Rudimentary Peni – London Musicians Collective Camden London NW1 – 20/05/82

Blind Dogs / Dead Living / B-Ward / Zero Again / Inside / Media Person / Sacrifice / Only Human / Teenage Time Killer / The Gardener / Hearse / Tower of Strength / Dutchmen

Indebted to Nick Hydra for sending this material over to Penguin Towers, a Rudimentary Peni performance to go along with the other ones uploaded onto this KYPP site which were all uploaded from the original cassette tapes. This performance was recorded somewhere in the crowd at the L.M.C and is of a decent quality although a little tinny, but still, it is Rudimentary Peni and any tapes by this band are rare enough. Welwyn Garden City Ludwick Hall May 1982 was the only time I saw this band and as most people in the hall were waiting for Subhumans to come on stage Rudimentary Peni were largely ignored. Of course now the band have been elevated to mythical status and are still producing some great material in a beautifully sporadic way.

The text below outlining some of the centres that Rudimentary Peni performed at on a semi regular basis (ie more than once!) including the L.M.C. has been wrenched violently, kicking and screaming, from John Eden’s excellant uncarved.org site.

The Autonomy Centre, Wapping, London E1: August 1981 – March 1982

Organized by the London Autonomists and friends (some of whom disliked each other intensely) including Vince Stevenson, Charlotte Baggins, Martin Wright, Dave Couch, Ronan Bennett, Iris Mills and Fabian Thomsett with assistance from Andy Martin, Tony D, Trevor, Luggy, the people that later formed the Black Sheep Co-op and the Kill Your Pet Puppy Collective, Rob Challice, Rob Vex. Terry Watson, Mitch, John Apostle, Grant Matthews from Rudimentary Peni, various Hagars, Dagenham Pete, Rachel, Mark Ripper and Fod were regulars at the centre and helped out on occasions. Some of the money for the centre came from a benefit concert that UB40 played in Woolwich, along with the profit that came from the sales of  the Crass / Poison Girls 7″ single. The bands that played there were numerous but those who appeared regularly included: Rudimentary Peni, Part 1, The Mob, The Sinyx, Anthrax, Conflict, Crass, The Apostles, Cold War, The Eratics, Amsterdamned, What Is Oil, Twelve Cubic Feet, The S Haters, The Boiled Eggs and many more whose names have become immersed in the mists of time. Apart from live concerts there were book fairs, fanzine conventions, discussion groups, films, debates and political workshops.

The Centro Iberico, Westbourne Park, London W8: April 1982 – August 1982

Organized by The Mob (especially Mark Wilson) and JC who set everything up with the Spanish Anarchists who were already resident there. It was JC that got the electricity turned on  – the  Spanish Anarchists generosity was appreciated by sadly only a small minority of the hundreds of folk who attended the events – so to Isabel Anderson, Miguel Garcia and friends goes out a rather belated thank-you. All the people involved in The Autonomy Centre were involved here although by now Crass and Conflict were involved in their own problems (especially legal ones due to their records – police ones included) and the ubiquitous Kill Your Pet Puppy Collective occasionally took over completely which meant there was less actual organization, far too much chaos but generally more fun! The bands who played there were similar to those who played The Autonomy Centre but were perhaps a little more varied in idiom: Rudimentary Peni, The Mob, Part 1, The Sinyx, Rubella Ballet, Twelve Cubic Feet, Cold War, The Apostles, UK Decay, Dirt, Assassins Of Hope, The Cult Of The Supreme Being, Conflict, Riot/Clone, Blood & Roses, Youth In Asia and many more. Nearly all the events here were concerts although there were two film shows and a few theatre events which were very amateur but none the worse for that. There were, of course, continual theatre performances but since these were often part of the usual behavior of the audience they don’t really count!

The LMC, Camden, London NWI: September 1982 – February 1983

Organized by The Apostles and East London Workers Against Racism, this was more an alternative venue than a club. The organization here was minimal and suffered from a lack of PA equipment, an abundance of people who shouldn’t really have existed in a society that had long ago discovered penicillin and a financial situation strictly from Rab C Nesbit. The bands who played here were, though, committed and varied: The Replaceable Headz, The Mob, 4 Minute Warning, Zounds, Rudimentary Peni, Cold War, Twelve Cubic Feet, The Apostles, Flux Of Pink Indians, The Good Missionaries, Youth In Asia, Fallout, New 7th Music and a variety of poets and performance artists plus many other punk bands. Music events were the only things on offer here as bills had to be paid and the hall had to be hired. People have a tendency not to rush out to Camden from Gravesend and pay £1.50 to debate the politics of determinism versus free will… a pity really.

The Recession Club. Hackney, London E8: April 1983 – January 1984

Organised by The Apostles and Larry Peterson. The hall was attached to the recording studio used by The Apostles who were responsible for the hire of it and the equipment while Larry Peterson was responsible for the bands that actually played there. An amusing facet of The Recession Club was that the members of the audience were often better known than the bands booked to perform there! Those who did play have either disappeared into obscurity or are now very famous indeed: The Apostles, The Nocturnal Emissions, Attrition, Coil, The Unkommuniti, Peter North, The Invisible Band, New 7th Music, Hagar The Womb, In The Nursery, The June Brides, Pus, Napalm Death, Verbal Warning, Bet Lynch, The Replacement Headz, The Paramedic Squad, Youth In Asia, and a variety of poets, performance artists and other industrial / electronic groups. There were no events other than live music and most of the bands that played were not punk bands, largely due to Andy Martin’s impatience with and ambivalence towards such people who he considered to have become passé and to have outlived what little usefulness they ever had. He goes on to say that “the industrial music scene had taken over and it was here that the original punk spirit had begun to grow and mutate into some huge, many tentacled but often beautifully subtle intelligence network only occasionally marred by poseurs and butterfly collectors”.

Andy Martin from SMILE Magazine issue 12, 1994