Chumbawamba / KUKL – Manchester International – 27/08/84

Chumbawumba

KUKL

Many thanks to Martin Flux for the lend of this excellent cassette uploaded today. No doubt a Flux Of Pink Indians and D & V cassette from this gig will appear at some time from Martin as those bands also performed.

Loads more rare Chumbawumba and KUKL material uploaded on this site if you care to use the search function. Text below ripped from kipuka.net/chumba/history/show

“Suspended above the courtyard of the Pompidou Centre in Paris is the Genitron, an electric sign-clock flashing the number of seconds left in the twentieth century. Inaugurated in January 1987 by Francois Mitterand, the Genitron is a time machine that conducts its relentless countdown over the heads of the international fauna of Les Halles, the hustlers, punks, dealers, con men, mystics, musicians, strong-men, fire-eaters, rappers, breakers, addicts, sidewalk artists and sidewalk dwellers who seem already to represent the spectres of the apocalypse.” – Elaine Showalter, from “Sexual Anarchy – Gender and Culture At The Fin de Siecle” (1990)

 

FIVE OR SIX YEARS before the countdown began and Chumbawamba is being born out of that beautiful mess of street performers. Chumbawamba is the trio in the corner busking Clash and Gene Vincent songs on acoustic guitars – fired by punk logic, punk as change, hanging about in Paris during that knife-edge decision-time when rebellion turns into either part of your growing up or part of your life. Politics or “attitude” to come into it sooner or later.

 

Back a bit further. Legal Aid and Optical Illusion are the drummer and singer in a Barnsley punk band. Legal’s granddad is taking a Polaroid. They’re called `The Threat’ and their music starts and ends this record; the photograph becomes it’s cover. Later they’ll change their names to Harry & Mave and meet up with the others in Leeds, and end up living in a huge squatted Victorian house making pop (I mean POP) records.

 

Alice Nutter, art school drop-out, is playing drums badly in a group called `Ow My Hair’s On Fire’. Lou Watts operating computers for Burnley Building Society, Dunstan singing Velvet Underground cover versions in a Billingham group `Men In A Suitcase’. Teams that meet in cafes… and in the background, a woman Prime Minister running her own War in the South Atlantic, kills, maims, parades and gloats for half of 1982. England is dreaming alright: and somebody has to shout about the nightmare even if they are to be damned into obscurity for their pains. Usher in the Never-Has-Beens!

 

LONG BEFORE Chumbawamba release any records of their own, they pull off a successful guerilla attack which results in their first appearance on vinyl. In response to Garry Bushell’s inane patronage of Oi Punk (before Gary wrote for The Sun, he practiced his homophobic brand of tabloid sensationalism in music weekly `Sounds’), Chumbawamba fabricate a completely bogus Oi band called `Skin Disease’, complete with press pack and four-track demo cassette. Some few weeks later and Bushell lists Skin Disease as “Burnley’s premier Oi band”, and letters appear in Sounds lumping Skin Disease in with “other Northern Oi bands”, as proof of that “good Oi music is not exclusively a London phenomenon.” All this despite the fact that the “band” never actually exist. Eventually Bushell invites the band to appear on an Oi compilation single. Playing the role of Northern oiks, Skin Disease travel to London to record a special-written song called “I’m Think”, a bog-standard punky thrash with the words “I’m Thick” repeated sixty-four times. It appears on the single “Back On The Streets”.

 

Meanwhile, back to the twentieth century countdown. The first Chumbawamba demo tape is recorded in Hulme, Manchester, a few days after the band’s first gig in January 1982. A snippet of it ends up on a Crass compilation album “Bullshit Detector 2”, alongside a song about nuclear war by Barnsley band Passion Killers. Passion Killers are what became of The Threat. (As in, “1, 2, 3, 4, Let’s Go!”). The two bands meet. Small-town punks in Leeds, with a desire to rise above the mundane, to avoid a lifetime career at the Building Society or down the pit at Barnsley Main… sidestepping the alternative of college education. But instead of just escaping those roots, it becomes more and more important as the eighties progress to take them along, to re-write the endings of the Hollywood teenage rites-of-passage movies, to balance the fine line between everyday boredom and rock n roll’s petulant ignorance of real life; and to have fun doing it. Growing up to a soundtrack of punky, alienated noise – religiously watching The Fall, Wire, ATV, Clash – turns everything after it into a choice between safety – with all it’s inbuilt insecurities and emotional cancers – and challenge. Change or go under. The bad ship Chumbawamba sets sail.

 

“Chumbawamba: the message is more important than the music.” – Full extent of first ever live review, New Musical Express.

 

AT THIS POINT CHUMBAWAMBA are fast becoming unmovable flag-burning pacifists, a reaction against Thatcher’s election campaign involving nuclear stockpiling and stepping over dead bodies in the Falklands. This is the decadent 60’s and 70’s hangover, the Pistols’ “No Future” etched across a Boy George mirror. In the early eighties the choice seems straightforward – Brit-pop as complete escapism (Lady Margaret’s “Me, me, me” culture) or the sub-culture of resistance that is burrowing it’s way from underground. Chumbawamba play gigs at peace camps, turning up at demonstrations and rallies like they’re going out of fashion. (Which they are). The band’s home is raided twice in under a year by ten burly drugs squad officers who ask, “You lot them Socialist Worker types, right?”. No wonder the likes of the Guildford Four got banged up for fifteen years with authorities like this on the case.

 

The entries on the Special Branch files get longer. Raids, obstruction, breaches of the peace, even “theft by housebreaking” – twenty-six hours in the custody of the Strathclyde police in December 1983 charged with “removal of dogs, mice and files” from a research bucket load; for single parents, local hospital closure campaigns, hunt saboteurs, the ALF, anti-Sizewell campaign, nurseries. Nine people, three cats and a dog living under one roof, fledging anarchist politics mixed with too-hefty doses of idealism and organic vegetables. The dog, Derek, appears on a couple of the early records and includes in his CV the greatest accolade bestowed upon a canine: that of biting members of the police force (forcing one to have hospital treatment).

 

TWO EVENTS WHICH RE-ROUTE the agit-pop politics of Chumbawamba, both from 1984. Firstly, the Brighton Bomb. Half the Cabinet covered in rubble, and suddenly political violence – of the type which defeated Hitler, freed Mandela, ended slavery, and overthrew the state communist dictatorships – blows a hole in the pacifist edge to the band’s polemic. Secondly, and more importantly, the beginning of the great Miners’ Strike. From early on, the Armley (Leeds) Miners Support group is twinned with Frickley pit in South Elmsall – Armley Socialist Workers make the connections and Chumbawamba supply the van and the street collections on Saturday mornings. The band mix playing benefit gigs for the miners with traveling down to the picket lines at five and six o’clock in the morning. And during this bitter winter some of Chumbawamba join a theatre group who travel from village to village putting on a Christmas pantomime for miner’s kids, down to South Wales and around Yorkshire. Coming from places like Barnsley and Burnley in times when the coal mines were part of the very fabric of these towns, it doesn’t take much effort to know which side of the fence you ought to be standing on; the band makes and sells a fast-selling three-track cassette for the Miners’ Hardship Fund, and Sounds writes:

 

“The Chumbas, as they are affectionately known, are refreshing and genuine pop anarchists. And no, they won’t go away…” (December 1994)

 

“What we’re given is any old rubbish that won’t upset the apple cart. The only choice we seem to be left with it to play the part of the bad apple.” – from Chumbawamba’s first single sleeve notes

 

ON JUNE 1ST, 1985, Chumbawamba are recording their first single “Revolution”, whilst at the same time the Travelers’ Convoy is being attacked and wrecked in a beanfield adjacent to Stonehenge. Cracked heads, massive publicity, and the start of an era of political change: when the marginal’s begin to come out from the underground.

 

The Clash, hastily re-formed in new street-cred guide with Joe Strummer passing round the music business hat to pay for his cocaine habit, play rebel chic outside Leeds University. Danbert Nobacon arms himself with a hydraulic-action paint-gun and splatters band and audience before legging it. This is Chumbawamba discovering their real talent: refuting the idea that rock n roll is some huge back-slapping family business where everyone “pulls together”. Putting spanners in their own works, pigheadedly refusing to lie down and become another servile record business lap-dog.

 

THE HOUSE IS RAIDED AGAIN, this time with sledgehammers. They’re looking for “explosives and bomb-making equipment”. Everyone is hauled down to the station, questioned relentlessly, kept separately, diaries and books confiscated – huge plastic bagfuls of pamphlets, posters, even song lyrics… twenty-three hours in a Leeds copshop. Meanwhile, the first single sells out.

 

“We haven’t got a master plan – we react to things as they come along. As Anarchists we live with the contradictions that socialism doesn’t allow.” – From an interview with Melody Maker, Dec 1986

 

Chumbawamba mocks up as an April Fool’s SDP/Liberal Alliance pop group, calls itself The Middle, and records three tracks for a spoof demo. The Libs love it. Mike Harskin at the Liberal Whips Office in the House of Commons writes to invite the band to play at MP David Owen’s birthday party at Stringfellow’s in London; Chumbawamba are busy playing their own gigs. The single “Smash Clause 28” attacks the government homophobia pushing through a law which, amongst other things, demands the teaching of hetro-only family values in schools. This single is received as “unwashed ghetto grumbling… rock n roll won’t even notice” by Sounds magazine. (Shortly after, few people notice the demise of Sounds.) “Smash Clause 28” is the first of several recorded attacks on homophobia by the band, and significantly it isn’t until 1994’s “Homophobia” that the issue becomes “acceptable” enough to make it into the pop industry’s frame of vision, along with active anti-fascism (as opposed to a general nod in the direction of anti-racism) and anti-sexism. This year’s thing, last year’s thing, next year’s thing.

 

IN THE SUMMER OF 1985 Live Aid gives Sir Bob Geldof an excuse to get pissed and shout “fucking give, you bastards!” on live TV. Everyone waits to see if they’ll exhume John Lennon’s body and sit it in front of a white piano. Showbiz razzamatazz and displays of public generosity before McCartney sings “Let It Be”. Let what be? Have a party, celebrate decadence, and send a few bob to Africa? The £80 million raised amounts to a little more than half Michael Jackson’s personal fortune, or about what the world spends on arms every two hours forty minutes. And not one of those has-beens up there on the global pulpit ever mentions why there’s a famine in the first place – no-one asks who rubs off the African crops and gives only MacCoke culture in return. Band Aid: a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. Revive those flagging careers! And U2 get their first taste of stadium rock…

 

Chumbawamba’s response is an LP catchily titled “Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records; Starvation, Charity and Rock n Roll – Lies and Traditions”. Which says it all, really. On the home front, Chumbawamba get involved in mass pickets both locally, at the Silentnight factory in Barnoldswick, and nationally, outside Fortress Wapping in London, where Rupert Murdoch mixes upgrading production of The Sun and The Times with all-out attacks on unions. Bundles of newspapers sitting outside newspaper shops across Britain are repeatedly stolen and burnt, and several nights in Wapping end in a celebratory and almost ritual battle between cops protecting newspaper lorries and thousands of pickets and supporters. The band plays benefits for both sets of strikers in addition to gigs for Gay Switchboard, Prisoner’s Support group, Leeds Bust Fund and even an Anti-Freemasons concert in Keswick which has to switch venues twice due to local Masonic council threats. Chumbawamba are described in the Keswick press as “the worst of the American satanic backwards message bands”. And a gig with arch-punks Conflict at Leeds University ends in a mini-riot, missiles and riot cops and running battles… and Chumbawamba earn a lifetime ban from the University.

 

Late 1986 and Chumbawamba link up with Dutch band The Ex for a gig-to-gig relationship which is to last several years. Anarchists, squatters, and die-hard musical experimentalists, The Ex introduce Chumbawamba to demonstrations, Amsterdam-style; in a protest against NATO warships being stationed in the harbour, thousand of people create a huge party on the shores with bands playing on warehouse roof-tops and people already in crash helmets and with scarves across their faces. The Dutch riot police repeatedly charge the crowd, there’s a scream, and it’s an English accent. Alice Nutter is caught in the panic and has a broken leg. She completes the tour sitting on stage on a stool with her leg in plaster.

 

“All good clean fun, and ultimately harmless” – Chumbawamba live review, Birmingham Mermaid 1987

 

THE “SCAB AID” SINGLE, released under the name “The Scum” in 1987, attacks The Sun newspaper’s hypocrisy and jingoism by parodying that paper’s charity single “Let It Be” – where a host of pop’s grieying publicity-fetishists (McCartney, Boy George, etc) sing to raise money for people involved in a ferry disaster. The single, a spoken-word n’ piano piece narrated by long-standing Chumbawamba sidekick Simon Lanzon (later of Credit To The Nation) makes NME’s single of the week and sells out before anyone realizes it’s Chumbawamba. The Sun describes the record as “sick!”. And what more accolades could it get from a paper which described the drowning of hundreds of Argentine soldiers aboard ship in 1982 with the headline “Gotcha!”?

 

“NEVER MIND THE BALLOTS… Here’s The Rest of Your Life”. Another Thatcher election victory and another round of red-faced Labour politicians shifting further to the right. The Labour Party, sitting on the fence so long it can’t work out which side it’s supposed to be on. Scared to challenge the status quo, wooing big business, turning a blind eye to sexual politicsm to the dismantling of the Unions, to Ireland. For some of Chumbawamba, a few days in Belfast to see a little of what’s going on there. Saturday night chucking-out time, blacked-up squaddies creeping through peoples’ front gardens, in armoured cars in daylight asking questions, taking detail at sub-machine gunpoint. And the British media’s propaganda warfare, relentless in it’s blanket-censoring thoroughness… you can sing “Free Nelson Mandela” until the cows come home, but sing a song about Bobby Sands and see what reaction you get.

30 comments
  1. chris
    chris
    June 28, 2009 at 7:47 pm

    “you can sing “Free Nelson Mandela” until the cows come home, but sing a song about Bobby Sands and see what reaction you get”

    hmmm…an EMI record deal perhaps?

    Never liked Chumbawamba. Their music or their sancimonious weasely faces.

    Some pertinent points regarding some of the credibility-chasing posturings and ‘inconsistiencies’ of them and the anarcho-punk scene in general were raised in a thread a while back on the generally moribund Crass forum:

    http://www.southern.com/southern/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=6507

  2. andus
    andus
    June 28, 2009 at 8:48 pm

    Most of those bands were Hypocrites mate. I remember a Conflict gig in Leeds in 86, there was a mini riot afterwards, Weeks later Conflict were dishing out a leaflet about it, Slagging off the people who did not take part for standing around spectating, I was one of the spectators, So were Conflict, spectating from the safety of the University from the upper floor window.

    Chumbawamba signed to EMI, nuff said

  3. D.F.
    D.F.
    June 29, 2009 at 5:18 am

    Chumbawamba may have signed to EMI, but they continued to make music that was great, the way they wanted to make it (they still recorded at Woodlands, the same studio as all their other material) and donated much of the money they earned.

    While Conflict were notorious for starting riots they didn’t stick around for, making benefit comps for organizations that never see the money; it seems the only criticisms lobbed at the Chumbas are that they have “sanctimonious, weasly faces.” and that they’re sellouts for being on EMI. They signed to EMI for a laugh, so did the Pistols, except Chumbawamba did respectable things with their money and stuck to their guns (in fact, they’re still sticking http://www.chumba.com) on the political front.

    I have little bad to say about this band. Excited to hear this post. Penguin, who wrote that article? It’s very in depth! The site you quote it from isn’t even up and running yet it seems.

  4. D.F.
    D.F.
    June 29, 2009 at 6:03 am

    Having perused the Southern forum you posted Chris, I don’t see much damning information about Chumbawamba other than they were anti-EMI and signed to EMI. I believe even on another Chumba post on this very site (a livetape in the post 86 section.) Boff posts and talks about their motivations for going on EMI. They have also said, again and again when faced with the “once you were on a FUCK EMI comp” argument; by the time they signed, EMI no longer had arms holdings, it was just a big, stupid multinational corporation.

    I think Chumba get it way harder than other bands because of the decidedly unpunk direction of their later material as well….that said, Tubthumper is a great album, all their output is pretty damn good.

  5. andus
    andus
    June 29, 2009 at 8:25 am

    Chumbawamba never came across as sactimonous to me, Alice Nutter used to appear on a late night chat show ( can’t remember what it was called ) here in the Midlands, she certainly did not come across as sactimonous to me.
    I read Boff’s post on this site, But I was still left pissed off that they did that business with EMI, although I certainly would not condemn them for it like some others would do,But sadly its doesn’t matter what angle you look at it from, its still hypocrisy.

  6. undeleted
    undeleted
    June 29, 2009 at 9:44 pm

    Bit unfair there Chris. Being po-faced and sanctimonious was a way of life back in the day mate, but I don’t really think you could ever accuse the Chumbas of that, they were/are very genuine, down-to-earth people – I’ve known them for about 25 years, on and off by the way.

    As I recall, they were distributed in Germany by EMI, developed a relationship and ended up signing because they were offered loads of money and loads of artistic control – both of which they used to successfully promote viewpoints that many of us on here would have a lot empathy with. What’s the problem?

    You’ll be telling us that Crass shouldn’t be on Facebook next.

    I saw a few dates on this tour so I’m looking forward to DLing this stuff when I get my bastard fucking laptop repaired .. Nice pix too. Thanks Puppies, great resource you have here.

  7. Chris
    Chris
    June 30, 2009 at 2:06 am

    Perhaps you misunderstand me. I’ve certainly nothing against any bands who sign to majors. Far from it, i’ve ben on a major label and if i’d ever been offered a deal from EMI i’d have leapt at the chance. The difference being I’ve never claimed otherwise.

    However, I don’t think anyone on the planet, even the members of the band, can say having recorded a record called “Fuck EMI” (slagging off, if I remember correctly NMA for signing, along with chucking paint at The Clash for being ‘sell-outs’ or something) isn’t a quite peerless act of hypocracy!

    Around the time I sort of moved away from the punk scene in around 1983 / 84 Chumbawamba were most certainly championed as ‘the new Crass’ and part of this ‘selling point’ was very much their humourless, dogmatic and outwardly monastic image.

    It may well be the case that (like many other acts of that time) this was just a pose and an affected image. I didn’t know them after all. But that is very certainly how they came across at the time.

    Not that it really matters anyway. I shouldn’t have bothered with my original post. It’s just music at the end of the day. Peace 🙂

  8. Nic
    Nic
    June 30, 2009 at 9:23 am

    It may be valid to note that Chumbawamba could sometimes appear as ‘dour’ or ‘humourless’ when in their “public persona” (ie as a band). However, it’s worth qualifying that perception by appreciating that the group were probably utilising any publicity as a vehicle to express an opinion (by being focused and ‘serious’ rather than spending the time demonstrating that you have a sense of humour), and their record of ‘pranks’ would seem to further belie this notion…

    It’s also somewhat misguided to attribute blame to a group when certain sections of the people who listen to them go off on a tangent (which, incidentally, seems to happen with somewhat depressing regularity on threads across the KYPP site)…

    The group were certainly committed to their beliefs rather than undertaking “credibility-chasing posturing” (as the article Penguin posted above illustrates). For one thing, they consistently wrote songs about current events and issues: were there many (if any) tracks from the so-called ‘Rave culture’ (or any of the other musical ‘scenes’ at the time) which made vocal opposition to Clause 28?

    On a personal level, I was rather bemused by the EMI thing. While I can understand the bands argument (primarily that EMI had ceased to be involved in the arms industry) and appreciate the “poison in the machine” concept, it does strike a somewhat jarring chord when placed in the context of the bands previous activities. EMI were / are still a multinational corporation which doesn’t exactly sit easily with a group who had placed some considerable focus on criticism of multinational corporations (through the ‘Dirty Fingers in Dirty Pies’ booklet, and so on)…which raises another interesting question related to notions of “hypocrisy”: is it possible for someone to re-examine their position and to change their mind?

    Chumbawamba’s music was interesting precisely because it didn’t conform to (received) notions of how an ‘anarchist’ band should sound back in 1983 and 1984. The emphasis on melody, singing in harmony, and so on set them apart at the time, and aligned well with the presentation of the group (from the
    ‘personal’ feel of their booklets to the theatrical qualities of their live concerts)… ‘Unfortunately Chris it’s not “just music at the end of the day” as both Hitler and Stalin knew full well…
    On a personal level, I found that sustained exposure to the group’s music wasn’t for me, but this was for subjective musical reasons rather than anything else…

  9. Chris
    Chris
    June 30, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    NIC: “were there many (if any) tracks from the so-called ‘Rave culture’ (or any of the other musical ’scenes’ at the time) which made vocal opposition to Clause 28?”

    Nic, that is a non-argument. As you know, the origins of the ‘Rave Scene’ is the House scene which derived from near-exclusively gay DJs, producers and club nights. Quid pro quo, opposition to ‘Clause 28’ was basically a ‘given’ just as, the majority of pioneering house/techno DJs/producers (even in the UK) being black, opposition to racism was.

    NIC: “Unfortunately Chris it’s not “just music at the end of the day” as both Hitler and Stalin knew full well…”

    Hmmm…I wouldn’t quite endow crap student-union drinking anthem ‘tubthumping’ with the same gravitas as Leni Riefenstahl’s Vagnerian scores or the massed Red Army Choirs. Sometimes, mate, songs are just songs, or to paraphrase Derrida; ‘true meaning is in how it is received’.

    🙂

  10. andus
    andus
    June 30, 2009 at 5:28 pm

    Oh God, I think NIC was referring to Hitler’s and Stalin’s opposition to certain types music and media, not their use of it. The fiddle was banned in this country during I think the medieval or post medieval age because those folk singers became so good at stirring up discontent.

  11. alistairliv
    alistairliv
    June 30, 2009 at 7:07 pm

    The bagpipes were banned in Scotland after the battle of Culloden in 1746. Then some idiot Jacobite went and got them unbanned.

  12. Chris
    Chris
    July 1, 2009 at 1:13 am

    Andus. yes, my apologies for the misinterpretation. However, Nic, with respect, Chumbawamba weren’t a bossa nova group in early 60s Brazil. Whilst their biog pasted above may give the impression of them being responsible for everything from the the abolition of slavery to the defeat of the poll tax I don’t really see how even their most ardent supporters could compare them to any musicians through the ages who genuinely have suffered under totalitarian regimes.

  13. dan i
    dan i
    July 2, 2009 at 9:56 pm

    Chumbawumba brought a bit of melody to the game, which was much needed by then. How many converts can you win if nobody understands a word you say (or shout). Chumbawumba addressed this fatal problem in the scene. They also didn’t deny their musicality – their English Folk Songs album is a real winner.

    While listening to the whole of Never Mind The Ballots would be a bit of an ordeal, the Chumbas gigs I saw were always chaotic, fun and brilliant. Especially fond memories of the Venue in New Cross with Thatcher On Acid.

    As for the EMI thing, I thought it was brilliant that one of ‘our’ bands could get it together to break into the charts, a bit like the KLF did. Plenty of artists have dallied with majors at different times, but at the end of the day it’s mainly about distribution (or was). I am very happy that Tubthumping sits alongside Take That on CD shelves all over – nice one Chumbas! Surely they have explained this one now and maybe the next time Chumbas come up, we won’t hear the cries of sell out?

  14. D.F.
    D.F.
    July 3, 2009 at 1:58 am

    Wishful thinking I would say Dan-I. Sadly, people love to talk shit.

  15. Nic
    Nic
    July 3, 2009 at 9:50 am

    Are people talking ‘shit’ when a group of people who spent a considerable number of years criticising a structure (in this case, multinationals in all their forms) then enter into a partnership and contract with the aforementioned structure?
    I can understand why some people might view this as hypocrisy…

    I’d probably take Take That over Chumbawamba: in terms of “musicality”, they have better tunes and better singing…
    😉

  16. Chris
    Chris
    July 3, 2009 at 1:09 pm

    Thank you Nic. My sentiments exactly. And give me Take That’s music any day too. Got some friends who went to see them recently and said they were amazing live.

    But to return to the topic, If it isn’t hypocricy I don’t really see what else it could be? Volte face? They suddenly decided multi-nationals aren’t that bad after all? And, incidentally, that bit about “EMI had ceased to be involved in the arms industry” is a tad disingenuous to say the least, as either indymedia or schnews blew out of the water.

    Fact is, I wouldn’t mind in the slightest if they were just honest about it. I’ve no reservation about saying 99.9% of the stuff I wrote on record covers of ‘credible’ anarcho (yuk!) punk bands I was in was no more than an adolescent pose and these days I’d view as completely bollocks. People grow up and as they do they re-assess their position and priorities in life. I’d have a lot of respect for Chumbawamba if they were honest about this, instead of making up fanny-batter to justify a line they drew in the sand and trying to salve their consciences/maintain their credibility by donating some of their EMI advance to certain radical groups or ‘noble causes’. Not that I don’t doubt their sincerity in supporting these causes or groups, but similarly they criticised the artists who contributed to Live Aid, and I don’t doubt THEY were sincere in wanting to see an end to the famine in Africa.

  17. zoltan
    zoltan
    July 7, 2009 at 2:36 pm

    then you have become an old age sellout!

    i still stand by the writings of anarcho punk because they were genuine and real, and FUCK EMI!

    we need to get some petrol bombs, go out on the street and start an anarchist revolution

  18. andus
    andus
    July 7, 2009 at 3:12 pm

    If I’m not mistaken, You’ve got the horn mate.

  19. NXP
    NXP
    July 7, 2009 at 5:38 pm

    KUKL is just so great. If you have more please post it.

  20. Penguin
    Penguin • Post Author •
    July 7, 2009 at 6:42 pm

    Lots of live and studio KUKL rarities on this site if you use the search function.

  21. Nic
    Nic
    July 8, 2009 at 8:20 am

    Good to see that ‘The Hound of Dracula’ still has the fervour!

    However, I believe Chris was a ‘Youth Sellout’ (rather than an ‘old age sellout’)…
    😉

  22. Chris
    Chris
    July 8, 2009 at 4:50 pm

    Zoltan: “i still stand by the writings of anarcho punk because they were genuine and real”

    with respect, i’d say that despite their many faults and the crap they espoused on occassion, Crass’s writings were probably ‘genuine and real’. As for the rest of the ‘anarcho punk’ scene; by the time it was even labelled as such it was largely contrivance, artifice & pretence. That said, there were lots of nice folk involved and some great music, so that’s probably why we’re all still here rather than any heart-felt allegiance to the ethos, morality and fashion of the scene. You’ll feel the same way in due time too, my friend.

    Zoltan: “we need to get some petrol bombs, go out on the street and start an anarchist revolution”

    after you , mate.

    Nic: “However, I believe Chris was a ‘Youth Sellout’ (rather than an ‘old age sellout’)…”

    IF ONLY!!! 🙂

  23. Graham Burnett
    Graham Burnett
    July 8, 2009 at 11:21 pm

    We are the Zoltans, we are the Zoltans, we are the Zoltans…. of swing!

  24. alistairliv
    alistairliv
    July 9, 2009 at 9:15 am

    Ouch! That is a truly dreadful pun Graham.

  25. Andus
    Andus
    July 9, 2009 at 11:09 am

    How come that link I put up is so long, I notice it has firefox in the address. does that mean everyone’s going to be bouncing off my computer before hitting You Tube,,,,perhaps that needs correcting.

    I’ve gotta see that film ‘The Doberman gang’ on the second link, anyone seen it. I lay odds of 5/6 that Nic has. and 50-1 he hasn’t

  26. Nic
    Nic
    July 9, 2009 at 12:00 pm

    Yes, I’ve seen ‘The Doberman Gang’, Andus: we got a traded copy on VHS back in the 80’s…
    It’s very, very, very far from being a kitsch classic (you’ll probably wonder if you can somehow get the 80-ish minutes of your life back after watching it), but it’s certainly not as much of a barrel scraper as the sequels…
    😉

    It features a few stalwarts of the 1960’s US ‘Sexploitation’ film scene including the guy who played the title role in ‘The Zodiac Killer’ and Byron Mabe (who directed the ridiculous ‘She Freak’ and was great as the chief psycho in ‘The Defilers’)…

  27. Phil
    Phil
    September 30, 2010 at 10:13 pm

    Any chance of getting a higher quality rip of that Chumbawamba tape? I’d love a copy on 320 mp3, or even FLAC if at all possible!!

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