Crass - Demos 1977-79 (2007)

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Crass formed in 1977, based around Dial House, an anarchist community near Epping, Essex, in England. They were progenitors of a militant anarcho-pacifism that became pervasive in the punk music scene (see also anarcho-punk). Whereas the Sex Pistols' anarchism seemed to be a self-consciously nihilistic prank, Crass's anarchism was more directly linked to the libertarian socialist or communalistic varieties of 20th century political thought. Taking literally the punk manifesto of "anyone can do it", they combined the use of song, film, sound collage, graphics and subversion to launch a sustained and innovative critical broadside against all that they saw as a culture built on foundations of war, violence, religious hypocrisy and blind consumerism.

Crass, originally thus named as a reference to David Bowie's song "Ziggy Stardust" (specifically the line "The kids was just crass"), came together when Dial House founder and former member of avant garde performance art group EXIT Penny Rimbaud (real name Jerry Ratter) began jamming with Clash fan Steve Ignorant who was staying at the house at the time. Between them they put together the songs "So What?" and "Do They Owe Us A Living?" as a drums and vocals duo. Other members of the household began to come onboard, and it was not long before Crass performed their first live gig as part of a squatted street festival at Huntley Street, North London. Shortly afterwards they played at the legendary Roxy punk club in London's Covent Garden area. By the bands' own account this was a drunken debacle, ending in the group being ejected from the stage, and immortalised by their song "Banned from the Roxy" and Rimbaud's essay Crass at the Roxy.

After this the band decided to take themselves more seriously, especially paying more attention to their presentation. As well as deciding to avoid drugs such as alcohol or cannabis before gigs, they also adopted a policy of wearing black clothes at all times, whether on or off stage. They also introduced their distinctive stage backdrop, a logo designed by Rimbaud's friend Dave King, as seen on the sleeve of The Feeding Of The 5000. This gave them a militaristic image, which led some to accuse them of fascism. However Crass explained that their uniform appearance was intended to be a statement against the 'cult of the personality', so that, in contrast to what was the norm for many rock bands, no member would be identified as the group 'leader.

The logo represented an amalgamation of several 'icons of authority' including the Christian Cross, the swastika and the Union Jack combined with a two headed snake consuming itself (symbolising the idea that power will eventually destroy itself). Using such deliberately 'mixed messages' were also 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 were in part a reference to their own Dadaist and performance art backgrounds.

Crass' first release was in 1978 on the Small Wonder label. This was an 18 track 12" 45rpm EP entitled The Feeding Of The 5000. However the group encountered problems when workers at the pressing plant contracted to manufacture the disc refused to handle it due to the allegedly blasphemous content of the song "Reality Asylum". The record was eventually released with this track removed and replaced by two minutes of silence, wryly retitled "The Sound Of Free Speech". This incident also prompted Crass to set up their own record label in order to retain full editorial control over their material, and "Reality Asylum" was shortly afterwards issued in a re-recorded and extended form as a 7" single (NB. A later repress of The Feeding Of The 5000 on Crass records restored the missing track).

As well as releasing their own material, Crass were able to use Crass Records to make available recordings by other performers, the first of which was the 1980 single "You Can Be You" by Honey Bane, a teenage girl who at the time was staying at Dial House whilst on the run from a children's home. Others who recorded for the label included Zounds, Flux Of Pink Indians, Conflict, Icelandic band KUKL (who included singer Björk), classical singer Jane Gregory, and the Poison Girls, a like-minded band who worked closely with Crass for several years. They also put out three editions of Bullshit Detector, compilations of demos and rough recordings that had been sent to the band 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 somewhat testosterone-driven, 'hardcore punk' image that Feeding of the 5000 and it's follow up Stations of the Crass had to some extent given the group, for it featured more obviously complex musical arrangements, as well as exclusively female vocals provided by Eve 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. One track, a deliberately sacharine parody of an 'MOR' love song entitled "Our Wedding", was given away as a flexi disk with a teenage girl's romance magazine after having been offered it by an organisation calling itself Creative Recording And Sound Services (note the initials). A minor tabloid furore erupted once the hoax was revealed, with the News of the World going so far as to state that the album's title was too obscene to print.

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 been fought. This caused Crass to fundamentally question their approach to making records, for as a group who's very reason for existing was to comment upon political issues, 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.

From their earliest days of spraying stencilled graffiti around the London Underground network, the band had always been involved in Direct Action as well as musical activities. In 1983 and 1984 they were part of the Stop The City actions that can be seen as fore-runners of the early twenty first century Anti-Globalisation protests. 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 abandoning their long time 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. 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.

Crass all but retired from the public eye after becoming a particularly irritating thorn in the side of Mrs. Thatcher's Government following the Falklands War. Questions in Parliament led to a round of court battles and harassment that finally took its toll. On July 7th 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.

Steve Ignorant went on to join the band Conflict, with whom had already worked on an ad hoc basis, and in 1992 formed Schwartzeneggar (sic).

The philosophical and aesthetic influence of Crass on numerous punk bands from the 1980s cannot be overstated, even if few bands mimicked their later more free-form musical style, as evidenced on the album Yes Sir, I Will, and their final recording, 10 Notes on a Summer's Day. For the band's part, they have stated that their musical antecedents and influences were seldom drawn from the rock music tradition, but rather from classical music (particularly Benjamin Britten, from who, Rimbaud states, some of Crass' riffs are direct plagiarisms!), dada and the avant-garde such as John Cage 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.

In November 2002 several former members of Crass collaborated under the name of 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". In October 2003 The Crass Collective changed their working title to Crass Agenda, and continue to perform on a regular basis at the Vortex Jazz Club in Stoke Newington, North London.

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