I consider myself to be an anarcho-punk. Anarcho-punk is punk that promotes anarchism. The band Crass was the first anarcho-punk band. Many anarcho-punks support peace, equality, freedom from oppression, and hierarchies. I found a cool website dedicate to anarcho-punk and you can download some music from there.

http://www.anarcho-punk.net/

Enjoy!

Subhumans are an English punk band formed in the Trowbridge and Melksham area of Wiltshire in 1980.[1] Dick Lucas joined later in the year, having formerly been in another local band, The Mental. Other members had been in The Stupid Humans. The band’s musical style is typically classified as hardcore punk or anarcho-punk.

The band released a demo in 1981. It was heard by members of the band Flux of Pink Indians, after being sent to them by Graham Burnett of the New Crimes fanzine, and the band were so impressed that they offered the Subhumans a chance to put out a record on their newly formed Spiderleg record label. Shortly afterwards the Subhumans began to release material on their own Bluurg Records label…Read More

Subhumans – Spaghetti Clip – Subvert City…

1977 Punk

What is punk music? It’s three chord rock. It’s debated if it was founded by The Ramones in America or The Sex Pistols in the U.K. I say: Who cares? It exists. These are probably two of the first bands you want to give a listen to – along with The Clash, The Damned (Damned, Damned, Damned), Dead Boys (Young, Loud, and Snotty), The Germs, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bad Brains (These guys are homophobic and I don’t agree what they sing about but they are considered to be the first hardcore punk band. They sound good, just don’t listen to their lyrics. ), and a personal favorite of mine X-Ray Spex. Click on the links to read some of the histories of the bands.

Listening to punk is two-folds: listening to the songs plus knowing the band histories. It’s common punk knowledge that Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols killed his girlfriend Nancy in the Chelsea Hotel and then died of a heroine overdose. Plus, Sid was famous for his lock and chain necklace given to him by Pretender’s Chrisse Hynde. Sid was a horrible musician – he could barely play the bass. Then, there was the Germ’s Darby Crash, who was gay, and committed suicide. Joey Ramone from the Ramones is often referred to because everyone wants to sleep with him – it’s a joke, his brother even wrote a book entitled, “I slept with Joey Ramone.” Johnny Rotten has since did a butter commercial.

Early punk is often referred to as “77’s punk.” There are some punks who only listen to 77’s punk and considered that to be the only true punk. My personal opinion of some 77’s punk is that it was corporate punk with money making in mind. Like, the Sex Pistols were formed by Macolm McLaren and the “Sex” of the Sex Pistol is from the name of his clothing shop. Some of the punk look was original started by Richard Hell and was taken by McLaren and Vivienne Westwood to make the big bucks. The Sex Pistols were signed to a major record label. That’s not DIY it’s EMI. Punk was about rebellion for a half a second but was really about the money. However, along came the 80’s and the punk band that would live up to what punk is supposed to be. Their name was Crass.

1980’s

Anarcho-Punk

Crass was the ultimate embodiment of punk rock. They took the idea of anarchy seriously, were activists, and pacifists. Now-a-days, you can find Crass t-shirts at Hot Topic which is why I said they were punk rock. They used to sell their music at little above printing cost. Spreading ideas mattered more than money. Crass even stopped the Falklands War by releasing a disinformation tape of Roland Reagan talking to Margaret Thatcher that got the British public so upset that the war was put to an end. Punk is the only subculture to ever have stopped a war. Which is one of the reasons why if people are going to box me into a box – I’d like it to be punk. Crass sounds very crass but their lyrics are amazing. My favorite cd of theirs is Best Before 1984. My favorite song is Big A, Little A, Bouncing B. They were as punk rock as punk rock could be. They are the founders of the punk genre known as anarcho-punk. Some other anarcho-punk bands worth listening are Flux of the Pink Indians, Conflict, Subhumans, and Amebix.

Plasmatics

I don’t know really what category to put this band into – so I’ll make them their own. The Plasmatics are AWESOME. Anti-corporate, anti-consumerism, and anti-materialism. The lead singer, Wendy O. Williams was in my opinion, the first riot grrrl. She promoted vegetarianism and animal rights before it was trendy. She blew up cars and did amazing stunts. She wasn’t the first person to wear a mohawk in punk but she was the first person who brought it to the mainstream. She was as tough as nails and amazing. She also killed herself 1998. I wish she didn’t, I would have loved to have met her. All their music is awesome. She was a real threat to the establishment.

Hardcore Punk

The 80’s was the time of hardcore punk. Most notably: Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Reagan Youth, Dead Kennedys (Fresh Fruit for Rotten Vegetables + all their stuff is good) and Social Distortion. I never really listened to Social Distortion but they are one of the better known punk bands. I see t-shirts and stuff for them all the time so they might be worth listening to. Also worth mentioning is the Misfits who were the first horror punk band.

1990’s

This is the decade that some punk bands started making it big. This is the decade of “selling out” and the birth of the “Hot Topic” punk. If you want to know about Hot Topic punk – go to your nearest Hot Topic or browse their cataloged online. Warp Tour and all that – not punk. Time period of lots of people thinking they are punk rock when they aren’t. I’ll waste no more time on them. Two big things happened during the 1990’s: the birth of riot grrrl and queercore.

Riot Grrrl
Notice something funny about almost all the punk bands mention until now except for X-Ray Spex, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Plasmatics? Yep, punk music is dominated by men. There have been very few female punk musicians. Riot Grrrl for a brief time changed that. The girls going to Evergreen University in Olympia, WA were tired of it. Riot Grrrl is credited with being founded by either Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill or Allison Wolfe of Bratmobile. Both bands which I recommend listening too. Huggy Bear was a U.K. riot grrrl band which are pretty awesome too. Anyways, it was all DIY with zines, political actions, and activism. This ladies shared their rage with the world.

Queercore

What’s better than pissed off ladies? Pissed off queers. My favorite genre of music which very few people even know about – Queercore. Queercore is about being discontented with the agenda of gays and lesbians to assimilate and oppressing other minorities to try to fit into society. This was all DIY through zines, art, writing, and film. Bands to listen to: Fifth Column, Pansy Division, Sister George, Team Dresch (my favorite queercore band!!!!! Both albums rock. Listen to them NOW.), Tribe 8 (Love the song “Wrong Bathroom” by them.), and Limp Wrist. I also highly recommend checking out The Need and Cypher in the Snow. Both very underrated and awesome.

They do it once they’ll do it again the world is ruled by business men.

The Subhumans’ albums were re-released a little while ago. I finally managed to get round to getting a copy of Worlds Apart.  While some of the subject matter seems to have dated (eg war with the Soviet Union), much of the material still stands the test of time.  Here was a band – from Wiltshire if I’m right – who could punch their weight with the best of the anarcho-punks that America could offer (Dead Kennedys, Misfits, and later Black Flag).

The albums have all be remastered from the original tapes, the cleaned up sound is excellent. Time hasn’t dimmed the vitriol.  The quote that opens this post is from Businessman, you could apply that quote to bankers in the present climate.  Overdraft charges? Well you could tell they’d always win that one couldn’t you.  Banks in trouble? Let’s give them OUR money: He takes your money, you take his word /He tells you things you’ve never heard.

But other songs on the album speak directly to us in 2009. Apathy could be about watching the X-Factor:

The Public watches ITV
Reads The Sun drinks cups of tea
Two-star family stay content
Their lives controlled by parliament
Well daddy’s lost his job again
Because he never had no brain
He only lives to watch TV
His life controlled by apathy

‘Nuff said.  Of course the more things change, the more they stay the same.  When this album was released we were at the height of the Thatcher government.  A different world you say.

Think again.

For this episode of Janitor From Mars, I chose to focus on 18 different bands that play a form of anarcho-punk, crust and/or early hardcore. I grew up listening to many of these bands. However, some bands are new to me.

You can read a list of the bands below, as well as checking out both the playlist for this episode of Janitor From Mars and a link to the archives if you would like to listen to it.

Janitor From Mars 11/14/09 Playlist:
http://tinyurl.com/janitorfrommars111409

Listen to Janitor From Mars in WRUV Archives:
http://tinyurl.com/d9ew2s

(Note: Show will only be available in Archives for one week)

Also, here is a partial playlist of the anarcho/crust bands and their songs that were showcased:

This appeared in 3:AM Magazine on 14 September 2007:

A Pint and a Molotov Cocktail

George Berger interviewed by Andrew Gallix.

3:AM: How did you get into punk?

GB: Seeing the bizarrely-dressed head-turners strolling around Bromley and surrounding areas really turned my head. Clothes and hair and a way of walking that just said “fuck off” to everyone, and straight society in particular. I don’t remember the individuals individually, just the feeling of seeing unrepentant weirdos expressing themselves via their appearance. I’d imagine this was before the word ‘punk’ came into popular use, but it doesn’t really matter either way. Seeing similar — or perhaps the same — people then interviewed on the London Weekend Show by Janet Street Porter, and then on ‘Young Nation’ on Nationwide turned my head yet further: they were sullen and obnoxious and that confused my hormones. I can’t say I liked the look of them, but it opened a door in my mind that had previously been locked and marked ‘no entry’. Finally, the famed Bill Grundy interview drew a line in the sand as I watched it with my outraged parents, trying to conceal my glee. This was clearly a step beyond their affectionate mock-outrage at glam rock.

‘No more apologies’, as Morrissey later described it so beautifully. My zits cleared up almost immediately, perhaps because I wasn’t scared of them anymore. Freedom of feeling, the feeling’s appealing. In other words, punk pushed the right buttons by opening the right (mental) doors at the right time. The music was often great, but was never the point.

3:AM: Your band, Flowers in the Dustbin, were part of the anarcho-punk scene, so you wrote this Crass book as an insider…

GB: Is there any self-respecting anarchist who would admit to being such? I wouldn’t know…

Being part of the London anarcho-punk-goth-crazy-coloured-fools-with-no-rules scene certainly informed the perspective that the book is written with of course, because it meant my early experience with anarchist thought and practice wasn’t limited to Crass. A sense of perspective, as Tap philosophised. But I’m not so sure FITD as a band were as much a part of all that in the way it’s now remembered. There’s a book about anarcho-punk coming out called The Hippies Now Wear Black — we were innocent on both those charges!

3:AM: To what extent did the members of Crass help you with your research and how have they reacted to the book?

GB: The members of Crass — Andy Palmer excepted — were as helpful as anyone could reasonably be expected to be, and in the cases of most, well beyond that.

The Crass members were also strikingly, unusually, generous and kind in a way that prods your conscience into examining its own parameters. Whatever happened to the members of Crass in their respective life-journeys at the time, it seems to have left an indelible urge to be kind and generous. Perhaps that was the energy that originally attracted so many towards them. In fact, I’m certain it was.

3:AM: In another interview you said: “I always felt a bit sorry for the people who bought into Crass at the expense of everything else”. However, when you read the book, it is obvious that the Ants/Crass dichotomy still seems to rankle after all these years. Crass offered a whole lifestyle that was difficult to reconcile with non-anarcho punk bands like the Ants or UK Subs. It was a bit like joining a fundamentalist sect, wasn’t it? Do you think you might have been attracted to this aspect of the band because of your Catholic upbringing?

GB: Meaning Crass were a part of the whole and people who bought into the sideshow ‘anarcho-punk’ often missed out on the other colours of the rainbow — Killing Joke, Bauhaus, Swell Maps, Au Pairs, Slits, etc etc… I don’t think it was a dichotomy at all in the early days, but sadly neither side could resist the bitching that subsequently became one of anarcho-punk’s main characteristics.

I should point out that I wasn’t attracted to Crass so much as fascinated by them, i.e. I was massively drawn to the idea of somewhere like Dial House working for decades as an open house, but could never quite reconcile the difference between the harsh Crass rhetoric and the gentle people in Crass. Frankly, you’d expect Crass to be aggressive and confrontational as people, but they were — and are — lovely. Delibrate dada contradictions? Maybe.

The Crass image encouraged the fundamentalist thing, which I would suggest was due to some kind of archetype hangover from the hippie times (where sects flourished of course). The Ants, Subs etc were far more healthy in this respect, I’d say, as they weren’t playing the parent. Saying ‘be yourself’ is great (Ants / Subs / punk), but the minute you start defining what that self should be, albeit unintentionally, you’re risking straying into a difficult place. The Crass output became self-conscious and ‘preachy’ once they got an audience — I felt sorry for the people who were perhaps young and encountering Crass / punk for the first time at this juncture and so bought into an opinion as though it was a reality. The map is not the territory.

I was repelled by the perceived fundamentalist aspect of Crass, not attracted to it. Whether or not this was connected to being brought up a Catholic, I’ve really no idea.

3:AM: Crass’s obsession with political freedom was so extreme that it enslaved some members. Steve Ignorant actually describes leaving the band as a liberation from the band’s politically-correct shackles: “I couldn’t look at the barmaid’s arse without being branded sexist. I couldn’t have milk in my tea without being called a bastard cos I wasn’t a vegan”. He also told you that if he’d been a 16-year-old punk at the time Crass’s rhetoric would have put him off and he would probably have been an Exploited fan. Even Penny Rimbaud, the band’s éminence grise, admits that they were “too serious”. It’s a double-edged thing, though, isn’t it? Crass meant so much because they were for real, but that purity also implied a po-faced, puritan zealotry…

GB: I don’t think Crass came across like that initially (before Penis Envy, if I’m forced to draw a line in the sand). I’m also not sure Steve is right – I don’t think that whatever took him to Dial House would have otherwise taken him to the Exploited; just a glib quote possibly out of context here. (In book interviews, Steve just spoke his mind whereas some other members of Crass pondered for literally minutes before replying to questions — which is quite unnerving but simultaneously inspiring).

3:AM: Your book often reads like a demystification of Crass’s political correctness. Whereas at the time, they appeared so self-assured — with their black uniforms, military backdrops and corporate logo — here, they come across as far more human and vulnerable. Steve and Pete admit that they knew little about anarchist history; Eve Libertine explains that she had qualms about “Reality Asylum” because of her Christian upbringing; Steve wrote “So What” as a kind of childish dare “to see if there’d be a bolt of lightning” when he sang the blasphemous lyrics… Did all this change the way you perceived the members of the band and the Crass phenomenon or were you conscious of this vulnerability at the time?

GB: I didn’t know the band well enough as people at the time to be sure of the vulnerability. I’d wager few, if any did.

With the book, I wanted to try and find the people behind the image / wall of anynomity. Demystification hits the nail on the head. Whilst Crass were always approachable back then as ‘Crass’, the individuals behind the job were often impossible to discover. Even to themselves, it would appear. At the time, I thought this was counter-productive to ideas that ‘anyone can do it’, so with the book I tried to show that the people that made up Crass and did/didn’t change the world (delete as your reality tunnel dictates) did so without being special and without access to any privilege that you or I haven’t got. And surprised myself with my findings…

3:AM: The more I read your book, the more contradictions appeared. Crass avoided the star system through anonymity but this very anonymity inevitably created a mystique of its own. But the paradox doesn’t stop here as the band were also one of the most accessible ever…

GB: Were they? On one level yes: you could go meet them, chat to them, even visit their house. But as I’ve said, getting to know the real people was out of the question for fans. Still, they did draw the line in a very different place to the stars of the day, even the punk rock stars.

Did they avoid the star system? I’m not so sure — accessibility is surely only one aspect of stardom. People looked up to Crass and looked to them for guidance. By the time they were getting big, they appeared to want to give it, albeit way more responsibly than most of their peers.

3:AM: A couple of other contradictions highlight the band’s unique nature. Politically, they were caught between the old school anarchists and the pacifists; financially, the more records they sold, the more money they lost.

Crass created a massive grassroots anarchist movement, for the first time in British history. They invented their own brand of anarcho-pacifism. They were also the only political band to practise what they preached which is why they sold records by the truckload without any advertising. I remember an interview with Joe Strummer, in the early 80s, in which he said that wherever you went, even in a remote Greek village, you’d see graffiti of the Crass symbol. He was gobsmacked and clearly envious. The band’s achievements were huge, but until your book came out their story went largely unrecorded — weird, isn’t it?

GB: Weird yes, but what Crass were offering was so beautiful — yet so fragile — that it was only ever going to appeal to the demographic who considered it a possible reality.

You’re wrong about their losing money on records — that only happened with “Reality Asylum” — otherwise they made a lot of money. Then showed an inspiring amount of integrity by returning it to what they considered ‘the movement’ and simultaneously arguable tactics and taste in the way they did this by releasing records by a plethora of copyists (not all of course, but many).

3:AM: Crass are obviously still influential and will continue to be so, but they were also very much of their time, weren’t they? I don’t know if you remember, but a few years ago, David Beckham was photographed sporting a T-shirt bearing the Crass logo: I’m sure he had no idea what it was; it didn’t mean anything anymore. I don’t think Crass would have been as influential in a prosperous, post-Thatcherite Britain, do you?

GB: I believe that T-shirt was a Jean-Paul Gaultier creation, but don’t quote me on it. The Crass symbol never meant anything beyond ‘Crass’ and it wasn’t even designed to mean that in the first place.

Crass were of their time, obviously. Our job is to be of ours… I think Crass would have got nowhere without punk, but then neither would so many bands, or any of the rest of us for that matter — it’s all so many ifs and buts.

I’d also mention that I don’t think we do live in a post-Thatcherite age yet.

3:AM: I’ve always thought that anarcho-punk was killed by the fans. All the bands were banging on about peace while the fans were beating the shit out of each other — there was such a contrast between rhetoric and reality…

GB: The anarcho-punks were generally peaceful. Trouble at anarcho gigs was invariably from skinheads, usually right-wing and preying on pitifully-easy pickings. The inherent aesthetic contradiction between the ranting aggressive anarcho noise and the ‘peace’ lyrics was bound to attract a percentage of people who liked the former to the point where they didn’t care about the latter. I’d say the lack of trouble at Poison Girls gigs illustrates that.

Of course, to treat anarcho-punk as a music scene is to ignore the much more pervasive and lasting political movement that included the popularisation of animal rights, the peace camps, the birth of the anti-capitalist demonstrations etc. — you can beat the shit out of a few people at a gig, but you can’t kill the spirit.

3:AM: You write that “If the Buzzcocks wanted a generation of kids to turn up the volume to annoy their parents, Crass made you turn it down so they couldn’t hear the blasphemy”. Maybe that was also part of the problem: over the years, Crass’s righteous anger seemed to turn into a permanent tantrum…

GB: Yes, I’d say so. They weren’t like this at all as people, so one can only conclude that they’d got too stuck into ‘punk’ as cliché and failed to follow their own advice. What seemed so vital and loyal to ‘the cause’ at first ended up feeling reactionary to me, particularly as newcomers appeared to buy into the scene as some kind of rule-book.

3:AM: Another big problem was the old class thing. In spite of the anarchist rhetoric, a class divide remained within the band — in particular between Steve Ignorant, the geezer who wanted to wink at the girls in the front row, and Penny Rimbaud, the public-school educated hippie intellectual…

GB: Actually, I don’t think there was any personal divide between Penny and Steve, but I do think that going on about classlessness against a backdrop of the biggest war of the 20th century in the UK against the working class caught them a bit short.

3:AM: It’s interesting that both Steve Ignorant and John Lydon were influenced by Brighton Rock, which they both read at school…

GB: I bet they’d love a drink together — Steve, Johnny and Pinky, getting leathered in Horatio’s at the end of the pier! I’ll get the first round in: mine’s a pint and a molotov cocktail!

3:AM: When Penny Rimbaud claims, for instance, to have seen flying tribesmen in Africa, do you ever think: this guy is a nutcase not a visionary genius?

GB: I’m amazed people haven’t picked up on this more. If Penny was deliberately winding me up saying this, then he was doing so with an intensity that would put him up there with Brando and De Niro as one of the greatest actors of all time.

Nutcase / visionary genius — as Penny himself has asked on many occasions regarding Wally Hope, where do you draw the line? I think Penny Rimbaud’s whole life appears to be lived as polemic, which may give a clue here, as may his interest in existentialism.

3:AM: On the hippie vs punk debate, you claim that “Crass was right and Malcolm McLaren was wrong”. Obviously, there was continuity as well as rupture, but wouldn’t you agree that punk was the first movement to create a generation gap among youth itself? The hippies were the first generation to refuse to grow up, then punk came along with Sid Vicious stating that he couldn’t remember the Summer of Love because he was too busy playing with his Action Men…

GB: I’d say that there was a generation gap between teds and hippies, mods and teds (rockers) etc

Sid was a great comedian for the zeitgeist one-liners and I’m sure a generation knew instinctively where he was coming from with lines like that. But I think to pick up on generational trivia is to miss the point, particularly in hindsight.

3:AM: You seem to agree with Stewart Home that Crass took the fun out of punk…

GB: Yes, I do. But maybe half the fun was the incredibly broad church punk produced — seeing as that would have disappeared with or without Crass, it’s possible it would have gone anyway. Look at some of the others around then: Six Minute War, Crisis, Pop Group, Discharge, Au Pairs etc: hardly a laugh a minute. Maybe it was something in the air.

3:AM: You have described the composition of this book as an “intense experience”: did you need to write it in order to put this whole period behind you?

GB: Not the period itself — that’s already and unavoidably behind me. This was the period I became a vegetarian and turned the teenage angst into something more structured in my head. But, yes, there is a definite sense of catharsis in writing this book — I still find myself referring to ‘punk’ attitude all the time with a nagging sense that I must sound like an old ted. So I hope that all this ‘30 years of punk’ lark will help me draw a line somewhere if I’m honest. Not with the attitudes it imbibed me with, but maybe with the word itself.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWEE
George Berger’s latest book is The Story Of Crass. His previous one was a biography of the Levellers. His next one is under contemplation. He also fronts Flowers In The Dustbin and writes a blog from there.

Subhumans are an English punk band formed in the Trowbridge and Melksham area of Wiltshire in 1980. Member, Dick Lucas – piano/vocals, joined later in the year; having formerly been in another local band, The Mental. Other members; Bruce Treasure – guitars, b.v./drums, Trotsky – drums, Phil – bass; had been in The Stupid Humans. The band’s musical style is typically classified as hardcore punk or anarcho-punk. It is what punk music should sound like, they are an awesome band!! Associated with acts Citizen Fish

ALONGSIDE Discharge with their “screeching haikus”, Antisect were right at the very limit of what I deemed acceptable in terms of hardcore punk adopting the dynamics of heavy metal.

They were an intensely powerful live band, but it’s fair to say they were none too subtle. My main impression is of gigantic riffs, loads of feedback and even more shouting. And Sideshow Bob-style spiderplant hair, of course.

And they all seemed to be called Pete.

I got to interview them twice in the space of less than a year, first in Leeds and then in Gateshead, either side of the release of their debut album, In Darkness There Is No Choice. The interviews tell two very similar tales of perfectly affable people confronted with the relentless drunken negativity of a fanzine ediot who when it came down to it, just enjoyed arguing as much as anything else.

They were a little more relaxed second time around and among many world exclusives came the extraordinary and shocking news that they actually owned a television set.

Much as I liked it their album at the time, I probably won’t be buying In Darkness There Is No Choice again and writing about it any time soon (it’d cost a bomb for a start) – although someone has helpfully posted all the individual tracks on You Tube and it’s a pleasant surprise to find that old favourites like Channel Zero, The Buck Stops Here, The World’s Biggest Runt and that evergreen chart-topping toe-tapper Tortured and Abused still sound so fucking fierce.

More than two decades after I interviewed Antisect, I started working for a subsiduary of a loathsome rightwing newspaper group and there, engraved on the plate glass window outside reception, was the very same Japanese woodcut design they’d used on their banners and their album artwork (below).

Whatever happened to Antisect? Hopefully, they’ve not somehow actually been absorbed by the Daily Mail, like some gigantic paranoid stupidity-amoeba sucking up everything in its path.

We can, as ever, only hope.

* * *

A BRIEF history of Antisect: They formed in the winter of 1980/81 and have done about 200 gigs all over the country. They are a collective of five people, comprising of two singers, a guitarist, a bassist and a drummer but were reluctant to name any individual members saying it is “unnecessary”.

Based in Northampton they formed because of “boredom” and a desire to “express what we feel on important issues”. I interviewed them before their gig with Amebix and Disorder at the Bierkeller in Leeds in December 1983.

What sort of lifestyle do you lead?

“At the moment, some of us live communally, some don’t”.

You’ve been described as ‘Crass ideas with Discharge music’. What do you think to this?

“That’s absolute rubbish. We just describe ourselves as human beings. We are not really influenced by anyone apart from humanity in general. We play the music we enjoy playing, to an extent”.

Is there any chance of your message getting across to anyone but punks – many of who probably think that way anyway?

“Not a lot of them do think that way anyway. We don’t have to compromise for those who won’t listen. We just play what we like – though what we say is more important”.

For a movement that is supposed to be an anti-movement and anti-fashion, what do you think of the way that Crass have become leaders of a certain kind of punk, with all their followers dressing in all-black with loads of studded leather etc?

“It’s up to people to wear what they like. We don’t recognise the punk movement as it is simply just another division”.

What’s the point of singing about anarchy when there are literally millions of people, including many punks, who are quite content to live in and conform to the system?

“We don’t sing about anarchy. It’s hard to say what we believe in. We’re not particularly against ‘the system’. The system is a product of people and not the other way around. It’s up to them. We’re only saying what we feel. It’s up to them to make their own choice”.

Is it a waste of time to make people aware of things if they then go home and listen to the Addicts, Peter & The Test Tube Babies, Chelsea and other escapist pop punk music?

“It’s up to them what they listen to. These are just our views. The most important thing is the ability to change ourselves. We’d like people to understand and accept us. We don’t lay rules down”.

Would you like to get across to a wider audience and if so, how?

“We’d play to anybody who bothers to listen. We’d play with anyone who offered, not just punk bands. We would play with bands with higher prices but we wouldn’t advertise that we were playing so that people wouldn’t pay that price specifically to see us”.

What do you think to CND?

“They’re okay but they don’t go far enough. They talk about the immorality of nuclear weapons but as far as we’re concerned, all weapons are immoral. It’s bad that Cruise has arrived despite 71 per cent of the people being against it but they ask for it by advocating this political system. It’s not true that the only way to get change is to use the political system”.

Do we live in a democracy?

“In as much as people accept it, but we personally think it’s a farce”.

What are your future plans?

“An LP out in January on Spiderleg. Our agreement with Spiderleg is one between friends rather than a contract. We don’t have to compromise and have 100 per cent say of what goes in. And at the same time, keep the prices down ..”

* * *

I MET Pete and John from Antisect a little before their gig at the Station in Gateshead at the start of October, 1984. The interview took place in the back of their transit and it was very cold, so if you want to add some realism, make teeth-chattering and cough! cough! noises every few seconds.

Would you agree that you were very lucky to have your first release put out by Spiderleg? Do you think that people bought the album because it was you or because of the Flux connection?

“Probably a bit of both .. It could be that. There were probably a few people who hadn’t heard of us who, when the record came out, went out and bought it just because it was on Spiderleg, the same as I did a couple of years ago with Crass Records. But then again, people also bought the record because they had seen and heard us”.

Were you lucky?

“Yeah, lucky to have a record out at all, on any label. But it was good that it was out on something like Spiderleg .. But it was the only one where we could do exactly what we wanted”.

Couldn’t you have had that kind of control with Corpus Christi?

“We haven’t had that much contact with Crass”.

You’ve said in the past that you’d be willing to play with other types of band to reach a wider audience. Realistically, surely the only bands you could ever play with are heavy metal people or punks? Are you happy with this?

“Not at all. We have to put up with it though .. We have to play this sort of music because we’re not actually technically good enough to play anything else .. So we might be able to play disco or something and get over to a totally different set of people but we’d lose the ones we’ve got. And like Pete says, I doubt if we’d be able to play that sort of music and I doubt that we’d enjoy it if we could. But it’s really difficult”.

So would you play with heavy metal bands?

“The last six months we’ve been sorting ourselves out and we certainly haven’t been approaching anyone .. You see, we’ll play with any bands as long as we could agree on things like admission and also we’d like to know a little bit about the bands we’re playing with. Even if they didn’t agree with everything we’re saying, it’d be beneficial to play with someone like that”.

Does it amuse you to see lots of people walking around looking exactly like you?

“No, not really. I don’t think about it that much. The way I see it, they’re probably doing what they want to do in some way .. Sometimes it is a bit funny cos I think, hey there’s Pete our drummer or Pete our guitarist, but you know, so what?”

Do you think you sound best live or on record?

“I don’t think we’ve really been happy with either up until now. At first we liked the LP but the more we hear it, the more we dislike it .. The album is definitely different to the live performances. It was the best thing we could have done at the time and so we were pretty pleased with it. But a lot of the time at gigs, we can’t really say we’ve had a really good sound. Sometimes we’ve played really well and enjoyed it but thought it could’ve been better .. I think a lot of bad gigs can be put down to our own disorganisation”.

You’ve been around for four years now and for half of that time you’ve been totally unknown and the other half you’ve been relatively famous. Which do you prefer?

“We haven’t noticed that we’ve become famous or whatever .. I don’t think that we’re particularly famous, and even if we are, I haven’t really noticed it. As a band, we’re probably a lot more well-known than we were three or four years ago, but things like that, they sort of creep up on you. It’s not something that happens overnight”.

How far do you think you can carry on in the present format before you become a bit tired and predictable?

“I don’t know. I think that bands can play more or less the same music for years and years and years and even though they might lose one audience, they’ll find another .. No doubt we’ll change .. It’s so hard to say. In the last couple of years our ideas have changed – well, not so much changed as progressed”.

What’s the most important thing that people should get from your music?

“Well, for a start we don’t regard ourselves as a punk band. We don’t agree with any kind of label like that. It’s very hard to say cos everyone in the band will have their own opinion. But personally, I’d like to help people become aware, not just like ‘oh the bomb’s gonna drop’ but to help them as people. You’ve heard the same sort of thing going round for four or five years now and I suppose it’s become a bit of cliche. I’m not knocking it, but lately we’ve been looking at it from a slightly different angle and instead of categorising what we’re singing about, we broaden it out”.

Omega Tribe have just used a pop producer to get the sound they wanted. Would you use a producer from outside punk to get the sound you want?

“Yeah, if we found a producer who could get the sound we wanted and if they were a person we could get on with. But we wouldn’t bring someone in to produce our LP just to make a packet off it. Saying ‘it’d be a sell-out’ is just limiting yourself to punk and that’s something we don’t want”.

Would you ever get to the stage where you say, fuck it, nobody’s taking any notice of us, and give up?

“Possibly. We could get disillusioned with what goes on around us but personally I’d never get disillusioned with the way I feel”.

It was more about a feeling that you’re just not getting through to people.

“Oh yeah, I get like that. Loads of times .. I was going to say that. We all get like that sometimes, but I couldn’t see us – or rather myself – getting to the stage where I’d just pack everything in”.

Have you ever thought about setting up your own label?

“We’ve considered it and said we’d like to .. But it’s a case of disorganisation. It’s a possibility”.

Since we’re in Newcastle and it’s just started a new series, I suppose I should ask you about The Tube. Would you appear on it?

“I don’t really know that much about the Tube but I watch it occasionally, like if I’m in the house and the telly’s on, and The Tube is on, then I’ll sit down and watch it and sometimes I’ll enjoy it. If we could find out a little bit more about it and how it worked and what goes on behind the scenes, then I think we would .. It would depend on the set up. if it contradicted what we try to say, then I don’t think we would .. We’d find it strange playing on television, but if it gives us the chance to get over to more people”.

How do you think you’d come across?

“I’m pretty sure a lot of people would say ‘Ugh! Noise! I can’t hear the lyrics’ but it’d still be worth getting up and having a go”.

[The first interview took place in December 1983 and was published a month later in the The Son Of The Primitive Patriot fanzine. The second interview happened in October 1984 and was published a couple of months later in Airstrip One fanzine. It was accompanied by a caricature of the band by Dallas]

POSTSCRIPT

Whatever happened to Antisect? Well, it turns out they’re on MySpace (actually, this is just a fan site but it’s worth a look anyway) and there’s another interview here. And they were all called Pete.

See also: Amebix interview, Flux of Pink Indians interviews one (1984) and two (2008)

First up a massive thankyou to everyone who came down to the first Cardiff Anarchist Bookfair on the 23rd May, we feel the whole thing was a great success, most of the workshops were busy and around 250 people came through the door, all the stalls were happy with the reaction they got. We intend to do another one next year. If anyone has any feedback, we’d love to hear your comments.

What with the donations on the door and for tea, coffee and cake as well as a number of benefit gigs the bookfair ended up paying for itself which was very unexpected, we’re very grateful for all the donations! But as the machinery of Anarchism in south Wales rolls on, there’s always more things that need paying for. As such we’re having a Anarcho-solstice benefit gig on Saturday 20th June with Active Slaughter, Kilnaboy, Filthy Habits, Jesus Bruiser, Obscene in TJ’s, Newport. At only £5 entry, it’s a treat!