Theatre Of Hate – SS Records – 1980

53 comments

1. 

   Mike

   January 10, 2008 at 11:11 am

   Fabulous stuff as usual! Thanks for yet another great upload.

2. 

   Nuzz

   January 10, 2008 at 2:34 pm

   Legion is a classic song, nuff said

3. 

   Nic

   January 11, 2008 at 12:46 pm

   I was wondering – can anyone who was ‘there’ shed some light on the bubbling undercurrent of fascination with all things National Socialist in the late 1970’s / early 1980’s (I’m thinking of T.O.H. and also some of the early ‘Industrial’ bands)…

   I can understand that nationalist politics were probably at a height at that time, and that there was an almost schoolboy-ish interest in ‘taboo’ (possibly in an attempt to shock?)…
   but even so, I’ve never quite understood this (admittedly minor) undercurrent…

4. 

   Tony Puppy

   January 11, 2008 at 9:09 pm

   Nic, Kirk Brandon told me the ‘SS’ label was set up by his manager, who also managed Flock of Seagulls (a rumour was that they were the real 5th columist Nazi band – Flock of Seig Heils! I kid you not).

   This was a great single – played to death at Puppy Mansions. ‘Legion’ being the house fave.

   Quick Quiz – this is catalogue number SS3, what were the first two releases?

5. 

   alistairliv

   January 11, 2008 at 9:10 pm

   Dear Nic – a very difficult question to answer briefly. For example I was just watching the new (?) video interview with Penny Rimbaud – here I think
   http://www.vbs.tv/player.php?bctid=1364183270&bccl=MTMyMzI3NzIxOV9fRVRD,
   and he mentions that Crass were going to be called Storm Trooper and that he still thinks it would have been a good name for the band…

   There was a fair bit of trying to manufacture artistic outrage – going back at least to Maclaren/ Westwood’s cut-up/ collage approach to fashion which mixed swastikas with pics of Marx… but this was different from attempts to recruit skinheads as seig heiling storm-troopers- an SA (brown shirts) for the National Front/ British Movement.

   Looking back, I think there was also a link to the rise of Thatcher – the breakdown of the post-war consensus which was based on the state socialism of WW2 when the UK had to have a planned economy and class conflicts had to be defused.

   Don’t forget the extent to which the experience of WW2 had shaped and defined our parent’s and grandparents generation – working in factories in the seventies ‘ the war’ was still a constant theme of tea-break conversations, even for those who had been kids at the time.

   Then there was the influence on boys of comics like the Victor and Commando and Hotspur – full of stories about brave Brits bashing evil Huns and Japs. And when you grew out of that there were Sven Hassel’s books – which had Josef Porta as a character and endless films on tv and in cinemas.

   What none of these did was focus on the concentration camps(even Sven Hassel skirted round them despite his ‘heros’ being in the SS) -and the word ‘holocaust’ was not used. Death camp/ holocaust imagery came in when connections were made to nuclear war as ‘nuclear holocaust’, esp once the peace camps like Greenham were set up in 1981 – the imagery of barbed wire, armed guards and innocent/ industrial looking concrete bunkers containing unimaginable horror … worked its way backwards onto the Nazis.
   To use Nazi imagery became sick not chic.

   There were still neo-nazi’s about, but the cross-over with ‘pop/ rock’ culture was gone and it became a behind closed doors scene, crossing over into blood and soil northern mysteries (runic) paganism – as the Stewart Home links elsewhere here suggest – although only a few such pagans are so nasty.

   And at the level of proper politics, there was a class war in the eighties and Thatcher/ conservatives and Blair/ new Labour have undone the post war liberal/ socialist consensus and moved the UK rightwards… a fascist regime? Not quite. and definately not Nazi.

   AL Puppy

6. 

   Tony Puppy

   January 11, 2008 at 9:19 pm

   Penguin will hate me for this but here is footage of Kirk performing ‘Original Sin’ live last year, courtesy Youtube:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cby0HDgSmUY&feature=related

   And while I’m in Youtube here’s , Theatre of Hate on TOTP performing ‘Westworld’. Intoduced by John Peel:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUX194UUB_g&feature=related

7. 

   Penguin • Post Author •

   January 11, 2008 at 9:25 pm

   Yuk!

   Actually not THAT bad…if you just listen to it, and do not stare!

8. 

   Steve

   January 11, 2008 at 10:18 pm

   “Quick Quiz – this is catalogue number SS3, what were the first two releases?”

   The first Pack 7″ and then a repackaging of that with the Rough Trade one – give that man a cigar!

9. 

   Tony Puppy

   January 11, 2008 at 10:23 pm

   Have a cigar.

   I thought it might be the first Straps single and the first Depeche Mode single, ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’.

   whatever happened to those bands?

10. 

    Steve

    January 11, 2008 at 10:33 pm

    Most kind!

    I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of them.

    You can view those SS records here:

    http://www.buythehour.se/stiff/stage_non_buy2.html

    Ain’t the interent great etc etc

11. 

    Luggy

    January 12, 2008 at 1:09 pm

    IIRC Terry Razor, their manager ran an office/shop for Stiff Records near the Notting Hill side of Portobello called Stiff Secret Service. Probably where the SS originated. I remember going in there and blagging a Damned ‘Strecher Case Baby’ single off him.

12. 

    Penguin • Post Author •

    January 12, 2008 at 1:40 pm

    Ha ha, sure the people out there wanted the answer to be a little more sinister than that! Oh well…

    Mick Luggy need you to contact me on something, can you email me on mickeypenguin@blueyonder.co.uk at some time please. Hope you are enjoying some of the posts!

13. 

    Nic

    January 12, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    Thanks for the words, Al and Tony: very interesting…

    I’m interested in this undercurrent not because I want to do a ‘Temporary Hoarding’ and try to put the boot in on the ‘Fash: I’m more curious at how these things develop without any real ‘guiding hand’, how undercurrents develop amorphously and organically…

    I suppose that – to an extent – the ‘intellectual position’ of music in the late 1970’s was strongly left-wing (from the position taken in the music press like NME to the many fanzines) and I can imagine that some people wanted to rail against this consensus for no other reason than they didn’t like to be part of a gang (I would include the ‘Industrial’ musicians here)…

    There’s also the fashion angle (as Punk was – after all – a fashion look as much as a music, and certainly more than a political viewpoint): there has always been an attraction for certain people towards the ‘dark side’ (which is perhaps why the majority of ‘Battle Re-enactment’ enthusiasts prefer to dress up as the S.S. rather than any other army 😉 )…

    I suppose there is also a reminder here that ‘Punk’ was a broad church and attracted as many people with right-wing views as it did with left-wing views (if not more in the wider appraisal)…

    Interesting to mull over though…

14. 

    alistairliv

    January 12, 2008 at 8:16 pm

    Nic – have you got Jon Savage’s England’s Dreaming? Page 188/ 189 describes summer 1976 creation by Vivienne Westwood of the ‘Anarchy’ shirt and also discusses use of swastika and ‘sexual fluidity/ denial’.

    In middle of weekend chaos, but if get five minutes peace will transcribe.

    Also Gerard’s Story of Crass pages 128/ 129 – about use of anarchy symbol as a way to say ‘fuck-off to the politicos’ (left and right) – Andy palmer’s words.

    Anarchy in punk was used as attempt to evade/ transcend left/ right duality.

15. 

    Tony Puppy

    January 12, 2008 at 11:34 pm

    Doing some googling on Terry Razor (Luggy’s comments are already in google!) and it reminded me that Stu-pid Idiot’s Charge had the single Kings Cross/Brave New World released on Terry Razor’s ‘Test Pressings’ label. This was late 80/early 81.

    It was reviewed in one of the Puppys.

16. 

    Tony Puppy

    January 12, 2008 at 11:43 pm

    Google gold!

    On the Theatre of Hate Myspace Kirk blogs out the history of the beginning:

    Here’s a bit of it:

    I’m going to back track here to fill in the picture, as best as my damage will allow…. while still in ‘THE PACK’ I had come across a certain Scotsman, a Terry Razor….I had met him when I had been trying to get record company interest in my aforesaid Punk band, ‘THE PACK’, or ‘THE PARK’ (“it sounds more regal” ..SIMON WERNER) as we lovingly called it at the time.
    I had observed him with two girls on his arm and a bottle of champagne at ‘THE MARQUEE’ one night, I presumed he was in the Recording Industry.
    Terry had been working for ‘STIFF RECORDS’ which probably needs no introduction to anyone in the meatpacking industry.
    Terry worked for Robinson in what today would be called ‘marketing’…in fact all those mad STIFF logo legends like ‘If It Ai’nt Stiff it Ai’nt Worth a Fuck’..well picture Terrys Scots voice swearing at someone and you’ll guess where it all came from. Terry was asked by Robinson to start a shop/retail outlet in Covent Garden and to start up a Record Label. The shop was called ‘SECRET SERVICE’ as was the label. It was pretty successfull as I recall. Anyway sometime prior to this I’d asked Terry to bring out a single for ‘THE PACK’ and this would all coincide with the shop time frame. The ‘PACK’ song was ‘KING OF KINGS’, with one of my all time favourite songs I have ever written as the ‘B’ side, ‘BRAVE NEW SOLDIERS’. The recording sounds as fresh and raw and edgey today as it did all those decades ago. It sold well I believe.
    We, Terry and I went our seperate ways. Now comes a hard bit, I don’t actually remember how it was Terry re-entered the picture, but he did. Terry was now working for ‘THE CLASH’ doing their merchandice on tour/running his own label (MIKEY DREAD being one of his artistes, ‘DREAD AT THE CONTROLS’) and was also a personal friend of IAN DURY having helped Ian rehab himself with his condition…Terry was working out of the ‘BLACKHILL MANAGEMENT’ office at Royal Oak close to the Westway. LUKE RENDLE reminded me the other day that this office was where I had first met him. He was working for Terry loading albums with PAUL SIMONEN from ‘THE CLASH’ helping him. Terry and I decided we’d bring out a single for T.O.H., which would be ‘LEGION’, on his record label imprint Secret Service Records, abbreviated to SS1 by the pressing plant, on the centre of the disc and catalogued as SS1. If you look, the artist the late great artist CHRIS MORTON put two dollar signs as its logo on the cent re piece. Little did we know what lay in store for this bit of virtually irrelevant formality…..

    http://www.myspace.com/theatreofhate2007

17. 

    Steve

    January 13, 2008 at 12:00 am

    Rather amusingly Kirk Brandon’s account gets the title of the first 7″ wrong (King of Kings was first released on Rough Trade – it only appeared on the second SS 7″) and Legion definitely wasn’t SS1 !!

    In added synchronicity, bearing in mind the Folk Devils post, Terry Razor’s real name was Terry McQuade and he played Ray Gange’s mate in Rude Boy:

    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0574302/

18. 

    Tony Puppy

    January 13, 2008 at 12:58 am

    That must explain the incisive “We, Terry and I went our seperate ways. Now comes a hard bit, I don’t actually remember how it was Terry re-entered the picture, but he did”.
    Maybe he means Terry declined the offer to release the single, but Rough Trade (around the corner in W11) took it up. Then Terry re-entered the picture.

    The point is should we be bothered?

    Rational answer is no. But the reality is I’m already googling Terry McQuade. : (

19. 

    alistairliv

    January 13, 2008 at 1:28 am

    How much longer… will people wear /Nazi armbands and dye their hair….? We all don’t know nothing… the punks don’t know nothing, and the hippies don’t know nothing and the straights don’t know nothing …and we all don’t nothing and we all don’t bloody care. [ATV: How Much Longer: 1977]

    Here is the Jon Savage quote mentioned above – which shows that the swastika was used against / beside pictures of Karl Marx and anarchist and situationist images/ slogans. This made the ‘Anarchy’ shirt a powerful bit of magick, like a Ghost Shirt, like a fetish object. It set up an ‘explosion of highly charged contradictions’. It is similar to the way Crass used iconic images and contradictions – promoting peace within a barrage of black anger….

    There was a lot of talk about anarchy that summer [1976]: Lydon was working on a set of lyrics to one of Glen’s tunes. Vivienne set about making a parallel item of clothing. The resulting ‘Anarchy’ shirt was a masterpiece. Taking a second-hand sixties shirt, Westwood would dye it in stripes, black, red, or brown., before stencilling on a slogan such as ‘Only Anarchist Are Pretty’ . The next stage was to stitch on more slogans, hand painted on rectangles of silk or muslin.. These made explicit references to Anarchist heroes and to the events of 1968 : ’Prenez vos desirs pour la realite’, ‘A bas le Coca Cola’.

    The final touches were the most controversial. Small rectangular portraits of Karl Marx (from Chinatown) were placed on the side of the chest, and on the other, above the pocket or on the collar, was placed an (often inverted) swastika from the Second World War. To ensure that the message was received, the whole shirt was finished off with an armband which simply read ‘Chaos’. The intention was the group should not be politically explicit, but instead should be an explosion of contradictory, highly charged signs.

    As in the ‘Which Side of the bed’ t-shirt, in this one garment are contained the ambiguities and density of references that would take several years to unravel. The ‘Anarchy’ shirt created a chaos of meaning but managed nevertheless to make a coherent statement. The intention was clearly to deliver a political manifesto that avoid simplistic solutions. In this context, the use of Anarchist and Situationist slogans indicated the desire not to be easily labelled and a wish for change, of an intensity not usually associated with a pop group. [From England’s Dreaming: Jon Savage: Faber and Faber : 1991: 188]

20. 

    alistairliv

    January 13, 2008 at 2:20 am

    Cross-referencing with Adam n Antz, found their song Dirk Wears White Sox – which has chorus “You gotta concentrate on camp, in a concentration camp/ Auschwitz the blood lay then in a concentration camp” is on youtube

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cGGiEo3qAc

    Not sure where that leaves Nic’s question…but no way any real Nazi/ fascist regime would tolerate such decadence.

21. 

    alistairliv

    January 13, 2008 at 11:03 am

    Nic suggested (above)
    I suppose that – to an extent – the ‘intellectual position’ of music in the late 1970’s was strongly left-wing (from the position taken in the music press like NME to the many fanzines) and I can imagine that some people wanted to rail against this consensus for no other reason than they didn’t like to be part of a gang (I would include the ‘Industrial’ musicians here)…

    But… flirtations with fascism/ Nazism were about before punk/ late seventies. Got two example, one a song plus imagery from USA 1974 other imagery from UK 1971. These, I suggest, would place most such punk/ UK late seventies/ industrial flirtations in a manufactured outrage/ post-modern transgression of boundaries of taste and decency category – rather than revealing a far right conspiracy to corrupt the youth of the nation through popular music.

    And if you read the Stewart Home stuff on Death in June etc -yes these were/ are dodgy individuals, but did they spawn a ‘Nazi-punk’ movement ? Or was it a right wing response to the Socialist Workers Movement / Rock Against Racism? There is such a thing as Nazi punk – see http://www.nazipunk.8k.com/ from which this comes:

    The history of the racialist punk movement can arguably be traced back to as early as 1977, with the birth of the punk subculture in England. However, the first verifiable evidence of the racialist punk movement was a youth division of the British National Front that formed in 1978 called the “Punk Front”. It started off as a mere political and music related ‘zine, but due to its rapid success it quickly turned into a organized group and wave of bands with a considerably significant following, particularly in Leeds, England.

    The bands who partook in this movement included: The Dentists, Homicide, The Ventz and The Raw Boys. These ‘Punk Front’ bands played the first Rock Against Communism shows the National Front organized, which took place in 1979. Shortly after those early RAC concerts, the Punk Front had disbanded for various reasons (which included the incarceration of several members of the group).

    Anyway – here arte my two examples of non-punk, early seventies flirtations with fascism- or rather Nazism.

    1.Blue Oyster Cult: ME 262 : 1974 : from album Secret Treaties, which has cover images of ME 262 WW2 jet on it, group as pilots, jet with BOC ‘sickle‘ symbol on it. Other tracks have titles ‘Career of Evil’, Subhuman’ [not related to Throbbing Gristle song of same name] and ‘Dominance/ Submission’

    Goering’s on the phone from Freiburg
    Say’s you’ve really done quite a job
    Hitler’s on the phone from Berlin
    Say’s I’m gonna make you a star

    In a G-load disaster from the rate of climb
    Sometimes I’d faint and be lost to our side
    But there’s no reward for failure, but death
    So watch me in the mirrors, keep me in the flight path

    Me-262 prince of turbojets, Junker’s jommo 004
    Blasts from clustered R4M quartets in my snout
    And see these English planes go burn
    Now you be my witness how red were the skies
    When the fortresses flew, for the very last time
    It was dark over Westphalia, in April of ‘45

    [Chorus] They hung there dependant from the sky
    Like some heavy metal fruit
    These bombers, ripened, ready to tilt
    Must these Englishmen live that I might die
    Must they live that I might die (repeat)

    2. Van der Graaf Generator :Pawn Hearts: 1971 – inside cover art is photo of group in black shirts making Nazi salutes – but in colour tinted English garden, also wearing white ties and one is holding a football, others standing on garden furniture so ‘ironic’.

22. 

    Luggy

    January 13, 2008 at 1:53 pm

    Just to clarify the Pack singles as Kirk’s confused:

    ‘Heathen’/’Brave New Soldiers’
    ‘King Of Kings’/’Number 12’

    They were later re-released as an E.P.
    I recorded their gig at Brixton Town Hall which was a weird one as 50% of the audience were off their head on Tuinal, probably a few from Campbell Buildings up the road. The uniformed security blokes didn’t know what to make of it.
    I know this gig was released as a bootleg but it didn’t sound the same as my tape. Not sure if it was another recording or a bad copy of my tape which I had lent out to quite a few people. Been looking for it to upload without any success so far.

23. 

    André Faria

    January 28, 2008 at 8:06 pm

    This 7″ is a classic!

24. 

    tonyb

    May 2, 2008 at 2:38 pm

    re: above post
    “In added synchronicity, bearing in mind the Folk Devils post, Terry Razor’s real name was Terry McQuade and he played Ray Gange’s mate in Rude Boy:”

    Terry Razor wasnt Terry Macquade.

    Razor was a Scottish geezer about 38 even then!!
    MacQuade was a Londoner and went on to manage Flowered Up.

    T.O.H. did the Clash tour 1981 when ‘Rebel’ came out Razor had worked with the Clash through West London /Stiff connections etc etc…

25. 

    Josh

    October 3, 2008 at 9:40 am

    Does anyone have the full lyrics of how much longer? from ATV

26. 

    andus

    October 3, 2008 at 7:19 pm

    How much longer will people wear nazi armbands and dye their hair,
    safety pins and spray their clothes, talk about anarchy, fascism and boredom.
    when you don’t know nothing, and you don’t really care
    How much longer will apathy rule, oxford bags and they have their hair done, take their birds to the pictures and spray their ford cortina’s, talk about football, birds and the telly. When you don’t know nothing and you don’t really care.
    How much longer will jossticks rule, they grow their hair long and stringy and wear jesus boots, afghan coats, and they make their peace signs mannn, talk about Moorcock, Floyd and Reading festival, When they don’t know nothing and they don’t really care,
    the punks don’t know nothing. the hippies don’t know nothing. The teds don’t know nothing, the straights don’t know nothing, skinheads and mods don’t know nothing, i said we all don’t know nothing and we all don’t fucking care.

    I think thats right joss, done from memory, but its at least 90% accurate.

27. 

    Nic

    October 3, 2008 at 8:06 pm

    I think it is pretty spot on, Andus…

    Dave Fanning had the lyrics to this written on his wall at Brougham Road (if I remember correctly)…

28. 

    andus

    October 3, 2008 at 8:16 pm

    Ah yes, thats probably why i remembered them, plus i used to listen to The Apostles version a lot. I have a niggling feeling there might be another verse though, but then again maybe not.
    By the way Nik. I have dug up this old Chumbawamba tape live in Telford, 1986 which i thought I had lost, remember that gig at Telford ampytheatre, then on to the subhuumans gig in Coventry later on, Did Napalm play that gig, I think they did, and then did you not play Peacocks later on the same day ?

29. 

    Penguin • Post Author •

    October 3, 2008 at 8:45 pm

    You could listen to it on this site if you want to. I uploaded both versions a few weeks back. The words are clear for all to hear on this release, unlike songs by Crass / Discharge et al…!

30. 

    andus

    October 3, 2008 at 8:58 pm

    Right. I will have a listen then, of course i could have sorted through my boxes and boxes of tapes, but could not be bothered. where is then Penguin ?

31. 

    Penguin • Post Author •

    October 3, 2008 at 11:14 pm

    Use the search function and enter band or song title da da da

32. 

    andus

    October 3, 2008 at 11:26 pm

    Thanks Penguin, but i sorted it out ages ago, there seems to be a line i missed, or more to the point half a line.

33. 

    Penguin • Post Author •

    October 3, 2008 at 11:38 pm

    Will stick The Apostles LP on with the ATV / Good Missionaries material on in the next day or two prob in post 86 section as from memory the LP was released in 1987.