Penny Rimbaud | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Jeremy John Ratter |
Born | Northwood, Middlesex, United Kingdom | 8 June 1943
Genres | Anarcho-punk, spoken word |
Occupation(s) | Writer, poet, philosopher, performance artist, musician |
Instrument(s) | Drums, vocals |
Years active | 1960s–present |
Labels | Small Wonder, Crass, Exitstencilisms |
Website | web |
Penny Lapsang Rimbaud (born Jeremy John Ratter, 8 June 1943) 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.
Ratter claims to have changed his name by deed poll in 1977, as, in his own words, he "wanted to be his own child". The surname was taken from that of the French symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud; the forename was chosen because Rimbaud's brother Anthony would refer to him as "a toilet-seat philosopher" (a penny being the price to enter public toilets in the day). [1]
Rimbaud was expelled from two public schools: Brentwood School in South East England and Lindisfarne College in North Wales. In early interviews, he claimed to have studied philosophy at Magdalen College, Oxford, but later claimed that this story had been fabricated "so that they couldn’t disclaim my role as an intellectual." [2]
In 1964, Rimbaud appeared on TV's Ready Steady Go! to receive a prize from John Lennon after having won a competition to produce artwork depicting the Beatles' song "I Want to Hold Your Hand." [3] Rimbaud worked briefly as an art teacher before becoming disillusioned with education, and then spent some time working as a coalman. [4]
In 1967, inspired by the film Inn of the Sixth Happiness , [5] Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher, both vegetarians, set up the anarchist/pacifist open house Dial House in the Epping Forest of southwest Essex, which has now become firmly established as a "centre for radical creativity." [6] [7]
At Dial House in the early 1970s, Rimbaud co-founded the Stonehenge Festival along with Phil Russell, better known as Wally Hope, [8] as documented in Rimbaud's 1998 autobiography Shibboleth: My Revolting Life. Following his incarceration in a mental institution for possession of LSD, Russell appeared to have been seriously mentally damaged, especially by the side effects of prescription drugs that he had been administered, and subsequently died. Though the official verdict declared Russell's death a suicide, Rimbaud claims that he has uncovered strong evidence that Russell was murdered and that his anger over unanswered questions about the death inspired him to form the anarchist punk band Crass in 1977.
When Crass disbanded in 1984, Rimbaud adopted a hermit-like existence, writing and publishing poetry, philosophy, essays, novels and plays. In 2001, he returned to the public platform as a performance poet, first working with saxophonist Ed Jones and then with Louise Elliott, who has become his full-time accompanist. With Crass vocalist Eve Libertine, in 2003 he founded the Crass Collective, later known as the Crass Agenda and finally the Last Amendment, a loose collective of jazz musicians, artists and filmmakers who share Rimbaud's interest in progressive, improvisational art.
Rimbaud's written works include the originally self-published Reality Asylum, [9] a vitriolic attack on Christianity that appeared in heavily revised form on Crass' 1978 debut album The Feeding of the 5000 , as a longer single [10] and as a 45-minute spoken-word monologue. Other writings include: Rocky Eyed, an extended poem attacking prime minister Margaret Thatcher and her government following the 1982 Falklands War, which was recorded as the Crass album Yes Sir, I Will ; [11] The Death of Imagination (a "musical drama in 4 parts"); and The Diamond Signature (published by AK Press). Oh America is a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks and the United States' subsequent war on terror. It includes the line, "Give us justice which is not the searing spite of revenge, peace which is not the product of war nor dependent upon it." [12]
Rimbaud contributed several spoken-word tracks to the 2008 Japanther album Tut Tut Now Shake Ya Butt and spoken-word vocals for the Charlatans track "I Sing the Body Eclectic" on the album Who We Touch. [13] [14]
See also Crass discography. Rimbaud plays on all Crass albums and singles.
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.
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.
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.
Founded 1992 by John Loder, Southern Records is an independent record label. It is based in London and until 2008 had offices in the United States, France and Berlin.
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)
Christine Tobin is an Irish vocalist and composer from Dublin who has been part of the London jazz and improvising scene since the second half of the 1980s. She has been influenced by a diverse range of singers and writers including Betty Carter, Bessie Smith, Leonard Cohen, Olivier Messiaen, Miles Davis and poets William Butler Yeats, Paul Muldoon and Eva Salzman.
Ann Robie Bandes, better known as Little Annie, Annie Anxiety or Annie Anxiety Bandez, is an American singer, painter, poet, writer, performing and recording artist, pastor, and stage actor.
Philip Alexander Grahame Russell, known as Wally Hope, was an experimental philosopher of the UK Underground and organiser of the Windsor Free Festival and the Stonehenge Free Festival.
Crass were an English art collective and punk rock band formed in Epping, Essex in 1977 who promoted anarchism as a political ideology, a lifestyle and a resistance movement. Crass popularised the anarcho-punk movement of the punk subculture, advocating direct action, animal rights, feminism, anti-fascism and environmentalism. The band employed and advocated a DIY ethic in its albums, sound collages, leaflets and films.
Tut Tut, Now Shake Ya Butt is a studio album by American experimental punk band Japanther. The song "Radical Businessman" was used in Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned, the add-on to the video game Grand Theft Auto IV. The album includes spoken word contributions from former Crass drummer Penny Rimbaud.
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".