Here and Now vs Sex Pistols 7 June 1977

Posted on September 27, 2008March 29, 2015 by AL Puppy

Here and Now, live 7 June 1977, Bristol Gardens London W9

Available for £7 inc. post and packing from HERE

You can also can get a free download of one of the tracks. Features Twink (Pink Fairies) on synthesiser.

On 7 June 1977 the Sex Pistols took a trip down the Thames, manufacturing much outrage in their wake. .

The same day, Here and Now played a Jubilee Street Party at Bristol Gardens. Bristol Gardens was a squatted street, one of a network of similar squats which had grown up across London as part of the radical counter culture.

Squatting communities grew up all over London: at Bristol Gardens, Charrington Street, Tolmers Village, Finsbury Park, Longfellow Road and many other places. A few similar communities occurred outside the capital, too: Hebden Bridge, Bristol, Brighton etc. Each one was different depending on its size, the conditions of the property, the amount of security, and the people attracted to them. Some were made up of people from predominantly middle class backgrounds; others were almost exclusively working class. Some, like Prince of Wales Crescent, shared a hippy ideology which never truly “adapted to overcome social or political problems.”

And they all invariably changed rapidly, responding to external and internal pressures. But common to most was a sense of identity seldom found in towns. People had a sense of living somewhere special, symbolised by the street carnivals and parties which became a regular feature of squatting life. For some people, albeit only a small minority of squatters, squatting began to be more than simply finding a roof, it became fun, it offered new freedoms, a sense of community . . . almost a way of life in its own right.

From HERE

Listening to the relaxed atmosphere of Here and Now’s 30 minute long ‘Now’s The Time to Live’ in contrast to the frenetic sounds the Pistols were making that same day brings out the sheer surreal strangeness of it all.

Now we know that Here and Now would tour with ultra punk ATV the next year (1978), and later with our own Mob (and Zounds and Androids of Mu). But then? On 7 June 1977, how far apart were the worlds represented by the two simultaneous events?

Well one was a high profile media spectacle, which has been sampled and repeated to the point of recuperation – a set of sounds and images locked into all subsequent popular reproductions of the Jubilee and thus the Sex Pistols have become part of the mystique of monarchy. As if saying “Here are all these quaintly revolting punks being rude to the Queen but punk has come and gone and she still reigns over us”.

The other … was not. When Here and Now played at Bristol Gardens, the event was so far underground it has taken 31 years to surface. Does this mean Here and Now were (are) more subversive than the Sex Pistols?

If there is a cultural/ political unconscious – see Frederick Jameson: The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act : Methuen: 1981 – the answer is Yes. And although Kenneth Grant (Outer Head of the Typhonian OTO, retired) would substitute subconscious for unconscious; since Grant argues that nothing is truly unconscious, in the unlikely event that he would ever consider such a question, he would also agree.

It is the squatting that makes the difference. As readers of KYPP will no doubt be aware, in Capital Vol. I, Chapter 27 Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land, Marx advocates squatting as the most effective method whereby the urban industrial proletarian descendants of an agricultural workforce driven off the land and into cities by enforced enclosure can overcome the alienation of people from the land and the resulting fetishisation land ownership – still embodied in the figure of the monarch as feudal owner ( by divine right) of all land in the UK.

See HERE

Here and Now were “based in squats at nearby Latimer Road and Stoneleigh Street in the Ladbroke Grove/ Notting Hills area, and at Grosvenor Road in Twickenham”. Bristol Gardens was a squat. Thus on 7 June 1977 Here and Now and the Bristol Garden party were more actually subversive than the Sex Pistols and their boat trip.

You disagree? Then buy this CD, have a listen to it and post a suitably outraged comment here.

You agree? Than buy this CD and enjoy the music.

AL Puppy

71 comments

Graham Burnett
October 6, 2008 at 5:45 pm

> clearly defined idealogy?
Green Anarcho Pacifism & Vegetarainism..

I still maintain that it was the wider anarcho punk scene that turned these ideas into an IDEALOGY, not Crass, who I never found to be dogmatic, unlike some of what followed. Crass always had much more intelegence and subtlety in what they did, much that could be traced to their performance-art roots, including things that were deliberately contradictory with the intention of being challenging and thought provoking (using loud aggresive music to promote ideas about peace, wearing black uniforms whilst talking about the primacy of the individual, adopting a fascistic looking logo whilst refusing to accept the role of ‘leaders’, adopting a ‘corporate identity’ whilst critising capitalism etc), unfortunately much of this was then accepted at face value (due no doubt to the striking power and potency of such imagery) and turned into a set of rules and cliches by others with less nouce… “well thats my opinion anyway…”
Graham Burnett
October 6, 2008 at 5:50 pm

I can’t recall every single Crass song right now, but I’m sure its a myth that they promoted ‘vegetarianism’ beyond one or two lines and passing references in songs, a couple of handouts given away at gigs with recipes for baking bread and veggie sheppards pie, and the cover of Penis Envy which juxtaposed a butcher hacking up a carcass with a blow up sex doll (and the point here was more about sexuality and women being seen as ‘meat’ than being about pushing animal rights or vegetarianism surely?) Again I’m sure all the in-yer-face preachy veggie stuff came later with Conflict, Flux of Pink Indians, Antisect and all that.
Nic
October 6, 2008 at 7:21 pm

Too many interesting ideas are flowing through these posts – it’s hard to keep up!

Sam made a very pertinent comment when he said “Funny how none of us second generation bands tried to emulate them. We took the Mark P ‘here’s 2 chords now form a band’ thing seriously which is why we all sounded alike.”…The earlier bands seemed to have a very different frame of reference whereas the later bands reference points were focused almost exclusively within the Punk milieu…
I can relate to the Pistols / Huddersfield idea because I would get onstage age 13 in a room full of Punks and insult them for being conformists and clones – which usually led to a kicking! (What a surprise!) Ah, the memories…
🙂

I can also really understand your feelings regarding the group and ‘marketing’, Sam…
I left 2 groups which I had been a founder member of on the cusp of their biggest ‘success’ precisely because I felt a conflict between the act of expression through creativity and the demands of ‘marketing the product’…
For my own personal sense of integrity (and self worth), it was more important to privilege my own creativity over the shoehorning of a group into a particular demographic in the hope of a ‘career’ (even if it meant that I suffered financially because of it)…

Not enough time to comment on the point about ‘didactic’ philosophies, but it’s a very interesting one…
🙂

I think that Graham is making a really valid point regarding the reception of Crass: there seems to be something of a confusion between the intentions of the group and the reception of those intentions…
The ‘cult’ of ‘Anarcho Punk’ developed itself from these ideas (and many others which were current at the time) and promptly entered the quagmire of insular division and negativity…but it wouldn’t be accurate to lay the blame for that at Crass’ subsiding door…I remember a quote that was used as a copy line for a Killing Joke interview around 1980 which ran “They’re all looking for a leader like everyone else”: it was this desire that imposed itself upon the ideas which Crass put out into an open forum…

I always felt that Crass seemed to make SO little comment on Vegetarianism in their lyrics that it was almost non-existent…
and it was certainly later recordings (Flux of Pink Indians – ‘Neu Smell’, Conflict – ‘The House That Man Built’, and – to a lesser extent – Anti-System – ‘Defence of the Realm’) which introduced the Vegetarian ideas to a wider audience (and which subsequently developed into a straitjacket)…which isn’t really Crass’ fault (even if they did release 2 of the records… 😉 )

The idea that Crass ’started from a secure base of property ownership’ was part of Parsons et als smear campaign: at the time, what could be worse than *gasp* the middle classes living in a house in the countryside…and they were Hippies too!!! Bring forth the guillotine!!!

When Graham says “On the subject of Crass vs The Pistols and who still has relevance, I know that Penny’s current forays into poetry and free jazz aren’t everybodies cup of tea, but can’t help feeling that he’s showing a bit more integrity in his old age than flogging butter to the masses…”, I have to agree…(although – in a sense – Lydon is just doing what he always did)…

I loved Public Enemy, Jake: I saw them live on 3 occasions in the 80’s, and then caught them again a few years ago (at the All Tomorrows Parties festival) where – to my surprise – they really blew the roof off…The floor of the venue was shuddering from the shapes being thrown by the crowd…
🙂
The Bomb Squads early productions (including Ice Cubes 1st LP – and the sound they brought to the YBT and Leaders of the New School albums) were phenomenal…

Nice one, AL – we were waiting for the Galloway connection to surface…
😉
Sam
October 6, 2008 at 7:48 pm

Bit of an obvious example but……

“Fight war, not wars.
Fight war, not wars.
Fight war, not wars.
Fight war, not wars.
Fight war, not wars.
Fight war, not wars.
Fight war, not wars.
FIGHT WAR, NOT WARS.”

….isn’t really very multi-layered is it? I’m reminded of the chanting sheep in Animal Farm.

I’m completely on your side Nic regarding you sticking to your guns and it’s something I’ve done my whole life and is one of the lingering things that remains within me from punk.
On the other hand, I think punk created a generation of contrarians who saw sucess as inauthentic (thus Here and Now have more integrity than The Pistols). I tend to see early punk and its bi products as cutting edge consumerism in that there was/is a need to use products and lifestyle as an expression of individuality. Once the herd get it it’s time to move on. I wonder how horrified we would have been if our parents had bought the whole idea of anarchism? Time to join the British Movement probably.
Punk really worked instinctively rather than knowingly. Despite all his nonsense in later years, McLaren was apparently as clueless as his band and certainly not in control. The Bill Grundy show was an accident (Queen were meant to be on) and he shat himself when all the swearing started. Being banned from the radio and venues is a fantastic marketing tool but was completely out of step with the mid seventies but very indicative of eighties marketing. The graphics were instinctive too. The NMTB album cover was thought up in 10 minutes when all the band got together and came up with the most disgusting thing they could think of.
The Heretics interview in TG is (surprisingly) remembered (albiet for the photos)30 years on. I’ve said this elsewhere, but I continued to get phone calls every week for a about a year or more just on the strength of that. If we’d been less nihilistic and less inclined to cutting off our nose to spite our face we would have used it as some kind of marketing device. Masochistically chucking opportunity down the toilet was probably the hippest thing we could have done.
andus
October 6, 2008 at 8:07 pm

Crass also had a sense of humour, which most people missed, even though at times they went out of their way to prove it, with ‘who dunnit’ ‘Merry crassmass etc, I have yet to meet anyone who took that sense of humour on board. its was their later stuff that became more serious. Also whenever I listened to the tracks sung by Pete Wright I was always reminded of Rowan Atkinson’s sketch of Mr angry from ‘Not the nine o’clock news’. Penny rimbaud’s recent release The death of imagination featuring Eve Libertine on vocals, is absolutely superb, very disturbing but at the same time enlightening and uplifting, but you have to appreciate poetry to like it, its a progression from ‘Acts of love’ and ’10 notes on a summers day’
Graham Burnett
October 6, 2008 at 8:16 pm

Yes there was definitely a sense of humour which many people missed, and not just the obvious jokey stuff like Merry Xmas, one of my favourites is the very quiet “well thats my opinion anyway” right at the end of Feeding the 5000, after the second version of ‘owe us A Living’…

Theres a thread on funny Crass songs here http://www.southern.com/southern/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1724
Graham Burnett
October 6, 2008 at 8:20 pm

Andus – I like your description of ‘Death of Imagination’ as ‘recent’ when it came out about 10 years ago. Definitely an age thing. I heard Kate Bushes ‘Sensual World’ on the radio the other day, which I still think of as her ‘recent album’ and was quite shocked when the DJ announced that it came out in 1989!
andus
October 6, 2008 at 8:29 pm

Is it 10 years old !!, jesus, well I got my copy last year, what I actually mean’t was that it was his most recent release, or is it. Talking of Kate Bush did you get a copy of her last album, ‘AERIAL’ 2006, if not get it, its a masterpiece, her best ever.
Graham Burnett
October 6, 2008 at 8:35 pm

Not sure when the album came out but saw him perform Death of Imagination back in 1994 at the ’10 Days of Anarchy’ festival. Pen has done a couple of albums since as Crass Agenda, ‘Savage Utopia’ and ‘How?’ which is his ‘interpretation of Kerouac’s ‘Howl’, both very good in my opinion, the Baron would prob like How if free jazz, poetry and Kerouac are his thing. I think he is doing an album with NY nose-rock duo Japanther soon.

Will listen out for the new KB album, would have to be good to top side 2 of ‘Hounds of Love’
andus
October 6, 2008 at 8:56 pm

Not sure when The death of Imagination was released, this cd says first performed in 1994, but there is a sleeve statement by P.R. May from 1996, I have an idea it the cd was released in 98. There is a track on this called Savage Utopia. I have two of his books Shibboleth and The diamond collection. Not heard of the other two albums, they were certainly not on any websites I looked at last year. I am still trying to get a copy of Acts of love which I used to have.
Hounds of love is my second favourite KB album, for a while I could not make my mind up which was the best Aerial or Hounds, but Aerial wins by a whisper.
andus
October 6, 2008 at 8:57 pm

whisker
Graham Burnett
October 6, 2008 at 9:03 pm

I think Southern have plans to re-issue Acts of Love on a CD at some time but I wouldn’t hold your breath. The other albums are released on the Babel label http://www.babellabel.co.uk/The%20Babel%20Label-2451.htm and http://www.babellabel.co.uk/The%20Babel%20Label-Savage%20Utopia.htm , or you can get ‘How?’ from my website http://www.spiralseed.co.uk but i’ve only got 2 copies left so hurry (or don’t – I’ve had 2 copies left for about a year now…)
andus
October 6, 2008 at 9:06 pm

Did you know John Lydon thought Kate Bush was brilliant.
Yes I’d heard its due to be re-released, Cheers for the info,
Graham Burnett
October 6, 2008 at 9:14 pm

>Did you know John Lydon thought Kate Bush was brilliant.

So does Penny Rimbaud. Apparently Malcom Mclaren was most upset when Lydon went on he radio and told the world that his influences included captain beefheart, can and Van Der Graaf generator as this undermined the whole ‘punk as year zero’ myth that he was keen to encourage.
andus
October 6, 2008 at 9:14 pm

Right.I will get a copy off you in 10 days when my ebay session finishes, glad to see pp as an option my credit cards dead at the moment
andus
October 6, 2008 at 9:30 pm

People frown on me for liking her, her music is very spiritual, and not just idol pop music which a lot of people seen to think, for instance, Hounds of love is about the persecuted female through the ages, with a lot of pagan symbolism thrown in which I don’t understand. I am not surprised Penny Rimbaud likes her. but Lydon came as a surprise, Apparently he likes the Queen as well, or was he being tongue in cheek and refering to the band, McLaren was no doubt terrified of loosing money on the fashion side of it.
gerard
October 6, 2008 at 9:31 pm

Keith Allen on johnny Rotten doing the butter advert:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZimbxYoRe2U
Graham Burnett
October 6, 2008 at 9:43 pm

I’ve liked kate Bush since Wuthering Hieghts came out in 1977, for ages I was convinced the guitar solo at the end was by Robert Fripp, and being a big King Crimson fan before ‘Punk Year Zero’ thought it was great for that reason alone!
alistairliv • Post Author •
October 6, 2008 at 9:51 pm

Van der Graaf Generator yaaaaaaayyyyyyy. Just dug out Pawn Hearts (VDGG/1971) which is my fave… And guess what you lucky lucky people – the whole of a Plague of Lighthouse Keepers ( which takes up all of side two of Pawn Hearts ) is on you tube!

For a shorter, seven minute long introduction to VDGG try Darkness (11/11) here and see what Mr. Lydon was going on about

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDmhP6YiN6s
alistairliv • Post Author •
October 6, 2008 at 9:56 pm

Oh alright then, here is Part 1 of Plague of Lighthouse Keepers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv9DouGSXW8

You will have to wait for parts 2 and 3 cos I am still watching part 1.
alistairliv • Post Author •
October 6, 2008 at 10:07 pm

and here are parts 2 and 3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duTwxgxndJQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q1wfmTiA94

We used to have a record club at Kirkcudbright Academy and I once tried play the whole of Plague of Lighthouse Keepers but the King Crimson fans got all stroppy. Philistines.
andus
October 6, 2008 at 10:08 pm

I was 13 when Wuthering Heights came out, If there ever was a perfect lyric this is it. King Crimson another brilliant band, Wuthering Heights was 1978 I think not 77, but it doesn’t matter. I still have the cassette of Never for ever, which still plays perfectly after what 28 years, they made things to last in those days.
Graham Burnett
October 6, 2008 at 10:25 pm

Nice one Al! havn’t heard this years but hadn’t forgotten how good it was! Love the foghorn double sax thing about 4 minutes in – that bit always seny a shiver up my spine, it sounded so bleak on the album.

I liked Pioneers Over C (from H to He Who Am The Only One); “We are the ones who crossed through space, or stayed where we were, or didn’t exist in the first place”…

I was at the 1978 gig that was recorded and released as ‘Vital’, my main memory was of a large space in the audience that looked like it would be a good place to stand and get a strategic view of the band, however when I got to the space I realised why it was there – someone had been sick on the floor.
Alan Rider
October 6, 2008 at 10:53 pm

My partner Kleo lived at the Bristol Gardens squat around that time, though she was very young at the time so only remembers that she went on a road trip to Iran (overland!!!) and came back to find everything she owned had been sold/given away!
baron von zubb
October 14, 2008 at 9:34 am

Thanks for putting this stuff up. I tried. Must be a generational thing. That VDGG just didnt do it for me. Sounds like the reason why I got me hair cut.
Saw a few bands from that era beforehand and it was just so unengaging, middle class art school dross.
I mean your parents might not like it but they wouldnt ask you to turn it off.
But then I dont like The Exploited either.
Dunno about thinking Kate Bush was brilliant but I did meet her on a beach in Elat in ’83 and she was a very nice girl. Not affected, just good company.
And if it wasnt for KYPP I would have never remembered that either . . .
Cheers BVZ
Twink
November 23, 2008 at 7:21 pm

Twink from the Pink Fairies never played with the Here & Now band.
It was in fact Twink L Toesmalone aka Paul Noble which happens to be me!!!
Check out what I have been up to lately http://www.myspace.com/39orbits
devotionalhooligan
November 25, 2008 at 12:49 pm

i came across an interesting here & now live recording from a festival in norwichin ’83… so it’s mostly later stuff from fantasy shift … the second side really takes off with a bit of floating anarchy towards the end…

http://www.nr23.net/alternative/free_festy/pgf.htm

hope everyone is doing alreet x
Dave Sez
March 10, 2009 at 7:24 pm

Just to add me dodgy memories to this string and answer some of your queries, dearies, Savage Utopia was one of Bron’s (Eve’s) side projects with Soma on keyboards, vocals and atmosphere, Matt of Coldcut on rhythms, others I forget, and of course Pen. For alaistirliv. a trip to http://www.eggcityradio.com/?p=323 and http://www.eggcityradio.com/?p=41 will satisfy your VDG generational urges. Cheers, Dave Sez.
Graham Burnett
March 10, 2009 at 10:33 pm

Hi Dave, Savage Utopia is really Pen’s project, it was indeed a collaboration between him and Matt Black of Coldcut, and also all his jazzer mates, with Eve and A Soma on vocals, and was a Crass Agenda project. I saw it performed at the Vortex in Stoke Newington, Penny performed Eve’s vocal parts as she’d lost her voice that night, also its available on CD more info here http://www.southern.net/southern/band/CRAGN/EXS02.php
alistairliv • Post Author •
March 11, 2009 at 7:50 am

Thank you Dave Sez – listening to the Pawn Hearts tracks… if it had been a double album it would have been awesome. Angle of Incidents reminded me of PTV/ Heathen Earth… was Genesis P a prog-rocker at heart?
Dave Sez
March 12, 2009 at 11:47 am

Dear Graham, I stand corrected – I said my memory was a bit dodgy on this one. Somewhere or other, I have a rough mix of it that Pen gave me way back when. Accompanied the guys to the Vortex a few times when staying at DH – if you’ve been back permaculturing recently, how’s the pond that I dug at the bottom of the garden doing? And glad alistairliv liked the stuff. Cheers for now, Dave Sez.
Lion
August 11, 2010 at 7:43 am

Sam wrote — ” Lydon treating PIL like a business venture was …alternative (and prophetic) …. NMTB truly stands the test of time.”

Rubbish — all that crap about ‘PIL are a business’ simply shows how confused and unclear Lydon was, and how little he actually had to say, politically and artistically. Look at all the interview footage with Lydon post the Pistols time — it’s totally clear he’s lost any bearing or sense of direction — and yet still feels he has to put on a show of some kind, fullfil the style icon and ‘spokesman of a generation role’ in some way. But — lost he clearly was. And NMTB stands the test of time Sam? What as, exactly ? It just sounds like a tired hard rock record if listened to honestly.

Sam wrote — “We all grew up with consumerism and The Pistols presented dissent in a language we could all understand. Not all of us wanted to live in a fucking commune. I think there’s too many people around here who still think squatting, shop lifting and leaving a big pile of plates in the sink is/was some kind of revolutionary act.”

Well Sam, that shows more of your own limitations rather than anything else — so in your logic Sam, the ‘message’ and ‘meaning’ of that entire 1976 — 1980 time was either 1. Throw a tantrum and dance around to sub par hard rock in ‘shocking’ dressing up box clothes, or 2. Join a commune and listen to Gong.

That shows your limitations of imagination and shows your limitations on what can be valid dissent Sam — not ours.
Sam
August 11, 2010 at 8:08 pm

Oooh…a gauntlet.

I think in terms of reinventing the wheel, NMTB definitely doesn’t. But it does come across as an incredibly passionate, non-compromising statement. Mainly because of Lydon. The production’s fucking great too. The whole album sounds like cultural catharsis to me. I listened to ‘No Fun’ the other day and it’s still one of the rawest cries of pain I’ve ever heard. ‘The problem is YOU!…’ is still inspiring to me as well. No bollocks to it (funnily enough). Instinctive anger and genius. Listening to most of the other stuff I loved at the time, there’s this feeling that time has moved on – as have my ears. The Cortinas for example sound like updated Mod for example. But the Pistols (still) unique combination of elements has remained. If you don’t agree – oh well.

As bands have to now do their own marketing, figure out their demographic, design their own graphics and run themselves like a business, I think PIL were at the forefront of something. And it was very innocent. I’m not a PIL fan at all by the way. Crass were doing exactly the same thing, they just dressed it up in revolutionary packaging and convinced a generation of grubby teens that they were changing the world, as opposed to standing on a stage in front of hundreds of adoring accolytes – just like any other rock band. I agree with you about Lydon after the Pistols. His walking off of TV shows got old amazingly quickly and the media failed to be caught off guard. It’s got to be tough to have peaked at 18 years old.

No, the message I took from that time is:

1. Anything is possible if you’re passionate enough about it and have the energy to work at it.

2. Be yourself.

As you said: “Throw a tantrum and dance around to sub par hard rock in ’shocking’ dressing up box clothes”

was pretty much what punk became, which is why anyone with any brains moved on. I don’t believe in outsiderhood – I think we’re all part of the whole, which is why The Pistols getting on the Grundy Show and the front page of The Mirror was the best thing that could have happened. It was a genuinely subversive blip, that didn’t last long but, like I said, remained an exemplarary example and inspired millions in ways they couldn’t have dreamed of at the time.

I see you slagging off my opinions but you don’t seem to have put across any of your own. Do you think that owning a dog on a bit of string is going to bring down the beef industry?