First single from Crisis (actually tracks from a John Peel session)
Still sounds great today…various members went onto other projects including Theatre Of Hate and Death In June, bands that both deserve a couple of books written about them in their own right.
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Nic
January 9, 2008 at 10:44 amI love this single…very simplistic with some brilliantly corny lyrics (“Without hesitation, he’ll get you at a de-eh-mon-stration”), but an absolute classic…
There’s something incongrous yet perfect about the use of almost ‘fey’ (for want of a better word!) lead guitar lines over heavy riffing…
The other records get regular plays in our house (as my bonne femme turns up her nose, says “But they’re rubbish”, and demands that we play the TV Personalities instead), especially ‘Hymns of Faith’…
I wish I had seen them live…
We were talking about Crisis over on another forum and I mentioned that I’ve noticed a similarity between Flux of Pink Indians and Crisis over the years…
The post punk edge to the recordings by Flux of Pink Indians (mainly on their 1980 demo and the “original” recordings of the ‘New Smell’ ep before Penny Rimbaud remixed it) has a amrked similarity to the approach Crisis took on tracks like ‘Alienation’: tribal toms, 1 fuzzed guitar and 1 ‘jangly’ guitar, and possibly even a similarity in tone to the delivery of the lyrics…
Nuzz
January 9, 2008 at 2:37 pmGreat band, I missed ’em when they played near me, but by all accounts they literally tore the place apart, and then some of the punters set about smashing up Letchworth town centre. What’s the feeling about Death In June?
Nic
January 9, 2008 at 4:11 pmDeath in June?
Music = insipid… (I’ve never found 3rd-rate balladry appealing, particularly where the tunes are strained 3 chord plods and the vocals are lacking in panache)
Political position = certainly not to my taste…(They wouldn’t be the first extreme left-wingers to have made the very, very short step over the line to being extreme right-wingers)
However, I have to declare some level of hypocrisy on this as I have a large collection of Whitehouse and Ramleh cassettes/records… 😉
Steve
January 9, 2008 at 7:29 pmRead this:
http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/wakeford.html
(I did think that Crisis were great though).
Steve
January 9, 2008 at 7:55 pmCheck this out too:
http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/dij.htm
Nuzz
January 10, 2008 at 2:53 pmHave to agree to slightly differ with ya there nic, I love the singles Heaven Street, State Laughter, and The Guilty Have No Pride album, but after that, I’m with you. They were an intense live band, saw em at the 100 club with Annie Anxiety, D+V and Current 93 in the 80’s. Did a postal interview with Doug for Verbal Abuse, were I asked about their ‘dubious right wing imigary’ its one of the issues I’ve got missing think it’s in the same one as Billy Bragg interview I was pattling on about before, when I diversivied, printed on pink paper If i remember right, wonder if any ones got a copy they can scan for me, doubt it. Anyway I’m off now, just filling up space here with waffle that’s starting to get less relevent with each word typed to Crisis.
kithogue
January 25, 2008 at 1:15 pmThe pic you’re using from the inner sleeve of “Hymns of Faith” isn’t Crisis!
Chris
January 25, 2008 at 3:41 pmNic, I always thought Crisis to have been more of an influence on Six Minute war/Fallout than Flux, musically as well as politically perhaps (SWP/CPGB type rhetoric)
and, out of interest what other band are you thinking of re:
“They wouldn’t be the first extreme left-wingers to have made the very, very short step over the line to being extreme right-wingers”
always thought Death In June’s music to be utter and total shite. And their pathetic Evola worshpping/3rd position/Naz Bol type imagery is pitiful.
NB: Whitehouse, Ramleh etc are hardly nazis, and the imagery they used back then (25 or so ago) was never much different from that employed by TG or SPK. Also, they have rather moved on since then…unlike DIJ/Der Blutarsch and other such adenoidal goons.
PS, kithogue, so who IS that photo of then? looks like them to me…
Jim
March 10, 2008 at 5:12 pmBreak the black ice…on The world that summer…beautiful DIJ track.
Nick Hydra
June 8, 2009 at 7:09 pmHa! Love Crisis.
I was actually talking to Veg (Hagar/ Birth Complex) the other day and we both remarked on how much Colin Flux vocal style is similar to Phraser’s (or is that Dexter)?
Also, early Conflict were very much like Crisis – the intro to ‘1824 Overture’ is pretty much ‘UK 79’.
Nick Hydra
April 5, 2010 at 10:08 pmSee video for ‘White Youth’ here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5V-7k1_iyA
Nick Hydra
April 7, 2010 at 6:57 am…and ‘Holocaust’ here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPB6r2RKoYg
jon (ex-from bromley)
April 7, 2010 at 7:41 pmthe cover of Holocaust played by the Screaming Babies at Centro Iberico was the best audience response we ever had! didn’t give in the the shouts for UK 79 and the rest of the set was our usual not so well loved original material.
Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
April 13, 2010 at 1:31 pmFuck me, those videos are shit. Particularly the ‘white youth’ one. Got about as much relevance as a shopping channel compilation. That song seemed to encapsulate the nightmarish political and economic abyss of 70s UK and deserves more than the usual hackneyed montage of dead Germans imho.
Still sends shivers down my spine now to be honest. One of the few songs from that period that truly brings it all back. Tony Wakeford’s bassline is monumentally intense.