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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media. Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who

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Speaker 1: Did Cool Stuff, your weekly podcast for things that I

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Speaker 1: think are cool? And who am I to decide what's cool?

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Speaker 1: I am a person, and every person gets to decide

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Speaker 1: what they think is cool. And these are the things

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Speaker 1: that I think is cool. But my name as a

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Speaker 1: person who is the arbiter of cool like everyone else

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Speaker 1: is Margaret Kiljoy. And my guest who's also officially the

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Speaker 1: arbiter of cool is Julie Holland.

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Speaker 2: So awesome to be here, Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we were talking right before we hit record about

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Speaker 1: how this isn't a new history podcast, this is an

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Speaker 1: old history podcast, because we were talking about being incapable

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Speaker 1: of remembering the word for news and calling it new history.

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Speaker 1: That's unrelated to anything.

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Speaker 2: It's comforting. It's like, uh, we're all gonna die kind

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Speaker 2: of comforting phrase.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we're all literally writing history right now, including writing

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Speaker 1: the fact that we don't have a producer again today.

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Speaker 1: But we do have a producer, she's just not on

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Speaker 1: Mike and her name is Sophie, and our audio engineer

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Speaker 1: is Rory. Everyone has to say hi to Rory. Hi,

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Speaker 1: Rory Hi, riy And our theme music was written for

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Speaker 1: us by unwoman who's going to be in this week's episode.

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Speaker 1: In an aside, Hell yeah, but no one's going to

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Speaker 1: know what it's about, unless do you know me, in

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Speaker 1: which case do you already know the thing? But this

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Speaker 1: is part three of a four parter about the band Crass,

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Speaker 1: about a narco punk in general, and the fact that

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Speaker 1: we took two episodes to not even get to the

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Speaker 1: band Crass is because of the fact that punk and

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Speaker 1: its broader impact has had a broad You can tell

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Speaker 1: I'm off script here. I am entirely making this up,

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Speaker 1: so I should probably just start, well, wait, what if

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Speaker 1: people don't know who Jolie Holland is and they somehow

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Speaker 1: skipped to just now and didn't know, would they know

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Speaker 1: that you're a wait? We decided to sing a songwriter

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Speaker 1: sort of an annoying word.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean singer songwriter. Yeah, I'm a musician. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I like that. Sometimes people don't know that being a

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Speaker 2: singer is being a musician, which is really funny.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's weird because that's like, that's the part of

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Speaker 1: musicianists that I'm worse at is singing.

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Speaker 2: I believe everybody can sing.

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Speaker 1: I know I technically can make singing. I don't actually

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Speaker 1: hate my singing voice. I just have to I'm not

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Speaker 1: as trained at it as I would like to be.

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Speaker 1: But it wouldn't have affected me if I'd been an

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Speaker 1: avant garde or punk singer. That's not true. Actually, punk

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Speaker 1: singers are incredibly talented.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, I know. It's so much power. Yeah, yeah, I

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Speaker 2: had never consciously listened to Krass until we started this.

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Speaker 2: So here we are starting episode three, and I just

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Speaker 2: listened to a whole bunch of Crass and I think

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Speaker 2: they're amazing musicians. I just really enjoyed. Yeah, it's it's

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Speaker 2: really technically powerful.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it changed, well, it changed a lot

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Speaker 1: musically and not just like I'm going to talk mostly

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Speaker 1: about its cultural and political impact because of my own

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Speaker 1: background and focuses. But like when you listen to a

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Speaker 1: bunch of crafts, you're like, oh, that's where that weird

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Speaker 1: part of punk that doesn't make any sense comes from.

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Speaker 2: You know, absolutely, Yeah, I really heard that. I heard

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Speaker 2: the formativeness.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, where we last left our unlikely heroes, they

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Speaker 1: were doing a bunch of avant garde stuff and living

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Speaker 1: in a rented cottage outside of London called Dial House.

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Speaker 1: After their divorce because they got divorced even though they

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Speaker 1: never got married. Gee moved to New York City to

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Speaker 1: work as a commercial artist, doing work for the New

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Speaker 1: York Times and I think the New Yorker, and she

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Speaker 1: lived around the corner from seatgb's the Classic punk club,

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Speaker 1: and just a bunch of stories about those days and

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Speaker 1: hanging out with CBGB's punks and stuff. Meanwhile, back in London,

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Speaker 1: folks in the house were working as cover designers, and

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Speaker 1: at least Penny, at least is the only person who's

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Speaker 1: like jobs I knew. I was trying to figure out

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Speaker 1: whether they're all just like living on the dole or whatever.

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Speaker 1: Penny was doing book design, Penny was doing like some

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Speaker 1: sort of coal delivery or carrying. I think people were

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Speaker 1: heating their houses a coal and I think Penny was

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Speaker 1: delivering it and house painting and just having a bunch

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Speaker 1: of weird jobs. This is also oddly placed his Long

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Speaker 1: Dark Night of the Soul. Normally that would come near

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Speaker 1: the climax of the story, but his relationship has fallen

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Speaker 1: apart and everything seems to be ending, you know, this

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Speaker 1: whole end of this era, and so he spends a

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Speaker 1: while just kind of Usually this goes really badly, but

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Speaker 1: it works this time. He spends a while just like

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Speaker 1: drinking and complaining about Christianity in the kitchen. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that's like, that's like his thing for a while,

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Speaker 1: as he just sits around the kitchen table at this

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Speaker 1: communal house and screams about how Jesus should have run

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Speaker 1: away from the people who were killing him. And he

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Speaker 1: wrote a pamphlet called Reality Asylum, or I think it's

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Speaker 1: called Christ's Reality Asylum. And in case anyone's wondering, I

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Speaker 1: don't know how to spell the word asylum. Still. I

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Speaker 1: took me like eight times writing the script. But he

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Speaker 1: wrote this thing, and he was mad that Jesus hadn't

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Speaker 1: run away from his captors. He was mad that his

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Speaker 1: friend Wally hadn't either. He was just bitter, like all

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Speaker 1: the hippie love stuff is kind of fallen apart. And

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Speaker 1: so he decides to put out this piece, and he

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Speaker 1: asks his housemate Dave King to make a piece of

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Speaker 1: art for it, design a logo for it for the cover,

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Speaker 1: and so Dave King sits down and he sketches something

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Speaker 1: that we now know today as the crafts symbol, which

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Speaker 1: is a sort of a circle slash made out of

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Speaker 1: Ora Boris's against a cross. And this is one of

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Speaker 1: the better pieces of branding in history. Like Crass is

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Speaker 1: an anti corporate band, but the fact that they all

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Speaker 1: come from like graphic design backgrounds and they know about

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Speaker 1: commercial art shows this logo is part of what makes them.

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Speaker 1: I think it's somehow kind of esoteric and slightly disturbing.

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Speaker 1: Anything with radial symmetry is going to occasionally be mistaken

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Speaker 1: for a swastika, and the Crass logo is no different.

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Speaker 1: Have you seen the Crass logo of course.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And I just spoke with my friend Sarah Berlin Game,

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Speaker 2: who just got out of the State House in Wyoming today,

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Speaker 2: just while I was walking my dog, and she said

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Speaker 2: that they a bit of new history here. They just

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Speaker 2: allowed open Carrie in the schools. Maybe for the students,

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Speaker 2: I don't know. It's really upsetting, Okay, in Wyoming. In Wyoming,

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Speaker 2: she's a she's like a lgbt Q plus organizer with

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Speaker 2: white Wyoming equality and so tough, so badass, and uh yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's just shocking. But she said her the first love

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Speaker 2: of her life had a Crass tattoo, and he was

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Speaker 2: always telling people that it was not a swastika.

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Speaker 1: Yeah that Yeah, that's gonna end up sometimes a problem

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Speaker 1: for them. And it's funny to me because I even

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Speaker 1: like often think things look like swastikas that aren't. I

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Speaker 1: have never looked at the cross logo and thought it's

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Speaker 1: a swastika, but I do know an awful lot of

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Speaker 1: people with the tattoo.

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Speaker 2: It's it's a lot like the the Bad Religion image

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Speaker 2: kind of is a iteration of the cross image in

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Speaker 2: a way.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, isn't a circle circle slash through a cross

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Speaker 1: is bad religion?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like almost the same.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. Oh that's a that's a good point. Bad

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Speaker 1: Religions is much simpler. But you know, so they have

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Speaker 1: this logo and they don't know that it's going to

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Speaker 1: be the logo of Crass yet it's just the logo

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Speaker 1: for Christ's Reality Asylum, and they make pamphlets of it

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Speaker 1: and stuff and start distributing it. Well, I guess Penny does.

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Speaker 1: Punk is doing this thing, And in nineteen seventy seven

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Speaker 1: the whole house went to go see the clash. I

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Speaker 1: really like the idea that they had, Like House field

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Speaker 1: trips and they left and they were like, hey, this

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Speaker 1: is fucking cool. And then they saw the Slits and

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Speaker 1: they were like, oh, this is even more earnest, this

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Speaker 1: is even better. And also they were like the Clashes

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Speaker 1: was more technically competent than the Slits, let's say, and

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Speaker 1: so they were like, you know what, and they can

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Speaker 1: do it. Anyone can do it, we can do it.

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Speaker 1: It also helped that Joe Strummer from the Clash used

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Speaker 1: to challenge the audience to form their own bands at

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Speaker 1: the end of shows, which is fucking cool. That is

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Speaker 1: a cool thing to do, especially when you're like the

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Speaker 1: rock star band is to be like, no, we're not

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Speaker 1: better you. We could just everyone can do it, you know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think I think they somebody gave them that

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Speaker 2: advice before they started too. They're like, we really have

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Speaker 2: we want to start a band, but we feel like

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Speaker 2: we're not good enough, and I forget some big band

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Speaker 2: was like, no, you should just start.

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Speaker 1: Hell, yeah, that's cool. I really like the Clash. About

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Speaker 1: half of Crass is like, uh, Clash is bad and sellouts,

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Speaker 1: and the other half of Crass is like, Clash is cool.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw I saw the track where it seemed

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Speaker 2: like they was trying to start beef with them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. They they do a lot of beef tracks. They

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Speaker 1: are uh dis tracks, that's the word, not not beef tracks.

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Speaker 1: I'm good at knowing new history.

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Speaker 2: On new history. Yeah. They they seem very fighty.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's interesting because like the whole time that

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Speaker 1: they're a band, they're incredibly fighty with their like lyrics

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Speaker 1: and they're the stuff they do. But then like their

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Speaker 1: house is open and they're all peaceful and you can

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Speaker 1: just like come hang out, and like it was kind

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Speaker 1: of interesting. So they get home, they've seen the clash,

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Speaker 1: they've seen the slits, and there's this young punk who

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Speaker 1: had been hanging around the house because they're in their

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Speaker 1: thirties and they're not punks, right, And this guy named

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Speaker 1: Steve Ignorant was coming around, which is a good punk name.

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Speaker 1: He would come around because his older brother, who was

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Speaker 1: a hippie, used to take him there. And then young

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Speaker 1: Steve he was originally a skinhead. This is before skinhead

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Speaker 1: had racist connotations, and then after that he was glam

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Speaker 1: but then he was punk and he liked this house.

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Speaker 1: He's like in high school or whatever they call high

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Speaker 1: school over there, maybe they called high school, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: And he starts hanging out there more and more. He's

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Speaker 1: like skipping school to hang out at dial House, even

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Speaker 1: though the weird hippies wouldn't let him eat meat and

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Speaker 1: there was like no TV to watch or whatever, you know.

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Speaker 1: And so one day he shows up at dial House

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Speaker 1: and he's like, well, I want to start a band,

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Speaker 1: and Penny's like, yeah, sure, fuck it, all right, I'll

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Speaker 1: be your drummer. Let's start a band. And it was

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Speaker 1: a two piece at first. Steve would shout and Penny

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Speaker 1: would smash on the RUMs. And Penny wanted to call

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Speaker 1: it les font Terrible, the fucking surrealist fucking it's a

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Speaker 1: uh in font Terrible means the terrible children, and it's

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Speaker 1: a reference to some weird old artsy shit, a novel

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Speaker 1: by John Jean Cocteau, Whereas Steve wanted to call it Stormtrooper,

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Speaker 1: which is also not a very good name. But it's

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Speaker 1: interesting because Stormtrooper is a better name in terms of,

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Speaker 1: like it sounds like a punk band, but it's also

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Speaker 1: a terrible name because it's a literally a Nazi thing,

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Speaker 1: you know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So then they ended.

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Speaker 1: Up picking the name crass, which comes from a David

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Speaker 1: Bowie song Ziggy Stardust, in which there's a line that

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Speaker 1: says the kids were just crass. And soon enough there's

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Speaker 1: a bunch of them in this band. And this isn't

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Speaker 1: a music history podcast, and I'm not going to give

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Speaker 1: you the names of And I feel kind of almost

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Speaker 1: like a jerk about this, but I'm not going to

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Speaker 1: give you the names of like everyone in the band,

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Speaker 1: and like when they joined them, when they left, and

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Speaker 1: what instruments they played and all that stuff, because that

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Speaker 1: is extensively covered. So that's not what I'm gonna do.

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Speaker 1: Everyone in this band was important, and they really were

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Speaker 1: a collective, but there were a bunch of them, and

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Speaker 1: I would have a hard time crafting a narrative around

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Speaker 1: all seven or eight of them. At first they were

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Speaker 1: all men, and soon enough there's three women in the

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Speaker 1: band as well. They played their first show and they

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Speaker 1: pissed off the neighbors so much that the neighbors pulled

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Speaker 1: the plug on their show. And I think that that

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Speaker 1: is a good way to start a band. The reason

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Speaker 1: that I think that is that I once was in

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Speaker 1: an acoustic crass cover band, which you're making obviously that

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Speaker 1: would be amazing face but and it was called best

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Speaker 1: before eighteen eighty six, so is somehow a reference to

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Speaker 1: Haymarket and crass. And it was with my friend on

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Speaker 1: woman who did the theme music for this podcast, as

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Speaker 1: well as another friend who doesn't like when they're named

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Speaker 1: on air, so will not be And we got booked

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Speaker 1: to play. This is really gonna I'm gonna really impress everyone.

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Speaker 1: We got booked to play a steampunk convention in San Antonio, Texas,

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Speaker 1: and we were so bad that not only were we

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Speaker 1: kicked out of the bar where we played, the entire

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Speaker 1: convention was kicked out of the bar, even though they'd

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Speaker 1: booked it for a private event.

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Speaker 2: That's incredible. And this is wait, this is an acoustic band.

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Speaker 1: Yeah it was one one was playing cello, I was

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Speaker 1: playing accordion, and my friend was playing acoustic guitar.

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Speaker 2: So wait, you were wait you were amplified right.

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Speaker 1: No, no shit, no, we were just shouting loud as hell.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So that that is I'm deeply impressed. That's thank you,

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Speaker 2: that's that's that's another level. You got the convention kicked out.

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Speaker 1: I know, I know, I was really impressed by that.

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Speaker 1: Uh No, one else was impressed by that. Everyone else

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Speaker 1: is upset by that.

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Speaker 2: But you know, that's success, that's really success.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. That was the only time we ever played. We

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Speaker 1: did not continue. We got booked to play that convention.

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Speaker 1: That was it.

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Speaker 2: Wait was the name of the band again.

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Speaker 1: Best before eighteen eighty six? Yeah, so soon enough Krass,

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Speaker 1: the actual Crass, not the brilliant derivative band Best before

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty six. Soon enough, Krass developed their whole deal,

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Speaker 1: which was to wear all black like a uniform and

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Speaker 1: play in front of a bunch of political banners. Eventually

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Speaker 1: they start using projection from various like artsy films and

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Speaker 1: all kinds of imagery, and they use the big old

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Speaker 1: Crass logo banner and this is all really effective branding.

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Speaker 1: But for a long time, even though they were eventually

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Speaker 1: like the a narco punk band, a lot of people

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Speaker 1: saw them and were like, are these Nazis? And it

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Speaker 1: didn't help that they all wore red armbands.

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Speaker 2: Oh lord, yeah, because everybody knew what Nazis were, and

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Speaker 2: people did not know what anarcho punks were.

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Speaker 1: Well, because a narco punks weren't a thing yet, and

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Speaker 1: what's and what's fascinating about it is that they like

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Speaker 1: and they weren't like wearing like patches and stuff, right,

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Speaker 1: they were like wearing solid all black. And to this day,

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Speaker 1: like there's kind of a slight division in punk. It's

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Speaker 1: not named, but there's like a slight division where the

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Speaker 1: more Anarco you are, the more clean black, and the

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Speaker 1: more punk you are, the more color and like patched

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Speaker 1: up black, you know, but like punks wear a lot

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Speaker 1: of black, but like the like slightly cleaner Anarco look like.

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Speaker 1: I think this is the idea that punks just wear

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Speaker 1: all black comes from crass And what's fascinating is I

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Speaker 1: think they were doing it kind of to look a

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Speaker 1: little bit like fascists because and this is a thing

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Speaker 1: that like, Okay, the playing around with fascist imagery is

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Speaker 1: a thing that is hard to look at in retrospect.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of early punks were using this for

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Speaker 1: three different reasons, as best as I can tell, a

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Speaker 1: lot of people like Susie Sue, who has a kind

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Speaker 1: of racist named or band. Anyway, Susi Sue used swastikas

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Speaker 1: and stuff, and I believe is basically shock value. I'm

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Speaker 1: not an expert on Suzi Sue and then some people

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Speaker 1: were using swastikas and stuff because they were actually right wing,

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Speaker 1: and Krass never used swastikas, but they used this kind

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Speaker 1: of imagery, I believe, in a similar way to what

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Speaker 1: they were doing with their visual art, whereas like Crass's

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Speaker 1: like art is like close up photos of children on

304
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Speaker 1: fire and the horrors of war and mutilation and all

305
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Speaker 1: of this like edge Lord imagery, right, they were doing

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Speaker 1: it to be like, look, these are the horrors of

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Speaker 1: war that they're trying to hide from you. We're going

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Speaker 1: to put it in your face that war is bad.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the expression of empire that and we're

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Speaker 2: all living on the slightly cleaner side of it, but

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Speaker 2: this is the reality.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Like we're going to show you the shit that

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Speaker 1: is being done in the rest of the empire here

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Speaker 1: in the colonial center, you know. And so I think

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Speaker 1: that they are sort of playing around with like edgy

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Speaker 1: uniforms and like being like kind of fashy in some

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Speaker 1: of their fashion comes from that, like that desire, whereas

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Speaker 1: like these days, most of the time when people dress

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Speaker 1: up fascy, it's just bad, you know, Yeah, I.

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Speaker 2: Mean it's also it also seems like it could be

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Speaker 2: read as just an expression of militancy totally.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And then it's like kind of fun and interesting

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Speaker 1: because they are like pacifists from the go, but they

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Speaker 1: are like loud and angry pacifists in a way that

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Speaker 1: like you don't see a lot of these days. You know, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a oh I haven't read it, but there's a

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Speaker 1: book that someone I know wrote called a pacifismin What

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Speaker 1: it Used to be. Oh no, non violent ain't what

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Speaker 1: it used to be anyway. So Crass is starting to play,

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Speaker 1: and they didn't have advertisers cutting into the middle of

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Speaker 1: their shows. They just didn't. They were really that is

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Speaker 1: a thing that they were against. But that's fifty years

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Speaker 1: ago and things are different. Sometimes advertisers come right now

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Speaker 1: and we're back. So Crass is starting to play and

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Speaker 1: they're not like a tight professional band for a very

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Speaker 1: long time. They actually start getting more and more like

337
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Speaker 1: technically competent or whatever, but they've never prioritized like clean

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Speaker 1: production or technical mastery of their instruments. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: of like some of the people from Krass talking about

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Speaker 1: how they had sometimes had trouble at other shows because

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Speaker 1: afterwards all the other musicians would like want a jam

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Speaker 1: or something, and they're like, I know how to play

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Speaker 1: the three chords that are in my song.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I know how to play the songs that I

345
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Speaker 2: wrote and not not anything else. Yeah, which I love that.

346
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Speaker 2: I really appreciate those kind of musicians.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate it because I am literally that kind of person.

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Speaker 1: I cannot I love playing piano. I play piano. It

349
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Speaker 1: was like my main happy place. I cannot play a

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Speaker 1: piano song and write. I barely know how to read music,

351
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Speaker 1: and I like write music, and I feel like a

352
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Speaker 1: jerk because then people are like, oh, let's Jim, and

353
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Speaker 1: I'm like, I no, No, I kind of can if

354
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Speaker 1: someone tells me what key we're in, I can do it.

355
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Speaker 1: But anyway, there's a part of why I like Crassis. Yeah,

356
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Speaker 1: they prioritize their overall aesthetic and they prioritize political messaging.

357
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Speaker 1: But they did write some fucking bangers right out of

358
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Speaker 1: the gate. Their main issues included feminism and the peace movement.

359
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Speaker 1: One of their first songs is one of their classics.

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Speaker 1: I think it's like the second song they wrote. It's

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Speaker 1: called do They Owe Us a Living? And the chorus

362
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Speaker 1: is do they owe us a living. Of course they do.

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Speaker 1: Of course they fucking do. And it's just this like angry,

364
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Speaker 1: like no society needs to take care of people.

365
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Speaker 2: Yeah. I just went and went by my friend Jessica

366
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Speaker 2: Kinney's house and she comes walking down her hill and

367
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Speaker 2: she's she's a old punk and I had told her

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Speaker 2: that we were doing this and uh huh, she comes

369
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Speaker 2: walking down our hill. She's screaming that song at me.

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Speaker 1: Hell yeah, the song is fucking good. And there's a

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Speaker 1: punk club in London at this time called the Roxy.

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Speaker 1: And I think this part's actually important. It grew out

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Speaker 1: of a gay club and Crass played there twice, the

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Speaker 1: second and last time they ever played there. Is it

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Speaker 1: still in their very early stages, they were too drunk

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Speaker 1: to play, possibly too high to play, but I've like

377
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Speaker 1: read one thing that's too high to play. But overall

378
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Speaker 1: I read that they kind of didn't do drugs, so

379
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Speaker 1: at the very least they were too drunk to play,

380
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Speaker 1: and they made such a shit show of it that

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Speaker 1: they got banned from the Roxy, which is why they

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Speaker 1: wrote a song called Band from the Roxy.

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Speaker 2: When I read the lyrics, it seemed to imply that,

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Speaker 2: like they were too cool, for the roxy, but they

385
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Speaker 2: just couldn't they couldn't make it happen on stage. It

386
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Speaker 2: sounds like.

387
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Speaker 1: Yeah, basically like I've read a couple of different takes

388
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Speaker 1: of it, but it was like they went up and

389
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Speaker 1: they were too drunk, and so the club was like,

390
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Speaker 1: get the fuck off stage, and they were like no.

391
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Speaker 1: And then eventually the band was like, fine, you can

392
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Speaker 1: finish your set, but your fucking band. And then afterwards

393
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Speaker 1: they decided even though they were like, oh, we were

394
00:21:18,119 --> 00:21:21,600
Speaker 1: unjustly banned or whatever, and you know, they were like, hey,

395
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Speaker 1: maybe we shouldn't get so drunk before we play anymore.

396
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:25,440
Speaker 1: Like you can have like a beer or two before

397
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Speaker 1: you play. That's the that's the new rules in Crass

398
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Speaker 1: is we don't want to be too drunk to play,

399
00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:35,720
Speaker 1: which is important. It's like a funny I see the

400
00:21:35,800 --> 00:21:38,159
Speaker 1: like as a musician, you're like, okay, like, especially when

401
00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:40,359
Speaker 1: you're first starting or something, you're like, you know, a

402
00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:42,920
Speaker 1: drink might help loosen you up to be a little

403
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Speaker 1: bit less nervous on stage, but it gets real, real bad,

404
00:21:46,760 --> 00:21:47,320
Speaker 1: real quickly.

405
00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:50,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't doesn't do anything for me.

406
00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:51,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, but.

407
00:21:52,680 --> 00:21:56,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's nice to having The writer is nice

408
00:21:56,280 --> 00:22:01,159
Speaker 2: to share with friends, if if people whatever that you

409
00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:01,480
Speaker 2: want to.

410
00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:03,520
Speaker 1: Say, like to give drink tickets and drinks or whatever

411
00:22:03,520 --> 00:22:04,200
Speaker 1: to your friends.

412
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:05,919
Speaker 2: And yourself to hang out in the hang out in

413
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Speaker 2: the dressing room and then drink some tequila.

414
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Speaker 1: Yeah, fair enough. I think by the end of Crass,

415
00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:16,919
Speaker 1: I think only Steve Ignorant was drinking at all. And

416
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Speaker 1: at Dial House there was almost no drinking and almost

417
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Speaker 1: no drug use. And part of that was strategic cops

418
00:22:23,359 --> 00:22:26,639
Speaker 1: like came by to raid and search and knock and

419
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Speaker 1: talk to them like all the time. And you don't

420
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Speaker 1: want a bunch of drugs at your anarchy house. That's

421
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Speaker 1: a general.

422
00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:39,880
Speaker 2: Rule, absolutely not. It's yeah, especially yeah, if you look

423
00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:41,959
Speaker 2: really cool, other people are gonna notice.

424
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And they eventually become like too serious for drinking

425
00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:52,760
Speaker 1: and drugs or whatever. And they are they're such good

426
00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 1: kill joys. They are like the archtypical like yeah.

427
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Speaker 2: They really are.

428
00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:01,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, and kind of negative way as well, Like a

429
00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff you read retrospectively about Krass is like, oh,

430
00:23:04,359 --> 00:23:09,000
Speaker 1: basically they kind of created a puritanical scene, and they

431
00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:12,960
Speaker 1: they built kind of this politically pure scene. This is

432
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:16,919
Speaker 1: their weakness and their strength for example, there was this

433
00:23:17,080 --> 00:23:19,840
Speaker 1: Rock against Racism movement that I brought up last time.

434
00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:22,960
Speaker 1: It's all these big concerts happening in London, pretty much

435
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:25,800
Speaker 1: in a response to Eric Clapton's wild unhinged racist rant.

436
00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:29,479
Speaker 1: And Krass played Rock Against Racism once and then they

437
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:32,800
Speaker 1: decided not to again because they were so offended that

438
00:23:32,840 --> 00:23:36,000
Speaker 1: they were offered money to play for it. Come on,

439
00:23:39,560 --> 00:23:42,439
Speaker 1: they are like, you know, they we stand on the

440
00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:45,200
Speaker 1: shoulders of giants. You know, they like offered a really

441
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:50,040
Speaker 1: important critique of the music industry, but like people need

442
00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:52,280
Speaker 1: to eat food on a regular basis.

443
00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:57,159
Speaker 2: Yeah, for real, I'm gonna take this moment to Okay,

444
00:23:57,440 --> 00:24:02,880
Speaker 2: Well two thoughts. Okay, Number one, they're commercial artists. Why

445
00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:08,359
Speaker 2: how what's going on? Like they already they're already, but

446
00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:12,960
Speaker 2: I guess they're like that's somebody else's job, you know

447
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:18,160
Speaker 2: that they're working on. So like like if they're creating

448
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:23,640
Speaker 2: the artistic parameters of the vision of their band, part

449
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:28,879
Speaker 2: of that is like this anti whatever. I don't know

450
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:32,080
Speaker 2: what their deal is. And then the second, the second

451
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:34,439
Speaker 2: thing that I wanted to say is that I was

452
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:38,119
Speaker 2: offered a lot of money for to do music for

453
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:44,320
Speaker 2: a de Beer's ad early in my career, before it

454
00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:48,240
Speaker 2: was obvious what a shit talker I am or whatever,

455
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:52,399
Speaker 2: And that was at least a down payment on a house,

456
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:55,199
Speaker 2: Like my life could have been a lot better. So

457
00:24:55,520 --> 00:24:57,959
Speaker 2: I'll at least I get to talk about it on

458
00:24:58,000 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 2: your podcast.

459
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:01,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you end up doing it?

460
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 2: Hell no?

461
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:04,160
Speaker 1: Fuck yeah cool.

462
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:08,439
Speaker 2: Buck No Yeah, oh no, I didn't get the house.

463
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:10,840
Speaker 2: All I got to do is tell you that I

464
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:11,639
Speaker 2: didn't do it.

465
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:15,840
Speaker 1: Hell yeah. Because that's like, that's like a good example of, like,

466
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: you know, there's a kind of a way of going

467
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:21,280
Speaker 1: a little bit too far in both directions. You know,

468
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, if you can get away with it,

469
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:27,919
Speaker 1: don't work for de beers, you know. But then like

470
00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:31,480
Speaker 1: I don't know, if you sell records and then use

471
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:34,119
Speaker 1: the money to eat, I don't know, this would be

472
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:35,400
Speaker 1: a great place to pivot to ads. But we don't

473
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:37,960
Speaker 1: have to pivot to ads. But like, I mean, I

474
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 1: guess this whole thing about Crass is kind of a

475
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:42,879
Speaker 1: reflection on the commercialism of art, and so one of

476
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:46,159
Speaker 1: the things that they do is that they're basically always

477
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:49,400
Speaker 1: playing benefits. Basically every show they play is a benefit show,

478
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:51,880
Speaker 1: which is cool, and they like make amazing things happen

479
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 1: during their career. And at one point they're playing with

480
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:58,439
Speaker 1: this band, the UK Subs, and then the UK Subs

481
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 1: played a song called All I Want to Know is

482
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 1: does She Suck? And so Kras was like, that song

483
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: is sexist, and so they storm the stage, pull the

484
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 1: singer off the stage in the middle of the show.

485
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:13,680
Speaker 1: But then later they all sit down after the show,

486
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 1: they all sit down and talk about it, and the

487
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:18,119
Speaker 1: person who wrote that song is like, this is the

488
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:20,119
Speaker 1: context of why I wrote it, And they discussed the

489
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: lyrics at great length, and in the end they all

490
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:23,479
Speaker 1: become friends.

491
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 2: That makes me very happy. I'm trying to have room

492
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:30,480
Speaker 2: for that kind of energy in my life right now.

493
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, because like, if you're going to kind of create

494
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: a vaguely puritanical scene, you need to not be complete

495
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:39,560
Speaker 1: assholes about it. You need to be like, Okay, I

496
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:41,119
Speaker 1: hear where you're coming from. But this is why we

497
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 1: think it isn't presenting a good you know, it's like

498
00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:46,840
Speaker 1: causing it. You know, it's a sexist thing to go

499
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: up and sing and like, you know, this is why

500
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 1: we have a problem with it. But I also think

501
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:52,440
Speaker 1: it's cute that they ripped them off stage.

502
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 2: Oh me too, makes me very happy that they pulled

503
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:55,719
Speaker 2: them off the stage.

504
00:26:55,960 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so they didn't become a giant success over,

505
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:03,199
Speaker 1: but they started building a fan base though in the

506
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 1: early years an awful lot of people headed for the

507
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: doors when they started playing. Although I get the impression

508
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 1: that that's kind of like a mystique that they're building up. Also,

509
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 1: I suspect it's true, but I suspect they're like playing

510
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:13,919
Speaker 1: into that when they talk about it, especially since their

511
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 1: previous band was called Exit, because they were like, ha

512
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: ha haa, we're going to drive away all of our

513
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:18,640
Speaker 1: listeners or whatever.

514
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 2: You know. They're good at that.

515
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:24,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it clearly by sticking to what they

516
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 1: were doing. Yeah, they drove away a lot of listeners,

517
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:29,159
Speaker 1: and then they brought in even more, you know. And

518
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 1: then geev ousher who's living in New York at this time,

519
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 1: she books them some shows in America, so they go

520
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: over and they loved New York, at least Steve did.

521
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 1: Steve talked about how he loved that there was cross

522
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 1: dressers everywhere, and there's vegetarian food everywhere, and the food

523
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:47,880
Speaker 1: actually tasted good, which makes sense because I've eaten British food,

524
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 1: so I think that going to New York would be

525
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:54,200
Speaker 1: a culinary revelation. And then they headed back to England

526
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 1: and Gee moved back to England with them. Basically, Ge

527
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:01,680
Speaker 1: was getting more and more politically radical, and she was

528
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 1: getting tired of the feel good liberal vibe of the

529
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 1: New York Times and the New Yorker and her employers

530
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:10,160
Speaker 1: in general, for example. And this was actually the final straw.

531
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:13,680
Speaker 1: I believe there had been this homophobic attack in Central Park,

532
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:15,919
Speaker 1: and so she did art for an article about it,

533
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:19,399
Speaker 1: and it included two men kissing in her art, and

534
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: her boss got mad at her for including two men

535
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 1: kissing in this article about people being attacked, no homophobic attack,

536
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 1: and so she was like, you know what, fuck this

537
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:34,920
Speaker 1: and quit, you know, commercial art, and moved to back

538
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 1: to London, into back into dial house and started a

539
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 1: plane and cross And at this point, around this point

540
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 1: when they get back from New York, they're like, are

541
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 1: we doing this? Like is this? Are we going to

542
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: take this seriously? And they all committed, and there's this

543
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 1: whole thing where like basically and there's people saying that

544
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 1: this didn't didn't happen there's a version of the story

545
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: where Penny was like, Hey, if we don't take this seriously,

546
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:04,400
Speaker 1: I'm quitting and everyone was like, fine, then quit and

547
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: so he quit, and then a day later everyone was like, no,

548
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 1: let's take it seriously. You can come back, like and

549
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 1: at this point, this is when when women started the band,

550
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 1: including Eva Libertine, who's a mom and who's we were

551
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 1: talking about before as an amazing vocal style and just

552
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:25,280
Speaker 1: like does really cool shit. And they Once women joined

553
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 1: the band, more women started coming to the show. But

554
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 1: as best as I can tell, the audience of punk

555
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 1: music overall was drifting further and further towards angry young

556
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: men instead of where it started as this like larger,

557
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 1: more inclusive, youth led subculture. And I feel like punk

558
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 1: has always had this like multiple sides to it, and

559
00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 1: one of them is this like beautiful feminists, liberating movement,

560
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: and then there's this other part of it that's always

561
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: been at least since the you know, late seventies, early eighties,

562
00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: like a angry young men are angry m hm. Around

563
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:06,480
Speaker 1: this point, they actually banned the word kunt from their lyrics.

564
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: And this is kind of interesting to me because every

565
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 1: British person I've ever met has tried really hard to

566
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 1: convince me. I think they're right that the word kant

567
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:17,640
Speaker 1: has very different connotations in the UK than it does

568
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 1: in the US.

569
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 2: I love the word kunt.

570
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 1: I know, it's such a yeah.

571
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 2: I just think like I love it as as an

572
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 2: anti imperialist word in a way, because the other the

573
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 2: other terms, the like medical terms that we use for

574
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:41,600
Speaker 2: for the genitalia are fucking Roman okay, huh. And then

575
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 2: the the English word gets turned into a swear word,

576
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 2: and I would say, I.

577
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: Was is kunt The English word kant.

578
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 2: Is an English word interesting and it's and it's a

579
00:30:54,440 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 2: venerable fucking word. It's it has the same root as kundalini, Okay.

580
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 2: So it is like you know, classic, like Indo European

581
00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:13,000
Speaker 2: ancient ass word, and it signifies the entire organ, unlike

582
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 2: the you know, the medical words which are you know

583
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:21,720
Speaker 2: they are? They come from uh, from Rome, from Rome,

584
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 2: from the colonizing force. And that always happens, like colonized people,

585
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 2: their language gets turned into curse words.

586
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, even like when Finland is not well. Actually Finland

587
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:38,680
Speaker 1: was a colonized space for a very long time, but

588
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 1: one of the Finnish course words Badcula is the name

589
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 1: of like and it's like meant to be sort of

590
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: like a word for satan, but it's just an old

591
00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 1: pagan deity. Like it's not a bad word at all,

592
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:48,840
Speaker 1: you know.

593
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, My a friend of mine is his mom is Filipino,

594
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 2: and he was saying like his mother's language was very crass,

595
00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:00,719
Speaker 2: and I was like, is it crass or is this

596
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 2: just like a colonized perspective.

597
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's that's interesting, and like I think it's

598
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 1: like such a good indicative of crass, the band being

599
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: like we're not gonna use the word cunt and songs

600
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 1: because we're doing feminism in the nineteen seventies and eighties.

601
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because like again, like Kant has much

602
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 1: stronger negative like if you call someone a count in

603
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 1: the US, it's a very like strong thing to say,

604
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 1: and it it isn't as much that way in the UK.

605
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: And so I think that the best comparison is like

606
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 1: if they stopped using the word bitch in their.

607
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 2: Lyrics exactly, yeah, I was gonna I was gonna.

608
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:40,640
Speaker 1: Call that yeah, yeah.

609
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:44,320
Speaker 2: But like in I think in Scotland or something where

610
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:46,720
Speaker 2: somewhere over there they have a They're just like, there's

611
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 2: a cunt of lake.

612
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 1: Oh hell yeah.

613
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 2: So it's it's like you can see that, like it

614
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:57,760
Speaker 2: did not have this kind of like very negative characterization

615
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 2: in the past. And also I've seen some etymology that

616
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 2: suggests that the word queen comes from the word cunt.

617
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 1: That would rule, well, do you know who? I won't

618
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 1: call a bunch of cunts, because then I wouldn't have

619
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 1: a job anymore. It's our advertisers.

620
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:17,719
Speaker 2: It depends on whether or not you mean it as

621
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 2: an honorific.

622
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 1: That's true. Why in that case that I wouldn't as

623
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 1: an honor You know what, sometimes some of our advertisers

624
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:25,960
Speaker 1: are right. You know, sometimes we get the like go

625
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 1: walk in the woods more ads, and you know what,

626
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 1: here's a free one for go walk in the woods more.

627
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 1: It's nice, go walk in the woods more, especially right

628
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:36,880
Speaker 1: now when they're all being destroyed by the current administrator. Anyway,

629
00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 1: here's advertisers who have something to tell you.

630
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 2: And we're back.

631
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: And that was probably the most I've ever towed the

632
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 1: line wait towd the line is like it has like

633
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:58,960
Speaker 1: two opposite meetings. The most I've ever been like, uh,

634
00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:01,520
Speaker 1: can I get away with this anyway?

635
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 2: Sorry, we'll find out.

636
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 1: So if there was a if there was an episode

637
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:10,920
Speaker 1: where I should do that. And so the band Crass

638
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 1: has a whole mystique around them. No one individual was

639
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:16,880
Speaker 1: under the spotlight. They were actually fairly anonymous, Like now

640
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 1: we kind of talk about all the individuals in the band,

641
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:20,400
Speaker 1: but I'm under the impression that they didn't do that

642
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 1: as much. And I think they would usually sign things

643
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:25,040
Speaker 1: as the band, like this is what Krass said, rather

644
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:29,320
Speaker 1: than this is what G said or Penny said or whatever.

645
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 1: No one knew their names as far as I can tell,

646
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:34,400
Speaker 1: for a long time, and they lived in some mysterious

647
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:37,279
Speaker 1: house in the country, but the house was open and

648
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 1: people started camping there, going and hanging out. And then

649
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 1: they started a graffiti campaign, which political graffiti is as

650
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 1: old as politics and walls as far as I can tell.

651
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 1: But I think that they kicked off a lot of

652
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:53,319
Speaker 1: the idea of stencil graffiti in the UK. And it

653
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 1: started with G and Penny going out every Saturday to

654
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 1: stencil basic slogans like fight war not wars.

655
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 2: I was like, I love that one. It's really good.

656
00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:05,959
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it captures that militancy so well, right, because

657
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:07,759
Speaker 1: you're like, no, we're going to fight something, but what

658
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 1: we're fighting is the concept of war, you know.

659
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:13,680
Speaker 2: And it's like all of this, the like going out

660
00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:18,960
Speaker 2: and like with their gorilla ad campaign, it really and

661
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 2: like the ability to like create this like beautiful slogan,

662
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:27,399
Speaker 2: it's all. It all feeds back into thinking about them

663
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:28,879
Speaker 2: as coming from commercial art.

664
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you're completely right. This is an advertising campaign,

665
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,920
Speaker 1: but it's not, and it does promote the band, but

666
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 1: they are set up to not cash in on it.

667
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:39,840
Speaker 1: They're set up to then use it to promote the ideas.

668
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 1: And so for eighteen months, every Saturday they would go

669
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:48,600
Speaker 1: out and stencil until touring basically took up kind of

670
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 1: all of their time. But that point more people have

671
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 1: been doing it anyway, including as soon as they started

672
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 1: doing stenciling campaigns, a conservative Christian group started counter stenciling

673
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 1: to them, and they had this whole graffiti war, and

674
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 1: soon enough all kinds of groups were getting into stenciling.

675
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:06,840
Speaker 1: And they put out their first album. They called it

676
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 1: a single, but I think this was like literally around

677
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:11,000
Speaker 1: how they wanted to price it really cheap. It was

678
00:36:11,080 --> 00:36:13,800
Speaker 1: twelve songs, long, so a little bit long for a single,

679
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:16,760
Speaker 1: and it was a twelve inch record called The Feeding

680
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 1: of the five Thousand. I love how they play with

681
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:22,360
Speaker 1: all this sort of anti Christian imagery and lyrics constantly.

682
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 1: But the Feeding of the five Thousand is a reference

683
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 1: to when Jesus fed as many poor people as he could.

684
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:31,360
Speaker 2: I one thing I was trying to do in the

685
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:37,000
Speaker 2: minutes between these episodes is come to an understanding of

686
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:39,080
Speaker 2: Crass's theology.

687
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: It is hard, have you come to conclusions because I

688
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:43,399
Speaker 1: haven't read everything yet.

689
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 2: But you were raised, you were raised Catholic? Is that right?

690
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:47,279
Speaker 1: Yeah?

691
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 2: I was raised in uh. I was raised Jehovah's Witness, okay,

692
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 2: And like I never got baptized, I never drank the

693
00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:06,880
Speaker 2: kool aid and it's blood, yes, So I had to

694
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 2: That's so funny. I had to really grapple with theology

695
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 2: from a very young age, you know, because I was

696
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 2: I was just like presented with like this giant pile

697
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:23,359
Speaker 2: of bullshit as a child. So and it was like

698
00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:28,280
Speaker 2: this language that I had to grapple with. So it's

699
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:32,239
Speaker 2: it was really fun looking at their theology because it's

700
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 2: their stuff is so religious.

701
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah. I like that about it. I

702
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 1: like how they are playing with this. And when they

703
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:45,399
Speaker 1: put out The Feeding of the five thousand, every other

704
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:47,880
Speaker 1: album at the time was three ninety nine, and so

705
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:51,399
Speaker 1: they made theirs one ninety nine, and to make sure

706
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 1: that shops wouldn't mark it up, they printed pay no

707
00:37:54,600 --> 00:37:56,840
Speaker 1: more than one ninety nine right on the sleeve.

708
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:00,840
Speaker 2: They must have lost money, right, so they didn't.

709
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 1: On this first one. They actually occasionally do lose money

710
00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:06,920
Speaker 1: on their releases, but they basically like, we'll get into it.

711
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:10,800
Speaker 1: And so they had a song on there called Reality Asylum,

712
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 1: and it was based on that pamphlet that Penny had written.

713
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:15,879
Speaker 1: But this was the most blasphemous track on the album,

714
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 1: and the pressing plant refused to press the record because

715
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:23,360
Speaker 1: it was so blasphemous. So they cut out Reality Asylum

716
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:26,040
Speaker 1: and then replaced it with two minutes of silence shout

717
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,359
Speaker 1: out John Cage, and they called that song the sound

718
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 1: of free Speech. Yeah, And they were able to sell

719
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 1: their records so cheap because they lived collectively. They grew

720
00:38:39,239 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 1: most of their own food, they didn't do a bunch

721
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:43,400
Speaker 1: of drugs, they didn't stay at hotels while they were touring.

722
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 1: And then they like from their point of view, they

723
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:47,800
Speaker 1: passed the savings onto the customer.

724
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:49,879
Speaker 2: And they knew how to cook beans.

725
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, you watch the young ones.

726
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:54,040
Speaker 2: Yeah.

727
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:56,879
Speaker 1: And when I think whenever I think of the UK

728
00:38:57,080 --> 00:39:00,560
Speaker 1: people eating slop, I think of the guy, the hippie

729
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 1: guy with his lentils that he's always trying to feed everyone.

730
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 2: That's too real. My lentils are really good.

731
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:11,880
Speaker 1: Though I believe it. I've probably even said this on

732
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:16,040
Speaker 1: the air before, but my favorite name for punk cooking

733
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:17,800
Speaker 1: is that when I stayed at a squad in Germany,

734
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: they called it rice mitchie rice with shit, and it

735
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 1: was just a stir fry of whatever shit you whatever

736
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:28,000
Speaker 1: you've dumpstered or grown or stolen, and then rice.

737
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:28,880
Speaker 2: Rice mit chice.

738
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, hell yeah. I think they ate a lot of

739
00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:36,040
Speaker 1: rice mitche And I think that refusing to stay at

740
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:38,400
Speaker 1: hotels and they also refused to have roadies. They carried

741
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 1: all of their own gear and stuff. It kind of

742
00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 1: fucked them up a little bit and burned them out.

743
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:47,080
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, it's it's it's brutal. I have sometimes

744
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:51,640
Speaker 2: I'll get a taxi to carry my gear sometimes between

745
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:54,720
Speaker 2: you know whatever, between from place to place on tour,

746
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:59,240
Speaker 2: and sometimes it's hard for me to justify it to myself,

747
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:02,920
Speaker 2: but I just by myself, this is cheaper than the

748
00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:05,800
Speaker 2: body work, like if I if I rip a muscle

749
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 2: or whatever, or like, yeah, it's it's brutal. Carrying that

750
00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:15,760
Speaker 2: gear is brutal. I have friends who've broken toes from

751
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 2: dropping things on their feet. It's it's awful.

752
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:21,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it it makes sense to me as someone

753
00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:23,839
Speaker 1: who's like I've before I ever toured on my own.

754
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:25,680
Speaker 1: I like tour it as like a roadie and like

755
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 1: a merch girl or whatever.

756
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:29,400
Speaker 2: What is your tour with? Can you say? Are you

757
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:30,399
Speaker 2: at liberty to say?

758
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, a goth bank called Ego likeness, Okay, yeah,

759
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:38,239
Speaker 1: I don't know them. Yeah, no, that's that's fair. Yeah.

760
00:40:38,239 --> 00:40:40,120
Speaker 1: And eventually I toured as their drummer, which was funny

761
00:40:40,160 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 1: because they called me to be like, hey, we you know,

762
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:46,279
Speaker 1: our our guitarist left the band and we're about to

763
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:48,239
Speaker 1: go on tour. And I was like, I'd love to

764
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 1: play guitar, and they were like, do you want to

765
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:51,879
Speaker 1: play drums? And I was like, I'd love to play

766
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 1: key tar and they were like no, come be a drummer.

767
00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: And so but it was a very dead simple drum set.

768
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:00,800
Speaker 1: It was electronic drum, was just a kick and a

769
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: snare on pads, and I was basically a glorified stage dncer.

770
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:04,719
Speaker 1: It was very fun.

771
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:08,400
Speaker 2: That sounds so fun. You're a stage dancer.

772
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:11,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, more or less. Yeah, I especially new because no,

773
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:15,440
Speaker 1: I don't want to reveal their secrets. Okay, Anyway, so

774
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:17,799
Speaker 1: they refuse to have roadies and they refuse to stay

775
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 1: at hotels and this fucked them up a little bit

776
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:22,399
Speaker 1: and kind of burned them out. And they because they

777
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: they never got a good night's sleep and they were

778
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:26,720
Speaker 1: all tired all the time while touring.

779
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:29,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, you need to stay in a goddamn hotel. I mean, yeah,

780
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:31,879
Speaker 2: nah fucking Airbnb, but.

781
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:34,160
Speaker 1: You need a private space with beds.

782
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, you need to shut the door, you need to

783
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:39,240
Speaker 2: like have some mental health.

784
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah.

785
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:44,439
Speaker 2: And I like, I've arrived at Airbnb's in the middle

786
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:46,799
Speaker 2: of the night and there's like no toilet paper. So

787
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:49,359
Speaker 2: that's one of the reasons why I'm like, no, I

788
00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:51,799
Speaker 2: want a real hotel that like knows what they're doing.

789
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, especially because like if your goal is just

790
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:55,800
Speaker 1: to go there and sleep, a hotel is what works.

791
00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:58,200
Speaker 1: And like on this last book tour I went on.

792
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:00,160
Speaker 1: I was I usually would go on tour and to

793
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 1: stay with people who book the shows and stuff like that,

794
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:04,880
Speaker 1: or go camping and you know, my truck or whatever.

795
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:07,279
Speaker 1: And then while I was on this tour, I was

796
00:42:07,360 --> 00:42:10,480
Speaker 1: just like, I am in my forties, and I am

797
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:13,719
Speaker 1: so exhausted and I am so oversocialized that I don't

798
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 1: want to talk to anyone anymore. I would like to

799
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:17,239
Speaker 1: go to a space where me and my dog, because

800
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:20,360
Speaker 1: also had my dog with me, who's like kind of reactive,

801
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 1: and so I was like, I just need a controlled environment.

802
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 1: Now I'm done. I did my uncontrolled environment. But anyway,

803
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:26,719
Speaker 1: your dog.

804
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:28,960
Speaker 2: Wants to sleep too. Your dog needs to sleep as well.

805
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, because he was protecting the car from all

806
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:35,319
Speaker 1: the other cars all day. So and so, no matter

807
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 1: how big Crass got, they always would just stay at

808
00:42:37,600 --> 00:42:41,759
Speaker 1: people's houses. And since punks are super young, this meant

809
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 1: that they were often crashing at their fans' parents' houses.

810
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:48,680
Speaker 1: And I love it because, like, hey, mom, can this

811
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 1: multimillion records selling anarchist punk fans stay on our living

812
00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 1: room floor? They're all about your age, you know, Like

813
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:56,520
Speaker 1: I love it.

814
00:42:56,640 --> 00:42:58,120
Speaker 2: That's adorable.

815
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so they put out this record and it

816
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:04,799
Speaker 1: was like the spiciest punk album yet to people. It

817
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 1: was full of cussing and blasphemy. It was also almost

818
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 1: specifically designed to be unable to be played on radio

819
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:14,239
Speaker 1: because it was so full of curse words. And they

820
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 1: got an awful lot of negative reviews in the music press,

821
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 1: so they would print the negative reviews in their liner

822
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:21,840
Speaker 1: notes or whatever their.

823
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 2: Next thing was, that's lovely, and some of the.

824
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:27,799
Speaker 1: Negative reviews this kind of caught me by surprise. Some

825
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 1: of them were basically leftist political infighting because the UK

826
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 1: didn't have the same kind of red scare that the

827
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:37,840
Speaker 1: US did, and so a huge chunk of the working

828
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 1: class and the intellectual class in the UK were leftists,

829
00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 1: especially Trotskyists, people who like Lenin but not Stalin, and

830
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: you know, they don't like the worst excesses of state communism.

831
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:53,400
Speaker 2: So these leftist journalists were trotsky Ice and what did

832
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:54,240
Speaker 2: they want to fight about?

833
00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 1: So they didn't like the fact that Crass didn't do

834
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 1: the traditional left stuff, and they weren't like trying to

835
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:04,359
Speaker 1: build the right kind of like mass movement, and also

836
00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:08,400
Speaker 1: specifically Krass like wasn't fucking around with the traditional left.

837
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:12,280
Speaker 1: They were anarchists and the traditional left didn't like them either,

838
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 1: and so the feeling was mutual. So the most influential

839
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 1: music journalist in the country at the time was a

840
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 1: Trotskyist named Gary Bushnell, and he was obsessed with how

841
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:26,319
Speaker 1: much he hated Krass, which is part of what made

842
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:30,279
Speaker 1: them so big. He constantly talked shit on them, and

843
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 1: that really helped Crass grow like the ultimate Yeah.

844
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:36,840
Speaker 2: That's glorious, Thank you for your service, Gary.

845
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. But as anarchists, Crass were kind of outsider anarchists,

846
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:44,359
Speaker 1: although I'm going to complicate that in a moment when

847
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 1: I talk about one of their best friends, the band

848
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 1: Poison Girls. But eventually Crass is going to integrate, with

849
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:53,840
Speaker 1: various degrees to the with the mainstream anarchist movement. But

850
00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 1: they are coming from the outside. They are coming from

851
00:44:56,200 --> 00:45:00,160
Speaker 1: having kind of hit upon their own ideas of anarchism,

852
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 1: not from like bacun and reading groups. Steve Ignorant later

853
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:08,000
Speaker 1: said quote, if you ask me I'm an anarchist, I

854
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 1: suppose it's the closest to what I believe. But I'm

855
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 1: not going to loads of bloody rallies or meetings or

856
00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:15,799
Speaker 1: to sit in a semicircle and chunder on about the

857
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:19,960
Speaker 1: minor strike in Poland in nineteen eighteen or whatever, which

858
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:22,320
Speaker 1: I both appreciate, but I also basically, if there was

859
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:24,560
Speaker 1: a minor strike and Poland in nineteen eighteen, I'll probably

860
00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:25,720
Speaker 1: covered eventually on this show.

861
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:30,680
Speaker 2: So you're, yeah, the old history, the real history.

862
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I like, you know, he basically he was like,

863
00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 1: I don't like the traditional anarchist culture that was around.

864
00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:43,040
Speaker 2: Yeah he's and he's probably not like constitutionally suited for it.

865
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:45,520
Speaker 2: And that's you know, and that should that should always

866
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:50,120
Speaker 2: be fine. Like you know, diversity, diversity is strength.

867
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:54,600
Speaker 1: No, totally, absolutely, and their their biggest break with the

868
00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:58,120
Speaker 1: traditional anarchist culture was that they were pacifists. In a

869
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:00,640
Speaker 1: weird way, you could say that Crass kind of developed

870
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 1: or popularized the modern idea of the lifestyle anarchist in

871
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:08,839
Speaker 1: contrast to the revolutionary anarchist. But I hate this dichotomy

872
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:10,480
Speaker 1: and I think it's bullshit, and I think the way

873
00:46:10,520 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 1: that you expressed it is what we should actually do,

874
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 1: which is diversity as our strength, and different people want

875
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:17,920
Speaker 1: to do different types of organizing and living, and that

876
00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: is great. Crass's main selling point was just their sincerity.

877
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 1: I mean also their songs were really fucking good. But

878
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:31,279
Speaker 1: sincerity became basically the cultural currency of the anarcho punk

879
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:34,359
Speaker 1: scene and the movement, honestly to kind of a problematic degree, right,

880
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 1: you could prove like I'm the most earnest, you know,

881
00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 1: Krass for example, you called this earlier. Krass for example,

882
00:46:41,040 --> 00:46:43,000
Speaker 1: once put out a single that said pay no more

883
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:46,880
Speaker 1: than forty five ps. So they lost money on every

884
00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:47,800
Speaker 1: record that they sold.

885
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to look out for that.

886
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 1: And so what they did is that after that they

887
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 1: hired a financial manager, which is where we started this conversation.

888
00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 2: Maybe it was smiled business manager, although those they were

889
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 2: a great firm that used to work for me. But

890
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:10,280
Speaker 2: like basically all they did was they weren't super intimate

891
00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 2: in the work. They were just kind of like making

892
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:16,719
Speaker 2: sure I was ready to you know, pay taxes or

893
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:17,359
Speaker 2: something like that.

894
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:20,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean that makes sense. Crass also passed

895
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:22,799
Speaker 1: up a lot of money because they wouldn't sell merch.

896
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:24,759
Speaker 1: They would like, if you wrote them a letter, they'd

897
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:26,400
Speaker 1: send you back like a one inch button or whatever

898
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:28,440
Speaker 1: you had a beg for, But they didn't make shirts.

899
00:47:31,239 --> 00:47:34,439
Speaker 2: I knew this guy who would talk about his new

900
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:37,200
Speaker 2: record and he would say like, have you heard my

901
00:47:37,280 --> 00:47:37,959
Speaker 2: new T shirt?

902
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 1: And so so Crass wouldn't sell T shirts even though

903
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 1: that's like where most of the money is at least

904
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:48,840
Speaker 1: currently that and you know, ticket sales. So all the

905
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:52,120
Speaker 1: T shirts were bootlegs. And after the nonsense with the

906
00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:55,200
Speaker 1: first album being censored, they started to start their own label,

907
00:47:55,440 --> 00:47:58,960
Speaker 1: Crass Records. They released the censored song as a single.

908
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:02,920
Speaker 1: Talked for a while about arresting them for this very

909
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 1: blasphemous single, and Krass was investigated for a while, but

910
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 1: in the end the government was like, fuck, if we

911
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:10,279
Speaker 1: arrest them for this, they'll just get more famous, and

912
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 1: so they dropped it. True, there was another super earnest

913
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:18,160
Speaker 1: anarchist band worth mentioning here who was close friends with Krass.

914
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:21,160
Speaker 1: It was called Poison Girls. Have you heard the Poison Girls?

915
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 2: Have not?

916
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:28,080
Speaker 1: They were fronted by a middle aged housewife named Visa

917
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:31,680
Speaker 1: Versa who started I think she was in her early

918
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:36,400
Speaker 1: forties when she started this band, and that fucking rules.

919
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:40,319
Speaker 2: Yeah that's so wait, So how old was everybody else

920
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:40,799
Speaker 2: in the band?

921
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 1: So Kras were like mostly in their thirties and I

922
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:45,840
Speaker 1: think Steve was like probably in his late teens early twenties,

923
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 1: and so they were like they were like half a

924
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:51,720
Speaker 1: generation older. And then but V was like had kids,

925
00:48:51,760 --> 00:48:54,839
Speaker 1: and I mean so did Eve, but but yeah, Va

926
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 1: was a little bit older.

927
00:48:56,400 --> 00:49:01,080
Speaker 2: So the front woman for Poison Girls was she started

928
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 2: in her forties, and then how old was the rest

929
00:49:03,560 --> 00:49:04,040
Speaker 2: of the band?

930
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:05,719
Speaker 1: I actually don't know that. I think they were a

931
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 1: little bit younger than her, because I know that some

932
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:09,880
Speaker 1: of the Dial House people ended up playing in Poison Girls.

933
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:11,640
Speaker 1: I actually did this thing where I kind of got sad,

934
00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:13,040
Speaker 1: where I was like, I almost wish I'd done this

935
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:16,040
Speaker 1: entire thing about poisoned Girls instead. So I almost like

936
00:49:16,120 --> 00:49:18,040
Speaker 1: I did some research on Poison Girls, and then I

937
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:19,359
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is too much.

938
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:22,000
Speaker 2: You can do another thing on boys and girls sometime.

939
00:49:22,680 --> 00:49:27,840
Speaker 1: It's true. And so V started Poison Girls independently actually

940
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 1: before Crass and I think seventy six, but then moved

941
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:33,560
Speaker 1: it to a cottage near Dial House, and eventually Poison

942
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:35,880
Speaker 1: Girls and Crass would play one hundred shows together, and

943
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 1: they were basically like they would really splits together. They

944
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:41,839
Speaker 1: were like the two things, and it's just Crass is.

945
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:44,040
Speaker 2: More famous, but they're like twin bands.

946
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:48,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. And what's interesting is there's all this stuff

947
00:49:48,040 --> 00:49:50,760
Speaker 1: about Crass being kind of outsider anarchists or whatever. Visa

948
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:54,400
Speaker 1: versa is not visa versa from the Poison Girls comes

949
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:57,600
Speaker 1: from the traditional anarchist movement. She had come up selling

950
00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:01,880
Speaker 1: anarchist newspapers on the street, a newspaper called Freedom, and

951
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:05,239
Speaker 1: her partner in Baby Daddy was another anarchist activist guy.

952
00:50:05,360 --> 00:50:09,600
Speaker 1: So this is like, she does come from this. Krass

953
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:12,920
Speaker 1: and the Poison Girls fit oddly into London punk In

954
00:50:12,960 --> 00:50:14,960
Speaker 1: some ways they were kind of the biggest and most

955
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:18,120
Speaker 1: influential acts, but in other ways they were seen as

956
00:50:18,160 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 1: old and out of touch. Visubverse in particular, have kept

957
00:50:21,719 --> 00:50:24,160
Speaker 1: have to prove that she belonged there, because you will

958
00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:26,080
Speaker 1: be shocked to know that there was misogyny and agism

959
00:50:26,120 --> 00:50:28,279
Speaker 1: in the punk scene. I know this is gonna blow

960
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 1: you away with surprise, but oh, it's.

961
00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:33,200
Speaker 2: Just it's perennially disgusting.

962
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:36,959
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, so these are like old hippies living

963
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:38,920
Speaker 1: in the countryside. What do they know about the like

964
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:44,000
Speaker 1: London squatter punk scene, right? Is kind of the presentation that,

965
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:45,960
Speaker 1: you know, is what people say when they're mad at

966
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:50,359
Speaker 1: Crass and Poison Girls. And there's this huge squatter punk

967
00:50:50,360 --> 00:50:52,839
Speaker 1: scene by nineteen seventy nine, and Crass aren't in it,

968
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:55,520
Speaker 1: but they were influential on it, and they constantly played

969
00:50:55,560 --> 00:51:00,680
Speaker 1: benefits for it. They actually stopped playing outside the UK

970
00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:04,400
Speaker 1: pretty early on. They played a show in Germany and

971
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:06,840
Speaker 1: the German punks overturned a cop car and set it

972
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:10,359
Speaker 1: on fire, and cops shut down the event, or rather

973
00:51:10,560 --> 00:51:13,400
Speaker 1: cops tried to shut down the show, but Kras was like, look,

974
00:51:14,080 --> 00:51:16,880
Speaker 1: if you shut down this show, all of the punks

975
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:18,799
Speaker 1: who just set a cop car on fire are gonna

976
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:22,799
Speaker 1: be like extra mad. And the cops were like, yeah,

977
00:51:22,840 --> 00:51:25,719
Speaker 1: you're right, and so they let them keep playing. It's

978
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:27,239
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that doesn't happen in America as

979
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:30,200
Speaker 1: far as they can tell. One time, years ago, I

980
00:51:30,239 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 1: was at a squad bar in Amsterdam and the old

981
00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:35,879
Speaker 1: barkeep was telling a story about a punk night where

982
00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:38,839
Speaker 1: cops had parked in front of the squat and then

983
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:41,160
Speaker 1: gone somewhere else, and so then the drunk punks came

984
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:43,040
Speaker 1: out and set the cop car on fire, and so

985
00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:46,040
Speaker 1: then all these cops came and my friend, the bartender

986
00:51:46,040 --> 00:51:48,080
Speaker 1: went out to negotiate with the cops, and the cops

987
00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:51,240
Speaker 1: were like, we're so sorry about that. It was a rookie,

988
00:51:51,320 --> 00:51:53,160
Speaker 1: he didn't know not to park in front of your bar.

989
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:54,960
Speaker 1: It'll never happen again.

990
00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:02,920
Speaker 2: That's adorable, I know, I know.

991
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:04,239
Speaker 1: And it also made me feel like I was a

992
00:52:04,280 --> 00:52:07,239
Speaker 1: never never Land because I was like, yeah, people go

993
00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:08,960
Speaker 1: to prison for a long time for that stuff in

994
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:10,560
Speaker 1: the US, you know, there's currently a lot of people

995
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:14,920
Speaker 1: in prison from twenty twenty for that. But in Germany,

996
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:17,440
Speaker 1: when this thing happened, with this like sort of almost

997
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:20,799
Speaker 1: riot happened, Krass like thought about this really hard, and

998
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:22,799
Speaker 1: they were like, look, we're kind of role models. We

999
00:52:22,880 --> 00:52:25,200
Speaker 1: show up, we sing about anarchy, we sing about fighting

1000
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:27,480
Speaker 1: the police, and you know all this stuff. If we

1001
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 1: play shows in people riot in the UK, we know

1002
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 1: what to tell people, Like they would make pamphlets about

1003
00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:34,839
Speaker 1: know your rights and how to make it through court

1004
00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:37,640
Speaker 1: hearings and shit right, they would see it as their

1005
00:52:37,640 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 1: responsibility on some level if their fans did something like that,

1006
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:43,319
Speaker 1: But what the fuck do we know about German law.

1007
00:52:43,400 --> 00:52:46,160
Speaker 1: We don't know how to support people. So they decided

1008
00:52:46,200 --> 00:52:48,840
Speaker 1: that if they couldn't help people handle the government repression.

1009
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:51,760
Speaker 1: They shouldn't be inspiring people to fight that government as directly,

1010
00:52:52,760 --> 00:52:56,560
Speaker 1: and they stopped playing overseas, and this is I don't know,

1011
00:52:57,080 --> 00:53:00,680
Speaker 1: that's interesting. That is admirable, is it? I don't know

1012
00:53:00,719 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 1: if it's what, I don't know, it's just interesting.

1013
00:53:04,040 --> 00:53:04,560
Speaker 2: I like it.

1014
00:53:05,160 --> 00:53:08,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, these were some of the early days of punk

1015
00:53:08,760 --> 00:53:12,880
Speaker 1: versus Nazi skinhead fights, and Krass actually didn't do the

1016
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:15,000
Speaker 1: Mostly the anarchist punks and stuff would just be like,

1017
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:16,839
Speaker 1: all right, we're going to fight all the Nazis. Crass

1018
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:19,239
Speaker 1: are like pacifists, and occasionally they would get into fist

1019
00:53:19,239 --> 00:53:22,960
Speaker 1: fights to protect themselves or each other, but largely they

1020
00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:24,839
Speaker 1: actually didn't try to kick skin heads out of their

1021
00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:27,279
Speaker 1: shows and instead were like, oh, we should expose them

1022
00:53:27,320 --> 00:53:29,520
Speaker 1: to anarchism, and we should expose them to pacifism and

1023
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:33,600
Speaker 1: we'll help change their ways. And the middling success they

1024
00:53:33,680 --> 00:53:37,479
Speaker 1: succeeded sometimes, but I will say, from my point of view,

1025
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:40,319
Speaker 1: the biggest l of their career that I've been made

1026
00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:43,240
Speaker 1: aware of is that there's this big Trotskyist versus Nazi

1027
00:53:43,239 --> 00:53:46,400
Speaker 1: bral At a benefit show that they played, and Krass

1028
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:50,600
Speaker 1: later were like, the leftists are the red fascists basically

1029
00:53:50,640 --> 00:53:53,839
Speaker 1: like both sides are bad or whatever. Look, I don't

1030
00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:56,400
Speaker 1: like stay communism either, but when they are fighting the Nazis,

1031
00:53:56,400 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 1: I'm on their side, you know.

1032
00:53:58,480 --> 00:54:02,160
Speaker 2: But whenever I was trying to understand some of the

1033
00:54:02,160 --> 00:54:05,960
Speaker 2: things that Krass had said publicly, and some of it

1034
00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:10,200
Speaker 2: was just pretty confusing or like badly reported on and

1035
00:54:11,560 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 2: like including stuff about the Rock against Racism, I was

1036
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:21,320
Speaker 2: just like, it seemed very reverse world.

1037
00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:23,920
Speaker 1: And I don't know, no, I understand. That's how I

1038
00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:26,720
Speaker 1: feel reading some of their stuff. I'm like, huh, everything

1039
00:54:26,800 --> 00:54:28,520
Speaker 1: is different at different times in history, and people have

1040
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:30,839
Speaker 1: really different opinions despite this having the same labels as

1041
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:35,640
Speaker 1: each other. Yeah, And so they were seen as out

1042
00:54:35,680 --> 00:54:37,879
Speaker 1: of touch for a while. And it's interesting because as

1043
00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:41,440
Speaker 1: the world starts getting worse, Crass actually starts struggling with

1044
00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:44,200
Speaker 1: their pacifism and starts taking on a more militant and

1045
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:48,880
Speaker 1: more traditionally anarchist line with certain things, because things are

1046
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:52,839
Speaker 1: about to get a lot worse. Specifically, in nineteen seventy nine,

1047
00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:56,239
Speaker 1: a far right politician who was known to history as

1048
00:54:56,360 --> 00:55:01,080
Speaker 1: quote the only bad Margaret came to power. I think

1049
00:55:01,120 --> 00:55:02,759
Speaker 1: that's what people called her. I think people called her

1050
00:55:02,800 --> 00:55:06,319
Speaker 1: the only bad Margaret. Her name was Margaret Thatcher, and

1051
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:11,400
Speaker 1: Thatcher wasn't the UK's Ronald Reagan. Reagan was the US's Thatcher.

1052
00:55:12,600 --> 00:55:15,000
Speaker 1: Thatcher came into power and was like, I am going

1053
00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:17,680
Speaker 1: to declare war on the leftist working class of the

1054
00:55:17,760 --> 00:55:21,320
Speaker 1: United Kingdom. She hated unions, she would give raises to

1055
00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:25,200
Speaker 1: cops that killed protesters. She agreed to host US nuclear

1056
00:55:25,239 --> 00:55:28,680
Speaker 1: weapons in the UK, and, in a move that will

1057
00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:31,880
Speaker 1: be quite familiar to modern listeners, she cozied up to

1058
00:55:31,920 --> 00:55:34,120
Speaker 1: the middle class to get their votes by pretending to

1059
00:55:34,160 --> 00:55:37,120
Speaker 1: support their interests. But in the end she only supported

1060
00:55:37,120 --> 00:55:40,080
Speaker 1: the rich, and so punk starts becoming more of an

1061
00:55:40,080 --> 00:55:43,719
Speaker 1: actual social movement in the Thatcher era. All of this

1062
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:46,640
Speaker 1: a couple years after punk had been declared quote dead

1063
00:55:46,880 --> 00:55:48,920
Speaker 1: by the music press because it was no longer like

1064
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:51,839
Speaker 1: the hot new thing. Like basically like the music press is, like, oh,

1065
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:53,640
Speaker 1: punk was from seventy six to seventy eight, and then

1066
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:57,200
Speaker 1: it was done, and then like this supposedly dead thing

1067
00:55:57,320 --> 00:56:02,680
Speaker 1: becomes an incredibly powerful social movement and aesthetic culture. But

1068
00:56:02,800 --> 00:56:05,240
Speaker 1: as for what it did once it became a movement,

1069
00:56:05,760 --> 00:56:10,600
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about that on Wednesday. Yeah, anything

1070
00:56:10,640 --> 00:56:11,160
Speaker 1: you want to plug.

1071
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:15,440
Speaker 2: I have a show coming up March sixth at the

1072
00:56:15,760 --> 00:56:22,160
Speaker 2: Oddfellows in Bellingham and then Constellation in Chicago. Hell yeah

1073
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:23,640
Speaker 2: on March fifteenth.

1074
00:56:23,920 --> 00:56:27,759
Speaker 1: Hell yeam On March third, my book The Immortal Choir

1075
00:56:27,800 --> 00:56:30,320
Speaker 1: Holds Every Voice goes to Kickstarter and I'm really excited

1076
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:33,160
Speaker 1: about it. And you're all probably tired of hearing me

1077
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:34,480
Speaker 1: say that, but you're going to have to hear it.

1078
00:56:34,480 --> 00:56:35,840
Speaker 1: Actually you don't have to hear it. You can actually

1079
00:56:35,880 --> 00:56:37,920
Speaker 1: hit stop now and then just start the next episode

1080
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:40,360
Speaker 1: and be fine. But instead you could hear me also

1081
00:56:40,400 --> 00:56:43,080
Speaker 1: talk about how I work with an anarchist collective publisher

1082
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:45,640
Speaker 1: called Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness and you should check

1083
00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:47,799
Speaker 1: us out at Tangled Wilderness dot org. If you give

1084
00:56:47,880 --> 00:56:49,200
Speaker 1: us ten bucks a month, we'll send you a zine

1085
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:52,200
Speaker 1: every month anywhere in the world. We also put out

1086
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:55,240
Speaker 1: a bunch of podcasts and do a bunch of stuff,

1087
00:56:55,520 --> 00:56:57,279
Speaker 1: and so you could check that out if you're like, wow,

1088
00:56:57,440 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 1: I've this is the first time I've heard of an arco.

1089
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:03,800
Speaker 1: What does the collective make? Well, we make some stuff.

1090
00:57:04,760 --> 00:57:13,279
Speaker 1: We'll see you on Wednesday. Cool people who did Cool

1091
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:16,040
Speaker 1: Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media. For more

1092
00:57:16,120 --> 00:57:20,120
Speaker 1: podcasts on cool Zone Media, visit our website foolzonemedia dot com,

1093
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:23,360
Speaker 1: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1094
00:57:23,440 --> 00:57:25,240
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.