Subhumans - Time Flies... But Aeroplanes Crash

SUBHUMANS -

TIME FLIES... BUT AEROPLANES CRASH

Over in Wiltshire, the Subhumans were showing no sign of a let up in their productivity with the release of yet another record from them on their Bluurg label. Time Flies... But Aeroplanes Crash was a 12” EP containing a mixture of live and studio-recorded songs that if truth be told was a bit of a hotchpotch.

Playing live was where the Subhumans were still on their peak form so it was understandable that they'd wish to capture that on vinyl. The original aim of Time Flies was that it be a totally live recording but when it came to it, the intended recording of the concert wasn’t very good so they instead entered the studio and bashed out newer versions of some songs from their guitarist's first band – Stupid Humans – to use alongside a few of the live songs they managed to salvage. The end result, however, wasn't quite as good as they might have hoped and out of the eight songs just three stood out.

The obvious first stand-out track was Susan, in which Dick recited a tale of domestic depression over the sound of a piano, an instrument not ever associated before with the Subhumans.

The second track was Work, Rest, Play, Die; a catchy sing-along that chewed over the subject of conformity, sung almost as though it was an advertising jingle.

The stand-out track, however, was People Are Scared, which contained what was possibly Dick Lucas' most keenly observed and insightful lyrics to that date:

“Nobody says anything on buses, it's not the noise the engine makes. You can watch them all staring nervous, sit at the back, it's the safest place. People are scared to say 'hello', the flick of the fag, the shifting eyes. Stare in amusement then look away, the conscious battle of who to despise. Self-restriction and paranoia, self-belief and the silent laugh. The inner conflict between one and other, when you're all the same it seems so daft.”

Half-spoken, half-screamed, the words are delivered over an almost Jefferson Airplane-style rock piece, Punkified yet shorn of any typical Subhumans thrash.

What was it about situations such as being on a bus or on a tube train that caused people to put up defensive walls of silence? Was it due to being in a confined space with strangers, or that it was simply dead time to get over with as quickly and as hassle-free as possible whilst journeying from one place to another?

Was it but a question of appropriateness and etiquette? Why was it okay to talk to strangers in some situations and places but not in others? In confined spaces, were people afraid for their personal safety and for this reason were suspicious of others' motives? In some cases, yes, but clearly not in all.

Were people wary of talking to strangers on a bus through fear of being judged or misjudged by them? Or was it a case of it actually always being like this and in a confined space it being simply magnified and laid bare? If so, then it was arguably to everyone's detriment but might it also be to anyone's or anything's advantage?

“People are scared underneath their silence. People are getting more afraid. They turn to their leaders for help and guidance and then the system wins again and will carry on winning til god knows when. Til people start to talk to each other, everyone just like a brother. Til the morals and fear that divides us all are no longer the excuse for the system's rule.”

The Subhumans and Dick Lucas with his lyrics in particular were touching upon something of huge significance but did they even realise it? If so, then why the decision to release what was one of their best songs only as a live version tucked away amongst seven other songs on what appeared to be a hastily-produced, almost throwaway mini-album?

People Are Scared was an anomaly but then Time Flies was a record full of anomalies, ending up as it was more through accident rather than design. It wasn't the best thing that Subhumans had released by any means but for the inclusion of nothing other than People Are Scared, it was worth it.

D&V - The Nearest Door

D&V – THE NEAREST DOOR

Equally interesting but in an altogether different way were D&V, who after gracing the stage at the Zig Zag squat gig the previous year had their début 7” EP released on Crass Records. Entitled The Nearest Door, as with most other Crass label releases it was produced by Penny Rimbaud, engineered by Jon Loder, and came wrapped in a black-and-white fold-out sleeve adorned with photomontage artwork by Gee Vaucher.

D&V were just two people, Andrew Leach on drums and Jeff Antcliffe on vocals; hence the name, D&V – drums and vocals. Hailing originally from Sheffield, they had upped sticks and moved to London, bedding down in the large squatter community in Hackney whereupon they had become actively involved in the Anarcho Punk scene.

In a similar fashion to Annie Anxiety and Andy T, they would often appear at gigs as a support act; one moment suddenly being there on stage doing their thing and the next moment gone like an urban guerilla hit-and-run outfit. Though a lot less avant garde than Annie or Andy T, they were still an unusual proposition due to not being a band in the traditional sense.

As shown on Bullshit Detector 1, Penny Rimbaud and Steve Ignorant had at first started out as being just drums and vocals themselves, before adding guitars, additional vocals, art, film and everything else. Penny and Steve's drums and vocals incarnation, however, was but a preamble to fully-fledged Crass whilst D&V were the whole deal. To a point, at least.

Though being developed enough to have their music committed to vinyl, it was obvious that there was a lot more potential for growth in what D&V were creating. In many ways, The Nearest Door was the bare bones of what could be done with just the combination of drums and vocals, particularly when considering what was being done with Rap music in America at that time. 

It was embryonic.

Whilst being totally immersed in the Anarcho Punk scene, D&V weren't actually singing about the Bomb, the government, animal rights or anything of the like either but instead were looking inwards at themselves: “Life's what you make of it, lay back or get up and go. What you want and where you go, only you will ever know.”

It was the stuff of thoughts and feelings. Or as Shakespeare put it, such stuff that dreams are made on...

Omega Tribe - No Love Lost

OMEGA TRIBE - NO LOVE LOST

Of course, being good musicians is not without some value, a case in point being Omega Tribe whose début album No Love Lost was a veritable Pop/Punk explosion, sounding like a bastard love child of early The Jam and Crass. Released on the Corpus Christi label, the album's cover was a curiously simple black and white drawing of a sea of hands grabbing at butterflys fluttering overhead that gave no hint of the musical contents within.

Omega Tribe had all the credentials to be a perfect Anarcho Punk band. They were thoughtful, generous, naturally anarchist and that summer of '83 had even been one of the headlining bands at the Stonehenge festival. Guitarist Pete Fender was also the son of Vi Subversa and they were good friends of both Crass and Conflict. Whilst being very capable of thrashing it up with the best of them, Omega Tribe's unique contribution to the party was their pop sensibility and an ear for a good melody as evidenced on the opening track of the album, Duty Calls.

Starting with a simple drum beat and a rather more intricate bass line, a vocal harmony of the kind not heard since when the Buzzcocks or the Undertones were at their best immediately elevated the song to a grander height where dual guitars careered around and teased each other like stunt kites zig-zagging in the sky.

Omega Tribe had a message to impart and were trying to do so to the best of their abilities. That message being that the world didn't have to be the way it was, that it could be far different and much, much better. Duty Calls was almost an inversion of Crass's Do They Owe Us A Living, where instead of Steve Ignorant arguing for the living that is owed to him, it is 'they' or in other words 'the system' that was demanding recompense for what it has given: "We've given you your whole life, your mortgage, car and wealth, we gave you lots of make-up to cover your real self. We gave you a loving husband, made you a passive whore, and now we think it's right for you to fight our futile war."

Omega Tribe's response might well have been predictable but not so in the way it was delivered: "System! System! We're not your pretty boys. System! System! We're not your little toys," sung with female vocals, and "System! System! We're not your pretty girls. System! System! We're not your little pearls," sung with male vocals.

Omega Tribe were refusing to accept their given lot in life and declining all that was on offer to them in terms of role play, consumerism, education and work. They were rejecting what Crass had called "the corporation deal" that had long ago been brokered and to which they were now meant to abide. Omega Tribe were saying 'No!': "Total war, it's in our minds, reject their dirty power."

Reiterating the fact that profit and greed are motivating forces behind all those in power, a re-recorded version of the track Profiteer, from the Angry Songs EP takes over the strings to fly the stunt kite guitars ever higher before gliding into a calmer jet stream in the form of the track Aftermath: "You can't do anything new, you've left it much too late. Now there's only earth and sea." Painting an end of the world scenario, the point being made in the song is that after nuclear war there are no winners. We all lose.

With guitars sounding as though they'd been plundered from the Siouxsie And The Banshees début album but with vocals of the Steve Ignorant variety coursing over them, another nightmare scenario is depicted on the track Freedom, Peace And Unity: "They'll spread nuclear power and use the waste to make a bomb, and when a war's declared they'll find a foe to drop it on. And the dying, ruined world will say 'My god, the State was wrong'."

Realists they may have been but Omega Tribe were also optimists who were all too willing to snatch victory and hope from the jaws of defeat and desperation: "Well, it hasn't happened yet, we've still got a choice if we stand up all together, unite and use our voice. Oppose all bigot leaders. Oppose all State violence. Oppose all those deadly bombs, stand up and break the silence. Anything can change if enough people shout. Freedom, peace and unity is what it's all about."

The nub of Omega Tribe's dissatisfaction with the world lay in it being demanded of them and everyone else to accept that violence and war were facts of life which of course, was an absolute lie. The truth of the matter was that humankind got along extremely well together when all things considered and without even thinking about it practised (as anarchist philosopher Prince Peter Kropotkin had pointed out) cooperation and mutual aid. It was the natural state of things. Violence was simply a question of power and semantics.

Most people (apart from possibly a few skinheads still and your common or garden psychopaths) chose not to go around hitting or threatening others and in the main it was only those holding positions of or lusting after power that were actually violent or even really capable of actual violence. For some reason this seemed to be mainly politicians and other authoritative types such as police, army and certain bosses. Violence is violence as Crass had correctly pointed out but there was a world of difference between fisticuffs at a Punk gig and the capability along with the willingness to destroy all life on Earth at the push of a button.

So, violence was not a fact of life at all and the lust for and the sanction of ultimate violence in the form of world destruction as an example, was a perversion. A twisted deviation from the norm. Who in their right mind would want to hold such power? Who in their right mind would want to support such power? Who in their right mind would want to threaten others? Who in their right mind would seek out the capability and have the will to murder? Practically every politician of every stripe and colour for sure but certainly not Omega Tribe: "Leaders lie and children die, we're dreaming of freedom in a nightmare world. Now we can't take much more. What the hell are they fighting for?"

Omega Tribe's strength lay in their ability to communicate such thoughts and ideas through an inviting and easily accessible Pop/Punk medium, given added impetus by their obvious convictions. With this in mind, it was rather strange that they chose to include a slightly clumsy spoken-word piece entitled Mother Of Cultivation as a way of opening up side two of their album. Not that it took anything away from the album as a whole but it didn't exactly add anything either, unlike the following track entitled My Tears.

Already viewed by their 'fan base' as a favourite when played live, My Tears stood out from their set due to it not being weighed down by any Punk trappings. It was the song in which Omega Tribe flew free, enabling them to fully come into their own. Pirouetting as though it was dancing with itself before a mirror, the song's joyful tunefulness and uninhibited emotion was infectious. Concerning itself with the Falklands War, it was proof positive that such subjects could be sugar-coated without losing any seriousness of intent: "I've shed my tears, I've voiced my fears and now it's up to you. Stand down from war and all it's for, show what you can do. Show that callous, brutal lot who sit and make our laws, that we don't need their vicious rules and we don't want their wars."

It was clear right from their first appearance on Bullshit Detector 2 with the track Nature Wonder that Omega Tribe were on an upward trajectory. If they were that good in demo tape form then what might they be like after further rehearsals? Where might they possibly end up going? A re-recorded version of Nature Wonder on the album suggested that whilst rehearsing and playing live had obviously helped to polish their sound and make them more tighter as a group, the real achievement was in the expansion of their musical palette.

Nature Wonder was a fine example of political Pop Punk of which from the start they were clearly very good at but it was the following track on the album, entitled Pictures, that showed their horizons were in no way limited. Incorporating folk-tinged British psychedelia with fuzzboxed Punk thrash, their chiming guitars soared over and collided with 1980s Anarcho realism in a display of endearing enthusiasm and hope.

Whilst a band like Conflict were undoubted masters of their Punk domain and chose to remain firmly within it, the musical ambitions of Omega Tribe lay somewhere else over the rainbow. The essential point being, however, not the differences between Conflict and Omega Tribe but the commonalities.

Both bands were interested in ideas and in ways of changing the world, and both bands were supportive of all kinds of good causes as well as being supporters of each other. As Omega Tribe had declared earlier on the album: "Freedom, peace and unity is what it's all about. Freedom, peace for you and me."

The album ends on a final high note with the track Man Made, with Omega Tribe doing what they did best in the form of a tuneful, uplifting Anarcho Punk workout, wearing their Crass influence and their hearts very much on their sleeve.

No Love Lost was another classic album of its age that like the début albums from The Mob and Zounds would stand the test of time and invite repeat listenings. What Omega Tribe's lasting influence might be was hard to predict but in the here and now they were a very welcome member of the Anarcho Punk ranks.

Only time would tell if they might eventually move toward a more mainstream audience but in possibly doing so would it mean them losing their original audience? Would a more mainstream audience even want them if it meant having undiluted Anarcho politics bound tightly in with pop tunes?

It was a very interesting question but then Omega Tribe were a very interesting band.