Crass - Yes Sir I Will

CRASS - YES SIR I WILL

The whole question regarding content over form was one that had hung over Punk from the year dot - or rather the Year Zero. The Sex Pistols, for example, had originally been criticised for being unable to play their instruments and whilst this may have been true (but irrelevant) in the case of Sid Vicious, it was very soon apparent that this particular criticism was absolutely wrong. Though it did them no harm, being good musicians wasn't actually the point of the Sex Pistols and nor was it what Punk was about. And as Johnny Rotten added: "And it's most certainly not about the clothes either. Get that one!"

The Clash had once been criticised by respected music writer Charles Shaar Murray for being 'a garage band who should be speedily returned to their garage, preferably with the motor running,' revealing a complete failure at the time to recognise or understand that The Clash were representing something much more than just traditional rock and roll.

Garry Bushell had always insisted upon the importance of a good tune when delivering a message in a song, dismissing the likes of Discharge as performing nothing but pneumatic drill solos in which the words were unintelligible. The dichotomy being, however, that the more tuneful Punk bands of the kind that Bushell promoted seemed to have less to say for themselves than a band like Discharge who for all their lack of melody were conveying their anti-war message loudly and clearly. Many of Bushell's Oi! bands on the other hand - for all their good tunes - were unable to even shake off false allegations of racism - particularly post-Southall riot - suggesting that a good tune was not actually the most important factor when it came to communication.

According to Bushell, The Feeding Of The 5,000 was 'tuneless drone' but of course, he was wrong. Crass had never claimed to be expert musicians but most certainly they were musically imaginative as evidenced by the quite brilliant way they utilised Punk Rock to project absolute anger. With every new record release, however, Crass were becoming more musically adept and adventurous, culminating in their piece de resistance Christ - The Album. The Falklands war, however, had thrown a spanner in the works causing them to completely reconsider what they were doing and where they were going. Not least, it caused them to reconsider their whole musical approach.

Crass (along with everyone else) were coming to fully understand just how utterly uncompromising Thatcherism was and any belief that there could be some kind of dialogue with State power was appearing to be quite a naive notion. These were now perpetually scary times and any hope of social or political change being achieved through peaceful means seemed rapidly to be fading. Despite world-wide protests and demonstrations there appeared to be no sign of any western government wavering over the plan to site Cruise missiles throughout Europe. As the numbers of anti-nuclear protesters grew so too did the government's determination to forge ahead with the Cruise missile plan become ever more entrenched.

In the UK, the mettle of Thatcher had been tested and proved by her response to the H-Block IRA hunger strikers then confirmed by the Falklands war. Without any question, Thatcher was a formidable political opponent and the least likely person to be swayed by any such thing as a demonstration let alone a good argument. Intransigence was her forte.

As a subscriber to the 'trickle down' theory whereby increased prosperity through tax cuts for the already wealthy at the top of society is meant to eventually benefit those at the bottom of society, Thatcher again would not be budged even when faced with blatant contradictions. Under her government, the rich were indeed getting richer but the poor on the other hand were getting decidedly poorer and in fact, through rising unemployment were rapidly increasing in numbers.

Out on the council estates, Thatcher's 'Right to Buy' policy - where council house residents were being allowed to buy their homes - was wreaking almost instant social havoc. For many, being allowed to buy and own their homes was a dream come true that gained Thatcher many new supporters. The flip-side to it, however, was the division of whole communities between home-owners and home-renters or in more Thatcherite terms, between the deserving and undeserving poor.

It went without saying that in Thatcher's eyes, the deserving poor were socialist by nature as was anyone who didn't fit into her vision of mainstream society. Included among these would be the low-paid, the old unemployed, the young unemployed, the homeless, lone parents, teachers, trade unionists, public sector workers, homosexuals, peace campaigners, even vegetarians. Anyone, in fact, who declined to subscribe to Thatcher's 'traditional' and Victorian values.

The fact that half of these people would also decline to subscribe to socialist values revealed a lot about Thatcher's personal obsessions as did her labelling of self-professed socialists and genuine Labour supporters as being extremists and 'Loony Left'. The reality was that the Labour Party as led by Michael Foot was weak, muddled, uninspiring and decidedly unsexy; particularly when compared to the go-getting, thrusting gay blades of the Conservatives.

Still high on victory in the Falklands and still surfing the tabloid-led wave of jingoism, the orders of the day were privatization, trade union reform, and Cruise missiles. In short: inequality, repression, and war. This then, was the backdrop against which Crass's fourth LP, Yes Sir I Will, was released.

Following the double album box set of Christ - The Album, this latest LP was a return to basics, indicated immediately by the almost austere design of the record's wraparound sleeve. Graced by nothing but a small, black-and-white picture of a crucified man, the front cover was very simple but strangely unsettling, whilst the whole of the back cover was taken up by nothing but a short though slightly complex statement: 'Be warned! The nature of your oppression is the aesthetic of our anger.' The words 'of our anger' written large, serving to accentuate the sentiment.

Following the consideration and care applied to the making of Christ - The Album, there was a sense of urgency about Yes Sir I Will, as though time was of the essence and that what needed to be imparted was of utmost importance. Rather than being an album in its own right, it seemed also to be more of a continuation of the vitriol as expressed on How Does It Feel?, triggered by the Falklands war and the ensuing political fallout.

Audio-wise, Yes Sir I Will was an almighty, drawn out scream of anguish and despair aimed at the individual listener, the Crass audience and the whole stinking, fucked-up world of Thatcher and her modern day Britain. It was a return to first impressions of Crass when originally encountering them, as in a genuine sense of total anger and a spitting in the face of everything. It was a return to Feeding Of The 5,000 only without the tunes and containing just two actual songs; the rest being a vast, sprawling tract pinned to what in effect was a cacophonous, free-form jazz-Punk-Metal workout. Yes Sir I Will was Crass's Year Zero.

After starting with the same descriptive words that How Does It Feel began, as in "When you woke this morning you looked so rocky-eyed" etc, an assessment of the current position of Crass within the scheme of things is delivered. Though still kicking and screaming, it was apparent that a fundamental change had occurred within Crass. A fundamental shift. Where before they had always shone with anger and defiance, that same anger was now tempered with equal measures of extreme desperation and frustration: "Words sometimes don't seem to mean much, of anyone we've used more than most, feelings from the heart that have been distorted and mocked... We didn't expect to find ourselves playing this part, we were concerned with ideas, not rock and roll... In attempts to moderate, they ask why we don't write love songs? What is it that we sing then? Our love of life is total, everything we do is an expression of that. Everything that we write is a love song."

The extraordinary popularity of Crass had been achieved entirely on their own terms with very, very little support or backing from the mainstream music press. The reason for their popularity was subsequently a subject for much debate not only for the music industry but for Crass themselves. Shortly after the release of Stations Of The Crass, journalist Dave McCullough had written an article for Sounds (the same music paper that Garry Bushell wrote for) accusing Crass of being 'tatty, witless, doggedly dated and unbelievably conservative,' who (along with the Adam And The Ants and Poison Girls) didn't have 'the guts or the energy to do something that's original or startling or new or real.' Musically, according to McCullough, Crass took 'the blackest and the bleakest of The Clash and the Pistols and gave the collective elements some kind of special Epping Forest/Japanese torture until they squealed with pain.'

This was, essentially, a typical example of the kind of criticism that was regularly being thrown at Crass that always revealed far more about the critic and their personal prejudices than it did about anything else. In the same article, however, McCullough did manage to touch upon something of some significance. After writing that he was left scratching his head at the 'wall to wall bilge' and the 'depressing horrors' of Stations he then asked 'why something as specious as Crass finds itself able to reach a position approaching prominence. It's worth thinking about.'

According to all their critics, the music that Crass produced was absolutely atrocious so this could in no way be the reason for their popularity, surely? It must then have been for other reasons, one of the most logical being that people liked Crass not for how they were expressing themselves as in their chosen musical style but for what they were expressing. This was what posed the biggest problem for most critics that very few of them could ever get their heads round.

When criticising Crass for their politics all it did was to expose the critic's own political leanings, these usually being soft Leftist or sly conservative. Most critics, however, particularly of the music variety, seemed simply incapable of engaging with the kind of subjects that Crass were dealing with and had no real comeback to what Crass were saying. They were basically out of their depth.

Those who were 'political' (with a small 'p') were usually left blithering and blathering hysterically, rather like tory MP Tim Eggar when confronted by Crass members during the live radio debate over How Does It Feel?. The inept fury and outright hostility that Crass engendered in their critics was probably also a testimony to the power of Crass's arguments though this didn't mean that the constant barrage of such criticism wasn't wearisome due to if nothing other than the fact that the criticism was being delivered from positions of power and influence. And like it or not, both the NME and Sounds (plus the other third major music newspaper at that time, Melody Maker) were powerfully influential organs, both commanding the attention of over half a million readers every week.

Crass were the equivalent of a mirror being held up to rock'n'roll and reflecting a horrible truth: that so-called rock'n'roll rebellion was just a pantomime and a sham. Very ineffectual and very, very safe. Holding that mirror up to music journalists, it reflected nothing but hawkers of illusion, delusion and deceit who themselves were distracted by a rebellious pose, vainly trying to convince themselves and their readers that it all meant something when in reality it meant very little. When confronted with this, all that these journalists could do - like X-Ray Spex's Poly Styrene sang in Identity - was to smash the mirror quick. Crass were that mirror.

"Lennon said 'They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool," continued Crass, once again quoting from John Lennon; this time (again, rather ironically for a band that always denied the significance of class) from Lennon's Working Class Hero. "He was right! Social intelligence merely requires agreement and compromise."

Interestingly, this was a point where both the Crass and Oi! camps had overlapped, a point not ever really taken into account nor ever really explored by advocates of either scene. Crass were obviously disliked intensely by most critics not only for their music but for what they were saying and for what they represented. That same dislike was also held for the bands lumped together beneath the Oi! banner though for very different reasons.

Crass were deemed offensive, extreme and humourless whilst any typical Oi! band was deemed moronic, violent and racist. Accusing Crass of being offensive, however, was a question of sensibilities and of whose were being offended. To accuse them of being extreme was a question of semantics. To accuse them of being humourless was just plain wrong, as anyone witnessing Phil Free's unique way of dancing on stage might testify.

To accuse Cockney Rejects (who, though by 1983 having taken a wrong turn into Heavy Metal were once the epitome of an Oi! band) of being moronic was sheer cultural snobbery as dictated by usually middle class, University-educated critics. To accuse them of being violent was too easy and too simplistic, particularly when considering their ex-boxing/London East End/football backgrounds. To accuse them of being racist was simply outrageous, as a number of genuine racists could confirm after having the Rejects express solidarity with them by basically punching their lights out.

In the near blanket criticism of both Oi! and Anarcho Punk a weird conservatism was at work, doing its best to disguise itself by hiding behind a mask of liberalism. The energy of the original '77 Punk shock had charged through the cultural zeitgeist kicking over all restrictions upon freedom of expression, or as Sid Vicious put it: "We opened all the doors - and the windows."

By 1979, however, Sid was dead and the Punk explosion had been accommodated, contained and diluted leaving only sparks and streamers descending from the skies and seeds drifting through the breeze. The freedoms as offered by Punk had been grabbed at, used and enjoyed though in the morning after, like late night revellers nursing hangovers, there were certain people left holding their heads and groaning "Never again". Having used Punk as a stepping stone toward attaining something for themselves, these people seemed now to want to draw up the bridge and curtail Punk's freedoms and place conditions upon them, especially when it came to expressing so-say 'extreme' views and to giving a voice to the so-say 'uncultured' elements who simply failed to understand the 'artisticness' of Punk.

For them, Punk had been a party but an exclusive one with no gatecrashers allowed. In general, they mocked and derided Oi! for being small-minded and unsophisticated, and Crass for being godawful and wrong. Oi! and Anarcho Punk, then, shared common detractors and common enemies though rather sadly the two Punk factions were always too busy arguing and fighting between themselves all the time to really recognise this and to potentially exploit these common interests. These were the politics of divide and rule, both wilfully and unwittingly practised.

"Critics say that it's just Punk Rock or that we're just naive anarchists. They hope to discredit us with their labels and definitions," as Crass put it. The advantage that Crass had over any Oi! band, however, was the ability to translate their experience of the music business into a much wider world view where power and control manifested itself in much more potent forms: "How is it that the small and mealy-minded have gained so much power? What perversion has taken place that we are governed by fools? We've had problems from self-appointed gods, from bishops to MPs. They've tried to ban our records saying that we're a threat to decent society. Fuck them. I hope we are."

Still crazy after all these years. Still mad as hell and not willing to take it any more, Crass were still ringing the sentiments of Banned From The Roxy as in "Fuck 'em, I've chosen to make my stand". Four years after the release of that record, however, where Steve Ignorant had declared "I ain't quite ready with my gun but I've got my fucking song," he was now asking "But how long do we shout for?"

The faith that Crass held in the power of the word and the potential influence of the art of song had brought incredible achievements, impacting mightily upon a generation willing to lend an ear. The usefulness of song though had also brought Crass to an impasse of sorts and seemed now to be wearing thin. Post-Falklands war/pre-thermonuclear war, a song now seemed no longer enough, hence their abandoning of the form on Yes Sir I Will to be replaced by discordant noise and floods of unrhymed, screaming streams of consciousness: "What space is there for self-expression and personal development when over half the world's population is starving? There are so many things that might have been done, but rooted on this spot in the desire to find solution, there's little to see and feel but the sighing and dying of our world. But for suffering we might have been a part of it rather than apart from it."

For all that, paradoxically and very unexpectedly from amidst the noise and the haste a sudden patch of clear calm is revealed in the shape of the most gentle and most tuneful song Crass would ever perform. Not screamed or shouted but actually sung very tenderly by Penny Rimbaud - for the first time taking on lead vocal - accompanied by nothing but piano. From the swirl of anger and desperation, here was a song as though born in the depths of night exposing a man alone with his thoughts, stirring embers of doubt and despair: "Making the compromises. Brave fronts, deceitful disguises. Turning a blind eye to the lies just to keep it all together, but sometimes when I'm alone like this I wonder whether it's worth it? What did you know? What did you care? Surface agreements, statements of fact, trying to prove we can do it... Holding the vision but losing our sight, endlessly searching solution. But sometimes when I'm alone like this..."

From day one, the whole Crass canon of songs had been a litany of anger and outrage but here suddenly was a song wrought from and conveying sadness and depression. As a collective, Crass could easily have vetoed the release of it into the public domain on the grounds of it being too negative but the fact that they chose to let such feelings be known spoke volumes as to their present state. It was a valid decision that revealed them as being all too human and not the supercharged anarchist leaders they had been elevated into being. At the same time, it underlined also their seriousness regarding their whole raison d'etre.

Almost single-handedly, Crass had turned Punk from being "just another cheap product for the consumer's head" into a genuinely anarchist-fuelled movement for potential social change. Thatcher's war in the Falklands, however, had not only laid bare the cracks and the flaws in the movement but had magnified them ten-fold to the extent of practically eclipsing the positives: "Anarchy's become another word for 'got 10p to spare?'. Another way of saying 'I'm OK, sod you out there'." And indeed there was a lot of truth to this.

For some, Punk and Anarcho Punk in particular had become if only temporarily a refuge from the world. A retreat, a shelter from the storm. At a time of increasing disparity between rich and poor, poverty was being adopted by some as a lifestyle choice and dressing like a tramp was becoming a kind of anti-fashion statement. Subsequently, dressing like a tramp quickly led to acting like one. At every gig, at every place that Punks might gather there came an incessant chorus of the new tramp Punk mantra: "Oi, mate! Have you got 10p?" Begging had become as synonymous with Punk as spitting once was.

The year previously, Dagenham-based Punk band The Ejected had released their début EP on the Riot City label, entitled Have You Got 10p?, striking a chord with anyone attending Punk gigs at that time. Though delivered with tongues firmly in cheeks, they had nailed a subject that actually wasn't very amusing: Punks scrounging from fellow Punks, not out of necessity but because it was deemed the thing to do. Like a fashion. Like Pavlovian dogs.

So successfully had Crass woven the idea of anarchy into Punk and vice versa that the state of one could now be measured against the state of the other. So, if Punk (and specifically Anarcho Punk) was becoming problematic then so too was anarchy: "Anarchy's become... another token tantrum to cover up the fear. Another institution, another cross to bear."

Were things really that bad as viewed from The House Of Crass? It appeared so. Clouds were gathering and hanging over it. Black ones, naturally. Where once Punk had been "an answer to years of crap, a way of saying 'No' where we'd always said 'Yep'," it was now being viewed by Crass as being pretty much ineffectual. It was the course that Britain and subsequently the course that the world was taking that was important and at stake, not allegiance to a sub-cult. According to Crass, Punk was now an irrelevance. It had served its purpose but now was a formulae, an institution: "Anything and everything can be so easily institutionalised, a poor parody of itself, itself contained by itself. Punk has spawned another rock and roll elite, cheap Rotten Vicious imitations thinking they'll change their world with dyed hair and predictable gestures. Nouveau wankers."

And in as much as Steve Ignorant could be bitterly scathing regarding the matters of war, politics and the system, so too could he turn his bile upon the current devotees of that which had once changed his life: "Go on, go and pogo out the fucking window you spiky-haired little ponce. Fucking pervert. Go and suck a safety pin. Shove it up your arse."

But were Crass right to be so bitter toward Punk? After all, was it not they who from the very start had declared Punk to be dead? So where now was the problem? Punk had always been flawed and riven with contradictions but the fact remained that the Sex Pistols et al was precisely what Britain in 1977 had needed, no matter that it was all too quickly appropriated. When Crass came along and essentially divided Punk up between those in it for the right reasons and those in it for the wrong, they performed what was at the time an absolutely necessary task. Anarcho Punk was the result.

Like any band, the success of Crass and their brand of Punk could be measured against record sales and gig attendance which in light of the totally independent way they were operating was genuinely phenomenal. Crass themselves, however, were measuring their success more against their effective impact upon culture and politics, or as they put it: "We're tired of living up to other people's expectations when our own are so much higher." It must have been gratifying therefore, for them to see their audience swell to such huge numbers and to see this reflected in the subsequent creative activity going on as in zine production and band formation, as well as the rising participation of Punks in demonstrations and protests.

The real litmus test of their actual impact and subsequently Punk's effectiveness, however, had come with the advent of the Falklands war which had found Anarcho Punk somewhat lacking in its response. Yes Sir I Will was the signifier that Crass had learnt a very hard lesson from this and from now on were only going to focus on that which was important. Any hint of a nice tune, for example, would now be jettisoned, and no longer were they going to be a Punk band be it Anarcho or otherwise. From now on Crass were going to be an anarchist band only: "How many times must we hear rehashed versions of Feeding Of The 5,000 by jerks whose only fuck off to the system has been one off the wrist?... Actionless sloganeering is just another Punch and Judy show."

Having turned their guns upon themselves and that which had once inspired them to form a band in the first place, Crass were now free to focus purely on what in their eyes were meaningful matters such as the state of the world and the roles that people were playing in maintaining that state. And generally, from Crass's vantage point, things weren't looking too good: "Are we so dumb, so cowered into submission that not only are we prepared to eat shit, we're also prepared to say thanks for the privilege?"

Identifying one of the major problems as being passive acceptance brought about by various forms of conditioning, the influence and power of television is rightly pinpointed: "Television has so dampened people's anger... and the streets, where the politics of reality were once created, are deserted at night and the rulers sleep secure."

Even though there were only four terrestrial British television channels at this time, their capacity to enthral the nation was unsettling. In the scheme of things, television was still a relatively new technological phenomenon but having become the foremost form of home entertainment, its sociological impact was massive. Television held an audience captured within their own homes.

The government was fully aware of the importance of television as a conduit of news, hence the constant tussles with the BBC and even the famous 'make-over' of Thatcher where her appearance and voice were altered so as to make her more televisually appealing. Even though the BBC was very much part of the Establishment, it was viewed rather inexplicably by Thatcher and her Conservatives as being overly liberal and even somewhat socialist.

These sentiments were brought to a head during the 1981 inner-city riots when Thatcher accused the BBC of influencing copycat rioting through its coverage of the events of that summer. When the Falklands war happened, for reasons of 'national security' Thatcher severely restricted access to and and the reporting of it but even this was not enough for her. The BBC, she believed, should at times of crisis by default align itself with the government but in trying to maintain impartiality by describing Argentine forces as 'Argentine forces' instead of Thatcher's preferred term of 'the enemy', the BBC succeeded only in further stoking Thatcher's ire.

Having awarded knighthoods to the editors of The Sun, the Sunday Express, and the Daily Mail, Thatcher knew that most of the national press was in her pocket but she knew also - like Crass - that television was something altogether different; potentially much more powerful than a newspaper and potentially far more influential. According to Crass: "Television is today's Nuremberg." Would Thatcher have agreed with this? And if so, would she have also agreed that "We are allowed to see endless theatrical deaths but when the real deaths started on the Falklands, government censors prevented us from seeing them"?

How could this be denied? Is that not what had happened? And how could Crass's next assertion be also denied: "At home, we were fed fabrications of Britain's 'glorious war'. The truth that is now filtering out paints a very different picture"?

With the sinking of the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano and the loss of 321 lives, the Falklands crisis became the Falklands war. The circumstances of the sinking whilst coming as a shock to all but the most belligerent of armchair warriors seemed at the time to be pretty straightforward: the Belgrano was within the exclusion zone that had been thrown around the island and was deemed to be a threat to British forces. From a decision taken on the spot by the captain of the British submarine HMS Conqueror, the Belgrano was therefore torpedoed.

Apparently, however, this wasn't quite the truth of the matter. Slowly but surely, suggestions were being made that differed drastically from the official version of events. Apparently, the decision to sink the Belgrano had come not from the captain of the Conqueror but from Thatcher herself. Apparently, the Conqueror had been tracking the Belgrano for some days and the decision to attack her was made suddenly and coincidentally on the very same day that a peace plan tabled by the President of Peru had been delivered to London. And last but not least, apparently the Belgrano was in actual fact outside of the exclusion zone and heading away from the Falklands when it was struck.

According to Labour MP and major thorn in Thatcher's side, Tam Dalyell, the Falklands war was only ever about military victory and to this end the Belgrano was sunk. Military victory meant government victory meant Conservative victory meant Thatcher's victory. Anything that might take the shine off the military victory would take the shine also off Thatcher. The circumstances surrounding the sinking of the Belgrano was the Achilles heel not only of the official British version of the war but also of Thatcher. No wonder then, that she wished to gloss over the whole issue.

"The Falklands war... was not a glorious victory for the British spirit, nor an heroic defeat of a fascist dictator," continued Crass "It was a callous and savage piece of electioneering designed to cover up horrific domestic problems." Apparently, an accusation that Thatcher was not entirely in agreement with.

Throughout Yes Sir I Will, what was by now the usual suspects along with some new additions are all lined up and as per usual demolished one by one: "Puppet figurehead Queen Elizabeth the Second, Regina Virgina... the inheritor of her ancestors greed and theft."

"Still we lay prostrate before a stylised figure on a crucifix, as if the stone fool might be resurrected. Fuck his loaded deity."

"Governments pay no heed to the cries of suffering... because to ensure control the superpowers need to maintain the imbalance."

"Politicians... how can anyone be so distorted?"

"Who is this Heseltine with his corrupt lies? Who is this Thatcher with her arrogant deceit? These hideous mutants cast their shadows across all that is worthwhile and good."

What was more noticeable within the album's tract was the increased attention given to the fact that "the rows of grey robots who control our lives" are all rich, no better summed up as by the description "The wealthy obscene with their obscene wealth."

An early Crass slogan stencilled on billboards on the London Underground had declared that 'Wealth is a ghetto', and whilst this might be the truth, it was still a privileged ghetto to be in none the less. Under Thatcher, the rich and the subsequently privileged were getting ever more richer but according to Crass the poor were now not only getting poorer but they were also getting killed, or at the very least their lives being made a complete misery: "In a world where there are people who can't afford a crust of bread, these arrogant scabs drive around in Bentleys and Rolls Royces. Perhaps it amuses them to rub shit into the faces of the poor? But there'll come a time when such overt displays of wealth will not be tolerated by the people in the street. In a sane society wealth and possession would not be an asset."

This was Crass edging very close to the same direct-action advocating point that The Apostles were making in their song Pigs For Slaughter, as in: "Spray a message of hate across a Bentley or smash it up... Put sugar in the petrol tank, deflate the tyres with six-inch nails. That's the way to wreck a Rolls, so get stuck in, it never fails."

When it came to an issue such as Cruise missiles, though being as Crass put it "an existing reality", it was a reality that only physically manifested itself at the bases such as Greenham Common and Molesworth where the silos could actually be seen being prepared. In the main, then, apart from those campaigners putting themselves on the front line at these bases, for most people that particular battle was an ideological one. The disparity between the rich and the poor, however, was something much easier to see on a day-to-day basis whether it be on television, in advertising, or even by a simple trip into any city. It was something that there was no need to seek out as it was always there in full view, the wealth side of it being flaunted as if it was some kind of virtue. Poverty, on the other hand, whilst also being clearly visible was something to almost be ashamed of.

Here then was "an existing reality" that was in your face. Here then lay a future battlefield not so much for an ideological war but for a more physical one. A class war, perhaps? From wrecking a Rolls Royce it was only a hop, skip and a jump away to a full-blown riot, something that those in power seemed to be quite conscious of although as Crass were pointing out: "Rather than analysing the seriousness of the problem, they simply strengthen the army and police to combat it."

The St Paul's riot in Bristol in 1980 and likewise the country-wide riots the following year may have taken everyone by surprise but now civil unrest was not only being anticipated but was being prepared for. Those in any position of power be it economically or politically knew that something was now 'out there' waiting. Something brooding, seething, discontented and dangerous: "It happened in Brixton, Toxteth and Moss Side. It happens daily in Northern Ireland."

Whilst on the one hand dismissed as being pure criminality or even as the politics of envy, on the other hand it was apparent that it was also being taken seriously enough to warrant a war being waged against it: "Under Thatcher's regime there have been massive increases in police brutality," and in a reference to the shooting of Steven Waldorf: "In London, police shot down a man only to find it was the wrong person." The question being, however, who exactly was on the attack and who was on the defensive? The rich or the poor? Was it the ruling elite who were running scared or was it the dispossessed?

Yes Sir I Will was Crass weighing up the odds, despairing, taking stock, taking a deep breath and then urging themselves and their listeners onwards: "Why should we accept servility as a bargain for dignity? Why should we passively accept death as a bargain for living? Why accept this robbery of life? Why accept this pillage... Take up your eyes and see. Take up your ears and hear. Take up your mind and think. Take up your life and act."

Above everything else, however, it was the problem of the passive observer and passive acceptance that was drawing the most fire: "Passive observers do nothing but passively observe... Passive observers offer nothing but decay... In your refusal to act you are guilty of being the gutless, passive observer... War can only exist through passive acceptance... In your passive acceptance you have already allowed the (nuclear) holocaust to happen. The future is ended."

In presenting all these various problems as one major problem conveyed in one single block of words rather than separate problems conveyed in separate songs, there now came the danger of being snowed under by it all. To avoid, therefore, being immobilised by the combined weight of all the problems being made into one, the tract that was Yes Sir I Will demanded a suitable ending. Some kind of summing up needed to be reached.

Though having declared at the start of the album that their love of life was total, come the end Crass had once again made it clear that life was also a horrible mess. So what to do? In their final reckoning, Crass were teetering on the edge of making a declaration of outright war: "It is up to us all as responsible citizens of Earth to work towards the downfall of the powerful elite. Their rule has created dreadful suffering. Their insanity precludes all reason and compassion. They lie, trick and manipulate... They must be stopped. Why should people die for their insanity? Why should people starve for their insanity? Why should people suffer the spitefulness of their greed? We must not be intimidated by the authority that they appear to have. We must be prepared to oppose them on every level, to fight back in the knowledge that if we don't we will have failed in our responsibility to life itself."

Given that an acute sense of desperation had been conveyed throughout the album, it seemed however as though Crass were still holding back or rather they were being held back - paradoxically - by some of the very ideas they were espousing. If it was a war that was being waged, as pacifists could they allow themselves to actually partake in that war? As pacifists could they actually declare a war? Such was the frighteningly violent dangerousness of the "existing reality" that Crass had depicted, it was now a matter of the utmost urgency to deal with it. That much they had made abundantly clear. Nothing now could be afforded to get in the way and any unnecessary obstacles needed to be avoided or overturned be it the cloak of Punk Rock, the sugar coating of a nice tune, the shackle of fear, the prison cell of passivity, or the hand-brake of pacifism.

Having always been firm exponents of both Punk Rock and pacifism there was now the distinct impression that Crass were throwing off those particular yokes (or crosses, as Penny Rimbaud would put it) so as to allow themselves more freedom and be more relaxed in the way that others might choose to express themselves artistically, socially, and politically: "Ours is a just cause; it is up to each one of us, alone, to do our best. We must learn to overcome our fears. We must realise that the strength that they have is the strength that we give them. It is you, the passive observer, who has given them this power. You are being used and abused and will be discarded as soon as they've bled what they want from you."

Essentially, the message was now 'each to one's own', this being basically the same message that EP Thompson had given when he implored the CND masses to sense their own strength. The same message, fundamentally, that Crass had always given, from "It's up to you to change your life and my life's up to me," as delivered in Big A Little A, right down to 'The dawn is in us' as scratched into the run-off groove of Christ - The Album. A message that was actually very simple but so huge that Crass were only now starting to fully heed it themselves.

Having criticised and to all intent and purpose jettisoned Punk, they now seemed to be teetering on the edge of denouncing pacifism. Almost. What was being accentuated instead was that there was no one single path to take and that it was now almost a case of by any means necessary. Almost. No longer were they going to condone or condemn any others' choice or way of doing things. Now was not the time for arguments over tactics. Now was not the time for self-imposed divisions. Now, rather, was the time for action. Now was the time to get out on the streets.

"You must learn to live with your own conscience,

your own morality,

your own decision,

your own self.

You alone can do it.

There is no authority but yourself"

Spoken by Eve Libertine over the sound of feedback fading to silence, those last words brought Yes Sir I Will to a conclusion but even more than that they brought to a conclusion all that Crass had ever spoken, written, shouted, screamed or indeed, sung. Those last six words - "There is no authority but yourself" - was perhaps the ultimate Crass statement, directed squarely not at the Crass audience as a whole but at every single solitary individual within that audience.

The only authority that mattered, the only authority to recognise was that which was to be found within every single one of those individuals. Any other authority - be it political or institutional - was false and fit only for challenging. 'There is no authority but yourself' was nothing less than an ultimate truth. Plainly simple, blatantly obvious and ultimately undeniable. Limitless in its connotations, profound in its implications. This one statement was what Crass were all about. It was their meaning, their beginning and their end.

"There is no authority but yourself." Could anything more possibly be said?

As with all Crass albums, the sleeve of Yes Sir I Will folded out into a huge poster, this time containing an enlargement of a photograph taken from The Sun newspaper showing Prince Charles standing face-to-face with a Falklands war veteran who has been horrifically burnt and mutilated. The soldier was Welsh Guardsman Simon Weston, one of the survivors from the sinking of landing ship the Sir Galahad. The caption beneath the picture read: '"Get well soon," the Prince said. And the heroic soldier replied: "Yes, sir, I will."' This then was where the title of the album had come from. An almost innocuous photograph plucked from a tabloid newspaper encapsulated and underlined all that Crass were saying.

Going by his relationship with Lady Di - his own wife - Prince Charles was a peculiarly emotionally stunted individual, whilst Simon Weston was simply a soldier being dutiful. On coming together, the inadequacy of the exchange between the two was glaring. In all likelihood, Charles meant well when wishing that Weston "get well soon" although to say this to someone horrifically mutilated for life was particularly woeful just as Weston's reply was equally pitiful. Both were figures trapped in roles that were helping to maintain the whole, sorry state of the world. Charles, the modern day master, inheritor of his ancestors greed and theft; Weston, the modern day servant, not only prepared to eat shit but prepared also to say thanks for the privilege. One a representative of obscene wealth and privilege, the other a representative of supreme sacrifice to Queen and country - and Thatcher.

Ultimately, Yes Sir I Will was an experiment that both failed and succeeded in its aims. If the whole point of the album was to communicate a message then it succeeded although the message wasn't quite as straightforward as Crass might have intended.

The main point of 'There is no authority but yourself' came over loud and clear but this was arrived at right at the end of the record after an exhausting and at times gruelling slog through a mass of tangled words. The fact that those words had been nailed to a sprawling, tuneless, free-form noise workout resulted in a lot of the actual content being eclipsed by the form rather than Crass's desire of it being the other way round. The words subsequently ending up as a kind of subtext to what was really being communicated; that being a near-hysterical, absolute sense of desperation and frustration. There was a distinction between the intellectual and the emotional and between the head and the heart, so more so than conveying what Crass were thinking, Yes Sir I Will had actually ended up conveying what Crass were feeling.

Just over a year previously it seemed that Crass were riding the crest of a wave and that change on all kinds of levels was absolutely possible. The Falklands war had put paid to that particular notion with a vengeance and had shown that both the peace movement and the Punk movement just weren't good enough. CND might well have been capable of getting thousands of people out on the street, marching from A to B and congregating in Trafalgar Square or where ever but they had done nothing to prevent the conventional war in the Falklands. Given the fact that Cruise missiles were still very much on the way to England and the rest of Europe, there was good reason to believe that continuing to pursue these same methods of protest there was even less chance of CND preventing a nuclear war.

Crass may well have spawned a legion of Anarcho Punk bands all screaming blue murder about The Bomb but when it came to an actual war, albeit a conventional one, Thatcher had left them all standing in muted impotency. The question that needed to be asked was that if Crass had recognised this then why hadn't others? Furthermore, if Crass had reached a near state of emergency regarding the need for action, again, why hadn't others?

By this time, of course, Crass had their own hardcore audience, the demographic of which closely reflected the composition of Crass themselves; that being a mixture of working, middle and upper-middle classes; white, mainly male but with a respectable female representation. What percentage of that audience were actually active in some way and how many were just passively consuming Crass as a form of Punk product was difficult to gauge but it was fair to say that if any were still failing to hear what was being said then it was through no fault of Crass.

On a political level, one of the problems was that inactivity and silence from anyone - not from just the Crass audience - was translated as giving consent to the status quo. The great, violent, silent majority as Penny Rimbaud had once wrote. It was all well and good saying that all government is the same so therefore why bother voting but if nothing constructive was being done in place of voting then everybody might just as well get themselves down to the polling station every few years and just go with the flow.

It didn't bother Thatcher none if people chose not to vote at all because essentially it meant just one less potential vote for the opposition. It didn't even really bother her if people went on a demonstration against Cruise missiles or whatever, especially if all they did at the end of it was to go quietly back to their homes and subsequently back to being silent again.

What did bother her, however - apart from the odd inner city riot - was sustained and constant demonstrating because this showed a spirit and determination that she herself saw as being essential to creating change. Or as Noam Chomsky would put it: "If you go to one demonstration and then go home, that's something, but the people in power can live with that. What they can't live with is sustained pressure that keeps building, organisations that keep doing things, people that keep learning lessons from the last time and doing better the next time."

Crass were clearly learning lessons as were a significant number of Anarcho Punks and fellow travellers of different stripes but would they be doing it better the next time? And if so, what might it involve? What next after Yes Sir I Will? What next after the latest protest march? These were revolutionary times and revolutionary ideas and tactics were being demanded.

As Joe Strummer had once asked: Were we taking over or were we taking orders? Were we going backwards - or were we going forwards?

The Apostles - Blow It Up, Burn It Down, Kick It Till It Breaks

THE APOSTLES -

BLOW IT UP, BURN IT DOWN,

KICK IT TILL IT BREAKS

Ensconced within the same east London squatter community that The Mob inhabited were The Apostles who, whilst being one of the most annoyingly untalented of bands were also one of the most interesting. Since the summer of 1981, The Apostles had released a number of demo tapes of varying degrees of musical ineptitude, all distributed through the DIY network thrown up in the wake of Crass. The creative force behind the band was one Andy Martin, responsible also for a provocatively entertaining fanzine called Scum. Andy Martin and his fellow band members had been key players behind aspects not only of the Crass/Poison Girls-sponsored Anarchy Centre but also the Centro Iberico, before moving musical operations to the LMC venue in north London. They had also been instrumental in the success of the Zig Zag squat gig at which they had also performed.

From the very start of and throughout their activities and participation in the Anarcho Punk scene, however, they had never once declared themselves to be anarchists; whilst the very idea of pacifism was an anathema to them. In fact, going totally against the grain of Anarcho Punk, The Apostles openly advocated violent direct action and armed insurrection, proffering solidarity and support for Britain's very own home-grown urban guerrilla gang of the 1970s, the Angry Brigade. Underlining this respect they had for them, one of the Angry Brigade's most well-known slogans was adopted by The Apostles for the title of their début EP, released in the Spring of 1983.

Blow It Up, Burn It Down, Kick It Till It Breaks contained five tracks of ramshackle, muddy, lo-fi Punk that left little doubt that for The Apostles it was the sentiment rather than the medium that was the message. Wrapped in a Crass-influenced fold-out cover, the sleeve comprised a variety of essays under such titles as 'Why Punk is a total failure', criticisms of 'hypocritical hippy tramps', and instructions on how to break into a house for the purpose of squatting it and even how to construct an incendiary device.

Amongst songs entitled Proletarian Autonomy, and Fucking Queer, the stand-out track by far was Pigs For Slaughter, named after a militant, agitational, London-based Punk zine of the same name. This particular song was to prove highly significant, acting as a prophetic sign that things were soon to change.

Under the cloud of imminent nuclear armageddon it seemed that for some, wealth and the accumulation of it was all that mattered, giving rise to the young urban professional - otherwise known as the 'yuppies'. Brash, arrogant, self-centred high-flyers with no regard for anything apart from making money and flaunting it, these were the true Thatcherites. Prostrating themselves before the altar of laissez-faire capitalism and basking in the perversity of conservative politics, they were representatives of an almighty insult to all those living in poverty.

Dressed in their designer suits and armed with Filofaxes, their shallowness was reflected in their dubious taste in music: Phil Collins, Dire Straits, Level 42, even Lady Di's favourites Duran Duran. If ever they were to have heard a band like The Apostles, particularly a song of theirs such as Pigs For Slaughter, they would certainly have been perplexed, dumbfounded and mightily confused:

"Glue the locks of all the banks and butchers or kick them in. Spray a message of hate across a Bentley or smash it up. Go to Kensington and mug a rich bastard against a wall. Sabotage the meat in supermarkets, poison them all. We're taking no more, we're smashing down the door for this is class war."

If yuppies were the apostles of Thatcher, embodying Conservative policies on the rampage then The Apostles were the harbingers of a fresh attitude to combat that. Rather than being always on the defensive and simply reacting to Thatcher all the time, The Apostles were advocating that people be proactive and actually go on the attack:

"Put sugar in the petrol tank, deflate the tyres with six-inch nails. That's the way to wreck a Rolls, so get stuck in, it never fails. Blow it up! Burn it down! Kick it till it breaks!"

The Apostles had obviously been inspired by Punk and in particular by the whole DIY ethic of it. Their criticism of Punk therefore was not so much toward the idea but toward the way it was being interpreted and executed. The Apostles lived with, associated and collaborated with Punks but instead of allowing themselves to be boxed-in and restricted in their behaviour by so-called codes of Punk conduct regarding dress sense, musical style and politics, they were more interested in pushing the envelope and using Punk as a stepping stone towards an even greater freedom of expression. Punk dogma was not for them.

In the same light, this was how they viewed the so-called radical politics of Anarcho Punk and subsequently explained somewhat their respect for the Angry Brigade.

Emerging from the hippy/liberation/student protest movements of the late 1960s (the same milieu, of course, that members of Crass had come from), the Angry Brigade had embarked on a technically brilliant bombing campaign that called into question the effectiveness of 'acceptable' and more peaceful methods of protest as defined by the State and practised by the organized Left.

As well as exposing the inhibitions and limited desires of other radicals operating within the framework of legality, the Angry Brigade's bombing campaign exposed the vulnerability of the State, sending a shudder of fear and confusion through the upper echelons of the Establishment. If they had so wished, the Angry Brigade could so very easily have killed the people to whom they had delivered their bombs but the fact that they didn't kill anyone spoke volumes.

Compared to the Red Brigade in Italy, the Baader Meinhoff Group in Germany and certainly to any government, the Angry Brigade displayed a morality that was almost humbling. This didn't save them, however, from the intense criticism and condemnation they received from many of their supposed comrades - even from within the anarchist movement - who accused them of being provocateurs, vanguardists, adventurists and even 'a threat to the growth of the mass movement'.

Criticism, accusations and slander would also forever dog The Apostles so little wonder that apart from empathising with the Angry Brigade's tactics they might also feel a certain kinship with them on other levels. When Joe Strummer sported a home-made Red Brigade t-shirt at the Rock Against Racism carnival of 1978, he too was criticised and in his case accused of 'romanticising terrorist violence'. It was a pity Joe didn't choose instead to wear the symbol of the Angry Brigade (who he would surely have known about) for he could then at least have countered any criticism by stating that the Angry Brigade never killed anyone - unlike any British government. If only Joe had penned a song about the Angry Brigade, even? But alas he never did, leaving it instead for The Apostles to step up to the mark.

But for lack of musical prowess, the track Pigs For Slaughter could easily have been a classic song in the vein of Holiday In Cambodia by the Dead Kennedys or Babylon's Burning by The Ruts though it must be said that being poorly performed did nothing to diminish its significance. Rather than being a powerful declaration of intent, however, Pigs For Slaughter was instead a nod, a hint, a suggestion that there were other Anarcho Punk visions to be had besides the pacifist one.

The Mob - Let The Tribe Increase

THE MOB - LET THE TRIBE INCREASE

Taking its name from the sleevenotes of Patti Smith's Easter album, Let The Tribe Increase by The Mob stood proudly out from the pack by virtue of its uncompromising individuality. By choosing their own path, The Mob had found their own voice which was now ringing out loud and clear for all to hear. Whilst many of their Anarcho Punk peer group had so obviously sprung from the well of Crass, The Mob were coming from somewhere altogether different. Theirs was a natural, earthy sound born from the Somerset countryside and transplanted to the inner city estates of London. Having travelled with hippy stalwarts Here And Now playing various free festivals and benefit or donation-only gigs, they had picked up and acquired a certain vibe where the important thing was not the music or the money but the audience - the actual community. The Mob were a genuine people's band. Driven by prominent bass and perfect, practical drumming augmented by rudimentary guitar and soaring backing vocals, the voice of lead singer Mark Mob - clear, precise and sure - called out to the world at large.

Inscriptions on the run-out grooves of the album - 'Take a trip down' and 'Electric turkeyland' - alluded to the band's penchant for drugs, particularly of the hallucinogenic variety though within the songs themselves there was absolutely nothing illusory or escapist in the slightest. In fact, living on the breadline in squats in the East End of London placed The Mob and their friends firmly at the bottom - if not actually outside - of society where they would face on a daily basis the hardships and dangers of inner city life.

In such a position there was nothing the politics of Thatcherism of all things could possibly offer them apart from a prejudice and selfishness based on cold economics. Indeed, The Mob and their friends were a good example of the Lumpenproletariat that Bakunin had cited as being the true revolutionaries within society. The desperately poor. Those with no stake in society and therefore nothing to lose.

Laying out a distinct world view immediately and to mightily good effect, the opening track of the album found Mark Mob waking up to Another Day Another Death: "I wake up screaming from the nightmare that's begun again, cold tears of sweat trickling down my face..." For Mark there is no escape and no hiatus from "the cold and frigid wind that blows through every crack." In the jaws of bleakness - like Bakunin's potential for revolution - any hint of hope or beauty is grabbed at and held fast: "I'm reaching out again clutching flowers thrown in the breeze, they are quite meaningless and yet they mean so much to me." All too aware of the pain of everyday living, his voice shaking, all Mark really wants is the answer to one very simple question: "Why?"

In Cry Of The Morning, Mark describes the looming presence of an authoritarian 'other', signalled by "the wail of the siren." The omnipotence of this unnamed power offers no chance of escape, redemption or mercy as like an animal caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle, Mark's fate is no longer in his hands. There is simply no time for anything. Not love, not hate, not tears, fear, running away or goodbyes. Nor "if they come in the morning" is there even any time to fight back. Resistance is futile.

In Dance On (You Fool), the bass groove of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Two Tribes is pre-empted, as the subject of violence found "in the pubs and streets" is equated with "impotent lovers." Inadequacy and hate "bred from the cradle and reared in the schools" begets aggressive masculinity. "Above all a man or above all a fool, which are you?" Mark asks "Above all a man or above all you, which are you?"

Raised In A Prison relaxes the pace to a contemplative stroll as a captive life is described in sad detail: "Raised in a prison with iron bars and walls too high to be climbed. Raised in a four-cornered corridor, always kept silent and blind." Conformity, obedience and good manners are taught from a young age before being thrown into the world of work and then entering the sanctimony of marriage. Sterility, boredom and repetition are the rewards with possibly "a garden and wonderful view of kids playing war in the streets after school." Living prescribed roles of home-maker wife and breadwinner husband, the happy couple are trapped in a thankless existence, one of the few 'benefits' being that they are at least safe from harm: "Watching the TV til hubby comes home, unable to stand on his feet. Black and white pictures of policemen with sticks smacking fuck out of kids on the street."

The unacknowledged quirkiness of The Mob is shown to good effect in the track Slayed, where a Mark E Smith of The Fall influence is suggested in the way the ends of words are accentuated. To a driving bass and chopping guitar, the song finds Mark Mob searching through what he refers to as 'the desert of his soul'. Surveying an outer landscape of bureaucratic piles of waste, putrid smell and concrete towers he sees hope only in the children who are playfully "destroying all your sacred cows." He sees that adults are a lost cause and the hope of a better world might only lie in the hands of children: "In these wars that you have made, through the shit you now must wade. You were the slayer - you're now the slayed." The juxtaposition of Mark's baritone and the softer backing vocal is put to beautiful effect in the final refrain of "You were the slayer," with Mark declaring it as a statement of fact whilst the backing vocal almost whispering it as an accusation.

Side one of the album ends with a mini-epic in the form of the track Our Life Our World, in which Mark paints a primitive picture of the world as he sees it: "Our life, our world mapped out in stars, carved in wrists and back of arms which paint in blood on sheets of white. Our children never quite at home." It seems that once again the world of adults holds nothing for its children who turn their pain upon themselves in acts of self harm. In the prime of their infancy - their "golden age" - no-one cares to listen to their cries of rage.

Midway through, the song lurches into a slow, three-chord soliloquy and Mark's voice turns fragile and terribly tender: "This is my love now and this is my war, do not suffer my children... This is my nightmare built from your hell on earth, do not damage my children."

Unlike most other Anarcho Crass bands, The Mob weren't offering any real solutions or any calls for action but instead were simply describing the way they felt and the way things were. Whilst Crass et al were inspiring through anger and by putting forward pacifism and direct action as answers, The Mob were inspiring through simply being very truthful. The Mob were a lesson in love and tenderness born from anger: "Leave my world for my children, they didn't ask to be born. Leave my love for my children, and let them be warm."

Gates Of Hell kicks off side two of the album and without any delay is a despairing leap into the void where Mark is found, his body "a bombed-out shell." To a chiming bass line he once again describes the world in which he has found himself where "the sun is blacked out by the rain that keeps on falling as the blood keeps flowing," and where "the only sound is the toll of your death bells." There in the most miserable of places, even though there are "no peace flags flying in the breeze of illusion," such things to him are still "the lights at the end of the tunnel," even if they are but "a mirage in the desert."

Could the world ever be more sad and more wretched? Of course it could. Within the realm of popular (and not so popular) music there has always been a tradition of morose or troubled artists exploring the darker depths of the human condition. From Leonard Cohen and his tragically sad love songs to Lou Reed and his Berlin-era meditations, from the elegiac musings of suicidal Nick Drake to the 1980s world weariness of Joy Division and The Smiths. Criticised for being 'depressing' their songs were in actual fact beautifully uplifting, more often than not serving as a genuine antidote to melancholia.

Joining this select canon was The Mob whose songs, whilst projecting a profound sense of sadness, inspired not only hope but a real sense of closeness. A fine example of this being the track I Wish, in which a broken and tired-sounding Mark ponders to himself: "I wish I could love, it must be fun to love cos so many people do it, it must be fun to love." This same line is then repeated over again, each time changing the word 'love' to either 'hate', 'fight', and 'kill' before ending with "I wish I could die, it must be fun to die cos so many people do it, it must be fun to die."

From an admission of feeling isolated from the crowd or 'the many', it's at first dubious that Mark wishes he could love as this is clearly an emotion he already feels as evidenced in previous songs. Or perhaps he sees the love that "must be fun" that "so many people do" is somewhat different to the love he himself feels? If his love is not 'fun' then is it somehow inadequate or less real or less worthy than the love of others? The answer is given over the next lines of the song where Mark wishes he could hate, fight and kill "cos so many people do it, it must be fun".

This is Mark playing Devil's advocate as clearly he has no wish to hate, fight or kill at all; and it follows that to not want to do these things - and in fact to wish for the complete opposite - is perfectly fine even if it does mean isolation from the many. In turn, Mark's wish to die really means the complete opposite also: Mark actually wishes to live.

Taken at face value, I Wish appears to be a thoroughly depressing song but is in actual fact clever and very life-affirming. Not withstanding this will to live, however, there is still the horror of the world to suffer. "I wanna know why?" Mark declares at the start of the album in Another Day Another Death but there is no answer, no reason and no explanation on offer.

In the track Never Understood, Mark comes face-to-face not only with the inevitability of the death of others but of his own mortality too: "And as I fight to find an empty place, the yawning gap amongst the bodies fits my face. I gave my life for something never understood." Over and over and over again he repeats the song's title and with no pause for breath the words obliterate everything else until the song finally bursts like a bubble leaving only... oblivion.

The next track, entitled Roger, drifts slowly into being as a lilting nursery rhyme turns round and round: "Phantom, oh phantom, come out, come out and I will kiss thee upon thy snout." Evoking memories of ancient daydreams, voices emerge, cross-over and submerge; exclaiming, whispering and pronouncing odd phrases such as "I touched it!", "These are the dreams of children, they are the children of dreams," and "It's normal! It's normal!"

Roger conveys the similarity between a possibly drug-fuelled altered state of mind and the surrealistic senselessness of formal, regulated society. Appearing at first to be an experimental, abstract diversion from the main thrust of the album, the song actually fits in perfectly; adding another peculiar twist to The Mob's profile.

The album ends on a massive high with a re-recorded version of Witch Hunt, The Mob's most powerful of songs. As a stand-alone single release, Witch Hunt was profound, provocative, uniquely fascinating and utterly brilliant. Placed within a whole album of Mob songs, however, the words and their meaning are underscored and puts everything about The Mob into context, leaving no question over the album's classic status: "Stubbing out progress where seeds are sown, killing off anything that's not quite known. Sitting around in a nice, safe home - waiting for the witch hunt. Idle plans for the idle rich, knitting the economy not dropping a stitch. Destroying anything that doesn't quite fit - waiting for the witch hunt. Still living with the English fear - waiting for the witch hunt, dear."

On first hearing, Let The Tribe Increase was an unexpected experience. Though the music being played by The Mob was relatively simple, the sound they were producing was very big and translated well from small, squatted premises to larger, commercial venues; and from playing to small groups of friends to playing to much larger festival audiences. Equally important, the sound translated well to each individual listener alone in their bedroom. Let The Tribe Increase not only demanded repeat listenings but welcomed them.

There was a warmth about Let The Tribe Increase, an intimacy that drew the listener in close that appeared to come quite naturally, as though it wasn't even being considered. In all likelihood The Mob were not even aware of it themselves and had no idea of just how close they were to their audience.

A few years earlier, Mark Perry of Alternative TV had recognised that the trail blazed by the like of Here And Now in their promotion and support of free gigs and festivals was the way for Punk to go. His own band had gone for this with varying degrees of success, gaining much respect but losing the interest of many fans along the way due in no small part to the somewhat difficult avant-jazz Punk records released by them. In Crass, Mark Perry saw the way that a Punk band should be though through no fault of their own Crass's position was changing from being as one with their Punk audience to being leaders of the Anarcho Punk movement. An oxymoron if ever there was one.

Because they appeared to be ahead of everyone else in their analysis, their power and their actions, Crass were finding themselves in an isolated position not helped by the fact that they were living out in the Essex countryside as opposed to being based in the city wrestling with all the problems which that entailed. Not that Crass were out of touch at all, it was just that they weren't having to face the grind and hostility of city life in the same way as for example, The Mob and their friends had to whilst living in squats and housing co-ops.

Crass and The Mob were both very much 'people's bands' but with differences between them. Crass may have had an open-house policy at their countryside home and they may have been both working and living together communally as people but The Mob were actually living alongside their audience. There was no separation. The Mob and their audience were one and the same.

This was the tribe to which The Mob's album title referred, the tribe The Mob wished to see increase. Adam And The Ants in their early days had touched upon a similar idea also with their 'Ant music for Ant people / Sex music for Sex people' totems as had in their own way Killing Joke and Theatre Of Hate. It soon became apparent, however, that it was commercial success that these groups were after whilst for The Mob this particular aspiration held no appeal whatsoever. There was the potential for The Mob to be huge but their concern was obviously for other things, not least of which was for simply getting on and living their lives. The music business held no attraction for them in the slightest and commercial success was clearly not on their agenda. If they even had any agenda at all?

There was an intangible air of consciousness about The Mob, captured in as much as could be possible by their album and to recognise this consciousness demanded an awareness that reflected well upon their audience. Let The Tribe Increase suggested an understanding of true meaning. An understanding of what was important and of what was not, of what was good and right and of what was bad and wrong.

The Mob were the living embodiment of the spirit glimpsed at the Stonehenge free festival and their album was a representation of that spirit. Radical, free and wild; full of potential yet assailed on all sides by forces of ignorance. Awareness in a world that not only discouraged awareness but actively sought to destroy it. The Mob were one of the most beautifully brilliant bands of the whole 1980s Anarcho Punk Rock era and Let The Tribe Increase was one of the greatest albums.

What made it all so doubly remarkable was that whilst their audience recognised how special The Mob were, The Mob themselves seemed not to know it. All that was happening was that they were simply being and doing what came quite naturally to them. In essence, The Mob were simply being themselves but this was what was ultimately giving them their edge and making them so very special.

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...