In this revealing history, author, historian, and musician Ian Glasper explores in minute detail the influential and esoteric UK anarcho-punk scene of the early 1980s. Where some of the colorful punk bands from the first half of the decade were loud, political, and uncompromising, their anarcho-punk counterparts were even more so, totally prepared to risk their liberty to communicate the ideals they believed in so passionately. With Crass and Poison Girls opening the floodgates, the arrival of bands such as Amebix, Chumbawamba, Flux of Pink Indians, and Zounds heralded a new age of honesty and integrity in underground music. New, exclusive interviews and hundreds of previously unreleased photographs document the impact of all of the scene’s biggest names—and a fair few of the smaller ones—highlighting how anarcho-punk took the rebellion inherent in punk from the very beginning to a whole new level of personal awareness. "This book is a must have item for anyone who has even a passing interest in the Anarcho-Punk scene, but I can also see this appealing to anyone who enjoys any form of confrontational music or sonic art." —Roger Batty, musiquemachine.com Ian Glasper is a writer, the founder of the now-defunct Blackfish Records, which released 20 punk, hardcore, and metalcore albums, and a member of many DIY punk bands. He is the author of Armed with Anger and Trapped in a Scene: UK Hardcore 1985–1989 . The Day the Country Died A History of Anarcho Punk 1980-1984 By Ian Glasper PM Press Copyright © 2014 PM Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-60486-516-5 Contents DISCLAIMER, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, INTRODUCTION The Day the Country Died, CHAPTER ONE North & Northeast London, CHAPTER TWO South & Southeast London, CHAPTER THREE South & Southwest England, CHAPTER FOUR Wales, CHAPTER FIVE Central & Eastern England, CHAPTER SIX Northwest England, CHAPTER SEVEN Northeast England, CHAPTER EIGHT Ireland, CHAPTER NINE Scotland, APPENDICES, LABEL DISCOGRAPHIES, WEBSITES, ADDITIONAL PHOTOS, CHAPTER 1 There's a strong argument for the two most influential punk bands of all time being the Sex Pistols and CRASS; the former encouraged bored teenagers everywhere to get off their arses and start their own bands, the latter encouraged them to think for themselves. Of the two bands, however, the shadow cast by Crass is certainly the one with the most substance; they gave the ephemeral rebellion hinted at by the Pistols specific shape and purpose, and a thousand anarcho-punk bands set sail in their wake. And these bands weren't thrashing against any imaginary opponent conjured by the paranoia of youth ... no, they set themselves very real targets and clearly defined – if a little ambitious – objectives. They weren't interested in sensationalist, unworkable notions of anarchy and chaos, they wanted a gradual revolution from within; they wanted anarchy, peace and freedom. The shock tactics of punk had been usurped, given an articulate intellectual make-over, and were now being put to sound social use. "Well, I don't think that we were leaders of any movement," says drummer Penny Rimbaud (real name Jerry Ratter) modestly, "although we may have helped inspire one. And we ourselves were inspired by some of the earliest punk bands, but what we aspired to do was what they only pretended to do. Commercial punk was a complete sham, part of the whole rock'n'roll circus, operating in the same way as someone like Marc Bolan – which is not to denigrate it as such ... after all, music is an industry; it produces product and people enjoy product. But to imagine that the first wave of punk related in any real way to what followed is quite inaccurate, and it was basically finished by late '77. "And that particular element of rock'n'roll that was called 'punk' would have died a natural death, and the next phase, be it goth or whatever, would have been invented by the music business. It would've required its main characters, of course, but would have just continued along the same line that rock'n'roll has always continued along for many, many years. "We sort of tail-ended that first wave," he adds, of Crass themselves. "We were playing through '77, playing a lot with bands like the [UK] Subs, for example, and being talked about in the same breath. We didn't see any great disconnection really, but we actually wanted to put into action what had never been the intention of those earliest punk bands. We picked up their pretensions and tried to make them real. We came in with their energy, but also a great deal of political sincerity, and it was the political sincerity that attracted and created a movement. You could never have created a 'movement' out of something as banal as punk rock. "I mean, they were playing a Clash record on the radio earlier on today, and it struck me that you couldn't really tell the difference between that now and the Rolling Stones. It was just rock'n'roll at the end of the day,