CRASS
- STATIONS OF THE CRASS
The Feeding Of The 5000 had been a revelation though it
soon became clear that it had also been merely a warm-up, an
overture. Stations Of The Crass, the début double album, was
instead the full, florid flowering of what would soon and forever
more be known as Anarcho Punk.
Arriving in an innovative, black and white, wrap-a-round
sleeve that opened out into a surreal photomontage poster surrounded
by photos taken from a riotous-looking Crass gig; the printed lyrics
were presented as a sheer block of text suggesting an information
overload, of there being much to say and much to communicate.
The year was 1979 and the Conservative Party had come to
power headed by Britain's first ever woman Prime Minister, Margaret
Thatcher. The defeated Labour government led by Jim Callaghan had
presided over a country that to all intent and purpose was drab, grey
and terminally downbeat; and their banishment was very much deserved.
The birth of Punk just over two years earlier and the reaction to it
from those outraged and from those inspired by it was absolutely
indicative of the state of the nation. To the self-appointed
guardians of the status quo and their fellow moral pundits (which
included the bedraggled Labour government), Punk was yet another
indication of Britain's slide toward moral decay and degeneracy. To
those who could see beyond such things as the swearing, the
outrageous clothes and the blaring music, Punk was as Crass put it
"an answer to years of crap. A way of saying 'No' where we'd
always said 'Yep'". To both camps, however, Punk signalled
that a change was in the air.
The Sex Pistols had let off a great, incandescent flare
that had broken the darkness of 1970s Britain revealing everything in
its true light. Suddenly a huge swathe of very scared and frightened
people were exposed who viewed Punk with nothing but contempt. There
they were, digging in for their own protection, building not a
Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land but a Little England
for Little Englanders. Conservative thinkers one and all be they of
the Left or the Right, who could only see in Punk a lack of
discipline, a lack of respect, and the whiff of communist propaganda
and subversion. Tension within British society had been building for
years and Punk along with the Winter of Discontent were the straws
that broke the camel's back. As battle lines were being drawn, the
stage was being set for an almighty showdown.
Standing on the steps of Number Ten Downing Street
having been elected Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher waved to her
constituency and quoted a prayer supposedly of St Francis of Assisi:
"Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is
error, may we bring truth. And where there is despair, may we bring
hope."
Coincidentally, Stations Of The Crass also began with a
prayer but of churchman William Fuller: "Now that the sun has
veiled his light, and bid the world good night. To the soft bed my
body I dispose, but where shall my soul repose?"
Thatcher immediately shattered her prayer by bringing
absolute disharmony to the country, while Crass shattered theirs by
bass, drums and screeching fuzz-box guitars, ushering in the sound of
Steve Ignorant crying out the word 'mother' like a wounded, screaming
and dying animal.
Mother Earth, the song chosen to kick off the album was
Crass firing on all cylinders and going straight for the jugular:
"It's Myra Hindley on the cover, your very own sweet
anti-mother. There she is on the pages of The Star, ain't that just
the place you wish you were? Let her rot in hell is what you said.
Let her rot, let her starve, you'd see her dead. Let her out but
don't forget to tell you where she is, the chance to screw her is a
chance you wouldn't miss."
Inspired by writer and artist Jeff Nuttall's seminal
1960s treatise Bomb Culture along with John Lennon at his primal
scream therapy best, the subject of child killer Myra Hindley is
turned on its head and thrown straight back into the faces of those
who in all likelihood gave Thatcher their vote.
"You pretend that you're horrified, make out
that you care, but really you wish that you had been there. You say
you can't bear the thought of what she did, but you'd do it to her,
you'd see her dead. Tell me, what's the difference between her and
you? You say that you would kill her, well what else would you do?"
Though the issue is a weighty and complex one, within
the space of the song all the dots are joined and a message of
non-violence is delivered. At the same time, the listener is given
cause to question their own values as to whether they too are part of
that hypocritical society at which the song is aimed: "Don't
you see that violence has no end? Isn't limited by rules? Don't you
see as angels preaching, you're nothing but the fools? Fools step in
where angels fear to tread. You see, to kill others is the ethic of
the dead... Then you goodly Christian people with your sickly mask of
love, would tear that woman limb from limb, you never get enough. So
you keep the story alive so you can make yourself believe that you
are so much better than her. But you're not. That's your guilt laying
there."
But if Hindley was the anti-mother what then was
Thatcher? Due to the British ruling class being comprised, shaped and
formed by men who had all passed through the public school education
system where their main contact with women would have been primarily
via a matron, the shock of them suddenly having a woman in absolute
power must have been inexplicable. Thatcher excelled and revelled in
her position as Prime Minister, confronting the country at large with
the same attitude she did with her ex-public schoolboy composed
Cabinet. Thatcher was (as Crass would later put it) the "wicked
matron stabbing hard."
Prior to her election victory, Thatcher had cynically
played the race card by talking about neighbourhoods being swamped by
immigrants. Throughout the 1970s the unashamedly racist National
Front had consistently attempted to make inroads into the electorate
with their agenda of repatriation and 'rights for whites'. In
opposition to this, the Anti-Nazi League/Socialist Workers Party had
set up Rock Against Racism, pulling in a large number of bands to
play benefit gigs and festivals for their cause and to help spread
their anti-racist message.
Racism was indeed a major issue and on the streets a
battle for hearts and minds was being waged. In the end, it seemed to
come down to a very simple question of whose side you were on. Anyone
supporting Rock Against Racism was obviously of the Left and
therefore politically sound; anyone not supporting Rock Against
Racism was obviously of the Right and therefore a No Fun Nazi. Anyone
not fitting in with either side whether through choice or by default
was viewed with suspicion: Practically any band prepared to entertain
skinheads, Adam And The Ants for songs such as Deutscher Girls, Crass
for wearing black.
Thatcher came along and simply mopped up.
Very few bands dared challenge the presiding orthodoxy
as laid down by Rock Against Racism apart, that is, from Crass who
took their own stance on the whole situation: "Black man's
got his problems and his way to deal with it so don't fool yourself
you're helping with your white liberal shit. If you care to take a
closer look at the way things really stand, you'd see we're all just
niggers to the rulers of this land."
White Punks On Hope was a Crass song full of ideas both
brilliant and problematic. From its opening stanza Crass were once
again setting themselves apart, particularly from Punk's accepted
leading lights, The Clash: "They said that we were trash.
Well, the name is Crass, not Clash. They can stuff their Punk
credentials cos it's them that take the cash."
In their early days, Crass had played a
benefit gig themselves for Rock Against Racism and were somewhat
dismayed when offered to be paid for it. "Keep the money for
the cause", Crass had told them. "But this is the
cause." came the response from the organisers. Crass chose
never to play for Rock Against Racism again. In comparison, during Rude Boy, the film that was
centred around The Clash, the band are shown backstage at the famous
Rock Against Racism carnival held at Victoria Park in1978. Clash
drummer Topper Headon is shown being harangued by the film's main
protagonist, Ray Gange, as to why The Clash are playing at the
carnival for "all these students". To be fair,
Topper was never the most politically astute member of The Clash nor
was he ever as passionate as Joe Strummer but his reply is still
interesting and it perhaps speaks volumes when he shrugs and says
"It's a gig, innit?"
"They won't change nothing with their
fashionable talk," Crass continued "Their RAR badges
and their protest walk. Thousands of white men standing in a park,
objecting to racism like a candle in the dark." And indeed
Crass had a point, though the likes of Billy Bragg would forever beg
to differ but then Bragg was, of course, firmly of the Left.
The way in which the Left, particularly the Socialist
Workers Party in the guise of Rock Against Racism was trying to take over Punk seemed to be anathema to Crass. To Crass,
Punk was inherently political but not in a party political sense.
Punk was an urge, a bid, an opportunity for people to be themselves
and to not have to conform to anyone else's values or agendas, least
of all those of the Socialist Workers Party: "Punk was once
an answer to years of crap, a way of saying 'No' where we'd always
said 'Yep'. The moment we found a way to be free, they invented a
dividing line: street credibility. The qualifying factors are
politics and class, Left-wing macho street-fighters willing to kick
arse. They said because of racism they'd come out on the street, but
it was just a form of fascism for the social elite. Bigotry and
blindness, a Marxist con. Another clever trick to keep us all in
line. Neat little labels to keep us all apart, to keep us all divided
when the troubles start."
The paradox here was that in their own way Crass were
incredibly street credible and could genuinely be viewed as a
'people's band'. There seemed to be little doubt to their audience at
least that Crass were 'the real thing'. Without question, Crass were
incredibly political also though doggedly adamant in not aligning
themselves to any political wing. Thus the raising of the Anarchist
banner at their gigs to ward off the circling vultures of both the
Left and Right. The issue of class, however, seemed to be a problem
to them and would be a subject that would continue to be a thorn in
their side.
It was journalist Garry Bushell who first raised the
issue of class and Crass when reviewing The Feeding Of The 5000 for
Sounds newspaper: 'Being middle-class,' he wrote 'they
think class doesn't matter.'
Crass would draw an awful lot of criticism from the
music press, so much so in fact that some journalists appeared to
hate them with an inexplicable vengeance. The issue of class,
however, was a criticism that seemed to really get to them, as though
it was their Achilles' heel. This was odd, really, because whilst the
band were made up of a cross-section of people from different
classes, some of the members of the band were thoroughly working
class although as a collective voice they rejected any relevance to
the matter.
Though there is ultimately no real virtue in being
working-class, to propose that class doesn't matter is, however,
absolutely wrong and nothing really but a middle-class conceit. The
ruling class, for example, are fully aware of class divisions and
talk of them quite openly, as renowned political philosopher/activist
Noam Chomsky has often pointed out. Garry Bushell may have been wrong
in accusing Crass of being middle-class but in pulling them up on the
position they took on the subject, he was right. Alongside this, the
issue of violence was also to prove problematic for Crass and so too
for their audience, particularly when confronting or being confronted
by their enemies.
Pacifism was an ideology that Crass were vehemently
espousing and being mightily convincing in their argument too, it
must be said. A large number of their audience were taking to it like
ducks to water as in many ways it was a welcoming and even
enlightening ideological sanctuary: "Pogo on a Nazi, spit
upon a Jew. Vicious mindless violence that offers nothing new.
Left-wing violence, Right-wing violence, all seems much the same.
Bully boys out fighting, it's just the same old game."
The problem of skinheads, or at least those who were
ready and able to start a fight at the drop of a hat whether it be
for just a laugh or for political reasons was all too common at that
time and this was often the first test of a Crass audience's newly
adopted pacifist beliefs. Unfortunately, having taken to pacifism
like ducks to water, in the face of skinhead violence the audience
were sitting ducks.
As it would on many an occasion, when violence erupted
at a Crass gig the whole band would tend to clamber down from the
stage and confront the troublemakers. They would almost always
successfully calm the situation by peaceful means, though dealing
with it primarily without any help from the audience. If not for the
intervention of the band, an audience of hundreds at a Crass gig
could easily be intimidated and violently assaulted by just a few.
In comparison, when fighting would occur at other Punk
gigs it was interesting to see how those other bands might deal with
it. At Stiff Little Fingers gigs, for example, vocalist Jake Burns
would pull out a pocket torch and shine it at the troublemakers,
telling them to stop. At Angelic Upstarts gigs, vocalist Mensi would
simply invite the troublemakers up on stage to fight with him, no
matter how many there might be of them.
By advocating pacifism and putting it forward as a
credible ideology to adhere to, were Crass not only painting
themselves into a corner but painting their audience into one as
well? Were they denying themselves and their audience the choice,
the option not of fighting back but of fighting back with force? Of
fighting fire with fire? There were no easy answers and sadly it was
destined to be an almost endless and very frustrating debate.
For all that, when it came to the issue and the question
of taking sides and choosing where to stand in the political spectrum
of Left and Right, Crass were absolutely spot on the ball leaving no
doubt in anyone's mind about where they were at: "Boring
fucking politics that'll get us all shot. Left-wing, Right-wing, you
can stuff the lot. Keep your petty prejudice, I don't see the point.
Anarchy and freedom is what I want, want, want, want, want..."
On the track You've Got Big Hands, this theme of taking
sides (or not) is continued. By deciding for themselves where they
stood in relation to both the music business and the system in
general and not having anyone decide for them, Crass were flying the
flag high for independence: "Out of the chaos we divide,
fucked up, muddled up, looking for a side. Stay on the outside, don't
go in. Don't think that you can do it, if you sell-out they win. It's
not like that the changes are made. Give in to them, your chances are
delayed. You'll feed with your energies the things you hate, diluting
your strength each time they say 'Yes'."
When it came to the subject of the music industry Crass
were setting a very good example. Their first 12" single had
been released on the Small Wonder independent label, their début 7"
single and now their début album released on their own independent
Crass Records label. Every gig they were playing was a benefit for a
worthy cause. Instead of selling additional Crass merchandise such as
badges and t-shirts they were encouraging their audience to create
their own t-shirts and giving badges away for free along with various
pamphlets, leaflets and their own International Anthem newspaper. At
every gig they played they would be out front mingling with the
audience rather than hanging out backstage as was the norm for most
groups. Everyone who wrote to them would get a personal reply and on
top of this, the door to their shared house was always open for
anyone who cared to visit. As a band they were totally accessible.
To the amazement if not bewilderment of a lot of people
Crass seemed to be really going for it and urging others to take
note: If we can do it then so can you. Not that they were being naive
at all about what they were up against and in fact they seemed to
have rather a better understanding than most: "They'll let
you past a couple of times, you think you're getting somewhere,
you're fucking blind. This structure stretches, it'll bend but not
break. This system channels any threat you make."
What Crass were conveying was that genuine freedom and
strength lay in independence. If the pitfalls of succumbing to others
demands and expectations could be avoided (as within the music
industry, for example) then something genuinely new might come of it.
Any potential reward or any possible benefit gained from following
the same old path was just too predictable. It would be nothing more
than a pay-off and a rubbish one at that. It would be a sell-out.
Better to be a real threat by example than be an example of a threat
tempered: "(This system) will do almost anything to
accommodate, accommodate you and your liberal ideas. You're the child
in their garden, the dog on their lead, their token to changes that
are never made. Can't you see for centuries it's been the same?
Plenty like you been seduced to the game. The chain's still as tight,
won't let in the light. Can you tell me what's different? Whose hope
will you feed? Will you feed their arses? Will you feed their hands?"
You've Got Big Hands was a jumping, jerking, rush of
energy enlivened not just by Steve Ignorant's caustic delivery of
the line "You're fucking blind!" but by rhythm
guitarist Andy Palmer's début vocals (under the pseudonym N.A.
Palmer) on a chorus line of "Big hands big hands big hands
big hands", adding yet another powerful voice to the Crass
canon.
As an example of a band accused and branded guilty of
selling-out, almost predictably The Clash are singled out for
attention and targeted once again on the track System. Picking up
from The Clash song Guns On The Roof from their Give 'Em Enough Rope
album in which Joe Strummer declares "I swear by Almighty God
to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth", Crass
respond with the line "You can swear by who the fuck you like
but you're still on the roof." They then go on to state as
almost a matter of fact: "I'm not gonna change the system,
they're not gonna change the system, we're not gonna change the
system." before asking "Where does that leave you?
Where does that leave me?" The answer, according to Crass
was very simple: "Jumping up and down to a bunch of tools."
The summation, moreover, was even simpler: "Buy the band and
call the tune."
Around this same time, in an interview in the NME with
Mark E Smith, the lead vocalist of The Fall, the conversation turned
to the subject of 'art' and Mark revealed that of late he'd been
listening to a lot of Crass. Not for what Crass were saying, he
explained, but for how they were saying it: "I listen to
Crass quite a lot, I don't like what they say in their lyrics but the
way they just use swear words in speeded-up rhyme, it's quite
innovatory and not like say the UK Subs who are too earthbound. But
there's something off centre about Crass that appeals to me, there's
something about Johnny Cash that appeals to me that's off centre and
with The Fall I'm trying to get along those levels and put my own
thing in as well."
Mark E Smith was a lyricist who had his own unique way
of using words in a song and he was recognising a similar originality
in the way Crass wrote that he was trying to understand. The Crass
method of composing a song and the way in which they were using words
was shown to good effect on the track Big Man, Big M.A.N. which was
composed of perfect rhyming couplets; the style being an echo of Bob
Dylan at his free-wheeling best yet also a precursor for Rap. The
whole rhythm of the words suggested they could be either spoken or
sung and that they'd lend themselves to almost any kind of music. If
required or desired they could even be sung gently, accompanied by
nothing more than an acoustic guitar. If need be, Crass could play
unplugged. The fact that the words were being delivered in anger,
however, was the essential element that was raising their songs to a
whole new level and lending them so much power.
Like many a Crass song, Big Man, Big M.A.N. deals with a
subject not ever really tackled before in music, that being the idea
of men being depicted as macho as reflected in society. Or rather,
the idea that for a man to get on in society he must conform to
society's image of man, that being a macho image.
Examples of this are given by the role of a lorry driver
("Lorry driving's fun, you're always on the go. One hand on
the wheel, the other up some cunt. Jerking off to Penthouse with the
motorway up front"), a policeman ("The police force
offers chances for a bright, intelligent lad, to interfere with
anyone cos they're there just to be had. It offers quite a range for
aggression and for spite, to take out your frustrations in a
justifiable light") and a soldier ("It's a man's
life in the army, good pay and lots of fun. You can stab them with
your bayonet, fuck them with your gun. Look smart in your uniform,
that always pulls the skirt. Then when you've fucked them good and
proper, tell them they're just dirt").
According to Crass, society is man-made, society is
male-dominated, and society is violent. Toeing the line and
conforming to society's values means conforming to the idea of
violence. Being a man in society means being macho means being
violent. So the circle is completed and the circle remains unbroken:
"They're telling you to do it, grow up and toe the line. They
tell you if you do it, everything will turn out fine. Oh yes oh yes
oh yes, what a wonderful life. God, Queen and Country, colour telly,
car and wife. It's great if you can do it, it doesn't take a lot,
just means you must destroy what sensitivity you've got. Well that's
an easy bargain for the things you're gonna get. You can treat the
wife like shit, own a car, a telly set. Slip off in the evening for a
little on the sly. If the wife complains, fuck her first then black
her eye... If you're a man you'd better act like one, develop your
muscles, use your prick like a gun. Fuck anything that moves but
never pay the price. Steal! Fuck! Slaughter! That's their advice.
'Are you man enough?', ask the posters on the walls. Have you got
what it takes? Guts and balls?"
Though it may not have been quite as simple or as black
and white as how Crass were putting it across, the subject was at
least being raised. But then Crass would always deal in absolutes
even if there were a lot of grey areas in-between, leaving it
ultimately for the listener to think for themselves and to decipher
those greys for themselves. Whether or not every listener was
actually capable of this was, of course, another question entirely.
Crass themselves were articulate and creative so were quite capable
of expressing their rage but those who perhaps weren't so articulate
had to somehow just find their own way.
"Big man, what a fucking joke", said
Crass but it would be no joke to see a significant section of the
Crass audience singing along to songs like Big Man, Big M.A.N. one
minute and, for example, Sex And Violence by The Exploited the next.
Apparently not recognising that the two might be somewhat
incompatible. The biggest paradox of them all, however, was the fact
that this male-dominated, violent society of which Crass were singing
was now headed not by a man but by a woman - Margaret Thatcher. So
did this mean that Thatcher was the most macho of them all? That she
was the most violent of all? And indeed, that she had the biggest
guts and balls of them all?
In any interview with them (which was invariably always
with fanzines), Crass were always up for a debate and ready to flesh
out their arguments and points of view with reason, depth and
sincerity. Dare to criticise them unduly, however, and you stood to
face their wrath; something that journalists Garry Bushell and Tony
Parsons both discovered when they gave scathingly negative reviews of
The Feeding Of The 5000 in Sounds newspaper and the NME.
After re-printing the reviews in full under a heading of
'Reputations in jeopardy' on the insert for the second pressing of
Feeding Of The 5000, Crass composed a short ditty about the subject
that ended up as the last track on side one of their album. Entitled
Hurry Up Garry (The Parson's Farted), the sheer ferocity of it is
quite astounding and all the better for it. This was the sound of
Crass unleashing a double-barrel shotgun blast of righteousness and
blowing their target clear out of the water.
From its opening and somewhat scary-sounding shout of
"The bastards!", Crass spit absolute venom at their
critics: "Yes that's right, I stepped out of line. Well, what
do you want? WHAT DO YOU WANT? As long as I play it moderate, that's
fine. Well, fuck off cunt, fuck off cunt. Pick your nose with your
ball pen, stick your snot in Sounds. Back to your play-pen with your
street cred minds. You whimper and whine from the pages of the press,
ridicule and criticise those that want to change this mess. There's
people out here who are trying to live. People who care. What do you
give?"
Both Bushell and Parsons had actually done much to
promote Punk through their writing in the music press and both had
always been big fans of the genre but to Crass this made no
difference. To Crass, Bushell and Parsons were criticising something
they just didn't understand and now - as Bob Dylan had once sang -
the times they were a-changing. Punk was getting serious and things
were getting personal. The tables were turning and the boot (a Doc
Martin boot, naturally) was now on the other foot. Those being
criticised could now answer back as that other much-criticised band
Adam And The Ants were to do so majestically in their song Press
Darlings, in which they would name-check Garry Bushell also. Crass in
the meantime were making no attempt at finesse and instead were just
letting rip: "So many parasites living off our sweat, so many
fuckers in for what they can get. Punk ain't about your standards and
your rules, it ain't another product for the suckers and the fools.
You sit behind your typewriters shovelling shit, rotting in the
decadence of your crap-lined pit. Waiting for the action so you can
grab a part but it stinks so bad where you come from, who's gonna
smell your fart?"
It's a mighty long road from accusing two-bit Punk bands
of being "nasty, worthless" and "full of
shit" to being cultural aficionados on national newspapers
and television. Whilst Crass were doing their utmost to shun the
trappings of fame and the cult of personality, both Bushell and
Parsons were to grab at them greedily and clamber successfully up the
media shit-pole to become minor celebrities.
"Piss off, you fucking stink. Bastards."
came the final retort from Crass to their critics. And piss off they
did. Bushell to The Sun newspaper as a scab columnist and Parsons to
BBC2's Newsnight Review where both for some inexplicable reason would
be paid large sums of money to write and talk utter bollocks.
As on The Feeding Of The 5000, different members of
Crass took on the vocals for different songs and when Pete Wright
stepped forward on side two of the album, he still sounded very much
like a man at the end of his tether. Fun Going On concerns itself
with the boredom of everyday life and all that which is on offer to
keep people amused if not content. As a piece of friendly advice
"Have some fun whilst you're young, son" is pretty
harmless in itself but it gets a little annoying when you want
something a bit more than fun, particularly when you realise the kind
of fun on offer leads nowhere apart from up the garden path: "It's
just another rave... another death pall... just bad rock'n'roll
chivvied up a bit... Go see a band and it's another fucking bore,
another bunch of jerks shitting on the poor." Pete
remonstrates against this concept of fun as in his eyes it's people
giving acquiescence to a life of "crawling through shit,
skivvying their lives away, slaving in the pit." His own
position, however, is not a happy one as he comes across as sounding
very cynical, frustrated and on edge: "A million people are
sitting out of work, I never wanted in so I'm treated as a shirk.
Who's the fool in the Irish joke, when they say all you've got is
your stupid vote? It's all very comfy when they keep the war vocal
but the bombs in Belfast are coming down your local. I wanna know how
much you can take cos you've taken it all and that's just great."
The same theme is continued on the track Tired, where to
a persistent chant of "What do you want? What do you want?"
Pete lets us all know that he's "tired of adrenalin-soaked
fools, tired of idiots playing with the rules... Tired of bully boys
looking for a fight... Tired of playing with vice, tired of hash
heads trying to be nice."
Pete also lets us know that he's a master of inventively
funny one-liners. On Fun Going On he'd mentioned something called
"the jock-rot heavy metal leg iron gush." - whatever
that might be? - before confiding "Ave fucking Maria is what
I say, she's still going strong and it won't go away." On
Tired he confides "I'm not a hard nut, so stuff it, RIGHT?"
sounding for all the world as though he's the hardest of the hard
nuts. "They really got you in a down-trodden state,"
he continues "Hopelessly, endlessly, heavily, totally
straight."
The final turn of the screw comes with Upright Citizen,
in which Pete delivers a stream of invective aimed at the typical,
common or garden upright citizen of the title. At this point Pete
appears to have given up caring any more and is simply getting off
his chest what he's been quietly thinking to himself for years: "You
have this life. What for? Tell me. Spend it on shit, your ignorance
appals me. You serve me your morals, changed for a fiver. Upright
citizen, Penthouse subscriber. You won't print the word but you'll
beat up the wife in your ignorant, arrogant, terminal life... I'm
sick of your pride, you think you can rule me? With crappy judgements
from your respectable majority? Majority of what? You self-oppressed
idiot. I'm not going to carry you, I'm no compatriot. How many times
do I excuse and forgive the damage inflicted by the way that you
live?"
There is genuine loathing and disgust in his tone of
voice as he affords no let up: "You have this life, you twist
and abuse it. Morals and money and media controls it. Can't you see
the dead children? The blood in the street? Every fist that you raise
is a corpse at your feet. Every time you are bought, I don't care the
amount. You are the rapist dealing in death count. And you do this
with mercenary morals, you shit. Oh, you've been told about dignity
down in the pit. Respectable working man, honourable wife? A waste of
energy and an insult to life."
His words are delivered as though they're needed to be
said not only to vent his spleen but for the actual good of his
mental health. It was also besides the point whether anyone actually
agreed with him or not. It just didn't matter.
It's anyone's guess as to what music any such upright
citizen might be listening to but it was highly unlikely they'd be
listening to Crass, so this left it to whoever might actually be
listening to decide where they stood in the Crass world-view. Might
they be an upright citizen too without even realising or admitting it
to themselves? If not fully then even partly? Might they too be "a
waste of energy and an insult to life?" Might they be part
of the problem or part of the solution?
On Time Out (with Steve Ignorant returning to lead
vocals) this same question is raised again leaving it for the
listener to decide whether it's referring to the 'upright citizen' or
even to themselves?: "They're using skateboards as spastic
chairs for the legless fuckers who fought your affairs. They're
moulding babies' dummies with a permanent smile to put the bleeders
early in rank and file. They're giving you a chance to be a plastic
wrap around the doggies' meat- can, full of fucking crap. They're
making little dollies, they tell you 'it's a boy'. Baby brother,
tender love, to bring you lots of joy. They're making plastic
families, all neighbourly folk, so she can wash and dress them. What
a fucking joke."
The terms 'they' and 'you' are used often throughout
many a Crass song but who exactly were 'they'? The term is left open
for interpretation but it can probably be safely assumed that in all
likelihood it was being taken by the listener to mean some 'other'.
As time would pass, however, it would become more and more clear that
whilst there were those who would curtail freedom and impose their
limitations upon other people, Crass were actually referring to the
individual listener and holding a mirror up to them: "They're
telling you you like it, you're saying that you do. They don't have
to force it and tell you how to chew. You swallow it whole, without a
fucking squeak, sitting there quietly and up they creep. You think
you're fucking different? You think it's you and them? If they asked
you a question you'd ask them 'when?'"
Interestingly, for the first time in song, on Time Out
Crass refer directly to the issue of class but what makes it doubly
interesting is that it turned out that the words were written by
Crass member Gee Vaucher, who was working class and sung by Steve
Ignorant who was also working class: "Well, you made the
choice: money, sex and crime. Tight little egos asking for the time.
Well I ain't got it, you can sit in your pit. Middle-class,
working-class, it's all a load of shit. Middle-class. Working-class.
All a load of shit. It's a load of shit. It's all a load of fucking
shit."
Crass were taking no prisoners and like the Sex Pistols
had done, were raising the bar on what was possible to be done in
music and if people didn't appreciate what they were saying, then so
be it. The fact was, however, that Crass were starting to play gigs
to packed out audiences up and down the country and their album was
due to go straight to number one in the Independent Charts and would
remain in the chart for the next couple of years. This suggested, of
course, that people were fully appreciating them.
From the rough and raw buzz of their Small Wonder demo
tape, Crass were very quickly developing into nothing less than a
multi-disciplined, multi-media assault upon culture and the body
politic. Utilising music, film, the printed word, graffiti, posters,
art and poetry they were fast becoming a force to be reckoned with.
Arguably, the music they were creating was being made more powerful
by their use of multi-vocalists which was allowing them a wider base
from which to express themselves and again, as with Feeding Of The
5000 this included on their album the use of female vocals on certain
songs.
The track Darling saw the return of Eve Libertine
singing what was probably some of the most ambiguous of Crass lyrics,
though none the less interesting for it. Starting with an
unaccompanied declaration of "They sell us love as divinity,
when it's only a social obscenity. Underneath they're all loveable."
followed by a curious exclamation of "Ha!", the
music jerks to and thro as Eve twists, turns and plays with with the
words 'hero', 'hello', 'obsession' and 'possession' to create a
weirdly evocative composition. "Hello, hero! Hero, hello!
Hello, hero! Hello, hello!" cries Eve, displaying her vocal
dexterity and creating a live favourite in the process. Years later
her opening declaration would be sampled and end up on dance records
as would, in fact, a good many other snatches of Crass songs.
Demoncrats also featured Eve Libertine on lead vocals
but this time in spoken word mode, it being another dark excursion
into the soundscape territory as first explored on Reality Asylum.
Accompanied by Andy Palmer trailing and echoing her words, this was
Crass at their most poetic; delivering what was nothing less than a
beautiful and thought-provoking work of art.
To the sound of a single, chiming bell blown haphazardly
by an eerie wind amidst the breaking of apocalyptic storm clouds, Eve
makes her way through the valley of death, despairing but fearing no
evil: "I am not He, nor Master, nor Lord; no crown to wear,
no cross to bear in stations. I am not He, nor shall be, warlord of
nations. These heroes have run before me, now dead upon the
flesh-piles, see? Waiting for their promised resurrection. There is
none. Nothing but the marker, crown or cross in stone upon these
graves."
This was a poem of deep mourning. A requiem. Bleak yet
proud and strong with defiance. Poignant yet noble in its conveyance
of a truth: "Promise of the ribbon was all it took, where
only the strap would leave its mark upon these slaves. What flag to
thrust into this flesh, rag, bandage, mop in their flowing death?
Taken aside, they were pointed a way, for God, Queen and Country. Now
in silence they lie. They ran before these masters, children of
sorrow. As slaves to that trilogy they had no future. They believed
in democracy, freedom of speech. Yet dead on the flesh-piles I hear
no breath. I hear no hope, no whisper of faith from those that have
died for some others' privilege."
Demoncrats was proof positive that Crass were operating
on a completely different level to just about any other band of that
time, particularly within the realms of Punk Rock. On God Save The
Queen, the Sex Pistols had said there was no future in England's
dreaming; Crass were reflecting and agreeing with this but expounding
upon it by saying there was no future in the trilogy of God, Queen
and Country. Yet unlike the Pistols who warned, mocked and revelled
in their declaration of no future, Crass were staring back in
unblinking, unswerving defiance. Pronouncing very calmly, very
articulately, and without fear a curse upon the beneficiaries of that
trilogy: "Out from your palaces, princes and queens. Out from
your churches, you clergy, you Christs. I'll neither live nor die for
your dreams. I'll make no subscription to your paradise."
Such a brilliantly powerful speech as this could easily
have been wrung from history books detailing any period of great
social upheaval and revolution but no, it was being said in Britain
at the dawn of the 1980s. Spoken by a woman in what was nothing more
than a "nasty, worthless", two-bit Punk Rock band by
the name of Crass. For those paying attention it was obvious that
something very unusual was going on.
From the sublime to the exalted. In as much as
Demoncrats was powerfully majestic in its defiance, the track Walls
as sung by Joy de Vivre (having changed her pseudonym from Virginia
Creeper) was powerfully ethereal in it's non-compliance.
Accompanied by snatches of dialogue and static from a
radio played over a shuffling beat and reverberating staccato guitar
chops, Joy's voice swoops and glides gently as she delivers a concept
of freedom borne on flowing words: "Desire desire desire
desire describe desire defile deny no air to breathe inside your
walls left to dream inside your walls... Images that you apply I
won't bow my head in shame I won't play the game the same without
your walls I am alive without your walls we all survive without your
walls no guilt to bear without your love our love to share without
your walls I am alive without your walls I am alive without your
walls I am alive..."
As the music cascades and bursts like orchestrated
fireworks in the night sky a pop sensibility is revealed that would
have had critics baffled. The words were nicely sung rather than
screamed and the template was more disco than rock'n'roll. Who would
have ever thought this was Crass? Were they not, after all, meant to
be a hardcore Punk Rock group? In essence, yes they were this - and
more, as confirmed by the rest of the songs on the album as sung by
Steve Ignorant operating in full Punk Rock mode.
At a time when the majority of the first wave of Punk
groups were either splitting up, mellowing or 'maturing', Crass were
one of the very few groups continuing to keep faith with Punk and to
run with the Punk flame. From it's original stripped-down,
back-to-basics rawness, Punk had been polished, smoothed, neutered
and re-packaged as New Wave. Crass weren't just taking Punk back to
the street from where it had sprung but were taking it even further.
They were taking it underground. And in doing so this didn't mean
they were restricting and imposing ill-defined limitations upon
themselves in the form of how Punk was meant to be; in fact it was
the complete opposite. They were allowing themselves the freedom to
experiment and do as they please without keeping an eye on how it
might affect their path to success or record sales.
The majority of the songs on The Feeding Of The 5000 had
all kept up the same hard, fast and relentless pace which probably
caused a fair few people's presumptions of how a post-1977 Punk Rock
band should sound to be shattered like so many shards of glass. The
sheer energy contained within the songs and the energy in which they
were delivered acted like a sudden jolt. A short, sharp, shock. A
drug rush, almost. White heat white light. Stations Of The Crass was
like the open sea to which that rush had led. A wide open space where
there was room to breathe, stretch and explore.
On Crutch Of Society the pace is slowed down to a
dirge-like crawl as though it was a song recorded at 45rpm but played
at 33⅓rpm
instead: "Don't
wanna bury my head in the crutch of society, perverted parent that
takes my energy, sucking me dry with your morals, your threats.
Christ, your Queen, your politics..."
Heard Too Much About
on the other hand continuously stops and starts, the gaps punctuated
by Andy Palmer shouting out either the last words of each line or the
song title itself: "I've
heard too much about the people in the ghetto, heard too much about
the working class motto - PEOPLE IN THE GHETTO! How you don't know
life if you ain't seen the street, racialist poor against the
racialist elite - HEARD TOO MUCH ABOUT! A million people in factory
and office, aware there's something missing but living with their
losses - WORKING CLASS MOTTO!... War in your bedroom, bodies in your
fridge, domestic violence, the tomb you dig - HEARD TOO MUCH ABOUT!
Rules for survival, rules they wrote, thinking it's your freedom when
it's rammed down your throat."
It works brilliantly.
Chairman Of The
Bored is a song of two halves, starting and continuing with a fast
beat for its first half then suddenly changing to a much slower pace
for its second half: "I'm
the chairman of the bored and I'm asking for some truth, I'm the
chairman of the bored and I'm looking for some proof that there's
something more than their fucked up game, that their mindless lives
and mine aren't the same. I'm looking for something that I can call
my own, which ain't a Ford Cortina or a mortgage on a home."
And then on
Contaminational Power the pace changes back and forth between a
rapidly delivered chorus and slower verses. This particular song was
a return to the subject of They've Got A Bomb on Feeding Of The 5000
but this time Crass were urging their audience - for the first but
not for the last time - to actually do something about atomic
power: "Make it known just this once that people ain't toys.
Cause a disturbance, cause a fucking noise. Atomic power is just
another of their ploys - to blow you right away."
It's on The Gasman
Cometh, however, that Crass pull together both musical
experimentation and lyrical power to full effect, in the process
creating one of the most powerful songs on the whole album.
Starting in a
similar vein as some of their other songs with an unaccompanied
spoken word intro, it lurches into a series of questions posed by a
leering Steve Ignorant: "The train now standing on platform
four - What will you do when the gas taps turn? Where will you be
when the bodies burn? Will you just watch as the cattle trucks roll
by? Pretend it isn't happening? Turn a blind eye? Have you seen the
army convoys quietly passing by? Heard the helicopters in your little
bit of sky? Have you seen the squad-cars packed with boys in blue?
Have you ever wondered what they're there to do?"
Carried along on a
slow, pounding, fuzzbox-drenched rhythm accompanied by a chiming
guitar motif, the lyrics convey a vision of a world in ruin:
"Pictures in the papers of soldiers in the street, pictures
in the history books of rotting human meat. Auschwitz's now a tourist
spot for the goggle-eyed to pry, still in working order for you and
I. Photos of the victims, of gas, of gun, of bomb, inheritance of
violence in the bookshelves of your home."
In the eyes of
Crass, totalitarianism travels down through the ages, forever
rumbling on; crushing and obliterating any and all signs of free
thought and free spirit: "Don't wait for it to come to you,
cos come it surely will. The guardians of the State are trained to
search, destroy and kill."
Midway through the
song the juggernaut sound is suddenly replaced by an up-tempo Punk
beat as the lyrics snap into present time: "There's people
sitting at this moment, fingers on the trigger. There's loyalty and
royalty to make their violence figure. 'Allegiance to the flag', they
say, as they lock the prison door. Allegiance to normality, that's
what lobotomies are for."
Allegiance might
also be read as subservience, and whether it be to the State or to
so-called normality, it was a central theme running through almost
the whole of the Crass canon of songs. The acknowledgement of
subservience and being able to recognise what we might be subservient
to was step one: "God, Queen and Country, they say we got the
choice. Free speech for all if you've got no voice. Propaganda on the
airwaves, here's the way to live. It's not for you and me the
alternative."
Having no illusions
about how merciless the State and the guardians of the body politic
might be was step two: "They look for peace in Ireland with a
thousand squaddy boys. Torture in their mental homes is another of
their ploys. They'll keep us all in line, by Christ, they'll keep us
on our toes. But if we stand against their power we'll see how
violence grows. Read it in the paper about rebellious youth but it's
them that are so violent, it's them who hide the truth. Stay in line
or pay the cost. Do you think they care if another life's lost?"
Step three, and the
final step was to start asking what was to be done about it all? How
could this situation as described by Crass through their songs be
changed? How could the status quo be challenged? If the world was in
such a terrible mess then what was to be done about it? What was the
solution? What was the answer? This was essentially the crux of
everything that Crass were about. Be they social, political or
philosophical, what was the answer to all the problems of the world
that Crass were highlighting?
"Punk was
once an answer to years of crap," Crass had said on White Punks On Hope, "A way of saying 'No' where we'd always said
'Yep'." and for thousands of young people this was an
absolute truth, Punk was indeed an answer to years of crap due to the
simple fact that it gave them a voice. The problem was, however, that
a large number of those very same people used that voice to say
'Yep'. Yes to the demands of business, Yes to the lure of celebrity
and money, Yes to the way things had always been, Yes to the status
quo. The real answer, and the only answer of any real value so Crass
were saying, was to use that voice to say 'No'.
"The world
is a mess." as Penny Rimbaud would later state in an
interview on BBC Radio 1 "It's a very cruel and barbaric
earth to live on and we want to say 'No'. We don't agree with what's
happening to the world. We won't be ruled, we won't be governed, we
won't be told what to do. It's our life, we've only got one of them.
It's our planet, we've only got one of them. And we want to reclaim
it. We want to say it's ours. And the more people who individually
say that, the more individual people can live. It doesn't matter at
all about the government, they can get on with their rules and
regulations. We've got to learn to step outside of that and form our
own rules, for ourselves, for each individual. And if that comes at
odds with the status quo - then we must oppose the status quo. Which
is what we do on a lot of levels."
Saying 'No', then,
was a good starting point even if only initially it might be within
the realms of Punk Rock.
"Cause a
disturbance, cause a fucking noise." urged Crass and just as
both the Sex Pistols and The Clash had inspired others to pick up
guitars and form bands, in the wake of The Feeding Of The 5000 and
Stations Of The Crass new bands would also soon begin appearing,
totally and utterly inspired by the Crass vision. The difference
between these and the first wave of Punk bands, however, was in the
politics. Whereas bands from Punk's first wave may have aligned
themselves broadly with the Left, the so-called Crass bands would
make no such concessions and instead would set out to develop their
own personal politics; championing such causes as vegetarianism,
environmentalism, peace, feminism, and anti-capitalist activism. They
would become known as the Anarcho Punk bands.
The Feeding Of The
5000 was the musical equivalent of brick-through-a-window protest.
Stations Of The Crass was a mind bomb exploding in slow motion that
would leave an indelible mark upon a huge number of people caught in
its blast. On first hearing, it was an exhausting listen due to the
deluge of ideas, the level of intensity and the depth of seriousness
within its tracks so I Ain't Thick, It's Just A Trick, the last
studio-recorded track on side three of the album, comes somewhat as a
relief due to it being a foot-stomping, full-on, catchy Punk chant in
the style of Sham 69.
Though the subject
matter keeps to the by now regular Crass themes of conformism,
commodification, education and religion; the saving grace if not coup
de grace is its football terrace-style sing-along chorus: "Oh
yeah? Oh yeah? Well I've got it all up here, see? Oh yeah? Oh yeah?
When they think they've got it all out there, see? They can fuck off,
they ain't got me. They can't buy my dignity. Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah? Let
me tell you, I've got it all up here, see?"
I Ain't Thick, It's
Just A Trick was the sound of Crass paying lip-service to Punk Rock
as a three chord, ramalama sing-along but for all that it was an
inspirational and up-lifting way to end the album. That's not
forgetting to mention the fourth side of the album which was a raw,
harsh-sounding recording of Crass playing live at a venue in
Islington, London, in August of 1979.
Stations Of The
Crass would go on to sale a phenomenal amount of copies and would
prove to be an absolute classic record that would stand the test of
time far better than, for example, the début album of The Clash.
Much more importantly, however, it would have a profound effect upon
a significantly huge number of people; changing the way not only in
how they think but also in the way they would for ever more live
their lives.
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