The ‘Hammer’ cassette series compiled by Andy Martin from The Apostles – 1985

Apostles and Flack Southend concert flyer

Some memories below regarding these cassettes sent to KYPP by Andy Martin

Dear God, where on Earth do people find all this ancient history? Just the names on these cassettes remind me of how incredibly angry, miserable and desperate I was in those days. How I ever managed to avoid suicide, drug addiction or a return to the mental home I really don’t know.

A Hammer A Side

A Hammer B Side

Alien Kulture were a Pakistani punk band – they were to the 1980s what UNIT were to the early 2000s – i.e. a totally unlikely outfit. I had their first single (Asian Youth) and wrote to them – I can’t remember how I obtained their address – their singer Pervez replied and sent me a cassette of the studio recorded pieces, all of which are actually superior to the single.

Tod and Martin of Flack, Southend

Martha Moscow and Martin of Flack, Southend

FLACK – used to rehearse in my attic at 109 Foulden Road, Stoke Newington, London – on a 1960s drum kit and amplifiers provided by Pete, Julian and Dan of The Apostles. Martha Moscow on bass guitar – playing the smallest bass guitar I have ever seen – Martin Black on guitar (no, not the Martin Black who later called himself Napoleon of Hackney Hell Crew fame – that’s a different and decidedly more grubby but equally entertaining story), Tod Unctious on vocals – no, that’s from Father Ted, sorry – Tod Hanson on vocals – and Paul Gubb a.k.a. Mag on drums – I remember Mag was 13 at the time and beyond doubt the most technically competent musician in the band – but then I’m not a drummer so I’m probably talking utter twaddle – it wouldn’t be the first time, I hear you cry, but then I’m allowed a certain degree of artistic license as I’m a renaissance man and I also have a complete set of P G Tips picture card albums from the very first one in 1954 right up to the Olympics Greats from 1993 – Flack never recorded anything in a professional studio which is a shame, these tracks were recorded live on a cassette recorder at 109 Foulden Road. However, at least Tod achieved a degree of success later with his technically superb artistic skills – I lived with Martha in Islington for a few months when she had departed Flack to look after her baby son. Mitch took over bass duties and the difference in sound and style became profoundly dramatic on the tracks ‘Drained’ and ‘The Workers’ despite the extreme limitations of the recording process. Mitch went onto join Hagar The Womb and conquered the world (or west Hampstead at least) but whatever happened to Mag?

Tod of Flack

Martin of Flack

Martha Moscow of Flack

The Black Cross – our third and final gig – at The Weavers Almshouse in Stoke Newington, played in front of 5 or 6 neo-nazi skinheads and a couple of old men. I’m not making this up, ask Scarecrow, he was there. We were bloody terrible – well, I think Angie Wynn was probably okay, she generally always delivered the goods – I remember playing twiddly widdly guitar noodles that must have sent everyone to sleep – Sniper ex of The Heretics livened the event up with his inane singing and garage style drumming but I can remember little else about it. Rob Challice provided the bass amplifier but we all forgot to ask his permission first. I think that kind of punk rock behaviour is disgraceful and certainly out of character – I must have been on more interesting tablets at the time.

Another Hammer A Side

Another Hammer B Side (without Libertarian Youth tracks)

Curfew – this could be a failed Chris Low band – or was that Final Curtain? He sent me one track, a rocking instrumental, recorded in Bridge Of Allan but I can’t recall if this is the track.

The London Orchestra Of Simple Discord was what resulted after I was sacked from the original version of The Apostles. Pete, Julian and Dan continued as a mainly instrumental outfit and I seem to remember them being fairly good, too. I don’t think they played any concerts but I may be wrong – we didn’t speak to each other for a few months because after my dismissal I threw my toys out of the pram – you know how it is.

Dan Apostle / London Orchestra Of Simple Discord with Tod Flack

Libertarian Youth was the group I joined after I was sacked from The Apostles – now really when John Soares, Dave Fanning and Martin Smith teamed up with me it was basically Libertarian Youth with a different singer, i.e. me. Why we called ourselves The Apostles I don’t know – I expect I was still striding the streets in high dudgeon after being sacked and so insisted on this name as a petty form of revenge even though secretly I knew Pete, Julian and Dan had every right to dismiss me from their group as my behaviour was utterly abysmal. Bah. Libertarian Youth is a much better band name anyway although perhaps a little embarrassing once the band members reach 40.

Original singer Kev Bass resigned from music and thus left the post of singer for the group vacant. The group was led by guitarist John Soares, a feisty individual whose strong personality began to clash with mine almost from day one. In fact he made a far better band leader than I ever would and that knowledge irritated me. Yes, he was arrogant, yes, he was aggressive; but without him the group would simply have fallen to pieces. He commanded respect. The bass guitarist was Dave Fanning who became my constant companion during the remainder of The Apostles, Academy 23 and UNIT until 2005 when he retired from music to raise his child. I still genuinely wish him heath and happiness. The drummer Martin Smith joined the Hari Krishna sect and retired completely from music. He wrote the Libertarian Youth track ‘Burn The Witch’ that The Apostles later recorded for the album ‘How Much Longer’. It’s a pity the group never made any studio recordings.

More Hammers A Side

More Hammers B Side

Who the bloody hell were Witch Hunt then? That looks like my writing so I must have copied that from a cassette someone gave me – the way my mind worked in those days I tended to compile cassettes where the groups were related to each other in some manner so I suspect that a member of Witch Hunt may have been in or was later in The Apostles. I wonder if it was Chris ‘Widni’ Wiltshire? He sent me a cassette of a punk band he was in but it’s far too long ago for me to remember properly. A date / year would help. The shout out to Hawkwind dates it around late 1984 / early 1985 because that’s when Dave tried hard (with a certain degree of initial success) to interest me in the works of that band – this means it would be pre-Widni and I’m not even sure we knew him at that stage. So who could Witch Hunt be then? God knows – I give up.

No I don’t! I know who they are – what a sad bastard I am – if I’d forgotten totally then it would mean I really am as cool, windswept and interesting as I’d like to claim, all 21st century and pass us the i-pod, wack. Sadly, I do remember now – Witch Hunt were a new incarnation of a group previous called The Snails who had probably the most obnoxious 12 year old singer I’ve ever met – he was wonderful – totally rude and absolutely feisty, would start a fight in an empty room. I recognise some of the song titles.

I found The Snails to be a little different from the other tedious bands at the time, partly due to their sense of melody and partly due to the singer. Michell Muldoon who remains to this day the most aggressive, sarcastic and thoroughly feisty lad I’d ever encountered. When he smiled your pot plants would wilt. The band rehearsed in my attic at Foulden Road and it was a decidly odd experience. He was not a punk and seemed to have no interest in the scene yet he bawled, yelled and screamed his way through the set with total conviction. He always called me by my surname and dismissed my musical pretentions as irrelevant. It was a metaphorical slap in the face to which I was previously unaccoustomed to, yet his opinion of my limitations was, of course, utterly accurate. Sadly he seems to have vanished into obscurity.

The group enlisted guitarist and singer Paul Disaster from recently disbanded group Terminal Disaster and also requested I assist them on lead guitar. Even a cursory listen to these tracks reveals I am unable to play in time or in tune and the tracks would definitely be improved had my dubious contribution been omitted. Some of these tracks were originally recorded for their first cassette and they really don’t sound as exciting without Muldoon yelping over the top of them. Drummer Elfyn wrote the purely instrumental Welsh National Anthem which is far too long but provides variety, although my feeble guitar playing wrecks it in places. It is a crying shame that these tracks were not recorded properly in a professional studio and without my dubious contributions!

Dan Apostle / Black Cross

The Black Cross – those 3 tracks would be taken from the very first gig I ever played – on guitar (what a complete joke that was – I couldn’t even play but nobody seemed to notice which shows how un-musical the other band members must have been at the time – either that or their chosen drugs were extremely interesting). The others were Angie Wynn on bass, Dan MacKintyre on drums and Matthew Pond on vocals.

Matt Apostle / Black Cross

Indebted to Chris Low for the loan of these cassettes and to Andy Martin for trying to remember something about the tracks and writing the memories down for me to add to this post. Thanks also to Andy Martin for the essay entitled ‘GOD = GUILT. GOD = OPPRESSION. GOD = DEATH’ which is written out in full below.

All the photographs and the flyer on this post are from Tod’s collection.

NOTE: The Libertarian Youth tracks on these twenty five to thirty year old cassettes were unfortunately spoiled so they have not been uploaded onto this site. Sorry about that…

GOD = GUILT. GOD = OPPRESSION. GOD = DEATH.

This essay is dedicated to all victims of roman catholic hate, bigotry and prejudice, all casualties of early morning visits from Jehova Witnesses, all sons and daughters who have fanatical religious parents and all school children who want to learn something really useful. It is most certainly not intended to offend Christians or people with a genuine belief in God. In other words, this essay is not written to persuade people not to be Christians – it is written to explain why I am not a Christian. My childhood was made utterly miserable, not by vicars or priests but by people who claimed to be Christians acting in my best interests.

I must first ask you to consider

1)      the six million Jews, Slavs, gypsies and other innocent people tortured and murdered by the national socialists of Germany from 1939 to 1945,

2)      the four million Jews butchered on the orders of Josef Stalin in Russia from 1944 to 1945,

3)      the two million Russian, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese civilians tortured and murdered by the Japanese from March 1944 to August 1945 in Ha Bin internment camp, China

4)      and the one million innocent victims who were brutally slaughtered by the communist troops of Pol Pot in Cambodia in 1975.

In response, I must now ask you this: when all this horror, terror, torture, killing, slaughter and murder was being relentlessly perpetrated by merciless tyrants upon millions of innocent people, most of whom were of the Jewish faith and should therefore expect clemency from the agency of divine intervention, precisely where was God? We are told in Sunday School that ‘God is everywhere’. If God is everywhere then logically it is evident that God cannot go anywhere since any ‘where’ he seeks to travel is already occupied by himself. A God unable to go anywhere represents a static universe; a static universe suggests the absence of both growth and evolution with a proportional increase in corruption and decay. We are told that the Holy Bible is the word of God as relayed to the population by Jesus Christ and his honest servants, the disciples. I will now prove to you that this same book is a malicious pot pourri of lies, contradictions, violence, hate, corruption and pure undiluted tyranny. Every quotation used is taken from the standard King James edition of the Bible, available in the majority of Christian churches of most denominations.

 “Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire and if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter life with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.”

Matthew 18 : 8-9.

“He that is wounded in the stones” (testicles) “or hath his privy member” (penis) “cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.”

Deuteronomy 23 : 1.

So basically the Kingdom of Heaven is populated by men who, though many are bereft of hands, feet and eyes so they hobble and faff around like so many lost Long John Silvers, are fully endowed with reproductive sexual organs in complete working order; do we assume from this that God, ever mysterious, utterly bored to tears with the tediously celibate lives of Earthly Christians through the centuries, now intends to compensate for this by eternal and vainglorious buggery in which he gives his only begotten son Jesus Christ the role of Head Pimp?

“I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved.”

Genesis 32 : 20.

“No man hath seen God at any time.”

John 1 : 18.

Now you see me, now you don’t; it’s the old 3-card trick, God in his eternal wisdom knows how to fool all of his flock all of the time; well, look at the state of them, it’s obviously not hard to achieve. But don’t forget, God so loved the world…

“For everyone that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.”

Leviticus 20 : 9.

“He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death.”

Leviticus 24 : 16.

“Whosoever lieth with a beast,” (you guessed it) “shall surely be put to death.”

Exodus 22 : 19.

“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall” (let’s hear it, altogether now) “surely be put to death.”

Leviticus 20 : 13.

However, despite the above warning…

“It is good for a man not to touch a woman.”

Corinthians 7 : 1.

…even though, in Genesis, the Lord doth sayeth unto his brethren ‘go forth and multiply!’ How? Oh, aye, forgive me, of course – immaculate conception again. How silly of me to forget that. Speaking of women…

“Unto the woman God said ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.”

Genesis 3 : 16.

“If a woman have conceived seed and born a man child then she shall be unclean seven days but if she bear a maid child then she shall be unclean two weeks.”

Leviticus 12 : 2-5.

“Let your women keep silence in the churches for it is not permitted unto them to speak.”

1 Corinthians 14 : 34.

“Let the woman learn in silence with all abjection – but I suffer not a woman to teach nor usurp authority over the man but to be in silence.”

1 Timothy 2 : 11-12.

…yes, speaking of women, women do not speak and although she be ordered to bear children, she’ll be called unclean afterwards for so many days, especially if the baby is female. Whatever other inconsistencies The Bible contains, at least it diligently adheres to its fear of women, hatred of sex and murderous passions against anyone who uses their own intelligence. This all sounds rather familiar to me. Where have I heard sentiments like that before? Perhaps when they broadcast archive footage of the Nuremberg rallies. The May Day Red Square rallies are identical except the participants don’t dress as smartly. The Bible is also quite consistent in its attitude toward slavery.

“Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lords’ sake whether it be to the king, as supreme, or unto governors.”

1 Peter 2 : 13-14.

“Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.”

Ephesians 6 : 5

“Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle but also to the forward.”

1 Peter 2 : 18.

“Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.”

1 Timothy 6 : 1.

“Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters and to please them well in all things, not answering again, not purloining, but showing good fidelity that they may adorn the doctrine of God our saviour.”

Titus 2 : 9-10.

“And if a man smite his servant, or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money.

Exodus 21 : 20-21.

“If the servant shall plainly say ‘I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go free’ then his master shall bring him to the door or unto the door post and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl and he shall serve him forever.”

Exodus 21 : 2-6.

So that’s it: to be a servant of the Lord, have your ear pierced with an awl (Exodus was into body piercing before you lot were even a twinkle in your mothers’ eye) but enough of this. What about the filth in Christianity to which I refer? Well, how’s this for a lovely chunk of churlish depravity?

“Behold: I will corrupt your seed and spread dung upon your faces!”

Malachi 2 : 3.

“And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man…”

Ezekiel 4 : 12.

“Lo, I have given thee cow dung for mans’ dung and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.”

Ezekiel 4 : 15.

However, Ezekiel adopts a rather lofty tone so perhaps you would prefer the almost convivial manner of

“Hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung and drink their own piss with you?”

Isaiah 36 : 12.

Meanwhile, don’t any of you god-bods try to fool any of us with that old ‘suffer little children unto me’ routine because ‘little ones’ refers to children in this next Stephen Kingesque passage:

“Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.”

Psalms 137 : 9.

Of course ‘stones’ in the language of Deuteronomy, as we have seen, means ‘testicles’ so that the above quote becomes even more absurd than it is already; I mean, this is material that was and still is regularly shown to children. Mind you, being a Christian means you’re entitled to a few perks that go with the job:

“Now therefore kill every male among the little ones and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him; but all the women children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”

Numbers 31 : 17-18.

What was that about ‘suffer little children unto me’? Look, the above quote makes it perfectly clear: lock up your daughters, it’s The God Squad! When you’re bored with molesting little girls whose mothers you have just slaughtered, there’s always that reliable stalwart on which you can rely for plain old fashioned fun: torture and brutal mass murder.

“And Moses said (thus saith the Lord) about midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt and all the first born in the land of Egypt shall die even unto the first born of the maid servant and all the first born of beasts.”

Exodus 11 : 4-5.

After all this, it is probable that most of the god-bods will have perished; however, in the event that a few persistent evangelical types, armed with self righteous fervour and the breastplate of the Lord, remain on your doorstep, then hit them with this cluster of contradictions:

“Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together and burned them, so mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.”

Acts 19 : 19-20.

“The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.”

Ezekiel 18 : 20.

“I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.”

Exodus 20 : 5.

“Honour thy father and thy mother.”

Exodus 20 : 12.

“If any man comes unto me and hates not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”

Jesus Christ to Luke in Luke 14 : 26.

“God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.”

James 1 : 13.

“And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham.”

Genesis 22 : 1.

Jeremiah, John and Matthew form a terrible trio who simply cannot maintain a decent cover story:

“For I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not burn my anger for ever.”

Jeremiah 3 : 12.

“Ye have kindled a fire in mine anger which shall burn for ever.” (spoken by this same Lord.)

Jeremiah 17 : 4.

“I am one that bear witness of myself.” (J Christ esq.)

John 8 : 18.

“If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.” (J Christ again.)

John 5 : 31.

“All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”

Matthew 26 : 52.

Thus spake Jesus Christ – but just a little earlier he says:

“Think not that I am come to send peace on Earth: I came not to send peace but a sword.”

Matthew 10 : 34.

Now Jesus talks to John and clearly suffers from a personality crisis or at least mild thought disorder:

“I and my father are one.”

John 10 : 30.

“I go unto the father for my father is greater than I.”

John 14 : 28.

As for the primitive comprehension of cosmology displayed by these despicable plebians, we can perhaps make an allowance as a result of the scarcity of scientific knowledge available to them (even though, being in direct contact with The Almighty you’d think they were party to inside information) but when they write down what they insist is the word of God, well, frankly either their short-hand is diabolical or else God really doesn’t know a neutron from a nova; perhaps he should read Isaac Newton or tune in to The Sky At Night?

“The Earth abideth forever.”

Ecclesiastes 1 : 4.

“The elements shall melt with fervent heat, the Earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”

2 Peter 3 : 10.

Even prior to our imminent immolation, there remains the onerous old matter of wealth. Aye, that’s right, no-one seems to know where God stands on that issue either, including God himself:

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the Earth.”

Matthew 6 : 19.

“In the house of the righteous there is much treasure.”

Proverbs 15 : 6.

“A good man leaveth an inheritance to his childrens’ children.”

Proverbs 13 : 22.

“Sell all that ye have and give alms.”

Luke 12 : 33.

“Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord: wealth and riches shall be in his house.”

Psalms 112 : 1-3.

“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Matthew 19 : 24.

This apparently almighty omnipotent omnipresent deity, tired old ‘has-been’ (in fact ‘never-was’) that he really is, evidently supports the Labour party since he can’t even decide upon his education policies:

“Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and the man that getteth understanding.”

Proverbs 3 : 13.

“For in much wisdom is much grief and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”

Ecclesiastes 1 : 18.

Finally, if anyone still doubts the iniquity of the Bible, if anyone still believes that ‘at least Jesus Christ was basically a decent person’, consider this:

“But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me.” (Jesus Christ speaking)

Luke 19 : 27.

Well, I wouldn’t vote for him. I live in a flat in east London in a country that hardly ever experiences earthquakes, tornadoes or similar natural disasters (don’t call them ‘acts of God’, not now, why that greasy old tramp couldn’t even whisk up a slight breeze, let alone a fully fledged storm) and it’s 2010: our quest for the exploration of space is ahead and we are here to go. We cannot of course take all the usual human bilge into deep space – you know what I mean, economics, nationalism and religion (Pan forbid, definitely not religion). After all, any socially evolved, intelligent advanced species will have relinquished all relationships with such barbaric garbage aeons ago and rendered such concepts obsolete in the mists of time.

Andy Martin 2010.

Unit, PO Box 45885, London. E11 1UW

 www.unit-united.co.uk

 unitunited@yahoo.com