Crass performing at Acklam Hall, Ladbroke Grove March 1979 ‘Free All Prisoners Now’ benefit gig – photograph taken by Tony Barber c/o Terry Smith archive.
Crass poster – Acklam Hall, Ladbroke Grove March 1979 ‘Free All Prisoners Now’ benefit gig – Toby Mott archive
It’s official!
News of the release of the re-mastered Crass material is now available on the Southern website HERE.
The Feeding Of The Five Thousand tracks plus a heap of bonus material on CD yours for £12…
AL Puppy
Southern Studio notes below:
The Crassical Collection is finally here, and the first release is the newly remastered “The Feeding Of The Five Thousand”. After many years of being out of print, this legendary album has been been restored from the original analogue studio tapes, repackaged and bolstered by rare and unreleased tracks, and stunning new artwork from Gee Vaucher, who has lovingly created what could only be considered a real artefact. Included in this package is a 64-page booklet featuring all lyrics along with extensive liner notes from band members Penny Rimbaud and Steve Ignorant, which shed light on the making of the record. Also included is CD-sized recreation of the iconic original fold-out poster sleeve.
‘Five thousand’s a crowd (four thousand nine hundred and ninety nine more than I imagined were going to buy the record), but two’s company (I knew for certain that my Mum would want one), so it was on the plate, ready to serve, The Feeding of the Five Thousand’.
‘We were setting out as purists: hard, uncompromising and utterly bemused’
‘On one thing we were very clear, in bringing a prosecution of Criminal Blasphemy against us the authorities would have been giving us the kind of publicity which overnight would have made us a household name. They were aware of this, and so were we. It was a situation that allowed us carte blanche to say pretty much whatever we wanted without any real fear of incrimination, a situation which over the next seven years we exploited to the hilt’.
‘Easy listening? You ain’t heard nothing yet’.
First released in 1978 on Small Wonder Records, and later rereleased on the band’s own Crass Records, “The Feeding Of The Five Thousand” showed Crass as an anti-establishment and highly uncompromising act, and one that would influence countless other bands to follow. This signals the first in a series of remastered versions of each of Crass’ now legendary albums, each one including bonus tracks and brand new artwork.
Crass flyer Colombo Street Community Centre Waterloo July 1979 – Terry Smith archive.
Arthur Dent
August 14, 2010 at 7:51 pmA beautiful thing it is too!
Duck and cover!!!
AL Puppy • Post Author •
August 14, 2010 at 8:52 pmIs that THE Arthur Dent, author of The Ruine Of Rome. Or, An Exposition upon the whole Revelation. Wherein is plainly shown and proved, that the Popish religion, together with all the power and authority of Rome, shall ebbe and decay still more and more throughout all the churches of Europe, and come to an utter overthrow even in this life, before the end of the world. Written especially for the comfort of Protestants, and the daunting of Papists, Seminary Priests, Jesuits, and all the cursed rabble. London, 1607. ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Dent_(Puritan)
May be not.
Arthur Dent
August 15, 2010 at 8:55 amOr Penry, the mild-mannered janitor?
Could be…
alistairliv • Post Author •
August 15, 2010 at 12:28 pmHong Kong Phooey.
Graham Burnett
August 16, 2010 at 11:41 amJust appeared on the Southern webshop…
https://www.southern.net/eu-shop/index.php?main_page=product_music_info&products_id=7027
alistairliv • Post Author •
August 16, 2010 at 2:54 pmThanks Graham, will put link in main text.
Graham Burnett
August 16, 2010 at 10:47 pmsaw the artwork about 2 years ago when Gee was still working on it – at the time she’d more or less locked herself in her studio and was rushing to get it finished off in time for the release deadline a few weeks later – oh the irony… I hope the others come out soon – the covers join together to make a big version of the Dave King Crass logo, a bit like the pictures on the backs of bubble gum cards many years a go (my favourite set being the Planet of The Apes cards, which made a big picture of Urko the Gorilla when joined up – now I’m showing my age…)
Graham Burnett
August 16, 2010 at 10:49 pmthe really interesting stuff from the program of re-issues (for me at least) is the EXIT stuff plus Acts Of Love which has extra material. Not heard it but seen the artwork
gerard
August 17, 2010 at 1:52 amSo what’s happened Graham? Have the people who put this out just ignored the objections of the other members of the band?
Carl
August 17, 2010 at 9:46 amOh deep joy, I shall avoid this Crass thread from now on !!
Hello Gerard btw !!
Graham Burnett
August 17, 2010 at 6:40 pmUm, I think thats basically about the size of it Gerard…
gerard
August 17, 2010 at 7:01 pmCheers Graham.
More info here: http://www.viceland.com/int/v17n8/htdocs/anarchy-and-peace-litigated-490.php?page=1
Hello Carl!
XenuCrass
August 17, 2010 at 10:35 pmI feel a bit like Stewart Home still ranting bitterly about how Death In June betrayed his teenage love of em on some of my posts here – but it seems to me that these reissues by Rimbaud and Southern acting as ‘Crass’ are best regarded as bootlegs/pirates, and as such the moral thing to do is fileshare them as much as possible.
Lee Oliver
August 18, 2010 at 11:03 aminteresting point XenuCrass but surely by my calculations the ‘moral’ thing is surely with Rimbaud/Ignorant, they started the band in the first place then there are 9 members of Crass…
Rimbaud, Ignorant, Vaucher, Libertine, Wright, Free, De Vivre,Palmer, the estate of John Loder…
five want the music out there, three don’t and one disengaged themselves from Crass 20 years ago…
Carl
August 18, 2010 at 11:08 amNot sure what “moral” has to do with anything. I wasnt taken in back then and are not now 25/30 years later.
Why cant people just admit that this is nothing more than a bid to raise some cash, and before I am slaughtered for that, I dont think there is anything wrong with that, just maybe dishonest to pretend otherwise
Nothing more/Nothing less.
Rita
August 18, 2010 at 12:32 pmCarl, but are they pretending otherwise? I haven’t seen it said anywhere.
Just got my copy of the first one, and sorry to be a fangirl, but it’s amazing. It SOUNDS so fucking brilliant. Compared to the vinyl, you can just hear loads of things that you couldn’t properly hear before. Never bought the other CDs (had the original vinyl) cause I thought they looked like shit… now this one is worth the money. And like you, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them making some money. Don’t think any of them have got two fivers to rub together, have they?
Lion
August 18, 2010 at 1:34 pmAnyone know what all the ex members of Crass are doing these days? It’d be interesting to know.
Arthur Dent
August 18, 2010 at 1:49 pmI don’t think you can compere these releases to pirates or bootleggers Xenucrass, I don’t know of many bootleggers who send money to the bands they bootleg and every band member will be getting their royalites as they always have (Unless they decide to forgo them in protest). And whilst I agree with the point that this is gonna make a few quid I really don’t think that’s the only reason for doing it. Pen and Gee put a lot of work into these re-releases and they wouldn’t have bothered if money was the bottom line. They could have just tacked the extra tracks on the end of the CDs advertised the fact and people would still have gone out and snapped ’em up.
gerard
August 18, 2010 at 5:52 pmWasn’t it Adam Ant who was the pirate?
Lion, where are they now is covered somewhere in this thread if you wade through it: http://www.southern.com/southern/forum/viewtopic.php?id=469
Mick
August 19, 2010 at 2:27 amDoes anybody know what the track Blackburn Rovers is all about?!
Arthur Dent
August 19, 2010 at 8:17 amIt’s just a sound montage – kids talking, sounds of someone walking on concrete.
So it’s all about Pen being artsy-fartsy.
😉
Blimey guvna!
August 19, 2010 at 8:30 amOne thing for certain, Gee Vaucher was a f___ing good artist, and another thing, her art has really got up the noses of the pro Israel camp — check out the postings in respone to her pro Palestine art.
http://streetbonersandtvcarnage.com/blog/gee-vaucher-interview-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-183750
The youtube interview isn’t much good: Gee Vaucher is great, but the interviewer doesn’t empathise/bond suitably, and thus doesn’t get her to express herself. A good chance missed.
Mick
August 19, 2010 at 9:44 amOK! Thanks Mr. Dent.
Rita
August 19, 2010 at 11:07 amStill don’t see what all the fuss is about (not so much here… but christ, have you seen Facebook?) I mean, they’re just replacing the old versions of the CDs with much better ones, with more tracks, better mastering, better packaging. And they only cost a few quid more in the shop than the crappy ones in plastic cases did. I don’t recall anyone making a fuss back in 1990 when the first issued the album on CD (or before that… on cassette). And does anyone really love the way those CDs looked or sounded?
Blimey guvna!
August 19, 2010 at 11:32 amOn a related point, did Gee Vaucher compile all her work into a book yet? Anyone know? Thanks.
BlimeyGuvna.
Arthur Dent
August 19, 2010 at 4:17 pmRita – I believe that’s the main argument from Pen and Co, Nobody else in the crass camp with the exception of Gee, Penny & John (Loder) was interested in getting involved with these release’s coming out on cd and cassette 20 odd years back with regard to how the artwork would look or how the sound would be tweaked to suit these various formats. It was just left to those still interested to get on with it. (In a half arsed way it has to be said). With these remasters Pen was just tidying everything up for the final time with the idea that if band members didn’t want to get involved back then they certainly wouldn’t want to get involved now. A rude and vaguely arrogant way of going about things in the cold light of day maybe but I don’t believe with any dishonest intent towards other band members or CD buyers.
Nic
August 19, 2010 at 4:21 pmThe lyrics of ‘Punk is Dead’ never seemed so apt…I’m going to download a rip of them and pogo my brains out…
back2front
August 19, 2010 at 4:22 pmFinally listened to the remaster all the way through – weird hearing other songs after “Well, Do They”. It certainly does sound better and can’t fault the packaging (why wasn’t it black!!!!) but I do have mixed feelings about it. Talking to Penny a while back he mentioned that the original (crap) CD version was not aesthetically what they’d wanted and now they were in a position to correct that, both visually and audibly. For my 2 cents I’m glad they’re available because Crass attempted to have a go beyond the confines of just shouting about things and influenced one or two people along the way. Sure some of their ideas weren’t great but they stuck themselves out there and thirty odd years later how many bands are sticking their necks out beyond the safety nets. Safe social commentary is a method of protecting the status quo after all!
Blimey Guvna, Gee did 2 books “Crass Art and Other Pre-Post modernist Monsters” which will cost you 2 arms and 2 legs and your torso too. Long out of print. “Animal Rites” is still available. I’m sure there’s plans for more, including the “Bullshit Crass” book.
Graham Burnett
August 19, 2010 at 6:40 pmRemastered version of ‘So What?’ is blinding when Steve Ignorant goes into the full rant mode bit, sounds like he’s about to explode…
Calm down Steve, its only a punk anthem…
Nick Hydra
August 21, 2010 at 2:46 pmThe whole thing is like watching two good friends going through a particularly messy divorce with the kids (in this case CDs) in the middle.
I can see both sides – the old CDs look like shit – at least ‘5,000’ does. I didn’t bother getting any more after that one. I could have done better with the original 12″, a scanner and ‘Wordart’. I remember thinking at the time, “Why didn’t they just get John Yates to do it?”
And the sound was worse than the vinyl.
But then if the band used to operate a ‘one person veto’, you can’t just ignore other people’s opinions after the fact because they’re inconvenient.
Petty name calling doesn’t help either.
I haven’t got an answer, it’s just miserable watching people you respect gouge chunks out of each other over something that they should all be proud of.
luggy
August 29, 2010 at 12:08 pm2 hour Steve Ig interview on here:
http://futureradio.co.uk/podcast/2010/august/variety-show-steve-ignorant-and-mick-clarke
TonyB
September 15, 2010 at 10:06 amThe photo is from the Acklam Hall , March 79. Free All Prisoners Now benefit.
Penguin
September 15, 2010 at 10:46 amThanks very much Tony, corrected now.