Venice, California...The moon is full. Restless figures gather at street corners. On Indiana Avenue a Chevy Impala sits parked under a flickering street lamp. Waves of music undulate from the car stereo as its shadowy occupants listen to 'Toward the Unknown Region' by Torch Song.

The group initially developed within a hot, womb-like chamber that served as a studio ina large derelict school. This Victorian edifice was located in Harrow, West London, set against a backdrop of the Notting Hill Carnival and Portobello Market and was shared with Centro Iberico Spanish anarchists, who were on the run from General Franco's dictatorship.

The blend of acoustic and electronic music and vocals they created there led to their first recording contract with a major label. The tiny 4 track studio evolved into Guerilla Studios, now located in crouch end and the creative base for N-Gram Recordings.

William Orbit and Laurie Mayer recorded two albums together, 'Wish Thing' in 1984 and 'Ecstasy' in 1986 (the former containing the dance hits "Prepare to Energize" and "Don't Look Now"). They have continued to create music together over the years with addition of a third member, Rico Conning.

One day in 1984, Rico stopped by at the Harrow Road squat to swap drum machines with the fledgling Torch Song. Shortly after that he dissolved his group The Lines and became a part of the Guerilla Studio's team. He joined Torch Song in 1986. There followed years of mixing and producing a wide variety of other artists while the Torch Song project simmered on the back burner.

The current Torch Song album 'Toward the Unknown Region' will be released 17th April on

Tom Vague does the Portobello Shuffle

here is a link http://www.portobellofilmfestival.com/talkpics/talk-vague07.html to Tom Vague's ace contribution to the Portobello Film Festival.
Portobello Shuffle is a song by the Pink Fairies from their What a Bunch of Sweeties album

Centro Iberico again

Centro Iberico- scanned again

Centro Iberico- Punk Lives 1982

Eat your heart out Andy Martin...ha ha ha. Although probably too obscure to see, one of the photos with this article shows Mr. Tony D. of Kill Your pet Puppy himself plus ? and ? building the stage of the punk part of the Centro Iberico in early 1982.

Text itself unreadable. Will try to scan again at higher resolution.