Colonel Gaddafi’s Kentucky Fried Britain

Jez: Look Mark, I’m a musician, in case you’d forgotten. Yeah? I answer to a higher law. The law of “if it feels good, do it”.

Mark: Oh, that’s a great law isn’t it? What’s that, Gaddafi’s law?

Jez: It’s the musician’s law. Colonel Gaddafi could not lay down a bass hook, Mark. That should be clear even to you!

[Peep Show Series 3 – with thanks to Bandshell on Dissensus for the quote and for inspiring this post]

Hopefully Gaddafi will be gone by the time this post goes live. I certainly won’t miss him, but I will grudgingly admit that he brought a certain erratic charm to international politics.

In the eigties and nineties fascist idiots like Nick Griffin and Blood Axis’ Michael Moynihan fell for this charm, distributing the Colonel’s Green Book – seemingly in the belief that he was a profound thinker.

fascist loons Nick Griffin and Derek Holland pose under a Gaddafi portrait in Libya

fascist loons Nick Griffin and Derek Holland pose under a Gaddafi portrait in Libya

Griffin actually went one step further and headed off to see Gaddafi in the hope that he’d be able to tap him up for some funding for the National Front. Apparently this didn’t come to anything (unsurprisingly!), but the episode is certainly worth remembering now that Griffin has gone pseudo respectable and rabidly anti-Islam.

More enjoyable by far were the punks who recognised that Gaddafi’s charm was more about his flamboyant mentalism than any insightful philosophy.

God Told Me To Do It were a Hackney-based band would be universally recognised as being rubbish, were it not for their genius sense for the controversial and a neat turn in slogans. Their artwork was liberally reproduced in Vague back in the day and they were notorious for winding up the po-faced.

Having used the Colonel’s image on a few flyers, the group noticed in 1986 that the Libyan Embassy in London was temporarily  vacant, presumably in the aftermath of WPC Yvonne Fletcher being shot by one of its occupants whilst policing a demonstration outside…

[All GTMTDI images found via Kill Your Pet Puppy.]

Gaddafi also makes an appearance alongside some “loony left” tabloid bugbears in Stewart Home‘s black-humoured “Kill” which is available on the classic Stewart Home Comes In Your Face CD. The tune was later re-versioned as “Islam Uber Alles” by Blackpool psych-punk legends The Ceramic Hobs, but here is the original in all its dumb boot-stomping glory:

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More recently (and less interestingly), MIA has described Gaddafi as “always being one of my style icons”, and Asian Dub Foundation made an opera about him.

Here’s hoping that Libya will shortly become “the land of the free” and with that Gaddafi will become history.

reggae in parliament

My article in Datacide touches on the gradual acceptance of soundsystem culture in the UK over the last 60 years.

I’ve now discovered that this process can be illustrated just as well by checking Hansard, the record of discussions in the UK  Parliament.

It seems that in the seventies and eighties, reggae was only ever discussed by our ruling class in connection with social disturbance or disorder. Gradually it becomes part of daily life – even for Lords and MPs!

Reading Hansard is probably not your idea of fun if you’re checking this blog, but the quotes below are outrageous, ridiculous and hilarious by turns. It is impossible not to laugh when you imagine them said in absurd posh plummy voices:

“Take a situation where a young reporter, addicted to purple prose as young re-porters tend to be, who was sent by an evening newspaper to cover the Notting Hill Carnival this year in the early hours, when everything was peaceful. He might have knocked out a piece along these lines.

‘Eyes glazed and half-closed, fingers snapping, feet tapping, the Caribbean crowd swayed rhythmically to the insistent pulsating beat of reggae.’

This could possibly have been insulting to one or two—not many, but one or two—West Indians involved. It might have implied that they were more likely to be carried away by the jungle beat, if you like, than the European population.

Had that report been published in the early editions of the evening newspaper, before the muggings, the rioting and the injuries to the police which followed, and had it got into the hands of ill-natured people who were in any case biased already against the West Indian population, this could be said, quite without any intention whatsoever, to stir up latent antagonism or hostility towards them. This is precisely the sort of thing I am trying to avoid.”

Lord Monson
October 1976 (Race Relations Bill)

“I have sought this debate because of a West Indian party which took place in my constituency over the Christmas holidays. It began on 22 December, the Sunday before Christmas, and continued until 2 January, a period of 11 days. During that time, the harassment, noise and fear that my constituents had to endure was utterly intolerable. The nights were the worst.

The form was that people would start to arrive at about 9 pm from all parts of Birmingham but also from London, Bristol and the North. They came in cars and in vans, usually with hi-fi equipment blasting out reggae music from their transport, horns blaring as they cruised up and down the road looking for parking places. That went on all night, until 7.30 in the morning, and it went on every night.

I have visited that street many times and have seen the house at which these parties took place. It is a very small house. On the ground floor is just one window and the front door. Above is just one large window and a very tiny window over the door. It is a terraced inner-city house. Inside that house were crammed 200 people at any one time, although there was a good deal of coming and going.

Those who attended paid £2 to go in. There is plenty of evidence from people who saw the money changing hands. I do not think that much alcohol was drunk, although one West Indian who was at the party said that some was drunk. However, many observers say that marijuana was being smoked—and quite a quantity, because the smell outside was unmistakable.

The noise of the disco troubled the near-neighbours, as well it might, because the sound was turned up very high, but it was the rowdy behaviour in the street that was the main problem. There was a seething mass of people, 99 per cent. of whom were of the Rastafarian type, who can look a little frightening. Certainly their numbers were frightening.

The noise these people made was terrifying. They shouted at each other. One resident who tried to park his car in a space which was apparently reserved for a party-goer was intimidated and very frightened. Another of my constituents who went to ask whether the noise could please be turned down a little had a knife pulled on him. No doubt thinking that discretion was the better part of valour, he ran away with the man with the knife after him and only just got inside his house in time, where he slammed and bolted the door. He was very frightened.”

Mrs. Jill Knight (Birmingham, Edgbaston)
February 1981: All-Night Parties

“Rastafari is more than just a religion: it is also a culture which expresses itself in many ways, not least in reggae music. It gives cultural identity to some of those who reject both traditional West Indian society and contemporary British urban values.”

Lord Hylton
February 1982: Brixton Disorders: The Scarman Report

“The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis tells me that on the evening of 6 January 3,000 people attended a reggae concert in aid of Ethiopian famine relief at the Academy, Stockwell road, London SW9. At about 11 pm two police officers attempted to arrest a man who had been detained inside the building by security staff on suspicion of theft and being armed.

A number of people intervened to prevent the arrest and the man escaped into the auditorium. The two officers gave chase, but were set upon by members of the audience. One officer received stab wounds to the thigh whilst the other was knocked unconscious by a blow from a bottle. Police reinforcements quickly arrived on the scene and dealt with the disturbance. A further five officers sustained minor injuries. One person was arrested and charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent.”

Mr. Giles Shaw (Pudsey)
January 1985: Disorder (Brixton)

“The Leader of the Opposition should dissociate himself from the violent attacks that are made persistently on the police by Labour councillors up and down the country.

He must denounce and, if possible, remove the block by some Labour councillors on policemen visiting schools. He must dissociate himself from the vast majority of GLC leaflets that depict the police as racists and oppressors of gays. He must get rid of any support in his party for the reggae record which has been sent round many youth clubs and which contains violent language directed against the police.”

Sir Eldon Griffiths (Bury St. Edmunds)
May 1986: Crime Prevention
[more on that record here – at least I assume it’s that one?]

“Many of us who worked on the shop floor or in the pits can tell Conservative Members that we went home, had our tea and fell asleep on the settee. We were so tired that we slept for an hour before having a couple of pints. We started work at 6 am and were too tired to go out at 11 pm to a disco to play reggae music and keep the street awake until all hours of the morning.”

Mr. Joseph Ashton (Bassetlaw)
March 1987: Corporal Punishment

“Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is extraordinary for Southwark, if it is so hard up, to spend £13,800 on a reggae concert for Black Solidarity day?”

Mr John Butterfill (Bournemouth West)
February 1988: Rate Limitation

“What the national curriculum does require, particularly at key stage 2, is a lot of specialised knowledge of music. It requires the teaching of notation and composing; it requires a quality of listening and appreciation of music that is really quite specialised and cannot be provided by just any teacher. The Minister would not fancy his hand at teaching a group of young children at key stage 2 ostinato, or to appreciate Stravinsky on the one hand and reggae on the other.“

Mr. Mark Fisher (Stoke-on-Trent, Central)
March 1993: Music and Library Provision

“Look at that block today. Several of the flats are boarded up, no doubt awaiting maintenance. I went there today and spoke to a lady who said that the flat next door to hers had been empty for four years. Other flats were occupied but had boarded-up windows. Paving stones were broken and dangerous, and litter and cans disfigured the courtyards. From some flats, where I am told squatters still live, came the sound of deafening reggae music.”

Mr. Peter Atkinson (Hexham)
January 1994: Housing

“I had a briefing from experienced officers in a police force who recently visited Jamaica to look at the controls on crack. They said that a reggae song on the local radio in downtown Kingston was urging dealers to go to Britain. The encouragement to come to London was the suggestion that The police don’t bang, the courts don’t hang and the sentence ain’t tang”. The police certainly do not “bang” and our courts do not hang, but we have some very long sentences for drug dealing, and London ought not to be an attractive place for international drug dealers.”

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean)
July 1994: Drug Use (Royal Commission)
[please help me find out what this record is]

“I am delighted to participate in the debate. Like many Conservative Members, I wish to register my own interest: when I was younger than 16, I was a smoker. To this day, I have never admitted it to my family. [Interruption.] I expect that they are not listening and watching this evening. My mother and father would not be very happy.

I have no idea why I took up smoking. I think it had more to do with the music that I listened to and the image I wished to identify with. I caught the tail end of the punk era. I was keen on ska music. As part of that overall image, smoking was de rigueur. I then became a new romantic. Smoking did not go with pastel pinks or pastel yellows. I took up smoking as a teenager and ended smoking while still a teenager. It was to do with my warped sense of fashion at that time.”

Mr. Jim Murphy (Eastwood)
April 2002: Smoking Bill

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: “I am sure that, as regular listeners, all noble Lords will be familiar with Kiss FM’s format which, comprises, and fully reflects, the musical styles known as House, Garage, Soul, Soul/Jazz. Rap, Reggae, Ragga and Swing together with any developments of these and other related forms of dance music”.

Lord McNally: “My comment was due to the fact that I have a 13-year-old son. My difficulty is finding a place in the house where I cannot hear Kiss FM.”

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: “The noble Lord should be generous and buy him a set of headphones. They do not cost much.”

May 2003: Communications Bill

[she’s being sarcastic] “A number of other simple adjustments would undoubtedly be great crowd pleasers. The Parliament Choir has been most co-operative. They have agreed to ditch Verdi’s “Requiem” this year in favour of a blast of reggae, jungle, hip hop and garage. Believe me, they will undoubtedly rise to the challenge; they are well up to it, as the younger generation would say.”

Ms Angela Billingham
November 2004: Address in Reply to Her Majesty’s Most Gracious Speech

Graceless: a journal of the radical gothic

Fanzine of the week #4

Available in print – and online as a free/donation pdf. (and from Amazon)

“We demand that the goth scene be more than a black-clad reflection of mainstream society”

I’ve written about goth on here before and it’s something that still appeals to me in many ways, although you’re unlikely to catch me wearing eyeliner or crimping my hair. Anarchism has also had an influence on my political (and other) thought and activity, although again I wouldn’t call myself an anarchist these days for a whole host of reasons which are probably best left for another time.

Graceless‘ radical/decadent/anarcho approach to goth interests me, recalling the early eigthies London of Alistair Livingstone’s “Subway surfing anarcho goths” and many of the reminiscences over at Kill Your Pet Puppy. I have a fascination with subcultures that are about more than fashion, and the attempt here to either highlight an ideological undercurrent in goth (or to inject one into it?) is intriguing. Certainly most of the books/mags etc on goth that I’ve ever seen have been largely about flogging music or clothes  (or expaning the marketplace within in which that takes place by reinforcing the goth identity?).

Graceless is well written and looks great. At over a hundred pages this debut issue is going to take some time to digest properly. There are some interesting interviews with people like Jarboe and Attrition (as well as acts which were new to me) and some cool features as well. I haven’t read it all yet, and I focus below on articles that made me think, which of course will be the ones that I have disagreements with.

Decadent Politics covers the poetic, visionary and utopian I guess. It posits decadence as being anti-fascist, which is interesting (and certainly believable if you look at Wilhelm Reich’s The Mass Psychology of Fascism on sexual repression etc):

“Today there are those that say fascism is simply fashion, that to strut around in a SS uniform and festoon our lace with the Nazi death-head skulls is meaningless and should cause no concern. Saying this is to ignore what they represent on a symbolic level. We would never wear a McDonald’s golden arches to a goth club because it represents mass conformity. So does the iron cross. The zombies wear business suits, and they are not satiated only with the brains of the living; they also hunger for our hearts and souls.”

A radical’s guide to spooky music is an interesting overview of the bands and artists who the author feels represent “radical goth”, including Coil, KMFDM, Bauhaus and Joy Division. A lot of the lyrics and politics quoted aren’t about things I am especially interested in: animal rights, non-specific rebellion, anti-consumerism, anti-americanism. But it’s probably a bit much to expect the goth subculture (or one aspect of it) to develop identical politics to my own. As manifestos go this is an interesting drawing together of various tendencies in goth that certainly demonstrate that it is far from apolitical.

I am quite wary of political activists who over-identify with subcultures these days. I think “identity politics” is a trap which divides people and can lead to situations where cultural signifiers like music (or even ethnicity and sexuality) are seen as more important than people’s relationships with each other and their experience of capitalism where they work or live.

However, the flipside of this is that a purely political approach in which you only talk to people about, say, the conditions on their housing estate, or cutbacks at their workplace can come across as a bit robotic. So there’s a balance to be struck between the (sub)cultural and the political, which is increasingly difficult to achieve as culture fragments into more and more niches. As Steve Goodman and Kodwo Eshun pointed out, the “long tail” posits a society where there is less and less communal experience and more and more instant individualised consumer gratification.

Subcultures have a role to play in changing the status quo, and goth’s outright promotion of androgyny and gender equality is all for the good (although hardly universal, as the article here about “goth misogyny”  and “pick up culture” at some goth nights makes clear). I guess what is missing is a fully developed critique of how capitalism operates as a set of relationships, of the system rather than some of its manifestations (war, hunger, etc). But it’s not like any other music/fashion based subcultures have that.

There’s a fair bit in Graceless about Goths and their place in the anarchist scene. As someone who has had gothic tendencies and has some sympathy with parts of anarchism this all seems a bit too confining. I find the worlds of info-shops, squats and goth clubs quite alienating these days, despite being interested in them as social phenomena (and in the ideas which circulate in them). I suppose hanging around in places like that helped me develop my ideas and a sense of who I am, but I think people are kidding themselves if they reckon that havens for alternative fashion are going to play a useful role in mass struggles. Indeed there are a few passages in Graceless which abhor mass culture, the mainstream and suit-wearing “zombies” (see quote above). Contributors have mixed feelings about Marilyn Manson, but Lady Gaga (arguably the most visible current example of the gothic aesthetic, albeit not sonically) is conspicuous by her absence.

I suppose this is really getting into similar territory to two articles about anarchopunk I’ve republished on my website:

That said, I can of course completely understand why retreating into / immersing yourself in subcultures is a good and necessary thing for some people. If you’re one of a handful of freaks in the bible belt then there must be an incredible feeling of solidarity and self-empowerment if you start your own DIY Goth Night (as one contributor did, smack bang in KKK country). The murder of Sophie Lancaster is chilling reminder of the sort of intolerance people who dress a bit different can face out there in small town England in the early 21st Century.

Your Goth Is Dead: The Rise And Fall of Goth In America is a nice overview of the developments of the subculture in the nineties, including goths being seduced by rave and ironic self-mockery which is I suppose the antithesis of the playful po-faced strategies of the eighties.

Some of the most rewarding pieces in this issue stretch the definition of Goth backwards in time – Dressed To Kill: Illegal Dandyism looks at youth cults like the Zazou and Edelweiss Pirates, whose fashion sense shocked the totalitarian regimes they lived under, and provided them with enough reason to take on fascists physically as well as culturally. There are also some intriguing investigations into the Darker Side of Victorian Children’s Tales and German expressionist cinema during the rise of Nazism.

As I said above, I’ve mainly concentrated here on my differences with Graceless. That strikes me as being more interesting thing to write about than saying “it’s great!”, which it most certainly is. It’s made me ruminate on a lot of good stuff and I’m very happy that they’ll be including a contribution from me in the second issue. If you’re interested then you’re probably already reading the magazine itself instead of ploughing though my waffle here.

The Radical History of Hackney

The Radical History of Hackney

A new archival site featuring radical publications from this corner of North East London.

Items added so far include

  • A “Hackney Against The Cuts” newsletter from 1991, which is obviously quite topical right now as well.
  • The first issue of the original “Hackney Heckler” newsletter, also from 1991, which includes an account of a Tory minister getting flour-bombed mid-speech at the town hall. (The all new revamped 21st Century Heckler is available for download here).
  • An introduction to Hackney Community Defence Association – the police monitoring group I mentioned here previously.
  • “Up Against The Lawmen” – an account of HCDA’s investigations into corruption and drug dealing by officers at Stoke Newington police station. This includes some disturbing first person accounts of shitty behaviour by the cops, but the calm and resourceful work of HCDA is very inspiring.

I think it’s a site worth keeping an eye on – the material here is useful for politicos but also more generally to Hackney residents who have an interest in the social history of where they live.

Datacide issue 11

Fanzine of the week #3

With 64 pages, this is the biggest issue of Datacide yet!

It also includes a contribution from me. No time for an extensive review, but all of the material here is well up to the usual high standard.

FEATURES

Christoph Fringeli – “Hedonism and Revolution: The Barricade and the Dancefloor”

Stewart Home – “Dope smuggling, LSD manufacture, organized crime & the law in 1960s London”

John Eden – “Shaking the Foundations: Reggae soundsystem meets ‘Big Ben British values’ downtown”

Alexis Wolton – “Tortugan tower blocks? Pirate signals from the margins”

Neil Transpontine – “Dancing before the police come”

Christoph Fringeli – “From Subculture to Hegemony: Transversal Strategies of the New Right in Neofolk and Industrial”

Nemeton – “From Conspiracy Theories to Attempted Assassinations: The American Radical Right and the Rise of the Tea Party Movement”

R. C. – “How to start with the subject. Notes on Burroughs and the ‘combination of all forms of struggle’”

Matthew Fuller and Steve Goodman – “Beat Blasted Planet. An interview with Steve Goodman on ‘Sonic Warfare’”

Terra Audio – “Free Parties”

Gorki Plubakter – “This is the end… the official ending”

FICTION

“Sonic Fictions” by Riccardo Balli
“Digital Disease” by Dan Hekate
“Infra-Noir. 23 Untitled Poems” by Howard Slater
“Office Work” by Matthew Fuller

PLUS

Record Reviews
The Lives and TImes of Bloor Schleppy
Charts

ORDERING

Available now for EUR 4.00 incl. postage – order now by sending this amount via paypal to praxis(at)c8.com, or send EUR 10 for 3 issues (note that currently only issues 5, 7 and 10 are still available, but you can also pre-order future issues.

Also from the Praxis Webshop.

Shake The Foundations vol 2

The second mix I ever did, now up at Mixcloud:

John Eden – Shake The Foundations vol 2 by Johnedenuk on Mixcloud

This was done in 2003, a transitional time for online music. By then most people I knew had the internet at home and/or work. But very few of us had broadband, and hosting was still fairly expensive. So the favoured means of distribution was burning mixes on CDR, making a nice sleeve, and then giving them to mates in person or sending them through the post. I actually prefer that to uploading and downloading, but it seems very quaint today.

Promotion was done through internet forums like Uk-Dance, Urban75 and the like. People got really into it – possibly because not many people were doing mixes of this sort of thing back then – there was lots of techno and other dance music to be had in the circles I moved in then, but not much reggae to be had.

It was a wicked time for music, with the “one drop” reggae stuff really coming to the fore. I lived near Gladdy Wax’s shop “Wax Unlimited” in Stoke Newington and would try to get there every Saturday to find out what was new. That coupled with David Rodigan’s show on Sunday nights on Kiss, I was well stocked up with some incredible tunes.

In fact, this is probably the most popular mix I have ever done – people still remember it and ask me for a copy. I think this is mainly because it came out at a time when it really stood out, and also because it’s not really been available online for ages. (Marc D hosted it on his Bassnation site for a while).

Sleevenotes

“With the roots worldview, the logic was often questionable, but going to reggae sound systems, the feeling of spiritual uplift there was undeniable. That yearning for a better world, and questioning of the system, it made your hairs stand up on end”.

Mark Stewart

“Hear me now brothers. In this time… You’ve got to keep conscious. Woah-oh”

Half Pint

The tracks on this CD are both modern and traditional. Musically, the structures are virtually identical to those used in Jamaica since the 70s, but the sounds and productions have been updated for the 21st Century.

Lyrically, there are a few things to get to grips with. On the surface it’s pretty strange for a white heathen like myself to be putting together a collection of tunes which are pretty much all by ardent Rastafarians. However, putting the question of the divinity of Haile Selassie aside for a moment, most of the themes on this CD are timeless, and therefore bang up to date.

If you are after a message, you will hear it here. “Consciousness” can just mean staying awake, keeping your eyes and ears open. For me, that also entails some sort of awareness of the inadequacies of the system (or Babylon, if you prefer).

Whatever your political or spiritual outlook, it would be hard to dismiss the lyrics challenging gun culture or bling bling. Similarly, returning to Africa or evangelising about the power of Jah may not be my chosen mission in life, but the quest for a better world, a feeling of solidarity, and the desire to overthrow oppressors is something a lot of people who listen to this may be able to identify with.

Philosophising aside, this is music for head and heart, body and soul. Crank up the volume and it let take you over. This is a live mix. All tracks are JA 7″ except the first. Hence the atmospheric crackles and clicks…

John Eden – May 2003

Tracklist

1. capleton – intro (vp) 2002
2. vc – by his deeds (dig dis) 2001
3. buju banton & gregory isaacs – storm (penthouse) 2002
4. warrior king – education (penthouse) 2002
5. storm version (penthouse) 2002
6. luciano – you can have the world (al ta fa an) 2003
7. admiral tibet – no fear (al ta fa an) 2003
8. anthony b & tafari – rise up (al ta fa an) 2003
9. singing melody & scotty – watch this sound (digital b) 2002
10. louie culture – reaction (digital b) 2002
11. george nooks – two roads (digital b) 2002
12. watch this sound version (digital b) 2002
13. bushman – too much violence (brickwall) 2002
14. norris man – park your guns (brickwall) 2002
15. admiral tibet – peace & love (brickwall) 2002
16. anthony b – god above everything (brickwall) 2002
17. morgan heritage – what’s going on (brickwall) 2002
18. beres hammond – hail his name (star trail) 2002
19. iyashanti – communities into battlefield (star trail) 2002
20. anthony b – jah love (star trail) 2002
21. calliefields version (star trail) 2002
22. luciano – blast off go moon (kennedy international) 2000
23. baby wayne – sick of dem treatment (kennedy international) 2000
24. admiral tibet – blame it on yourself (kennedy international) 2000
25. half pint – political friction (feel the beat)
26. ward 21 – reggae pledge (jammys) 2003
27. shocking blue – artist war (jammys) 2003
28. morgan heritiage & bounty killer – gunz in the ghetto (71) 2000
29. anthony b – lock your guns (71) 2000
30. ward 21 – ganja smoke (john john) 2001
31. nelly furtado – turn out the light (fi we) 2002
32. spanner banner – life goes on (techniques) 1989

with thanks to danny for donating tracks 25 & 32

Thanks also to Marc D of Bassnation UK for being the original online host of the mix.

R.I.P. David “Scotty” Scott 1951-2003

Ramleh meets Blaster Bates at uptown Congleton

Ramleh’s power electronics output of the 1980s completely passed me by at the time. I had some of their tracks on compilations I later binned or sold, but nothing really made an impression – until they reinvented themselves as sludge psych rockers in the mid 90s. But more of that some other time.

I guess there are a lot of reasons not to like early Ramleh. Certainly I don’t think I’m over-hyping the situation by saying that most people won’t like their work. That’s almost certainly part of the appeal. Simon Reynolds mounts an off the shelf moral case against the group, and power electronics in general, over at his “Rip It Up And Start Again Footnotes” blog.

Personally I’ve warmed to them over the years (and even to Whitehouse), as I think there is something in there which puts them in a different league to the generic atrocity-merchants who followed in their wake. There are elements which are sonically gripping and Gary Mundy (Ramleh’s only permanent member) has clarified his positions articulately and usefully over the years, whilst still maintaining the crucial mystique of the work:

“There was no right-wing viewpoint to any of the stuff – we made an error in judgment in testing out the bounds of offensiveness.” (interview in Grim Humour)

“The lyrics I write tend to come from a more miserable, sad place, I think. It’s not particularly violent. Although it’s noisy, it’s not a real in-your-face attacking kind of thing. […] Someone once said – and I hadn’t really thought about it before – that our music is more from the viewpoint of the victim, rather than the aggressor.” (interview in Niche Homo)

“My personal outlook at the time was a kind of weird amalgam of anarchism, libertarianism and a warped kind of socialism. I sympathised with some of what was being done at the time but it was all so negative and humourless, and a lot of people involved with these left-wing organisations were such wankers, it was difficult to to want to associate with them.” (interview in As Loud As Possible)

Mundy’s Broken Flag label has been seriously reappraised in recent years, with a ludicrously lavish boxset coming out on Vinyl On Demand, a nice piece by David Keenan in The Wire and various releases finally making the journey from cassette to vinyl or CD. “Awake”, a further eight CD set of Ramleh’s 80’s output is forthcoming on Harbinger Sound.

Martin of Beyond The Implode has already covered some of the collector mania in his piece about Ramleh’s “Hand of Glory” single, which has been referred to as one of the ultimate records of the genre. All of which piqued my interest when it was repressed for the second time as a twelve inch last year:

“The Hand of Glory” is the pickled hand of a man who has been hanged. Particularly a hand that has committed murder. It’s said to have magickal properties – enabling one to open any locked door, or rendering other people motionless. Gary Mundy credits this aspect of Ramleh to his co-conspirator Jerome Clegg:

“Jerome was getting very into reading about medieval torture and satanic rituals at this time. I was getting more interested in concepts of morality and freedom. My influence came through more in our next phase but Hand of Glory is more Jerome’s subject-wise. Musically it was very much a joint effort. The vocals are less like the previous Ramleh records, they sound more desperate than angry. It’s a curious record. It’s very uncomfortable listening without completely trying to blast you out of your chair. It was the last recording of ours that I would call ‘power electronics’.”

The first thing to say is full marks to Harbinger. I ordered direct from the label and found them friendly and prompt. The presentation is stark, but well done. A satisfyingly thick slab of vinyl with black labels. My copy is hand numbered 53 out of 100 copies. It’s all nicely fetishistic, which I think is what people who dig this stuff are looking for.

“Squassation” starts with some static noise, followed swiftly by a droney bass rumble. Other noises, echo and some indistinct screams are added to the mix. It’s a brutal soundscape which stays pretty constant, no pummeling rhythms or anything like that. At the heart of nothing very much happening is the worry that something not very pleasant might be about to happen.

“Prossneck” has some darkside seventies sci-fi synths and a male voice reading an account of unpleasant things being done to someone. It’s pretty good to get fucked up to, but I worry about it inducing masochistic tendencies – I always feel pretty great when side one has finished.

Side two features two parts of “The Hand of Glory”. I never notice when one ends and the other begins, personally. It builds on the noises of side one, but adds a cacophony of tortured voices, including one repeatedly shouting “No!’. It’s been said before by people more versed in this stuff than me, but there’s a properly horrid psychedelic edge to a lot of this – real bad trip stuff. After a few minutes even the screams become somehow normalised, everything melds together into this occasionally jagged, occasionally dulling experience that you can drift in and out of. I really like it, but I’d be hard pressed to describe why to anyone else. I guess its akin to a banishing ritual in some ways – a catharsis which sucks in all the shit you have had to subject yourself to – and spits it out… if not back at the aggressors, then somewhere else.

It’s no coincidence that my interest in this sort of thing has re-emerged during a time which has been slightly darker and depressive. Or maybe it’s just the onset of my mid life crisis…

I don’t need shelves and shelves of this stuff in my life, but I’m very glad I own a copy of The Hand of Glory.

Unfortunately for power electronics collector nerds, Ramleh’s masterwork appeared in my life at the same time as this:

As you can see from the cover, this is the Original Version – none of your repackage reissue business. The sleeve is in stark black and white, resembling that classic Broken Flag starkness. Also it’s in MONO – the true hallmark of extreme audio product. Oh and Blaster looks eerily like TG-era Genesis P-Orridge on the cover:

Stylistically the phallic nature of the falling chimney resembles the notorious artwork for Whitehouse’s “Erector” album. Deconstructing the cover means  we are able to read its meaning as “an enormous wilting penis, falling on Genesis P-Orridge’s head”.

But where Genesis was content to pursue his art through extreme performance, Blaster eclipsed the entire industrial and power electronics scenes through both his performances and day job. “Laughter With A Bang” is a recording of a Live Action that took place at a meeting of the Congleton Round Table in May 1967 – nine years before Throbbing Gristle’s debut at the ICA, and fifteen before Ramleh was launched.

It commences with Bates prowling the stage and slowly building up the intensity of the event by baiting female members of the audience. He then whips out some GELIGNITE and talks about using it to blow up your mother in law. Peter Sotos never had chops like this!

Later on there’s a section where a small amount of the gelignite is added to a bowl of water and bubbles away like some of the sound effects on Whitehouse’s “Dedicated to Peter Kurten” LP. On one level, Blaster Bates was simply a slightly “blue” after dinner speaker telling stories about his work as an explosives expert. But to my mind he was also a precursor to the whole industrial music movement.

The Shower of Shit Over Cheshire is the highpoint of the album, combining expectation, black humour and the beauty of release and destruction at its end. If power electronics acts had soundclashes, and someone played Whitehouse’s “Shitfun” after this, they’d be laughed out of the room.

“Laughter With A Bang” went gold at the time of its release and was followed by seven further albums, all as starkly packaged as anything the Come Organisation would sling out in the eighties:

Obviously you might think this is all just a coincidence, that there is no real connection between Blaster Bates and industrial music. I would point sceptics towards Throbbing Gristle’s classic 2nd LP “D.O.A.” and the track “Valley of the Shadow of Death”. This is a solo piece by the late Peter Christopherson, featuring covertly recorded conversations. One of these conversations includes an account of an entire row of houses being demolished and discussions of the merits of the explosive properties of white phosphorous. Whilst this is all delivered in a brummie drawl rather than Blaster’s Cheshire burr, the parallels are clear.

Blaster stopped demolition work in 2001 after a stroke, AT THE AGE OF 79. He was blowing things up until he was nearly eighty! He carried on his Live Actions after that, eventually passing away after heart failure in 2006.

It is doubtful that Vinyl On Demand will be producing a lavish retrospective boxset of his work. The twats.

Tape Crackers, 2009, dir. Rollo Jackson

I saw this last night at the ICA. It was billed as “an oral history of Jungle music and an affectionate, touching, and, at times, incredibly funny, tale of bedroom obsessiveness.”

The film consists of London pirate radio taper Michael Finch running through a carrier bag of cassette tapes in his flat. It is so simple, it’s quite brilliant. The film is completely carried by two elements:

1) The awesome music and MC-ing on the tapes (covering late ‘ardkore in around 1993, through a lot of jungle and drum ‘n’ bass, ending with a dip into garage and proto grime circa 2000).

2) Michael’s awesomely life-affirming enthusiasm and knowledge about the stations, MCs, DJs and music.

I was worried by the “incredibly funny” billing in the blurb because it’s all too easy to mock obsessives (and I feel a bit defensive, being one myself!) but the humour and the film itself are both blissfully free of ironic piss-taking. People laugh when Michael gets distracted from his commentary because he has to nod his head and smile a lot when a bassline comes in because they know exactly what that feels like.

Some of us in the audience burst out laughing at his run-down of old school cassettes with metal screws in, because we remember that too. It’s that basic level of empathy that seems lacking in so much music criticism and coverage these days.

During the Q&A afterwards (hosted by Derek Walmsley from The Wire) Rollo made the point that he is often disappointed by the standard BBC4 music documentary format in which former stars relive their youth. He made the point that talking to punters with a broader overview of the scene (and their love for it intact) was perhaps a more effective way to go about showing the history. On the evidence of “Tape Crackers” he certainly has a point.

uncarved shop rebrand

I had to overhaul the uncarved shop.

Someone hacked my site through the old shop and installed a phishing scam on uncarved.org. Basically a load of faked bank webpages were on there. 

I’m not quite sure what to think about that. I’m not keen on people preying on the naive and vulnerable, but it’s not clear to me if the banks end up suffering from these scams or their customers.

(If you ordered anything from the old shop don’t fret, none of your bank details or anything serious were stored on the site).

Basically I agree with Martin on this one – there should be more people robbing banks in the traditional way and less of this computer-based tom-foolery. Same goes for music – in the olden days people had to stuff LPs or CDs into their trenchcoats if they wanted to hear stuff for free. Or at the very least have some decent mates to tape things for them.

Which is a slightly unusual way of introducing a top ten showbiz bank robbers:

1. The Bonnot Gang, 1911-1912

French anarchists who were the first to use cars for their getaways. The book about them is full-on, I can recall a few accounts of bitter sectarian in-fighting, including a rival sect’s printing press being smashed up.

This tradition is allegedly being kept alive by Italian insurrectionist anarchist Alfredo Bonanno who was arrested at the age of 70 in 2009 for robbing a bank in Greece. My recollection is that there was some doubt about whether he actually did the deed.

2. John Dillinger, 1933-1934

Didn’t he rob 23 banks or something? William Burroughs was keen on him: “To John Dilinger in the hope that he is still alive“.

3. Bonnie and Clyde, 1931-1934

Exerted an almost tectonic pull on everyone from Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot to Papa Levi. Inspired that whole Thelma and Louise live fast die young, roadtrip kind of vibe.

4. Ronnie Biggs, 1963

Punk icon recently discussed here.

5. Red Army Faction / Andres Baader & Ulrike Meinhoff, 1970-1972

Sports cars, flashing their tits to the PLO, bombs aplenty. Punk, and yet so very serious and so very very wrong.

6.The  Covenant Sword And The Arm of the Lord, 1980s

Extreme right wing “Christian Identity” cult which robbed 19 banks in 8 US states in one month. They apparently spent all the money on guns, displaying a typically fascist lack of imagination. Included here because Cabaret Voltaire named their 1985 album after them.

7. Patty Hearst, 1974

“Death to the fascist insect that preys on the life of the people!”

Sixties pin up! Rich girl turns insane maoist terrorist! Locked up and then pardoned by philanderer Bill Clinton! Acts in John Waters movies!

8. Chelembra Bank Robbery, 2007

80 million rupees in the back of the van. Our anti-heroes took over the restaurant under the bank. Then drilled a massive hole through to the vault under the guise of renovating it.

If that isn’t mad enough, the whole scheme was inspired by a Bollywood movie. Respect.

9. The Geezer Bandit, NOW

For the name alone, really. This guy is apparently in his SEVENTIES and has been expropriating the expropriators in Southern California. He’s done 13 banks, including one on the 28th of January this year. Apparently has inspired facebook fan pages and also at least one copy cat robber. Also rumoured that he’s a young man in a rubberised Scooby Doo villain mask?!

10. Unknown: Central Bank of Iraq, 2003

The day before the United States began bombing Baghdad, nearly US$1 billion was stolen from the Central Bank of Iraq. This is considered the largest bank heist in history. Opportunism or what?

ANGRY BIRDS GOLDEN EGG BRIGADE BONUS LEVELS:

Rubbish bank robbers:

They were trying to put it back?!

Not actual bank robbers:

Rob Da Bank – festival organiser

The Blaggers – anti-fascist Oi band, who became “ITA”.

Banksy, heritage attraction in bohemian Stoke Newington.