Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

OK before I start lets get one thing straight. When it comes to the politicising of PUNK, the myth making of PUNK, the definition of PUNK, the ownership of PUNK or the whatever of PUNK, each persons opinion is as INVALID as the next - That's it - I need say no more - DONE AND DUSTED - end of story.

So comrades, first we shall divide the flock into TWO. the PUNKS who sold out ON THE RIGHT and the PUNKS who didn't sell out ON THE LEFT.

Err no, I've already said, we're not doing that!

OK then let's define what PUNK is (forward slash) was, and then later we'll define what ART is (forward slash) was, & what GOD is (forward slash) was.

No, no, no, I thought we'd agreed not to do that SHIT.

OK so how about: Ladies and Gentlemoan PUNK is dead, it died at the end of 1978; we know this cos Howard Devoto told us so.

Look you won't get me started. I'm keeping schtum!

OK then, PUNK's not dead it was a detonation, it can't be stopped, killed off, switched off, tranquilised or put back in the bottle. Whacking great pieces of shrapnel ripped through the poor c**ts who were standing too close; it did for them straight off, but microscopic shards & fragments radioactive particles of PUNK are still reverberating on and out infecting, impregnating, despoiling and defiling; and shall continue on, until the CRACK OF DOOM.

Ahhh!

Do you sometimes find yourself at a gig and wonder what the fuck you're doing there? I do. Here I am at the STEVE IGNORANT gig with my FANZINE cohort John Bigot; the last gig we went to together was PiL at the backside of last year. And there are a lot of folk here tonight (in Brum) like us, who hail from the fine borough of Wolver-hamper-ton. Its lovely isn't it. And it's only fitting really. Cos the Crass were always a unifying force; a band that brought folk together. Yeah let's break the bullshit detector from the word GO!

The CRASS were always a divisive bunch of bastards in more ways than SIXTY SEVEN; and it seems that they're still at it 30 years on - YAWN. So what am I doing here? I mean when "The Feeding of the 5,000" hit my ears for the first time (which was not until '79) as far as I was concerned the CRASS weren't Anarchists, they were a bunch Anachronists. Back then I'd no time to follow PUNK down the CUL de SAC of nihilism. I was too bleedin' busy following the Punk DUB of PiL, The Punky Reggae of The Clash & The Ruts; The Goth PUNK of the BANSHEES, The SKA punk of 2Tone newcomers........and.....oh yeah! The Damned were BACK! Fucking A!

Finally when "Stations of the Crass" and "PENIS ENVY" forced me out of my closet there was another bleeding problem. The UNIFORM. What the F? Studs, leather jackets, spiky coloured hair, Mohicans; where had all this lot come from, if I'd wanted a uniform I would have sewn some SABBATH patches on me denim five years before. So what am I doing here? Have I come for a little bit of politicking? - GOD KNOWS WE NEED IT - Have I come for some sloganeering? - Nah! Call me old fashioned but I've come for the MUSIC! Yeah the music I remember that now.

And so there I stood with a donut for a brain in Academy 2 Birmingham watching the topless John Robb and GOLDBLADE doing "Jukebox Generation" and thinking to myself - shit I bet if walked to the local shops everyday rather than taking the car I could have a bod like that poor old sod. Yeah don't look for it, cos it'll never happen. Looking at the rest of the sad old FUCKS here; bouncing away to "All We Got is Rebel Songs", PUNK ain't DEAD it's just over FED! - And BALD! The glorious GOLDBLADE inwardly The CLASH outwardly SHAM 69 you've got to love them. Then only enough time for a quick slash in an illuminated pisstoir before Mr Ignorant, Beki Straughan, Bob Butler, Gizz Butt & Spike T. Smith set about the back catalogue of CRASS.

And for an hour or more everything was wonderfully restrained and dignified - Ignorant stood solid and centre; his vocal delivery like a typewriter being hit with a lump hammer as the pics from the past were projected onto the backdrop. Yeah all was restrained and dignified; except for the pissed up twat who fell backwards on to me; and except for the fucker behind me whose knuckles kept connecting with the back of my head every time he found the need to wave his two cold crooked fingers in the general direction of Ignorant.

"Fight War not Wars" and "Punk is Dead" quite obviously commanded the highest level of oscillation - but what did it for me was from Straughan doing "Shaved Women" and Ignorant & et al's burning up of "Big A Little A". It was nothing like Digbeth Civic Hall in '82 but then again I'm nothing like I was then either. It wasn't a CRASS reconstruction; it was a revisitation of the CRASS songs. And did the CRASS songs STAND UP, now that they've been robbed of their HISTORICAL context, PUNK purity and pithy politicking? Eh? What do you think? The answer is YES.