Crass are an English punk rock band that was formed in 1977,[1][2] which promoted anarchism as a political ideology, way of living, and as a resistance movement. Crass popularised the seminal anarcho-punk movement of the punk subculture, and advocated direct action, animal rights, and environmentalism. The band both utilised and advocated a DIY punk ethic approach, producing sound collages, graphics, albums, and films. Crass also criticised mainstream culture and attempted to subvert it with messages promoting feminism, anti-racism, anti-war, and anti-globalisation.
Crass practiced "direct action" by spray-painting stencilled graffiti messages around the London Underground system and on advertising billboards, coordinating squats, and organising political action. The band also expressed its ideals by dressing in black, military surplus-style clothing, and using a stage backdrop which amalgamated several "icons of authority" including theChristian Cross, the swastika, the Union Flag, and an Ouroboros.
The band were critical of punk subculture itself, as well as wider youth culture in general. Crass promoted the type of anarcho-pacifism that eventually became more common in the punk music scene (see anarcho-punk[3]). They are also considered involved with the art punk genre,[4] due to their use of tape collages, graphics, spoken word releases, poetry and improvisation.
The band was based around Dial House, an open house community near Epping, Essex, forming when Dial House founder and former member ofavant-garde performance art groups EXIT and Ceres Confusion Penny Rimbaud (real name Jeremy Ratter) began jamming with Clash fan Steve Ignorant (real name Steve Williams), who was residing in the house at the time. Ignorant had been inspired to form a band after attending a performance by The Clash at the Colston Hall in Bristol [5] whilst Rimbaud had been working on his prose composition 'Reality Asylum'. Between them, they produced the songs "So What?" and "Do They Owe Us A Living?" as a drums and vocals duo. For a short period of time, they called themselves Stormtrooper, before choosing the name Crass, a reference to the David Bowie song "Ziggy Stardust," specifically the line "The kids was just crass."[6]
Other friends and members of the household joined, including Joy De Vivre, Pete Wright, N. A. Palmer (real name Andy Palmer), Steve Herman and Eve Libertine (real name Bronwyn Lloyd Jones), who was considered "the band's first fan,"[7] and it was not long before Crass performed their first live gig at a squatted street festival at Huntley Street, North London. Here they had intended to play a set of five songs; however, the "plug was pulled" on them by a neighbour after three songs.[8] Guitarist Steve Herman soon afterwards left the band to be replaced by Phil Free(real name Phil Clancey).[9] Other early Crass gigs included a four date tour of New York City,[10] a gig at a festival in Covent Garden at which Charles Hayward of This Heat stood in for Rimbaud on drums,[11] as well as playing alongside the UK Subs at the White Lion pub in Putney. These latter performances were often not well-attended; "The audience consisted mostly of us when the Subs played and the Subs when we played."[12]
Crass also played two gigs at the Roxy Club in Covent Garden, London.[11] According to Rimbaud, all the band members arrived drunk at the second gig, and were ejected from the stage. This event was immortalised by their song "Banned from the Roxy"[13] and the essay Crass at the Roxy by Penny Rimbaud.[14]
Following this incident, the band decided to take themselves more seriously, particularly paying more attention to their presentation. As well as avoidingalcohol or cannabis before gigs, they also adopted a policy of wearing black, military surplus-style clothing at all times, whether on or off stage. They introduced their distinctive stage backdrop, a logo designed by Rimbaud's friend Dave King of Sleeping Dogs Lie. This gave the band a militaristic image, which led some to accuse them of fascism. Crass countered that their uniform appearance was intended to be a statement against the "cult of personality", so that, in contrast to the norm for many rock bands, no member would be identified as the 'leader'.[15]
Originally conceived and intended as the cover artwork for a self-published pamphlet version of Christ's Reality Asylum by Penny Rimbaud, the Crass logo represented an amalgamation of several "icons of authority," including the Christian Cross, the swastika, and the Union Flag, combined with a two-headedOuroboros to symbolise the idea that power will eventually destroy itself.[16][17] Using such deliberately mixed messages was part of Crass' strategy of presenting themselves as a "barrage of contradictions", which also included using loud, aggressive music to promote a pacifist message, and was in part a reference to their own Dadaist and performance art backgrounds.
The band eschewed any elaborate stage lighting during live sets, instead preferring to be illuminated by simple 40 watt household light bulbs (the technical difficulties of filming under such lighting conditions in part explains why there is so little live footage of Crass in existence[18]). The band pioneeredmultimedia presentation techniques, fully utilising video technology and using back-projected films and video collages made by Mick Duffield and Gee Vaucher to enhance their performances.
Crass' first release was The Feeding Of The 5000, an 18 track 12" 45 rpm EP on the Small Wonder label in 1978. Workers at the pressing plant initially refused to handle it due to the allegedly blasphemous content of the song "Asylum". The record was eventually released with this track removed and replaced by two minutes of silence, ironically titled "The Sound Of Free Speech". This incident prompted Crass to set up their ownindependent record label, Crass Records, in order to prevent Small Wonder from being placed in a compromising position in the future [19] as well as retain full editorial control over their material. "Asylum", now renamed "Reality Asylum", was shortly afterwards released on Crass Records in a re-recorded and extended form as a 7" single. Later pressings of the album (also on Crass Records) restored the original version of the missing track.
As well as their own material, Crass Records released recordings by other performers, the first of which was the 1980 single "You Can Be You" byHoney Bane, a teenage girl who was staying at Dial House whilst on the run from a children's home. Other artists included Zounds, Flux Of Pink Indians, Omega Tribe, Rudimentary Peni, Conflict, Icelandic band KUKL (who included singer Björk), classical singer Jane Gregory, Anthrax,Captain Sensible, Lack of Knowledge and the Poison Girls, a like-minded band who worked closely with Crass for several years.
Crass Records also put out three editions of Bullshit Detector, compilations of demos and rough recordings which had been sent to the band, and which they felt represented the DIY punk ethic. The catalogue numbers of Crass Records releases were intended to represent a countdown to the year 1984 (eg, 521984 meaning "five years until 1984"), both the year that Crass stated that they would split up, and a date charged with significance in the anti-authoritarian calendar due to George Orwell's novel of the same name.
Crass released their third album Penis Envy in 1981. This marked a departure from the 'hardcore punk' image that The Feeding of the 5000 and its follow up Stations of the Crass had to some extent given the group. It featured more complex musical arrangements and exclusively female vocals provided byEve Libertine and Joy De Vivre (although Steve Ignorant remained a group member and is credited on the record sleeve as "not on this recording").
The album addressed feminist issues and once again attacked the institutions of 'the system' such as marriage and sexual repression. The last track on Penis Envy, a deliberately saccharine parody of a 'MOR' love song entitled "Our Wedding", was also made available as a white flexi disc to the readers of 'Loving', a teenage girl's romance magazine. The free flexi offer had been suggested to Loving by an organisation calling itself "Creative Recording And Sound Services" (note the initials). A minor tabloid controversy resulted once the hoax was revealed, with the News of the World going so far as to state that the title of the flexi's originating album was "too obscene to print".[20] The album was banned by retailers HMV. During the mid 1980s, under the direction of James Anderton copies were seized, along with other records by Crass and The Dead Kennedys, by Greater Manchester Police from Eastern Bloc record shop. Frank Schofield was charged with displaying "Obscene Articles For Publication For Gain". The band, Flux of Pink Indians its two record labels and its publishing company were also charged under the Obscene Publications Act, but all charges were dropped by Greater Manchester Police.[21]
The band's fourth LP, 1982's double set Christ - The Album, took over a year to record, produce and mix, during which time the Falklands War had broken out and ended. This caused Crass to fundamentally question their approach to making records. As a group whose primary purpose was political commentary, they felt they had been overtaken and made to appear redundant by real world events. Subsequent releases, including the singles "How Does It Feel to Be the Mother of a Thousand Dead" and "Sheep Farming in the Falklands", and the album Yes Sir, I Will, saw the band strip their sound back to basics and were issued as "tactical responses" to political situations.[22] They also anonymously produced 20,000 copies of a flexi-disc featuring a live recording of "Sheep Farming...", copies of which were randomly inserted into the sleeves of other records by sympathetic workers at the Rough Trade recordsdistribution warehouse as a means of spreading their views to those who might not normally hear them.[23]
From their earliest days of spraying stencilled anti-war, anarchist, feminist and anti-consumerist graffiti messages around the London Undergroundsystem and on advertising billboards,[24][25] the band had always been involved in political as well as musical activities. On December 18, 1982, Crass co-ordinated a 24 hour squat of the empty Zig Zag club in West London primarily for an all day event attended by approximately 500 people to prove "that the underground punk scene could handle itself responsibly when it had to and that music really could be enjoyed free of the restraints imposed upon it by corporate industry".[26]
Bands playing at the Zig Zag (in running order) were Faction, D and V, Omega Tribe, Lack of Knowledge, Sleeping Dogs, The Apostles, Amebix,Null & Void, Soldiers of Fortune, The Mob, Polemic Attack, Poison Girls, Conflict, Flux of Pink Indians, Crass and DIRT.[27]
In 1983 and 1984 they were part of the Stop the City actions instigated by London Greenpeace[28] that were arguably fore-runners of the anti-globalisation actions of the early 21st century.[29] Explicit support for such activities was given in the lyrics of the band's final single release "You're Already Dead", which also saw Crass publicly express growing doubts regarding their longtime commitment to pacifism. This led to further introspection within the band, with some members feeling that they were beginning to become embittered as well as losing sight of their essentially positive stance.[30] As a reflection of this debate, the next release using the Crass name was Acts of Love, classical music settings of 50 poems by Penny Rimbaud described as "songs to my other self" and intended to celebrate "'the profound sense of unity, peace and love that exists within that other self."[31]
A further post-Falklands war hoax that originated from members of Crass became known as 'the Thatchergate tapes'.
This was a cassette featuring what appeared to be an accidentally overheard telephone conversation, due to crossed lines. In reality the tape had been constructed by Crass, using edited recordings of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagans' voices. On the Thatchergate tape they discuss the sinking of the HMS Sheffield during the Falklands War, and appeared to allege that Europe would be used as a target for nuclear weapons in any conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Copies were leaked to the press, and the US State Department believed the tape to be propaganda produced by the Soviet KGB, a story reported by both the San Francisco Chronicle[32] and The Sunday Times.[33] Although put together totally anonymously, the British Observer newspaper was somehow able to link the tape with the band.[34]
A further post-Falklands war hoax that originated from members of Crass became known as 'the Thatchergate tapes'.
This was a cassette featuring what appeared to be an accidentally overheard telephone conversation, due to crossed lines. In reality the tape had been constructed by Crass, using edited recordings of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagans' voices. On the Thatchergate tape they discuss the sinking of the HMS Sheffield during the Falklands War, and appeared to allege that Europe would be used as a target for nuclear weapons in any conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Copies were leaked to the press, and the US State Department believed the tape to be propaganda produced by the Soviet KGB, a story reported by both the San Francisco Chronicle[32] and The Sunday Times.[33] Although put together totally anonymously, the British Observer newspaper was somehow able to link the tape with the band.[34]
Crass all but retired from the public eye after becoming a small thorn in the side of Margaret Thatcher's government following the Falklands War. Questions in Parliament and an attempted prosecution under the UK's Obscene Publications Act for their single "How Does It Feel..."[35] led to a round of court battles and what the band describes as harassment that finally took its toll. On July 7, 1984 the band played their final gig at Aberdare in Wales, a benefit for striking miners, before retreating to Dial House to concentrate their energies elsewhere.
Guitarist N. A. Palmer had announced that he intended to leave the band in order to further his art college studies, and the reported group consensus was that replacing him would be "like having a corpse in the band".[citation needed] This catalysed the affirmation of Crass' consistently stated intention to split up in 1984. Steve Ignorant went on to join the band Conflict, with whom he had already worked on an ad hoc basis, and in 1992 formed Schwartzeneggar (sic). From 1997-2000, he was a member of the group Stratford Mercenaries. He has also worked as a Punch and Judy professor and as a solo performer. Eve Libertine continued to record with her son Nemo Jones as well as performance artist A-Soma. Pete Wright concentrated on building himself a houseboat and formed the performance art group Judas 2, whilst Rimbaud continued to write and perform both solo and with other artists.
In November 2002 several former members of Crass collaborated under the name The Crass Collective to arrange Your Country Needs You, a concert of "voices in opposition to war" held at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's South Bank that included a performance of Britten's War Requiem as well as performers such as Goldblade, Fun-Da-Mental, Ian MacKaye and Pete Wright's post-Crass project Judas 2. In October 2003, the Crass Collective changed their working title to Crass Agenda. During 2004 Crass Agenda were at the forefront of the campaign to save the Vortex Jazz Club in Stoke Newington, North London, which has now relocated to Dalston. In June 2005 Crass Agenda was declared to be 'no more', subsequently changing the name of the project to the 'more appropriate' Last Amendment. A "new" Crass track (actually a remix of 1982's "Major General Despair", with new lyrics), "The Unelected President", is also available.[36]
On 24 and 25 November 2007 Steve Ignorant performed Crass' entire Feeding of the 5000 album live at the Shepherds Bush Empire, United Kingdom, backed by a band of "selected guests".[37][38] Other members of Crass were not involved in these concerts. Rimbaud initially refused Ignorant the right to perform Crass songs Rimbaud had written, but later changed his mind. "I acknowledge and respect Steve's right to do this", he said, "but I do regard it as a betrayal of the Crass ethos"[39] Ignorant had a different view: "I don't have to justify what I do. (...) Plus, most of the lyrics are still relevant today. And remember that three-letter word, 'fun'?"[39]
In August 2010, it was announced that Crass were going to release The Crassical Collection, consisting of remastered reissues of their back catalogue. The first in this series is a newly remastered edition of The Feeding of the 5000, restored from the original analogue studio tapes, repackaged and bolstered by rare and unreleased tracks and new artwork from Gee Vaucher. Stations of the Crass was released in October 2010, with new editions ofPenis Envy, Christ – The Album, Yes Sir, I Will and Ten Notes on a Summer's Day being issued during 2011.[40]
In 2011 Steve Ignorant embarked on an extensive international tour performing Crass material, culminating with a final gig once again at the Shepherds Bush Empire on November 19th entitled 'The Last Supper'. He has stated that this will be the last time he will be singing the songs of Crass, and on this occasion had the blessing and support of Rimbaud. Indeed Rimbaud joined him on stage to perform a drums and vocals rendition of 'Do They Owe Us A Living', bringing the career of the band full circle after 34 years; "And then Penny came on and you gave him such a greeting, that got my bottom lip going and then the bugger comes and hugs me before we start. I held him so tight and he smelled of Dial House, Petulie (sic) and herbs and the memories flooded in and we did it, Do they owe us a living as we'd first done it all those years ago. As it started, so it finished"[41]. Steve's band line up for this tour consisted of Gizz Butt, Carol Hodge, Pete Wilson and Spike T. Smith. He was also joined by original Crass vocalist Eve Libertine for a number of songs.
The setlist also included a cover of West One (Shine On Me) by the Ruts and a version of "Shaved Women" where Carol Hodge was joined by Eve Libertine on vocals. The set ended with an emotionally-charged version of Bloody Revolutions during which Ignorant was joined on stage by the Norfolk based lifeboat crew with whom he now volunteers.
Crass influenced the anarchist movement in the UK, US, and around the world. With the growth of anarcho-punk came new generations of people who became interested in anarchist ideas.
The philosophical and aesthetic influence of Crass on numerous punk bands from the 1980s were far reaching, even if few bands mimicked their later more free-form musical style (as onYes Sir, I Will and their final recording, 10 Notes on a Summer's Day).
The band has stated that their musical antecedents and influences were seldom drawn from the rock music tradition, but rather from classical music (particularly Benjamin Britten, on whose work, Rimbaud states, some of Crass' riffs are directly based[42]), Dada and the avant-garde such as John Cage [43] as well as performance art traditions.
Their painted and collage-art black-and-white record sleeves produced by Gee Vaucher themselves became a signature aesthetic model, and can be seen as an influence on later artists such as Banksy (Banksy and Vaucher have latterly collaborated[44]) and the subvertising movement.
Anti-folk artist Jeffrey Lewis's 2007 album 12 Crass Songs features acoustic covers of material originally written by Crass.
In February 2011, the artist Toby Mott showed a small part of his personal collection of Crass ephemera at the Roth gallery, New York.[45][46] The exhibition featured artwork, albums, including original 12” LPs and EPs, 7” singles from Crass Records, and a complete set of Crass’ iconic house zine, Inter-National Anthem. The material featured in the exhibition spans the high period of Crass’ endeavours, from 1978 to 1984, and constitutes a special segment of The Mott Collection.
Personally for me, Crass was the exact epitome of punk, and as an anarcho-pacifist, they truly inspired to think by myself and do things by myself. Though I've been somewhat an anarchist for a few years now, I still look up to them, not only musically but more in a broad sense. They were, and still, a RESISTANCE MOVEMENT TO BE RECKONED WITH.
