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 …
Nicky Crane grew up in Crayford. He was an archetypal bonehead in the 70s, becoming the Kent organiser for the neo-nazi British Movement by the end of the decade. A photograph of Crane ended up on the cover of the “Strength Thru Oi!” LP which was complied by Garry Bushell for Sounds and released on …
Continue reading ‘The Strange Case of Nicola Vincenzio Crane’ »
All this bollocks yesterday from the minister for international development about how “Reggae stars ‘fuel spread of HIV’” is more than adequately dealt with by my old mucker here: and also by Human Rights Watch’s recent report Hated To Death: Homophobia, Violence and Jamaica’s HIV/AIDS Epidemic. Which states that, y’know, the fact that homosexuality has …
Paul Meme over at “shards” proudly presents: Friday night special: John Eden’s ultimate roots ‘n’dancehall mix 90 minutes of mp3 pleasure for you all. It’s a bit strange, going back to stuff from 2000 now, especially as I was off me head when I stuck it all on tape. It’s all brought back a ton …
This came out in about 1993 and is based around a HUGE reworking of “Peter Gunn”. Which is obviously anthemic in so many ways – my Dad was/is a huge Duane Eddy fan and I think the only times we have bonded musically were when we both went out to buy the Art of Noise’s …
“I don’t think many readers have really understood what I set out to do with The Assault on Culture. My principle concern was actually with the construction of histories, the process of historification, the fact that no matter how much attention is paid to detail; the construction of a history is always a process of …
Continue reading ‘LONDON ACID CITY: When the Two 8’s Clash’ »