Sean over at expletive undeleted unearths Flux of Pink Indian’s most, ah, “challenging” album and also republishes his interview with them from around the time it was released.
I came into anarcho punk from the wrong end – managing to pick up this LP and Crass’ similarly experimental “Yes Sir I Will” before the more catchy pogo-along material which preceded them. I suspect this was because they were both readily available cheap and 2nd hand at the time – the dog end of the “movement” around 1986 or so. I can easily picture a line of twenty something blokes with dyed hair and leather jackets queuing up at the counter of 2nd hand record shops across the country to cash these in for something more to their liking.
Both albums have a great deal in common – their unlistenability, the influence of free jazz (something I have never really tolerated – though I find it interesting that Flux would be into the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Crass always had a beatnik thing going on anyway…). What I think is most interesting about these records is that they represent a realisation of the limits of anarcho punk from two of its foremost exponents.
The big boys outmanouevred the spiky tops, basically. Singing songs or even glueing up the locks of butchers shops was nothing in the face of the Falklands war, or US nuclear weapons being installed at Greenham Common, or the wholesale attack on working class communities in the form of the miners’ strike. Or even sexual violence against women.
Coupled with that both bands were clearly having an identity crisis and questioning their role as leaders and performers vs their following or audience.
So, bloody awful albums which raise some interesting questions?
As Sean says, Flux are often overlooked in the historification of anarchopunk. Crass’ subsequent trajectory is well documented – they followed up their difficult album with a greatest hits and a completely unlistenable hippy jazz 12″ before imploding.
Flux on the other hand recorded “Uncarved” with Adrian Sherwood, Style Scott and Bonjo I from On-U Sound. (The album title came from the same book as the title of this blog/website incidentally – I’m not such a massive fan of the LP that I named all this after it! But it is worth a listen.)
Coal Latter from the group went on to form Hotalacio who released a great cover version of Cameo’s “Talking Out The Side of Your Neck” produced by Keith Leblanc of Sugarhill Gang/Maffia/Tackhead fame and an album which I haven’t heard…
Sean also mentions the new punk nostalgia and it is I guess inevitable that these aspects of the music (and indeed the non-musical aspects) are usually overlooked at the expense of the more rock ‘n’ roll singalonga “do you remember when we were all so angry at Thatcher? Oh yes I’ll have a pint.” material.
I’m not sure where that leaves us, really.
Always struck me, as a free jazz fan, that they didn’t really believe free jazz could be nice to listen to and it was just a lazy way of being different. Some AEoC records are incredibly beautiful whereas all this stuff is just thin, parping crap. It’s a bit like the Homosexuals (who did some amazing songs) making a stupid bloody racket and prancing about shrieking ‘The Eeeeeeeeyes have it!’. Guys, you don’t think this is worthwhile any more than I do, it just comes from being stuck and deciding you quite fancy being Sun Ra tonight, Matthew.
Again I’m struck by the differences in growing up punk in the US and in the UK. Crass and their ilk didnt really catch on much that I ever saw, only with undernourished vegan types looking for something to justify their pre-existing prejudices. We didnt have “class war” but were aware of power issues and there was anger towards the rich who abused their privileges. Not really the same thing now is it?
As for punk nostalgia, well we got older, some of us had kids and all that. But I must admit some nostalgia for a time when I had no cares but my skateboard and getting into see the show.
I though there was quite a large wing of vegan/leftwing hardcore bands in the states? Maybe in the later 80s?
I think with the free jazz thing you have to bear in mind that they were coming at it from an angry punk angle, so tinkling ambience was never really on the agenda. What I do like about it is the complete disregard for their existing audience, like Throbbing Gristle getting pissed off with their clones and coming onstage all dressed in white accompanied by a load of Abba songs…
In terms of the US, I think Crass were peculiarly UK-centric in many ways – certainly the animal lib stuff seems to have had less resonance in other countries and of course the cultural references and class signifiers would all be different. It was also quite protestant and austere when compared to something like the Dead Kennedys or Black Flag.
But loads of free jazz (not so much Art Ensemble of Chicago) is really lairy and it’s good, whereas this is just weedy, irritable and drab.
Also it’s not that much of a nose-thumbing departure from the previous stuff if you’re still trying to make music that goes ‘GRRR!’. They should have turned into Visage or something.
Anyway, I was defending Crass in the pub last night. I believe you were among the tide of detractors that I fearlessly beat down in a shower of vegan ale.
Why have we switched places? Is it part of the Mad Hatter’s tea party of anarchist punk?
Good post, btw.
I’m not defending their music! Just having a ruminate 😉
I take your point about free jazz, though.
I mean, I don’t know why their take on it is so crap, but I’m sorry to say (rrrrrrrrrockist!) that I think it’s to do with the people that make free jazz being very accomplished musicians, and this lot being hippies who think it’s easier to do than other music.
A bit like writing bad poetry instead of a bad novel.
I’m bored at work. Can you tell?
Yes, but isn’t it time to go home now?
10 minutes to go… If I lived at Dial House I wouldn’t have to bloody clockwatch.
stn, you’re thinking of like Nausea & Antischism & all those late-80s/early 90s crust bands – that scene was pretty huge here through the 90s when I was growing up (though I have no idea how it’s doing these days). Crucifix & MDC were the only contemporary US bands to really identify w/the UK/anarcho scene, or at least the only ones people remember. I used to wonder about that all the time when I was 15 – it’s not just the overwhelming Britishness of Crass and their counterparts, I think. developing something like that is just impossible in the US – everything’s spread too far apart/laws much less favorable towards militant protest & squatting/no dole, etc. when we finally did generate a credible anarcho scene here it lacked all the diversity/experimentation that made the original interesting. even it was just hippies playing bad free jazz at least they were willing to challenge people – not just formulaic thudding d-beats and shrieking Discharge haikus about war & multinationals.
oh, and I wouldn’t call punk nostalgia “new”. in my experience EVERYTHING about punk is based upon nostalgia, which isn’t suprising considering the utter lack of innovation (at least in the last 20 years or so) and how rigidily codified it is.
Interesting comments, padraig. I think I agree that punk is essentially nostalgic for the most part but certainly in its original 1976 form it was supposed to be against all that. We’ve just had a new wave of nostalgia here for Crass et al with the publication of a few books and some reunion gigs, so that’s why I mentioned that.
I remember an interview with Kevin Martin around the time Macro Dub Infection came out (mid 90s) where he was talking about punk ideas rather than style, saying chopping up amen breaks at a warehouse rave was more punk than three chord thrash. See also Maximum Rock N Roll magazine – the title is a big clue but they’ve been criticised as being gatekeepers of what is and isn’t punk over the years I think.
Can I just say I very much like the sound of ‘shrieking Discharge haikus’?
“credible anarcho scene” Oxymoron?
When did ‘punk’ as a term recieve this universal sanctity that it has now? You’ll find musicians bigging up influences with it; ‘in many ways, Hank Williams was the first punk’ or whatever. To me punk is fairly specific and loosely tied to a subculture. I don’t think Madonna is a punk, or Herman Melville or whoever but I’m sure I could find people saying otherwise. Sometimes it just seems to mean ‘I approve of this person’. Of course because it’s partly linked to doing things that are ‘unexpected’ you can justify anything with it (property speculation? SO punk!) etc.
Absolutely nobody in 1991, when I picked up all the Crass albums at original cover price or less. Nobody gave a shit about punk then. Probably when the Sex Pistols reformed and a bunch of Loaded writers were amazed they didn’t get killed at the gig.
I got into punk aged about 14 in 1994. The wheels were in motion then, but it wasn’t used to describe estate agents and chefs at that point. I was sad that the Sex Pistols reformed. Lydon just looks such a fool now, and I guess that’s when the so-unpunk-it’s-actually-punk-geddit? stuff started to be wheeled out.
Why am I haunting this thread like this?
I think the difficulty is that “punk” can now mean anything vaguely rebellious or shocking, rather than a genuinely shocking amalgam of ideas nicked off the situationists and others which actually offended “many right thinking people” who needed to be offended.
Personally I blame all the “cash from chaos” stuff which went along with McLaren’s “Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle” film – which basically tried to suggest that the whole thing was just smart entreprenuerialism (surely that can’t be a word?!) than anything focussed on challenging the dominant order.
None of you lot know about punk, bunch of fucking postgrads sitting around moaning about the fucking music business…Crass and all that shit…I liked Roogalator, they were much more fucking avant garde…all those floppy punk mongs selling fucking fanzines. Can’t fucking spell. Learn to spell, boy. Fucking prison warder could tell you that. Grammar school anarchists. You can’t even light up on the train without some fucker telling you put it out. And the fucking Poison Girls and all those politicals, setting up fucking music classes in college! YTS fucking bands. It’s disgusting. But you lot like making lists on blogs, so you’re going on about “Hillage Group” and Crass. It was just like I predicted in fucking 1981.
Punk was just for hippies anyway, when I was growing up the proper lads were into hush puppies and Bix Biderbecke records. I remember at one stage you couldn’t be one of the boys without a twinset and pearls. Without that, you were nobody.
to stave off confusion/misunderstanding, I’m talking about punk as a living thing here, not as people who were around in the 1978 (or 1986 or whatever) rehashing old times. I think maybe John & others are talking about the latter.
what I meant by “everything based on nostalgia” is that punks are generally trying to recreate something that has already passed into history instead of taking it as an influence and moving forward. musically it’s always been so conservative, almost as a counterpoint to the attitude and/or politics, that anyone who wants to innovate even a little winds up drifting away fairly quickly and the only people left are ones who want to sound exactly like Amebix or some obscure Japanese band from the 80s. the culture as well – punks exist in some weird vacuum outside of regular time, where inflation never happens (e.g. all shows are forever $5 and all 7″ are forever $3) and where the height of fashion (dread mullet, bullet belt, black denim vests etc.) has been the same for the last 20 years or so. it’s also true that “punk” as a subculture has almost nothing to do with the way the word itself has come to be tossed around as a cultural signifier in the last decade or so.
John,
Any idea about that Uncarved album? Does it sound like this free jazz stuff or like an On U thing? Though then again, the two were not so easily separated at times…
padraig,
Near my first apartment Tokyo, there was a shop which sells off the rack punk fashion. A pre-decorated (patches and studs) motorcycle jacket, plaid bondage pans, creepers and a fedora would run about 120,000 Yen (about £600~700 at todays strong £ rates, or $1,100 at the weaker $ rate). This is to say that the lack of inflationary pressure seems to be a non constant.
^ 1) Yeah but that’s like Hot Topic, no? doesn’t really have much to do w/the scene I’m talking about, in which most people wouldn’t be caught dead in that kinda store, let alone buying a pre-decorated leather jacket. more Profane Existence & Food Not Bombs than Holidays in the Sun, that is.
2) fashion is much more important in Japan than it is in the States – most punks here who are beyond their teens and still punks don’t really bother with it much, at least not in the traditional studded leather jacket/spiky hair sense.
for anyone interested, here’s an article about the influence of free jazz upon punk and the connections between the two – http://www.furious.com/PERFECT/jazzpunk.html
What about the alternative ripple/ current which ran from the Soft Machine/Daevid Allen into punk via ATV who played with Here and Now in 1978 and with early input by Genesis P. Orridge through Streetlevel Studios/ Fuck Off Records and got mixed in with the London Musicians Collective ?
Or the Pop Group/ Mark Stewart experimentations?
If you hack through the musical undergrowth on the KYPP site (which has its punk roots in Ripped and Torn fanzine est. October 1976) there are all manner of wierd and wonderful musical noises. Also have a listen to some of the ‘post 1986’ musics.
padraig – I try to forget that punk is an ongoing zombie genre, for exactly the reasons you mention!
Mr Pressor – I haven’t heard it for a while but it is quite accessible – certainly not improv jazz. Quite rhythmic but unfortunately not as “industrial dub” as stuff like “End of the 20th Century Party” or the early Tackhead 12″. Worth checking some online snippets if you can find them.
Al – yes I think that is a more interesting current, which was often more successful in its experimentation for my money. ATV I have a lot of time for… – everyone go over to killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news and gorge yourselves on downloads! 😉
AL – certainly. or on the U.S. side the incredible NYC scene of the early-mid 80s with like Liquid Liquid & ESG & Arthur Russell all mixed up with No Wave and early hip hop and Larry Levan including Talking Heads records in his Paradise Garage sets. or bands like The Big Boys & The Minutemen – I didn’t mean to exclude any of that stuff. btw I think the KYPP site is fantastic & fascinating – I just explored it a little bit the other day and when I get some real free time I’m very much looking forward to spending an hour or two looking through its archives. many thanks to you and the other folks working on it.
john – well, yeah. it’s like anything really, boundless & incredibly exciting at first until the labels & rules really set in and made everything rigid stale. I do kinda wish it hadn’t taken me four years or so of playing in crust bands and living squats to figure that out. not that I regret a minute of it. 🙂 and there will always be a large spot in my heart for that early 80s anarcho scene and the ideas & music it produced.
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