Think of this as a fanzine...

Think of this as a fanzine…

We are the forces of chaos and anarchy. Everything they say we are, we are. And we are very proud of ourselves. Lines from a 1969 song by Jefferson Airplane which, if I could find it on my shelves, Tom Vague quotes in one of his books as being in an indirect line to punk via Charles Radcliffe who was/ was not part of the English branch of the Situationist International / King Mob. Oh hell, if I was wearing my ‘historian of the counterculture’ hat I would spend half an hour trying to dig it out and then rehearsing the tangled web already woven here many times which does/ does not show that punk in the UK was /was not an example of Situationist theory put into practice as a marketing ploy which exploded (where’s Bill Grundy now?) accidentally into a media spectacle and thus became something else.

The fragments are still - like a cluster bomb - exploding, or at least whimpering [ this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper - full text below] even in New York. 2007. NY ‘boho punk’ Jeffrey Lewis has recorded 12 Crass songs in the style of Jonathan Richmond and the Modern Lovers - see/ hear at http://www.myspace.com/jefflewisband due for release 1 October.

Or is it more Lou Reed style? Or even Patti Smith sings Crass? Whatever.

Yeah. What I was going to say is that Joly McPhie ex- Better Badges http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Badges now http://www.myspace.com/punkcast
Has said on a comment about the ‘from counterculture to Cyberculture’ books by Turner and Markoff blogged here below:

While nothing of the measure of Markoff et al.'s description of what went on the left coast. I was an ex-60s-computer major when I ran Better Badges in the London in the late 70's. Badges are very much non-virtual icons, with one's lapel functioning as the homepage. The you-bring-it-we'll-print-it scheme under which Kill Your Pet Puppy itself was printed was a forerunner of the user-created-content revolution enabled by the internet 20 years later. And fanzines themselves of mass P2P communication..
In other words UK punk in its ’anarcho’ / DIY form came up with its/ our own communication revolution - badges, fanzines, and ‘pay no more than’ records plus squatted venues and gigs which merged with the free festival scene. And that this took place at the same time that over on the left coast of the USA people like Stewart Brand ( = Malcolm Maclaren) were promoting personal computers plus internet as a revolutionary communication network.

Bit of a mindfuck. Alternative realities clash. Jefferson Airplane and Crass. I guess most folk reading this will know what Crass sounded/ looked like. But Jefferson Airplane?

Damn. Tried to put a direct link here but didn't work. Videos of We Can Be Together and Volunteers are on Youtube - do a google video search to find 'em. Lyrics below.



We can be together
Ah you and me
We should be together
We are all outlaws in the eyes of America
In order to survive we steal cheat lie forge fuck hide and deal
We are obscene lawless hideous dangerous dirty violent and young
But we should be together
Come on all you people standing around
Our life's too fine to let it die and
We should be together
All your private property is
Target for your enemy
And your enemy is
We
We are the forces of chaos and anarchy
Everything they say we are we are
And we are very
Proud of ourselves
Up against the wall
Up against the wall(motherfucker)
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls
Come on now together
Get it on together
Everybody together
We should be together
We should be together my friends
We can be together
We will be
We must begin here and now
A new continent of earth and fire
Come on now gettin higher and higher
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls
Won't you try


Look what's happening out in the streets
Got a revolution got to revolution
Hey I'm dancing down the streets
Got a revolution got to revolution
Ain't it amazing all the people I meet
Got a revolution got to revolution
One generation got old
One generation got soul
This generation got no destination to hold
Pick up the cry
Hey now it's time for you and me
Got a revolution got to revolution
Come on now we're marching to the sea
Got a revolution got to revolution
Who will take it from you
We will and who are we
We are volunteers of America


The Hollow Men

T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead. [ From Joseph Conrad/ Heart of Darkness - filmed as Apocalypse Now ]

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.