Six Minute War – Six Minute War Records – 1980

Posted on November 13, 2008November 13, 2008 by Penguin

Nurses / Youth Culture / Protect And Survive

Six Minute War arrived on the scene in 1980, exploring minimal lengths as well as minimal lyrics and instrumentation. It might not be too wicked to call them the poorer relation to Crisis or the thinking man’s Heretics, but you get the idea. Their 11-song debut was entitled 33.3: the next release was More Short Songs (though there were only 5 of them and relatively long in 3 minutes a piece roughly). Their 4-track swansong was (naturally) Slightly Longer Songs. After that a couple of them ended up forming Fallout, and Rob Taylor later joined Andrew Beer in Concrete and 400 Blows.

The majority of these tracks were recorded at Street Level Studios and engineered by Kif Kif, who at that time had left Here And Now and was performing in 012. Both of these bands are featured on this site somewhere, as is more Fallout material.

My copy of this record was actually pressed up in 1984, the original release had the same sleeve but printed in plain black and white.

70 comments

Chris
November 13, 2008 at 12:55 am

Absolutely BRILLIANT record. “Nurses” is an utter classic. One of those records I still play at least every month or so. Fuck! Did this really come out in 1980? I remember buying this the day after hearing it on John Peel. Actually, i’ve got a funny feeling he may have played all 3 songs from the A side on the same show. In fact, i’m off to put this and the fallout “Conscription” EP on now.

As an aside, would the 6 Minute War EPs have been amongst the first singles to feature a photocopied A4 sheet as a sleeve? I’m pretty sure that apart from that first Scritti Politti single they were, though i’m sure Nic will be along to correct me shortly 🙂
The Punk / Post Punk Tribe
November 13, 2008 at 5:34 am

Awesome i was searching for stuff from them and fallout

http://www.myspace.com/salamitactics
Nic
November 13, 2008 at 9:51 am

I loved (and still do) Six Minute War…
Energetic – if slightly ramshackle – music (the drummer always seemed to run over the end of the song!), engaged – if slightly hysterical – lyrics, and the D.I.Y. focus which was very inspiring…

Yeah – 1980 Chris! It’s a long time ago! 🙂
Apart from the odd single, they were certainly one of the first to use the ‘foldover A4’ sleeve (along with ‘Skank Bloc Bologna’)…
On a ‘Creeping Nobodies’ tip: I remember this coloured cover as the cover for the first pressing and the B&W cover as the cover for the 2nd…

Funnily enough, I was hunting out old Napalm Death ‘memorabilia’ last Wednesday and found part of an interview with Six Minute War: the group make a cryptic reference to the people who wrote Fack fanzine and shotguns…sounds like a blast!
andus
November 13, 2008 at 11:47 am

Awful Band. although they did write fairly decent lyrics, I have their Slightly Longer Songs EP: pink cover, no year on it, reminds me little of Joy Division, but its even worser than the tracks above, But they were one of the few bands who had the guts to slag off Crass, so I’ve been told.

Anyway Nic have you heard of this band Hysterical Combat.

but the parsons poseurs are everywhere
seeing us they stop and stair
punks in isolation but we don’t care
this is Bootle and it ain’t fair.

off to church every Sunday they go
the parson poseurs are always on show

The Parsons poseurs, classic track. but they seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth, Just like the Pig Brothers, can’t find them anywhere either. used to have their 12inch, The Blubberhouses, with the brilliant track Excessive on it.
Chris
November 13, 2008 at 12:35 pm

yes, Nic, I was going to say that about the cover but thought i’d leave it to you 😉 But you’re right. In fact, I think the second pressing with the B&W sleeve was 1982 as I remember nicking a copy from a record shop by sliding it inside the ‘gatefold’ of some single on Crass records (perhaps Poisons, Snipers or Cptn Sensible?)

You should post up that interview Nic, they never seemed to feature in many zines. Even though in couple of years post-Feeding of 5,000 Six Minute War & The Rondos were probably about the only records I can recall with a very distinct Crass influence. Think i can only remember seeing a brief interview with them in “No More of That” (Steve Ignorant on cover, also another band interviewed called The Milkmen) where they may have talked about the SWP a bit.

I really liked that 6MW single with the pink sleeve and the drum machine, though it is very very different from their other stuff. Remember buying it from Rough Trade whilst down in London recording the 2nd Apostles EP.

Andus, didn’t Hysterical Combat play with Chaotic Subversion and Distemper 84 ? haha, YOU’VE MADE THEM UP, AINTCHA???
andus
November 13, 2008 at 1:03 pm

Made them up !!. I wouldn’t do a thing like that. I remembered them cause virtually every song that wrote had a reference to Bootle. Made them up, Jesus !…
Nic
November 13, 2008 at 1:03 pm

“the thinking man’s Heretics”: classic!

Ah, Chris! ‘No More of That’ – thanks mate: I’d been trying to remember the name of the fanzine which featured The Milkmen for years (as one of their members – Ian Crowe – went on to be in a few ‘Industrial’ groups)…

I might scan in that SMW interview and send you a copy – short but interesting…
However, it may be slightly illegible…
I still have a compulsive habit of obliterating text and images (by underlining and colouring in), so many of the items I still have are buried under a mosaic of patterns and colour and thus won’t scan very well…
I’ll have a look…
andus
November 13, 2008 at 1:07 pm

Never heard of the Milkmen, but I have a record by Thee Milkshakes. Out Of Control. Were they the cousins of The Milkmen or something.
Nic
November 13, 2008 at 1:08 pm

Here’s the ‘Excessive’ video, Andus, my old mucker…
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6oD4K4RG32M
(As a comment below the vid points out, they seemed to play all the time in Brum in the mid-80’s)…

If you would like to dload their material, try here:
http://phoenixhairpins.blogspot.com/2007/04/pigbros-12s.html

Fuzz Townsend (their ex drummer) drinks in the Hare and Hounds on and off…As far as I know, he is also one of the owners of The Rainbow boozer in Digbeth…
Nic
November 13, 2008 at 1:10 pm

Not quite, Andus…although Thee Milkshakes were a total Garage doss…
Saw them live a couple of times at the Barrel Organ…
andus
November 13, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Nice one Nik, now I looked on you tube for them a few months back and found nothing, Yeah I saw them play a few times in Brum, The played the Mermaid before Daz Russell’s entry, they generally played gigs with The Three Johns, Nightingales, crowd. I didn’t know the drummer owned the Rainbow, so I did my poetry in that pub last November and didn’t know the band I was seeking was right above me, ha, I remember the singer was the spitting image of Dirk Bogarte. Cheers for the link I am gonna enjoy this.

Before I go another band I have been looking for, I’ll pick your Enclopedic brain for, did a track called Lucy Luue. or Loe, Lue, or Loo, whatever, Can’t remember their name, the lyrics were rather dirty, ‘Unzip me and suck me Lucy Loo’ etc.
andus
November 13, 2008 at 2:00 pm

Excessive amounts of alcohol, excessive amounts of alcohol.

best lyric ever written,
John Serpico
November 14, 2008 at 1:24 pm

‘More Short Songs’ – a classic record. I remember Seething Wells once writing that Hagar The Womb were “pure” – the actual article is somewhere on KYPP somewhere, I think – but its Six Minute War who fit that description far better. I remember buying this too (in the black and white sleeve) in a shop in Bristol and I would sometimes wonder how such records found their way there? I used to buy KYPP zine from a comic shop called Forever People in Bristol too (on Park Street) and I wonder how they got there as well? Did Tony D ever know that his zine was available in Bristol? But anyway, Six Minute War: “CBS, Small Wonder, is there really any difference?” Brilliant.
Chris
November 14, 2008 at 3:27 pm

Penguin, I think you’re gonna have to post up their other EP just for the classic anti-crass ditty ‘camera’. Actually, thinking about it, and their SWP rhetoric 6 Minute War were probably trying to be like Crisis more than anyone else, only their couldn’t play very well. 🙂

Did anyone ever see 6MW live? I don’t remember ever even coming across any live tapes of them ‘back in tha day’.
luggy
November 14, 2008 at 5:19 pm

Saw them a few times, were a bit dour as SWP types tend to be. Quite liked the vinyl but live they were nothing special.
Graham Burnett
November 14, 2008 at 6:13 pm

We (Autumn Poison) once did a gig with them after they’d changed their name to Fallout, can’t remember that much about them though
John Serpico
November 17, 2008 at 12:21 pm

Were Six Minute War really “SWP types”? And “dour”? There’s no sign of this on ‘More Short Songs’ at all – in fact, quite the opposite. Oh well.
luggy
November 17, 2008 at 4:19 pm

Not sure if they were card-carrying members but were definitely lefties rather than anarchos & struck me as being over serious. Still, it was a long time ago & my memory’s hazy so maybe someone else has better memories of them than me.
Graham Burnett
November 18, 2008 at 1:11 am

Switched on my TV to see a drama
But all that was on was Panorama…

Great lyric, a real classic….

One of the very first songs I wrote back in 1979/80 for Enola Death was called ‘World Peace Treaty’, and contained the line; “what we need is a world peace treaty / but our leaders say ‘No chance, sweetie'”

Unfortunately the co-singer of the band refused to sing it so it never got recorded for posterity….
Nic
November 18, 2008 at 10:11 am

Six Minute War definitely had an SWP bent (from the interviews I read at the time and from the lyrics): much more ‘Marxist’ than any other position…

Here’s a link to a live tape:
http://433rpm.blogspot.com/2008/09/pitfallsix-minute-war-tape-finger-in.html

Another classic lyric, Graham:
“So you want Anarchy – Anarchy’s your way,
But who in the long run will have to pay?
You’d like to call it freedom to do what you want,
Freedom to shoot a bloke if you think he’s wrong”
andus
November 18, 2008 at 1:35 pm

‘freedom to shoot a bloke if you think he’s wrong’, isn’t that what the nazi’s and the commies do, but i suppose it depends on your view of anarchists, if you view them as libertarian humanitarian types then you will disagree with the above lyrics, if you are a cynic like me you’ll view anarchists as just totalitarian commies in disguise.

‘Marxism and National Socialism are basically the same thing’

Adolf Hilter
John Serpico
November 18, 2008 at 1:47 pm

SMW a bunch of Lefties? That’s a bit of a shame, really. And another teenage dream shattered. Next we’ll be getting informed that Crass were in fact a bunch of hippies…
andus
November 18, 2008 at 1:49 pm

‘I cannot share the hopes of the Bolsheviks any more than those of the Egyptian anchorites; I regard both as tragic delusions destined to bring upon the world centuries of darkness and futile violence…. The principles of the Sermon on the Mount are admirable, but their effect upon average human nature was very different from what was intended. Those who followed Christ did not learn to love their enemies or turn the other cheek… The hopes which inspire Communism are, in the main, as admirable as those instilled by the Sermon on the Mount, but they are held as fanatically, and are likely to do as much harm. Cruelty lurks in our instincts, and fanaticism is a camouflage for cruelty. Fanatics are seldom genuinely humane, and those who sincerely dread cruelty will be slow to adopt a fanatical creed…The war has left throughout Europe a mood of disillusionment and despair which calls aloud for a new religion, as the only force capable of giving people the energy to live vigorously. Bolshevism has supplied the new religion ‘

Bertrand Russell.
andus
November 18, 2008 at 1:52 pm

I think Crass were more akin to philosophers than anything else.
Sam
November 18, 2008 at 8:05 pm

‘Course they fucking were…
John No Last Name
November 18, 2008 at 10:12 pm

I think Crass were more akin to haberdashers than anything else.
“that looks great on you Sir, but perhaps you might consider it in black?”
Penguin • Post Author •
November 18, 2008 at 10:24 pm

Class retort John… 🙂 Where have you been recently? Hope you are good.
Andus pretty sure the members of Crass would not consider themselves philosophers mate!
andus
November 18, 2008 at 11:06 pm

That’s because they’re philosophers.

Penny Rimbaud was certainly philosopher of sorts, and a poet, poetry and philosopher often goes hand in hand, you should read his books, and Pete Wright was a bit of a philosopher as well.

I know they called themselves Anarchists, doesn’t anarchism have a hard philosophical edge, from Plato’s Republic to Crass’s Anarchy.
Penguin • Post Author •
November 18, 2008 at 11:11 pm

Whatever you say Andus old bean. I have been with Pete and Penny at different times in the last couple of months and yes they are intelligent people for sure, but again I think they would be slightly wary and a little embarrased at being called philosophers…but what ever rocks your boat is all good and fine.
andus
November 18, 2008 at 11:36 pm

At the end of the day I suppose it depends on what your definition of philosophy is, or interpretation.

Here is one definition I found.

Meaning of philosophy

Definitions of philosophy

1. [n] – the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics

2. [n] – any personal belief about how to live or how to deal with a situation

looks to me like they were philosophers

they were pacifists, pacifism is a philosophy to start with. they also had personal belief’s on how to live
andus
November 19, 2008 at 12:07 am

When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.

Lewis Carrol. Through the looking glass
Penguin • Post Author •
November 19, 2008 at 12:29 am

Lewis Carrol, now your talking Andus…more please.
andus
November 19, 2008 at 1:07 am

Why certainly.

HUMPTY DUMPTY:…There’s glory for you!
ALICE: I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory’.
HUMPTY DUMPTY: Of course you don’t – till I tell you.
I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument’.
ALICE: But ‘glory doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down
argument’.
HUMPTY DUMPTY: When I use a word, it means
just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.
ALICE: The question is, whether you can make words
mean so many different things.
HUMPTY DUMPTY: The question is, which is to be the
master – that’s all…They’ve a temper, some of them –
particularly verbs: they’re the proudest – adjectives you
can do anything with, but not verbs – however, I can
manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s
what I say!
ALICE: Would you tell me, please, what that means?
HUMPTY DUMPTY: Now you talk like a reasonable
child… I meant by ‘impenetrability’ that we’ve had
enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if
you’d mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose
you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.
ALICE: That’s a great deal to make one word mean.
HUMPTY DUMPTY: When I make a word do a lot of
work like that…I always pay it extra,

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland . Lewis Carrol.