Hit Parade - Bad News

HIT PARADE - BAD NEWS

It wouldn't be until three years after the release of Inflammable Material by Stiff Little Fingers that the subject of the Troubles in Northern Ireland would once again be fully addressed, this time from a band called Hit Parade on a record released as might well have been expected on that most politically radical of labels - Crass Records.

Hit Parade was in actual fact primarily the work of just one man by the name of Dave Hyndman, an Irish libertarian involved in a variety of projects including a Belfast-based radical bookshop called Just Books, an anarchist newspaper called Outta Control, and a Belfast-based anarchist social centre.

Entitled Bad News, the record contained four songs dealing exclusively with the Irish political situation. Assisted by Eve Libertine, Penny Rimbaud and Phil Free; Hit Parade, however, were absolutely nothing like Stiff Little Fingers. Instead of raw Punk Rock, the music played was a genuinely interesting mix of Sparks and electro dance, laced with samples of dialogue including - naturally - the utterances of Thatcher. And instead of caustic Punk vocals, the songs were half-spoken, half-shouted in a broad, uncompromising Irish accent.

Hyndman crafted his songs in the style of lists, much in the same way as how Ian Dury - the master of the 'list song' - wrote many of his. In the track Here's What You Find In Any Prison, for example, he starts off by asking "What do you find in Her Majesty's prison?" before going on to cite "Those who can't accept the system. Those who won't co-operate with the forces of the British State... People who call the police shits, people who challenge the Brits... People framed through Diplock Courts, others jailed by police-paid touts... Grown people with childlike minds, people who can't pay their fines... Those who stand against oppression, people beaten to sign confessions... The working class fill it to the door. No rich, no Brits, just the poor..." and so on.

In the track H-Block, the song's title is repeated over and over, interspersed with snap responses: "British game. British shame. Orange State. To perpetuate. RUC. Brutality. Guilty surely. With no jury. Always lose. To bastard screws. Five demands. On Thatcher's hands. Bitter fight. Hunger strike. Blanket men. Bitter end," and so on before ending with a Crass-style chant of "1 2 3 4 - open up the H-Block door. 5 6 7 8 - open up the Armagh Gate. 9 10 11 12 - Margaret Thatcher go to hell."

In the title track of the EP, Hyndman describes how life as represented in the media, particularly in the news, bears little relation to life as experienced by the majority of people: "We watch the TV every night. Jesus! What a load of shite!" he begins "What we see and what we hear, nowhere in the newspapers... Our lives, hopes, fears, dreams, nowhere on your TV screens."

According to Hyndman, even when depicting the harsh realities of the wider world, the resultant images serve only as entertainment: "Images of death and famine, people starving, Ronald Reagan. Third World Wars, TV riots, anything to keep us quiet."

Television, then, was an opiate for the people. An elaborate trick of smoke and mirrors "designed to keep us impotent". Reinforcing State control and ensuring the 'national interest' would always prevail: "Propaganda for your class, disguised with a song and a laugh."

Though viewed from the perspective of the streets of Belfast, Hyndman's observations are easily recognizable and readily transferable to most other areas of the UK and so too his final, indignant rejection of all the manipulation and 'bad news': "We don't want your TV, we don't want your lies. We don't want to sit and stare at other people's lives."

The Bad News EP by Hit Parade was an innovative and highly politicised record, standing as a fine example of what Crass Records excelled at though due to its musical style, many pure Punk Rock fans found it initially difficult to connect with and digest. In time, however, it would be seen as a masterly amalgamation of a variety of Crass elements: Penny Rimbaud's (very apt) military drumming, the use of sampling, the localised accent of the lead vocals, the hardline attitude, the expounding upon the subject matters of the songs in type on the fold-out sleeve (in this instance a full account of the H-Block hunger strikes), the donation of any profit from the sell of the record to a worthy cause (in this instance a Prisoners Book Scheme), and of course, the anarchist nature and intent.

Interestingly, in a bid to avoid appropriation by either Republican or Loyalist forces, Crass took the unusual step of issuing a disclaimer regarding the contents of Bad News in the form of a note enclosed within the record's sleeve:

'Crass would like to make it clear that we no more support the Republican IRA and its related splinter paramilitary groups than we do the Unionist UDR or RUC and its related splinter terrorist groups. Nor do we support the presence in Northern Ireland of the British army or of British 'interests'. All of these organisations are concerned with the seizure, or maintenance, of power and the control and manipulation of the Unionist, Republican and non-sectarian population. We do not support the IRA's 'nationalist' ideas of a united Socialist Ireland any more than the racist ideas expressed by the RUC, UDR and supported by Westminster.

Our concern for the H-Block prisoners is humanitarian and not sectarian and is the same concern that we feel for all those who suffer the direct effects of violent oppression, be it by the State, political groups, or the individual.

As long as populations are unable to take a united stand against all forms of oppression, they will remain subservient to it.'

Serious problems in such serious times demanded serious responses and Crass were nothing but serious. As individuals they remained as charming and approachable as ever but united under the banner of 'Crass' their stance was hardening whilst their anger grew ever more fierce and acute. They had always fully been aware of the significance of what was going on in Northern Ireland and its relationship and effect upon the British State. From songs such as Banned From The Roxy, to Fun Going On, to Big A Little A, Crass recognised Belfast as being the perfect training ground for British troops in an urban environment where extreme methods of social control could be practised: "Palaces for kings and queens, mansions for the rich, protection for the wealthy, defence of privilege. They've learnt the ropes in Ireland, engaged in civil war, fighting for the ruling classes in their battle against the poor. So Ireland's just an island? It's an island of the mind. Great Britain? Future? Bollocks! You'd better look behind."

Belfast was the British State war machine on manoeuvres whilst the Falklands war had underlined how that same war machine could very easily be mobilised for party political reasons. It didn't end there, however. Those holding the reins of power - the ruling class, for want of a better term - were at perpetual war with the general population be it through the barrel of a gun, the control and manipulation of information, or through the implementation of specific socio-economic policies. Through fear, coercion, intimidation and normalization the desired world for them was a subservient, conformist, dumbed-down, preoccupied one, ripe for exploitation and nothing more.

"Are you serious or are you just trying to make me laugh?" asked Bill Grundy of the Sex Pistols during his infamous television interview with them. It was a good question. Better, actually, than the question on the front page of the Daily Mirror newspaper the next day where it was asked 'Were the Pistols loaded?' So, were the Sex Pistols serious? Not in the same way as Crass but yes, of course they were. Was it not they who were facing the rebuke, the hostility, the condemnation and the physical attacks? At times it must have felt as though the whole world was against them. Why would anyone put themselves through such a thing? Why would anyone put up with such grief if their intent was not serious and their motivation not heartfelt? As Johnny Rotten would later say: "You don't write a song like God Save The Queen because you hate the English race. You write a song like that because you love them and you're fed up with them being mistreated."

For their troubles, the Sex Pistols kick-started a cultural revolution that in turn inspired others to pick up and run with many of the ideas thrown up in the wake. Like, for example, Crass, who in turn had kick-started a social revolution of their own, again inspiring others to pick up and run with many of the ideas thrown up in that wake.

Their heads buzzing with Anarcho politics, drug cocktails, the spirit of free festivals and the freedom in poverty - fermented with a heavy brew of Crass, Pistols, Alternative TV, and yes, Adam And The Ants - the bastard children of Punk Rock surged forth into the world, congregating around squats, housing co-ops, run-down venues and dirty pubs and clubs in all the major inner-cities of Britain and mainland Europe.

Aware that the world was wrong but unsure of how to actually change it, they were instead creating their own worlds by using their sense of freedom to build alternatives to just about everything on offer from the mainstream. Many, of course, seeking solace in drink and drugs to the exclusion of anything else but many others seeking fulfilment in creativity and expressing themselves through music, art, writing and protest.

And above and beyond any other band, capturing and representing the pure essence of these lives now being led was The Mob, whose début album Let The Tribe Increase would resonate deeply with a significant number of this apparently enlightened new breed...

Stiff Little Fingers

STIFF LITTLE FINGERS

So, the war being waged in Nicaragua between the Sandanistas and the Contras was very much a politically straightforward one. If only the same could have been said of the war in Northern Ireland, if indeed what was going on there in that emerald isle could even be called a war?

According to the IRA, the answer to that question was a definite and unequivocal 'Yes'. It was their conviction that they were soldiers - paramilitaries - fighting for independence against the British occupation of Northern Ireland. They were the Irish Republican Army - it was all in the name - and they were at war with the British State.

According to the Thatcher government, however, the answer was 'No', there was no war going on in Northern Ireland in the slightest. Rather, the IRA were simply criminals committing outrageous acts of violence, intimidation and murder. Nothing more and nothing less. To some, the IRA were freedom fighters but to others they were terrorists.

In England, there were many sympathetic to the Irish republican cause but when it came to seeing innocent people being blown apart by IRA bombs planted in British pubs it somewhat clouded the issue, to put it lightly. And even if a significant proportion of British people were against the British military presence in Northern Ireland, it didn't exempt them from being potential IRA targets themselves. Confusing matters further, to the consternation of the Conservative government in particular, the IRA were being part-funded by donations from supporters in America - Britain's allied partner in the battle against all things communist and all things terrorist.

So, the Irish problem was a problem. Unlike Nicaragua, nothing was clear cut and very little was politically straightforward about it. Indeed, since Bloody Sunday in 1972 when unarmed civilians were gunned down in cold blood by soldiers of the British Parachute Regiment, the idea of 'normal' politics in Northern Ireland had completely ended. The H-Block hunger strikes of 1981 and the mass rioting in Belfast following the death of Bobby Sands and his comrades had caused the ante to be upped even further with the British State launching an unofficial 'shoot-to-kill' policy.

'The Troubles' were getting worse and the situation ever more desperate, all taking place in Britain's very own backyard. One of the consequences of all this - significant to some, irrelevant to others - being that one of the best Punk bands ever had been born from it all.

When The Clash first went over to Belfast in October of '77 to play a concert there, due to supposed insurance problems the gig was cancelled at the last minute leaving both band and fans bitterly disappointed. Being Belfast, almost by default a mini-riot ensued whereby the fans vented their frustration by smashing windows and throwing stones at the RUC. This time, however, there was a difference. Where as normally it would be Protestant and Catholic kids attacking each other, the two factions were now united under the banner of Punk and attacking a common enemy - the police.

The Clash, meanwhile, took a stroll down the Falls Road and posed for photographs alongside army blockades, barricades, checkpoints and British soldiers toting guns. Though accused of self-serving opportunism for posing against such a backdrop after failing to even play there, the resulting pictures of The Clash in their street Punk gear standing in the middle of what was essentially a war zone lent them and subsequently Punk a politicised, urban credibility that was somewhat lacking in any other musical genre.

The Clash at that time were prime motivators for the embryonic Punk movement, inspiring many a fledgling Punk Rocker up and down the land to start thinking about the world around them and to start expressing themselves accordingly. From a young Thomas Mensworth in Newcastle, for example, to a William Bragg in London, to a certain Steven Williams in Bristol. The Clash were inspiring them all to form bands, becoming respectively Mensi of the Angelic Upstarts, a Big-Nosed Bastard From Barking, and Steve Ignorant of Crass.

In Ireland too, having managed by the end of 1977 to play successful gigs in both Dublin and Belfast, The Clash were inspiring not only future members of U2, The Undertones, and the Virgin Prunes but also members of an inconsequential covers band called Highway Star, soon - after a quick name change - to be better known as Stiff Little Fingers.

If the economic, social and political situation of England during the late 1970s could spawn a band such as The Clash, it was almost inevitable that the far more intense situation in Northern Ireland during that same period might spawn a much more intense band. It made sense. If the social realism of London could be reflected by The Clash, then the urban realism of Belfast could also be reflected. Taking on that task was Stiff Little Fingers but just as it took manager Bernie Rhodes to urge The Clash to sing about what was 'important', so it took journalist Ian Ogilvie to urge Stiff Little Fingers to sing about their immediate surroundings.

By way of example, Ogilvie offered the band two sets of lyrics that after being put to music became the songs Suspect Device and Wasted Life. Not that Ogilvie was some kind of svengali moulding a band to his own vision in the way Bernie Rhodes and Malcolm McLaren had tried to do. Alone, Ogilvie's words were but scribbles - albeit interesting scribbles - on a page but when charged with harsh, metallic, twin guitar Punk Rock and delivered by raw, sore throat vocals the result was simply stunning.

Suspect Device became Stiff Little Fingers début single, bringing them instantly to the attention of a mass of Punk Rockers looking for something slightly more dangerous than the by that time increasingly America-fixated Clash. The sound they produced was a retreat into hard Punk, imbued with a spiky aggression born from lives in crisis.

Apart from the obvious meaning of 'potential bomb' - a relevant subject in a city like Belfast where such packages were the cause of constant chaos and disruption - the term "suspect device" could also be taken as a description of angry youth who at any moment might explode with frustration. A neat echo of Johnny Rotten's "potential H-bomb" of God Save The Queen.

Advocating a bomb as being more of a question than an answer, Stiff Little Fingers declaration of "We're gonna blow up in their face" left the very clear impression that something powerful and special was occurring in Belfast. Confirmation of this came with the release of their second single, Alternative Ulster, which with the assistance of John Peel and almost nightly airplay on his show, elevated the band into a position of major importance within the Punk world, underlining the fact that Punk at its best was political by nature.

After gaining further credibility points by signing to the independent Rough Trade record label, Stiff Little Fingers released their début album to widespread acclaim, receiving high praise from critics holding normally opposing musical tastes such as Paul Morley at the NME and Garry Bushell at Sounds. Entitled Inflammable Material - the name having been taken from the opening line of Suspect Device - it was immediately recognised as being on a par with the début albums of The Clash, the Sex Pistols, and the Ramones.

Whilst the music was pure and sublime caustic Punk Rock, it was the vocals of Jake Burns that elevated it to an entirely new level. Bespectacled, long(ish) of hair and dressed in plain jeans and leather jacket, to look at him it could never be imagined that his voice would be so torn, so jagged and so spectacular. His was the voice of coruscating Punk passion.

Practically every song on the album concerned itself with life as experienced in Northern Ireland, with even their version of Bob Marley's Johnny Was being turned into a Belfast tale. Like The Clash, it was obvious that Stiff Little Fingers were aligned with the Left although they were cleverly managing to avoid being pigeon-holed as either Republican or Loyalist. Instead, they were sitting somewhere in the middle - shot by both sides - crying out that they had simply had enough of the whole sorry situation.

"The solution to Northern Ireland's problems is 10,000 Punk bands," said Jake Burns, by this meaning not Punk bands as forces of political power but as individual and collective acts of creativity. Through their own creative endeavours, Stiff Little Fingers were breaking free from the restriction and repression of everyday life in Ulster. The beauty of Punk, of course, was in its advocacy of the idea that 'anyone can do it' so that even those who felt unable to articulate themselves might actually be able to do so through the expression of sheer rage.

"Anything you do creative is worthwhile," Crass would later say, recognising the importance of free expression in a world geared toward the eroding of individuality and the moulding of people into compliant consumers.

Stiff Little Fingers saw their opportunity and went for it, upping sticks and heading over to England just as soon as they could so as to follow their rock'n'roll dreams. In the process signing to major label Chrysalis and to cries of 'sell-out!' becoming a better than average Punk band but no longer the politically-charged force they once were.

To give them their due, they remained true to their word in only singing about their immediate surroundings but as their surroundings changed, subsequently so did the subject matter of their songs and soon they were no longer the conduit for the frustration born of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The significance of Stiff Little Fingers as a stepping stone towards the social awareness of a generation of Punk Rockers, however, cannot be overstated.

Sleeping Dogs - Beware

SLEEPING DOGS - BEWARE

On their début album, Conflict took an unusual direction for a so-called 'street Punk band' and veered off at one point with the track Vietnam Serenade, touching upon the subject of American foreign policy in Latin America: "They say it's in the name of the law, will Vietnam be the forerunner to El Salvador? Another nine years of killings, injuries and rapes?"

To the stereotypical Vicious Sidney Punk fan, Vietnam and El Salvador probably meant at best Apocalypse Now and something to do with The Clash's Sandanista album. To those taking a keener interest in the wider world, however, it meant American imperialism and US military aid to an extreme Right-wing dictatorship.

America in the early Eighties was (and probably had always been and always will be) a vast, bubbling cauldron of gigantic contradictions. An immense patchwork quilt of staggering beauty, brilliance, ugliness and despair headed much like in Britain by an Establishment easily capable of cold and calculating wickedness.

If an intensifying stand-off against Russian communism in Europe via the stationing of Cruise missiles wasn't bad enough, perhaps soon to be superseded by the escalation of the arms race into space via the Strategic Defence Initiative, America was also at surreptitious war in its own backyard against the forces of communism in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Not wishing these countries to go the way of Cuba and become fully-fledged Marxist states bankrolled by Moscow, the US government was happy to channel millions of dollars in economic and military aid into propping up their corrupt but pro-American dictatorships. Turning a blind eye to human-rights abuses and (in Guatemala in particular) what amounted to genocide, America justified its support and its actions by perceiving it as front-line defence of its borders against the communist threat.

This whole subject was dealt with far more thoroughly than Conflict's acknowledgement of it in the next release on Crass Records. Beware was a 5-track EP by Sleeping Dogs, a three-piece band from San Francisco previously featured on Bullshit Detector 2 under the name of American Arsenal. Aided and abetted by Penny Rimbaud and Pete Wright on drums and bass respectively, most interestingly the band included as one of its two vocalists a certain Dave King, the artist responsible for designing the now iconic Crass logo.

In regard to all of the Crass personnel, nothing much was known about them as individual personalities. The work was all. From the start, this had apparently been the intention with the black clothes, the pseudonyms, and the collective voice in interviews all adding to the anonymity. An outcome of this, however, was a shrouding of Crass in a mystique and an arousing of possibly even greater curiosity. So successful was this 'wall of Crass' that not only did it eliminate each member's personal identity and personal history but it enforced, strengthened and accentuated the 'invented' selves - the personalities representing Crass via pseudonyms such as 'Eve Libertine' and 'Steve Ignorant'. It was an odd and wholly unexpected occurrence.

The person behind the design of the Crass logo was even more of a mystery. As Gee was the Crass member who designed all the posters and record sleeves it was presumed that it was her (or could 'Gee' have been a 'he'?) who designed the logo. It wasn't. Now, years later, the real culprit - Dave King - was emerging as a member of a band called Sleeping Dogs, though as might be expected, emerging under a pseudonym: 'BB' or 'Bad Boy'.

To angular, disjointed, industrial dance grooves, Sleeping Dogs sang of the passing on of fear and guilt from generation to generation, fucked-up relationships, the meaning of war, urbanization, and El Salvador. This being the first American band to appear on Crass Records, it made sense that they should focus on American current affairs as well as more universal themes, so in the track (I Got My Tan In) El Salvador a picture is painted of the situation in the banana republic of the song's title: "Death squads in the street, they do what they want... The military is suffering from paranoia, anyone not in uniform is suspect. They rape, they torture and then they kill. Unspeakable violence, unimaginable suffering. Too many bodies, too little land, decades of oppression by military governments - supported by America." It's not too unfair to say that Sleeping Dogs weren't the easiest nor the most happiest of bands to dance to.

Expounding further upon the same subject, newspaper clippings referring to the goings-on in South America crammed the record sleeve's cover that as per normal with Crass Records releases, folded out into a photo-montage poster, this time depicting the vast continent of America - the land of the free - mastered by industry.

Acting as confirmation of America's fears regarding a communist invasion, a few years earlier a popular uprising had taken place in Nicaragua that had overthrown the debauched dictatorship that had been ruling the country for over forty years and replaced it with a new, Leftist government. The Somoza dictatorship had been toppled but much of its old guard had not gone away and it was these counter-revolutionaries called the 'Contras' that the Reagan administration continued to support both financially and militarily. What with America then enforcing a trade embargo and mining the Nicaraguan ports, the new Sandanista government was under siege.

In response to this, thousands of Leftists from around the world flocked to the Sandanistas aid, offering support and solidarity in whatever way was needed. Whilst the Clash named their fourth album after the Sandanistas, hundreds of British volunteers made their way to Nicaragua to help the besieged economy by working on construction sites and on the coffee plantations. One of those volunteers being Rab Herman, one time acquaintance of Dave King, Phil (Wally Hope) Russell and Penny Rimbaud - and original guitarist in Crass before being replaced by Phil Free.

The Sandanista revolution was a beacon of rebellious hope against the forces of conservative power and control as represented by Reagan and Thatcher. On the surface at least, the issues were all very clear and easily understood: the Sandanistas were the good guys - heroic, brave, dignified campesinos committed to the redistribution of land and wealth; whilst the Contras were the bad guys - sadistic, CIA-sponsored thugs committing atrocities against their own people for the sake of the US dollar. If ever there was a black-and-white, politically straightforward war of ideologies then this was it...