Maze

MAZE

There was a sense of newsiness about Crass that was very unique to them. A sense of being very on the ball and of being very up to date on worldly matters. So much so, in fact, that people were looking to Crass to interpret not only the news but the world itself. People trusted them and had a lot of faith in their interpretation and understanding of what was going on and how the world was - and the possibility of there being something that could be done about it.

Whether it was a conscious decision or not, their album Penis Envy was Crass almost reinventing themselves and presenting a credible interpretation of the world through the eyes of woman. The world, however, was changing fast and in Britain events were taking place that anyone working in the medium of music would find impossible to keep pace with let alone report on.

In a bid to gain special category and political prisoner status, Irish Republican prisoners being held within the H-Blocks of the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland had been conducting a 'dirty protest' consisting of smashing up furniture, refusing to wash, shave or wear clothes, and smearing their own excrement over the walls of their cells.

Upping the ante further, a hunger strike was started by the IRA leader in the Maze, Bobby Sands. At the same time, Sands stood from jail as a candidate in a local by-election which if he won would make him a Member of Parliament. Despite all the best efforts of the British authorities to prevent this happening, Sands did indeed win the parliamentary seat, leading to news headlines around the world.

Other governments, newspaper editorials and protest marches came out in support of him, demanding that Thatcher relent and grant Sands and other IRA prisoners political status. She refused. The Iron Lady was not for turning, choosing instead to face down all her opponents. To Thatcher, the Republican prisoners were terrorists, murderers and just plain criminals and in no way were their crimes political.

Bobby Sands MP died on Tuesday 5th of May 1981, his death provoking large-scale rioting in Londonderry and Belfast. More significantly, however, from that date on Thatcher became the IRA's top target for assassination.

None of this, of course, was touched upon by Crass in Penis Envy, nor, to be fair by any other Punk band in their recordings. Crass instead were singing of love - albeit the politics of love - but in doing so giving much credence to the oft quoted words of Belgian Situationist, Raoul Vaneigem:

"People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraint - such people have a corpse in their mouth."