This article is about the band. For the definition of "crass", see wikt:crass. For the people named Crass, see Crass (surname).
Crass
Crass on stage in Cumbria in May 1984, with the slogan "there is no authority but yourself" in the background. From left to right: Pete Wright, Steve Ignorant, and N.A. Palmer.
Crass spray-painted stencilled graffiti messages in the London Underground system and on advertising billboards, coordinated squats and organised political action. The band expressed its ideals by dressing in black, military-surplus-style clothing and using a stage backdrop amalgamating icons of perceived authority such as the Christian cross, the swastika, the Union Jack and the ouroboros.
The band was critical of the punk subculture[2] and youth culture in general; nevertheless, the anarchist ideas that they promoted have maintained a presence in punk.[3] Because of their free experimentation and use of tape collages, graphics, spoken word releases, poetry and improvisation, Crass have been associated with avant-punk[4][5][6] and art punk.[7]
History
1977: Origins
Steve Ignorant onstage, June 1981
The band was based around an anarchist commune in a 16th-century cottage, Dial House, near Epping, Essex,[8] and formed when commune founder Penny Rimbaud began jamming with Steve Ignorant[9] (who was staying in the house at the time). Ignorant was inspired to form a band after seeing the Clash perform at Colston Hall in Bristol,[10] whilst Rimbaud, a veteran of avant-gardeperformance art groups such as EXIT and Ceres Confusion,[11] was working on his book Reality Asylum. They produced "So What?" and "Do They Owe Us a Living?" as a drum-and-vocal duo.[12] They briefly called themselves Stormtrooper[13] before choosing Crass in reference to a line in the David Bowie song "Ziggy Stardust" ("The kids were just crass").[14]
Other friends and household members joined (including Gee Vaucher, Pete Wright, N. A. Palmer and Steve Herman), and Crass played their first live gig at a squatters' street festival in Huntley Street, North London. They planned to play five songs, but a neighbour "pulled the plug" after three.[15] Guitarist Steve Herman left the band soon afterward and was replaced by Phil Clancey, a.k.a. Phil Free.[16]Joy De Vivre and Eve Libertine also joined around this time. Other early Crass performances included a four-date tour of New York City,[17] a festival gig in Covent Garden[18] and regular appearances with the U.K. Subs at The White Lion, Putney and Action Space in central London. The latter performances were often poorly attended: "The audience consisted mostly of us when the Subs played and the Subs when we played".[19]
Crass played two gigs at the Roxy Club in Covent Garden, London.[18] According to Rimbaud, the band arrived drunk at the second show and were ejected from the stage; this inspired their song "Banned from the Roxy"[20] and Rimbaud's essay for Crass's self-published magazine International Anthem, "Crass at the Roxy".[21] After the incident, the band took themselves more seriously, avoiding alcohol and cannabis before shows and wearing black, military-surplus-style clothing on and off the stage.[22]
Crass logo
They introduced their stage backdrop, a logo designed by Rimbaud's friend Dave King.[23] This gave the band a militaristic image, which led to accusations of fascism.[24] Crass countered that their uniform appearance was intended to be a statement against the "cult of personality" so that no member would be identified as the "leader".[24]
Conceived and intended as cover artwork for a self-published pamphlet version of Rimbaud's Christ's Reality Asylum,[25] the Crass logo was an amalgam of several "icons of authority" including the Christian cross, the swastika, the Union Jack and a two-headed Ouroboros (symbolising the idea that power will eventually destroy itself).[26][27] Using such deliberately mixed messages was part of Crass's strategy of presenting themselves as a "barrage of contradictions",[28] challenging audiences to (in Rimbaud's words) "make your own fucking minds up".[29] This included using loud, aggressive music to promote a pacifist message,[30] a reference to their Dadaist, performance-art backgrounds and situationist ideas.[31]
The band eschewed elaborate stage lighting during live sets, preferring to play under 40-watt household light bulbs; the technical difficulties of filming under such lighting conditions partly explains why there is little live footage of Crass.[32] They pioneered multimedia presentation, using video technology (back-projected films and video collages by Mick Duffield and Gee Vaucher) to enhance their performances, and also distributed leaflets and handouts explaining anarchist ideas to their audiences.[33]
1978–1979: The Feeding of the 5000 and Crass Records
Crass' first release was The Feeding of the 5000 (an 18-track, 12" 45 rpm EP on the Small Wonder label) in 1978. Workers at an Irish record-pressing plant refused to process it because of the offensive and blasphemous content of the song "Asylum",[34][35] and the record was released without it. In its place were two minutes of silence entitled "The Sound of Free Speech". This incident prompted Crass to create their own independent record label, Crass Records, to retain editorial control over their material.[36]
A rerecorded, extended version of "Asylum", renamed "Reality Asylum", was shortly afterward on Crass Records as a 7" single, and Crass were investigated by the police because of the song's lyrics. The band were interviewed at their Dial House home by Scotland Yard's vice squad and threatened with prosecution, but the case was dropped.[19] "Reality Asylum" retailed at 45p (when most other singles cost about 90p),[37] and was the first example of Crass' "pay no more than..." policy to issue records as inexpensively as possible. The band failed to factor value-added tax into their expenses, causing them to lose money on every copy sold.[38] A year later, Crass Records released new pressings of The Feeding of the 5000 (subtitled "The Second Sitting"), restoring the original version of "Asylum".
1980: Stations of the Crass and "Bloody Revolutions"
In 1979 the band released their second album, Stations of the Crass, financed with a loan from Poison Girls,[39] a band with whom they regularly appeared. This was a double album, with three sides of new material and a fourth side recorded live at the Pied Bull in Islington.
The next Crass single, 1980's "Bloody Revolutions", was a benefit release with Poison Girls that raised £20,000 to fund the Wapping Autonomy Centre.[23] The words were a critique (from an anarchist-pacifist perspective) of the traditional Marxist view of revolutionary struggle and were partly a response to violence marring a September 1979 Crass gig at Conway Hall in London's Red Lion Square.[40] The show was intended as a benefit for Persons Unknown, a group of anarchists facing conspiracy charges.[41] During the performance, Socialist Workers Party supporters and other anti-fascists attacked British Movementneo-Nazis, triggering violence.[42] Crass later argued that the leftists were largely to blame for the fighting, and organizations such as Rock Against Racism were causing audiences to become polarised into left- and right-wing factions.[43] Others (including the anarchist organisation Class War) were critical of Crass's position, stating that "like Kropotkin, their politics are up shit creek".[44] Many of the band's punk followers felt that they failed to understand the violence to which they were subjected from the right.[45]
"Rival Tribal Rebel Revel", a flexi disc single distributed with the Toxic Grafity[sic]fanzine, was also a commentary about the events at Conway Hall attacking the mindless violence and tribalistic aspects of contemporary youth culture.[46] This was followed by the double single "Nagasaki Nightmare/Big A Little A". The strongly anti-nuclear lyrics of "Nagasaki Nightmare" were reinforced by the fold-out sleeve artwork. It featured an article by Mike Holderness of Peace News magazine connecting the atomic power industry and the manufacture of nuclear weapons[47] along with a large poster-style map of nuclear installations in the UK. The other side of the record, "Big A Little A", was a statement of the band's anti-statist and individualist anarchist philosophy: "Be exactly who you want to be, do what you want to do / I am he and she is she but you're the only you."[48]
1981: Penis Envy
Loving ad for "Our Wedding"
Crass released their third album, Penis Envy, in 1981. This marked a departure from the hardcore punk image that The Feeding of the 5000 and Stations of the Crass had given the group. It featured more complex musical arrangements and female vocals by Eve Libertine and Joy De Vivre (singer Steve Ignorant was credited as "not on this recording"). The album addressed feminist issues, attacking marriage and sexual repression.
The last track on Penis Envy, a parody of an MORlove song entitled "Our Wedding", was made available as a white flexi disc to readers of Loving, a teenage romance magazine. Crass tricked the magazine into offering the disc, posing as "Creative Recording and Sound Services". Loving accepted the offer, telling their readers that the free Crass flexi would make "your wedding day just that bit extra special".[49] A tabloid controversy resulted when the hoax was exposed, with the News of the World stating that the title of the flexi's originating album was "too obscene to print".[50] Despite Loving's annoyance, Crass had broken no laws.[51]
Steve Ignorant and N.A. Palmer pictured at the Wapping Autonomy Centre, December 1981
The band's fourth LP, 1982's double set Christ - The Album, took almost a year to record, produce and mix (during which the Falklands War began and ended). This caused Crass to question their approach to making records. As a group whose primary purpose was political commentary, they felt overtaken and made redundant by world events:
The speed with which the Falklands War was played out and the devastation that Thatcher was creating both at home and abroad forced us to respond far faster than we had ever needed to before. Christ – The Album had taken so long to produce that some of the songs in it, songs that warned of the imminence of riots and war, had become almost redundant. Toxteth, Bristol, Brixton and the Falklands were ablaze by the time that we released. We felt embarrassed by our slowness, humbled by our inadequacy.[52]
Subsequent releases (including the singles "How Does It Feel? (To Be the Mother of a Thousand Dead)" and "Sheep Farming in the Falklands" and the album Yes Sir, I Will) saw the band's sound return to basics and were issued as "tactical responses" to political situations.[56] Crass anonymously produced 20,000 copies of a flexi disc with a live recording of "Sheep Farming in the Falklands", and copies were randomly inserted into the sleeves of other records by sympathetic workers at the Rough Trade Records distribution warehouse.[57]
Direct action and internal debates
Detail from front cover of Stations of the Crass, illustrating Crass' stenciled graffiti
From their early days of spraying stencilled anti-war, anarchist, feminist and anti-consumeristgraffiti messages in the London Underground and on billboards,[58] Crass was involved in politically motivated direct action and musical activities. On 18 December 1982, the band helped coordinate a 24-hour squat in the empty West London Zig Zag club to prove "that the underground punk scene could handle itself responsibly when it had to and that music really could be enjoyed free of the restraints imposed upon it by corporate industry".[59]
In 1983 and 1984, Crass were part of the Stop the City actions coordinated by London Greenpeace[60] that foreshadowed the anti-globalisation rallies of the early 21st century.[61] Support for these activities was provided in the lyrics and sleeve notes of the band's last single, "You're Already Dead", expressing doubts about their commitment to nonviolence. It was also a reflection of disagreements within the group, as explained by Rimbaud: "Half the band supported the pacifist line and half supported direct and if necessary violent action. It was a confusing time for us, and I think a lot of our records show that, inadvertently".[62] This led to introspection within the band, with some members becoming embittered and losing sight of their essentially positive stance.[63] Reflecting this debate, the next release under the Crass name was Acts of Love: classical-music settings of 50 poems by Penny Rimbaud, described as "songs to my other self" and intended to celebrate "the profound sense of unity, peace and love that exists within that other self".[64]
Thatchergate
Another Crass hoax was known as the "Thatchergate tapes",[65] a recording of an apparently accidentally overheard telephone conversation (because of crossed lines). The tape was constructed by Crass from edited recordings of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. On the "rather clumsily" forged tape, they appear to discuss the sinking of HMSSheffield during the Falklands War and agree that Europe would be a target for nuclear weapons in a conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.[65]
Copies were leaked to the press via a Dutch news agency during the 1983 general election campaign.[66] The U.S. State Department and British government believed the tape to be propaganda produced by the KGB (as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle[67] and The Sunday Times).[65] Although the tape was produced anonymously, The Observer linked the tape with the band.[68] Previously classified government documents made public in January 2014 under the UK's 'thirty-year rule reveal that Thatcher was aware of the tape and had discussed it with her cabinet.[69]
We found ourselves in a strange and frightening arena. We had wanted to make our views public, had wanted to share them with like minded people, but now those views were being analysed by those dark shadows who inhabited the corridors of power (…) We had gained a form of political power, found a voice, were being treated with a slightly awed respect, but was that really what we wanted? Was that what we had set out to achieve all those years ago?[52]
The band had also incurred heavy legal expenses for the Penis Envy prosecution;[55] this, combined with exhaustion and the pressures of living and operating together, finally took its toll.[52] On 7 July 1984, the band played a benefit gig at Aberdare, Wales for striking miners, and on the return trip, guitarist N. A. Palmer announced his intent to leave the group.[71] This confirmed Crass's previous intention to quit in 1984, and the band was dissolved.[72]
The group's final release as Crass was the "Ten Notes on a Summer's Day" 12" single in 1986. Crass Records was closed in 1992; its final release was Christ's Reality Asylum, a 90-minute cassette of Penny Rimbaud reading the essay that he had written in early 1977.
On 11 July 2024, the full 7 July 1984 concert was released as a free download to celebrate its 40th anniversary, albeit as a poor and upscaled tape transfer.
Crass Collective, Crass Agenda and Last Amendment
In November 2002 several former members arranged Your Country Needs You, a concert of "voices in opposition to war", as the Crass Collective. At Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's South Bank, Your Country Needs You included Benjamin Britten's War Requiem and performances by Goldblade, Fun-Da-Mental, Ian MacKaye and Pete Wright's post-Crass project, Judas 2.[73] In October 2003 the Crass Collective changed their name to Crass Agenda,[74] with Rimbaud, Libertine and Vaucher working with Matt Black of Coldcut and jazz musicians such as Julian Siegel and Kate Shortt. In 2004 Crass Agenda spearheaded a campaign to save the Vortex Jazz Club in Stoke Newington, north London[75] (where they regularly played). In June 2005 Crass Agenda was declared to be "no more", changing its name to the "more pertinent" Last Amendment.[76] After a five-year hiatus, Last Amendment performed at the Vortex in June 2012.[77] Rimbaud has also performed and recorded with Japanther and the Charlatans. A "new" Crass track (a remix of 1982's "Major General Despair" with new lyrics), "The Unelected President", is available.[78]
2007: Ignorant's The Feeding of the 5000
Poster for the 5000 performance, November 2007
On 24 and 25 November 2007, Steve Ignorant performed Crass' The Feeding of the 5000 album live at the Shepherd's Bush Empire with a band of "selected guests".[79][80] Other members of Crass were not involved in these concerts. Initially Rimbaud refused Ignorant permission to perform Crass songs he had written, but later changed his mind: "I acknowledge and respect Steve's right to do this, but I do regard it as a betrayal of the Crass ethos".[81] Ignorant had a different view: "I don't have to justify what I do...Plus, most of the lyrics are still relevant today. And remember that three-letter word, 'fun'?"[81]
2010: Crassical Collection reissues
In 2010 it was announced that Crass would release The Crassical Collection,[82] remastered reissues of their back catalogue. Three former members objected, threatening legal action.[83][84] Despite their concerns the project went ahead, and the remasters were eventually released. First in the series was The Feeding of the 5000, released in August 2010. Stations of the Crass followed in October, with new editions of Penis Envy, Christ – The Album, Yes Sir, I Will and Ten Notes on a Summer's Day released in 2011 and 2012.[85] Critics praised the improved sound quality and new packaging of the remastered albums.[86][87]
2011: The Last Supper
In 2011 Steve Ignorant embarked on an international tour, entitled "The Last Supper". He performed Crass material, culminating with a final performance at the Shepherd's Bush Empire on 19 November.[88] Ignorant said that this was the last time he would sing the songs of Crass,[89] with Rimbaud's support; the latter joined him onstage for a drum-and-vocal rendition of "Do They Owe Us A Living", bringing the band's career full circle after 34 years: "And then Penny came on...and we did it, 'Do They Owe Us A Living' as we'd first done it all those years ago. As it started, so it finished".[88] Ignorant's lineup for the tour were Gizz Butt, Carol Hodge, Pete Wilson and Spike T. Smith, and he was joined by Eve Libertine for a number of songs.[88] The set list included a cover of "West One (Shine on Me)" by The Ruts, when Ignorant was joined onstage by the Norfolk-based lifeboat crew with whom he volunteers.[88]
Artwork and exhibitions
In February 2011, artist Toby Mott exhibited a portion of his Crass ephemera collection at the Roth Gallery in New York.[90][91] The exhibit featured artwork, albums (including 12" LPs and EPs), 7" singles from Crass Records and a complete set of Crass' self-published zine, Inter-National Anthem.
Artwork by Gee Vaucher and Penny Rimbaud, including a recording of the original 'Thatchergate Tape', featured as part of the 'Peculiar People' show at the Focal Point Gallery in Southend on Sea during the spring of 2016, part of a series of events celebrating the history of 'Radical Essex'.[92] Vaucher's painting 'Oh America', featuring an image of the Statue of Liberty hiding her face with her hands, was used as the front page of the UK Daily Mirror newspaper to mark the election of Donald Trump as US President on 9 November 2016.[93] From November 2016 to February 2017 the Firstsite art gallery in Colchester, hosted a retrospective of Gee Vaucher's artwork.[94]
In June 2016, "The Art of Crass" was the subject of an exhibition at the LightBox Gallery in Leicester curated by artist and technologist Sean Clark.[95] The exhibition featured prints and original artworks by Gee Vaucher, Penny Rimbaud, Eve Libertine, and Dave King. During the exhibition, Penny Rimbaud, Eve Libertine, and Louise Elliot performed "The Cobblestones of Love", a lyrical reworking of the Crass album "Yes Sir, I Will".[96] On the final day of the exhibition there was a performance by Steve Ignorant's Slice of Life. The exhibition is documented on The Art of Crass website.[97]
Influences
Crass onstage
For Rimbaud the initial inspiration for founding Crass was the death of his friend Phil 'Wally Hope' Russell, as detailed in his book The Last of the Hippies: An Hysterical Romance. Russell had been placed in a psychiatric hospital after helping to set up the first Stonehenge free festival in 1974, and died shortly afterwards. Rimbaud believed that Russell was murdered by the State for political reasons.[98] Co-founder Ignorant has cited The Clash[10] and David Bowie[14] as major personal influences. Band members have also cited influences ranging from existentialism and Zen to situationism,[99] the poetry of Baudelaire,[100] British working class 'kitchen sink' literature and films such as Kes[101] and the films of Anthony McCall[99] (McCall's Four Projected Movements was shown as part of an early Crass performance).[102]
Crass influenced the anarchist movement in the UK, the US and beyond. The growth of anarcho-punk spurred interest in anarchist ideas.[104] The band have also claimed credit for revitalising the peace movement and the UK Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament during the late 1970s and early 1980s.[105] Others contend that they overestimated their influence, their radicalising effect on militants notwithstanding. Researcher Richard Cross stated:
In their own writing, Crass somewhat overstate the contribution that anarcho-punk made to resuscitating the moribund Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the early 1980s. The initiation of a new arms race, confirmed by plans to deploy first-strike Cruise and Pershing nuclear missiles across Europe, revived anti-nuclear movements across the continent, and would have arisen with or without the intercession of anarcho-punk. What Crass and anarcho-punk can quite legitimately claim is to have convinced a substantial number of radical youth to commit their energies to the most militant anti-militarist wings of the disarmament movement, which laid siege to nuclear installations across the country and which saw no conflict between its pacifist precepts and its willingness to commit acts of 'criminal damage' on the military property of the nuclear state.[106]
Crass' philosophical and aesthetic influences on 1980s punk bands were far-reaching.[107] A notable example is Washington, D.C.'s Dischord Records co-founder Ian MacKaye, who followed some of Crass' anti-consumerist and DIY principles in his own label and projects, particularly with the post-hardcore band Fugazi.[108][109] However, few mimicked their later free-form style (heard on Yes Sir, I Will and their final recording, Ten Notes on a Summer's Day).[110] Their painted and collage black-and-white record sleeves (by Gee Vaucher) may have influenced later artists such as Banksy (with whom Vaucher collaborated)[111] and the subvertising movement. Anti-folk artist Jeffrey Lewis's 2007 album, 12 Crass Songs, features acoustic covers of Crass material.[7]Brett Anderson, in his early teens at the time, was a big fan of the band, would play their records at home[112] and much later cited them in a radio interview, when asked about what band or artist had first made him want to get up on stage as a singer: "Crass! Their energy on stage was incredible, I was very impressed".
"Bloody Revolutions" / "Persons Unknown" (421984/1, 7" single, joint released with the Poison Girls, 1980) (UK Indie – No.1)
"Rival Tribal Rebel Revel" (421984/6F, one-sided 7" flexi disc single given away with Toxic Grafity[sic]fanzine, 1980)
"Nagasaki Nightmare" / "Big A Little A" (421984/5, 7" single, 1981) (UK Indie – No.1)
"Our Wedding" (321984/1F, one-sided 7" flexi-disc single by Creative Recording And Sound Services made available to readers of teenage magazine Loving)
"Merry Crassmas" (CT1, 7" single, 1981, Crass' stab at the Christmas novelty market) (UK Indie – No.2)
"Sheep Farming in the Falklands" / "Gotcha" (121984/3, 7" single, 1982, originally released anonymously as a flexi-disc) (UK Indie – No.1 , UK Singles Chart: No 106)
"How Does It Feel To Be The Mother of 1000 Dead?" / "The Immortal Death" (221984/6, 7" single, 1983) (UK Indie – No.1)
"Whodunnit?" (121984/4, 7" single, 1983, pressed in "shit-coloured vinyl") (UK Indie – No.2, UK Singles Chart – No.119)
"You're Already Dead" / "Nagasaki is Yesterday's Dog-End" / "Don't Get Caught" (1984, 7" single. UK Singles Chart – No.166)
Acts of Love – Fifty Songs to my Other Self by Penny Rimbaud with Paul Ellis, Eve Libertine and Steve Ignorant (Cat No.1984/4, LP and book, 1984. Reissued as CD and book as Exitstencilisms Cat No.EXT001 2012)
EXIT The Mystic Trumpeter – Live at the Roundhouse 1972, The ICES Tapes (pre Crass material featuring Penny Rimbaud, Gee Vaucher, John Loder and others) (Exit Stencil Music Cat No.EXMO2, CD and book, 2013)
Live recordings
Christ: The Bootleg (recorded live in Nottingham, 1984, released 1989 on Allied Records)
Dial House is a farm cottage situated in south-west Essex, England that has been a self-sustaining anarcho-pacifist open house since 1967. The house is located in the countryside of Epping Forest in Ongar Great Park. It has been used as a base for a number of cultural, artistic, and political projects ranging from avant-garde jazz events to helping found the free festival movement.
Anarcho-punk is an ideological subgenre of punk rock that promotes anarchism. Some use the term broadly to refer to any punk music with anarchist lyrical content, which may figure in crust punk, hardcore punk, folk punk, and other styles.
Gee Vaucher is a visual artist primarily associated with the anarcho-punk band Crass.
The Feeding of the 5000 is the first album by the anarcho-punk band Crass. The album was recorded on 29 October 1978 by John Loder at Southern Studios and was released the same year. It was considered revolutionary in its time due for its extreme sound, frequently profane lyrical content and the anarchist political ideals in the lyrics. The album also saw the introduction of Crass's policy of ensuring cheap prices for their records. The album is considered as one of the first punk albums to expound serious anarchist philosophy.
Stations of the Crass is the second album by Crass, released in 1979. The record, originally released as a double 12", includes live tracks from a gig recorded at the Pied Bull pub in Islington, London, on 7 August 1979. The first three sides contain the studio tracks and play at 45 rpm, while the final side comprises the live material and plays at 33 rpm. The album's title is not only a pun on the Catholic rite of the Stations of the Cross, but is also a reference to the graffiti campaign that the band had been conducting around London's underground railway system, the cover artwork depicting a wall at Bond Street tube station that had allegedly been 'decorated' by them. Although the album met mixed critical reception at first, it managed to sell at least 20,000 copies within two weeks.
Crass Records was an independent record label that was set up by the anarchist punk band Crass.
Yes Sir, I Will was the fifth and penultimate album released in March 1983 by anarcho-punk band Crass. The album is a virulent attack on then-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher and her government in the aftermath of the Falklands War and was set nearly wholly over a raging and an almost free-form improvised backing provided by the group's musicians.
Steve Ignorant is a singer and artist.
Penny Lapsang Rimbaud is a writer, poet, philosopher, painter, musician and activist. He was a member of the performance art groups EXIT and Ceres Confusion, and in 1972 was co-founder of the Stonehenge Free Festival, together with Phil Russell aka Wally Hope. In 1977 with Steve Ignorant, he co-founded the seminal anarchist punk band Crass and served as its drummer. Crass disbanded in 1984. Until 2000 Rimbaud devoted himself almost entirely to writing, returning to the public platform in 2001 as a performance poet working with Australian saxophonist Louise Elliott and a wide variety of jazz musicians under the umbrella of Last Amendment.
Penis Envy, released in 1981, was the third LP by the anarchist punk band Crass. The album was included at #36 on Rolling Stone's "40 Greatest Punk Albums of All Time" list in 2016.
Christ – The Album is the fourth album by Crass, released in 1982. It was released as a boxed-set, double-vinyl LP package, including one disc of new studio material and another, entitled Well Forked.. But Not Dead, a live recording of the band's June 1981 gig at the 100 Club in London along with other studio tracks, demos and tape fragments. The box also included a book, A Series of Shock Slogans and Mindless Token Tantrums, and a large poster painted by Gee Vaucher. The album was well received and the band considered it their best.
EXIT were a performance art group during the mid-1970s. EXIT members Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher later founded anarchist punk rock band Crass, adopting many of EXIT's experimental/multi media techniques into Crass' presentation.
Last Amendment, formerly known as The Crass Collective and Crass Agenda, is the working title of a series of collaborations by ex-members of the anarcho-punk band Crass and others. Although Crass had formally split up in 1984, Penny Rimbaud, Gee Vaucher, Eve Libertine, Steve Ignorant, Andy Palmer and Pete Wright came together in November 2002 to put on a concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in opposition to the at that time proposed War on Iraq. Although they did not all appear on the stage at the same time, most of the ex-members of Crass participated in the event under the name of The Crass Collective, along with other performers such as Ian MacKaye, Goldblade, the English Chamber Choir, Fun Da Mental, and Nabil Shaban, among others.
Acts of Love is an album of 50 poems by Penny Rimbaud of the anarchist punk band Crass, set to classical music composed and arranged by Penny Rimbaud and Paul Ellis, and performed by Steve Ignorant and Eve Libertine. Released in 1985 on Crass Records, the record was accompanied by a book of 50 paintings by artist Gee Vaucher.
Eve Libertine is an English singer.
The Poison Girls were an English anarcho-punk band from Brighton. The singer/guitarist, Vi Subversa, was a middle-aged mother of two at the band's inception, and wrote songs that explored sexuality and gender roles, often from an anarchist perspective. The original Poison Girls line-up also included: Lance D'Boyle (drums); Richard Famous (guitar/vocals); Nil ; and Bernhardt Rebours (bass/synthesiser/piano).
This is an overview of the Crass Records discography. (NB, dates refer to initial UK releases, many of these records have since been re-issued in CD format)
There is No Authority But Yourself is a Dutch film directed by Alexander Oey documenting the history of anarchist punk band Crass. The film features archive footage of the band and interviews with former members Steve Ignorant, Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher. As well as reflecting on the band's past the film focusses on their current activities, and includes footage of Rimbaud performing with Last Amendment at the Vortex jazz club in Hackney, a compost toilet building workshop and a permaculture course held at Dial House in the spring of 2006.
Andrew "Andy" Palmer, also known as N. A. Palmer, is a British musician and artist. He was the rhythm guitarist for anarcho punk band Crass.
David Anthony King (1948–2019) was an English American artist, (graphic) designer, and musician, a "significant figure in design history" best known as the designer of the symbol for the band Crass, "one of punk’s most recognizable and powerful designs".
References
↑ "In August 1977 Dave King went (...) As Dave exits stage left, Steve Ignorant returns to Dial House and (...) Crass was born." Berger, George (2006). The Story of Crass. Omnibus Press. p.76.
↑ Rimbaud, Penny (2004). Love Songs. Pomona Publishing. p.xxiv. ISBN1-904590-03-9. We believed that you could no more be a socialist [band] and signed to CBS (The Clash) than you could be an anarchist and signed to EMI
↑ Sleeve note on Bullshit Detector Volume 1 (Crass Records, cat no.421984/4): "Sometime in 1977 Rimbaud and Ignorant started messing around with a song called 'owe us a living'. They ran through it a few times and decided to form a band consisting of themselves. They called themselves Crass"
1 2 "At the end of the Clash gig there was all these people shouting and saying 'your shit!' and Joe Strummer stood there and said 'if you think you can do any better go ahead and start your own band.' And I was like what a great idea!" "Steve Ignorant Interview". Punk77.co.uk.
↑ Rimbaud, P; "...EXIT – 'The Mystic Trumpeter, Live at the Roundhouse 1972'" accompanying booklet, Exitstencil Recordings 2013
↑ Rimbaud, P (2004). Love Songs. Pomona Publishing. p.xxi. ISBN1-904590-03-9.
↑ Berger 2006, p.108: "They were very difficult to film, because with Super-8 you needed far more light than was available at a Crass gig – all you'd get was shadows and light – that would be about it. So it was a bit pointless filming the gigs. I did try asking for maybe 60 watt bulbs instead of 40 but there was no deal" – Mick Duffield
↑ "Anarchy in UK: Crass interviewed: 1979". greengalloway. Blogspot. 23 October 2007. But Crass blame this on Rock Against Racism which, they allege, has polarised youth. "If you're not in RAR then you're a Nazi. Now we're sandwiched between left-wing violence and right-wing violence" – Crass interviewed in "New Society", 1979
↑ Home, Stewart (1988). The Assault on Culture – Utopian Currents From Lettrisme to Class War. Aporia Press. p.96. ISBN978-0-948518-88-1. like Kropotkin, their politics are up shit creek
↑ Mossman, David (31 May 2004). "'This is the spiritual home of jazz and we ain't leaving'". The Guardian. Penny (he's a bloke) has started a petition to keep the Vortex in Stoke Newington, and puts up a notice in the club saying: "This Is the Spiritual Home of Jazz and We Ain't Leaving." The resulting petition ends up going to the council with 3,000 signatures on it
↑ Rimbaud, Penny (1982). The Last of the Hippies – An Hysterical Romance. Crass. The court passed a verdict of suicide with no reference at all to the appalling treatment that had been the direct cause of it. [...] Our inquiries convinced us that what had happened was not an accident. The state had intended to destroy Wally's spirit, if not his life, because he was a threat, a fearless threat who they hoped they could destroy without much risk of embarrassment.
↑ Greene, Lora (26 July 2012). "4: New Wave". Combat Rock: A History of Punk (from Its Origins to the Present). BookCaps Study Guides. pp.52–53. ISBN978-1621073154. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
↑ Dale, Pete (15 April 2016). "Introduction". Anyone Can Do It: Empowerment, Tradition and the Punk Underground. Routledge. p.15 and 17. ISBN978-1317180258. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
McKay, George (1996). "Chapter three: 'CRASS 621984 ANOK4U2'". Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties. Verso Books. ISBN1-85984-028-0.
Vaucher, Gee (1999). Crass Art and other Post Modern Monsters. AK Press. ISBN978-1-873176-10-8.
A Series of Shock Slogans and Mindless Token Tantrums. Exitstencil Press. 1982. (originally issued as a pamphlet with the LP Christ – The Album, much of the text is now published online at "Southern Records". Archived from the original on 4 April 2005.)
International Anthem: A Nihilist Newspaper for the Living. Exitstencil Press. 1977–81. (see "Crass Discography". Southern Records. Archived from the original on 15 April 2003. Retrieved 6 April 2003.)
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