The Apostles / Primal Chaos / Black Flag / The Heretics
Man about town, obscure punk enthusiast and general good guy, Chris Low late of Political Asylum, The Apostles, Oi Polloi, in the 1980’s and The Parkinsons in 1990’s, handed this tape to me on his birthday along with a load of others. I have uploaded this late because it is unfortunately been dubbed / copied onto tape by horrid mono means, i.e it only comes out of one speaker…bummer! Two other tapes Conflict at Brixton Ace 1982 supplied by Mark ‘Vegas’ Palmer starts off stereo then clicks into mono. Sadly to say Lugworm supplied a cassette tape recorded from Spaceward Studios of The Mobs LP recorded there. Not interested in The Mob LP as such but there is an alternative mix of ‘Stay’ which I was absolutely interested in. This track also plays on one speaker. Point of fact – nothing wrong with my cassette playback system!
Any how, I do not like putting up faulty or mono cassettes onto this site, but this has to be an exception because of the rarity value. The Apostles, Primal Chaos, Black Flag, and The Heretics all for the price of…well nothing. Not sure of the history of the tape, no doubt Chris will comment on it. Not sure of the line up, track listing or anything else. Again I hope Chris or his chum Nic will comment. On the B-Side of the tape is a Flux live gig and a Napalm Death practice. All I the info I got what was written on the tape itself, just band names basically. I actually have not heard this tape yet cos wifey needed me to do something so I just let it play…hope Bucks Fizz does not come on half way through the recordings!
Info from Nic:
The Apostles:
Pete The Plectrum (later formed part of ‘The Hunt’ on the first LP)
Some Men Are Born To Rule (the first song the group ever wrote)
Antichrist
? (This isn’t from this time period if I remember correctly – it features the drum machine: is it ‘The Island’, Chris?)
Solidaridad Proletaria (This is the original title at the time of recording: it was later changed to ‘A New World In Our Hearts’ and was re-recorded on both tape and vinyl)
Killing for Peace
Proletarian Autonomy (later re-recorded on tape and vinyl)
Time Bomb
Stoke Newington 8 (later re-recorded on tape and vinyl)
Primal Chaos – Rehearsal 1982:
Systems Slave (This isn’t part of their ‘Fighting for a Future’ rehearsal tape)
Black Flag – Rehearsal 1981:
The Master Race (Earliest version of this song that I heard)
Waiting for the All Clear (later recorded by The Apostles, but this version features Matt Mcleod on vocals
The Heretics – Rehearsal 1980:
No Character
Jake from Heretics on stage with Iggs of Crass 1979
The Heretics
Nic
June 10, 2008 at 12:01 pmPunks rape too…
I’m wary of any kind of mob and attendant pack mentality: back in the early 1980’s, there was definitely a sense of the mob among many ‘Punks’ (manifest in the incongrous combination of spiked hair and leather jacket, moustache and football scarf). Across the UK, ‘Punks’ were separated down tribal lines (Home town, football team, area) in much the same way as every other youth: I went to some horrendously violent concerts where local regional and sporting rivalries were played out in the most aggressive manner, by ‘Punks’ on ‘Punks’…
In fact, the ‘hardcore’ scene was a welcome escape from all of that macho tribalist rubbish (although it had its own negative aspects as well)…
Having said that, I’ve never been a Joiner…
😉
Sam
June 10, 2008 at 3:15 pmLike I said, I’m not condoning broomstick rape or any other kind of pack mentality but we were guilty too. Mugging (and we did several) is incredibly cowardly. Generally this consisted of finding a lone, rich-looking nerd down a darkened street. As you described in your Paris experience the victim was usually outnumbered. How scarred were these people from the experience? We also snatched handbags – another easy target. At least the lovely Ken tended to pick on people bigger than himself (he was a short arse as I remember), although like skinheads everywhere he knew he had a crew behind him around the corner if he needed it. Me and one of our friends mugged this woman around Christmas time. She had 2 weeks wages plus a Christmas bonus in a wage packet in her handbag. We felt bad and contemplated returning it to her doorstep for 5 minutes before going off to buy gear. Our friend was mugged in his car a few years ago during a drug deal and had a cheesewire put round his throat from the backseat. He said that woman was the first thing that popped into his mind. We also tended to steal from ‘Paki Shops’ as Asians were less likely to fight back and how we celebrated when they caught a couple of us down Kilburn, called the police and the law told them to let us go. Nice when institutionalised racism is on your side.
I don’t know if you’ve read ‘Among the Thugs’ by Bill Buford but it’s a great investigation into not only football violence, but pack violence in general. I recognized my earlier self in there a lot. He talks about the act and thrill of transgression – a window shatters and the mood changes and things start to kick off. The thrill of running down the middle of a main road, overturning and burning cars, the rhythm of running in step with fifty other people and the act of losing one’s own identity within the mob. Leaders emerge and push the violence to new levels, individuals try to stand out in single exhibitionist acts. Whether the enemy is ‘the pigs’ or Millwall it’s essentially the same thrill. It is an incredible adrenaline rush but I don’t think it’s very brave.
I think people like Ken were intimidating because they understood how to channel hate and understood the power of social transgression. I could always handle myself but I don’t think I truly ‘hated’ until later on in life. I think heroin (and to be honest what happened between us all) had a lot to do with opening up this emotion in me. Cross normal social boundaries first and people usually shit themselves. It’s this sudden breakdown of normal discourse that frightens people – not physical violence. In the rare situations that I’ve needed to in recent years, I find I can turn this on and people have always backed off. It’s one of the really useful things I took from the time. Don’t know if you remember Perry Buckland from school Jake? He was this weedy Irish kid from Kilburn who went around mugging people for crisps and other treasures. He had some older, hard friends but he understood early on the power of crossing barriers. He was imprisoned for murdering someone outside The Moonlight Club and I heard he hung himself in prison. There was a ‘Perry Buckland is innocent’ campaign years ago. ‘The fuck he is’ I thought.
Sam
June 10, 2008 at 6:21 pmHopefully I won’t have to say ‘I’m not an advocate of broomstick rape’ again.
baron von zubb
June 10, 2008 at 7:14 pmVery interesting post, Sam. No one here is suggesting you advocate anything. You come over, to me at least, as very sane and rather wise (you bugger).
You hit on something in that skinheads were ‘better’ at channelling hate.
Its that exact skill that i learnt and therefore became unworried by them in the couple of years after we first left home.
Rather than being scared of getting hurt – a shitter- I realised that i was actually scared of hurting others. And that, it seemed at the time, needed to be overcome. I discovered it one day when Slug & me after having opened up a squat were confronted by some security. We had weapons & somehow this meathead ended up on the ground in front of me as i was about to bludgeon his head with a drain pipe.
His eyes shot pure terror at me & i stopped short of his head. But from that day on I realised I could have done it.
Presumably violent people have that lesson early on in life.
We were undoubtably guilty of much silliness, thankfully of a minor nature.
And as Nic has said there was punk instigated violence.
Sure punks rape too. And yeah there is similarities in pack violence.
But & the but is real for me, skinheads or at least the more common BM variety, for whatever reason alligned themselves with power. There intended victims were almost always weaker then them, pakies, queers etc. That is the essence of facism.
However foolish & cowardly we may have been by fighting the OB we were fighting a force stronger than ourselves. IE the state & its apparatus.
Its a different mentality.
Different fights attract different types. You yourself & Pork & maybe others here too may have adopted skinhead fashion. But you all still hung around with your mates who were punkists.
Presumably there was a reason for that.
Presumably knocking about with a crew of boneheads was rubbish, because what they were into was rubbish. And I spose that makes them, well, rubbish.
I agree with the social transggression argument except for one thing. From many perspectives we were all young men who had to get violent.
But in my mind, possibly mistakenly, there is still a difference between fascist & non fascsist violence. And most boneheads were attracted to fascist violence.
Now i would never get involved in any sort of violence. Social insurrection? Nah never mind, the war if there is one, is internal, a problem of the mind, so thats where we have to do the work.
But if fascism ever reared its ugly head again? I would willingly get involved.
We are lucky here. OK we are not free but it aint Iran or Burma (both places i’ve spent time in) and both places run by those with no problem in frequently using the methods employed by Sammy and his ilk to stay in power.
Hope this post doesnt turn out as a load of rambling waffle…
baron von zubb
June 10, 2008 at 7:24 pmThe Perry example is very poiniant. Little squirt was tiny but scary.
How could I have been so scared of him?He was a wimp.It was the social transgression theory in practice.
By the time we left school (he was in my classes a lot both in Newton)he wasn’t scary as he had been diagnosed with aspergers or something. Me & him had quite a laugh at the teachers expense in the end.
He certainly wasn’t innocent of the murders or much else.
Did you ever meet Tony B’s brother Wallie? Same sort of thing, stabbed a jeweller 20 times. Spent most his life inside for it. Just came out & died of lung failure or something the other day.
Tony’s always said he was his name, and the times I met him he seemed just another user. But as I’ve tried to explain to his nephew-my god child-innocent he wasnt.
Sam
June 11, 2008 at 4:29 am600 responses to: The Heretics – We’re punk! We’re Jews! Get used to it!
baron von zubb
June 11, 2008 at 8:46 amSome bright spark is gonna point out that 568 posts were by you & me…
BTW who were Adam & the Ants? Seeing this is ‘our’ thread I can say that?
And why did he end up living in Chalk Farm?
BVZ posts may contain such jems as ‘…essence of fascism..’
But give him credit for encapsualting the essence of bad spelling.
Its traumer sir.i knew people who knew people who noo peeple hoo sufard cos they noo peeple in the concentration camps.Ruined my concentration sir.
[that talkpunk site is huge.trawled it a bit last night, the thread about punks n skins in ’77.
Thought it might contain that bit of info. But couldnt find it. Point us to the right thread and we can get raucus over there too.
The H band should definately be voted as the best & worst punk band ever in their polls…
Jah Pork Pie
June 11, 2008 at 11:52 am@Sam-> “Hopefully I won’t have to say ‘I’m not an advocate of broomstick rape’ again.”
They haven’t got you in to do the screenplay for “Harry Potter And The Night Of The Flying Clitoris” then? Shame 😉
Jah Pork Pie
June 11, 2008 at 12:12 pmThe one thing that the skinhead/rude boy image did for me was to obviate the need to deconstruct every detail of the way I looked when I was a punk to the punk image police circa 1980.
“Why are you wearing that? Don’t you realise it means [x]”
“If you’re into [y] you should be wearing [z]”.
Sometimes I just liked to live the life, rather than force myself to be 10 feet above myself, analysing the significance of it all! Paradoxically, if you look the same as the other guy, he sometimes takes it as read that you might not think the same as him. Perhaps that’s not a paradox though, as even if you look different to the other guy, if he’s got enough between his ears he may figure out that one has to separate the message from the medium!
I’m not tempted in any way to say that people wore the skinhead gear ironically (that would have been dangerous as well as patronising). Simply, I was a council estate kid and there was part of me that wanted an identity which recognised that and differentiated me from the more exclusive end of punk (which became The Blitz Kids I guess). And yes, the clothes and music were cool too – that 2-Tone suit of mine that Russ apparently burned to death in was a very nice piece of schmutter, and the 2-Tone bands were the most exciting live stuff I’d been to for ages (if you define “exciting” as “great music and lyrics” [Specials, Madness, Selecter] as opposed to “the gig got smashed up by the NF” [Crass]). It was a nice little holiday away from all the decrepitude, death, sadness and squalor. But that’s all it was.
Jah Pork Pie
June 11, 2008 at 12:45 pm@Sam-> I think it WAS the violence with Ken and the like, for me. Transgressing social norms was one of the interesting things about punk for me: watching people’s reactions if I skipped down the street like a 6’3 mohican schoolgirl in leopardskin strides and creepers, or tore a couple of roses off a garden wall and ate them. That’s fun. Imposing an image by turning up at Portobello and hitting the first punk you saw every week was something different. I have a friend these days in London who’s got a “Borderline Personality Disorder”. A gang of teenagers told him “that’s a nice bike you’re riding, mister” at a set of traffic lights. He picked up the bike and went for their heads with it. Sound like Ken to you?
Jah Pork Pie
June 12, 2008 at 12:02 pmBTW guys, whatever happened to The Heretics? They got really big around May 2008 but I haven’t heard of them for AGES now.
baron von zubb
June 12, 2008 at 6:06 pmthere gonna get a whole lot bigger.
And your gonna help …
Dont hold your breath
baron von zubb
June 12, 2008 at 6:58 pmok its done.
Pork go & post some bollocks about how the H band changed your life over on talkpunk in the the best band section.You know you want to…
Sam
June 12, 2008 at 8:07 pmTalkpunk has the occasional interesting thread but it’s mainly focused on the least interesting thing about punk – punk rock.
Jah Pork Pie
June 12, 2008 at 10:38 pm@BaronVonZubb-> You’ve picked the right boy for the job… This bollocks schmaltz I do, already! I’m gonna need to get me creative hat on bigstyle, I think. Leave it with me for a day or two. I’m sure we can get this avalanche started!
baron von zubb
June 13, 2008 at 7:02 pmYeah its all about bands. Rubbish exept for, erm.
A bit of a reminder that not all our bretheren were that interesting.
Where was that info about mister nasty ‘sammie’?
I, of course, couldnt find it anywhere.
And wheres all our friends? Only the ‘H P D’ nexus left.
Typical poseurs only in it for the short term.
We may have to come to the realisation that this thread is nearing its final destination unless that avalance..
Everyone should go over there and pay homage.The thread is set up.Bring on the shmaltz.
Penguin • Post Author •
June 25, 2008 at 10:56 pmAll gone rather quiet over here! All The Heretics rehearsing for the forthcoming tour then or what? All this post could manage was a miserly 610 comments. Pretty poor show the comments not getting into four figures.
Got any 77/78 UK Subs stories to pad it out with?
Jah Pork Pie
June 25, 2008 at 11:40 pmI used to drink with Pete Davies in ’78 in the Pig and Whistle (porcine boozer, appropriately) in Southfields. Just a very nice bloke. No rock-n-roll stories to report unfortunately!
I’m working through The Baron’s book so that will surface shortly (couple of weeks at the present pace I think).
Penguin • Post Author •
June 25, 2008 at 11:53 pmProbably around the time when we get the MUSIC downloads sorted out…should fit nicely together! Very disappointed with your UK Subs story Pork. Not very decadant at all. Was looking for more of a druggie (or lashings of the old ultra violence) angle there!!!Oh well thanks for trying…
Sam
June 26, 2008 at 4:00 am614 Responses to: The Heretics – No Sleep til Cricklewood Broadway.
Sam
June 26, 2008 at 5:55 pmAnd despite advances in technology death still IS reality today.
Nic
June 27, 2008 at 10:20 amNot for me, Boss: I’m one of the Undead…
🙂
I just thought: I’m not sure if it was mentioned in many of the copious Heretics-Related ™ posts, but did the Heretics actually play any concerts?
Jah Pork Pie
June 27, 2008 at 11:02 am@Sam-> “And despite advances in technology death still IS reality today.”
But, as The Baron writes in his rather good book, we experience reality subjectively. We can’t (by definition) experience death – just the bit immediately before it.
The jury’s still out, for me!
Jah Pork Pie
June 27, 2008 at 11:06 am@Nic-> “did the Heretics actually play any concerts?”
Concerts, schmoncerts! Heresy In The UK was a pure abstract ideal, not to be sullied. The only concrete thing about it was the lumps of the stuff that got slung at the OB. 😉
Jah Pork Pie
June 27, 2008 at 11:12 amWas thinking: if The Ramones’ T-shirt can be assimilated by New Look and every other gurlz’ High Street store for a quick buck, how about an exclusive range of Heretics’ fashion items?
The home-made Damned T-shirt (with directions to the mod pub stencilled on the back).
Jake’s used-tampon t-shirt (though for authenticity we’d have to track his ex-girlfriend down, of course).
The torn plastics with fishnets inside (we could use real fish nets just to annoy the vegans).
… all with the Circle-H©, embossed in consumptive phlegm and blood from old works, as your very own guarantee of street authenticity!
Any more thoughts?
Graham Burnett
June 27, 2008 at 11:49 amHow about classic Heretics quotes stencilled onto teeshirts ‘situationist style’ ala McLaren/Westwood such as
“Squatting is a thing of intelligance… we’re all gonna be squatters soon…”
“I wanna cut me ‘head off”…
“By being myself, I’m anti-everything”…
“They should wander about, see what’s going on, then go back to their poxy offices and work it out for about 10,000 years and by then they’ll all be dead, and that’ll be good”…
All copyrighted of course… There’s a veritable seam of gold to be mined from that old Toxic Graffity interview….
http://www.spiralseed.co.uk/draft/westwood1.jpg
Stewart
June 27, 2008 at 11:51 amAhhhh, the naivete of youth…
Jah Pork Pie
June 27, 2008 at 12:13 pm@Graham-> “Squatting is a thing of intelligance… we’re all gonna be squatters soon…”
I reckon if the economy carries on as it is, then that one might just be coming true!
With his failed control-freakery, taxing the poorest and devaluing the houses of the new middle-class, Mr Brown has done more for the cause of Anarchism than Bakhunin ever did. At least Thatcher was offering the poor dupes something when she sold off the country and the council homes to the highest bidders, even if that something wasn’t worth a fuck (and she knew it).
I look forward to the 4×4 Riots of 2009 with bated breath!
Sadly it wasn’t Sgt H who cut his head off, but probably the pathologist who did the autopsy did get the big circular saw out… I’m never sure if stuff like that fits the definition of irony or just coincidence really!
I’m not sure there isn’t something to “by being myself, I’m anti-everything”, in the sense of giving big political and social narratives the heave-ho. It’s certainly gone on to become part of mainstream sociological theory and I’d love to think that some of the great French postmodernist philosophical thinkers had a browse through a discarded copy of TG and thought «Zut Alors! C’est vraiment un travail de génie »
Overall though, you’re right, there’s definitely a good few T-shirts to be gleaned from the Heretics!
@Sam, Jake, Slug-> I think you should have a go – the copyright in the quotes is yours to use. Inkjet T-shirt printing paper is cheap: you could knock up some prototypes and if they look the part, then stick the designs on the net and flog ’em (get a local printer to screen ’em one at a time as required). What ya do with the cash is up to you, but I reckon St Monica’s is crying out for that blue plaque, ya know!
Jah Pork Pie
June 27, 2008 at 12:20 pm@The Heretics-> If you send me the original big JPEGs of the TG article and the photos of you guys, then I can have a pop at knocking up some designs if you want.
Graham Burnett
June 27, 2008 at 12:23 pmLooks like Vivienne has beaten you to it…
http://www.spiralseed.co.uk/draft/westwood1.jpg
Penguin • Post Author •
June 27, 2008 at 6:03 pmClass stuff Graham…the shirts could be flogged to nobrainers going to the KYPP production ‘Heretics – The Musical’ in a couple of years time.
baron von zubb
June 28, 2008 at 8:32 amThats hilarious. Its 7.30 in the morn and im laughing already. All is not lost
Pork if you wanna do that go for it. Dunno whose got the original jpegs.
All snipers quotes it seems…The best is ‘wander about’ its gonna be our new slogan.
Criklewood Broadway here we come.
Righty oh off topic. Dunno where to post this type of thing.
Anyone one know where I can get a copy of these cd/mp3?
The original version of talk talk by the same – off ‘streets’ comp album.
ATV -Image Has Cracked. Perrys site doesnt seem to have it.
And.
The Models – double A side-Freeze ??.
Penguin • Post Author •
June 28, 2008 at 2:21 pmI have all the decent quality jpegs from stuff sent to me. If any one wants them seriously then get in touch. No timewasters please!