Before Beanfield…

…after the battle of the Beanfield 1985.

June 1st 23 years ago.

Photos: Top - Lucille Pine / Rest of - Alan ‘Tash’ Lodge

Name: Alan Lodge
Date: 1 June 1985
Place: Wiltshire
Facts: Photographer and ambulanceman Alan Lodge was in a convoy of travellers heading for Stonehenge when 1,600 policemen violently tried to arrest them all. Dubbed the ‘Battle of the Beanfield’ in the media, it fragmented the travelling community. Although he subsequently gained a degree, Lodge has since struggled to find work

People don’t like travellers - we lower their house prices - but we hadn’t shown any violence. The police had previous, but the Stonehenge ambush was caught on camera and Dixon of Dock Green don’t do this kind of thing, so there were articles as far away as the Tehran Times.

The first free festival I went to was in the Queen’s back garden at Windsor in 1972. Basically, you’re hanging out with your mates and everyone’s smiling. That carried on until 1974, when 600 Thames Valley police waded in. I was sat round the fire with a cup of tea and suddenly - whoop! A truncheon round the head. We got the message, we were scared stiff, so the People’s Free Festival moved to Stonehenge.

I could see the way the wind was changing so I became an ambulanceman and got involved with an organisation set up to help youngsters who had got in trouble with the law. First in tents and teepees, and then on buses and trucks, people were now permanently meandering around the country. I had a cottage in Wales with my wife and two kids, and we were out and about for roughly nine months of the year.

By the 1984 festival there were 30,000 or 40,000 people at Stonehenge living in tents. Everything you look for in human exchange was there: lack of greed, co-operation, looking out for each other, breaking down mental barriers. Bartering was important. People were grateful for me being an ambulanceman: ‘Can I do your shopping? Can I look after your kids?’ Everything you think about being in a better society was there in the Anarchists’ Free State of Albion at Stonehenge.

On our way there the next year we were given papers by the police outside Salisbury stating that we’d be arrested if we went to Stonehenge because of an injunction they had taken out. We were used to this - the existence of the travelling life is an offence - but we didn’t know this meant they’d assembled 1,600 policemen on our route. The convoy stopped adjacent to the famous beanfield, well outside the five-mile radius of the court order, so I hopped out of the cab to take some pictures. Suddenly I saw this black cloud coming down the line, a load of coppers with riot shields. They went up to the motors, many with kids in, and were whacking them with their sticks. Two pregnant ladies were dragged out of the broken windscreens by their hair. The screams are with me now.

Rather than let them come our way we turned and drove through the hedge into the field by the road. For the next five hours there was a stand-off, skirmishes continued with people trying to get out of the field. I tried to liaise with senior policemen but their attitude was, ‘We’re going to arrest you all.’ I’m bandaging bleeding heads, but then there’s truncheon wounds where you can see the skull and I’m getting nervous of people dying. So we get them out on a Wiltshire ambulance.

At seven in the evening all the coppers boiled on to the field, smashing up the vehicles and arresting everyone. ITN were there and took footage of the level of violence. The operation wasn’t just about arresting people, but also part of a ‘decommissioning exercise’, hitting people so hard and ruining their homes so they’ll think twice about leading this lifestyle. Overall, 520 were arrested and spread around police stations up and down the country for three days, the biggest single number since the Second World War. Children were put temporarily in care. The charge was ‘obstruction of police’, which is one up from a parking ticket. The government was cheering on from the sidelines. Douglas Hurd said we resembled a bunch of medieval brigands.

I thought, ‘I’m a British citizen whose tribe’s been treated badly, we can go through the courts.’ We got 24 together to take an action against the police. Five years later, the jury awarded us £25,000 damages but the judge said we’ll split the £7m cost of the case in half, so our damages went towards that. Two of the jury burst into tears.

In 1986 parliament passed an act which criminalised 12 vehicles gathering on common land to reside. So we’d gather, stay up all night and have a rave instead. In 1994 Michael Howard’s act made this impossible, and then this last lot pass a law that means a traveller parked on the edge of a housing estate is involved in antisocial behaviour. So now a lot of people are shoved into the city where the community splits up, they can’t support each other and the kids have chips on their shoulders. The return to the cities hastened the use of serious drugs.

All the music downloads on the site have been deleted by persons unknown from the server.

They CAN be uploaded again, but firstly Tony Puppy will have to get to the bottom of why this has happened.

It could be that the host site have done something incredibly unethical and pulled the plug for some reason. The hosting site has not sent any emails to Tony concerning any problems or maintenace with the KYPP site over this weekend.

If the hosting company deny any knowledge then it could be a disgruntled hacker deliberately wiping of all the downloads.

Either way all my personal mp3 files ARE SAFE, just need to be reloaded, which would take some time but is do-able at least.

I am not going to reload until I know that the hosting site will not take them down, if they were responsible for the deletions in the first place.

Tony and Gerard will keep me updated with news on this matter, and I will proceed with reinserting all the mp3 files when I get told to do so.

This could take several days to get to the bottom of, so keep checking back.

Bunch of arse…

Danger To Life / State Of Being / Tank Trap / Last Victory / Flame Thrower

The Bunker / Disaster Level / Crash Barrier / Weapons Range

Born Leader

Presenting the ‘rough’ mixes of the LP ‘The Sirens Are Back’ which was recorded at Southern Studios and released on Corpus Christi Records in the latter part of 1984. These tracks are the studio recordings mixed down but without the overdubs that appeared on the finalised released product.

Alma Road’s finest, the pride of Ponders End, a built up industrial wasteland in the Lea Valley between Edmonton and Chingford, an area brilliantly photographed by B.A. Nana of nearby neighbours Crass, residing in North Weald (a much more pleasant oasis of calm, compared to the grim Ponders End). The photos are featured all over the foldout sleeve of the Crass Records 7″ single, fittingly entitled ‘Grey’.

Lack Of Knowledge were a breath of fresh air in the early 1980’s Crass clone bands of the day. This single on Crass Records is one of the most sought after by Crass label enthusiasts I am led to believe.

Always more Joy Division than Conflict, the band shared many gigs with the ‘Anarcho’ bands of the day, and played in all the major venues that the great swarms of ‘pogoing men in black’ would converge and throw insults at the band! Venues such as Wapping Autonomy Center, Centro Iberico and the band also performed at the  squatted Zig Zag Club all dayer in December 1982.

Some history already written out on the SOUTHERN.NET site:

In early ‘79, Bert left to join a real band called The Position. Real, to the extent that they actually had a singer. Bert immediately embarked upon the mission of writing their songs for them, and penned some absolute classics. If they’d put out any records at the time they’d be on everyones ‘wants’ lists today. Tony joined the band as rhythm guitarist in time to cut six tracks at ‘Front Room Studios’ in September ‘79. He was promptly sacked two months later for not showing up to a rehearsal, choosing instead to let off fireworks in the streets as it was ‘Guy Fawkes Night’. Tony and Paul got back together and then spent the next six months changing the groups name and members every other week. ‘Assorted Tools’- one gig supporting The Position. ‘Lack Of Knowledge’- one gig without a drummer but with a singer called Frank Hodgson, and another gig as a five-piece this time with John ‘Einstien’ on drums and Danny Boyce on guitar. (Danny was to tragically die within a couple of years of an accidental heroin overdose). Tony and Paul then decided to record a couple of songs to send in to the Crass label for inclusion on volume two of the compilation series, ‘Bullshit Detector’. Rather than use the LOK name, they came up with (or possibly Bernard again) the immortal ‘Trio Of Testicles’. The tracks, somehow, were over-looked.

By now, Headache had split and Dan was now looking to start a new band. He offered his vocal talents to the wandering minstrels, who nearly collapsed with shock. After all Dan was someone who’d actually made a record. It was as if Roger Daltrey had asked them to ‘maybe, get together and, you know, try out a few ideas’. The new group practised in ‘Bedsit’ studios every Saturday and wrote stacks of material straight away. Christened ‘English Assasin’ after one of the songs, they played their first gig, (inevitably, with Bert back in the drum stool), at a party in someones house. With parents away, it was obviously a great idea to get a full band to play in the front room. At least until the neighbours called the police, anyway. Still unable to find a drummer, they had to take the only sensible option left open. Simply walk up to a complete stranger and ask them if they’d be the drummer. ‘Chief’ (real name Jason Powell, although I’ve never heard anyone ever use it) was on his way to school, in traditional school uniform of blazer, tie and black bondage trousers, when asked if he could play drums. “No”. Well, what about if we a) buy a drum kit and b) you learn to play them while rehearsing with us. Easy. After managing to obtain a room at the Ponders End Youth Club, which was immediately painted entirely in white, a measly collection of equipment was installed and rehearsals took place every night, and at weekends, until Chief had learnt how to play. It took about two months. He’d gone from never having sat at a kit, to playing whole songs, properly, within a matter of weeks. A name change back to Lack Of Knowledge was decided upon, all new stuff written, and in March ‘81 they travelled miles and did their first recordings in a ‘real’ studio.

We wanted to put out a record but didn’t really like the results, so, re-recorded some of it in a place called ‘Octave Electronics’. We’d played our first gig with a stage and PA system in another youth club, and ‘Octave’ was the PA Company. They told us they had a studio in Edmonton, so it worked out great. It was also cheaper. We decided to put out a 7″ ourselves. We took a bus to the pressing plant, then three weeks later went back and brought home 500 singles on the bus. We put every single one of those bastards in the sleeves we’d had printed and then took them ’round to all the independent stores and distributors that we could find. God only knows how they sold them. We waited outside the BBC’s ‘Broadcasting House’ to give a copy to John Peel, who played it on his show. Not thinking that he’d actually really play it, we missed it. We took a copy to give to Crass at their house in the wilds of Epping Forest, and amazingly, Penny Rimbaud offered to put out our next record on the label. It took another year to get round to recording, but it was well worth the wait. By the time we did get around to the recording, Chief had left the band (he may have been sacked!), to be replaced by Philip Barker. Philip was a fan of LOK and drummer of another local band Klee; who had blagged a gig or two with us. Furious rehearsals at our new luxury complex, ‘Waller Studios’ (Dannys’ dads’ garage), and off we trooped to Southern Studios in London N22.

Paul and Tony, especially, were fans of Crass from around ‘78, when they’d heard their demo tape at Small Wonder records. Instantly hooked, they bought everything the band released, went to as many shows as they could and became friendly with them, a friendship which still lasts today. LOK only ever got to play one show with Crass, at a huge all-day squat gig on 18 December 1982 at the ‘Zig-Zag’ club in West London (after which we went and played another show that night!). The record was to be an EP, like all Crass releases, called ‘Grey’. Penny Rimbaud produced it, Andy Palmer, Crass’ guitarist, took sleeve photos, and Gee did all the artwork. We were like one of those ‘Crass Bands’. Except all the Anarcho ‘fab-erati’ at the ‘Anarchy Centre’ hated us, as we didn’t conform to what their stupid idea of ‘Anarcho-Punk’ was about. To us, it was a real record on a real label and it got in the real independent charts, and after more gigs, it was time to start thinking about ‘The Album’. In ‘82, Crass had started another offshoot label called ‘Corpus Christi’, on which bands that had made singles could release albums, and they duly offered us the chance to do one. Paul decided to leave the band during the rehearsals for this record, but said he’d stay on until after it was released. Recording again took place at Southern, this time with the band co-producing with the engineer; Mel Jefferson. Farce was descended into when Mel kept referring to bits of the songs as ‘middle eights’ and the like. Stubborn ’til the last, we refused to acknowledge these types of expressions and also pretended that we didn’t know what ‘cans’ were; ‘headphones’ was the correct un-rockist term. Mel also claimed that we were “competing with U2 and Simple Minds”. “What utter fucking drivel” was our response. By the time we’d finished, poor old Mel had had enough of us, for the time being at least. By the time ‘Sirens Are Back’ came out in 1984, we’d already been rehearsing with a new bassist, Karen; Tony’s girlfriend. She’d obviously, true to LOK form, never touched a bass guitar in her life, but nonetheless, was told to ‘fucking hurry up and learn it’. She managed to pass the initiation to LOK by not complaining after playing her first ever gig three weeks after having a baby. We also had a change of rehearsal space, this time to an annex of a disused, burnt out multi-storey car park. Crucially, it was only twenty yards from Karen’s house, and; we were able to store our equipment in her mum’s shed. Transporting it to the room was made easier by the assistance of some of the many discarded shopping carts left strewn around the estate. It wasn’t all sweetness and light, as we had to pay for the first time ever. Four quid a night.

For a complete retrospective of the ‘overdubbed’ Corpus Christi and Crass recorded works of Lack Of Knowledge get the CD entitled ‘Grey’ from Southern or Amazon.

For a listen to Lack Of Knowledge cracking debut 7″ release on the band’s own label, use the search function, and enter the band’s name.

For my dodgy Zig Zag day crowd recording of the days bands use the search function and enter Zig Zag Club Squat.

Christus Christus (The Shells Have Cracked) / Falling In The Fields Of Rape

From Broken Cross, Locusts / Raio No Terrasu (Jesus Wept) / St Peter’s Keys All Bloody 

The brain child of David Tibet, one time music biz hack**, and Psychic TV member, Current 93 (along with Steven Stapleton’s Nurse With Wound) really pushed forward the barriers for moody industrial music.

Stapleton from Nurse With Wound has been a constant member of Tibet’s Current 93 from the origins of the Current 93 collective taking shape. Other notable members include Steve Ignorant of Crass featured here on the track ‘Falling In The Fields Of Rape’, Dougie Pearce of Death In June, Rose McDowell of Strawberry Switchblade, Nick Cave, Michael Cashmore, Marc Almond and even Bjork from K.U.K.L.

This was the second vinyl LP, the first LP ‘Nature Unveiled’ I do not own, although I used to have the cassette version, and can not seem to find it in my big box of cassettes I still own! I have a feeling I may of given it to Simon Norris of Cyclobe in the mid 1980’s when we were both many years younger. At least it would have gone to a good home if that scenario is the case.

The tracks on this LP are magnificent, but slightly jarring in places, deliberately of course. Also like most early Current 93 the lyrics / poetry seem to be slightly on the Anti-Christ vibe.

David Tibet is now (strangely enough) a born again Catholic, and his record label, Durtro Records has released the two finest pieces of vinyl in my opinion for 2006 and 2007 respectively, in the majestic double LP’s ‘Black Ships Ate The Sky’ and ‘The Inmost Light’.

Both these vinyl records (or CD’s if you are younger than me) are available from the Southern Studios or Amazon websites and are totally recommended. 

** A little known fact is David Tibet coined the phrase (now a world wide genre) ‘Anarcho Punk’ in a review of a Flux Of Pink Indians and K.U.K.L gig in 1984 for the old weekly music paper, Sounds.

Pay To Cum / Attitude / Supertouch / Shitfit / I /  I and I Survive

Banned In D.C / Big Takeover / Rally Round Jah Throne / Right Brigade / Riot Squad

Fearless Vampire Killers / The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth / At The Movies / ? / ? 

A decent audience recording of this gig on the west coast of America at the old Fillmore building at this point in time called the Elite Club, and run by ‘Rat Music For Rat People’ LP person Paul Rat… Bad Brains were always a massively awesome live experience if you were lucky to catch them in the early to mid 1980’s. The quality of this tape is not as good as the previous C.B.G.B’s recorded Bad Brains post I uploaded on this site several months ago (use search function), but this is still a great sounding gig. 

Lisa Yapp Introduction + U.S DIRT Interview / Four Enclosed Walls / There’s A Hole In My Heart

Go Back (introductions and Keith Levine getting lippy with the crowd) / Happiness

A night of driving in limos to New York’s premier nightspot, to be fair P.I.L. were doing the venue a favour by replacing Bow Wow Wow who were booked to play that night, but cancelled a few days previous to the gig date.

Keith Levine thought Ed Caraballo’s idea of using the venues huge video screen with P.I.L. playing over footage was a great one, and ensured that the venue knew of this idea, so they could pass it on to any audience members buying tickets.

The Ritz did not pass this ‘performance art’ show off to the customers, with an obvious reaction brewing up to the hapless punters on the night.

First on was some pants folk band, then Lisa Yapp a presenter for DIRT a U.S. cable ‘yoof’ program introduced P.I.L. and  then part of the incredibly embarrassing Lisa Yapp’s DIRT interview with P.I.L was played out on the screen. Lisa Yapp is now high up in the C.N.N network supposedly.

With the help of a blues-man the band found in a bar a few days previously on drums (Sam Ulano), Jeanette Lee on percussion, Keith and Johnny Lydon taking the piss playing behind this large screen, the audience took direct action and decided to drag the offending piece of technology down to get a view of the band. This they did and the members of P.I.L. for the night of the 15th May run off with a large wedge of dollars.

And that was that. A little under 20 minutes for $12 (a fair amount in 1981).

Ever got the feeling youv’e been cheated?

Thanks to Stewart (Jellyfish - shown above) for getting this amazing video together.

Please be aware that Ginny the lady who filmed it lived in Balls Pond Road near Dalston at the time.

Some outside footage is included in Stewarts edit of Balls Pond Road along side the edited footage set inside of the Huntingdon Street squat, which is along Caledonian Road near Kings Cross.

So two areas of London filmed and edited to one short film.

The editing is so good that I thought I should clear this up from the start in case you feel it is ’set’ only in Ball Pond Road, Dalston, as the street signs would suggest!

Huntingdon Street squat 1979.

Author’s history:
Baron Von Zubb A.K.A Rich Kid A.K.A Jake Heretic’s parents hailed from Stepney but by the time he was born they’d left that all behind and joined the ranks of northwest London’s middle classes. Nice, this rather bored our Baron so after being expelled from school, squatting, punk rock anarchism, heroin and general delinquency as chronicled in the book, Baron went to Asia for several years. There he worked as a small time smuggler, a tailors tout, a film extra and drug dealer.
He has traveled overland to Asia 3 times, smoking opium and drinking alcohol in the Ayatollahs Iran, visited the closed area in Pakistan that is now home to enemy number one Mr. Bin Laden and spent 3 months at The King of Thailand’s pleasure in Klong Prem jail.
He’s lived for months under trees on beaches and swam in the planets cleanest jungle streams in India and Malaysia
His long suffering partner Kay and him organized and actualized a small relief project in the immediate aftermath of Sri Lankas tsunami.
They now live in Brighton, have two nieces and a nephew to keep them sane, are trying to be middle aged and eat masalla dosa weekly.
They visit Asia every winter. 

Synopsis
Here’s some extracts from the unpublished novel ‘The Joys of Work’, by Baron Von Zubb; the story of one kids journey from a nullifying suburban background to the revolutionary barricades of post Thatcherite Britain.
Via getting expelled from school, punk rock, squatting drugs, crime, autonomist politics, and the 1981 summer uprisings in Britain’s inner cities, the book chronicles an alternate history of the times. 
Written as I traveled in Asia in the mid 1980’s, it was intended to be the first in a trilogy of books, the following two postulating alternate futures, ironically thanks to global warming, based on environmental and societal collapse.
My nomadic lifestyle meant that too many copies just got lost on the way so along with the rejections of ‘The Joys of Work’. 

I called it a day.

Thanks to Mickey Penguin and all The K.Y.P.P. crew for putting this up.

Selected excerpts from the unpublished book:

pages 57 - 73 start here This link will drop you on page 57, just use the ‘next’ function to ‘turn’ the pages.

pages 157  - 172 start here This link will drop you on page 157, just use the ‘next’ function to ‘turn’ the pages.

pages 208 - 216 start here etc etc etc.

Please leave comments if you enjoy the excerpts> If you know of any publishers that may be interested in this kind of material, please get in touch

The following books are published, recommended and available:

A.K.A. Martin Wright: Anti Fascist Action street fights in London and elsewhere during the 1970’s > ISBN 094898435X

A.K.A Daniel Wright: Thieving, drug taking, homelessness in London, true account of Martin Wrights (above) deceased brother > ISBN 1871593212 

A.K.A. Bob Blood And Roses: Early punk days in Australia, thieving, drug taking, homelessness in London, true account by Bob Short (not deceased, surprising if you read it!) > ISBN 9780975825846

A.K.A. Nick from Rudimentary Peni: Semi autobiography, shyness and fragile ego, punk, depression > ISBN 0952574403

A.K.A. Sian from The Lost Cherries / Blyth Power: Squatting in Brixton, gigs, crusties, lost loves, Tinsel and even Mickey Penguin is mentioned in this book > ISBN 1412026814

The Apostles - Erics Detachables / Skin Deep / Fucking Queer / Proletarian Autonomy / Pigs For Slaughter / Alienation

The Mob - Cry Of The Morning / Gates Of Hell / Raised In A Prison / Dance On You Fool / Our Life Our World / Witch Hunt / Slayed

Originally this material was released on cassette by Larry Peterson’s Cause For Concern label in 1983. Larry decided to put this cassette onto a vinyl format in a very small quantity in 1985.

Featuring The Apostles and The Mob, this audience quality recording is pretty good. The sets by the bands are performed quite well. 

The gig itself was infamous for the sound guy on the night J.C. from Brougham Road Co-Op / squats, turning down Andy Martin, from The Apostles, vocal microphone during the song ‘Pigs For Slaughter’, a song dedicated to Ian S on the night, and a tribute to Ian’s fanzine at the time of the same name. J.C. claimed he did not want (what he considered) the ‘violent’ lyrics to this track going through his ‘Pacifist P.A’. The microphone was kept low in the live mix for the remainder of The Apostles set.

The Apostles on the night did not perform their full set, cutting a couple of tracks out of the set list, due to (what Andy Martin considered) ‘the hall being filled with an unappreciative audience and pacifist hippie tramps’. This incident was recorded via the artwork on the debut 7″ single by The Apostles released later on in 1983.

The Mob’s set was performed without incident.

The Apostles Official Site

The Mob Official Site

Zerox

Whip In My Valise

Adam and his Antz second 7″ single, recorded by the second Antz line up comprising the musicians that recorded the ‘Dirk Wears White Socks’ LP.

In 1980 this line up also infamously, had Malcolm McClaren (the then manager of the band) get the adorable and dreamy (I am allowed to say that cos I was a year younger than her at 13/14 in 1980) 15 year old Annabella Lwin to join up on vocals to become Bow Wow Wow, leaving Adam on his Jack Jones.

Quite a coup, still Adam got the last laugh becoming a huge world wide star with a completely different band.

Both the new Adam And The Ants (note different spelling now) and Bow Wow Wow had a very similar sound, performed in similar venues, and on similar TV and Radio sessions, and I am still quite amazed to this day that Bow Wow Wow did not overshadow the new Adam And The Ants in world wide popularity in 1980-1981. 

Adam and his new Ants released the ‘Kings Of The Wild Frontier’ LP, which is a mighty fine listen. Bow Wow Wow released their first LP/EP release on cassette only format. That format did not qualify as a single in the charts, nor ironically an LP, the fact that there was no LP format meant a lot less sales. Bow Wow Wow lost ground on Adam And The Ants from that point on and were lapped several times before Bow Wow Wow released a proper vinyl LP (plus cassette version) in 1981. 

Maybe I should not be so amazed…McClaren and E.M.I. bodging it up again. 

Loads more Antz material uploaded, use the search function.