MDC - Multi-Death Corporations

MDC – MULTI-DEATH CORPORATIONS

Just in time to finish off 1983 with a glimmer of light at the end of an ever-darkening tunnel, one last great record was released on the Crass label. Multi-Death Corporations by MDC was a 4-track EP that had originally been released in America on the band's own R Radical label.

Based in San Francisco, MDC were leading members of the burgeoning American Hardcore Punk scene who had already produced a classic 7” single (under their original name of the Stains) called John Wayne Was A Nazi, released a seminal début album entitled Millions Of Dead Cops, toured the length and breadth of America, and played support to the Dead Kennedys on their first tour of Europe.

Taking it easy they were not.

The Multi-Death Corporations EP came wrapped in a typical Crass-style, black and white, fold out sleeve; the difference between this one and all the others, however, being in how graphic the writing was, particularly in the descriptions of the torture and atrocities committed in El Salvador by US-sponsored and trained government troops. And rather than any Gee Vaucher-style photomontage art on the poster side of the sleeve there was instead a large, graphic and repulsive photograph of two dead victims of those same troops, their faces hideously burnt away by acid.

Ronald Reagan had a lot to answer for.

Musically, MDC were an uncompromising aural assault upon the listener, sounding like a large box of metal objects and broken glass being shaken furiously by an angry person that even to ears accustomed to Disorder took some getting used to.

Lyrically, vocalist Dave Dictor shouted out words at a relentless pace, raining criticism down on multinational corporations, selfish shits, the profit motive, and the rich. In amongst his torrent of words one particular line stood out: “Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the rest of you”.

This particular phrase had originally been used by Martin Luther King Jr in the late Sixties to describe how the rich were being protected by government policies and economic subsidies whilst the poor were basically being left to fend for themselves in an increasingly dog-eat-dog world.

By raising this same idea, Dave Dictor was hitting the nail on the head in regards to Reagonomics in America and Thatcherism in the UK. It was there for all to see, not even bothering to hide in plain sight. Tax cuts for the rich and for big business, for example, were immediately and so blatantly for their benefit alone though presented as if they would also be of benefit to the poor. Anti-union legislation as another example was clearly for the benefit of the bosses with nothing to be gained from it by the actual workers, though again it was presented as if it was for the benefit of the country.

On both sides of the Atlantic, governments were telling their respective populations that black is white and white is black. That censorship is national security, armies are peace-keeping forces, and civilian deaths are collateral damage. That war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength. Examples, of course, of Newspeak, the language used in George Orwell's novel 1984 by a future totalitarian State to limit free thought.

The future, however, had arrived.

The future was now.

The year 1984 was here...