"I was in a band called Hagar the Womb at this time and I got involved in the anarcho punk scene (Crass/ Mob/ Poison Girls and similar bands) playing at punk squats and anarcho activist centres, and loved the DIY culture it inspired.All this stuff from 77 to 84 is the glue which cemented everything that followed. The DIY approach to making music, and the attitude and anti-authoritarianism of punk came through in all the music I made, and was the blueprint and inspiration for the SUF labels, the SUF collective, and all the music we went on to create between us all. Julian and Aaron were both squatters when I met them and were friends of Hackney punks, who themselves were descendants of this same scene, just a generation on, and likewise one of the first squat parties with techno that I went too was part organised by old punk mates (Dan, from the Apostles and later Look Mummy Clowns, and Danny Blank). "
From a recent interview with Chris Liberator in LouderThan War
It is a good piece of continuing countercultural history which shows how different strands connect.The 'anarcho-punk stuff'
can be traced backwards to the late sixties/ early seventies and then, as Chris does, taken forwards into the nineties and right up to the present. With a loop which sees Chris playing for Hagar the Womb again...
Here is some more of the first draft of history..
Was it a political upbringing? SUF, and other UK techno labels like Prolekult and later Routemaster, were often overtly political, what drove this?
As I said, all of the punk stuff acted not as just as an energy kick, but as a political education. However, when the techno came along it was a massively hedonistic time, and you didn’t want to preach to people when you were all buzzing on a new vibe, feeling the rush and energy of the Ecstasy revolution. Punk rock was far from my mind during this period, and for a lot of the others probably of no consequence. But we did came from an alternative culture and the reason we didn’t want to go clubbing with the Mixmag crowd was because we were outsiders, all aware and ‘turned on’ if you like. By doing illegal raves you were challenging the status quo, but also making parties the way we felt they should be made, with a dirtier, edgier feel. They were political by their very nature, and the ‘Fuck You’ attitude was always there. Lawrie’s Immersion rig was out every week, and he lived on a bus, parked up in a succession of squats.
Most of the parties and music sessions were done on the fly. It felt like we could do anything, and even though there were several run-ins with police and council officers, it did feel like London was ours for the taking. There were overtly political things happening alongside the scene, like Reclaim The Streets, and the M11 protests too. As for the labels, Lawrie’s label Routemaster definitely flew the flag for the squat scene, and Prolekult had Red Jerry behind it, who wasn’t really part of our scene but was another who wore his politics on his sleeve and shared the same attitude and musical taste. We were all pretty much on the same page. London/ UK techno was more than just music, it actually meant something, representing a way of life and way of thinking. Unsurprisingly, it seemed to connect to the same kind of people, the outsiders who had a similar view of the world to us.
I think being politicised via punk, especially anarcho-punk, where the Stop the City, anti war, anti vivisection marches and suchlike had already given us a taste of street protest meant that when the anti-CJA and Reclaim the Streets protests happened we just got involved as we’d always done. Fighting abhorrent legislation by showing your anger on the streets was an everyday thing, especially in the eighties where millions took to the streets against the Poll Tax and nuclear weapons. Whatever we have, they will always try and take it away from us, I think most of us knew it would inevitably happen. Most encouragingly of all the squat parties continued on unabated in London. Most of the rigs just thought , fuck it, we ain’t stopping, we’ll just have to become more under the radar.
