Sicktone / Baptism Of Fire / Violation / Poisons / Truth

Sewn Open / Sicktone / Silence And Secrecy / Truth / Stealing The Words / On Balance

In 1984 Zos Kia had a 7″ single released on All The Madmen records entitled ‘Rape’.

Prior to 1984, Zos Kia and Coil were fluxed together as one group via John Balance, at that time he was also in Psychic TV alongside other Coil member Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson. John Balance and ‘Sleazy’ left Psychic TV in 1984 to concentrate fully on Coil.

John Gosling from Zos Kia joined Psychic TV for a year or so. Min left Hackney and followed the Peace Convoy across the country.

The cassette uploaded today was the first Zos Kia and Coil tracks to see the light of day.

The Zos Kia side is the recording of the performance at Berlin Atonal in December 1983.

Also performing at this concert were La Loora, Zev and Psychic TV (with John Balance and ‘Sleazy’ amongst Psychic TV personnel). The Coil side is a mixture of live and studio tracks.

The text below is an extract taken from an excellent book that came out in 1987 called ‘Tape Delay’ which also featured Psychic TV, Swans, Einsturzende Neubauten, Liabach, Lydia Lunch, Clint Ruin and Test Department amongst other notable industrial hipsters.

Coil was conceived by John Balance in 1982 as a concurrent project with Psychic TV, with whom he was working, playing bass guitar, vibes and various Tibetan instruments. In 1984 he began concentrating full time on Coil together with the co-founder of Psychic TV, Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson. In addition to his role in TG and Psychic TV, Christopherson was also a member of the Hipgnosis design group who executed covers for many ‘supergroups’ of the seventies, including Led Zeppelin, Yes and Pink Floyd. John Balance has previously worked with David Tibet and Fritz Haaman in Current 93. On the Coil album Scatology, they are variously joined by Clint Ruin and Gavin Friday of Virgin Prunes. Coil have also written the soundtrack to the feature film The Angelic Conversation, directed by Derek Jarman, while the video for their version of Tainted Love is on permanent display at The Museum Of Modern Art in New York. In 1986, Coil released a mini-LP with Boyd Rice, and in 1987 an LP entitled Horse Rotorvator.

What is Coil?

Sleazy: Loosely, it’s what we do musically. We do other things apart from music but it is the term for our musical experiments. Although it’s basically me and John, we do get other people to help as well. In that way, I suppose it’s like Psychic TV regarding the set-up and collaborative aspects. Coil is also a code. A hidden universal. A key for which the whole does not exist, a spell, a spiral. A serpents SHt around a female cycle. A whirlwind in a double helix. Electricity and elementals, atonal noise and brutal poetry. A vehicle for obsessions. Kabbulah and Khaus. Thanatos and Thelema. Archangels and Antichrists. Truth and Deliberation. Traps and disorientation. Infantile, inbuilt disobedience.

Where is the term Coil derived from?

J Balance: I chose it on instinct and since then I’ve found that it actually means a noise. And there are things like the spiral, the electrical coil and contraception. The spiral is a repeating micro/macrocosmic form. From DNA to spiral galaxies. A primal symbol. lt’s a nice little word. The Black Sun that we use is a surrealist symbol from Maldoror by Isadore Ducasse. It has 10 rays (2×5). Coil are essentially a duo and five is the number of the aeon of Horus – the present time. We have a private mythology completely in tune with symbols and signs of the present aeon. We don’t believe that it should become an important part of our public image – as misinterpretation, and unnecessary and incorrect replication would possibly occur. Silence and secrecy. After all, the image of Horus most appropriate to the new aeon is of a ‘conquering child’ with his finger to his lips – the sign of silence.

What is the significance behind the title of the album Scatology?

Sleazy: Scatology in the medical sense is an obsession with human shit, or as the old fashioned dictionaries used to say, “An obsession with animal lusts and base instincts”. So it’s a combination of those two.

Why do you feel that’s important to incorporate in the title?

Sleazy: In as much as Scatology is more to be listened to as entertainment the titles of those records normally try to attract people in a slightly outrageous way and at the same time, give some indication of the atmosphere of the record. I think it’s a good title, and a lot of the songs on the record refer, either in their lyric or in their moods, to the most base of man’s instincts. It seemed quite appropriate. It is what Dali in ‘The Unspeakable Confessions of Salvador Dali’ calls “The Humanism of the Arsehole”.

What do you see as the importance behind a ritual?

Sleazy: Most people’s lives are basically devoid of anything that adds meaning. That sounds so patronising to say, but I just think that the fulfilment I get from doing things that have no immediate everyday need while at the same time fulfilling other needs, certainly indicates to me that it would be interesting for other people to try them too. And you can only use yourself as an example for how you think other people should live – rather than saying in the way that religions do, “You must do this”, or whatever.

Is it important for the ritual to be designed by the person that practises it?

Sleazy: I don’t think so, millions of people benefit from catholic rituals.

J Balance: Or The Japanese Tea Rituals. It’s the Zen philosophy that every movement means something. I think that way of living is far richer and it gives them an awareness of what and where they are. But ritual in the West is monopolised by the church, especially in Europe and the United Kingdom. People carry out rituals all the time, the English parlour obsessions with table turning, clairvoyents and wishing wells. All these exist and are practiced, but people seem to be somehow ashamed of them and would rather be represented by the church. I suppose that’s because it’s a rich organisation with ostentatious shows of power and wealth.

How would something like the Japanese Tea Ritual differ from something that the church has organised?

Sleazy: They’re not at all different in what they achieve in the person. Where they differ is that the organised church has exploited its knowledge of ritual to control people and enhance their own political end. Certainly in this country in the last thousand years the church has been a political machine that has done what it has for profit and for the advancement of the people in control. And I think it’s a pity that the church leaders have exploited their position that way because it has fucked up a lot of people in Northern Ireland, the whole of South America, Spain and most of the Far East.

J Balance: To take a blatant example like the Aztecs, their whole society was controlled by priests who knew the language and knew the way to stop the sun from dying, and so they had complete control over every member of the population. If people didn’t do certain things, they believed they’d die. The system was highly developed, very brutal and based on human sacrifice. But they believed if the Gods didn’t get their blood, then the sun would not rise and the world would end. And it’s just the same here except it’s far more insidious and hidden.

Sleazy: All that you really need for your own rituals to be valid is a belief in their abilities. The only problem is that it’s easy to have self doubt about what you’re doing. And if you have a body of other people doing a ritual that somebody else has designed, then it’s more easy to believe that it might have some power.

Is it possible to use rituals for negative purposes, to bring out evil or destructive things?

J Balance: Oh yeah, but what’s the point really? The Tibetan Bon-Po shaman priests still do this. They’ve been called the most powerful and evil magickians that ever lived. I’ve got an LP of part of a malicious, destroying ritual. “The first low-keyed monk’s voice marks the beginning of the Mahakala prayer. The chant begins with an extended description of Mahakala as well as his different emanations. The chant continues, calling upon Mahakala in his various forms to come down to earth and receive the offerings of the participants and to devour marigpa”. `The Mahakala Prayer’ – Side 2 of Lyrichord Disc LLST 7270. They go on for days and cause plague in a whole village. The energy and powers exist to be able to do that sort of thing, but what’s the point?

Sleazy: The gutter press, National Enquirer sort of mentality, use basically the same argument when dealing with more or less anything, whether it’s a nuclear bomb or a ritual. Sexuality, for example, they frown on because it is a way of having a powerful experience. Not exploiting, but using the power of human nature to do something. And if it has a possible negative power, then they immediately say that the medium is at fault.

Does the energy of the ritual come from within the person or can it be drawn from other sources?

J Balance: It doesn’t really matter where it comes from. The point is it works, that power can be summoned, generated and you can harness, manipulate and channel it, so you never need to know where it comes from.

Why do most people view a ritual or magick as being evil?

Sleazy: It’s fear of the unknown. Basically it’s because the church saw other people who were doing rituals as a threat to their control.

J Balance: They try to keep a monopoly so anything else is bad or evil and you get thrown i to hell for it. It s Christian propaganda basically. England has strong pagan roots and the church has always attempted to stamp these out. Originally by neutralising pagan temple sites and then building churches on the same sites, then by burning witches and religious persecutions. If they couldn’t kill them, they used ridicule and fear tactics to deter people from the pagan heritage. The devil is only a Christian adaptation of a neutral nature deity; Pan, Cernos, the horned gods – which are phallic. The Christian church has never been very sexual, except where the pagan undercurrent has been allowed to emerge because it was too strong to suppress completely. The devil is a representation of pagan sexuality, which is why people are attracted to it even when seen as a Christian invention.

Sleazy: At the moment we’re sort of going through a right-wing backlash against the freedom of the sixties and seventies, certainly in terms of sex. And I wouldn’t be surprised if in ten years time there was a religious resurgence of interest in the church.

Were the angels symbolic of a larger concept on ‘How to Destroy Angels’?

Sleazy: All of what we do is symbolic on several different levels at once, so you can interpret angels as being a number of things, whether it’s the controlling influence of the church, or whether it’s an unnecessary desire to retain virginity.

J Balance: When I thought of the title, all these things went through me. It was a record to accumulate enough power to destroy theoretical angels – Christian gossamer angels don’t seem hard to destroy. It was a curious matter of fact title, almost like a manual a handbook you’d come across which could be the key to immense power and change.

Do you think that Coil will vary to a large extent from TG live?

Sleazy: Yeah, the trouble with playing live is that everything has to be done on the spot more or less. And nobody in TG was a particularly great musician. Basically that narrows down your options as to what you can do live. You can rely very heavily on backing tapes, you can just do your best or you can bring in other musicians. And none of those options are very acceptable to me. Just doing your best and trying to work out sounds that one could reproduce competently and that sounded interesting was really what TG were doing. It got to the point where we couldn’t go any further and that’s one of the reasons why we split up. And the Psychic TV dates that we did in the Summer and Autumn of 1983 didn’t really go any further than TG had. We had Alex playing, who is a good musician in that he can play proper guitar, but jams even with good musicians tend to sound like what their influences are. And so a lot of Psychic TV stuff ended up sounding like The Velvet Underground, which didn’t seem to me like it was advancing anything.

J Balance: Although the ideas were interesting live, it became more brutal and relied on the noise element while the ideas got swamped. I mean it’s alright for people who had heard the records before and knew what we were about and they got energy off it, but it wasn’t much more than a sort of controlled noise with a cause behind it. Which on reflection seems pretty reasonable, but something wasn’t right. Genesis would probably say it was our attitude.

Sleazy: Well that’s alright, but the reason why we haven’t really done any live dates is because we haven’t actually solved this problem of what to do. Certainly we could rely more on backing tapes in the way that a lot of groups do, but people really want that sort of dense atmosphere and rely on that adrenalin rush and I don’t know if you can get that from backing tapes.

What did you see as the function or purpose behind Throbbing Gristle?

Sleazy: To see if it was actually possible to get people to react physically. And also we were just trying to advance our intellectual and artistic aspirations in a new way, because prior to that we hadn’t been doing music at all. And also to have fun and attract young people who we could fuck. All the reasons people normally have groups. (laughs)

Is there such a thing as inaudible sound?

Sleazy: Pardon? (laughs) The theory of all that stuff is that if you actually play something at a lower level or backwards or in flashes on the screen it’s absorbed by the subconscious mind which acts upon it immediately. But I’ve never had any information or evidence that it works. People say The Rolling Stones album `Their Satanic Majesty’s Request’ has reverse masking and it says, “Come to Satan”, or something. I mean it’s all bullshit, it doesn’t work in my view.

J Balance: Records are very crude as far as recording and playback quality goes and there is no way that scientific experiments can be done in this medium. I think holophonics are far more interesting anyway. Stevo gets accused of doing a big hoax and so does Zuccarelli who developed the system. With holophonics we were able to get atmospheric subliminals and record a particular feeling including the spatial limits of a room or a cave and the movements of people in it. But I remain very dubious about back masking and inaudible sounds having profound but subtle effects.

Sleazy: Coil are interested in subliminals of another kind – delirium subliminals. Avatistic glimpses of a grand chaos – surfacing in flashes of black light – in darkest Dali, Jarry, the Moomintrolls, The Virgin Prunes, in the face of Edith Sitwell, Boyd Rice’s humour – emotional subliminals. Psychic information, partly deliberate, mostly instinctive.

Do you think that ghost images in a visual picture have an effect on people?

J Balance: I think they possibly have more effect. Apparently ‘The Exorcist’ originally had dead animals subliminally put in and they had to take them out. I mean there s,as a huge reaction about people being sick because it was the first high class splatter movie. It has more chance of having an effect if you see adverts many times – and they’re not subliminal. If you see adverts for ice cream, next time you’re in the shop, you go, “I’ll have one of them”, because you’ve seen it on telly. It just works on a crass level like that.

Sleazy: But there are lots of things that happen with films that could be exploited more, just things that you see in the background that you don’t notice but are actually there.

J Balance: All of these subjects – subliminals, back-masking, cut-ups, the Industrial group’s subjects – culled from Burroughs’ ‘The Job’ and ‘The Electronic Revolution’, have been done to death… And not very well. Sonic research is very hard to do properly on a Rough Trade advance or whatever. It maintains a pseudo-science, it has a wishy-washy quality that I don’t particularly want to be associated with. I’d rather been seen as a perverse noise unit with decidedly dubious musical leanings. I admire the intentions of all these groups, but the purity or scope of the possibilities are diminished by huge amounts in the translation to vinyl. Z’ev and NON seem to remain pure – as do Sonic Youth, but they’re coming from a different area as far as I can tell. In the end, the intentions alone can be appreciated – golden conceptualists and dull records type of situation.

Do you think that music is the best medium to get your ideas across to people?

Sleazy: No, I think film and television is by far the strongest because it’s a way of really affecting all of us. If you could affect the senses of smell and touch as well, it would be stronger still.

Is there a difference between chance and fate?

Sleazy: I don’t think there’s such a thing as fate really. I don’t think there’s such a thing as chance either, but that’s different. Fate implies that a certain thing is bound to happen, but I don’t think that’s the case. To rely on logic, then obviously whatever’s going to happen is going to happen. But at the same time, the implication that it’s out of your control is obviously rubbish. At any point you have a myriad of choices, whether it’s running and jumping out of the window or not Obviously things happen as a result of circumstances that one could not possible foresee and that is what one calls chance.

In the studio, does the recording process differ much with how you’ve worked previously?

J Balance: With Coil we lay down the backbone ourselves, and if we want to we collaborate with other people. With PTV it was more of a jam, things spontaneously arose out of rehearsals.

Sleazy: But all the PTV records that we were involved in were fundamentally done in the same way that we do now, which is to set down a rhythm and just lay things on top of it as they seem appropriate.

Do you think that you can change society through music?

Sleazy: No, I don’t think you can change anything with music particularly?

J Balance: But then again, a group like Crass might say it’s not necessarily their music, but the message that’s coupled with it. We’re very cautious about having one heavy message, but we do have a life style and I do want to change a lot of things. We’re obviously not like Ultravox where their album and the way they view life may be quite separate.

Sleazy: I actually don’t know any members of Ultravox personally, but my suspicion is that the content of their lyrics actually isn’t very deep and doesn’t concern very many of the things that I’m interested in. So that’s one of the reasons I don’t buy Ultravox records. Music is just an expression of the taste of the person that’s doing it, and that is ultimately why you buy a record – whether it’s Johnny Rotten or Captain Beefheart.

J Balance: If you hear a record you like and you suddenly find out that the people responsible do something that you’re really against, then you probably won’t listen to the record in the same light.

But shouldn’t music be judged on its own merit?

J Balance: I don’t think it should just by the song. They should have a sense of realisation that people do tie the two things together.

Sleazy: That’s a very difficult question because having been around the ‘business’ for a long while, I’ve met people whose music I’ve respected but whom I discovered 1 didn’t respect as people. And certainly that changed my perception of their music and their work.

Do you think that is elitist in some ways?

Sleazy: I think we are elitist. I know that I am a bit of a snob in some ways. I mean we’re talking about politics now and that is about how much self respect you have and whether you think your opinion is actually better than somebody else’s. And the important thing Go remember is that one’s own opinion is the best there is for you but not necessarily somebody else. It has got to do with whether you are big headed enough to think that -our own opinions are the ones other people should hold. And I think that’s very dangerous. I have certain very strong views about particular things that other people would certainly think were elitist, unusual or unacceptable. But I only hold those views for myself and I wouldn’t necessarily expect other people to enjoy the things that I enjoy. And likewise, I would expect them not to force me to live in the way that they do. Coincidentally we have touched upon a very common misconception – which is that elitism is a bad thing. It’s also an old misconception that it’s important to do a particular kind of music at a particular time. I mean you can look back on certain songs as being ‘classic’ or completely different from anything else at the time, but it’s all temporary. I think it’s worse in America where people tend to accept commercial dogmas more readily. In England, the eccentric is part of the history of the country. There has always been the village idiot.

J Balance: Does that make us the village idiots?

Sleazy: No, but there’s the whole tradition, Oscar Wilde or Quentin Crisp or whatever, as being acceptable as the local weirdo in a sense. And the people that do that in America are far more out on a limb until they get some commercial success. I mean New York is a cultural island relative to the midwest – where the people that do weird records have a difficult time. At least in England people are prepared to listen to something new with an open mind, so it’s that much easier. It may be crazy, but I still have an optimistic hope that free thinkers will be allowed to continue to do so because most of them are not threatening to society even though society might feel that they are. That is why we’re lucky in Britain in that we accept eccentrics and people that do things out of the ordinary as being a healthy and contributory part of society’s existence.

J Balance: But you make it sound like it’s idealistic and that all these things are allowed to happen. There are huge backlashes all the time against those who appear to deviate. But society needs the deviants in order to change. There’s this thing, “Let them grow up so far and perpetuate some sort of change and then beat them down again”. It’s as if society, like an organism, allows mutation in order to improve itself but keeps a tight rein on how much actually occurs.

Sword imagery creeps into several Coil tracks. Is that simply a phallic symbol?

J Balance: We didn’t mean it as a phallic symbol. If you get Freudian then it’s definitely a phallic symbol, but in magick it’s not. The sound of the swords on ‘How To Destroy Angels’ represents Mars, as in martial, the God of Spring and War, who cabalistically represents dynamic, positive change. The sword is a symbol of willpower.

Sleazy: Although I certainly wouldn’t describe us as militaristic, we recognise that man has an aggressive streak. I don’t think the peace movement, for example, has got any real hope of succeeding. You have to recognise the nature of man, accept it and use it.

J Balance: It’s the way things happen isn’t it? Its created force is what we’re aiming at, rather than militaristic, crass and obviously masculine, sexist type things. Rough Trade actually said that the cover notes to `How To Destroy Angels’ were misogynist, which I find ridiculous just because it dealt with masculine qualities.

Sleazy: They stocked the record and it sold out, but I don’t think they were too happy about it. And they didn’t put the poster up either because it was too extreme for them. In man – ways the people that are supposed to be spearheading the libertarian view are just as limited in their view as the gutter press and the more conservative elements.

J Balance: Their ideals often disagree with the practical way they work. They’ll say, “Oh yes, we support free thinking and things”, but when you actually bring a copy of it into the shop, they’ll smash it if it disagrees with their personal sensibilities.

Sleazy: You’re bound to come into contact with hypocrisy when you step out the door really. The only thing you can do is to try and make sure it doesn’t take place in your own home.

What inspired ‘The Sewage Workers Birthday Party’?

Sleazy: It came from a story of the same name in a magazine called Mr S&M, a Scandinavian publication which is basically fetishistic in its content. It’s an area I’m interested in anyway. We wanted to try and express it in musical form, and I’m personally quite pleased with the way it turned out. It’s an interesting piece of music even if you don’t know the original story and where it came from. I’d have liked to print it, but I don’t think the people doing the covers would have actually accepted it.

Does it seem strange doing dance music now?

J Balance: Are we doing dance music?

Sleazy: When Throbbing Gristle did ‘Twenty Jazz Funk Greats’, it was the intention to do something that was more conventional in that form, but it wasn’t totally successful because we didn’t really know how to do it. We still don’t know how to do it, it’s just that we wanted to make some of the music a little more up tempo, aggressive and rhythmic. But it’s certainly not a considered attempt to do a dance record, because I think if we tried to do that it would be a disaster. I can’t speak for the intentions of others, but I get the impression that The Art Of Noise were really a very considered attempt to do dance music in a way that would be artistic and fashionable. And it feels to me that the results are sterile and not very interesting.

J Balance: It all depends on what dance you’re going to do. I think that The Birthday Party were dance music, but it wasn’t the kind of thing that got played in discos very often.

Do you think that anybody has added a great deal of depth to a song which is also very entertaining and commercially accepted?

Sleazy: It’s very hard because you don’t know what people’s reasons for doing the records were. ‘Endless Sleep’ by The Poppy Family, `Tainted Love’ by Gloria Jones, ‘Seasons in the Sun’ by Terry Jacks, and ‘Emma’ by Hot Chocolate, to name a few, seem to work on lots of different levels, but I don’t know whether that was the intention of them in the first place. I mean from The Beatles onwards, some records have struck at exactly the right time for them to be amazingly successful and also interesting from some other philosophical or inspirational point of view. I think that’s true for films as well. That’s probably one of the most satisfying things for a creative person to do, because that spiritual or philosophical side stands or falls for what it is.

What do you think about cults that develop around certain bands, such as the mimicking of haircuts and dress that became noticeable with TG and PTV.

J Balance: Thoughtless and crass mimicking of anything is worthless.

Sleazy: It’s one thing to dress a particular way and to meet other people that have by their own route arrived at similar conclusions. But to wear things because one’s hero or idol happens to wear them is really weird and a bit unhealthy – and slightly distasteful. That whole thing of Marc Almond clones – even though Marc’s terrific. It’s the same with Bowie clones. It’s ironic as well because at the time we were in PTV, one of the messages of the group was free thinking and independence from that kind of thing. I can’t speak for what they’re doing now because they’re going their own way and I wish them well, but there’s no way that I personally could continue to be a part of that.

How important is image to Coil?

Sleazy: We haven’t established an image for Coil as such. Although we obviously have interests slightly apart from the norm, we haven’t particularly gone out of our way to create an image. In many ways it works against us because that means when we do occasionally give interviews, people don’t really know what to ask.

J Balance: We’ve got the added problem that we could easily rely on ex-PTV and play up all the same things, but we make a conscious effort to play down those things even though some of the aspects we’re still very much involved in. We’re making a conscious effort to be isolationists. I think it might become our image in a way. I suppose some people might try and pick up on the fact that we’re gay and associate us with that – like Bronski Beat who were only ever thought of in that context.

Sleazy: It’s a question of really not allowing ourselves to be reduced to two dimensional objects. Although sexuality is fairly important part of what we do, it’s by no means the only part and I don’t see it as a restriction.

Why are so many people scared away by some of the imagery that TG and PTV made use of, such as skulls etc.?

Sleazy: I think that it must be that we have a different threshold, a different interpretation upon imagery. I mean it’s a cliche to say this, but I’ve been at home and felt happier in fairly desolate and lonely sorts of places. And if people get scared by photos of the Berlin wall or something like that, then I just can’t perceive of the life they lead and how they could find it scary, because it just seems natural to me. A vast proportion of what we do and the way that we live our lives would probably freak out the majority of civilised people, simply because it’s out of the norm of their experience. It would certainly freak out my mum. We don’t have any wallpaper, we’ve got rat shit everywhere, it’s just a completely different way of living. But the reason that people get frightened is because of their interpretation of those things, not because of the reality of them. It’s easy for a person to interpret a photo of you holding a skull, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a devil worshipper or a necrophiliac. It’s their interpretation which is at fault. If my mum was living here, after a while she would probably think it completely normal and would have a much more realistic scale to determine whether I was a nice person or not. It’s a very dangerous thing that some of the newspapers and the media do because it’s so easy for them. And they’re going to sell newspapers for being outrageous and saying, “Naughty Vicar”, and “VD Hospital”, shift. But outrage has always been a commodity. I mean Boy George, The Sex Pistols and everything are all manufactured, totally. But none of us, even Gen, has ever done anything really to make mileage out of being outrageous, it just comes naturally. Which is quite different I think. Although you see people on the subway with whom you feel you have absolutely nothing in common with and possibly even dislike just because of the kind of people they are, I’d rather have nothing to do with them. I don’t think it’s even worth going to the effort of outraging them. I just wish they weren’t there.

Is there anything else that should be known about Coil?

Sleazy: We have talked quite a lot about ritual and I’m not sure if that gives a true picture of what we do. Because although it is part of our lives, it’s not something that we would particularly be interested in having a name for promoting amongst young people. The Temple Ov Psychic Youth was an attempt to bring ritual to other people. I wouldn’t really want to be seen doing that still, because I don’t feel it is my job to tell people how they should live. But if they want to ask me, that’s fine.

Charles Neal – Tape Delay 1987

The Astronauts – Typically English Day – BBC Radio 6 broadcast

Steve Lamacq played ‘Typically English Day’ by The Astronauts on his radio show earlier this evening. Understandably I’m chuffed; not so much chuffed that my band got played on 6 Music but more that The Astronauts got played on 6 Music. I consider myself a fan of the band first and foremost, joining them years after many unforgettable nights seeing them as a teenager, throwing awkward shapes and singing every word back at the band. I’m often in disbelief that someone so revered by myself is so overlooked, not just by the mainstream but across the counterculture. Mark Astronaut has been going strong for over thirty five years and is showing no signs of stopping, and that’s something to be applauded. He’s a truly remarkable songwriter and he is so deserving of all the airtime and coverage he can get. Maybe in some parallel universe Mark is bigger than The Beatles, like Rodriguez was / is in ‘Searching For Sugar Man’. I hope so, anyway.

Joe Davin – The Astronauts

Tory Funerals / Long Live Michael Roberts

Get The Picture / Trendy Lefty Drop Dead

Uploaded today is the self released cassette tape by Living Legends. Aptly a track on the cassette tape is entitled ‘Tory Funerals’. Aptly of course, as this is the day of the funeral of that lady ‘that was not for turning’. Thank you to Chris Low for the lend of this cassette tape some years ago. I have been waiting patiently for this moment to upload the cassette!

Chris went along to Trafalgar Square with Ian Bone (late of Living Legends and Class War) last Saturday as he was reporting on the event on behalf of Vice Magazine. You can read Chris Low’s report of that afternoon at the bottom of this post.

Thank you in advance to swanseapunk.co.uk for the informative text that I ripped off from the site.

Living Legends; a punk band fronted by Swansea anarchist activist and Class War founder Ian Bone,  once described by the News of the World as ‘the most dangerous man in Britain’. Performed alongside Crass in Swansea and released a debut single ‘The Pope is a Dope’ on Upright records in 1982. Gigs were always chaotic with Ian Bone being arrested after one particularly memorable gig at Abergavenny Town Hall in 1983.

By this time the band was Cardiff based and the moniker had changed to Class War. Class War’s single ‘Better Dead Than Wed’ was released on Mortarhate records  in 1985 and surprisingly topped the UK Indie charts for three weeks.

Circles nightclub; It was variously named Dirty Doras… Pandoras… The Pit… Marina Nightspot and was a fantabulous fleapit which had hosted the Sex Pistols, Slits, Buzzcocks and Sham 69 as well as spawning every legover in the town. It was all managed with massive indifference by Howard. It was the only venue in which Swansea home grown punkers -The Next Step, The Autonomes, Venom, the Urge and The End, plus Llanelli’s greatest ever export, the utterly brilliant Andy Pandemonium could get to play outside the usual Top Ranksville wankdom.

I’d put Crass and the Poison Girls on there. When Howard turned up, there was a queue of tiny ten year olds trying to get in with their Fight war, not war T-shirts. “They can’t come in, she only looks about eight,” said Howard to the door staff. Steve Ignorant hid the offending eight-year-old in the back of a speaker and carried her past the door gorillas. I was talking to Howard later when the eight-year-old walked between us swigging a pint like a veteran alkie. Howard shrugged and hid in his office.

But tonight was Page 3′s debut gig… much fucking hyped. Howard told me the Dutch band Focus – no, me neither mate – had pulled a record crowd of 900, but we were pushing it fucking close. We had strippers “fucking good-looking ones,” enthused Ray Jones, our singer. He was right. They were supposed to strip seductively when Ray burst into his Troggs cover version of Can’t Control Myself instead they just raced on stage naked and and danced about before rolling around on top of each other laughing hysterically. The surge from the back towards the stage was almost of Hadj-like proportions.

Page 3 had started in the Coach and Horses a month or so earlier. Beer talk – start a band. “Porno Rock” that’s what we’d be, songs all about sex, but political, funny, subversive like. Our strippers would subvert the idea of stripping, wouldn’t they? Well, yes… doubtlessly accounted for the Doras surge.

I wrote about ten songs all over one weekend, hummed the tunes to Ray and Stuart who worked out the music. “Every one a fucking winner Ian” enthused Ray moonlighting from his other band, the Dyfatty Flats. We recruited everyone else from the pub regardless of musical ability – punk as fuck or wot? Jock McVeigh (exotic dancer), Glenn, Hugh, Trevor, Jonathan, Carolynne, Gaggsy, me, Ray Jones, Rhian, Stuart, Sheralee, Sarah Bewara, Amanda Bewara. Three rehearsals up at Cockett Studios and we’re off. Our set included such classics as Sexist Twat, Bitches on Heat, Premature Ejaculations, Swallow it Down, Can’t Get It Up, One Of The Boys, Clap Clap I Wanna Get The Clap, Prostitutes World, John Bindon, plus the evergreen singalong God Bless You Queen Mum and a couple of Reg Presley covers. Ray was a bit dubious about singing the impotence song Can’t Get It Up but accompanied by Sarah on oboe, he did it proud.

The gig was a storming success – musically as well as sexually. I’m not sure our analysis of the com-modification of sex and the rectification of emotion in the society of the spectacle was appreciated, or understood by all, but Howard seemed to buy into it because he immediately re-booked us in a back office overflowing with cash.

I decided to help our notoriety a bit further. I phoned the Evening Post and told them that Jock “Negative” McVeigh had been tragically killed in a car accident in the south of France. The Post’s front page ran “Page 3 Exotic Dancer Killed In French Crash” which sounded both glam and tragic! Oh how we laughed. Jock had never been further than Brion Ferry in his life and to see this lovable, tattooed, gay proletarian Swansea ne’r do well described as an “exotic dancer” in print was mirth inducing. When up before the Swansea bench in the future, Jock would always give his occupation as “exotic dancer” then argue he was “dead” so couldn’t be charged, producing the crumpled Post front page as conclusive evidence. I followed up with a further call to the Post complaining the story was untrue – cue another front page “Band Victim Of Cruel Hoax” and giving full details of our next Circles’ gig naturally. Jock now describes himself as a ‘living legend’ in the town, a name the band was later to take on. After one gig, we were indeed living legends in the pretty shitty city.

We’d chosen the name Page 3 by sticking a pin in a book agreeing to be called whatever it stuck in. But now with the strippers, it became obvious there was a connection in some crazed Swansea minds between us and The Sun’s Page 3 girls. So I decided to exploit this as well:

Dear Editor,

I recently went along to see a concert at Circles nightclub in Swansea. Advertised as Page 3, I naturally thought it would be sponsored by The Sun and feature your delightful Page 3 glamour girls. Imagine my horror to see the crudest pornography, vile lyrics, live sex and a song wishing the Queen Mother would die of cancer etc etc

The hope behind the letter was that The Sun would run a sensational article on the band denying any connection and spreading our notoriety nationally, but it didn’t work out like that!

Our second gig was at the Highwayman Nite Spot in Ystalyfera – a ponderosa-style scampi-in-a-basket club but temporarily managed by Gwyn ‘Bomber’ Dawe, one of my Welsh Republican acquaintances anxious to spread the porno-rock message up the Lower Swansea Valley. The gig was a total fucking shambles on all counts. Our stripper had been chatted up by a camera-toting ‘merchant seaman’ by the bar and was posing for photos. Later, she breathlessly told us that the ‘merchant seaman’ was in fact a Sun journalist. The poor unfortunate, hoping that the journo line was more likely to get her into bed than than the merchant seaman ploy, had blurted out the truth.

Our two roadies – famed Townhill hardmen Ianto and Ado Craven – took his camera off him and threw it in the river. Ado then performed a perfectly executed head-butt on him which stretched him prone on the ponderosa floor as we headed home.”

IAN BONE 2006

‘What was your worst moment?

As student union social secretary I briefly became Wales’s number one reggae promoter and we had some brilliant nights. I once however had the choice of two unknown bands; one was to become the Eurythmics with Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. I chose the Yachts. This was eclipsed when I foolishly put on a punk band called ‘Page Three’ – in what was to be their last-ever gig – whose members were to become the anarchist agitation group Class War.

This band included a lady of ill repute involved in the so-called ‘sex for luncheon vouchers scandal’ in the ‘70’s. Their act included doing rude things with jelly babies and feeding them to the front row of the audience. It got worse: the night ended in chaos with police and fire brigade called out, the College Safety Officer beaten up, and my dear mate Bertie Mathews getting thumped. My abiding memory is when cleaning up the mess at the end of the night. This big Welsh guy stood in the hall with his posture indicating he was going to make some negative pronouncement but declaring, in his broad valley’s accent: “Smutty, but good!” I learned that you can at least please some of the people, some of the time!

ANDY GREEN (who put on Page 3 at Swansea University) – 2006

Following the injunction by “The Sun”, the band changed their name, first to Page 4 then the Jammy Tarts, and finally settling on The Living Legends. By then however, most of the original line up had moved on to other things . When the Living Legends supported Crass on September 24th, 1981, the line-up was Manda, Carolynne (Ca Tastrophe), Ian (as Dee Generate) on vocals, with Steve Hanney (Stan Doffish), ex of the Autonomes roped in as main vocalist and poet; Paul “Whizzy” Chiarenza on bass, Kevin Francis Jones from the Dyfatty Flats on drums and Chris Leek (aka Ron Note), who was recruited from local band Raymond and the Stingos on saxophone – all topped off with the incredible ballet dancing skills of Chris Anthemum !!

Despite an announced 7.30 pm start, at 9.00 last Thursday the doors of St Phillips were still firmly locked against the Crass fans waiting patiently outside in the teeming rain. (This, it must be added, was no fault of the bands or the organisers).

Luckily, this column was adjourn to licensed premises for shelter (unlike the many under-eighteens in the crowd), and finally got in just at the start of Living Legends’ opening set.

This, of course, is the latest descendent of Page Four, but with a broader range of targets – and a pared-down backline of just drums, bass and the former sax player with Raymond and the Stingos.

The theatrics are coming together more (apart from the Queen Mother hurling herself onstage halfway through the wrong song), but thanks to the hall’s awesomely wretched acoustics the all-important lyrics disappeared totally into a blur, a problem which bedeviled all three acts.

The second of these, D.I.R.T, were a London band with stage gear tailor-made for NME’s colour pages and a set firmly rooted in 1977. I was reminded of the UK Subs with a girl singer (who shrieked a lot). They seemed to go on forever.

By now, a blockhead idiot minority in the crowd was pretending it was at Ninian Park (wish they had been – they deserved to be bored to death).

Crass united the crowd, however, simply by getting onstage and playing – immediately all inter-faction rivalry vanished in a surge forward toward their common idols.

Practically the whole set was rooted in basic punk, and it was disappointing that they didn’t do “Reality Asylum”, totally different in style and one of the most pulverising singles of ’79. And therein lies one of Crass’s biggest stumbling blocks – their “Anarchy and Peace” ideology relies absolutely on the lyrics getting across, but on both occasions I’ve seen the band the sound has been so bad that lyrically that they might as well have been The Ramones.

Small wonder that their concept of anarchy is so widely misunderstood, small wonder that (because they deal with violent subjects like war) it’s often assumed that they are advocates of chaos, small wonder that many of their fans bracket them with Discharge and The Exploited as just another band to pogo to.

There’s more, much more. The stage show too is more ambitious, incorporating TV and film screens , there was one stunning moment in the anti-war sequence when band, visuals and music all messed brilliantly.

GRAHAM  LARKBEY – HERALD OF WALES PAPER – 1981

“Worse than the Sex Pistols…” complained the lady on Swansea Sound. “Disgusting …”screamed the Swansea Evening Post beneath its “KILL QUEEN SONG ANGER” front page banner headline. Swansea was slowly waking up to the fact that after such wholesome cherubs as Harry Secombe, Bonnie Tyler and Mary Hopkin, it had now produced a horrible, mutant musical offspring – The Living Legends.

Born from the ashes of porno-rockers Page 3 -who featured two of brothel madame Cynthia Payne’s luncheon voucher prostitutes – Living Legends are a violent, anarchist, republican band whose songs are so far over the top that even hardened fellow punks refuse to play with them.

After a short West Country tour with cult punk band Crass, the partnership came to a violent end in Swansea on September 24th. The Legends had insisted that the gig at the St Philips Community Centre be a benefit for the holiday home arson campaign.

Crass pacifist anarchists as opposed to the violent kind, were unhappy with this from the start. And as most of the audience of 300 or so Punk followers, some from as far afield as Liverpool came to hear them it was inevitable there would be trouble

As Living Legends swung into their “We’re Gonna Burn Down Your Holiday Homes” number Crass decided they’d had enough and unplugged the amplifiers. There followed 15 minutes of wildly flying boots and fists around the hall as Crass’s pacifism was put to the sword by Legends’ fans.

Afterwards Crass bitterly announced that they would never again play with The Legends and cancelled gigs they were due to play with them.

There was only time left that night for The Legends to perform their Assassination Trilogy, celebrating the year’s three assassination attempts: “The Pope Is A Dope” – three hundered punks and skins pogo furiously as the Pope is bloodily macheted to death on stage and the chant of “Kill the Pope” comes back from the floor. “Dum Dum bullets for a Dum Dum Dummy” (Ronald Reagan) when the floor again erupts; and “Who was the wank who fired the Blank”, a celebration of the attempted attack on the Queen, with the crazed voice of lead singer Ian Bone chanting…

“There wouldn’t have been no wedding at all

If Marcus Sergeant in the Mall

Had earned all our eternal thanks

And fired live bullets instead of blanks”

Unlike his audience whose ages range from 12 to mid-twenties, Bone is in his thirties and well educated. He is a sociology graduate from University College, Swansea

As lead singer and songwriter with The Legends, Bone has created for the first time a Nationalist band using the English language which has a massive following among working class kids in south Wales, it is a scene completely removed from the cosy world of Welsh language pop.

Living Legends would not be distinguished greatly from the hundreds of other Punk bands around if their bizarre line-up did not have musical talent as well. A Sounds reporter, following the Crass tour didn’t even mention Crass in his report, so far he had gone overboard for The Legends.

With a spartan back-line of drums, bass and sax, the four vocalists are given full reign. Ca Tastrophe and Just Manda, the female Legends, win complete silence from their audience as the sing “Bitches on Heat”. This, a celebration of menstrual blood, has an almost castrating effect on the predominantly male audience as they glimpse the girls (genuine) blood-soaked tampon earrings.

The silence is then completely shattered as Bone Idol follows up with his manic “Where The Hell’s Churchill”.

You won’t see The Legends gigs advertised: word spreads through South Wales by word of mouth. The band often appears under false names to avoid being banned from venues they have booked as their reputation advances ahead of them.

Rumour has it that they are playing at Grass Roots in Cardiff on November 6 but you have been warned … it won’t be pleasant.

ARCADE MAGAZINE – 1981

Read Chris Low’s piece on the Trafalgar Square gathering in Vice magazine HERE

No Town Hall

Holocaust / PC One Nine Eight Four

UK 79

White Youth

Alienation

Bruckwood Hospital

Uploaded today is the complete set of Crisis 7″ singles, all originally recorded at the B.B.C studios in London’s Maida Vale.

The first 7″ single released on Peckham Action Group records have the recordings that made up the first John Peel session that was recorded in January 1978. The two 7″ singles released on Ardcor records have the recordings that made up the second John Peel session that was recorded in November 1978. All of these tracks are magnificent. All of these tracks stand up to the test of time.

The wonderful Crisis gig poster which is the property of Stewart ‘Jellyfish’ has been placed on this post with his full blessing.

The Stewart Home reminiscences are lifted from his book ‘Cranked Up Really High’ of which you can read chapters and order a copy off his website stewarthomesociety.org.

The Douglas Pearce interview below the ‘Cranked Up Really High’ text is ripped in part from occidentalcongress.com.

As a genre, PUNK ROCK is to a large degree shaped by the response of an international audience to what, perhaps, appears to be an unending stream of records. Nevertheless, live performance occupies a peculiarly important position among exponents of this style of music. Although in my teenage years I attended concerts by a good many of the bands who have been cited on previous pages, this is not of sufficient interest to warrant detailed description. Instead, I will restrict myself to a series of anecdotes concerning one particular group, in the hope that this will give a flavour of what it was like to follow any number of bands.

Although I’d run into Frazer Towman, the first Crisis singer, at various PUNK ROCK gigs in 1977, I missed the band’s first few public appearances out of sheer laziness. I finally caught them live at their fifth gig in January 1978. I can remember walking into Woking town centre and a couple of kids of fifteen, my age at the time, trying to pick a fight. The lippier of the two bastards attempted to come on all theatrical, slowly removing his leather gloves. He didn’t like Punks, although seeing as I was dressed in a sixties tonic jacket, shirt, Levis and boots, with very short hair, I’d located myself somewhere between Punk and the re-emerging Mod and Skinhead subcultures. Anyway, when I gave the more aggressive bozo a hard shove into the on-coming traffic, these two idiots realised that despite being alone, I wasn’t going to be pushed around, so they pissed off. In 1977, and at the beginning of ’78, most ‘PUNK violence’ occurred outside concert halls, but over the next couple of years things started getting a lot more fraught at ‘new wave’ gigs.

I got down to the Centre Halls and there was a real buzz because Menace and Sham 69 were top of the bill. I hadn’t been inside long when Crisis came on. I wasn’t too impressed by the drummer, Insect Robin Ledger aka the Cleaner, who looked like a twat thanks to his beard. However, once the band struck up, Frazer leapt on stage dressed in rubber trousers and a rapist’s mask and I was well impressed. The songs were basic PUNK ROCK thrash with polemical lyrics: ‘I am a militant / I am a picket / I fought at Lewisham / I fought at Grunwick / See, see the lies / See the lies civilise me / See, see the lies / See the lies can’t you see?’ or ‘Search and destroy / Search and destroy the Nazis / The National Front / Smash the National Front / Annihilate, annihilate, annihilate, annihilate, annihilate’. Of course, it turned out that the words were written by rhythm guitarist Doug Pearce (who was in the International Marxist Group) and bassist Tony Wakeford (who was a member of the Socialist Workers Party). The cream on the cake was lead guitarist Lester Jones, aka Lester Picket, who could not only play very well, he also did an excellent impression of Mick Jones taking off Keith Richards.

It didn’t take a ‘genius’ to work out Crisis had been inspired by the Clash, but what was interesting was that songwriters Doug and Tony took Strummer’s revolutionary rhetoric seriously. Although the dialectical evolution of Punk Rock was to progress in a diametrically opposed direction from that in which Crisis were attempting to push it, the group nevertheless had an intuitive grasp of what the genre was about. Before playing a key role in the promotion of the Oi! movement, future Sun hack Gary Bushell hyped Crisis as reminding him ‘of Sham a couple of months back, musically simple and muscular’ (Sounds 16 September 1978) and ‘a clenched fist rammed hard into the flabby belly of the just-for-fun music punk has become’ (‘Music To March To’, Sounds 18 November 1978). Bushell understood that the way forward for ideological Punk Rock was to rhetorically take to the streets. Crisis appeared to be doing just that, although the fact that at least some of the band took their ‘revolutionary communist’ image seriously prevented them emulating Sham 69′s chart success.

When I think of Crisis all sorts of images flash through my mind. I can remember a whole bunch of the band’s friends stealing crates of lager from behind the bar when the group played South Bank Polytechnic. Then there was the time in Brixton when Ken, the skinhead junkie, jumped on stage to wave a knife about and threaten to cut up the bastard who’d punched out his girlfriend. She’d actually passed out from alcoholic excess. Another time, Rockin’ Pete, a Teddy Boy, turned up at a Hackney gig to announce that he’d finally joined the Socialist Workers Party as though this was an act of some great significance! Then there was the performance on a side-stage at the second Anti-Nazi League Carnival when guitarist Doug P. was carted off to hospital after being electrocuted. But what I remember mainly were punch-ups, towards the end of the band’s brief life it seemed as though there were always fights at Crisis gigs.

The most famous Crisis ruck was rather inaccurately reported under the headline ‘Rudies Don’t Care’ (Sounds 7 July 1979 – BELOW). An equally distorted account of the night can be found in the pro-situ pamphlet Like A Summer With A Thousand Julys by ex-King Mob members Dave and Stuart Wise, whose even sillier text The End Of Music did a great deal to help promote the ludicrous notion that PUNK ROCK was somehow ‘musical Situationism’. The actual cause of this particular ‘punk riot’ was not, as the ‘Wise’ brothers falsely claim, various boot boys being refused entry to the Acklam Hall in Notting Hill, but a Ladbroke Grove Skin who’d been granted admission, attempting to feel up a girl who followed Crisis. Taking exception to this, the chick booted the bastard in the bollocks, severely crippling the cunt. The slime-bag was too embarrassed to admit to his mates that he’d been beaten up by a bird and so he pointed me out as the person who’d given him the kicking.

I was standing in front of the stage as Crisis played, surrounded by mates, but the Ladbroke Grove Skins wrongly assumed I was on my own. When four of these twats attempted to kick my head in, they quickly found the odds turning against them as not only the audience but also the band, who’d leapt off-stage, waded in on my side. The Ladbroke Grove Skins were lucky to escape from the hall without any particularly grievous injuries. Crisis finished their set and a reggae band was playing when the skins returned mob handed, they’d rounded up sixty mates who were tooled up with hammers and pick-axe handles. This crew attempted to charge the security on the door but quick thinking Crisis fans formed a defensive line and beat them back. Meanwhile, the reggae band had locked themselves and their gear in a back room. Simultaneously, the Crisis crew threw a barricade of tables and chairs against the door while piping was ripped from the walls for use as offensive weapons.

Never inclined to stick to defensive tactics and having secured the hall. assorted members of Crisis and their hardcore following stormed out into the street to lay into the mob besieging the venue. Among the more memorable of improvised weapons were motorcycle helmets that were brought cracking down onto cropped scalps. With numerous injuries on both sides, the Ladbroke Grove Skins were eventually beaten off by the superior fighting skills of Crisis and their friends. Although the band’s transit had been trashed, with all windows smashed, the motor started and the crew loaded up the gear before piling in. Everyone thought the first stop was going to be Brixton but just down the road we spotted two of the boot boys who’d started the trouble in the hall. The driver pulled up and a score of skinheads and punks leapt from the van.

The two Ladbroke Grove Skins ran into the very hospital where those injured during the ruck had been taken for treatment. One was caught and given a kicking in front of a night nurse; the bozo had landed in the right place to have his wounds stitched up, perhaps he knew that he’d never evade his pursuers as he legged it into casualty. The other skin disappeared down a maze of corridors and, as far as I’m concerned, has never been heard of again. It should be made clear that this wasn’t punk versus skinhead violence, which was very common at the time. Although the majority of people associated with Crisis could be loosely described as ‘punks’, bassist Tony Wakeford had adopted the skinhead look before this incident, as had some of those who followed the band. Likewise, a segment of the audience attending Crisis gigs were by this time geared up in rockabilly threads. The ability of this subculturally mixed crew to see off the Ladbroke Grove Skins contrasts very favourably with the next occasion on which these boot boys besieged the Acklam Hall. Incapable of fighting their way out, Oi! band the Last Resort and their fans, who at the time were being portrayed by the media as the ultimate violent hooligans, had to be rescued by the police!

Editor note: Some interesting anecdotes on Crisis, Ripped And Torn fanzine, Tony D, Kill Your Pet Puppy fanzine, Crass, The Slits, The Clash and a host of other relevant subjects with connections in and around Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove in west London from 1978 and 1979 may be read in this Tom Vague (ex of the fine Vague fanzine) essay HERE

Other incidents I can relate about Crisis are much funnier. For example, having gone through a succession of stickmen, Crisis recruited Luke Rendall as their new drummer. Rendall was very nervous about his debut with the band, needlessly so because he was a great musician, as he demonstrated both that night and on many other occasions with Crisis and Theatre Of Hate. To psyche himself up, Luke gulped down a handful of blues and because he was speeding he played the songs far faster than usual. Two numbers into the set, rhythm guitarist Doug Pearce turned around and asked Rendall if he could slow down. The drummer shock his head and spat ‘no, mate, no,’ before launching into the next song at double speed.

One gig in Reading ran so late that after staying for the encores, the hardcore following missed the last train home. Crisis got about in a small bakery van but nevertheless felt obliged to provide transport for their mates. That night there were four people crammed onto a front seat that was designed for two passengers. So that everyone else could fit in the back, kids had to lie on top of both the equipment and each other. Coming out of Reading, the transit was stopped by some cops who’d observed that the vehicle was severely overloaded. The filth told everyone to get out and couldn’t believe their eyes when fifteen youths emerged from the rear of the van. ‘Jesus!’ a boneheaded constable exclaimed, ‘we’ve enough of ‘em ‘ere for an identification parade!’

A more typical anecdote about Crisis concerns their reputation as violent nutters. Certain members of the group and some of their followers liked fighting. Whenever the opportunity arose, they’d beat up neo-fascists, and if there weren’t any Nazis about to give a kicking, they’d pick on anyone, including each other. The group’s last gig was as support act to Magazine at Surrey University in May 1980. While the gear was being set up, a friend of the band called Aggy threw food over Dexter No-Name, who at that time handled vocals for Crisis. Dexter was less than pleased and proceeded to hospitalise his mate. The Student Entertainment Officer was totally freaked out, and ran off screaming: ‘the gig hasn’t even started and already you’re beating each other up!’

Crisis are at once typical and atypical of late seventies ideological Punk Rock at the cross-roads of dialectical change. The revolutionary commitment of Doug and Tony was at odds with the attitude of the rest of the band and their fans, most of whom weren’t interested in taking politics very seriously. The band issued two singles and a mini-album during their brief career, while one single appeared posthumously. They played something approaching a hundred gigs in Britain, mainly political benefits, and did a Rock Against Racism tour of Norway. While I went to a lot of gigs in the late seventies, I saw Crisis more times than any other band and so it is only natural for me to use them as a means of illustrating the type of activity that will reinforce the image of any given group as an ideological Punk Rock combo. Obviously, image cannot be reduced to behaviour but, alongside clothes and record sleeves, it plays a major role in how any given group is perceived by the public.

Crisis adopted a modus operandi that could be characterised as underground, after unfortunate experiences with a couple of independent labels they proceeded to put out their own product. This is a mark of their deviation from the rhetoric of Punk Rock and the beginnings of a tentative engagement with other forms of activity in which such ideals move out of the symbolic realm and take on a material reality. Some of these proclivities found a more conscious articulation in Death In June, the band founded by Doug Pearce and Tony Wakeford after Crisis split. However, this is not the place to deal with such issues. In all probability, theoretical work in this area will be left to less capable hands because I have no plans to compose a text about those tendencies whose activities were simultaneously related and opposed to the rhetoric of ‘ideological’ Punk Rock. The point to remember here is that Crisis were considerably more successful than the average band issuing their own records in 1979/80. If Crisis had been a typical Punk Rock band, they would have signed to an independent label who would have provided them with greater sales and a smaller percentage of revenue from their record releases.

STEWART HOME

In the late 1970s, Crisis marked your first appearance on the music scene, as one of the band’s two main songwriters. In the years since, your music has evolved drastically; your current project of the last two and a half decades, Death In June, is markedly dissimilar to your work with Crisis, musically, visually and politically. That said, why a retrospective “complete discography” Crisis CD now? 

First of all I don’t believe that in retrospect Crisis and Death In June were that dissimilar on any of those levels. Certainly not musically towards the end of Crisis in 1980 and, the yet to be, birth in 1981 of Death In June. Visually we also had from the very beginning a look that could have easily blended into latter day DIJ with camouflage and black clothing being ‘de rigeur’. We saw ourselves as ‘Music to March To’ and so did the British mainstream press and our followers – whatever side of the political spectrum they came from. And, despite being ‘obviously’ Left wing we had many far Right followers which gave birth to a whole gamut of interesting liaisons and conversations and mutual agreements and perhaps even respect. Nothing was ever straightforward, no matter how much we might have even liked it to be. If you were a punk or a skinhead – regardless of your colour, political stance or sexual orientation – in the UK in the late 1970s that was enough to blur all and every prejudice and boundary.

Whether I like it or not Crisis forms a very important part of my personal and musical contribution to history and after six years since the last readily available compilation I thought it was now time to issue another, better thought-out, retrospective. “Holocaust Hymns” effectively replaces the “We Are All Jews And Germans” compilation that was put out by the now defunct World Serpent Distribution. And, it’s a lot better than that one, after being remastered and with more accurate track information, exclusive photos et cetera. For the first time in years I actually am enjoying listening to this moment in time. And, going by the amount of requests I’ve had for this material over recent years, so will many other good folk. Basically, there was a demand and hopefully I’ve met it.

Crisis seems to have appeared fairly early on in the whole punk “movement” of the late 1970s; what initially drew you to punk rock, and what inspired you to form your own band?

Very simply everything on all levels was horrible in England in the mid-late 1970s. When I see newsreel footage of the UK during that period I can’t believe quite how dour it all looked – and was – especially if you were from white working class backgrounds like Tony and myself! Something had to happen and it did culturally, and had a continuing significant effect on youth culture and society as a whole. I had hair down to my waist until late 1975 when I realised that wasn’t for me – that was another time – cut all my hair off and wandered around being pissed off, looking like a runaway from Francois Truffaut’s “400 Blows”. Then one day on the Tube in London I noticed someone else looking like this and then I saw a poster for a Sex Pistols gig showing two cowboys greeting each other but whose cocks were also exposed and touching, and then I heard about The Clash, and then I saw in late 1976 The Sex Pistols on an English TV show called “So It Goes,” hosted by Tony Wilson (later of Factory Records fame), and then Tony Wakeford telephoned me and asked if I had heard of Punk Rock and if I wanted to form a group. I said “yes” to both those questions and the rest is hysterical. It was a series of events that led me to Punk early on, but in comparison to the trailblazers, we took our time. Crisis came in the wake of those events and people.

Many reviewers have compared Crisis to the far-left UK band Crass, due to the two bands’ heavy use of politics as lyrical and visual subject matter within the context of punk rock. One reviewer wrote, “[Crass and Crisis] both signaled the end of punk as fun, spontaneity, massiveness and anarchy (as a way of feeling). In this new ‘new wave’ of punk, punk was seen as a tool of protest… Crass, Crisis and the bands they bred became the new puritans. [The Crisis track] PC1984 might as well have stood for politically correct 1984 as they told us the truth about the world and what our part should be in it according to their rules. The truth was black and white…the enemy obvious…the police were the fascistic army to dominate the workers.” Do you think this is a fair criticism, and does is reflect your actual aims for the band at the time, or more of how the band was perceived by the press and fans? Do you look back on your time with Crisis as being “fun,” or was it something else, as the above quote alleges?

Crisis and my experience of Punk Rock in Britain/Europe was anything and everything but “fun” and this sort of idea comes from people who were either not there at the time, or were and have an axe of some kind or another to grind about their own experiences with Crisis. The years between 1977 and 1980 were some of the hardest of my Life and they certainly contributed to Tony and I wanting to destroy the group in 1980 and head for sunnier pastures artistically, culturally, and whatever else we could find. However, we couldn’t deny our cultural imperative at the time. We were in Crisis unashamedly left wing or, at least trying to be, and wanted to be taken seriously politically. Which we were! So seriously in fact that when celebrities found out we were part of the Anti-Nazi League or Rock Against Racism benefits they withdrew their support. Names like the author Keith Waterhouse, TV compare Michael Parkinson and Football coach Brian Clough immediately spring to mind. They publicly withdrew their support because of Crisis! Crisis were referred to as “Red Fascists” almost from the outset, which seemed to confuse and upset some folk and also endear us to others. They were “interesting times.”

And as regards any comparisons to Crass: They were not contemporaries of ours, I don’t remember any comparisons at the time and I think we only became aware of them after the demise of Crisis and at the beginning of Death In June in the early 1980s. Certainly to us then they seemed like the guys at free festivals dishing out lentils and orange juice to those on a bad trip when they realised they had been left behind, there was no one left at the festival anymore and in order to catch up with ‘the kids,’ cropped their hair, wore black and decided to form what was I think akin to the Hari Krishnas; a caricature of a punk group, and do their bit for those who weren’t there in the first place. I’m sure their hearts were in the right place and I love lentils and orange juice, and they did indeed invent their own particular version of Punk but,…. “Do they owe us a living?” Of course they fucking DON’T!

Following the dissolution of Crisis, members of the band went on to form or join acts such as Theatre of Hate, Sol Invictus, Sex Gang Children, and of course your own Death In June. Are you still in touch with any of these other ex-Crisis members, and if so, what is your perception of their post-Crisis work?

Even before the end Luke Rendall the last drummer in Crisis was basically headhunted by Kirk Brandon who was then in a group called The Pack. They went onto to form Theatre Of Hate which I quite liked and I saw a few of their early shows in the London area. I think my best memory was being backstage when Boy George was having a fit about some bloke giving Kirk the eye and how he was going to beat the shit out of him! This was before Culture Club and I have to say I think fame really became Boy George who seemed more like a transvestite psychopath that night than a Karma Kamelion. It also evidently made him lose interest in Kirk! I heard a few years ago that Luke had been murdered.

Lester, the lead guitarist of Crisis, went on to form a group called Car Crash International with members of the Sex Gang Children but I can’t recall what they were like and am only aware of one 12″ single that they put out.

Our two roadies Martin and Flea went on to work with The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite and Flea who designed some of the original Crisis record sleeves was even in several Big Audio Dynamite videos. I don’t know how much input he had in their creation but he was a very talented artist and all-round interesting guy.

Sol Invictus, of course, came out of Death In June not Crisis.

With the exception of Tony Wakeford I’m not in contact with anyone from those Punk days.

In the years since Crisis, you seem to have moved from the realm of politics to that of aesthetics. Conceptually, Crisis seems to have been a very direct, literal and “instructive” project in nature, in the sense that the songs were clearly about (and commenting upon), something specific, and urging the listener to think and feel about things in certain ways. Because of this, Crisis could really only be interpreted one way – literally and at face value – while your subsequent work with Death In June seems to me as being almost the opposite of that sort of approach; it’s rife with vague allusions, double meanings, and open-ended readings. In short, Crisis was a very matter-of-fact thing, while Death In June is a much more nebulous and poetic project. Assuming such an interpretation of your work is accurate, was this shift in approach a conscious decision on your part, or did it happen as a part of a gradual process?

Even though we might have thought what we were writing/singing about was “specific” and “straightforward” it was soon interpreted as anything but. The song ‘White Youth’ is a prime example. We performed several times on the back of a lorry on demonstrations throughout the South of England / London that were organized by The Right To Work campaign. Crisis would play for up to seven or eight hours, with a few breaks in between, entertaining the people who had been marching in protest to their unemployment which was then rife in the UK. It was our equivalent to The Beatles slogging their way through similar set lengths in some sleaze pit in Hamburg in the early 1960s. Whilst they had their happy memories of the Reeperbahn, I have happy memories of stopping traffic crossing Tower Bridge in London playing “UK 79″ and “Holocaust”. We wrote with that marching rhythm in mind the song “White Youth,” which we thought was about ‘unity and brotherhood’ [the song ends with the repeated verse, "We are black, we are white - together we are dynamite!"], but much to my surprise some smartarse in the New Musical Express was soon saying that it was a white supremacist anthem. There’s no pleasing some folk is there! That was key in realizing that no matter what you wrote if it was any good it could be interpreted anyway, anyhow, anywhere. A Death In June prime directive!

Life In A Cardboard Box

New Recruit / Anyway

Hugely indebted to Chris Low a long time regular KYPP browser and helping hand, for handing me this Intestines 7″ single during the last Mob gig that we both attended. Many thanks also to Neil Keenan ex of the parish of both Faction and Blyth Power for looking after the gift safely in his bag whilst I got to get munted at the gig. I must admit I did not know of The Intestines, but I do now. Thanks Chris.

The photographs and the timeline was pillaged ungraciously from the dedicated Intestines website (intestines.co.uk). Thanks in advance to those fine people. The private letter written by Rob of The Intestines to Chris Low in the very early 1980′s has been placed onto the post, thanks to Chris for allowing that and for sending it to me.

JULY 1978 – With little in the way of prospects in the UK seaside resort town of Bournemouth, England – four friends Rob “Banks”, Dave “John the Baptist”, Dale Clarke and Harry “Scrubber” leave school and form a band, Intestines.

The name is chosen because “It was the only thing we had in common”.

They set about putting music to Scrubbers lyrics. With no formal musical know-how – Dave can play a few Beatles songs on guitar – it’s an uphill struggle. They begin to develop their own style of raucous, throw away punk rock.

AUG 1979 – First live performance. Discussions held with Alternative Capitalists record label about releasing some of the bands material. Dale Clarke leaves to take up a career with the Royal Air Force.

SEPT 1979 – Sid Bladder (real name Adrian Jenkinson?) joins on Bass guitar to replace Clarke. Sid can’t play but is welcomed into the band for entertainment value alone

NOV 1979 – ‘Inept Tour’ begins with Intestines supported by five other local bands. After the one gig the ‘tour’ lives up to it’s billing and collapses.

JAN 1980 – ‘Life In a Cardboard Box’, ‘New Recruit’ and ‘Anyway’ recorded at Studio 95.

Alternative Capitalists release a various artists cassette ‘Illigitimi Non Carbonori’ including live recordings of Intestines’ ‘Life In a Cardboard Box’, ‘Rich’ and ‘Family at War’.

The band release a Cassette Album ‘Borborygmus’ on their own label Inept Products. It contains 15 live tracks of dubious sound quality. Borborygmus is the medical term for flatulence in the intestines.

FEB 1980 – Sid Bladder quits the band. He goes to live in Amsterdam “Where the drugs are cheaper”.

MAR 1980 – Richard Jones joins on Bass Guitar. Like Sid he can’t play. A regular feature at Intestines gigs photographing the band Jones uses his local media contacts to step up the profile of the band.

MAY 1980 – Poole Art Centre performance with The Mob, The Review and Null And Void.

JUNE 1980 – Another Cassette album release by Alternative Capitalists ‘No More Kitchen Cooking’ includes Intestines tracks ‘Wet Paint’, ‘Repressed’ and ‘Alternative Capitalist’.

JULY 1980 – Struggling to get high profile gigs the band hit upon the idea of promoting gigs under the Inept banner. They book the up and coming outfit Piranhas,who are touring to promote their new single ‘Tom Hark’, for next to nothing. Intestines are the support act. In the meantime ‘Tom Hark’ rockets to number one in the UK charts and Intestines get to support the number one act in the country before nearly 1,500 people. Trouble erupts though. The venue was only licensed to hold 700 people and sales exceeded capacity.

OCT 1980 – Intestines support chart hits the UK Subs at the Stateside Centre, Bournemouth.

Richard Jones is sacked from the band.

‘Life in a Cardboard Box’ single is released on Alternative Capitalist Label.

NOV 1980 – Steve ‘Snatch’ Morgan joins the band from The Rabies. His ability on the bass guitar is a major boost to the band.

Radio One air play for ‘Life In a Cardboard Box’.

MAR 1981 – Second release by the band on the Inept Product label. A double cassette album ‘Borborygmus II’ contains 30 tracks.

Snatch, increasingly absent from rehearsals, leaves. Scrubber, Banks and Baptist record two tracks ‘Borborygmus’ and ‘Label Madman’ at Studio 95 for what is intended to be the second single.

APRIL 1981 – Determined to maintain the momentum and also breath fresh life into Intestines the decision is made to merge the three remaining Intestines with members of Illegitimate, who have become their regular support band. Menace joins on guitar, Paul Hurst on Bass guitar and Mike Shaw on vocals introducing the unusual practice of having two main vocalists in the band.

JULY 1981 – The merger at first appears to have revived the dynamics of the band but cracks quickly start to show. Trouble follows a gig at Poole Technical College as Menace threatens to quit after walking off stage half way through the set. Paul Hurst pulls out of the next gig in Oxford. He is replaced on bass by Dave Flanagan of the U-Boats.

AUG 1981 – Paul Hurst and Menace quit the band. In the throws of disillusion both Shaw and Harry Scrubber announce their decisions to leave the band also.

Intestines play their final gig on the 24th August. Harry, Rob, Dave and Dave Flanagan, joined on a couple of numbers by Mike Shaw, draw the curtain on the band.

SEPT 1981 – Second vinyl 45 ‘Borborygmus’ released on Inept Label. Only limited run of the single is made following demise of the band.

Intestines Live At Poole Tech Cassette is released on the Inept Label.

1982 – Rob and Dave form a new band Butcher with Steve ‘Snatch’ Morgan.

They went on to release two singles.

Snatch sadly died in 1982

Today I have uploaded a relatively complete set of 7″ singles from Bologna’s Attack Punk record label. All the 7″ singles are in glorious red vinyl and quite aesthetically pleasing to the eye. The second release especially looks like the sleeve and booklet was screen printed in the same way as the first three Kill Your Pet Puppy fanzines, lots of clashing colours and text!

All the bands on all these releases are no doubt committed to the causes that they are involved with. Myself not being able to read (the booklets and posters) or understand Italian and the other nationalities screamed out from some of the bands vocalists featured on these records I am unsure of what causes they are. Browsing through the pictures and the (small amount of) text that is written in the English language in all the booklets and posters that are an integral part of all these 7″ singles, it becomes obvious that the generic Crass / Discharge peace punk themes are common with most of these bands. That can not be a bad thing!

In my opinion the pick of the bunch on the compilation records is the band Sottoculture with ‘Attack’ from the ‘Papi, Queens, Reichkanzlers & Presidennti‘ EP (SECOND ATTACK 1982). Simply blinding. But my firm favourite from the whole Attack Punk  catalogue is the ‘Ortodosia’ 7” by C.C.C.P Faithful To The Line. (SIXTH ATTACK 1984) This record reminds me more of bands like The Ex or The Rondos rather than either Crass or Discharge. Again not a bad thing!

There is very little information that I can get regarding the Attack Punk record label, or indeed little I could find out on the Bologna punk scene in the early 1980′s. The small snippet of information I did get, and placed below, I unceremoniously ripped off the Kill From The Heart site. I am sure there is more information out there that would be useful and relevant to this post but it might all be written in Italian and on Italian websites.

If anyone would like to participate in adding any useful and relevant information to this KYPP post on the Attack Punk record label, or the Bologna punk scene in the early 1980′s then feel free to add some comments below and I will cut and paste them to this post along with a credit. Thanks.

Oh just a note on the recordings if you hear long gaps starting a side or between the tracks that is the record itself, not my recording of the record!

“Attack Punk Records was born as an offshoot of the Attack fanzines from 1980 and 1981 that dealt primarily with the punk scene of Bologna. The Attack Punk record label was born in Bologna in 1981 with its first release ‘Schiavi nella città piu libera del mondo’ compilation 7″. The record was self-financed by the four groups that participated: Anna Falk SS, Bacteria, Stalag 17, and RAF Punk. The cost at the time was almost 500.000 lire (roughly £200). The compilation was an example of punk self-production and self-sufficiency. The label’s first release was done in the cheapest way possible, printing the covers on an offset belonging to an anarchist group. The most important thing was that self-production was possible, an escape from the market logic of capitalism. Our concept for self-management wasn’t limited to the group that produced the record… we were a self-run label because we functioned completely inside of the scene”.

“Though the idea of the label was created by Gianpaolo Giorgetti AKA Jumpy from R.A.F Punk, it involved all the punks were in ‘il Cassero’ (an anarchy centre). Soon RAF Punk’s guitarist (later on a member of the band C.C.C.P Faithful To The Line) also joined. His contribution was important because he was an excellent graphic designer who created lots of record covers, and he was also a wizard with an offset press”.

“We were fascinated by the Crass Records label. Though we didn’t share the rigor, we totally agreed with the utopia that came out of their messages. We felt ourselves a step away from anarchy in Italy at that time. All the principles that we had always pursued finally seemed to come true. We wanted to internationalize ourselves and we made the second record ‘Papi, Queens, Reichkanzlers & Presidennti‘ compilation, with four Italian bands, one German band, and one English band”.

“The releases that followed were ‘l’Affaire Marat Sade’ split 7″ (the title of which was inspired by the theatrical work of the same name) with Cracked Hirn and Rivolta dell’Odio, the ‘Nè buoni nè cattivi’ split 7″ with Irah and Stalag 17 from Bologna, the ‘Africani’ EP by Underage, the ‘Ortodosia’ 7” and 12″ by C.C.C.P Faithful To The Line, and the final release,  ‘Corpus Delicti’ 7″ by U.B.R. from Yugoslavia”. ”

“Totò Alle Prese Coi Dischi the sub-label of Attack Punk records takes it name from Totò, a famous Italian comedian of the 1950s”.

FIRST ATTACK 1982

Anna Falk SS – Centro Sociale Occupato / Amore Represso – Bacteria – Non Vogliamo Più Pagare / Facce Grigie (Dub Version)

R.A.F. Punk – W La Resistenza! /  Sarò Anche Pacifista, Ma – Stalag 17 – Potere Fottuto / Bologna Reprime

Four hardcore bands from Bologna share this raw record. R.A.F. Punk sounds like a cross between Crass and Discharge; Stalag 17 are a bit more primitive, with tremendously course vocals; Anna Falk SS sound more like a typical Britpunk aggregation; Bacteria make Flipper sound wonderfully melodic. A great EP.

Tim Yohannon (from Maximum Rock’n'Roll #4, January / February 1983)

SECOND ATTACK 1982

Irah – Fotti Il Sistema  – Total Chaos – Revolution Part 10 -  5° Braccio – Mai Piu’ Tortura

Stromsperre – Alltag – Kaaos – Isänmaalliset – Sottocultura – Attack – Kollettivo – Lotta Per Il Potere

From Italy with interesting sleeve packaging, a 7-song sampler that presents bands from many free-minded European lands. Italian bands Sottocultura, Kollettino, and 5° Braccio jolt forth a momentous thrash attack of havoc. Speed merchants Stromsperre wail from Germany and Kaaos fire a split-second barrage from Finland. Also, there’s Total Chaos from the U.K. and a slower, more relaxed song by Irah of Italy. Impressive.

Pushead (from Maximum Rock’n'Roll #6, May / June 1983)

THIRD ATTACK 1982 

Rivolta Dell’Odio – Una Vita / Realta’ / Ripetizione-Inganno / Casa Rossa

Cracked Hirn – Uomo E Terra / Chi Ha Da Perdere Qualcosa

Side one of this compilation EP features Rivolta Dell’Odio, who are sort of a sparser version of Crass; the flip presents Cracked Hirn, who have a fuller sound which is nevertheless extremely raw. Both bands share an anarchist/pacifist outlook, as have all the other bands on this label’s two earlier releases.

Tim Yohannan (from Maximum Rocknroll #9, October / November 1983)

FOURTH ATTACK 1983

Stalag 17 – Nobel per l’orrore /  Anarchia nella mia vita /  Diritto alla casa / Sposiamoci
Irah – Poseurs e dintorni / Burattini in divisa con pistola / Marconi occupato / Vivisezione

These two Italian bands describe themselves as anarchists, and from what I can gather, they are to be admired for their dedication and efforts. Stalag 17 play pretty good thrash and slower, ballad-type songs; Irah do pretty intense, fast songs that are catchy. Even though translations of the lyrics would be nice, musically this is a record worth tracking down.

Ruth Schwartz (from Maximum Rocknroll #16, August 1984)

FIFTH ATTACK 1983

Underage – Entro domani / Kids / Lager / Marijuana punk / Senza leggi

Underage – Sporca naia / Thanks U.S.A. / Tre settembre / Underage

The most applicable adjectives here are rhythmic, savage, and raw. This is mainly fast-paced thrash which is driven by steady drumming, and topped off with a totally fuzzed-out guitar and insistent, intense singing. The Underage are an anarchist band and, judging from this, have an abundance of commitment. Excellent.

Tim Yohannon (from Maximum Rock’n'Roll #10, December 1983)

SIXTH ATTACK 1984

CCCP Fideli Alla Linea – Live in Pankow / Spara jurij

CCCP Fideli Alla Linea – Punk Islam

This EP has one band with three songs. “Punk Islam” has lots of effects and an ethnic style that paints a vivid picture of Middle Eastern strife–it’s slowish, slightly catchy but still intense. The other two songs are better, mining a sort of UK peace punk style: “Spara Jurij” is the best, most rocking song here. An enclosed booklet discusses international war tactics: I wish I could understand it. Interesting and worth tracking down.

Ruth Schwartz (from Maximum Rocknroll #19, November 1984)

TOTÒ 1984

Raw Power – Fuck Authority / Burning The Factory – Rivolta Dell’Odio – La Danza Del Sangue

Rappresaglia – U.S.A. / Rappresaglia – Pedago Party – Lo Spazio Che Ci Resta / Morire A Beirut

If you would like to read something on the decades of Italian anarchism there is an interesting essay entitled ‘At the Intersection of Anarchists and Autonomists: Autogestioni and Centri Sociali’ by Pierpaolo Mudu right HERE

Just realized that the second issue of KYPP came out about this time, checked it out and indeed it was – thirty three years ago. Here’s a few memories from me of that time.

After awhile of KYPP1 being released/published/onsale/whatever people started to ask about the next one. The reply given was that the next one would come when there was something relevant to say. I wanted to avoid the production-line conveyor-belt problem of producing issues at regular intervals because it was expected. I’d been through all that with Ripped & Torn. When the time was right it would happen, that was the Puppy party line.

Except there was a constant personal worry that I wouldn’t be able to match the first one, and this procrastination wasn’t helping the paranoia. Then a few things happened at once; Leigh and myself went to see Crass at Dial House to discuss our views about their pacifist stance, which was printed in the first issue (pro-Crass-tination). A few days later we received a letter from Penny Rimbaud, a long review of their philosophy. This has to go into the next ssue I thought, which meant creating a new issue and not faffing about.

Then there was the Sid Vicious memorial march; which brought together a lot of people and strands of thought: and also brought a lot of things to a head. I wrote about those things, and then I wrote about why I thought those things – and the two pieces became the mainstay of KYPP2: appearing as the pieces ‘Apocalypse Now, Part 1’ and ‘Pet Puppies In Theory and Practice, Part 2’.

AL Puppy then wrote one of his best and most sustained pieces of work, a six-page essay. This was also too important to not put in, and another sign that an issue had to be put out.

So all of those things went into the pot. When I went to Joly of Better Badges with this idea, assuming the same deal would be on as for the last issue and he would front the money for it’s publication, he was not impressed. To cap it all I went mad on the idea of printing coloured images then overprinting them with black text, which meant basically, as every page was being printed twice the costs would be of printing two fanzines for the price of one.

Even worse, commercially, was not having ‘a band’ on the cover: the picture incidentally is a photobooth photograph of Val Puppy and Brett Puppy.

Luckily Joly went with the flow. The issue was written, laid out and finished between the 4^th and 7^th of February 1980: and by the next week it was in the shops.

My lasting regret with KYPP2 is that I didn’t get a new typewriter ribbon for the final drafts of my writings. Without getting too technical this is why the pages (reproduced in our photo gallery) are hard to read. Don’t blame Joly – I gave him poor image quality pages to work from.

Another regret is not charging Virgin Records an arm and a leg for their advert promoting the Pistols’ ‘Flogging A Dead Horse’ album. They paid the same as Vinyl Solution and the Last Words. I was a fool.

Interestingly the back page is an oblique review of Bauhaus, who we’d seen play at the Rock Garden. Brett Puppy was the one who dragged us all there; and seeing Pete Murphy do his mime act stuff with the bright light in the box with the churning riffs of the band driving it on – it was like seeing the Ants at the Man In The Moon all over again. And just as good: ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ was, to me, their ‘Plastic Surgery’ moment.

So there we were, Anarcho-punk’s fragile community under threat from the far-right and a new band dawning with all the flash and dangerous excitement of the Ants.

At the end of the last page there is the line ‘WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?’  We meant that, man.

Visuals of Bauhaus a couple of years later doing the light in the box thing.

And here is some audio of them performing ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ live in 1980 HERE

And the released single version can be heard on this KYPP post HERE

There’s also a great live version at the beginning of the film ‘The Hunger’  which can be found on youtube and many other outlets.

Memories of the producing Kill Your Pet Puppy issue 1 can be read HERE

Norepinephrine / How Groovy You Were / Hardcore / Gloppetta / Tongues Speak / Want To Die / Smoking Rat Machine / Wrongly Wired / Violence Is Love / Shan’t Do That

Herpes Virus / Total State / Demon Circuits / Bloodbath / Peace Through Strength / Mechanical Induction / Home Video Warhead / Education For Consumption

Tonight I have uploaded the third LP by the Nocturnal Emissions, a savage slice of power electronics recorded from sessions in 1982 and 1983. Equally as extreme as Whitehouse and S.P.K’s early efforts, this record could empty a room within ten minutes. Play loud and see what happens. I think it is a great work.

The Sounds interview text below along with all the photographs and flyers are from earthlydelights.co.uk which is a website specialising in Nocturnal Emissions product. Thank you in advance to that site for (hopefully) letting me thieve this material.

Nocturnal Emissions is a sound art project that has released numerous records and CDs in music styles ranging from electro-acoustic, musique concrète, hybridised beats, sound collage, post-industrial music, ambient and noise music. The sound art has been part of an ongoing multimedia campaign of guerilla sign ontology utilising video art, film, hypertext and other documents.

The project was initiated in Derbyshire in the late 1970s by Nigel Ayers, a former art student, who in the period, lived in London. Together with collaborators Danny Ayers and Caroline K, both of whom were present early in on their work, the group concentrated on the axiom of music being a form of social control, and highlighted concepts such as information overload, cult conditioning, brainwashing and subliminal advertising, in a critique of information society. Their music drew heavily on worldwide folk traditions as well as that of the European avant-garde. One of their earliest performances was in a railway arch in Atlantic Road, Brixton, while the 1981 Brixton riots raged outside.

Nocturnal Emissions ran their own record label, Sterile records and recording studio from a squat in Camberwell south east London, and later worked closely with the editors of the art music label Touch, later with both the Netherlands- based Staalplaat and USA- based Soleilmoon recording labels. All three labels came to the fore as part of 1980s cassette culture.

Since 1984 Nocturnal Emissions has continued mainly as Nigel Ayers’ solo project. The line-up has varied from one to a dozen musicians. Nocturnal Emissions temporary members have included net artist Stanza, Ben Ponton of Zoviet France and life coach Fiona Harrold.

Nocturnal Emissions

“What we’re faced with is the same as everybody else. A constant barrage of media, education, music, film, coming at us all the time. People are told, forced and trained to be obedient, destructive consumers totally cut off from the world they live in.”

“THE ONLY records that I’ve constantly liked have been Beefheart really.”

Nigel Ayers admits all! Well not quite. Nigel is half of the nucleus of Nocturnal Emissions and along with fellow northerner Caroline K, the Nocturnals are an industrious and testing outfit of fluctuating size with three LPs and several cassettes to their credit.

Their most recent vinyl offering ‘Drowning In A Sea Of Bliss’ reveals a much more structured approach to their music and rumour has it that current recordings, with an enlarged line up, are a mutant son of dance music. But music is merely the tip of their iceberg and the Nocturnals, partially shrouded by their record label Sterile, are an outfit who’ve been flirting with media traditions in more ways than one.

“I’m totally fed up with industrial music now,” continues Nigel, “we’ve only really been linked with that because we use electronics. That’s bad because it confuses the ideas. We do things for our own reasons, we’ve got no fascination with Moors murderers and we’re not particularly interested in industry either.”

True enough the rock tradition of tarnishing everything that’s, say, a little different with the same bleak brush doesn’t work here.

Caroline: “Images of death have just become like a style and it doesn’t have any meaning any more because it’s so clichéd. A lot of the fanzines and letters that people send us just make you feel pretty ill first thing in the morning when you open them. It’s just like a fashion and we want to steer clear of it.”

Fact: Nocturnal Emissions cannot be mistaken for pop predictability.

Their sound is a well-honed tool and a well-researched one at that.

Nigel: “We read loads of stuff about psychology and acoustics and things like that which we apply to our music. To some extent it’s got to the stage where we can pick an effect that a record is going to have on people and it seems to just work like that.”

The technique is intriguing and also has many reference points to other musics. Caroline: “We take all the best bits out of different sorts of records. There’s loads of different types of music that you might just like bits of and the rest pisses you off, so you take little elements and mix them up with other bits and you make something out of the mixture that has an overall feel to it.

“It’s a technique of integrating all the sounds we like and all the ideas we like as well, it’s a kind of audio collage. I suppose it would be more popular if we just stuck to computer noises or metal bashing then people would be able to identify with it more as it was more consistent but we’d get bored with it.”

Nocturnal Emissions can’t really be likened to anyone. The beauty of the whole thing – which is currently moving into the live arena and includes more diverse projects such as animated films – is the variety. Not just the variety in tracks but the width and depth which they are able to create within tracks.

Like an habitual chameleon they change but not to blend in with their surroundings, always intentionally attempting to be one step ahead.

Nigel: “Things just lose their potential once everyone is doing the same thing so you have to move on to what’s not been exploited yet. What we’ve been concentrating on really is getting the content over, just attitudes, like how people can make choices in what they do if they just set about it.

“We’re trying really to show up what’s going on in everyday life, what’s happened to us and the influences that are working on us. The sounds that we use relate to experiences that we’ve had and the whole thing has to do with an expression of what . it feels like for us to be around. We’re hoping that people can identify with that rather than just on a noise level or a record collecting thing.”

Nocturnal Emissions are already changing their colours leaving behind a healthy set of recorded artefacts. Predictably unpredictable they will emerge with yet another musical scoop that will be watered down and popular at some future, as yet, undisclosed date.

Their most recent communiqué reveals that they will be performing live at the Ritzy, Brixton on election night. Presenting the world premiere of ‘The Foetal Grave Of Progress’ they are billed as the unique, important, seminally unorthodox and funky Nocturnal Emissions. Who could ever doubt them?

DAVE HENDERSON Sounds June 11th 1983

Imhru Asher And Iration – Africa We Want To Go / Clifton Campbell And Trinity – A New Civilisation / Linval Thompson – Stepping Out Of Babylon / Peter Broggs And Prince Far I – Higher Field Marshall / Carol Kalphat And Clint Eastward – African Land / The Heptones – Book Of Rules / Ras Ibuna And Jah Woosh – Diverse Doctine / Reggae Regular – The Black Star Liner / Dennis Brown – Children Of Israel / Militant Barry – Idi Amin Blood Up / The Congos – Solid Foundation / Bim Sherman And Jah Buzz – Love Jah Only

I had a small DJ set to complete the other weekend and thought I would place the selection of records that I played that night onto KYPP as a few party guests were asking for details of the records. I only managed time to fit in eight reggae 12″ records on the night which lasted about fifty minutes, before the main DJ continued his rather fine punk and post punk set. I have placed up the records that got a dust off and an airing on the night in the order that I placed them on the decks on that night. I have also added a few different 12″s records specifically for this post.

I have used this years Ethiopian Christmas celebrations as an excuse to place up this KYPP post. The original 12″ records uploaded today were all recorded during that golden period for semi-militant ‘back to Africa’ classics, the period between 1977 – 1979. I choose exactly twelve original 12″ records on this post as a nod to the twelve tribes of Israel. Each record is recorded separately with small descriptions of each tribe of Israel underneath the recorded works and sleeve artwork. Also the whole ‘set’ is recorded in all it’s entirety (above) if you prefer to download that instead of individual tracks, the file is around 190MB but probably worth it… The tracks in this ‘set’ are not mixed or tampered with overdubs and sirens as they could have been during a live situation. I only have one deck at home and no sound generators, so just the plain records from start to finish!

One last thing… Before I get comments and / or complaints about the Militant Barry track ‘praising’ Idi Amin as a new world (in 1977) black statesman and ruler of his country Uganda I am aware of all the suffering this despot savagely dished out on his countrymen, black, white or Asian from his presidential start in 1971. I can only defend this track from afar, if defend is the correct word to use. The track was released the same year as Sex Pistols ‘God Save The Queen’ and is made in a similar anti monarchy mould as the Pistols track. Militant Barry turning his back on the old ‘leader’ of Uganda, Queen Elizabeth II during her silver jubilee year and looking to the reign of this black leader in Africa, Idi Amin to ‘free black people’. This of course may well have been in hindsight, a bad choice. I am sure in 1977 both Militant Barry and Keith Hudson the producer / engineer sitting thousands of miles away in the ghettos of Kingston would not have known just how bad the previous years of Idi Amin’s reign were and how things would be turning out in Uganda in the next couple of years with a dirty war against Tanzania to eventually look forward to before Idi Amin exiled himself to Libya and then Saudi Arabia.

The Ethiopian Christmas:

The Ethiopian Christmas known as Ganna is celebrated on January 7th. This celebration takes place in ancient churches carved from solid volcanic rock and also in modern churches that are designed in three concentric circles. Men and boys sit separately from girls and women. Also the choir sings from the outside circle.

People receive candles as they enter the church. After lighting the candles everyone walks around the church three times, and then stands throughout the mass, which may last up to three hours.

Food served at Christmas usually includes injera, a sourdough pancake like bread. Injera serves as both plate and fork. Doro wat, a spicy chicken stew might be the main meal. A piece of the injera is used to scoop up the wat. Baskets decorated beautifully are used to serve the wat.

Gift giving is a very small part of Christmas celebration. Children usually receive very simple presents such as clothing.

In Ethiopia Christmas day is January 7, so on Christmas Eve the city is crowded with pilgrims from all parts of the country. They remain outdoors all night, praying and chanting. In the morning, a colourful procession makes its way to a nearby hilltop where a service is held. Three young men march at the head of the crowd, lashing whips from left to right to keep the people in line. Those who worship are fed with bread and wine that has been blessed by priests. After the service is over the rest of the day is spent dancing, playing sport and feasting.

Ethiopian Calendar:

Ethiopia has its own ancient calendar. The Ethiopian Calendar has more in common with the Coptic Egyptian Calendar. The Ethiopic and Coptic calendars have 13 months, 12 of 30 days each and an intercalary month at the end of the year of 5 or 6 days depending whether the year is a leap year or not. The Ethiopian calendar is much more similar to the Egyptian Coptic calendar having a year of 13 months, 365 days and 366 days in a leap year (every fourth year) and it is much influenced by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, which follows its ancient calendar rules and beliefs. The year starts on 11 September in the Gregorian calendar or on the 12th in (Gregorian) Leap Years. The Coptic Leap Year follows the same rules as the Gregorian so that the extra month always has 6 days in a Gregorian Leap Year.

The Ethiopic calendar differs from both the Coptic and the Julian calendars. The difference between the Ethiopic and Coptic is 276 years. In spite of this, the Ethiopic Calendar is closely associated with the rules and the different calculations influenced by the Coptic Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church. Based upon the ancient Coptic Calendar, the Ethiopian Calendar is seven to eight years behind the Gregorian calendar, owing to alternate calculations in determining the date of the annunciation of the birth of Jesus.

The Coptic New Year is a holiday in Ethiopia. Christmas falls on the 7th of January as in the Orthodox “old” calendar. Likewise, Epiphany is on the 19th of January. Easter would appear to be calculated according to the Orthodox calendar also. An Egyptian Coptic source simply describes the date of Easter as being “the second Sunday after the first full moon in Spring.”

Twelve Tribes of Israel:

Twelve Tribes of Israel, in the Bible, the Hebrew people who, after the death of Moses, took possession of the Promised Land of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. Because the tribes were named after sons or grandsons of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel after he wrestled an angel of the Lord, the Hebrew people became known as Israelites. Jacob’s first wife, Leah, bore him six sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. Each was the father of a tribe, though Levi’s descendants (among whom were Moses and Aaron), the priests and temple functionaries, were dispersed among the other tribes and received no tribal land of their own. Two other tribes, Gad and Asher, were named after sons born to Jacob and Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant. Two additional tribes, Dan and Naphtali, were named after sons of Jacob born of Bilhah, the maidservant of Rachel, Jacob’s second wife. Rachel bore Jacob two sons, Joseph and Benjamin. The tribe of Benjamin provided Israel with its first king, Saul, and was later assimilated into the tribe of Judah. While no tribe bore the name of Joseph, two tribes were named after Joseph’s sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. The ten tribes that settled in northern Palestine and were carried into captivity by the Assyrians became known as the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.

Imhru Asher And Iration – Africa We Want To Go – Spaceark Records – 1979

REUBEN: First-born son of Jacob and Leah and father of the tribe of Reuben, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. His name comes from the Hebrew meaning: “Look, a son.” He appears in the story of the mandrakes as the one giving them to his mother (Genesis 30:14). Reuben has relations with Jacob’s concubine Bilhah, angering Jacob and probably contributing to the curse of Reuben on Jacob’s deathbed (Genesis 49:4). He succeeded in convincing his brothers not to kill Joseph but to trap him inside of a pit instead, to which he intended to return and rescue Joseph (Genesis 37:22). Later, when the family journeys to Egypt during the famine, he attempts to persuade his father that he should take responsibility for Benjamin while in Egypt (Genesis 42:37). The tribe of Reuben settled west of the Jordan River and agreed to join the other tribes in the war against the Philistines. Reuben was the firstborn of Jacob and his name means to ‘see behold, perceive, discern, or know a son’. His name was inscribed in the Emerald stone which represented healing life, birthing, rolling sea (water), turmoil (pangs, pain). Its green colour speaks of Resurrection (Life), Restoration (Healing), and Reinstatement (Forgiveness).

Clifton Campbell And Trinity – A New Civilisation – Freedom Sounds Records – 1978

SIMEON: Simeon was the second son of Jacob and Leah and father of the tribe of Simeon, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The Hebrew meaning of his name means “God has heard that I was unloved” (Genesis 29:33). He and his brother Levi destroyed the entire village of Shechem in retribution for the rape of their sister Dinah (Genesis 34). Simeon was a part of the plot to sell his brother Joseph into slavery. After the family was invited to Egypt during the famine in Canaan, he was appointed as the individual to stay behind as collateral for Benjamin so that his brothers would return from Canaan. The tribe of Simeon lived in the southernmost part of the Land of Israel. The name of Simeon means to hear or to discern. It also implies obedience, content, understanding, and witness. His name was inscribed on the Sapphire stone which also means to discern. Additional meanings of the name are: to declare, to write, to inscribe, to enumerate, celebrate, proclaim, show forth and also to divide or cut.

Linval Thompson – Stepping Out Of Babylon – Nationwide Records – 1979

JUDAH: Fourth son of Jacob and father of the tribe of Judah, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. His name comes from the Hebrew word of gratitude. Leah gave birth to Judah and said “Now I will praise God” (Genesis 30:35) It was his idea to sell his brother Joseph to a Midianite slave trader rather than leave him to die in the pit (Genesis 37:27). He later became the spokesman for his father Jacob and his brothers when they travelled to Egypt during the famine in Canaan. He marries Shua, a Canaanite woman, and has three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. Judah is also involved with Tamar and has twin sons with her named Perez and Zerach. The tribe of Judah inhabited Jerusalem during the reign of its kings David and Solomon and was later the kingdom of all of the southern tribes of Israel. Inscribed upon the Sardius Stone was the name Judah which means Praise of Jehovah and denotes the expression of praise. The Sardius stone was red in colour symbolizing blood & man. The tribe of Judah was the Regal and Ruling tribe of God. It was out of this tribe that the Lawgiver and Kings came. Blessings, joy, strength, and victory were always their portion.

Peter Broggs And Prince Far I – Higher Field Marshall – Hitrun Records – 1979

ISSACHAR: Ninth son of Leah and father of Issachar, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. One interpretation of his name is “man of reward” (Hebrew: shcar). Issachar was the product of the mandrake incident (Genesis 30:9-18) and was involved in the plot to sell his brother Joseph into slavery. Issachar settled in Egypt after the famine in Canaan and had four sons: Tolah, Puvvah, Yov and Shimron. He receives a blessing from his father Jacob that he “bends his back to the load, working like a slave” (Genesis 49:14-15). The descendants of Issachar are men of learning according to Jewish tradition. The name of Issachar means reward or to hire for payment and was engraved upon the Topaz stone which was golden yellow and represents “to seek”. This tribe willingly accepted what was before them and with what they had. The children of Issachar were mighty men in David’s army and because of their ability to understand the times, all brethren heeded their command.  No property/ Priesthood.

Carol Kalphat And Clint Eastward – African Land – Hitrun Records – 1978

ZEBULUN: Tenth son of Jacob and sixth of Leah and father of the tribe of Zebulun, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. When he was born Leah said “God has provided me with a good dowry” (Hebrew: zvad). He was part of the plot to sell Joseph into slavery, and later one of the group sent to Egypt to buy corn. He later lived in Egypt with his three sons Sered, Elon and Jahleel. Zebulun received the blessing from Jacob of: “Zebulun shall settle the seashores; he will be a harbour for ships; his border shall reach Sidon (Genesis 49:13). The tribe of Zebulun inhabited the northern land of Canaan. Both the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun are mentioned as brave soldiers in the Song of Deborah during the battle against Sisera (Judges 5:18). The name Zebulun means dwelling, habitation, abiding, continuing, to reside or dwell with. The Carbuncle stone upon which the name was engraved symbolized lightning, glittering, or flashing. The tribe of Zebulun travelled and they settled on the coastlands. They were as a lighthouse, a guide in the dark, and their place of habitation became a welcome port.

The Heptones – Book Of Rules – Third World Records – 1977

GAD: Gad was the seventh son of Jacob and father of the tribe of Gad, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. His mother was Zilpah, Jacob’s concubine and Leah’s slave. Gad’s name comes from the Hebrew word troop. Leah named him Gad, saying “A troop is coming.” He was part of the plot to sell Joseph to Egypt and later sent to Egypt to buy corn during the famine in Canaan. Gad later moved to Egypt and lived there with his seven sons. Jacob blessed Gad on his deathbed, saying: “Raiders will raid Gad, but he will raid at their heel” (Genesis 49:19). The name of Gad which means to crowd upon, attack, invade, overcome was inscribed in the diamond. A diamond is a very hard stone and is unchangeable and adamant in its nature. The diamond also means to conquer, smite, break, or overcome. In 1Chr. 5:18, the scripture tells us that the tribe of Gad was skilful in warfare and they were mighty men of valour.

Ras Ibuna And Jah Woosh – Diverse Doctine – Grove Music Records – 1978

ASHER: Asher was the eighth son of Jacob and the father of the tribe of Asher, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. His mother was Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant. Leah named him Asher, saying “Happy am I” (Genesis 30:13). Asher played a role in the plot to sell his brother Joseph into slavery. Asher and his four sons and daughter later settled in Egypt. Jacob blessed Asher on his deathbed, saying: “From Asher will come the richest food; he will provide the king’s delights” (Genesis 49:20). The name Asher was inscribed in the Onyx stone. Asher means blessed, happy, prosper, straight, honest, go, guide, lead, and relieve. Onyx means fire /or splendour. Genesis 49:20 tells us that “Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties”. Truly the richness of Asher passed on to the generations and his children were blessed.

Reggae Regular – The Black Star Liner – High School Records – 1978

DAN: Son of Jacob and Bilhah (Rachel’s maidservant) and father of the tribe of Dan and one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Dan was one of the brothers involved in the plot to sell his brother Joseph into slavery. Later, Dan’s father Jacob sent him to Egypt to buy corn during the severe famine in Canaan. Dan receives a blessing from Jacob that “Dan shall judge his people” (Genesis 49:16). Similarly, one explanation of the name Dan is that when Rachel was convinced that she was unable to have children, she cried “God has judged me” (Genesis 30:5). The region of Dan in the Book of Judges is located in the far north of Canaan and referred to early in Genesis during Abraham’s chasing of Chedorlaomer (Genesis 14:14). The tribe of Dan also settled in the southern part of the country and since the tribal territory covered both northern and southern parts of the country the expression “from Dan to Beer-sheba” indicates the entire span of the Israelite land. The name of Dan means to judge, to minister judgement or to plead a cause. It is most significant that this name is engraved in the Beryl stone which represents a subduing or a breaking. Dan was to judge his own house as an equal, judge his tribe.

Dennis Brown – Children Of Israel – Diamond Records – 1978

NAPHTALI: Naphtali was the son of Jacob and Rachel’s maidservant Bilhah and the father of the tribe of Naphtali, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The tribe of Naphtali settled in northern Canaan and were described as brave soldiers in the Song of Deborah (Judges 5:18). Naphtali’s blessing from his father called him “a running deer” (Genesis 49:21). Naphtali was given his name because Rachel said “With great wrestling have I wrestled my sister” (Genesis 30:8). The name Naphtali means to be obtained by wrestling. This name was written in the Jasper stone which was transparent and signified water and fullness of glory. Transparent means that one is seen clearly. Through natural birth, Naphtali was wrestling / In blessing (Gen.49:21) Naphtali is a deer let loose (released, set free) with goodly words (fruit).

Militant Barry – Idi Amin Blood Up – Conflict Records – 1977

BENJAMIN: Benjamin was the son of Jacob and Rachel and father of the tribe of Benjamin, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Originally named Ben-oni, or “son of my affliction” by his mother as she lay dying in labour, his name was later changed to Benjamin, meaning “son of my right hand” (Genesis 48:14). Next to Joseph, he was his favourite son. Benjamin the twelfth son of Jacob and born after Joseph was sold into slavery. After the family was invited to Egypt, Joseph sabotaged Benjamin’s sack by putting a silver cup in it and accusing the brothers of stealing. Joseph thought Benjamin would remain in Egypt but Judah offered to take his place, saying that his father would be devastated if Benjamin did not return. Jacob later blesses Benjamin while on his deathbed, calling Benjamin “a vicious wolf, devouring the prey in the morning, and dividing the spoil at night” (Genesis 49:27). Benjamin was born in Bethlehem and was the last son of Jacob and Rachel. The birthing of Benjamin brought the death of his mother and in her final moments, Rachel (soul) called him ‘Benoni’ (son of my sorrow), but Israel (spirit) called him Benjamin, meaning the son of my right hand (Gen 35:18). Also means: in the widest sense of son (grandson, great-grandson, etc. thereby covering all generations to come). It was the bringing of Benjamin to Joseph in Egypt that released the provision of food to Israel (Jacob).

The Congos – Solid Foundation – Upsetter Records – 1977

MANASSEH: Manasseh was the son of Joseph and Asnat (Pharoah’s daughter) and brother of Ephraim. Jacob adopts both Manasseh and his brother Ephraim as part of the tribe of Simeon and Reuben. Although Manasseh was technically the eldest son, he does not receive the greater blessing. Ephraim does, as Jacob foresaw that his descendants were more worthy of the blessing than Manasseh’s (Genesis 48:13-20).

Bim Sherman And Jah Buzz – Love Jah Only – Hitrun Records – 1979

EPHRAIM: Ephraim was the brother of Manasseh, and the son of Joseph and Asenath, Pharoah’s daughter. Jacob adopted the two sons as part of the tribe of Simeon and Reuben. Ephraim received the blessing of the first-born, although Manasseh was the eldest, because Jacob foresaw that Ephraim’s ancestors would be greater than his brother’s (Genesis 48:13-20). The name of Ephraim was engraved in the Ligure stone which was considered to be a stone of mystery. The name Ephraim means to be doubly fruitful or productive. Joseph brought his two sons Mannasseh and Ephraim to receive their blessing from Jacob before his death. Although Mannasseh was the one that was to receive the blessing of the first-born (Deut. 21:17) in Joseph’s family, Jacob crossed his hands and laid his right hand upon Ephraim imparting the double portion blessing (Gen. 48:14).This act by his father was most mysterious to Joseph and quite upsetting.

Anarcheest 69 / I Hate Life In Debden / Tube Disaster / 1970’s /  Two Years Too Late / I’ve Got A Target On My Back / What Have You Got To Smile About / System Rejects / Hitler’s Still A Nazi / Get Nicked / I Can’t Stand Sitting Down

I am massively indebted to Adrian of auralsculptors.blogspot.com who had an original tape of this Epileptics performance from the summer of 1979 that has been uploaded onto this post this Christmas morning and to my KYPP comrade in arms, Dave Sez from Bishops Stortford who not only would have been in the Triad leisure centre audience the very night that this tape was recorded but also, beyond the call of duty, persuaded Adrian to allow me to upload this ancient relic onto KYPP. Thanks to both of those kindly chaps.

This was the tape of the original live performance audio that Derek of Epileptics / Flux Of Pink Indians would have listened to and then decided which tracks to put onto the second Spiderleg 7″ single ‘Last Bus To Debden’.

Whenever I think of Christmas I always think of The Epileptics. That statement is not entirely true, in fact I made it up but whatever, here you go.

When Flux Of Pink Indians released the ‘Neu Smell’ 7″ single on Crass Records, there was a certain interest in the previous band that Flux had transformed from in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire called The Licks (the name of the band if you check their only 7″ single released in the bands lifetime on Harlow’s Stortbeat Records in 1979).

The Licks was a label friendly name used purely for non shock value. The band had been called The Epileptics, but the record label deemed this moniker too offensive to put on a cover of a punk record. The Epileptics performed rudimentary punk rock, a lot of the time at The Triad venue in the town, and generally supported by The Eratics from Waltham Cross, U Samples from Bishops Stortford and Urban Decay from Harlow.

Members of The Epileptics included at one time or another Steve Drewitt from Newtown Neurotics, Stan Stammers later on of The Pack / Theatre Of Hate, Sid from Rubella Ballet and most surprisingly Annie Anxiety. The Epileptics played with Crass at The Triad at least twice, but both bands performed together elsewhere in London several other times.

Crass would eventually support the soon to be named Flux Of Pink Indians through shared gigs and tours, releasing the first Flux single on the Crass record label. Crass and John Loder of Southern Studios also went on to give advice and help to start up Flux’s own label, Spiderleg Records.

The original Stortbeat copy of the first Licks 7″ single  ’1970′s Are Made In Hong Kong’ was (and still is) a rarity. Stortbeat records either lost or refused to supply the master tapes for the tracks so Flux (as they band were now called) went into the studio with Penny Rimbaud of Crass sorting out the drumming duties, and recorded both the tracks that were available on that 1979 single again.

This rerecorded version of ’1970′s’ was released as the debut release on Spiderleg Records at the beginning of 1981.

One other interesting fact was that The Epileptics performed at Stonehenge in June 1980, but the bikers would not appreciate the punk vibe on that day so started causing trouble, stopping Crass and Poison Girls from performing thier sets later on that night.  The Mob and The Snipers got away with performing sets earlier in the day though. A fair amount of people following the punk band’s that afternoon and night were badly hurt by the much older biker fraternity. This is ironic as both Crass and Poison Girls performed at Stonehenge  in June 1979 without any problems. From what I am led to believe, members of Epileptics had insulted some bikers from the stage which may have helped to ignite some of the trouble which was already brewing up.

The ‘Last Bus To Debden’7″ single was also released on Spiderleg records in 1981 composing of tracks recorded at the Triad leisure centre two years previously in 1979.

The Epileptics (Colin Latter – vocals, Clive Griffiths – guitar, Derek Birkett – bass and Richard Coveney – drums) were originally going to be called The Epileptic Fits, a name suggested by Colin’s mum, but the band decided that The Epileptics sounded better. Early in 1978, the fledgling band practised in Clive’s bedroom. Self-penned songs such as “Dear Deirdre”, “I Wanna Give You A ‘69” and “Who’s Chasing Who” were soon put together, and the foursome announced their presence in their home town of Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire that summer with spray-painted graffiti.

Together with their name, they had a logo and a slogan – ‘Smash Guitar Solos‘ – which attracted my interest in a big way. I’d previously been guitarist with the band The Darlex, but as soon as I saw the Epileptics’ DIY publicity campaign I was impressed and wanted a part of their action. First, I had to find out who they were…

The Triad Centre was a great place to see bands and just hang around with other punks from Harlow, including members of the Sods and Newtown Neurotics, and surrounding areas. I asked around and was pointed in Col and Rich’s direction; I went over and said “If you ever need a guitarist, let me know.” Coincidentally, Clive was about to leave and go to college, so they told me to come along the following Saturday to one of their rehearsals. I did, and I was in!

They had already played two gigs – one at Triad in August, and one at London’s Covent Garden with Crass – but needed new material. Col and I reworked some of the older songs and changed the lyrics and titles, and collaborated on some new material too, such as “Tube Disaster”, and our first gig together was at the beginning of November 1978.

In January 1979 we got the chance to support Crass and the Poison Girls in Bradford, but the van we’d hired broke down on the way, and we reached the gig just as Crass were finishing their set. In March we recorded our first demo tape and started to attract a small following; thereafter we regularly played at Triad, as well as doing gigs in London’s Conway Hall with Crass.

For a while we changed our name to Epi-X, but then reverted to the Epileptics; our line-up also changed briefly in summer, when Stan Stammers replaced Derek on bass. (Stan would later go on to Theatre of Hate and Spear of Destiny.) After playing one gig under the pseudonym Acid Experience, with Derek back in, the Epileptics decided to take a break as personality clashes had been surfacing. In August, we were approached by Stortbeat Records to record a single, and – with a dubious change of name to The Licks – did just that in September.  

Having played just one gig as The Licks, the name reverted to the Epileptics again, but by November differences in how we thought the band should go led to Richard deciding to leave; Col and Derek decided to get Sid (from Rubella Ballet) to replace him, and within a week of their decision, I made up my mind to leave too. Two guitarists were brought in, Andy Smith and Neil Puncher (previously of the U. Samples), and the band continued to play local, London and other gigs – including Stonehenge Festival where they were bottled offstage.

During the middle of 1980 the band changed their name to Flux Of Pink Indians.

Kev Hunter

Colour memories above, courtesy of Michael Mitchell.

Written memories above, courtesy of Kev Hunter from The Epileptics, ripped off for all the right reasons from punk77.co.uk site

Black and white memories below, courtesy of Tinsel and the Bowes Lyon House Stevenage.

Verbal memories below, courtesy of Sean ex Eat Shit and God Told Me To Do It. Many thanks to him for the text.

Pagan Christmas origin text courtesy of www.novareinna.com.

Ahhhhh, my youth revisited…..No one except Stortbeat ever called them The Licks. Derek used to sit on my mate at school to steal his fruit pastilles. The story of Dereks bass playing (as related by Colins little brother) was that when the lads decided to form a punk band, big Derek said “I’m not playing bass, bass is a morons instrument” picked up the waiting to be assigned guitar and promptly broke several strings, so bass it was to be. Funnily enough when a bass was acquired for him he immediately broke a string on that too. Sid of Rubella Ballet passed through the drum slot, as did Discharge skin thumper, Bambi Ellesmere. Stan Stammers was friendly to the young punkers hanging out in Saffron Walden (all three of us, I had school mates there) but Kirk Brandon was above being seen with us kids.

I first saw Crass with The Epileptics at Triad on a sunday night, it seemed strange to me then that no one made a fuss about bands of local notoriety playing on sundays. Stortford was quite lively punkwise, but there was a lot of mod violence early on, mainly by kids who had been punks the year before, the skinheads came later, mostly from Harlow. That town was a hotbed of NF/BM recruitment (the lyric “I’ve got a target on my back but i’m not a fucking mod” was poignent). On one notable occasion, when Conflict came to the Triad, some skinhead violence was nipped in the bud by Colin Jerwood who promptly smashed his mug of tea over the miscreants head. There was even a shortlived squat in Stortford in a condemned house at Hockerill but the coppers gave short shrift.

So many memories…One of my first girlfriends was from Debden, so “Last bus…” struck a chord.  Harlow was punky town, but lots of aforementioned skinhead violence. After a gig at the Square, three of us were chased until lost (easy in Harlow, it all looks the same) and had to take cover in an elderly couples house who offered us refuge and a phone to call mum. People will tell you these days that they were into the Neurotics, but most in Harlow considered them a bit naff.  Steve Drewitt will tell you that I was the only person to sport a big Newtown Neurotics logo on my leather.  Notable local band was Premature Death, who I think made it onto a Crass released ‘Bullshit Detector’  album. We tried squatting an old lock keepers cottage on the river Stort in Sawbridgeworth when I had run away from home (again) but the police went and borrowed my dads big bolt cutters (he was the local lorry engineer / pikey) and put an end to that, and I’ll put an end to this rambling off subject!

Sean Ridgewell

The history of a Christmas festival dates back over 4000 years. Ancient Midwinter festivities celebrated the return of the Sun from cold and darkness. Midwinter was a turning point between the Old Year and the New Year. Fire was a symbol of hope and boughs of greenery symbolized the eternal cycle of creation.

The term “Xmas” instead of “Christmas” is Greek in origin. The word for “Christ” in Greek is “Xristos.” during the Sixteenth Century, Europeans began using the first initial of Christ’s name…the “X” of “Xristos”…in place of the word “Christ” as a shorthand version of the word “Christmas.” Although early Christians understood that the “X” was simply another form for the name of Jesus Christ, later Christians, who had no knowledge of the Greek language, mistook “Xmas” as a sign of disrespect. Eventually, however, “Xmas” came to be both an accepted and suitable alternative to the word “Christmas.”

Many of today’s Christmas traditions were celebrated centuries before the Christ Child was born. The Twelve Days of Christmas, blazing fires, the yule log, the giving of gifts, carnivals or parades complete with floats, carolers who sing while going from house to house, holiday feasts and church processions are all rooted in the customs observed by early Mesopotamians.

Many of these traditions began with the Mesopotamian celebration of the New Year. The Mesopotamians worshiped many gods, the chief of whom was Marduk. Each year as winter arrived, it was believed that Marduk would battle the Monsters of Chaos. In order to assist Marduk during his struggle, the Mesopotamians held a festival for the New Year. They called this celebration Zagmuk and the festivities lasted for twelve days.

The King of Mesopotamia would return to the Temple of Marduk and swear his faithfulness to the god. The tradition called for the King to die at the end of the year and then return with Marduk to battle at his side. To spare their King, the Mesopotamians utilized a “mock” king. A criminal was chosen and dressed in royal clothes. He was given all due respect and the privileges of a true king but, at the end of the celebrations, the “mock” king was stripped of the royal garments and then put to death, thus sparing the life of the real monarch.

The ancient Persians and Babylonians celebrated a similar festival which they called the Sacaea. Part of that celebration included the exchanging of places within the community…slaves would become masters and the original masters were obliged to obey the former slaves’ commands.

In Scandinavia during the winter months, the Sun would disappear for great lengths of time. After thirty-five of such dark days, scouts would be dispatched to the mountain tops to await the return of this life-giving heavenly body. When the first light was espied, the scouts would hurry back to their villages bearing the good news. In celebration, a great festival would be held, called the Yuletide, and a special feast would be served around a fire burning with the Yule log. Huge bonfires would also be lit to celebrate the welcome return of the Sun. In some areas, people would tie apples to the branches of trees as a reminder that Spring and Summer would eventually return.

The ancient Greeks held ceremonies similar to those of the Zagmuk and Sacaea festivals. The purpose of this feast was to assist their god Kronos, who would battle against the god Zeus and his army of Titans.

Members of the pagan order have always celebrated the Winter Solstice…the season of the year when days are shortest and nights longest. It was generally believed to be a time of drunkenness, revelry and debauchery. The pagan Romans called this celebration Saturnalia, in honor of their god Saturn. The festivities began in the middle of December and continued until January 1st. On December 25th, “The Birth of the Unconquerable Sun” was celebrated, as the days gradually lengthened and the Sun began to regain its dominance. It is a general pagan belief that the Sun dies during the Winter Solstice and then rises from the dead. With cries of “Jo Saturnalia!”, the Roman celebration would include masquerades in the streets, magnificent festive banquets, the visiting of friends and the exchange of good-luck gifts known as Strenae…or “lucky fruits.” Roman halls would be decked with garlands of laurel and green trees, adorned with lighted candles. Again, as with Sacaea, the masters and slaves would exchange places.

Saturnalia was considered a fun and festive time for the Romans, but Christians believed it an abomination to honor such a pagan god. The early converts wanted to maintain the birthday of their Christ Child as a solemn and religious holiday…not one of cheer and merriment, as was the pagan celebration of Saturnalia.

As Christianity spread, however, the Church became alarmed by the continuing practice among its flock to indulge in pagan customs and celebrate the festival of Saturnalia. At first, the holy men prohibited this type of revelry, but it was to no avail. Eventually, a decision was made to tame such celebrations and make them into a festive occasion better suited to honor the Christian Son of God.

According to some legends, the Christian celebration of Christmas was invented to compete against the pagan festivals held in December. The 25th was sacred not only to the Romans, but also to the Persians whose religion of Mithraism was one of Christianity’s main rivals at that period in time. The Church was, however, finally successful in removing the merriment, lights and gifts from the Saturanilia festival and transferring them to the celebration of a Christian Christmas.

Christmas means “Christ’s Mass” and is the celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth and baptism. Although December 25th is generally accepted as being the time when the Christ Child was born, the exact date has never been chronicled with any degree of accuracy. There is neither scriptural nor secular evidence to establish the exact moment. One thing is relatively certain, however, the event did not take place in December. Since the child was born when shepherds were “abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night” (Luke 2:8), it is unlikely that shepherds in Israel would have been sleeping outside with their flocks during the month of December. In Winter, the herders would have led their sheep outside only during the daylight hours…the nights would have been far too cold. It is known that during the very early Christian centuries, the birth of the Christ Child was not celebrated in any manner. However, tradition dictates that the occasion has been commemorated since 98 A.D. In 137 A.D., the Bishop of Rome ordered that the birthday of Jesus Christ be observed as a solemn feast. In 350 A.D., Julius I (another Bishop of Rome) selected December 25th as the observance of Christmas. This date was made official in 375 A.D., when it was formally announced that the birth of Jesus would be honored on this day…the announcement also allowed some of the older festivities (such as feasting, dancing and the exchange of gifts) to be incorporated into the observance of Christmas. The use of greenery to decorate homes continued to be prohibited as pagan idolatry but, over the centuries, this too became an accepted custom of the festivities.

Wishing all the KYPP browsers nation and worldwide a happy Christmas.