Lots more photos up in the photo gallery…
…including the start of several new sub-albums.
Fanzine Gallery being one of them, that has just been started and will add on to from time to time.
Also Huntingdon Street photos courtesy of Jellyfish (Stewart)
Farleigh Road photos courtesy of Jellyfish (Stewart)
Nightingale Estate photos courtesy of Jellyfish (Stewart)
Daubeney Road photos courtesy of Jellyfish (Stewart)
Additions to Puppies And Their Friends section courtesy of Jellyfish (Stewart)
Johns Highbury homecoming 2008 photos courtesy of John (and some by Penguin).
Memories of Min photos courtesy of (the adorable) Min.
Huntingdon Street reunion – photos courtesy of Stewart (who is lovely).
Harlow and Bishops Stortford scene - Tony Mottram and Neil Puncher photos from Michael Mitchell collection.
Mutoid Britain gathering 06/12/08
Photographs of the artwork, structures and machines plus the KYPP affiliated folk that attended this particular night, from the collections of Aithche, daughter of Mick Lugworm, Vicky Ridley and Steve Corr.
Tods Wapping Autonomy Centre toilet shots
Absolutely classy series of photographs modelled by some of the regular punters in the toilets at the Wapping Autonomy Centre.
Does anyone know of the whereabouts of Christina (above) from Bologna?
If so please leave a message in the comments section for this post.
Some new photos from the collection of the adorable Vicky Ridley are now uploaded in the photo gallery right HERE
Vickys photos take in London squats, the west country, punks and travellers in Spain and Portugal…
Fod has now kindly supplied some photgraphs circa 1982 / 1983 that can be viewed HERE
Martin Flux collection HERE
Lugworms spring picnic 2010 HERE
The lovely Tinsel has sent some of her photos to KYPP which may be seen HERE
Loads more photos being added all the time, so please keep coming back for new editions to the gallery.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:39 am
Nice One! Will scan more and get em off to you soon. Anyone else who did a zine back then should send Micky a scan of the cover n’all.
As far as I know there’s no real on-line resource covering ‘zines from this early ’80s period and in my view they were every bit as important as the bands. In fact, i’d say a zine such as Pigs for Slaughter was in it’s own way a lot MORE important than 99% of the ‘anarcho-punk’ bands as it lit the torch for the cross-pollenisation between the anarcho-punk scene and Class War etc, from which came an increase in militancy articulated in such things as the Stop the Citys and bands becoming involved with industrial struggles (Miners, Print Workers…) creating a blood-line to the anti G8 type protests of today.
In fact, you could almost say that out of all the thousands of fanzines that were ever published after Sniffing Glue there are three which most encapsulate the trinity of stages the ‘underground/alternative/DIY’ punk (as opposed to the more ‘commercial’ bands adequatly represented by the mainstream music press) scene went through:
Toxic Grafitti = Nihilism
Kill Your Pet Puppy = Positivism
Pigs For Slaugher = Anarchism
Just a thought. Or maybe i’ve just had a glass of wine too many? Opinions welcome.
February 5th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Great idea – I wholeheartedly agree with Chris’ assessment of the importance of fanzines (apart from his assessment of the importance of PFS over ‘anarcho punk’ bands)…
They are definitley still important though – there have been quite a few ‘anarcho’ fanzines going for a good few quid on ebay over the last month or 2…
I still have a few fanzines knocking around, so I’ll try and scan some in (maybe next week when I’m alone in a deserted college)…
Penguin – what’s your email for sending things to?
(Also penguion – I may try and get you some mp3’s of music for the site – how would I send them to you)
February 5th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
“apart from his assessment of the importance of PFS over ‘anarcho punk’ bands”
Without wanting to get into ‘what anarchism is’ (something i couldn’t care less about anyway) i think it is undeniable that PFS represented the first time ‘genuine’ anarchist politics (as opposed to crass’s existential philosophy combined with use of an @ symbol) entered the punk arena. Remember PFS came out about 2/3 years before the first CW and, apart from a few disparaging mentions in ‘Anarchy’ mag and ‘Xtra’, PFS was thee first zine I ever read that pulled the stone tablets of Crass’s ideology to pieces and also suggested that punk itself was just a fashion and safety valve to dissipate any REAL opposition to the state.
needless to say, to suggest it ever was would be a tad naive, but we were young and idealistic then hoho…
the Living legends, Sinyx and Apostles may have said similar things but PFS was a FANZINE, though to be fair I would also credit Conflict’s non-pacifist stance as perhaps being most influential of all in ‘turning the tide’ in consciousness within the anarcho-punk scene from the zen ‘there is no authority but yourself’ to the militant ‘Smash Authority’.
Incidentally, can anyone suggest the origins of the genre term ‘anarcho-punk’ ?
It really NEVER existed before 1984 or so (tho i recall folk using the term ‘peace punks’ to refer to folk into crass type bands) and not one single fanzine from the period during which Crass were actually in existence uses it.
As always, suggestions welcome…
February 5th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Actually, Nic, to your great credit I would also say that “Punk Is A Rotting Corpse” was certainly one of the most iconoclastic songs from that era. Would have been interesting to see the reaction it received had Crass put THAT song on ‘Bullshit 3′ instead of ‘Crucifixion’.
And perhaps rather telling that they didn’t?
February 5th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
“Incidentally, can anyone suggest the origins of the genre term ‘anarcho-punk’ ?
It really NEVER existed before 1984 or so (tho i recall folk using the term ‘peace punks’ to refer to folk into crass type bands) and not one single fanzine from the period during which Crass were actually in existence uses it.”
No idea where it came from but I personally didn’t hear ‘peace punks’ until much later on. We used to simply use the phrase ‘Crass bands’ to describe the bands in that scene.
February 5th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I first heard the phrase “anarcho-miserablist” when chris amebix called me that at a new north rd party in 83,other than that I go along with gerard.The first time I heard “peace punks” it was in the newspaper article about rosebery ave
February 5th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
yea, think the first time i heard mention of ‘peace punks’ was in reference to some protest at a nuclear base in some fanzine I got sent, which must have been around 84.
i remember it had an – unintentionally amusing – juxtaposition between illustrations of things the author evidently regarded as ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ on the back. the ‘good’ being flowers, trees, a windmill (?) and a drawing of some smelly looking punk with a dopey grin. The ‘bad’ being denoted by drawings of pills, banknotes, and a large breasted woman in a bikini etc.
Wish i’d kept hold of it, though I fear my ‘ideals’ may have been at slight variance those of the author
February 5th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
sorry sean, think our posts must have over-lapped there!
“The first time I heard “peace punks” it was in the newspaper article about rosebery ave”
that’s interesting…almost suggests the reporter was vaguely sympathetic to you in attempting to seperate you from the traditional media portrayal of violent ‘chaos punks’ ?
February 5th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Anarcho-punk? First use 1996?
In the editorial of KYPP 4, September 1981 “Windy Miller” says he uses
“punk” in its original sense of no borders, no tradition , no rules, no conformity, a word to describe those who break out of ‘normal existence’ and live their own life not people who break out of one set of rules just to set up their own equally reactionary rules around an ‘accepted’ form of rebellion…
and goes on to try and find another term like Rebel Anarchist faction – used in 1978 to differentiate between squatting types and ‘tourists’…
In his 1983 NME article Richard Cabut does not use ‘anarcho-punk’ -but talks of “a new, positive, punk ” and describes Mark of the Mob as an ‘anarcho-renegade’. Richard did also use the word ‘anarcho’:
Back at the tail-end of ‘78 and beyond, punk spun into a tailspin of tuinol-dazed tiredness. A pause. Trends came and went: dead ends such as mod, new romanticism – up to and including funk craze – all took their toll on the vital energy. And those who stuck with the essence of their punk were faced with the development of Oi. Punk, under the guidance of certain robots, gathered itself around a banner of no brains, no style, no heart and no hope, Heads buried in the glue-bag of dejection and floundering away under a barrage if three-chord rubbish – this is, and was, no way to lead a life.
Some drifted with the anarcho scene which at the time (1980/81) was the only worthwhile concern going. But by 1983, when everything is said and done, that angle seems too flat and puritan to be of much inspirational value. Crass, although anti-sexist, were and still are extremely sexless: a stark, bleak Oliver Cromwell new model army, who have sense but no sensuality.
At the opposite end of the scale, inspired by the feeling of the Ants etc, come two groups who are the immediate forerunners to today’s flood. They are Bauhaus and, later, Theatre of Hate – both of whom capitalised on the idea of style and, what is more, a ‘dangerous’ and sensuous style that attracted more and more fans who were sick of the bleak and macho Oi and the shallow cult with no name.
It’s these fans, reacting against the devaluation of punk, and fired by the spirit of the above-mentioned mentors, who are acting now. They’ve created a colourful and thriving nation-wide scene – resplendent in their individuality but still linked by a progressive punk idiom, one that says go instead of stop, expand instead of contract, yes instead of no. A new, positive punk.
In ‘England’s Dreaming’ 1991, page 584 Jon Savage says Crass ’sowed the ground for a return of serious anarchism ‘ but does not use ‘anarcho -punk’
In ‘Senseless Acts of Beauty : Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties’, 1996, George McKay uses the word ‘anarcho-punk’ on page 11. Since George writing from a cultural studies/ sociological POV , “anarcho-punk” probably a term popularised by sociologists to define a subcuture of punk.
First use most likely reduction from ‘anarchist punk’ by journalist or sub-editor in music press : retrospectively, e.g. to refer to Chumbawumba or Crass ‘best before 1984′ on cd….
February 5th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Actually, that reminds me. There was an article in the NME by Steven Wells on Anarcho punk ages ago, but I think it was in the late 80s/early ’90s. Seem to remember there being photos of Crass, D&V and some dork out of chumbawumba with something written over his chest. Will try to hunt it out, sure it’s tucked inside an old LP sleeve but fuck knows which one.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
The following is an excerpt from a letter written to Sounds by Ian Bone in 1982 (sorry I haven’t got a more specific date)…
(talking about a CND demonstration at Hyde Park)
“When a large group of Anarcho-Punks, bored with the speakers, decided to go to County Hall where the GLC were organising a free concert with one of their fave bands, the Mob, they were quite rightly verbally harangued by a couple of other anarchists…”
Signed Ian Bone, directly accountable to the rest of the Living Legends.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I think we may have to disagree Chris…
I would suggest that the first time that ‘genuine’ anarchist politics entered the punk arena was a direct result of Crass and preceded the publication of the first issue of Pigs for Slaughter…
The connections forged at the time of the ‘Persons Unknown’ trial were made manifest in an interest in Black Flag and other anarchist papers, compounded by the way in which Crass’ connection to various organisations (through the benefit concerts) led to the network of ‘peace centres’ across the country which also carried ‘genuine’ anarchist political pamphlets…all of this pre-dated Pigs for Slaughter…
I also feel that Pigs for Slaughter generally had a narrow appeal beyond the hothouse of the London ’scene’ (and its associated pockest elsewhere in the country)…don’t get me wrong – I loved it, but that doesn’t mean it had a larger influence than it actually did…
Thinking about the term ‘anarcho-punk’:
We used to refer to ‘A.P.F. Clones’ (as we did on the sleeve to ‘Bullshit Detector 3′) back in 1982…
I’ll have a look at some fanzines from then and see what comes up…
Ian Bone verbally haranguing? never…
(Living Legends were brilliant – we need their early demos up here…)
February 5th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Nic, I think maybe you are misconstruing what I was saying re PFS. I was merely stating , to my knowledge it was the first time any current within the ‘crass-camp’ had attacked their ideology. A veritable sacred cow in those days. It did not have any great influence in itself, but once doors are knocked down others run through.
Also, I wouldn’t say – and I wouldn’t imagine Crasss would ever have said -that their ‘politics’ in any way reflected what was, then, regarded by those involved as ‘genuine anarchism’ – which then would have been involvement in Grunwick and other industrial strikes as well as in the (physical) campaign against the NF & BM (something Crass expressedly avoided committing to).
In fact, for Crass’s opinion of ‘traditional anarchists’ (in particular those they met through their involvement with the Persons Unknown campaign) you need only read the lyrics to ‘Bloody Revolutions’ while Black Flag, Anarchy and Xtra etc regarded Crass with open and frequently published hostility and derision.
Tim: Oh No, that means Ol’ Boner ‘ll take the credit for coining the phrase! That said, wouldn’t surprise me if he DID invent it.
February 6th, 2008 at 9:30 am
KYPP 1, 1979 criticised Crass in a piece by Nestor Makhno – which includes a call for “class war” – which was then responded to at lengthy by Penny in KYPP 2. KYPP 1 also has full text of statement by Crass about Conway Hall incident.
http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/KYPP%20issue%201/?action=view¤t=KYPP1ProCRASStination.jpg
February 6th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Hello
I’m a new face here tripped over the site while looking for stuff on FITD. Found the phrase anarcho punk used in Green Anarchist in/around ‘84 referring to the Italian Scene – I’ve only got some photocopied pages at the moment currently looking for the originals. I seem to remember GA referred to it as Anarcho-punk quite a bit but that might be faulty wiring.
February 6th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I also found a couple of reference to Conflict in Sounds from 1982. One called them Anarcho-Street Punks(!) and the other just Anarcho-Punks. Unfortunately I can’t date these more accurately than the year as I kept the clippings only.
February 6th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Ah, yes Chris – I did get the wrong end of the stick: my apologies…
PFS was certainly one of the first occasions when the ‘Crass scene’ was criticised from an ‘insider’ position (along with the KYPP article Al mentioned)…followed by the rumblings from the Midlands a year later (which were slightly disingenuous as none of the people involved actually had any interest in any form of anarchism to my knowledge, except – perhaps – myself: indeed, one of the magazines referred to the people behind fanzines like Scum and Enigma as ‘lunatics’)…
I always felt ‘Bloody Revolutions’ was more directed at the militant left-wing (ie the SWP) than anarchist groupings?
(which would be confirmed by the use of the ‘Marseillaise’ in the musical backing, and the references to Marx, Mao, ‘Year Zero’ (Pol Pot) and ‘Vive la Revolution!’: there are no references to anarchist figures or slogans)
The issue regarding Pacifism goes much deeper than many involved in the debate would like to consider (facilitated by the strain of anti-intellectualism that seeks to cut off and suppress debate and expression)…
I personally couldn’t say I could adhere to the position adopted by Crass, but I DO however fully understand it…
February 6th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Might be wrong, probably am, but didnt the phrase “Anarcho Punk” get used in Vague in the early 80’s when Tom was backtracking over his view on The Mob…Could be Vague 14…Mines in a box in the attic somewhere so if anyone would care to look…
February 6th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
you havent got Tom V up there as well have you?Cant find him anywhere else……
February 6th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I will go and get the ladder…I may be some time !
February 6th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
That Vague article that is mentioned is attached to The Mob Meanwhile Gardens set 06/08/83 somewhere on this site.
February 6th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Chris – the NME article you mention is here:
http://uncarved.org/music/apunk/nme.html
February 6th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
You’re absolutely right Nic, which I had never thought about before, but Crass DID tell me when I asked about the inspiration for ‘Bloody Revolutions’ that it was inspired by the sort of folk they met thorugh involvement with the Persons Unknown Defence campaign (who essentially were an aspiring Angry Bridage MkII) and also witnessing the ‘macho left wing street fighters who acted like thugs at the Conway hall gig’. Then again, Crass were under the impression that they were SWP, when the reality was rather different.
(see ‘Anti-fascist’ by Martin Lux for accurate, first person account)
Indeed, reading Penny’s bizarre statements in KYPP and TG it almost seems he regards Crass’s ‘crusade’ as more important than the fact the BM’s ‘leader guard’ street-fighting cadre was physically put out of action for a significant period.
Also remember that Crass’s political understanding wasn’t ever particularly ‘advanced’. Not that it’s any failing of theirs, they clearly had infinitely more worthwhile things to do than plough through boring books on the Hegelian influence on Max Stirner and other such irrelant twaddle.
As crass said themselves, they only first started using a @ banner, not out of any conscious affiliation with anarchism, but to seperate themselves from the political left and right. I’m sure things might have gone a bit easier for them if they had never done so, as it is Crass’s OWN philosophy (animal rights, feminism, squatting, self-sufficiency) that in fact has had a greater counter-cultural resonance and ideological longevity than the more traditional anarchist principles have ever had.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
John Eden Says:
February 6th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Chris – the NME article you mention is here:
http://uncarved.org/music/apunk/nme.html
Cheers, John, that’s the one. PS. Liked the account of the lewisham memorial event on your blog.
February 7th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
was just sent a link to this piece by Andy Martin which has a relevance to some of the postings above I thought i’d post up to stimulate some debate (Micky, you may wish to move this to a topic in itself?)
NB: For those who may not be familiar with the book, the author of ‘anti-fascist’ was the guy in charge of ’security’ at the 1979 Conway hall gig.
————————————————————————————–
Finally, at a concert we performed at Chats Palace near Homerton Hospital on May 13th, Chris Low gave me a book – Antifascist (2006) by Martin Lux. The simple, direct and utterly unequivocal title of his book displays more eloquence than any amount of middle class white Marxist twaddle peddled by such sick jokes as the SWP (known now as the Social Workers Party) and its contents are a damn sight more relevant to the struggle today than all the contrived waffle stuffed inside the cover of any Crass record. If only this marvellous little tome had been published in 1983 when all those pathetic, wretched black clad youths sacrificed their scant revolutionary beliefs at the altar of a hippy band from Epping whose most trenchant statement was ‘fight war not wars’. That was it, that was the most angry they could possibly dare to be without risking their woeful pacifist philosophy of which I was merely very suspicious back then but which I now hold in utter contempt and derision today.
MESSAGE TO CRASS: WHEN THE PEOPLE YOU REGARDED AS LEFT WING THUGS CAME AND TROUNCED THE BRITISH MOVEMENT FASCISTS AT YOUR GIG AT CONWAY HALL, MANY ORDINARY INNOCENT PEOPLE, MOST OF WHOM WERE FANS OF YOURS, WERE RESCUED FROM BEING BATTERED, BRUISED AND BULLIED BY PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW THE SAME CREED BY GRANFATHER FOUGHT AGAINST IN 1945. REMIND US AGAIN, JUST WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO STOP IT? WHAT WAS YOUR RESPONSE? TO CRITICISE THE PEOPLE WHO CAME TO THE VENUE AND STOPPED PEOPLE LIKE ME BEING BRUTALLY BEATEN BY NEO-NAZI SCUM.
Understand this, all you trendy types wallowing in nostalgia for the 1980s and the anarcho-punk pantomime. I know from personal experience how it feels to be on the receiving end of neo-nazi violence – when my home was gutted by fire from petrol bombs lobbed through the front window by neo-nazi cowards in 1984 – when 4 members of a wretched little motorcycle gang barged into Daves’ flat, shoved on a cassette of Wehrmacht marching songs and attacked me with a pick-axe handle in 1985. How do you expect me to react when a bunch of white middle class hippies tell me, from the safety of their Epping commune, that ‘left wing, right wing, it’s all the effing same’? Bollocks is it – wake up! How many times have I been beaten up, assaulted and had my home attacked by communists? None. How many times have our non-white band members been threatened with violence and called Chinks and Gooks by Marxist audience members? None. Welcome to the real world, chaps. Yes, the SWP are a sad joke. Yes, Marxists have the blood of Jews and homosexuals on their hands. Yes, we are aware of Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, Cambodia 1975 and Tian An Men Square 1989. Meanwhile, on the council estates and housing schemes, gangs of vicious drugged up teenagers try to make life a misery for local residents. Do the police stop them? No. Do we stop them? Yes. How? We mobilised with the local tenants, battered seven bells out of their leaders and threatened the others with hospitalisation should any further antisocial behaviour occur. Did it work? Yes.
Why is it now virtually impossible any longer for the BNP to assault innocent Pakistani people in Bradford? Because a couple of years ago they tried it and large groups of Pakistanis mobilised their forces against these neo-nazi rat-bags and hospitalised the bastards, that’s why. That’s why it’s now safe for Asians to walk the streets of Bradford and other northern towns. These Pakistanis didn’t say ‘fight war not wars’. They didn’t quote from Ghandi. They didn’t go and see a poxy punk band. They fought back – hard. That’s the only language neo-nazi cowards understand and respect. ANTIFASCIST by MARTIN LUX published by Phoenix Press, PO Box 824, London N19DL. It’s only £5.95 – so buy it and clear that old fashioned anarcho-punk crap from your heads.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:09 am
Andy Martin again re-writing history.
“when all those pathetic, wretched black clad youths sacrificed their scant revolutionary beliefs at the altar of a hippy band from Epping whose most trenchant statement was ‘fight war not wars’. That was it, that was the most angry they could possibly dare to be without risking their woeful pacifist philosophy of which I was merely very suspicious back then but which I now hold in utter contempt and derision today.”
Sorry, pardon, what?
It goes back again to the discussion (!) I had with Andy in his bedroom in his squat somewhere in North London, post a Hagar The Womb rehearsal somewhere in the building (possibly in this very bedroom).
We discussed the future of ‘the movement’ (not “anarcho-punk” the phrase didn’t exist) and Andy was going on about producing fanzines, badges and posters – I was talking about providing homes and food and income.
Reading his writing here it seems Andy still has trouble with reality.
As for Martin Lux. About six years ago I produced a summer season of acoustic events at the Hope and Anchor – one event a month. At each event we had an invited writer who read from their latest work and took questions from the audience. All went well, Rob Newman was a spectacular hit, until Martin Lux came to speak. and he spoke and he spoke and he spoke – reading from a book never to be published, and we in the audience quickly understood why. When he wouldn’t stop after about ten minutes of droning, carrying on despite the booing, I had to try and get him off the stage. When I tried to get near him his ‘manager’ assaulted me, and quite a heated altercation ensued.
Eventually I got the soundman to kill his mike. to great applause. There was a full bill of entertainment that evening and he was denying other people their right to perform and destroying the fun of the evening for nothing but his ego.
So Martin Lux as hero, I don’t think so.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:27 am
Errr…sure you haven’t got your ‘Martin Luxes’ mixed up? ‘Lux’ isn’t his real name and in fact he was at that Housmans social the other month; heavy set guy in his late 50s, who I imagine you would have known from the Anarchy centres as he was involved with them. I would have been staying in his flat 6/7 years ago and i’m sure i’d have known if he ever did anything at the Hope&Anchor, let alone if he’d ever had a manager. He’s only written the one book and the only time he has read from it was at the @ bookfair, though he also recently spoke at that lewisham Memorial event John Eden has written about in his blog. Think it may be a matter of mistaken identity.
You are right about Andy’s ‘re-writing of history’ though, something i’ve pulled him up about till i’m blue in the face. Think he just seems to see and recollect a lot of things in a very myopic way and tends to dwell on the past a bit too much. I only posted his article up as i thought it was an interesting ‘topic for discussion’ hoho
February 8th, 2008 at 12:43 am
Martin Lux (Martin Wright) has written the book Anti-Fascist, released in 2006 on Pheonix Press.
Chris, did he not basically do most of the writing for his brother’s book ‘Camden Parasites’ by Daniel Lux (Daniel Wright).
Daniel Lux died of an overdose of H just before the book was published by Unpopular Books in 1999, about two weeks before it hit the streets in fact.
Would it have been possible that Martin would have carried on the PR stuff to promote this book, Chris, by the heads of Unpopular Books.
It would fit into the time scale Tony is roughly on about. Also Tony if this was the guy then
1/ I can vouch for him, saw him the other day, nice bloke
2/ Maybe he wanted to get his recently deceased brothers work up there on stage (assuming it was Martin that was at the H & A that night), and y’know Martin was probably still a little in shock with the recent events. The book is very gritty and maybe with no or bored reaction, he may have stuck his heels in on behalf of his brother…
Daniel Lux – Camden Parasites has been reprinted on Pheonix Press now.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:12 am
Yes, Micky, I was thinking that might have been a possibility but i am sure i would have heard if he HAD done a reading as that was over the time I was staying in Martin’s gaff (in fact, I had beem meant to move into his brother, Danny’s flat in Camden but he OD’d the evening I got the keys off him) so i’m sure I would have remembered.
That said, I could imagine if Mart HAD done a reading from it it wouldn’t have exactly been ‘upbeat’, but similarily i can’t imagine Mart giving anything other than an electrifying prformance even if he was reading stock reports from the Financial Times.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:18 am
WOAH!! BIZARRE!! Just got a call from Mart asking if I was going to that anti-scientologist do tomorrow. Asked him ’bout the Hope & Anchor and he assures me he’s never done a reading there, adding he hasn’t ever been there since the 1970s! So…a case of mistaken identity it is.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:22 am
Nice to see the friendly tone of discussion here compared to the spitefulness regarding the same issue on the Crass site. Why do Crass inspire such spitefulness on their board?
February 8th, 2008 at 2:11 am
I always get the impression the real fruit-cakes on there are pretty young and maybe discovered crass through the hardcore scene. I really don’t understand where some of them are coming from with their ‘deep ecologist’ misanthropy. Check out the thread on there about ‘vegan Reich’ if you want to read some real snooker-loopiness. Some folks just ain’t got a clue…
February 8th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Andy Martin – “Crass proved me wrong…”
http://www.uncarved.org/music/apunk/autcent.html
I’m in Ongar. Essex; it’s 1979 and I’m to meet some band called Crass. Never heard of them.
I didn’t meet a punk band – I met a dozen black-clad idealists who were far too intelligent to convincingly pull off the punk band set. It doesn’t work if you can string together more than two coherent sentences – people see through it, apart from those who are as stupid as the average punk band…
I joined a punk band called the Apostles in 1981. I was a member of the (ahem) Revolutionary Communist Party and frankly believed in very little Marxism, not because I was cynical or stupid bit because I realized that most human beings are so brutish, selfish and greed-ridden that they need leaders and the firm hand of a benevolent controller to stop them from tearing each other’s throats out in an orgy of humanity. When I found out what Crass believed in, I became convinced that the majority of youth in Thatcherite Britain would just laugh with derision – pacifism and anarchist utopia is it? Yet from virtual obscurity in mid-1979 to national recognition a year later, they and their fans (yes, I do mean ‘fans’) proved me wrong.
Being neither a punk, an anarchist nor a pacifist, it is perhaps strange that I should have occasionally supported and even worked with Crass. However, as I hinted earlier, I was a communist who refused to toe the party line; this meant that I could work with people toward a commonly agreed goal.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
yes, I know…posted up a part of that in the thread on crass forum. Andy’s just being daft and trying to get a reaction. Why, i neither know or care about. ho hum…
February 8th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Out of interest Chris do you remember Andy’s “Beat the ban” campaign regarding Screwdrivers White Power EP? I’m sure it was all tongue in cheek but I remember feeling that was complete arse regardless of the motives.
February 8th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
yes, Tim, alas, I do. As you rightly say complete arse. I recall his rationale being “Why shouldn’t shops stock ‘White power’ if they stock the Redskins’ ‘neither Washington nor Moscow’ LP?” The answer to which one would have hoped wasn’t too taxing on the braincells.
February 8th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Thanks. Given this I’m having serious difficulty getting my head around that comment from him…
“I know from personal experience how it feels to be on the receiving end of neo-nazi violence – when my home was gutted by fire from petrol bombs lobbed through the front window by neo-nazi cowards in 1984 – when 4 members of a wretched little motorcycle gang barged into Daves’ flat, shoved on a cassette of Wehrmacht marching songs and attacked me with a pick-axe handle in 1985. How do you expect me to react when a bunch of white middle class hippies tell me, from the safety of their Epping commune, that ‘left wing, right wing, it’s all the effing same’? Bollocks is it – wake up! How many times have I been beaten up, assaulted and had my home attacked by communists? None.”
February 8th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
join the club mate, join the club…
February 8th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I gave up long ago trying to work out what went on in Andy’s head, probably likes being antagonistic just for the sake of it. Still, life would be dull without eccentrics like him around.
February 8th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I haven’t really commented on this topic (either here or at the Crass board) for a number of reasons, one of which is that it is slightly saddening that the lessons about ‘friendly fire’ (from the Spanish war onwards) don’t seem to have been taken onboard…
I respect Crass’ pacifist stance, which I would perceive (as someone commented on the Crass board) as the stance which would be adopted by the large majority of ‘normal’ and ’sane’ people who only experience sadness in relation to acts of violence and have no desire to hurt others…
I also understand that not all human beings are the same in terms of their responses to situations and that there is a percentage of the human population who feel the need to express in physical terms the violent thoughts which they have (and the most frightening of these individuals are those who can use an ideology to mask and encourage their violence for they are able to turn other human beings into objects, objects which can be used in any way they sit fit)…
One thing that many forget is that we ARE all kinds of different people, and we have different strengths which we can utilise: someone may cook, someone may have construction skills, someone may write literature, someone may be involved in street battles, someone may be involved in the use of torture during the interrogation of ‘enemy’ captives, someone may just have a personality that is uplifting to others…It is THIS sense of difference which is never accommodated in the thinking of those who advocate violence (particularly those in the Anarchist community whose politics are essentially ‘wolf in sheeps clothing’ Marxism)…
Beyond thoughts about the individual as a human being, I recognise (in contrast to Crass’ position) that there may be occasions when all other channels have been exhausted and when violence is the only available tool to respond to a situation…
I have used violence on enough occasions, but don’t feel any sense of ‘pride’ or ‘excitement’ about it – it saddens me as a human being…I do however recognise that it was a necessary tool to be used in particular situations…
However, the key point for me here is the intent behind the action: it would seem (from my experience) that a large majority of those who advocate violent revolt and streetfighting with ‘the enemy’ are actually – despite all their protestations – enthralled by and excited by violence…
For example, look at the general tone of their literature: it is a tone of glorification of and exultation in violence – a delight in pain, in suffering, and in the power which they see themselves wielding when they use violence as a tool…
I remember the exultation and glee on the faces of ‘class war’ activists at a CND rally in late 1982 when they had the opportunity to indulge their violence – they looked like child emperors ordering their first execution on a whim…And now I sit with a drink in a pub on many Friday afternoons with AntiFA activists whose conversation will frequently glorify their acts of violence…
(It is an interesting point that many of the people affiliated to these groups have a similar interest in football violence (and sport in general):I sometimes wonder if the politics actually gets in the way of their punch-ups…”I went to a fight and a demonstration broke out”)…
I personally do not feel that these people use violence purely as a means to a finite end: if they could use it to ‘free’ themselves and to have a ‘revolution’, I do not believe that they would then give up their lust for violence and for power (for it is this desire – the desire to wield power over other human beings – which underpins their actions) at that point …Instead, I believe that they would turn it inward on their so-called ‘comrades’ and begin the pogroms which we always see accompanying such social upheavals (for precisely the reasons which Crass addressed in their lyrics to ‘White Punks on Hope’ and ‘Bloody Revolutions’ – thinking of which, I feel it should be noted that Crass had an extremely valid point in the song ‘White Punks on Hope’ – a point that is deliberately misconstrued or avoided outright by those whose personal inclinations are more towards violence)…
On the article in question, Andy Martin’s diatribe is as ultimately incoherent as many of his pronouncements – and probably has the intent of casuing people to talk about him more than anything else…
On the deeper issue (and fom my limited knowledge – which could mean I am very wide of the mark), Andy Martin seems to be both drawn to and excited by violence, which may go some way to explaining his interest in manifestations of violent revolution and his later excitement (as witnessed in Scum fanzine No.6) over Skrewdriver records…
If the Redskins had written songs in praise of street executions, summary hangings and Gulags, Andy would have probably been right up for them too…
Perhaps he does this to externalise the pain he feels inside himself?Perhaps not…I’m not him, so I don’t know (although I can conjecture)…
However, I have to qualify these last remarks by saying that I believe the philosophical writings and the musical creativity of Andy Martin have had a profound effect on my own development as a person, and I respect him deeply for that (not that he would care either way, but it matters to me)…
February 8th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Nic, to be honest i’m more interested in what da fuck “total septic doss” means exactly??!!
February 8th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Tony Puppy has just remembered that the guy thrown off the Happy Hope And Wanker night was Martin Miller about Lux The Poet. Not Martin Lux.
Please forgive Tony, for he is old and infirm. Sorry for the confusion. Thank you.
February 9th, 2008 at 12:09 am
From the Big Note Website:
“Following the success of 2001 “Big Note Twisted Acoustic” summer residency by Death in Vegas member Ian Button’s band “Anthony Anderson”, Big Note are delighted to announce this years resident Jim Bob (Carter USM and JIM’S SUPER STEREOWORLD).
This year’s each residency will take place on the first Wednesday of June, July and August and feature unplugged sets from Jim Bob and hand picked guests and DJs. All embracing the Big Note “acoustic feel, electric vibe”™ philosophy in which artists perform their songs “stripped-down-up-beat ‘n’intimate.
The “Goodnigh’t Jim Bob” Big Note summer Residency commences on Wednesday 5 June. Each special show will climax with a unique set from Jim Bob as well as support and DJ sets from some of Jim Bob’s and Big Note’s favourite artists and music spinners.
The nights will take place at the refurbished Hope and Anchor, 207 Upper Street, London N1 (London’s only surviving legendary venue, breeding ground for the likes of; The Police, U2, Joy Division, Elvis Costello, Madness, Ash etc.). All of who got a little moulded by the venues four walls!
Full dates and listings so far.
Wednesday June 5th
JAMES ROBERT MORRISON … Robert Newman (reading from his new novel) … Bransby … Leads & Wires (featuring Pete from the Stereoworld)… Karen Butler-Meadows – song writer/guitarist with a strong, raw, expressive voice and lyrics. …plus DJ Fruity
Wednesday July 3rd
JAMES ROBERT MORRISON with Pete Allinson III… Martin Millar (reading from his new novel) … La Honda … iinviisiibles … Alex from Astronaut … plus DJ’s ‘The Oomph It Up Crew’
Wednesday August 7th
THE JAMES MORRISON ALL STAR BAND
Uncle Fruity Other acts, authors,… DJ’s TBC for this night.
Tickets are £5 and available exclusively at the venue and on the night only. Doors 8.00 pm to 1 am. ”
Ah 2002. Me and Jim Morrison (ex-Carter USM) organised that season. And in the middle of it my first child was born. (sorry Carl – more babies)
Martin Millar – who’s second and most famous book is called ‘Lux the Poet’.
Apologies all round.
I came on here to eradicate my blunder only not to be able to find it. So I assumed it had been deleted through kindness.
No such luck.
Who would have thought this great debate is going in in the obscure ‘links to the photo gallery’?
February 11th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
For what its worth Im sure we stole the anarcho tag from Anarcha United Mystics who were some stonehenge regulars 78/79 ish.
February 11th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
“Anarcho United Mystics (AUM) started working back in 1977 because the ‘revolutionaries’ kept overlooking the need to change themselves as well well as the world, and the ‘occult/religious’ kept overlooking the need to change the world as well as themselves. These oversights reulted in 2000 years of failed revolutions and millions of people wasting their lives with religious/spiritual illusions and dogmas. After all, what is the motive of revolution? Ultimately, it is love. Love objects to the injustice of the present system, the starving millions, the wars and corruption of the ruling powers. But this love, the essence of revolution, is the easiest part to overlook and the forgetting of it has resulted in hundreds of failed revolutions and useless religions”.
Tim Corber, AUM Newsletter, 1980
http://www.phreak.co.uk/stonehenge/psb/scfestiv.htm
February 13th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Synchronicity corner. The AUM had meetings in one of the basements of the 1979 James St squat.
Their meetings were followed by wild parties. It was through the AUM I discovered ‘Cosmic Trigger’ by Robert Anton Wilson.
There’s a bit I wrote about this somewhere on this hard drive.
February 13th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
The AUM notes regarding my time in James St squat:
“The Long Acre/James Lane squat was home to some very radical people, some Chilean refugees, some members of a group called Bitch, some articulate punk/artist types and a fearsome South African brute who legend had it had cleared out all the junkies from the buildings. But the majority of inhabitants were hippy stock.
Some of the basements on James Lane had been turned into rehearsal studios, and in one of them was held a weekly meeting by some association calling itself the Anarchist United Mystics. Occasionally they held gigs there.
The Anarchist United Mystics group continued their meetings, which had turned into underground- rock jamming gigs. Brett, Bob, Dave, Gordon and I became a solid unit. We started going to the gigs, I remember hearing a wondrous version of ‘I’m A Believer’ sung by a girl from 50 Long Acre and played by the guitarist from Bitch. So where they still around?
Gordon once vanished for a few days. Upon his return he said he’d been seduced by a woman at one of these gigs, who had lured him outside then into a car. This car had then taken him to Stonehenge where he was left drugged and in rags (no change there then!) He was never quite the same, and we saw less and less of him.
There was an old black gentleman living in the building who was very into Crowley and magick and the Illuminati. He gave me a copy of an ancient edition of The Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson. The fuse had been lit.”
I’ve now put the AUM in their own entry – accompanied by this wording and a scan of the cover of the book.
May 25th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
To go back to the earlier ‘anarcho-punk’ thing – I think the arnarcho prefix was the bit most generally used and tagged on to other descriptions/affiliations – eg see the Rosbery Ave Peace Centre thread for Anarcho-Feminist conference date. But I think we referred to ourselves as ‘types’ rather than punks, as in ‘anarcho-types’ – and anarcho differentiated us from the hard-core Anarchists ? Or do I, like Andy Martin, (see above) “just see and recollect a lot of things in a very myopic way and tends to dwell on the past a bit too much.”
May 27th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Oooo, this is fab! Names from the past – it all comes back to me (well, the bits I remember, anyway!). We all have different memories of the same things, so I’m going to stick my oar in, too! I well remember Ian from Pigs For Slaughter coming to 51 Huntingdon Street (N1) – I seem to recall he tried to seduce my girlfriend (Karen) – lol! He may even have succeeded. Though I had split up with her by then, so fair play to him… Anyway, I have a photo of him with some of the rest of us who were there at the time which I hope Penguin will be uploading soon – you will notice from his body language that he is still ‘apart’ from the rest of us, I think he was still working out what he wanted and who he was. Anyway, I can tell you that in my opinion it was Huntingdon Street and, as it happens, myself and Ken who politicised him. Ken was the first punk I’d met who actually KNEW what anarchism was about and had read the original texts (Malatesta, Bakunin etc – he even had a big Alsatian called Makhno!). Anyway, Ken and I were big Crass fans at the time – and Crass definitely came before PFS . I remember Ian arranged to interview Crass at their place in Ongar for the first issue of PFS and I went along – he didn’t say a fucking word! Don’t know if he was in awe or what, maybe just sucking up that bohemian anarcho-vibe for future sustenance during the political lean years… He did own a tape recorder though, which he brought with him, so that was handy. The thing I most remember about Crass is that they had loads of birds in wooden cages – which I found rather odd as it seemed to symbolise captivity rather than freedom to me, but what the hell did I know?!?! I also well remember Andi Martin before The Apostles, he had some squat in a road off Stoke Newington High Street (can’t remember where, exactly), and he was ALWAYS a bit odd – so no change there, then (*winks*). ALSO, re this skinhead thing – Huntingdon Street had an old air-raid siren on the roof which we were supposed to set off whenever we were attacked – it was supposed to bring assorted gay guerrillas from the Armed Response Unit of other nearby Pink Triangle Housing Co-operative homes running. Never saw it happen, though I well remember the separatist lesbians chasing some Mods down the road after they got too lippy in the Hemingford Arms! Huntingdon Street itself was well-prepared – after a night (or it might have been a week, it’s all a bit of a blur) on speed, and sick of various twats trying to burn the place down or smash the door in etc, Pip took a metal bed frame, nailed it to the back door (hey, they came over the garden wall too!), attached some wiring and plugged it into the (extremely dodgy) electrics… Part of me is still sad I never saw a Nazi fry on it
May 27th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Stewart, I never met you myself but i’ve been a good mate of Ian PFS since around ‘83. Meet up with him for a drink every week or so so I shall tell you that you’ve made an appearance here. By the way, if you go to the Apostles ‘myspace’ (think there’s a link to it on the Apostles tape info in the downloads section) I think there’s a scan of the full Crass interview from PFS issue one. PS: Looking forward to seeing the Huntingdon St piccy
May 27th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
RE: “Why is it now virtually impossible any longer for the BNP to assault innocent Pakistani people in Bradford? Because a couple of years ago they tried it and large groups of Pakistanis mobilised their forces against these neo-nazi rat-bags and hospitalised the bastards, that’s why. That’s why it’s now safe for Asians to walk the streets of Bradford and other northern towns. These Pakistanis didn’t say ‘fight war not wars’. They didn’t quote from Ghandi.”
Just a thought on how my opinions on pacifism have changed over the years…
When I was squatting I had no qualms about defending myself, but then about age 29 decided to become completely pacifist. Having had 3 or 4 really good hidings over the next few years years (last one when I was 33) – not because of my political beliefs or anything other than the fact that I’m a big bloke who makes a good target for idiots on a Friday night – I’ve decided that my pacifism has the limit of defending myself and defending other people who are attacked senselessly.
This I find easy to reconcile with my ‘political’ beliefs: I don’t believe in government or national supremacy, so I wouldn’t fight for that. I don’t believe in political parties, so I wouldn’t fight for that. I believe in the sovereignty of individuals and their right to exist happily and without threat from other individuals, so I would fight for that. Simple. And, yes, I like a football team, but that isn’t about fighting, so I wouldn’t fight for that
May 27th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Stu, It did happen at Huntingdon St. Think it might of been just before you moved in. About 3am about 30 or more skinheads turnd up outside, but even
before this point their was complete confusion in the house because for some reason that night, every house member seemed to be on a different drug.
Some were speeding some were tripping all manner of chems. But the door did hold and the siren did work!
May 27th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Hi Phil! Big hug! xxx Actually, that does ring a bell, though like you say I think we were all stoned! I also remember on another occasion some twat – don’t know who, there were a lot of people about! – breached our defences from the inside by the simple expedient of opening the door when the local chief skinhead (can’t remember his name) and some of his henchmen knocked! Who’d have thought they’d have been intelligent enough to try that, eh?!?! They did a sort of macho waddle around the house while assorted punks and animals looked on, then left! Lol! I suppose there was nothing at all worth nicking, mind, unless they wanted the dog shit on the stairs…
Just another note re skinheads: When Ken and I squatted in Morley House on some council estate in Cazenove Road, Stoke Newington, there was a squat full of NF skinheads in the flat above us. They kicked our door in the first night. However, Ken’s beautiful dog Makhno was a lifesaver. Ken used to buy Makhno a raw sheep’s head each week from the butcher’s and give it to him to eat. Makhno loved it – but always left some of the bones. So I had the bright idea of scattering oddments of teeth, eye sockets, and bits of brain outside the front door – and it bloody well worked too! I have no idea if they thought we were into voodoo or the dog was psychotic but after that they used to invite us up for a drink and a smoke (and a bag of glue too, if they were feeling flush) – and discretion being the better part of valour, I usually went, too! But never had any trouble afterwards! Luckily I was away when the police shut the whole place down.
ALSO, having reread my post above, it could be construed as being – well, not nasty but petty-minded towards Ian and Andi (who told me he was a lesbian when we first met, lol) and I wouldn’t want them to think that. Our lives crossed at a crucial time and I’m sure we changed each other in all sorts of ways, but I’m a better person for my experiences as a punk and Ian and Andi were a part of that. In fact, to EVERYONE who was a part of my life then – a big thankyou! xxx
May 27th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
I remember being in Huntingdon Street squat when Ian PFS was there. He seemed out of place.
Myself and some other Puppy’s stayed there overnight.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Yeah i remember Ian being a bit stiff an formal (wasnt his dad high up the cops?) but he must of enjoyed the decadent radical queer energy or he wouldnt of stuck around!
Alway good to have a bit of a contrast Lol
May 28th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Stu- Can a bloke become a lesbian? Ive got a friend thats a male to female transgender who only dates dykes!
May 28th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Oh Yeah, and is that Ian on the video with us?
May 28th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
@Phil-> I have a lesbian friend who once very kindly said to me “You know, if I could be a man I’d want to be just the kind of man you are”. Blushingly, and feeling most complimented, I could only reply “And if I was that much of a man I’d want to be just the kind of man you are”.
May 28th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
“Yeah i remember Ian being a bit stiff an formal (wasnt his dad high up the cops?)”
errr…are you sure you’re thinking of the same Ian ? You’re certainly mistaken on the above account (come on , his mag was called “PIGS For Slaughter” for fucks’ sake!!) and ’stiff and formal’ certainly doesn’t sound like the same chap i’ve been good mates with since summer ‘83.
May 28th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Mate maybe was thinking of someone else then! Sorry to you both about the muddled up.
May 28th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Picture of Phil, Stewart, Pip, Leah, Sue, Jackie and Ian Slaughter going up soon in Huntingdon Street sub album in photo gallery.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:20 am
OK – photos of Huntingdon Street / Cazenove Rd / Dumont Rd / Farleigh Rd / Balls Pond Rd up in photogallery NOW courtesy of Stewart Jellyfish – Thank you.
To be put up in the next couple of days>>>Nightingale Estate / Daubeney Rd / and various faces in various places again from Stewart Jellyfish.
Go up to original post above for direct link to Huntingdon Street and Farleigh Rd.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Lol! It was definitely the same Ian, Chris – I’m afraid he WAS rather uptight then. But hey, he was young, and before I took speed I was really shy and a virgin. Hard to believe, I know, but isn’t that what life’s about – change?!?!
Anyway, Ian’s not in the Huntingdon Street video – which, for anyone remotely interested, can be found HERE: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IABnsIDer-0 – it was too early for him. It features (Quick) Phil (posting above), me (Stewart, who’s also provided some photos), my twin brother Andy, Pip, Sue, another Phil, Ken, Joyce, Ginny, Steve (the scaffolder, not Two Tone), Hugh and Terry the odd bloke who lived upstairs as a sop to Pink Triangle, lol.
It was done on cine film by Ginny from the Balls Pond Road, and her daughter gave me a copy which had been transferred to video years ago (I was a reporter on the News of the World (yes, really!) and she was the video reviewer!) and I stuck it in a cupboard and forgot about it. Then a couple of months ago I had it transferred to DVD, edited it, stuck on a soundtrack, and put it on YouTube. I particularly love all the authentic background details lol.
ALSO in reference to some other posts I’ve seen somewhere else on this maze of a site: Pip DID go back to New Zealand but he definitely DIDN’T have AIDS! I’m still in touch with him, and so far as I know he is very content with his life, is a single parent (I know, who’d have thought it!), and like the rest of us I hope is ageing disgracefully. Alistair I believe mentions elsewhere Evelyn – she of course was married to Pip (so he could stay in the country) and their marriage made a full page in the News of the World at the time (long before I joined the satanic scribes lol) – there was a photo of the happy couple, and an article about how the wedding party tucked into black pudding before the bride stripped naked, covered herself in tomatoes, and stopped the traffic in Roseberry Avenue by lying in the middle of the road. Certainly sounds like Evelyn! Don’t know what happened to her – I don’t think she had the best mental health to be honest. I am reliably informed that Cory now sells the Big Issue outside the Nags Head in Holloway – which is sort of sad but not unexpected – and is trying for a sex change. Regarding yet another post, I remember the Old Bill coming to Huntingdon Street to quiz Cory about a murder – though I can’t believe for one minute he was actually a suspect, as he was always too busy singing and dancing the Time Warp in high heels and fishnet stockings to get it together to kill anyone. Plus he’d have had to have stood on a stool to cause any serious damage… (*winks*).
Anyway, hope to post more soon – it’s great to read everyone’s reminiscences and other people must have photos lying around somewhere – so dig them out, people! x
May 29th, 2008 at 1:07 am
Ooo, sorry to keep posting, BUT just seen the scan of PFS issue#1 – ‘We are your dissidents’ – wonder where that came from? (*winks*). Still, I expect I must have stolen it from somewhere too! I certainly stole the Angry Brigade symbol for my jacket (though Pip – who painted the logo for me – persuaded me the male sign was too phallic and looked like an erect penis, which wasn’t in keeping with our political views at the time, so we had the symbol pointing downwards instead – LOL!!!! It’s a wonder I wasn’t emasculated…)
May 29th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Stewart – glad to hear about Pip – the AIDS thing was just what Pinki told me after coming back from Pip’s leaving party. Must have been her having a morbid moment. Of which she had a few.
Every so often she would say things like “My first husband died you know…” and then tell a story about when she was living in Campbell Buildings she married a young lad… then very soon after she woke up one morning and he was lying beside her, dead. The story then got a bit more confused because she said the young lad was the son of a duke or an earl…
The Huntingdon Street video is fascinating…
May 29th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Hi Alistair! Just off to work so don’t have time to post properly, just wanted to say I remember you! Been reading everyone’s contributions. Hope more people come out of the woodwork soon…
x
You’ve worried me now that maybe Pip DOES have AIDS and just hasn’t told me, lol! Well, whatever, he’s alive and well in the land of many sheep…
May 29th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Being HIV is no where near as bad as it used to be. Even compared to ten years ago the medication has improved
I should know as I have been living with the virus for a number of years.
Nowadays, although theres no cure you’ve got a good chance of a much longer life span and not developing AIDS if you take your meds correctly.
I managed to clear Hep c a few years ago wich must say something for my immune system!
May 30th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Sorry to hear that Phil, you dont know me but still…hope you are bearing up.
More of Stewarts photos now uploaded Nightingale Est and Daubeney Road…look at main post above.
More to come, hope someone looks at the photos, takes me ages to transfer!
May 30th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Stewart wrote: ” I remember Ian arranged to interview Crass at their place in Ongar for the first issue of PFS and I went along – he didn’t say a fucking word!”
LOL that’s pretty much true, you definitely did more of the question-asking and challenged them on a couple of matters. It felt like an expedition going all the way out there. Mind you I was probably only 15 at the time, it felt like a big deal.
Re. uptight, yes and pretty awkward with it. Parents were fairly conservative people but my dad was terminally ill and my mum wasn’t well either then. So a lot of stuff was seething away in my head without my being aware of half of it. No my dad wasn’t a copper, he worked at Unigate in west London before having to quit.
I was out of place but no-one at No. 51 ever made me feel that way.
Random memories from Huntingdon Street days:
Andy and Sue as proud owners of a portable telly.
Dennis and his BMX bike, which made his knees come up past his ears when he rode it.
Dennis chuckling at a bit in Tom and Jerry, where Tom gets walloped on the head and ends up flat as a pancake: “Hur hur! The things they get up to in them cartoons!”
Fallen veg-scrounging patrols in Chapel market and Pip cooking everything up together in a big pot.
Booty from a nicked DDA box being examined. A slightly older man (forgotten his name) who was accorded respect came round to No. 51 to pass expert judgment on the effects of the various pharmaceuticals. “Take four, they’re like Mandies” etc.
Makhno the dog and the black-and-red bandana he wore round his neck.
May 30th, 2008 at 11:40 am
*Winks* at Ian! I’m glad you have good memories of the place, Ian, so do I – never saw you again after 51, so I hope we all contributed to your personal and political development, lol! *winks again*
You’ve reminded me now – in some of the photos going up on the site it’s Dennis, not Steve, in the pix – Steve Teeth was his brother. Ah well, I’m old and my memory’s fading…
Yes, the older bloke was called Clive – I have a horrible feeling he may have been a paedophile :O Don’t like to think about it now
May 31st, 2008 at 5:03 pm
OK last load of Stewart’s wonderful photos up now in puppies and their friends section in photo gallery.
Get the link on the original post above.
June 1st, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Great to see all these photos out in cyberspace!
Re Rachel and Gary (Mick’s pix) – Rachel was Donna’s younger sister (Donna is in some of my pix), became a teacher, had three kids, and has emigrated to Australia…
June 1st, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Ian S. It must of seemed a bit mad for you at Hutindgon St. I didnt realize you where just 15.
I remember that even Boy George, who had been squatting in Kings X for a while would refuse to come in the door and always sent Phillip Salon in to pick Cory, or whoever up to take clubbing.
When asks why, he would say the place was just to full of drugs!
June 1st, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Anyone remember my mate Sad Sack? He used to do a zine called Colbolt Hate and he had a friend called Megadoss Frank. Oh and Vermin as well
June 1st, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Clive is dead . He died of Hep B
June 1st, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Stu, that guy on the sofa with me and Andy is Ralph who went out with Lisa and produced the first E.M.F album (Maybe Blood and Roses too,dunno)
June 1st, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Top news to hear that Pip is going strong. I hope he’s still purveying dodgy home made punch to the antipodeans!
June 1st, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Fucking good photo collection now!! I will try and send a few more of mine at some point. Phil, I remember Megadoss and Sad Sack but not well I must admit.Do you ever hear from Christina? I bumped into her in Bristol years ago.Didnt you or Cory marry her? Memory terrible.One of these days ill stop smoking and it will all come back, but then its all coming back anyway thanks to this site.Say hi to Cory from me please.Whatever happened to W Og? And I havent seen any mention of Fod or Sarah.Im hoping theres plenty more to come out of the woodwork.
June 1st, 2008 at 5:49 pm
I remember Christina! She was at Huntingdon Street too, before moving to a squat in I think it was Martello Street near that big warehouse that was some sort of black music venue, can’t remember what it was called. The first night I met her she had on this veil type thing over her face – made her look like a bee-keeper! A very pretty bee-keeper, mind!
June 1st, 2008 at 6:26 pm
The last time i saw Christina was at The Treworge Tree fayre in cornwall 1989. That was fun
Yeah, I heard she was in Bristol too
June 1st, 2008 at 6:30 pm
The last time I saw Fod Was at that full Solar eclipse festy. Cant remember the year 11/11/99?
June 1st, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Stewart, I knew Rachel was a teacher, didn’t realise she’d moved to Oz. Gary’s going to come to the Subway Sect meet-up on the 13th.
Come along if you’re in town that week, Pork & anyone else. Meeting from 7 p.m. at south end of Highbury Fields then going to the gig underneath the Cock Tavern around 9 p.m.
Mark, Fod moved to Ireland for a while & had a sprog. Think he’s living somewhere in the West country now close to where his sprog’s mum lives. I’ll try & find out where if you’re interested.
June 1st, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Hey Luggy looks like me and Simon Rix will be comming to Subway Sect
June 1st, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Hi Mick that would be great. He might be my neighbour. I met Brian who drove the stage at the first stop the city in the village where my yard is. His ex Nancy lives in the houses 1 field away. That was odd.
Phil I was at that treworgy do, I met Grant who was working for The Fall and he invited me up in the mixing desk. Id just eaten a load of mushrooms. Now sometimes you could see The Fall and they were shit and sometimes they were great. That night they were awesome..
Subway Sect could end up being sold out and they wont know what hit them. That would be a laugh
June 1st, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Mark, I think I lived at treworgy for about a month. All that dust stuck around in our buses and benders forever afterwards.
Had to keep heading off to Loe beach to swim it off.
That was the last time I saw Trish the fudge too
June 1st, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Treworgy was a complete dustbowl! We were living on a field in Lincolnshire at the time, and drove down from there…I remember it being really hot, and – because the fields were on quite an incline – feeling like I was levitating as the psychedelics did the trick…
Saw some great sets (Hypnotics, Loop, Oroonies, Here and Now, Misty, Hawkwind, etc), and met lots of friends: good stuff…
June 1st, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Yeah it was so hot. And those dead sheep…I had been living on this site that was an old Victorian walled garden in Oxfordshire near a little village called Great Tew. It was so lush
June 1st, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Mick is that the tennis court end or the Tube station end?
June 1st, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Yes, Boy George tried to get me into bed once, but I turned him down. He didn’t seem too bothered, mind… Probably just putting a brave face on it (*winks*)
June 1st, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Phil, it’s the tube station/swimming pool end of Highbury Fields.
Mark, hopefully I’ll bump into someone next Sunday at Stokefest in Clissold Park who’ll know where Fod is. If not, I’ll ring around. Got a feeling he might be somewhere in South Devon.
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:51 am
Cheers Luggy, might see you at Stokefest beforehand.
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:57 am
Stu, I think we gave those Blitz kids a bit of a (well deserved) hard time.
They did seem to want to hang out with us. Maybe they just wanted a shag!
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Hi guys,
So lovely to see you all here. Bringing some of it back to me…memory being what it is! I must say i have been missing everyone for years!! So amazing to see Sue on your film Stewart, thanks for posting it. I have some photos too so I’ll dig them out and put them up.
I live in Tottenham now. I saw Boy George djing
at dtpm a few weeks ago, he’s got to be the worst dj in Christendom but still has charisma + kept the room filled all night. I see Cory now and then, he seems ok really, not well, but you know, quite happy most of the time, falling in love with the wrong guys and funny as always.
Well i’m out of touch really, went off the country to be a proper hippy and had a baby in a damp teepee who grew up to want to be a punk and live in squats and be a rock star which he does quite happily in hoxton somehow! Despite my real (ish) efforts to introduce him to the ‘other side’ so now i think of it as our cultural roots.
Now i work for the NHS, and pretty much spend most of my spare time in gay discos or gardening.
hugs
xxx
Min
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
And who could blame them, Phil? Fuck, we were all so good-looking…
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Min, I read this and thought it said “I saw Boy George dying” – Thought I missed a memo or something!
If you have photos or any thing else of relevance to this site then let me know nearer the time when you dig it all out and I will give you my details to send them to.
Welcome aboard, loads of people meeting up on 13 June in Highbury. Info coming soon on this site.
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Hey Min! Big hug! xxx I have lots of good memories of you, but I have to tell this one: I remember when you spent the night at that big council estate in Cazenove Road (Morley House) where me and Ken were squatting, and in the morning after Ken had gone to work I was faffing about in the corridor and you came out naked with a wicked gleam in your eye – and I ran away! Lol! More fool me (*sighs*) – still, I was young and sexually inexperienced – though I don’t think I would have been for long if I’d just stuck around lol (or maybe it was just my teenage hormones running wild and you were after a cuppa, who knows… I remember the boiler was broken and the water was so scalding hot you could just make a cup of tea from the hot tap, and the flat was full of steam all the time like a bloody sauna)
Really pleased to see you here! Though I didn’t realise ANY job with the NHS allowed you to spend all your time gardening in gay discos on taxpayers’ money… (*winks*) xxx
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Hi Min, So many times i think of you and hope / assume youre good. All the kids are big buggers now. Dan is living at Pooh Corner in a full circle kind of way like Rowan. We must of been good parents…Im sure Claire would want me to send you love. She looks on in despair as i gaze at this stuff, but its wonderful to meet up with everyone again. Did you see my glamorous photo of you in the picture gallery ?…Loads of love to you x
June 2nd, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Phil wrote: “Ian S. It must of seemed a bit mad for you at Huntindgon St. I didnt realize you where just 15.”
Yeah was that age when I first bumped into Stewart near Highbury & Islington tube. It was like Oliver Twist meeting the Artful Dodger.
Do you remember seeing bands at the squatted church on Pentonville Road? A bunch of dossers hung around there and would try to demand cans of beer or a swig out the cider bottle as ‘price of admission’. Dog2000 and The Managing Directors played there iirc.
June 2nd, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Ian – “It was like Oliver Twist meeting the Artful Dodger” LOL!!!! (I’ll take that as a compliment!). I was wondering how we’d met, couldn’t remember! I know 51 used to be PACKED wall-to-wall with various waifs and strays some nights. I’m sure I wouldn’t have ENTICED you back to 51, you must have asked to come????
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
iirc was invited by you!
Where you the first people to have lived in No 51 (meaning since it stopped being a shop)? Cos have a memory of a stash of old ska and reggae singles being found there, including Jimmy Cliff’s ‘King of Kings’. Someone must have missed them.
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Phil will probably know that better than me, I moved in after him… I still have that single now!!!! In fact, by a VERY weird coincidence, I’ve just been playing it in my car! It’s fantastic! I mentioned it to Penguin in fact – I thought it was one of the ones I’d bought from a tobacconist’s shop in Dalston Junction, but obviously not lol! Strange how people’s memories can’t keep up, lol…
I DO remember the punky types that lived opposite us though, Andy had a long relationship with one of the women (and I can’t remember her name offhand :O Pat????) after everyone else had moved out of 51 and they were there by themselves with heroin slowly killing them. But I remember Pip catching a bloke called Dean (I think) walking out of the front door of 51 with a big pile of my records in his arms, and asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing – he said I’d said he could have them! Since Pip knew me WELL, he knew that wasn’t fucking true, so at least that was SOME records I saved from scum who’d steal from their own…
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Not that I’m still bitter or anything…
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
If Ian was Oliver, Stewart the Artful Dodger, who the hell was Huntingdon Streets Fagin?
Whilst you are thinking of that you might as well let us know who would have been Bill Sykes and Nancy!
June 2nd, 2008 at 4:06 pm
That would be Pip. Even looked like Fagin… (*winks*)
June 2nd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Hi Min really great to hear from you. I tried phoning you yesterday with a number i had got from Cory, but it was the wrong one. How mad is that!!
Gosh! Didnt know DTPM was still going. I remember when it was a sort of a afterhours club that people headed of to after Trade.
What? Boy George still cant mix. Doesnt surprise me at all!
Would love to see you sometime
Big Hug x
June 2nd, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Ian S. your really testing my memory now. Cory, Evlyn, Pip and me were the first in Huntingdon st.
And yes, I think I remember meeting you at that church now. I remember lots of cool bands playing too, but cant think of any names at the mo.
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Ian S. – there is a flyer for a gig at the squatted church on Pentonville Road
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/Pre-Anarcho%20Centro%20flyers/StJamesgigFlyer.jpg
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:38 pm
I’ve got quite a lot more stuff too I’ve just looked out from my attic. Just sent Penguin the ZigZag article on Blood and Roses by Tony D to upload from August ‘82. It’s mostly Bob spouting off about astral projecting and Aleister Crowley – and Jez has written: “Isn’t this the biggest load of old bollocks you’ve ever read?” on it – LOL!!!! Plus he’s then signed it, like he’s expecting to jet off to America to play Madison Square Gardens very soon and won’t be seeing me for a while – bigger Lol! I LOVED Jez… (very vulnerable bloke, actually…)
Plus more Blood and Roses flyers, The Vilettes flyers (remember them anyone? Pip played trumpet), some Managing Directors stuff – jesus, I’ve even got some hand-written poems/lyrics from Cory!
Is anyone actually interested in all this or is it just me? Don’t want to go to all the hassle of scanning it in etc if it’s all just a load of fish and chip wrapping to most people. It’s important to me, it might not be to you!
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:51 pm
The Blood And Roses ZigZag article is in Zig Zag Magazine sub album in photogalley already Stewey. Send the other stuff though will get all that up.
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:58 pm
I’d definitely like to know more about the Managing Directors…
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Hi Nic! Well, I’m just about to send Penguin an article about them that appeared in Okej magazine lol! It was the Swedish equivalent of Jackie magazine lol, and they were doing a Swedish tour – it was fab! Pip played keyboards for them by this time, but the photo had me in it as well, I was supposed to be the percussion player (which was bollox but they wanted someone else in the photo ‘to add colour’ lol). Unfortunately I only have a black and white photocopy, and it’s in Swedish, so I have no idea what most of it says! But I also intend to send Penguin their single to upload (tho sadly I haven’t transferred the B side onto my computer yet – which was ‘1,000 Light Years from Dub’). I’ll post more about them when I have time though – I really thought they were fantastic!
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Show us your chip wraps geezer
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Well, Phil, how can I resist an invitation like that? You always were a temptress… (I use the word advisedly…) *winks*
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Think this web site is one of the biggest habbits ive had for a while
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Me too… probably just a phase (*winks*). Penguin’s uploaded some stuff to photo gallery printed material already btw
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:49 pm
@Stewart-> “it’s in Swedish, so I have no idea what most of it says!”
Just a thought: scan it, OCR it and then run it through Babelfish.com – won’t be perfect but it might give you an idea.
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:09 am
Good idea, I’ll do that! Tomorrow…
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:47 am
Stu> the pic of the guy you’ve got with the baby in the nightingale collection
is Richard the drummer from Blood and Roses. Not sure who the baby is.
Might be Lisa’s boy(can’t remember his name right now).
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:03 am
Hi Phil! Yes, ta for that, remembered eventually – declining number of brain cells, you know… just about to send over the Managing Directors single now
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Stewart, did that MD’s single have a track on it which had the words ‘Hark the herald angels sing’ in it, maybe a chorus or something? It was a laidback sounding track iirc.
One record which popular back in the day was the Rema Rema 12″. No punk squat seemed to be without a copy. Can’t remember much about it, except it had a big sound, maybe a bit like the Psychedelic Furs ‘Into you like a train’.
Edited to add: just found the Rema Rema tracks on the 4AD website, does not sound anything like the Furs!
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:43 pm
The Rema Rema 12″ still sounds great, Ian: there was a nice cover of their theme song by Big Black in the late 80’s on a Forced Exposure 7″…
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:02 pm
You’re right it does sound good Nic. Thank you Alistairliv for putting up the Pentonville Road church flyer link as well. Joseph Grimaldi was buried there iirc, the gravestone read ‘Here Am I’.
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Managing Directors – right, sent the A side ‘Life and Times’ to Penguin – haven’t got the B side on my computer at the moment I’m afraid.
It was recorded and pressed in Sweden (where they were momentarily very big in Nordic music circles between 2.30am and 3.30am one January Sunday morning – but it was just a passing fad).
The MDs started out doing covers of Kink songs and Gary Glitter etc (Rock ‘n’ Roll remained in their repertoire for ever as an encore and was always a storming favourite with the punx!) but they just got better and better as they wrote their own stuff.
What I find interesting is the reggae connection. Like I’ve said before, reggae and punk were ALWAYS connected, but not a lot of ‘punk’ bands were incorporating reggae influences and rhythms into their music – ATV and the Managing Directors were among the first, I believe. For reggae afficionados, John (drummer) and Kevs (bass player) were the Sly and Robbie of the punk generation! They were really tight! Grew up in Blaenau Ffestiniog playing together since they were little kids and had a mutual love of reggae. I think the record is over-produced but brilliant anyway (the B-side has a punkier track and a dub track on it), and the lyrics are fab: “Everyone I see looks so cold and angry,” “In the back streets is a foul and rotting ratland, many people here have learned to call it home,” and the chorus “We’re just trying to bring some heat to the heart of London”. As they evolved, Lee (the rasta in my Nightingale Estate pics with the big bag of ganja in front of him) sang with them and Pip joined on the organ (though he doesn’t play on this record). Lee and Pip and John and Kevs and others (Sue and Dave, also from Blaneau Ffestiniog, lol! Fucking happening little place, that!) later formed a straight reggae band called something like Earthstepper who were also fantastic. I remember all their tapes were stolen from the boot of Pip’s ancient yellow Volvo one day and he (and I!) were devastated. Pip was also playing trumpet with The Vilettes at the same time, with another trumpet player Jane (in my Farleigh Road pix). If anyone has ANY music from Earthstepper or The Vilettes I would bite your hand off to have a copy (though I’d leave you one hand free to upload it all onto this site first, obviously…)
Ian – the song you’re thinking of with the ‘Hark the herald angels’ line in it was an ATV track – off the top of my head, Life After Life possibly, but I haven’t checked. I loved their more laidback stuff…
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Ian – PS you keep writing iirc in your posts – I have no idea what the fuck that stands for! :0
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:28 pm
‘iirc’ = ‘if I recall correctly’…
It’s Netspeak, Stewart: get with the program, grandad!
(Thanks for the Managing Directors info, Stewart: they passed me by, so it’s nice to learn something about them)
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:32 pm
As a little add, Pip’s yellow Volvo was the one used by the drug dealer who supplied Phil (in the Huntingdon Street video) when he was squatting in Nightingale Estate a couple of floors below me and Pip – no wonder we used to get pulled all the time, lol. When the cops bust Phil’s place (I wasn’t there, but I am told not only did they come through the front door, they abseiled down from the top of the tower block to the 17th floor to come through the balcony back door too!) and took him and the dealer and whoever else was there away, we spent hours tearing that Volvo apart looking for the dealer’s stash, lol. Didn’t find anything though, just bought the car when he was released on bail…
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
You’re welcome! Since I know you’re all bloody obsessed with Blood and Roses for some reason, THAT connection was simply because we all at various times shared squats together. When Jez and Ken and German Frank and I were squatting 57b Cazenove Road (the upstairs bit of a very large house), the lead singer and guitarist of the Managing Directors, Chris, and his girlfriend Helen (all in my Farleigh Road/Blaenau Ffestiniog pics), were squatting in 57a Cazenove Road, the separate downstairs flat of the same house…
And I’ve remembered the name of the middle-aged black guy at the Three Crowns who told the shebeen in Cazenove Road that I was OK to be there – it was Londi. Always stood at the door in a long coat and hat, which he never took off, and we’d buy him a pint if our dole money had come through. When I was a bit drunk once I DID take his hat off, because I was determined to see what he was hiding (lol) – and he was just going bald and greying, as you’d expect! When Pip bought me a saxophone for my birthday, he introduced me to another black guy who’d (allegedly) played saxophone with the Specials and I used to pay him in wraps of speed in return for lessons. He would pour it into a big spliff and smoke it! Sadly, my desperate desire to learn to play saxophone never matched my appalling lack of talent and eventually the time came where there was a mutually understood decision to, erm, shut the fuck up and go away now… which I did, lol
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Hello Min! How lovely to see you on here! Nicky has passed on news over the years – I think we’ve all been unknowingly running along on parallel lines. x Val
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:51 pm
BTW, I have a note next to the original photo of Richard and baby at Nightingale Estate saying the baby is J.J. and named after Jez… awwwww
June 4th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Yeah Stu thats Lisas kid then.JJ
June 16th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
A few photos up in the ‘Johns Highbury homecoming 2008′ section – Friday 13th John No Last Name homecoming get together and Subway Sect to finish! Go to link above on original post for easy access to the page.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Hi Stewart,
Wow I was just given an old diary that I started in 83 and never finished as well as one from 85 that I managed to actually complete and in the 83 one it keeps mentioning me going over to visit you and either you or Pip teaching me to play the sax. There are about 5 entries over the course of a month which end with me being able to play at least a couple of songs on it so you must have been a pretty good teacher. The funny thing was I was just thinking huh he keeps talking about Pip playing trumpet but I remember it being a sax, and the diary said sax too, so until this post I was pretty confused. Anyway thanks for all of the memories and those pictures are great. Shame you didn’t make it to Higbury the other day it would have been great to see you. If Matt, Sue, Jake, Andy and Dave Lyons, Steve, Pip, Cory or anyone else from those days read this I hope you all are doing great and hi Min it’s really good to hear that you are doing well.
June 16th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Hey Luggy – that top?!?! I think I may have the same one. Topshop isn’t it???? (*winks*)
June 16th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Hi John! It was definitely Pip who must have been doing the teaching – he was the musical one, not me! I loved doing the DJing for parties lol, but he was the one with the actual talent!
Sue (if you mean the Sue in my pix/video) died MANY many years ago from a heroin overdose… And Urk (Simon) – her boyfriend after Andy – committed suicide not that long afterwards.
I would actually have loved to have come to Highbury – unfortunately, life gets in the way these days…
BTW, does your diary say where we were living then? So many different places, it’s hard to recall…
June 18th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Hi Stewart,
Sorry to hear that about Sue, she was a really great person and I liked her a lot back then, sad to hear.
I’m looking through to see if I can find a street for you. There’s a few mention of going to Dumont rd and meeting up with you and Pip amongst bunch of others, but it’s hard to figure out who lived there and who was visiting. There’s also a mention of Dave and Andy Lyons and a dog named Sadie and Forberg Rd, but again it’s hard know as everyone was always in each others houses. For some reason I seem to remember that later on you were living in Stoke Newington either with or near someone named Squire, either that or he moved in to your place afterwards ring any bells?
June 19th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Shame about Sue. Last time that I saw her was at one of the last Hackney Shows in the early 90’s. She was living in Brighton & working as a nurse. Thought she’d managed to resist the lure of the brown.
June 19th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Went around to Min’s earlier tonight, she gave me some absolutely wonderful photographs, some of Sue, which be uploaded soon.
Also Mick I left her with that flyer for the weekend in case she wanted to go.
The Lea Valley Festi thing.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:32 am
Well, I know my memory’s shot and I had a raging habit but I thought it was more like mid- ’80s that Sue died?!?! I’m pretty sure she never lived in Brighton?!?! She liked Southend, but lived in Brighton? I worry about myself now – someone help me out here! I was there when Urk scattered her ashes into the sea from a clifftop – I’m pretty sure it was Southend. Phil?!?! Min?!?!
PS Can’t wait to see Min’s pix…
June 20th, 2008 at 12:37 am
PS John No Last Name – yes, rings vague bell-sort-of-sounds… Squire was not a ‘punk’ but squatted in the same house in the Balls Pond Road in 1978/1979 as Ken and Andy (and Shanti and Pearl and Colin and Henry and some others) , and I seem to vaguely recall being shocked that he’d turned up again years later, though we didn’t really renew our acquaintance. Definitely didn’t live with us though. Fuck – Forberg Road, yet another bloody Hackney squat!!!!
June 20th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Could be that my memory’s fucked. We are talking about Sue from Middlesbrough or thereabouts who lived at Tolly Way etc? Possibly might have been late 80’s Hackney Show but I think it was a bit later.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Stu<JohnNLN<Luggy Sue must of died around 1987or88. And she was living in a nice little flat in Southend. She had been off Smack for quite a while and had started hanging out with Adamski (Seal, Killer fame)
and his bro Tinley on the early Rave circuit.
I think it could have been X mas eve of 1987or88 when she died.
Her boyfriend Urk had gone back to his folks for the hols and sue hit the pub where she got very drunk and met some one who offered her a hit.
He did the deed and left her on her own in her flat.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:42 am
John No L N> I spoke to Matt yesterday but we could’nt work out what john UR. I used to live at Forburg with Donna, Andy,Cory too.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:59 am
P.S. I hung out a bit with Sue before she died, and her and Urk both seemed REALLY HAPPY!
June 20th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Yes, and it’s heartwarming to see the love for them both here…
June 20th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Hi Phil, I actually do remember you. I was around from 81 to 88 with some time off between 84 and 86 when I was living in Europe. At one point I was living on Offord Rd in Islington with Matt, Cory, Gary, Ripper, Wog and an excedingly dodgy guy named Terry that by now is either a billionaire or in jail for fraud. After we got evicted Me, Matt, Cory, Jez from Blood and Roses and Angie all moved to another place on the same street. There is a couple of pictures of me in the photo gallery from back then and a few from now too.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Please tell Matt I said hi next time you talk to him
June 20th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Hi John I will get Matt round to mine soon cos he’s not on line at the mo and hasn’t seen this site yet. In the meantime I will say hi from you.
June 20th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Cheers for the info, Phil. My memory was playing tricks with me (again!).
Glad Sue was happy before she died, it’s always weird when you find out someone’s no longer with us years after they die.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
The collection of photos lent to me by the lovely Min are now uploaded on the ‘Memories of Min’ sub album in Photo Gallery.
Get a short cut to the collection by going to the link on the original post above.
June 21st, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Min – Great pix!
Penguin – You don’t call me “lovely”
Everybody else – Get your pix out! (so to speak)
June 21st, 2008 at 5:43 pm
PS Min – Don’t you have any photos of yourself you could look out for ???? (*winks*)
June 21st, 2008 at 6:31 pm
ALSO, I recall in 1978/79/80ish there was a photographer on a motorbike who used to roam the streets of Hackney/Stoke Newington looking for punx to photograph – seemed to be pretty professional. I know quite a few of us got snapped. Anyone ever catch his name????
I’d like to see if he’s got photos of us anywhere…
June 21st, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Stewart Says:
Penguin – You don’t call me “lovely”
I think you’re lovely too Stewey…
June 21st, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I know I know…sorry about that guys. I’m not sure why there’s sooo many of me, I don’t think I’m really that up myself, well I hope not!! At least it balances out the boy /girl ratio on the site a bit!!
I bet there’s loads of pics that were taken on tourist’s cameras too.
Mark do you remember when we got completely surrounded by schoolkids with cameras at Stonehenge after a minimally nutritious and unwise breakfast? I was actually a bit freaked to say the least!!! Think I pretty much vowed to stay on site after that, oh and finding out that Thatcher got back in didn’t help! X
Hi Val, I just found this stream again and your comment from ages ago – Lovely to hear from you after all this time x
June 21st, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Penguin – You didn’t call me ‘adorable’ either… (*hurrumphs*)
June 21st, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Well that’s quite another matter Stewey…
June 22nd, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Sorry to be the bearer of sad tidings (I suppose we should all be used to it on KYPP deathwatch) but heard today that Brenner (I know Phil was mates with her amongst others), died last Wednesday from her long-standing brain tumour in the U.S.
I haven’t got any more details but remember her well from when she used to squat in Hackney in the 80’s, R.I.P.
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:30 am
Oh Luggy, Thanks for the news. That is such a shock as Brenna was a real soul mate of mine. I travelled and squated with her through out the 80’s & 90’s. I will start passing the news to the group we used to travel with
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:43 am
If anyone knows German Anna, she’ll be able to give you more details. She told me about it, I haven’t got a number for her but should be able to get hold of it if you want. I told Julian about it yesterday so hopefully he’s passed the news around a bit.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Thanks Luggy, I have just phoned katie who used to go out with Juilen and she will contact Laurence and Rob . I am also getting the news to Pete one dread who introduced her to the scene over here in the UK and used to date her.
I think the news will travel fast amongst her old age traveller mates now.
July 13th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Stewpico’s little Huntingdon Street reunion get together photos are uploaded now…go up to main post above for a quick link.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Well, fuck, someone’s got to say it… Don’t they all look absolutely GORGEOUS?!?! (*winks*)
July 14th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Yes, all gorgeous.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:14 am
They all look like nice respectable people, at least one of them is adorable and lovely. Can you guess which one Stewey?
July 18th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Does it begin with the letter ‘S’????
July 18th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
You know it does, ya little tease! You’re GORGEOUS!
July 24th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
You don’t look that much older Stewart in those recent pics. Guess you must have a painting of yourself up in the attic . . . ;o)
July 24th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I don’t let ANYONE up in my attic. EVER…
July 25th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Bats in the old belfry Stu? I have the same problem. The little blighters are a protected species. You have to have a license to prod about up there. My psychiatrist had to pay Bill Oddie to have a look under me rafters.
I wouldn’t have minded if it’d been that Kate Humble. Now that IS a Doreen who’s getting better with every strand of Gray.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:17 am
Some Harlow and Bishops Stortford scene photos uploaded courtesy of Michael Mitchell (U Samples bassist) if you follow the link above or go through to photo gallery.
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:30 am
Luggy’s summer picnic photos uploaded – hit the link above in the post underneath the picture of Gary’s pet puppy which was not killed on the day.
December 21st, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Photographs of the Mutoid Britain event organised by those Mutoid wasters are now up in the photo gallery, quick link on the post above for those who care to check out this excellent event which was also free of charge to enter, nice one Mutoids.
January 10th, 2009 at 1:23 am
Anyone know the whereabouts of Christina from Bologna at all?
There have been some of Tod from Flack photographs in the photo gallery for a while now, in the ‘Wapping Autonomy Centre’ and ‘Puppies and their friends’ sub albums.
Go to the link written at the bottom end of the post above for a shortcut to the excellent Wapping Autonomy Centre toilet shots and a picture of Christina.
January 10th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
She spent many years as a new age traveller and then moved to Bristol. I bumped into her in the mid 90’s but then lost her address.
January 17th, 2009 at 1:05 am
Some great photos up from the collection of the very wonderful and lovely Vicky Ridley.
Stewart is also very wonderful and lovely.
Go to the photo gallery and browse the ‘Memories Of Vicky’ sub album, or get the ‘quick link’ in the post above which takes you right there.
January 17th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Christina now lives in Birmingham with her boyfriend Froggy. She has 2 grown up kids, Alice and Cain. She has a myspace page, if you email me I’ll give you the link.
May 2nd, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Fod has kindly donated several photographs in the photo archive under the heading of Memories of Fod. Details and quick link in the post above.
Actually might as well put the link here
http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/Memories%20of%20Fod/
May 3rd, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Excellent pictures Fod.
May 3rd, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Selected photographs of this afternoons KYPP picnic in Clapton in the post above or right here >
http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/KYPP%20spring%20picnic%20May%202009/?start=0
May 17th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Some Wapping Autonomy Centre, Pied Bull and Centro Iberico photographs now uploaded on link in post above courtesy of Jon From Bromley.
If you are lazy – here is a link:
http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/Memories%20of%20Jon%20From%20Bromley/
June 16th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Photographs from Martin Flux collection now uploaded here
http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/Memories%20of%20Martin%20Flux/
June 2nd, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Some photographs from the Lugworm spring picnic and also the battle of the Hagar bassists at Catch afterwards are now up in the photo gallery. Link in the post above or here below if you are lazy!
http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/KYPP%20spring%20picnic%20May%202010/
July 25th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Tinsel has supplied over 130 photographs stretching from 1978 to 1990 or thereabouts for the KYPP archive which may be seen here
http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/Memories%20of%20Tinsel/
Ta to her for that…
July 27th, 2010 at 4:15 am
(repost from Gary’s thread)
All you guys: Circle Line Pub Crawl for Gary Critchley Fighting Fund…
Saturday August 21st. Starts at the Wetherspoons Pub in Victoria Station. 10.00 in the morning. £20 to participate -buy a T-shirt for another tenner if you like. Beer should cost about fifty quid. Factor in food for another tenner or so (unless you’re particularly posh, in which case bring a butler, hamper and a rack of Waitrose organic marching powder for the rest of us).
Continues around the Circle Line quite literally ad nauseam a half pint at a time until we get to Sloane Square around about 11pm, at which point anyone who is completely compost mentis (sic – check your “Jah Porg is quide liderally shit at Ladin, made” textbook) is welcome to pile down the King’s Road shouting at all the shops that used to be like magnets to us when we were children.
I think that in between, we could have rather a good time. I’m planning to, anyway!
Can I remind you all that it is only a half pint in each boozer. Everyone who does any of the pubs is making money for Gary if they get sponsored. Let’s face it, all your friends have an idea about how much you can drink. If that idea is three halves and you manage six, then we’re that much nearer to getting Gary a walk.
Please, all of you guys who know me and are still in the UK, come along. If you can’t make it, then get in touch with Tony or Penguin and stick a few quid in (if you’re betting, my tip is Porky Boy to go a bit green around High Street Ken).
Gary’s team need the money. He’s one of us. Don’t let the man down. Even if you’re not going to have a drink, please come along and support the day – dish out some flyers, talk in a sober way to some people who do’t know about Gary’s plight.
Please come along, or sort out some way of sponsoring your favourite drunk per pub via Pengers or Tony if you really can’t make it. Don’t let us down: I’m risking a lower intestine for this