To be fair, many of those people involved in the anarcho-punk scene were nice, friendly individuals who genuinely cared about the state of the nation and sought to unite us all in our opposition to global capitalism but a couple of out of tune, out of time punk bands a few photocopied fanzines were never …
Punk music chronicler dies in pool accident. Absolutely gutting. Dixon edited the outstanding website for The Pop Group and its mp3 blog. I only ever corresponded with him via a few emails, but he was obviously a great guy, who took all this internet archivery very seriously and provided a great resource for everyone, in …
How did it happen? Here is the short version. It was 1981. I was living in London and working in a factory making Durex condoms, but also a member of the (Kill Your Pet) Puppy Collective. Don’t worry. No puppies were ever killed, it was a metaphor. We went to see the Barracudas play at …
Part Three: Crucial Youth Background Only in America. Whilst anarchopunks like Crass adopted a huge, all-encompassing vision of the evils of capitalism, spawning a million identikit bands who dressed in black and eschewed meat, puritan punk in the US took an even stranger turn. The Teen Idles were formed in Washington DC in 1979. The …
Part Two: The Apostles From 1979 onwards, Crass transformed punk, the anarchist movement in the UK, and the nature of protest globally. For better and for worse. There’s enough analysis (pro and con) of all that at the Uncarved critical look at anarchopunk pages. And whilst not wanting to knock Crass’ contribution too much, it …
Part One: Jamie Reid Reid had been at Croydon art school with Malcolm McLaren in the sixties before forming the Suburban Press in 1970. “It started off with our own community magazine which eventually lasted for six issues. From rather naïve beginnings it very quickly settled into a shit-stirring format, with thorough research into local …
Prelude: Situationist International “It’s easy to see why these imbeciles go for the Situationist option when they’re confronted with the genealogical question. The Situationist International produced a good number of ‘difficult’ texts and so they are easy to write about. What one does is explain concepts such as ‘the spectacle’ or ‘detournement’; this fills up …
Just stumbled across No Sir, I Won’t, a nice site relating to Crass, with material I’ve not seen elsewhere (the main Crass site at Southern is pretty comprehensive). Recommeded here: “Yes, that’s right / Punk is dead”: Crass and the anarcho-punk critique, 1977-1984. Stop the City: 1983-1984: Anarchists lay siege to the capital of British …
Inspired by Beyond the Implode’s mention of anarcho punk rock gods Conflict, I finally scanned in their statement on The Gathering of the 5000. Essentially a big old bash at the Brixton Academy, which turned into a big old bash with the Metropolitan Police afterwards – the Brixton Riot which nobody ever mentions. I was …