Lack Of Knowledge – Southern Studios Session – 1984

Danger To Life / State Of Being / Tank Trap / Last Victory / Flame Thrower

The Bunker / Disaster Level / Crash Barrier / Weapons Range

Born Leader

Presenting the ‘rough’ mixes of the LP ‘The Sirens Are Back’ which was recorded at Southern Studios and released on Corpus Christi Records in the latter part of 1984. These tracks are the studio recordings mixed down but without the overdubs that appeared on the finalised released product.

Alma Road’s finest, the pride of Ponders End, a built up industrial wasteland in the Lea Valley between Edmonton and Chingford, an area brilliantly photographed by B.A. Nana of nearby neighbours Crass, residing in North Weald (a much more pleasant oasis of calm, compared to the grim Ponders End). The photos are featured all over the foldout sleeve of the Crass Records 7″ single, fittingly entitled ‘Grey’.

Lack Of Knowledge were a breath of fresh air in the early 1980’s Crass clone bands of the day. This single on Crass Records is one of the most sought after by Crass label enthusiasts I am led to believe.

Always more Joy Division than Conflict, the band shared many gigs with the ‘Anarcho’ bands of the day, and played in all the major venues that the great swarms of ‘pogoing men in black’ would converge and throw insults at the band! Venues such as Wapping Autonomy Center, Centro Iberico and the band also performed at the  squatted Zig Zag Club all dayer in December 1982.

Some history already written out on the SOUTHERN.NET site:

In early ’79, Bert left to join a real band called The Position. Real, to the extent that they actually had a singer. Bert immediately embarked upon the mission of writing their songs for them, and penned some absolute classics. If they’d put out any records at the time they’d be on everyones ‘wants’ lists today. Tony joined the band as rhythm guitarist in time to cut six tracks at ‘Front Room Studios’ in September ’79. He was promptly sacked two months later for not showing up to a rehearsal, choosing instead to let off fireworks in the streets as it was ‘Guy Fawkes Night’. Tony and Paul got back together and then spent the next six months changing the groups name and members every other week. ‘Assorted Tools’- one gig supporting The Position. ‘Lack Of Knowledge’- one gig without a drummer but with a singer called Frank Hodgson, and another gig as a five-piece this time with John ‘Einstien’ on drums and Danny Boyce on guitar. (Danny was to tragically die within a couple of years of an accidental heroin overdose). Tony and Paul then decided to record a couple of songs to send in to the Crass label for inclusion on volume two of the compilation series, ‘Bullshit Detector’. Rather than use the LOK name, they came up with (or possibly Bernard again) the immortal ‘Trio Of Testicles’. The tracks, somehow, were over-looked.

By now, Headache had split and Dan was now looking to start a new band. He offered his vocal talents to the wandering minstrels, who nearly collapsed with shock. After all Dan was someone who’d actually made a record. It was as if Roger Daltrey had asked them to ‘maybe, get together and, you know, try out a few ideas’. The new group practised in ‘Bedsit’ studios every Saturday and wrote stacks of material straight away. Christened ‘English Assasin’ after one of the songs, they played their first gig, (inevitably, with Bert back in the drum stool), at a party in someones house. With parents away, it was obviously a great idea to get a full band to play in the front room. At least until the neighbours called the police, anyway. Still unable to find a drummer, they had to take the only sensible option left open. Simply walk up to a complete stranger and ask them if they’d be the drummer. ‘Chief’ (real name Jason Powell, although I’ve never heard anyone ever use it) was on his way to school, in traditional school uniform of blazer, tie and black bondage trousers, when asked if he could play drums. “No”. Well, what about if we a) buy a drum kit and b) you learn to play them while rehearsing with us. Easy. After managing to obtain a room at the Ponders End Youth Club, which was immediately painted entirely in white, a measly collection of equipment was installed and rehearsals took place every night, and at weekends, until Chief had learnt how to play. It took about two months. He’d gone from never having sat at a kit, to playing whole songs, properly, within a matter of weeks. A name change back to Lack Of Knowledge was decided upon, all new stuff written, and in March ’81 they travelled miles and did their first recordings in a ‘real’ studio.

We wanted to put out a record but didn’t really like the results, so, re-recorded some of it in a place called ‘Octave Electronics’. We’d played our first gig with a stage and PA system in another youth club, and ‘Octave’ was the PA Company. They told us they had a studio in Edmonton, so it worked out great. It was also cheaper. We decided to put out a 7″ ourselves. We took a bus to the pressing plant, then three weeks later went back and brought home 500 singles on the bus. We put every single one of those bastards in the sleeves we’d had printed and then took them ’round to all the independent stores and distributors that we could find. God only knows how they sold them. We waited outside the BBC’s ‘Broadcasting House’ to give a copy to John Peel, who played it on his show. Not thinking that he’d actually really play it, we missed it. We took a copy to give to Crass at their house in the wilds of Epping Forest, and amazingly, Penny Rimbaud offered to put out our next record on the label. It took another year to get round to recording, but it was well worth the wait. By the time we did get around to the recording, Chief had left the band (he may have been sacked!), to be replaced by Philip Barker. Philip was a fan of LOK and drummer of another local band Klee; who had blagged a gig or two with us. Furious rehearsals at our new luxury complex, ‘Waller Studios’ (Dannys’ dads’ garage), and off we trooped to Southern Studios in London N22.

Paul and Tony, especially, were fans of Crass from around ’78, when they’d heard their demo tape at Small Wonder records. Instantly hooked, they bought everything the band released, went to as many shows as they could and became friendly with them, a friendship which still lasts today. LOK only ever got to play one show with Crass, at a huge all-day squat gig on 18 December 1982 at the ‘Zig-Zag’ club in West London (after which we went and played another show that night!). The record was to be an EP, like all Crass releases, called ‘Grey’. Penny Rimbaud produced it, Andy Palmer, Crass’ guitarist, took sleeve photos, and Gee did all the artwork. We were like one of those ‘Crass Bands’. Except all the Anarcho ‘fab-erati’ at the ‘Anarchy Centre’ hated us, as we didn’t conform to what their stupid idea of ‘Anarcho-Punk’ was about. To us, it was a real record on a real label and it got in the real independent charts, and after more gigs, it was time to start thinking about ‘The Album’. In ’82, Crass had started another offshoot label called ‘Corpus Christi’, on which bands that had made singles could release albums, and they duly offered us the chance to do one. Paul decided to leave the band during the rehearsals for this record, but said he’d stay on until after it was released. Recording again took place at Southern, this time with the band co-producing with the engineer; Mel Jefferson. Farce was descended into when Mel kept referring to bits of the songs as ‘middle eights’ and the like. Stubborn ’til the last, we refused to acknowledge these types of expressions and also pretended that we didn’t know what ‘cans’ were; ‘headphones’ was the correct un-rockist term. Mel also claimed that we were “competing with U2 and Simple Minds”. “What utter fucking drivel” was our response. By the time we’d finished, poor old Mel had had enough of us, for the time being at least. By the time ‘Sirens Are Back’ came out in 1984, we’d already been rehearsing with a new bassist, Karen; Tony’s girlfriend. She’d obviously, true to LOK form, never touched a bass guitar in her life, but nonetheless, was told to ‘fucking hurry up and learn it’. She managed to pass the initiation to LOK by not complaining after playing her first ever gig three weeks after having a baby. We also had a change of rehearsal space, this time to an annex of a disused, burnt out multi-storey car park. Crucially, it was only twenty yards from Karen’s house, and; we were able to store our equipment in her mum’s shed. Transporting it to the room was made easier by the assistance of some of the many discarded shopping carts left strewn around the estate. It wasn’t all sweetness and light, as we had to pay for the first time ever. Four quid a night.

For a complete retrospective of the ‘overdubbed’ Corpus Christi and Crass recorded works of Lack Of Knowledge get the CD entitled ‘Grey’ from Southern or Amazon.

For a listen to Lack Of Knowledge cracking debut 7″ release on the band’s own label, use the search function, and enter the band’s name.

For my dodgy Zig Zag day crowd recording of the days bands use the search function and enter Zig Zag Club Squat.

Lack Of Knowledge official website HERE