No Compromise with Their Society: The Politics of Anarchy in Anarcho­ Punk,1977-1985

Laura Dymock

Faculty of Music, Department of Music Research, McGill University, Montréal September, 2007

A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts, Musicology

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In order to analyze the re1ationship of punk to anarchy, this thesis will investigate the discursive function of "anarchy" both in contemporaneous accounts of punk and in subsequent histories. Beginning with the genesis of British punk and the first references to anarchy in different media during the late 1970s, subsequent chapters focus on the seminally influential anarcho-punk band Crass in order to discem their impact on the evolution of the anarcho-punk genre and its relationship to anarchism up through the mid-1980s. Severa1 other anarcho-punk bands will also be considered for their contributions to this genre. In addition to providing an in-depth study of anarcho-punk, which has been largely ignored by scholars, the present work seeks to enhance understanding of the role of anarchy in punk discourse and hopes to offer a starting point for analysing recent developments in other politicised subcultures. Abrégé

Afin d'analyser le rapport entre la sous-culture « punk » et l'anarchie, cette thèse fera enquête sur la fonction discursive de « l'anarchie », autant dans les témoignages contemporains que dans les anecdotes subséquentes visant la sous-culture « punk ». Débutant avec l'origine britannique du « punk» et les premières références à l'anarchie dans les différentes couvertures médiatiques vers la fin des années 1970, les chapitres subséquents passent ensuite à l'étude d'un cas particulier très influent et déterminant du groupe « anarcho-punk » Crass, afin de discerner son influence sur l'évolution du genre « anarcho-punk » et de son rapport avec l'anarchie jusqu'au milieu des années 1980. Plusieurs autres groupes « anarcho-punk » seront aussi considérés pour leurs contributions à ce genre. En plus de fournir une étude approfondie du genre « anarcho-punk » qui a largement été ignoré par les gens de lettres, le présent ouvrage tente d'améliorer la compréhension du rôle de l'anarchie dans la dissertation de la sous-culture « punk », et souhaite offrir un point de départ pour analyser les plus récents développements dans certaines autres sous-cultures politisées. Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Section 1. Discourse on Punk

Introduction 1 l.A. Research Question 1 l.B. Previous Work on Punk 3 1.B.I. Work Conceming "Commercial Punk" 4 1.B.II. Work Conceming "Anarcho-Punk" Il Notes 14

Section 2. "Anarchy": Defore and After Punk

Preamble 18 2.A.I. Brief History of Meaning 18 2.A.II. Sorne Main Concepts of Anarchism 20 2.B. "Anarchy" in Writings on Punk 31 2.B.I. Joumalistic Sources 31 2.B.II. Scholarly Sources 38 Notes 41

Section 3. Anarcho-Punk: Origins and Development

3.A.I. Crass: "The Total Package" 47 3.A.II. Crass: Contradictions, Reception, Positioning 60 3.B. Beyond Crass 70 3.B.I. Other Anarcho Bands 70 3.B.II. Disillusionment 79 Notes 84

Section 4. Conclusion 92 Notes 104

References 107

Discography 113 Acknowledgements

l would like to thank the foIlowing people for aIl their wonderful assistance in making this thesis possible: first, the people who helped prepare me for or encouraged me to go to graduate school: Serge Lacasse, Karen Collins, and especiaIly Keir Keightley. Second, my adviser, David Brackett, for his detailed input and guidance in shaping and executing this thesis, as weIl as for supervising me on an independent project that nicely prepared me for thesis writing. Third, Peter Don't Care, one of the biggest punk fans around, who has provided me over the past five years with his own memories of Crass, tips on various sources to check out, and so, so many copies of period articles, reviews, and posters from his own extensive archives - without this excellent material, the path which eventually led me to this thesis may not have ever been started; l can't thank him enough. Fourth, Fernando Longueira, Kristina Kotoulas, and most especially Helene Drouin, for so patiently answering my many tedious questions regarding the technical aspects ofthesis submission and formatting. Lastly, J. Claude Chartrand, who has been very generous in translating (and revising) my thesis abstract. My parents, of course, also deserve a giant thank-you for aIl their love and continued support throughout my education, as does Dave Spedzia for always being there. Thanks as weIl to Peter Waldkirch, Erin Helyard, and Serena Emerson for making my last few months at Mc Gill quite entertaining. And, finally, thank-you to Alysha, Gabrielle, Eeks! and Emily for the great company and being a welcome distraction. 1

Section 1. Discourse on Punk

Introduction

In 1976, a London band called the Sex Pistols came to the nation's attention partly for their new style of music, but more for their shocking and outrageous behaviour. This band's aesthetic and attitude generated much press coverage and eventually gamered no small amount of scholarly investigation. In less than a year, the Pistols inspired many members oftheir audience to start up their own bands, leading to numerous decIarations of a "punk movement," or at least a coherent scene that, if not entirely homogeneous on a musicallevel, was thought to be bound together by certain motivating factors. The first ofthese was punk's reaction to contemporary mainstream music: so-called "corporate" rock bands such as the Who and Led Zeppelin were now seen às elitist and pretentious because of their increasingly complex music and isolation from their audiences (on the other hand, punk musicians considered pub-rock, a largely 1950s rock'n'roU/R&B revivalist genre popular during the mid-1970s in Britain, too reactionary and thus as irrelevant as corporate rock). Another key factor was the prevailing socio-economic conditions of the time: unemployment, recession, and inflation were aU on a steady rise and causing much urne st. These two sources of dissatisfaction provided the basis for punk's livid critique both against the music industry and society at large. Furthermore, this critique was delivered in such a confrontational manner that, along with the outlandish dress and aggressive behaviour, it led many both in and outside the punk scene to label punk as an all­ out rebellion.

1.A. Research Question

British punk was described as a highly politicised music from its earliest years. To many observers, "it was natural that ifa group of London street kids got together and formed a band, it would be political.") Such conclusions were 2 often implied and supported by remarks about the (presented or actual) working­ c1ass status of many punk band members and their vitriolic lyrics about their frustrations with current societal con<;litions. Along with constant talk about the incredible intimacy between punk audiences and performers, aIl these observations consolidated into the rhetoric that labelled punk "the music of the people.,,2 Although the perception ofpunk as working-class revolutionaries' music remained common during and after punk's heyday, the beginning of a somewhat different, yet more confused, political slant arrived with the first utterances of "anarchy." Quite likely, it was the song "Anarchy in the V.K." (1976) by top British punk band the Sex Pistois that forever seaied "anarchy" as a keyword into punk discourse, but what exactly was this word supposed to convey? Since the punks' music, fashion, gigs, and behaviour have aH been described at sorne point as "anarchie," are we to understand the same meaning with each reference and thus take anarchy as a unifying, and unified, element of punk and its style? Additionally, historians and fans have subsequently come to see anarchy as an important part of the punks' generalised anti-authoritarian outlook which is a curious development since direct references to anarchy were infrequently made by the punks themselves.3 Aiready, we can identify two possible constructions of anarchy in punk: one is political, the other aesthetic, and we need to determine if and how they intersect. There is, however, a larger tension of conflicting ideas in pUnk's use of the term "anarchy": while standard language has, for centuries, equated anarchy with chaos and destruction, and this meaning has played a significant role in commentaries on punk, there is also anarchy as a term emerging from the tradition of anarchism. When early punk bands such as the Pistols and the Clash signed with major record labels and the punk sound and style became subject to an increasingly narrower set of prescriptions, a new sub-genre called anarcho-punk emerged to communicate the sense of betrayal caused by these developments. More importantly, those people involved in anarcho-punk wanted to supersede the mainstream definition of punk (as inspired by the Pistols, et al.) by establishing a foundation for the genre which, they felt, was authentically and radically 3 oppositiona1.4 In doing so, these new bands contributed to sorne disparate conceptions about anarchy by identifying themselves with ideas which they claimed Were anarchist. ln order to sort out punk's relationship with anarchy, an investigation is made here into the discursive function of the term both in contemporaneous accounts and in subsequent histories about punk. This is a worthwhile study not only because anarchy is a recurring topic within punk discourse that has not yet been comprehensively examined, but also because it is highly pertinent to anarcho-punk which is sorely in need of its own investigation. Finally, punk and anarcho-punk provide an opportunity to study a complex interaction of politics and popular culture that is too great to pass over.

1.B. Previous Works on Punk

How exactly writers on punk have used anarchy will be sorted out in Section 2, but for now it is important to create a framework through which we can consider anarchy's function in punk and examine the development of anarcho­ punk (or simply "anarcho"). The following will first discuss works written on "mainstream" or "commercial" punk, that is, bands belonging to the first crop of British punk groups spanning 1976 and 1977 (e.g., the Sex Pistols, the Damned, the Clash, X-Ray Spex, etc.) who were given such labels because of sorne people's negative reception oftheir commercial success. Anarcho-punks used these labels in a derogatory way most of aIl. 5 By my own use of such labels, 1 do not wish to imply the same value judgements, but use them as a means to distinguish this particular grouping from that of anarcho-punk in those instances where confusion would otherwise ensue. 1 also realise that the underlying "us" and "them"/"good" and "bad" connotations that are implied by such labels as "underground" and "mainstream" can be quite problematic and easily collapse under close scrutiny, not least because the boundary dividing these two spheres is often in fact quite hazy. However, since punk and anarcho constructed and perceived themselves specifically on this oppositional basis, the use ofthis 4 terminology is unavoidable here although, again, 1 do not wish to make the same implications regarding value. After covering the most pertinent works on commercial punk, the most significant pieces from the considerably smaller body of writing on anarcho will follow to complete this section.

1.B.I. Work Concerning "Commercial Punk"

One of the most prominent early works to attempt a comprehensive analysis of punk is David Laing' s One Chard Wanders (1985). The author' s stated approach to this subject matter is a blend of semiology and history which seeks to understand punk as a musical genre. In this respect, Laing differs from Dick Hebdige's earlier work, Subculture: The Meaning afStyle (1979), which considers punk music as a relatively small part of a larger subcultural formation. Since Hebdige's work deals with punk as a model ofworking-c1ass youth resistance to "dominant culture," both ofwhich are narrowly and problematically conceived, Subculture will only be analysed in Section 2 for its use of "anarchy." Laing tells us that one of the most important expressions ofpunk's hostility to the main stream was the "do it yourself' [DIY] attitude because it spurred the genre's intense development ofits own independent record labels, fanzines (a.k.a., "zines," non-professional magazines created by, for, and about a particular subculture), and, to a lesser extent, independent distributors. For Laing, punk's establishment ofits own independent economic sector was one ofits biggest achievements because, beyond allowing greater access to the me ans of production (even if it was still rather limited), it also created the space in which punk could develop its own alternative discourse; the proliferation of fanzines was especially crucial to this task. Punk's emphasis on its production apparatus allowed it to go beyond merely communicating its political concerns in its aesthetic content by creating and supplying music through a system that was deliberately structured to reflect many ofthese same concerns. Nonetheless, Laing stresses that a distinction should be made between "independence" and "separation" from the mainstream. The former is "expressed mainly in terms of 5 production and distribution of records" and seeks "to reach the same people as are reached by the musical mainstream but by a different route." Separation, on the other hand, "is concerned with consolidating a special community of punks, to whom punk rock will have special meanings.,,6 One way of accomplishing this consolidation was through a "negative unit y" which punk formed by "the common sense of exclusion from (and rejection of) mainstream music and its industry." But as soon as the industry successfully signed and marketed punk, "the outsider status of punk began to crumble, as did its character as a genre.,,7 Therefore, although separation from the mainstream may at first appear more severe, when we follow Laing's logic, the fragility of the negative unit y that creates it actually weakens punk's identity. The independent method, then, is revealed to have at least the potential for longevity in maintaining punk's outsider positioning. Drawing on Walter Benjamin and others, Laing builds up the concept of local and structural shock-effects. The former "occurs when just one aspect of a musical piece is composed of shock-material, leaving the overall structure intact;" thus, since the overall piece will stilllikely be heard "as conventionally pleasurable," there will be little to no impact on the listener. A structural shock­ effect "can potentially change the whole 'shape' of a recording or performance" by its striking use ofnon-conventional techniques (at least by mainstream standards); and it is more likely to have a greater effect on the listener because s/he has to adopt a different way of listening. 8 Of course, the result of any shock­ effect will ultimately depend on how the listener receives it and cannot be achieved by the musician's intent alone. Laing de scribes many other aspects of punk, but in order to understand this genre's relationship to the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s, we must turn to other sources. In England 's Dreaming (1992), generally considered one of the most exhaustive socio-historical accounts of British punk, Jon Savage de scribes the hippie-punk connection as twofold: on one level, punk was a manifestation of the repugnance felt for hippie culture's complacency and insularity; on another, one can view punk as reiterating many elements of hippie 6 countercultural rhetoric. Savage also notes how much of the punks' vitriol for the hippies was, in a way, a reflection oflarger cultural trends: beginning in the early seventies, severallarge media outlets began to develop "a new language of fear and anxiety" that was amplified in the mid- to late-seventies by the onset of recession, rising unemployment, and inflation (this formed what Laing caUs the "crisis rhetoric" ofthis time). Simultaneously, there were numerous scare stories on a variety oftopics (pomography, muggings, vandalism, etc.) which, "coUected under the label of 'permissiveness,' served notice on sixties libertarianism." These sources blamed the problems of the seventies on the freedoms of the sixties and sought to put an end to such liberalism (which in tum created an atmosphere that was ripe for the sharp tum to the political right that England took later in the decade). Caroline Coon (formerly Carolyn Coon) has also remarked that the anti­ hippie rants of the press informed the similar outlook of the Sex Pistols: "1 hadn't expected to see the idealism ofmy generation denigrated with such aggressive negativity. When [the Sex Pistols] were slagging off hippies, 1 realised that they had grown up reading about hippies in the tabloid press, and what they were doing was spouting the 'the shock and the filth' of the hippies.,,9 Where hippies and much of the counterculture had a wiUful ignorance of the effects of media, punk had a considerably different approach to public relations. According Mary Harron, "sixties rock stars believed that the truth of their music was something separate from the hype" and by their refusaI to acknowledge the capitalist processes (which, in theory, they sought to abolish) that were intertwined with rock, they largely reinforced commercial music industry practice. 10 This hypocritical production of yet another group of elite, commodified stars (among other things) constituted the real failure of hippie for many observers, and the perceptions of the counterculture's growing irrelevance as the seventies wore on were integral in shaping punk's identity.' , Citing the work of Peter York, Harron points out how punk helped restore the generation gap by means of a "revoit of the young against the youngish;" the young radicals of the sixties had become the youngish hip parents of the seventies who supposedly understood their children's tastes.'2 By vehemently rejecting this hip 7 culture (which was most famously summed up by that oft-cited quote of lead Sex Pistol, Johnny Rotten: "1 hate hippies and what they stand for"), the punks sharply set themselves apart as a new generation and the contemporary press on punk actively distributed this idea. 13 Even though most press at the time acknowledged that the punks were reacting against the hippie counterculture, many writers felt the connection ran much deeper and took punk's attitudes and opinions, however angrily shouted, as an updated or re-packaged version of sixties rhetoric. 14 Given that many of the early and "most articulate exponents of the punk critique were, in fact, old hippies like Caroline Coon" and Charles Shaar Murray, it seems reasonable to suggest that these same people grafted their own sixties-forged beliefs onto punk 15 culture. But the drawing of such parallels was not well received by a scene so determined to focus solely on the present: "The music press are basically sixties culture freaks. They imply we're not original. ... It shows the vampire nature of the sixties generation, the most narcissistic generation that has ever been!,,16 This assessment is not entirely off-base: after aIl, the hippies may have been a loud expression of anti-establishment consciousness, but they were not the tirst or only ones to come up with such concepts. Other precursory groups or movements that held similar ideas (e.g., Dada art, Futurism, Situationism, folk ideal of authenticity, etc.) were also important influences on punk and have been recognised more in hindsight than they were in contemporary criticism. Since most people agreed that the radical intentions ofhippie culture went unfultilled, punks sought to demonstrate that "radicalism was possible, as long as it used and exposed that pop process" of mass marketing and hype. 17 Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistols' thirty-something manager, was a central actor in the exposure process. Because the Pistois were considered to have triggered and set the tone for British punk on many levels, understanding the ways in which scholars have interpreted McLaren's influence on the Pistols (and subsequently punk) is crucial. Savage tells us that, like the young punks themselves, McLaren "hated hippies with a vengeance" because he "felt that the c1aims of hippie culture to have changed the world were false: it was just window dressing." The 8

Situationist International, a key player in the May, 1968 events in Paris, was a profound and lasting inspiration to McLaren because it "turned [paradoxical] aesthetic style into political gesture" through its use of "manifestos, broadsheets, montages, pranks, [and] disinformation" which would inform his later handling of the Pistols. 18 McLaren encouraged the band to be "the first rock act to turn their aggression against the industry itself." By refusing to allow their image to be adjusted and presented in an acceptable manner through the industry's public relations arm, the Sex Pistols, and by extension punk itself, appeared committed to their "honest" attitude. For many, this honesty translated as the band being "genuinely antisocial, both in terms of bad behavior and in the sense of being opposed to the established order ofthings." No major label trying to sell and promote such a deliberately offensive and vulgar group was exempt from being a target ofthese punks' hostility and "just by being successful [the Pistols] would make a mockery [both] of the industry that sold them" and its traditional publicity tactics. 19 In Art into Pop (1987), Simon Frith and Howard Home have echoed this idea by conceptualising McLaren's tactics as "pop situationism" whose "theory of subversion ... drawn, loosely, from situationism" compelled him to drive the Pistols "into the money-making core of the pop machine, to be both blatantly commercial ... and deliberately troublesome so that the usually ... hidden gears of commerce were always on noisy display." 20 One could, in other words, genuinely disrupt the music industry and pop culture if the source of subversion came from within the industry. Consequently, McLaren absolutely had to get the Pistols signed to a major label since independents were too small to accomplish the desired effects; however, such an antagonistic relationship resulted in the band being signed and quickly dropped by three different major labels in less than a year. Because the Pistols had also received substantial advances from each label, this series of events laid the band, and those who followed similar profitable avenues, open to charges of "selling-out." These accusations soon grew into a backlash among those sectors of the punk community which were swelling with 9 indignation over the perceived hypocrisy of the Pistols' actions. However, despite their newly expanded ill-repute, the Pistols achieved sorne tangible successes: although they did not cause the collapse of the music business, they did reveal previously obscured industry workings to the general public for the first time. They also contributed (inadvertently or not) to a growing trend of opposition to the established music business which, in turn, fed into an increased emphasis on independent production apparatus. Frith and Home further explain McLaren's approach as having been highly informed by his art school experience. In Art into Pop, the authors explore howart schools had a pervasive influence on British popular music from the 1950s onwards. Finding difficultly with traditional divisions of "high" and "mass" culture, the authors present art schools as a direct challenge to such simplifications because they "cross these divisions in terms of both class and ideology"; "art school graduates ... as pop musicians, apply 'high art' skills and identities to a mass cultural form." Punk had many of its musicians trained at art school and its performances "were [certainly] informed by avant-garde arguments about shock value, multi-media, montage and deconstruction.,,21 Greil Marcus has also written extensively on punk's avant-garde connections in Lipstick Traces: A Secret History ofthe Twentieth Century (1989). Intrigued by journalists' frequent but unsupported comments about punk's "dada" qualities and McLaren's Situationist International [SI] experience, Marcus seeks to uncover how the Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." presents a condensed though "crudely poetic" form of the SI's critique of modem society, especially in terms of how that critique relates back to the dadaists and surrealists of the 1910s and 1920s. For Marcus, punk "briefly made it possible to experience ... things as if they were not natural facts but ideological constructs" and this "negation of all social facts ... produced the affirmation that anything was possible." Even if this achievement "was no more than an art statement," pUnk's critique ofmass culture was significantly different because it not only came from the centre of mass culture, but it also "now paraded as mass culture, at the least as protean, would-be mass culture.,,22 10

Although Frith, Home, and Marcus have an interest in punk's art influences, they also note that "at the time of its maximum publicity, 1976-7, punk was treated as a street not a college movement, an eruption from the gutters of inner-city recession.,,23 During these years, many punks actively hid any exposure to higher education that they might have had and aimed to present themselves as tough working-class kids. Thus, the art/avant-garde elements that became more obvious and analysed in hindsight were overlooked at the time as many joumalists and scene insiders preferred the "populist" interpretation of punk. This dialectic, present in punk from the start, has been labelled by Laing as "real" vs. "avant-garde," by Savage as "social realist" vs. "art y" and by Frith and Home as "mainstream" vs. "vanguard." Whichever labels one prefers, the point is that this dialectic maintained a balanced, though tense, negative unity for the first year of punk. Laing puts forth two methods used for sustaining this unit y, and both are rooted in punk situating itself in opposition to something perceived as outside and different to it. The first was its stance against the music industry discussed above. The second method went further in that "within the discourses of punk rock" it allowed "the notion of an avant-garde [to] coexist with that ofrealism because ... both represented a rejection of the cultural status quo.,,24 Somewhat similarly, Frith and Home feel that the high value placed on shock effect was the pre-eminent unifier ofpunk's two halves. Regardless of which tactic was more influential, the outcome was the same: anyone who wanted to describe punk as homogeneous could avoid the problematic aesthetic issues ofbands' different musical approaches by instead constructing punk as a genre of opposition. However, within two years the realist strain of punk, that music so triumphed and maligned as "bare essentials" "amateur" music, spl~t noticeably from the avant-garde side. The former, thinking of itself as "the music of the people," went deeper into political partisanship and required strict adherence to certain musical approaches in order to be designated punk. The latter, acquiring labels such as "new wave" or "positive punk," largely disengaged itself from Il political affiliations and allowed for a wider variety of avant-garde experimentation within an overarching pop aesthetic.

1.B.II. Work Concerning "Anarcho-Punk"

Scholars have so far made no comprehensive studies of anarcho-punk. What has been available up until now consists of George McKay's work on the seminal anarcho band, Cras s, and a smattering of brief and sometimes inaccurate references to "anarchist punk" within studies on mainstream punk. The bulk of existent material on anarcho cornes from joumalistic sources. Articles from contemporary fanzines and established music press, much like the contemporaneous coverage on mainstream punk, provide interesting "for" and "against" evaluative perspectives. As weIl, the recent series of articles by Lance Hahn retrospectively look at anarcho's most prominent bands (generally through a mixed format of interview and narrative), their contributions to the genre, and their connections to other anarcho groups. Even though this latter category operates on a somewhat uncritical and celebratory basis, it is invaluable for its obscure but useful information, its attempts to map out musical and political continuities and differences between anarcho bands, and its identification of certain trends within the genre; even if these are a matter of perception, perhaps tainted by nostalgia, more than the "reality" of how things actually were, such writings illustrate how anarcho was and is understood by its participants and therefore cannot be excluded. George McKay has written about Crass in "Postmodemism and the Battle of the Beanfields: British Anarchist Music and Text of the 1970s and 1980s" (1994) and in a chapter ofhis book Senseless Acts ofBeauty: Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties (1996). Although there is considerable overlap between these two sources, the former' s intent to situate Crass in a postmodem context makes it less relevant here than the book chapter which seeks a general 12 socio-political contextualisation of the band. Nonetheless, the common fundamental points will be drawn from both here. Noting sorne ofCrass's broaderpoints of impact, McKay emphasises "that it's outside mainstream culture and society, at the margins ofrepresentation and expression, at the margins ofpolitical activity, that Crass's interventions were most significant.,,25 In order to accomplish this, Crass engaged in a "process of self-marginalisation" that was both a deeply critical rejection of music industry practices and, once they had started their own record label, their me ans of maintaining total autonomy.26 The establishment of an independent record label is not an unusual occurrence, but, in conjunction with the band's communal living, political involvement, and active role in creating viable alternative networks (for gigging, touring, news, etc.), Crass Records and "Crass the performing band [became] interlocked aspects of the same musical/political activity." Crass had thus combined their endeavours into a "total package" which represented "an effort ... to close the gap of [anarchist] rhetoric and practice." FinaIly, by controIling every aspect oftheir work and "avoid[ing] recuperation," Crass remained consistent with their critique ofmainstream punk's ultimately capitalist underpinnings, and, having done so, McKay cites Crass as a central, even genuine, example ofpunk's "discourse ofauthenticity, obsess[ion] with street credibility, with not 'selling out'.',27 Put another way, Crass appeared to make good on mainstream punk's failed promise ofindependence. Yet McKay deflates this achievement as he recaIls a prominent contemporary criticism of Crass: "for aIl their self-marginalisation they would still use effective sales techniques and pitches to get their views over, their 28 records bought, listened to, read"; i.e., Crass relied upon strategies of capitalism. Such statements appear reflective of the author's opinions not only of anarchism, but also of anti-commercial/independent declarations in general. In other words, we are implicitly told that these are almost inherently hypocritical views to have when one is situated anywhere in a capitalist system. However, the possible contradictions and complications of promulgating subversion through commodities were not at alliost on Crass or other anarcho bands. It is a central 13 issue for the whole genre that has drawn extensive comment and will be explored in later sections. Crass's politics as described by McKay will be further deaIt with in Section 2, but for now it is important to explain how McKay connects Crass's ideas to their methods of bricolage. Borrowing directly from Hebdige, McKay refers to bricolage as "a patchwork of ideas, strategies, voices, beliefs, and so on" which punk translated into its Dry attitude. For McKay, this patchwork (evident in all aspects ofCrass's work: records, leaflets, films, gigs) was used by Crass in such a totalising manner that the various objects oftheir criticism "often merged together in a kind of grand conspiratorial accusation as 'the system' .,,29 This creates a contradiction in McKay's view for Crass offer their critique of the totalising narratives of "the system" (the state, religion, education, etc.) in an equally totalising manner. This is not necessarily an incorrect statement, for Crass often used this style of ambiguous criticism; however, the way McKay interprets Crass's anarchism to reach his conclusion is debatable and will be taken up later. Very recently, former participants in the anarcho-punk scene have added two new and valuable joumalistic sources on the genre. The first is ran Glasper's The Day the Country Died: A History ofAnarcho-Punk, 1980-1984 (2006). A virtual encyclopaedia, over eighty bands are documented here by entries composed largely of excerpts from recent interviews. Although Glasper does interject his own commentary, he usually confines his briefremarks to biographical fillers or romanticised depictions of groups' "honesty," "originality," impact, etc. This leaves it to the bands to strike a balance with their own criticisms, which they frequently do. Since the book uses mostly freshly­ conducted interviews instead of both new and period sources, it also has a tendency towards nostalgia, but by providing histories, discographies, and photos for a breadth of greater and lesser-known bands, Glasper's ambitious work offers the first comprehensive overview of the genre. The second contribution is George Berger' s The Story ofCrass (2006) which is a biography that describes the role of each band member in addition to 14 charting the group's generic positioning. While Berger's work is useful for its collection of previously obscure or unknown information, period articles, as well as fresh retrospectives, the author' s abrupt digressions tend to leave sorne intriguing ideas only partially explained or as vague generalisations. These problems notwithstanding, this book remains a greatly needed one for the annals of punk and it at least avoids Glasper's urge to fawn over his subject matter. Because of Berger' s own history with anarcho-punk, he is also able to offer numerous insightful observations which could only be culled from the experience of first-hand involvement. Since both of these books are intended as thorough introductions to the groups that they discuss, more of their content cannot be put forward until we have established a framework for understanding anarchy and anarchism. Let us now turn to a study of these terms both inside and outside punk discourse.

Notes

1 Carolyn Coon, "The Sex Pistols," Melody Maker, November, 1976. Also in Rock She Wrote, eds. Evelyn McDonnell and Ann Powers, (New York: Delta, 1995),93.

2 Carolyn Coon, "Parade of the Punks," Melody Maker, October 2, 1976.

3 Historians' outlooks were influenced in part by journalists' articles during the height of punk. Carolyn Coon, for example, wrote about the "anarchic" nature of punk music and participants and identified "anarchy" as a topic of choice among these bands; see Coon, "The Sex Pistols." In 1978, Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons - punk fans-tumed-journalists - described the "beautiful, blistering, nerve-bruising paean to anarchy as self­ rule" of the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." as having been put into "obstreperous practice" when the band made an expletive-saturated appearance on national primetime television; see The Boy Looked at Johnny (London: Pluto Press, 1978), 36. Since the late seventies, David Laing has written about anarchist and other radical political expressions in mainstream punk; see One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1985), 25, 29-31. Later still in the twentieth century, American punk writer Craig ü'Hara devoted an entire chapter ofhis well­ received book to "Anarchism: An Alternative to Existing Systems, What It Is 15

and Why It 1s Embraced by Punks All over the World." See The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise (London, Edinburgh, San Francisco: AK Press, 1992), 70-101. This is only the beginning of list, but already we can see that, however these writers defined "anarchy" (as chaos and disruption or as a political doctrine), they still saw it as a part of the punks' disregard for authority and socially-acceptable behaviour.

4 Anarcho-punks generally understood their genre's difference from mainstream punk as follows: "There's two types of punk: one's for the money [i.e., mainstream punk], the other for change [i.e., anarcho-punk]." Colin Jerwood of the band Conflict, quoted in Garry Bushell, "Conflict," Sounds, September 24, 1983.

5 Note here that what 1 have written so far about punk applies mostly to the British variety. "New York punk" developed a year or two earlier with groups such as the Ramones, the Talking Heads, Blondie, etc. Similar to British punk, these groups of mostly unskilled players formed bands out of a desire to create music that harkened back to the simplicity (but not the style) of earlier forms of rock'n'roll. Besides usually being older, NY punk bands had other distinctive characteristics: musical avant-garde and "high" art techniques were unabashedly used and tensely rivalled the "pop" elements (e.g., the "arty" Talking Heads spoke about their disdain for the "moronic" three-chord music of the Ramones; but not all NY punk bands adhered to one side). Significantly, NY groups avoided social or political commentary (they also did not face the same socio-economic conditions as the British punks) and none acted in a heavily aggressive or anti-social manner. 1ndeed, once the British version of punk became well known in America, "punk" came to mean only that rowdy, political, British music and "new wave" prevailed as the preferred label for the New York scene. For an exhaustive study ofthese genre labels, NYpunk's art/pop dialectic and its influence on British punk (despite the latter's c1aims of total independence), see Bernard Gendron, Between Montmartre and the Mudd Club: Popular Music and the Avant-Garde (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 227-315.

6 David Laing, One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1985), 127,37, ibid.

7 Ibid, 38, 39.

8 Ibid, 79, ibid.

9 Jon Savage, England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), 109, ibid, Carolyn Coon quoted in Savage, England's Dreaming, 231.

10 Mary Harron, "McRock," in Facing the Music: A Pantheon Guide to Popular 16

Culture, ed. Simon Frith (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 194.

11 1 realise that the reader may think 1 mean "hippies" here, but this is not the case. After reviewing many articles from the British press, it appears to me that popular culture insiders and observers in the U .K. use "hippie" in the same manner that North Americans use "punk," "rock," or "soul": as a singular noun which is intended as an identifier for the whole culture and is not restricted to being a name for its participants only. When North Americans talk about "hippie," they seem to prefer a term such as "hippie culture." Furthermore, one should also have reservations about consistently using "counterculture" as a synonym for "hippie," because, even though there was much overlap between the two, these terms do not always and exactly mean the same thing. For example, groups such as the Black Panthers, the Students for a Democratic Society or the followers of the Situationist International were integral parts of the counterculture, but they were not hippies. Conversely, it would not be wise to assume that being a hippie necessarily meant one was also a counterculturalist because many hippies did not go beyond the level of fashion, drug-use, etc.

12 Peter York quoted in Harron, "McRock,"196.

13 Johnny Rotten quoted in John Ingham, "The Sex Pistols Are Four Months Old," Sounds, April 24, 1976.

14 See Simon Frith, "Beyond the Dole Queue: The Politics of Punk," Village Voice, October24, 1977,77-79.

15 Ibid, 78.

16 Malcolm McLaren quoted in Charles M. Young, "Rock Is Sick and Living in London: A Report on the Sex Pistols," Rolling Stone, October 20, 1977, 73.

17 Harron, "McRock," 194.

18 Savage, England's Dreaming, 9, 27, 36.

19 Harron, "McRock," 195,199,201.

20 Simon Frith and Howard Horne, Art into Pop (London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1987) 131, 132.

21 Ibid, 2, 128.

22 Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History ofthe Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 18, 6-7, 7, 70. 17

23 Frith and Home, Art into Pop, 124.

24 Laing, One Chord Wonders, 104.

25 George McKay, "CRASS 621984 ANOK4U2," in Senseless Acts ofBeauty: Cultures ofResistance Since the Sixties (London: Verso, 1996), 79.

26 George McKay, "Postmodemism and the Battle ofthe Beanfields: British Anarchist Music and Text of the 1970s and 1980s," in Postmodern Surroundings, ed. Steven Eamshaw (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994), 152.

27 McKay, "CRASS 621984 ANOK4U2," 90, 77, 79,82.

28 Ibid, 90.

29 Ibid, 78. 18

Section 2. "Anarchy": Defore and After Punk

Preamble

Before proceeding to the discussion of anarchy and anarchism below, 1 feel it necessary to offer a disclaimer: 1 am not a political theorist nor do 1 have any official training in this field. Of course, anarchists, sorne of whom have hostile tendencies towards bourgeois education, probably would not hold this against me; and political theorists, for their part, seem conflicted at times about anarchism, so it is probably wise not to rely on them too heavily in this area. In giving a briefhistory ofanarchism and an overview ofits ideas, 1 am in no way offering a definitive account. Even the most knowledgeable anarchist writers admit to the difficulty of pinning down coherent and comprehensive summaries of anarchist thought due to the very nature of the subject matter. At the same time, and partly as a result of anarchism' s distrust of institutionalisation, there is also concem over the desirability of creating a "standard account" in the first place, since such a thing edges dangerously close to reified tradition (that said, the vast amount of currently available historical and theoretical resources reveals sorne concrete demand for traditional knowledge). Nonetheless, 1 will make an attempt, though 1 have no doubt that at least sorne anarchists will take issue with sorne of what follows; anarchism's emphasis on freedom ofthought makes this inevitable, just as it resists, even "rejects the authority of any spokesperson."l ln this non­ representational spirit, my approach has sought to incorporate a diversity of anarchist voices (activists, cultural theorists, historians, writers) as well as "traditional" political theorists.

2.A.I. "Anarchy": BriefHistory of Meaning

Anarchy is a word with archaic origins. Derived from ancient Greek, it means something approximating "the absence of govemment or rulers." From this definition proceeds the assumption that a society without govemment is also 19 one without authority, rules, or morality, and, when it is suffering from this absence, society can only collapse into disorder; anarchy was and still is understood in this final sense of chaos. In Modern Political Ideologies (1992), political theorist Andrew Vincent has referred to this semantic shift as "verbal slippage," but anarchist writer and historian Daniel Guerin, in his book Anarchism (1970), sees the matter less benignly: "for millennia the presumption has been accepted that man cannot dispense with one [authority] or the other [govemment], and anarchy has been understood in a pejorative sense, as a synonym for disorder, chaos, and disorganisation. ,,2 It cannot be denied that anarchy has long been a term of abuse; even when it took on distinctive political connotations in the nineteenth century, "anarchist" continued to be used as an insult by its detractors. That sorne of the first anarchists tried to avoid the label early on in their careers demonstrates how profound the attached stigma was. The idea of anarchy as chaos and destruction has merged with, and partly caused, stereotypes of anarchists as bomb-throwing social deviants, and this type of portrayal has arisen from more than just semantic confusion. In the times and places when authorities were faced with more substantial anarchist agitation and activity (e.g., America in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Spain in the 1930s), the challenge was often met with defamation and fraudulent accusations. Authorities frequently sought to silence anarchists by any means necessary, including the orchestration ofnegative public opinion through depicting anarchism as a philosophy bent purely on destruction.3 But anarchists themselves have occasionally added to the confusion: sorne of the most prominent figures in the mid- to late-nineteenth century produced certain aphorisms that enigmatically played up on anarchy's negative connotations when heard for the first time and out of context; a famous example ofthis is Mikhail Bakunin's "the urge to destroy is a creative urge." Sorne strands of anarchist thought have also engaged in or promoted violent methods that have, intentionally or not, reinforced the official slander that has blanketed aU types of anarchists. 20

2.A.II. Sorne Main Concepts of Anarchisrn

Most historians and political theorists agree that anarchism resulted from the confluence of two main schools of the Enlightenment: liberalism and socialism. In taking liberalism's emphasis on freedom and socialism's need for equality, anarchism conceived ofthese things as inseparable: "the crucial contribution ... made by anarchists is this realisation that freedom and equality are in practice the same thing.,,4 From the perspective that "socialism will be free or it will not be free at aIl," the individual's freedom and equality in society are mutually dependent; one cannot exist without the unlimited presence of the other.5 Anarchism's combination ofliberalism and socialism is transformed from a mere merger of ideas to a uniquely marked doctrine by its articulation of a vehement opposition to coercive power and its myriad institutional and social manifestations. From this historical context, many commentators have regarded anarchism as "the libertarian wing of socialism," and thus place anarchism on the far left of the political spectrum.6 More recently, such placement has come under tire, with the attacks often c1aiming that anarchism has no place on the political spectrum, that it transcends such a linear continuum. Alongside these arguments are other revisionist endeavours which seek to disassociate anarchism from the left by denying that there is any binding yoke between the two, but we will retum to these arguments later. The combinatory source of anarchism has particular import for the development of anarchist theories in the nineteenth century and after. By acknowledging these Enlightenment tributaries, we can begin to make sense of the seemingly divergent strands in anarchist thought, namely, the striking difference or even incompatibility of the individualist and socialist streams. Both ofthese first appeared early in, and were developed throughout, anarchism's "c1assical" phase which spans approximately from the 1840s to the 1930s, and it is this period that the following discussion is concemed with unless otherwise 21 indicated. This binary division is a deliberate, perhaps even gross, simplification on my part (though it is not my original creation) of the trends within anarchism. Although many writers have documented five or more schools of anarchist thought, the space is not available here to adequately explain each of these and their associated thinkers with the complexity each warrants. For our purposes, then, we will have to make do with this general division while keeping in mind that, despite extremes on either end, the two streams share sorne basic but important elements. To understand the urgent belief in the rejection of coercive authority shared by all anarchists, the following quote from anarchist historian Rudolf Rocker helps explain:

[In] contrast with the intellectual guardianship of all clerical and governmental institutions, [anarchism] strives for the free unhindered unfolding of all the individual and social forces in life .... For the anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the power, capacities, and talent with which [he is] endowed ... and [to] turn them to social account. The less this ... development of man is influenced by ecclesiastical or political guardianship, the more efficient and harmonious will human personality become, the more will it become the measure of the intellectual culture of the society in which it has grown.7

The state's function, then, is oppressive by nature; it limits not only the freedom of the individual through the guise of regulation, but it also stifles the self-management of communities. The state's claim of ensuring equality and faimess by putting restrictions on liberty is a contradiction to anarchists because the state's inherent will to exercise control over freedom - "regulation" - makes it incapable of generating real equality; if it could, there would not be a division between rulers and ruled. But the state is not the only target of anarchists, even if 22 it is perhaps the most assaulted one. "Anarchists are also opposed to every other form of authority - in the family, in the school, at work, in the neighbourhood­ and to every attempt to make the individual conform."s Even ideas such as "universal morality," "common values," and other similarly labelled concepts can be considered highly suspect by anarchists. Looking to uproot every mechanism of imposed authority, anarchism encourages ever-vigilant interrogation of received notions of the self and the world. Taking nothing for granted, it seeks to continuously scrutinise cultural, social, and political inheritances in order to judge the worth or purpose of maintaining them and this practice applies as much to the anarchist tradition itself as it does to society at large. Perhaps for this reason, in addition to its "demands [for] an end to oppression in aIl its forms," anarchism has, especially since the 1960s, intersected with a variety of other change-aspiring movements including feminism, environmentalism, gay and lesbian rights, and animal rights, to name just a few. 9 Individualist anarchism propounds that the individual is beholden to no one; he or she is an autonomous being, entitled to unlimited liberty, so long as s/he does not exploit or coerce others in any way, i.e., do not impinge upon another individual's freedom. The kind of social organisation often described here is free association or mutualism: individuals come together and establish a union on equal terms when it is of mutual benefit and the union dissolves when it is no longer necessary (e.g., once the predetermined goal is accompli shed) so that it will not threaten either party's autonomy. Sorne individualists go as far as to say that society itself is a faIse notion, an illusion. Instead, the most we should expect is a collection of autonomous individuals, for even an attempt at organised society is a threat to and imposition on individualliberty. Socialist anarchism speaks of a society organised along a variety of communal principles, sorne of which may or may not include: the means of production and/or their products held in common, the abolition ofprivate property (when used for exploitative purposes, e.g., rent) and/or waged labour, equal division and variation in the distribution of work, the establishment of non­ hierarchical committees made up of delegates to take care of a society's needs, 23 workers' free credit unions and banks, etc. However constructed, anarchist society is to be non-hierarchical and, usuaIly, de-centralised in aIl areas since centralisation veers too closely to top-down social structuring which is unable to act in the best interests of the community. Conversely, if society is organised from the bottom-up, so that information cornes from the people directly affected by the decisions regarding a particular issue, the involved co-ordinating bodies will be able to engineer an outcome satisfactory to everyone. IdeaIly, it is preferable to have everyone affected by these decisions participating in making them, but when that is not possible delegates are a suitable alternative because they are, among other things, bound to consult and receive consent before acting. Anarchists do not pretend that these are the most time-efficient ways of doing things, but they are the most worthwhile because "such organisation ... will be much closer to the needs and feelings of the people concerned" and will encourage stronger social bonds due to the higher levels of communication and co-operation required by these methods. 10 Individualist anarchists can possess varying amounts of distrust for the forms of social organisation touched on above because these may entaillimits on individual freedom. However, it must be stressed that social anarchists do not (or should not) have rigid ideas about how to manage society for that would run counter to the context-specific sensitivity that most, if not aIl, forms of anarchism strive for. The fluidity of social anarchism is intended to preserve the liberty of the individual, after aIl, the "unhindered unfolding" of the individual is one of anarchism's very purposes. While certain forms of social anarchism may conceive of committees, federations, etc., which sorne may suspect ofbeing or becoming a form ofauthority, these entities are in astate of perpetuai flux, they are never to become a permanent fixture in society. The insistence on purely voluntary participation and agreement, along with frequent changes of delegates, is designed to facilitate this mutability and thereby make these organisations highly responsive to changing conditions while also safeguarding the individual's liberty. 24

What is ultimately rejected by aIl anarchists, then, is "the institutionalisation of organisation, the establishment of a special group whose function is to organise other people" and the coercive, oppressive authority that produces and is masked by these structures. 1 1 Noam Chomsky has delicately elaborated this point while simultaneously redressing a common criticism of anarchism:

One might ask what value there is in studying a "definite trend in the historic development of mankind" that does not articulate a specific and detailed social theory. Indeed, many commentators dismiss anarchism as utopian, formless, primitive, or otherwise incompatible with the realities of a complex society. One might, however, argue rather differently: that at every stage ofhistory our concem must be to dismantle those forms of authority and oppression that survive from an era when they might have been justified in terms of the need for security or survival or economic development, but that now contribute to - rather than aIleviate - material and cultural deficit. If so, there will be no doctrine of social change fixed for the present and future, nor even, necessarily, a specific and unchanging concept of the goals toward which social change should tend ... any far­ reaching doctrine must be treated with great skepticism. 12

Therefore, since we cannot predict exactly how society will change, or what it will require as it moves along its course, anarchism must remain flexible in its approaches and it is this open-endedness that has provided copious ammunition for anarchism' s opponents. The presence of a wealth of differing social approaches (or, if one prefers the converse, the lack of a singular vision in social planning) premised on a belief in voluntary self-organisation and individual self­ determination is a main source of dismissive perceptions of anarchism as dreamy, idealistic nonsense. Sometimes, these accusations are even taken to the extent of denying that anarchism is a political theory at aIl. Other criticisms stem from c1assical anarchism's tendency to rely upon utopian ideas about an essentiaIly 25 good humanity that is perverted into bad behaviour by structures of domination; however, anarchists from at least the 1960s have stressed that they have no delusions about the capacity of any individual to perpetrate acts of cruelty, even within an anarchist society. Their point instead is that there are better ways to deal with unwanted behaviour and, in any case, state violence (e.g., the military, prison, the police) is a far greater social and psychological toxin than the misdeeds of individual persons. A crucial aspect of classical anarchism's history is its conflicts with Marxism. First, this is not to be confused as a conflict with communism; indeed, one of the forms of social anarchism alluded to above is in fact properly labelled communist anarchism. The issue at stake for anarchists in regard to Marxism revolves around the latter' s authoritarian tendencies: for example, the belief in a political vanguard to guide the proletarian revolution and the need for a transitory govemment, "the dictatorship of the proletariat," are fully rejected by anarchists. Marxists tend to see the state as a neutral vesse! that can be manipulated for positive or negative purposes depending upon who is holding the reins. This view, along with Marxists' insistence on the supremacy of economic class and its political manifestations, is blatantly false for anarchists because "it neglects what they see as the fundamentallaw of state power (or ... any form of institutional power): that it is independent of economic forces, and that it has its own logic­ that of self-perpetuation." This is not to say that anarchists deny that the state is inclusive of economic exploitation or that they have abandoned class analysis, rather, because anarchists believe that "oppression and despotism exist in the very structure and symbolism ofthe state," their meaning of the term signifies much more: the state is a symbol of abstract power, which is an entity in its own right. For anarchists, then, "revolution must be aimed, not at conquering state power ... but at destroying it immediately, and replacing it with decentralized, nonhierarchical forms of social organization.,,13 These are the reasons why anarchists often refer to Marxism (or at least certain forms of it) as "state" or "authoritarian socialism," which they take pains to distinguish themselves from. 14 26

Anarchism has also been troubled by its connection to nihilism, and although sorne historians place nihilism as an aberrant outgrowth in anarchist history, others consider it a separate phenomenon with its own lineage quite independent of anarchism; one need only consider its philosophical treatment by figures such as Nietzsche to see this latter perspective. l5 While several factors have helped propagate the fallacy that these two concepts are always synonymous, 1 will attempt to briefly explain this convoluted history: in nineteenth-century public discourse, the philosophical "no morals" basis of nihilism was blurred with the activities and attitudes of certain Russian political and cultural revolutionaries and, once this conflation was achieved, it was tied to the beliefs of certain anarchists in an attempt to malign their doctrine. l6 Additionally, since "many [anarchists] have tended to stress the destructive aspects oftheir doctrine," an inclination has resulted "to identify anarchism with nihilism and to regard it as a negative philosophy, a philosophy of destruction simply." This may be sensible from the point ofview that "the very idea of abolishing authority implies a clean sweep of most of the prominent institutions of a typical modem society" but what has been detrimentally and selectively obscured is the knowledge that "in the mind of no anarchist thinker has the idea of destruction ever stood alone."l7 What happened to anarchism after the end of its classical phase in the 1930s? Guerin believes that there is a deliberately fabricated myth that it simply evaporated around this time. As he described this phenomenon: "Those who defame it contend that anarchism is dead. It is alleged not to have survived the great revolutionary ordeals of [the early twentieth century] ... instead of leaving it out of place in this modem world characterized by centralization, large political and economic units and the totalitarian mindset."l8 This is somewhat understandable: anarchism had suffered from aggressive campaigns attempting to eradicate it in various countries during the early twentieth century. It is arguable whether the number of its adherents actually dropped off or just became more secretive about their beliefs and activities, but, either way, anarchism became quite low-profile and its momentum weakened after the 1930s. With the political 27 tunnoil of the 1960s, however, there was a resurgence ofinterest in anarchist thought. This revitalisation did not particularly take the form of widespread study of classical anarchist history and theory, although the new curiosity about old ideas did inspire a number offresh anthologies of classical works (sorne political theorists even published new books). Because of the lapse in readily available anarchist material up until this time, the interest in anarchism during the 1960s often led to the publication of new writings that sought to clarify anarchist ethics to a new generation largely unaware of anarchist history and lacking a solid grounding in its theoretical ideas. 19 Along with radical bookshops, free universities were founded in sorne places and attempted "to establish a forum in which every direction of contemporary political activism would be represented." Courses thus ranged from "those on leftist politics, ... [to] hallucinatory drugs to sexualliberation to astrology.,,20 Another crucial element in the 1960s resurgence of anarchism involved the Situationist International [SI]. Based in France and led by figures such as Guy Debord, the SI was actively involved in the May, 1968 protests in Paris and elsewhere in the country. Although the SI was by no means a primarily anarchist group, anarchism became associated with it in a couple of ways: first, it is frequently cited that the SI was influenced by the critical discourse of the dadaists and surrealists, whose knowledge of anarchist and communist ideas informed their critique of modem society, industrialisation, war, etc. These artists also experimented with different techniques to represent these radical ideas aesthetically. Second, during the May, 1968 protests, the SI members who did not directly affiliate themselves with a specific politicallabel were far outnumbered by event participants (mainly students and union workers) who did identify themselves as anarchist, communist, etc. This distinction has possibly not always been c1ear to those less familiar with these events and has been somewhat obscured by the SI' s anarchistic hues in sorne of their aesthetic practices and slogans. Street art and performance art were among the tactics promoted by the SI and were also used within anarchist strains of the 1960s counterculture. Art critic, 28 scholar, and activist Allan Antliff points out how a preference for satire and an influence of anarchism often merged into a "prankster-style activism" that was shared by groups such as the Yippies and the Provos?) In a recent interview, radical visual artist Susan Simensky-Bietila contrasted these prankster activists with traditional anti-Vietnam war protesters:

In terms of action, anarchist affinity groups for street demonstrations were into satire and self-satire. Wearing motorcycle helmets and leather jackets, our fists in the air, we played the role of militant demonstrator, but knew that it was more theatrical, in opposition to other segments of the anti-war movements who were in essence begging, pleading, and lobbying those same politicians ... While the big antiwar coalitions were demanding the graduaI withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam - "Support our troops, Bring them home" - we were calling for "victory to the Vietnamese!" and admission that the war was wrong in the first place.22

Simensky-Bietila also clarifies the role of anarchist politics within the counterculture on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. Many of her European and American acquaintances were involved in collectives which operated on an anarchist oriented basis; and while she "leamed about anarchist culture from [her] friends in Amsterdam, ... [it was] not an identifiable anarchist political theory per se.,,23 Speaking ofher activism in New York, she notes that even though "my politics were clearly anarchist, [they] were not identified as such during the 1960s, because the political dividing line in the movements of that time ... was between anti-imperialist radical social change and reformism." In this artist's circa 1968 experience, those who were "self-identified anarchists in New York .. . came across as intensely chauvinist" (they were all male) and this prevented her from "identify[ing] with anarchism as contemporary movement.,,24 It is unclear if similar sentiments were very common during the 1960s, but, certainly, anarchism 29 was more of an undercurrent in the counterculture than a distinctly labelled wing within it. In approximately the last ten to fifteen years, there has been much debate in anarchist circ1es surrounding two new developments. The first of these has been termed "post-Ieft anarchism" and the dissemination of its ideas has mostly come through the work of American anarchists Bob Black and Jason McQuinn. Motivated by the failure of the anarchist milieu to bring about "any inspiring new synthesis of critical and practical theory" in the past fort Y years, advocates of this thought "want to see anarchists define their own autonomous movement, theory and activities free from the deadweight of overidentification with the left," especially because they feel that the left has become increasingly compromised?5 Organising themselves along "small, simple, informaI, transparent and temporary" lines (a familiar exhortation), anarchists must also "reject all ideologies in favor of the individual and communal construction of self-theory." As a "critical theory of one's self and society," self-theory's "c1ear goal of ending one's social alienation is never confused with reified partial goals" and consequently it establishes the "individual-in-context ... [as] al ways the subjective center of perception, understanding and action." Thus, expectations for compliance with "politically correct morality," such as the left imposes, are rendered undesirable and repressive.26 The second area of debate was sparked by Todd May and, more importantly, Saul Newman.27 It bears sorne similarity with post-Ieft anarchism in that both are suspicious of the reification of the forms and language of resistance within leftist and anarchist thought, but it goes much further in its analysis by blending theories of anarchism with those of post-structuralism in an attempt to create a new, viable strategy of resistance. Under the influence of individualist anarchist Max Stimer (who also informs post-Ieft anarchism), Derrida, Foucault, and others, post-structuralist anarchism (or simply post-anarchism), rejects what it sees as classical anarchism's formulation of the essential human subject as a "pure," "natural" figure which, although rightfully belonging to an "organic" community, somehow exists in an uncontaminated, but dominated, form within 30 the "bad," "artificial" structures of authoritarian society. According to Newman, such a binary opposition is highly problematic not only for its rampant and misleading essentialism, but also because the traditional notions of revolution posed as the necessary liberatory tools for this constrained "good" humanity are deceptive, even false, since they are constituted by dominant oppressive structures. Post-structuralist anarchism's aim, then, is "to construct a constitutive outside to power - a nonplace - which would make resistance to domination possible ... [by] form[ing] a space outside power from which resistance can be formulated ... and, at the same time, that [does] not fall into the trap of essentialism. ,,28 Yet there are also those anarchists who would say that most, if not all, of what l've written above is "boring as fuck," a "mere academic dispute" with no actual relevance or use outside "the private domain ofwealthy, comfortable intellectuals, who can trouble themselves with such dreary, theoretical things.,,29 1 think it is reasonable to suggest that this type of attitude is anti-reification and anti-intellectualism gone to the limit, which has grown into this exaggerated form in part out of anarchism' s questioning of standardised history and theory (discussed at the beginning of Section 2) and its occasional tendency to dislike academic or institutional knowledge. These tendencies perhaps have their origin in anarchism's critique of the Marxist revolutionary vanguard, that is, a group of intellectualleaders privy to specialised knowledge who do not believe that "the masses" are capable ofhandling radical ideas and information on their own. This vanguard is, in short, another form of inequality which places one group of people above and in control of the rest. Sorne anarchists consequently accuse academics of holding a similarly privileged position, ofbeing out oftouch with the happenings of the street, and of having great potential to support and participate in oppressive dominant systems. We might conclude that this distrust of a revolutionary or intellectual vanguard has been transferred into a distrust oftheory as a whole. For those anarchists who follow this rationale, theory is seen as an anti-populist tool used to mystify radical ideas and to maintain dominance over 31 large segments of the population, or it is simply viewed as cumbersome, pointless, etc. However, 1 think that it is also fair to say that this anti-inteIlectual attitude has sorne deep roots in that "revolutionary" sixties generation: it is weIl known by now that many hippies and counterculturalists were much more about the "free" lifestyle than actually taking politics or social improvement seriously, and the individualist lifestyle on offer by the counterculture would have superficially fit aIl too well with loose acquaintances with anarchism or radicalism in genera1.30 It would be incorrect to say that aIl anarchists prior to the 1960s possessed a full comprehension of their political forebears, but it is significant that most of them weIl understood that theirs was a movement committed to radical social change. The "lifestylism" of the sixties, in contrast, appears to have been a major contributor to mindsets that declare anarchism is instead an "attitude" or a self­ concerned personal way of living rather than a political construct or a doctrine of social progress. Such dispositions consequently tend to have little patience for intellectuai theory and are frequently unaware of anarchist history.

2.B. "Anarchy" in Writings on Punk

2.B.I. Journalistic Sources

The politicised, revolutionary aura of punk described in Section 1 was enhanced in early 1976 by the establishment of the Sex Pistols and slightly later the Clash as punk's 'leaders.' Along with co-operative writers, these bands strongly encouraged "a scene to build up around them" because they thought that a close-knit, well-populated collective was imperative in order for the "movement" to have a substantial impact in sustaining a real, alternative underground scene?! Nonetheless, journalists wasted little time in developing a stark contrast between the Pistols and the Clash: the Pistols' "filth and fury" "uncompromisingly set them ... apart, while the Clash were warmer and more of 32 the people ... more human, [and] closer to the dialogue of social concern. ,,32 The press played up on this by ascribing "nihilism" to the Pistols and "socialism" to the Clash as a means of demonstrating and contrasting the political interests of the latter to the "these-kids-don't-give-a-fuck" attitude of the former. 33 Consequently, the Clash were applauded for their ability to politely articulate leftist ide as through mass cultural channels (i.e., major labels) whereas the Pistols, although admired and invigorating, were actually too extreme and confrontational to fit into those same channels and raised serious doubt that they would be able to last in the long run. Despite McLaren's disillusionment with countercultural politics, he still hoped that the Pistols would have sorne kind of revolutionary impact, even if it was only on the level ofpopular culture and the music industry. We can credit McLaren and his fashion-designer partner Vivienne Westwood for tying (perhaps even introducing?) a very Situationist-like version of anarchy to the Sex Pistols as part of the couple's desire to stir things up: in attempting to portray their idea of an anarchist aesthetic, specially made' Anarchy' t-shirts were to sartorially express "the intention [that] the group should not be politically explicit, but ... an explosion of contradictory, highly charged signs." 34 Not too long after the Pistols publicly debuted these shirts, the single "Anarchy in the U.K." made its controversial release. Both the shirt and the song (which ends with lines: "1 am an anarchist. Oet Pissed. Destroy.") communicate a mixed-up sense of anarchy that certainly is much closer to the "chaos" side of anarchy' s meaning. Yet McLaren seems to have had sorne understanding, however vague, of anarchism as a doctrine, which is evident in his comments about the single upon its release: '" Anarchy ln The UK' is a statement of intent ... [it] is a statement of self-rule, of independence, of do-it-yourself, ultimately.,,35 But comments ofthis sort were rarely made in the discourse on mainstream punk, much less elaborated upon, and McLaren, for his part, was much more adept at and interested in manipulating controversy than promoting a revolutionary programme. Of course, journalists also contributed to spreading the mixed-up idea of anarchy initiated in punk by McLaren and the Pistols. In the very first review of a 33

Pistols' gig, the writer ends the article with a quote from the band that states: "we're not into music ... we're into chaos," and thus anarchy's old connotative blurring is vividly regenerated into popular music culture.36 Even though 'anarchy' does not enter press coverage until a short time later, this quote established chaos as a prominent trope that instantly became intertwined with anarchy at the latter's first mention in punk dis course due to the long-standing equation discussed above?7 As descriptions of (real or imagined) violence at punk gigs grew in tandem with declarations ofpunk's political content (which was mostly reduced to the "dole queue rock" of "angry working-class kids"), the "chaotic" and "anarchic" nature of punk bands/music/gigs was thought to incite violence in the scene and, for sorne, decisively reaffirmed anarchy as a destructive concept. There were, however, a few awkward attempts to interpret the meaning behind the Sex Pistols as something more transcendent or encompassing than conventional politics: "Johnny [Rotten is not] writing prote st songs as such. He is protest. In' Anarchy in the U.K.' he is not advocating anarchism. He is anarchy.,,38 For most joumalists at this time, it is the very lack of dear political intent that allowed the "anarchist" label to stick to the Pistols' more than any other mainstream punk band; anarchy in this usage is in fact empty of political meaning, yet its denotative "chaos" is not always derogatory, but a representational tool occasionally used to reflect punk's "exciting energy" and wild aesthetic ofjuxtaposition, which were also frequent topics for critics. The Pistols' anarchistic image was further complicated by two other issues: nihilism and fascism. Nihilism became mixed-up with anarchy in the Pistols' image in a process similar to the incorporation of "chaos," just as they had been conflated in the pasto Observers interpreted nihilistic tendencies in a number of the band's song s, the most obvious being "No Future" (1976). However, despite this song and the daims ofmany reporters, the Pistols' nihilism as conveyed in interviews seems defined more by their inability or refusaI to think 39 about the future than actually denying there was one. The Pistols' quasi­ political ambiguity was also troubled by the band's brief early use of the swastika 34 and aIl its fascist overtones. Most writers loudly disavowed the punks' justification that they were demystifying Nazi symbolism and felt it sent out a dangerous message. Since the racist British National Front [BNF] was on the rise again in the late seventies, there was great cause for alarm, especially with sorne young punks being recruited by BNF skinheads. As for old-school, hard-line leftists, their Adomo-like views on popular culture in general caused them to denounce punk as a fascist cult, even without its swastika imagery. 40 For aIl the music press's talk about punk's politicisation, favourable critics were in fact usually interested in celebrating the genre more for its stylistic ingenuity than any assumed political content. This tendency stems from previously standing thoughts on the value of "political music": going back to criticisms of protest songs in the early 1960s and critiques of "socialist realism," a loose trend appears in which the more explicit political content becomes, the less critically praised a song is, especially if the music supporting such content is deemed not to display a high level of artistic ability and originality. Members of this school of rock criticism flatly decIare that "rock is not political theory and never will be.,,41 Critics could (and often did) champion mainstream punk bands for their refreshing sound and would even praise bands' avoidance of constant and unequivocal political meaning in their songs. For a band such as Crass, on the other hand, critics who were already disincIined towards politically charged music unleashed volleys of (sometime glaring) hostility onto the group's politics and chided the band for their perceived lack of musical appeal and creativity. Despite a strong negative reception, sympathetic writers were not absent in Crass's establishment press coverage (i.e., music "glossies" such as New Musical Express and Melody Maker, etc.), and they also frequently dominated the fanzines' reportage of the band.42 In short, Crass, like the Pistols, generally had a polarising effect, but beyond this shared feature, the approaches used to write about Crass form a collection of articles considerably different from those on mainstream punk. Perhaps the overriding distinction is seriousness: for instance, when a sympathetic reporter from one of the music glossies tackles the issue ofCrass's 35 anarchy, they often disagree with many of the ideas, but they do try to faithfully and favourably present the band's opinions. Usually, this is accomplished by interviewing members at length in order to get the "real deal." The most outstanding example of this type, to my knowledge, is a 1981 article by Paul Du Noyer; it references classical anarchism, draws the distinction between anarchy as "absolute disaster" and anarchism as "a the ory [that] cornes in a million different varieties," and even recognises that "the notion of anarchy which was so dramatically brought into fashion by [mainstream] punk is very confused and incomplete." Like other sympathetic writers, Du Noyer implies that Crass's take on anarchy is rather idiosyncratic since "the main thrust oftheir thought is personal rather than political, confronting internaI oppression." Anarchism, writes Du Noyer, simply cornes down to the belief of "throwing off society's control ofyour mind ... to think and choose for yourself' and "anarchy, therefore, is meant in a very positive sense. ,,43 But this idea of the personal over the political in Crass's anarchism possibly works to undermine the idea of anarchism as it exists separately from Crass. Sorne observers saw Crass's omission of a clearly defined and historically grounded anarchist politics as more harmful to anarchism than helpful. Crass may have helped spread awareness of anarchism to distant corners, critics said, but it was a too peculiar version, woefully ignorant of anarchist history. Although this issue definitely affected their reception, its fuller discussion must be delayed until Section 3; for the present, however, we should note that Crass's anarchist politics were almost always discussed in relation to their lifestyle practices. Descriptions of the band's communal living arrangements, vegetarianism, pacifist beliefs, donations to and involvement in different activist projects, high level of accessibility for their audience, and even their habit of group discussion (as opposed to voting) to sort out band matters, are all offered as proof of their anarchism and as demonstrations of "the Crass philosophy in action.,,44 Sometimes this occurs to the point of omitting any elaboration of the ideas themselves, as if a list of lifestyle practices is sufficient proof of radicalism. 36

As much as joumalists favourable to Crass vaunted the band for their politics (or personal philosophy, lifestyle), critics attacked them on the very same basis. For example, one critic writes that "Crass are a long way from the classic anarchist tradition ... [which] had a critical theory of the order rit] wished to destroy.,,45 This statement by itself is not wrong, but additional comments labeUing Crass's politics as "stink," "soft," and "anarcho-mysticism" reveal a definite hostility that appears rooted in the author' s feeling that Crass are "hippies having a hardjob with their punk disguise.,,46 lndeed, hippie accusations were common in Crass's press coverage and this approach was often a means by which joumalists could dismiss the band's politics: after aIl, since hippies had sorne time ago been branded failures at affecting change, anything promoted by them now must be half-cocked and worthless. Not that aU of the se critics needed the hippie angle to write off anarchism in this new context; sorne just as easily did so by taking up that pessimistic stance of viewing any attempted opposition to the status quo as naive and hopeless. Another derisory tactic was to frame the word anarchist with quotation marks or attach to it sorne descriptor such as "alleged" or "so-called," suggesting that the label is somehow fictitious. As anarchist writer Albert Meltzer comments, this particular method is "endeavoured by Statist propaganda to marginalise anarchism to nothing ... and [to make] Statist theories ... seem the norm.,,47 Most of the initial press on anarcho-punk centred around Crass, but as other anarcho bands formed and rose in popularity (e.g., Conflict, the Mob, Flux of Pink lndians), they too were sought out for coverage both by British fanzines and the commercial glossies. When the media tumed its attention towards these new groups, the lengthy decryptions of anarchism were less prevalent, although continuing publication of Crass articles kept up a sharp focus on politics. Perhaps for the sake ofvariety, or as an evocative shorthand, joumalists resorted to other means for clearly identifying new anarcho bands: talk ofvegetarianism, non­ conformity, anti-elitism, the bands' resistance to being interviewed, along with sorne reference to anarchy and connections to Crass aIl worked to assure proper generic classification. Was it that by the time these bands were gaining attention, 37 anarchism had been discussed enough in the context of Crass that it could be presumed to be widely familiar and its explanation superfluous? Indeed, these articles have a tendency to present new bands as extensions and variations of an implicitly understood political foundation established by Crass and strongly suggest the idea ofphilosophical affinity as the binding element of the genre.48 Establishment critics also frequently maintained the same types of evaluations for anarcho as they did with mainstream punk; that is, given that the music withstood scrutiny, an anarcho band was more likely to win critical favour the less poiitically explicit and hard-line it appeared to be (which would simultaneously distance them from Crass). Otherwise, they tend to be written off as Crass-clones, tiring sloganeers, or simply escape media attention entirely. At this point, 1 have summarised the common reporting methods that contemporaneous writers used in the 1978 to circa 1985 period, when the anarcho genre was still new and growing. But, with the passage of time, have different joumalistic perspectives on anarcho evolved? The recent series of articles by Lance Hahn offers at least one such new outlook, and thus approaches its subject somewhat differently.49 Although Crass still tends to function as a unifying device, a greater effort is made at revealing political (as weIl as musical) distinctions between the bands. Consequently, Crass move from being a point of departure to also being a point of contrast and even contention. Hahn not only meticulously details how bands' careers were or were not affected by Crass (e.g., aesthetic influence, if Crass released any of their records, shared gigs, etc.), but he also investigates what issues certain bands raised that Crass did not, how lyrical and aesthetic approaches differed in relation to political thinking, and even what critical opinions people had or have of Crass and the anarcho scene. In regard to anarchism and politics, the discussion mostly revolves around excerpts from contemporaneous and retrospective interviews with band members. Hahn is thus able to outline developmental changes in political thought both within the scene and individual band members. This contrasts established critics' work of the early eighties, which, perhaps because of space or other considerations, tends towards representing an essentially fixed and largely unified political identity. The 38 political differences that Hahn lays out will be discussed in tandem with the analysis of anarcho bands in Section 3. Finally, in their respective books on Crass and anarcho-punk (see Section 1), George Berger and Ian Glasper do not really define or critically discuss anarchy; instead, they mostly let the bands do the talking by extensively quoting them. For this reason, it is more sensible to include the relevant quotes in Section 3, in context with the groups that said them rather than getting ahead of ourse Ives here.

2.B.I1. Scholarly Sources

The patterns in the period joumalism described above repeat themselves to certain extents in scholarly work concerning punk and anarchy. Academics, when examining mainstream punk, especially the Sex Pistols, rarely consider anarchy as having any possibilities beyond the aesthetic level. Instances of describing anarchy politically, on the other hand, occur mostly in those fewand brief moments when "anarchist punk" and/or Crass are mentioned in accounts of "post­ punk" history (i.e., the period after punk's initial media explosion and, arguably, peak popularity, 1978 to circa 1980); these (sometimes unflattering) references tend to distort anarcho-punk and anarchism as it exists separately from punk genres. Greil Marcus does not discuss anarchy explicitly in Lipstick Traces; the closest he gets is when he puts forth a rare, perhaps even singular, defence of "Anarchy in the U.K." against accusations ofnihilism which he defines as "the beliefin nothing and the wish to bec orne nothing." Interpreting it instead as a form ofnegation, Marcus makes a case for the song's revolutionary suggestiveness. Ultimately, though, "Anarchy" and punk's radical gestures really only amounted to "an art statement," and Marcus is not alone in thinking this way: for Laing, Savage, Frith, and others, punk's potential impact was seen at its most promising when it remained at the artistic/symbolic level, and often was considered to dramatically decrease (in tandem with critical praise) if a band 39 ventured too far into explicit politics or refused aH major label assistance.50 For many critics and scholars, the open-endedness and ambiguity ofpunk's symbolism was its strength and only means of longevity, along with music industry co-operation. In Subculture, Dick Hebdige also locates punk's power at the symbolic level and traces its style back to the dadaists and surrealists. He caUs "the radical aesthetics practices" of these two art movements "the classic modes of' anarchic' discourse," (note the quotation marks around anarchic) but by carefuHy adding that "the terms 'anarchic' and 'discourse' might seem contradictory [because] discourse suggests structure," he aligns himself with the view of anarchy as pure disorder. 51 Even though he is suggesting this meaning of the term in relation to the se art movements, by only acknowledging anarchy's chaotic slant and using that to explain punk's symbolic class struggle, he perpetuates the standard connotative mudslide and robs anarchy (even as a concept independent of punk) of any political intent. David Laing's One Chord Wonders notes that punk was "unusuaUy politicaUy concemed for a rock genre" but when it came to expressing these concems, "many punk bands were eager to avoid anything that smacked of programmatic commitment." Instead, they feH into two broad categories identified by Laing as "populist" and "bored." The first ofthese spoke "on behalf of, or about, a named or implicit social group and their grievances" and, from this supposedly neutral starting point, it could "then take on a left- or right-wing colouring." The politics ofboredom, on the other hand, drew their inspiration from Situationism and its British proponents (McLaren, et al., influenced by the 1960s SI). To this point, Laing has given a plausible summary of the place and function of politics in punk; however, when he refers to Situationism as "one of the most radical, revolutionary perspectives of the late 1960s," he makes no mention of the Marxist and anarchist strains in the SI and describes it instead only as a somewhat bizarre anti-capitalist movement. By relegating bored politics to being merely "a novelty," he thus reduces radical SI (and anti-capitalist?) thought to an anti-art spirit which implicitly discards the possibility of serious radicalism 40 in punk (note that the populi sm Laing de scribes is mostly oppositional rather than radical). Downgrading of radical politics is further evident when Laing refers to Crass's "self-proclaimed anarchist politics" (emphasis mine) and then he barely explains anything about the se politics. Although he is more favourable to the anarcho band Poison Girls, for Crass, he instead points out the frequent criticism of sloganeering made against the group and even sketches an incomplete musical assessment of this genre: "The anarchists ... drew on the spartan side of first generation punk rock, with their emphasis on the stark and the explicit.,,52 As we will see in Section 3, anarcho-punk utilised a richer diversity of musical and rhetorical styles than is indicated in this description. In England 's Dreaming, Savage, unlike Laing, relies on the notion that the SI influence on punk was mostly based on Situationism's anarchist component. He makes a genuine effort to theoretically and historically contextualise anarchism and mentions how the SI to sorne extent "updated anarchist methods and ideas," but he falters when he too neatly de scribes anarchism as that which is "lacking dogma" and definition.53 Such ideas are also echoed by McKay when he says that "anarchism might be better defined less through the ory and practice than through the gap between the twO.,,54 These problems are compounded when both authors equally misconstrue the same quote by anarchist George Woodcock. The quote is reminiscent of the Chomsky passage above: it refers to anarchism's "rejection of dogma" and "variety ofviewpoints" as stemming from its "libertarian attitude." But rather than going into precisely why anarchism rejects rigid theories, the authors misleadingly interpret this quote to mean that anarchism is incapable or unwilling to define itself. Although Savage and McKay's statements are not entirely incorrect, they are not sufficient explanations in themselves. We have already seen that anarchism is difficult to define, especially in limited space, but this type of short shrift cornes uncomfortably close to reinforcing traditional stereotypes of anarchism as lacking the ability to formulate coherent arguments and ideas. In one way or another, these academics' attempts to explain anarchy once again reflect the standard mainstream views of the term: on the one hand, and 41 most often when anarchy is heing considered in relation to aesthetics, it is chaos and confusion. On the other hand, when anarchy is explained in relation to politics, it is radical gibberish. Both of these may very weIl be true for anarchy in punk, but these analyses run afoul when they fail to acknowledge that anarchism has a long and still continuing history as an intelligible and serious doctrine which has also existed quite separately from Situationism, punk, and weIl beyond the confines of the 1960s and 1970s. Mainstream punk certainly did not make much use of "anarchy" beyond its connotation of disorder, and anarcho-punk, as we will see in the latter half ofthis project, also made specious use of anarchist ideas. However, even ifthese musical suhcultures misappropriated the notion of anarchy in divergent ways and for very different reasons, anarchism as an independent socio-political doctrine should not be dismissed or misrepresented because of punk's interpretive errors; scholars should be able to make the distinction. Now that we have completed formulating an overview of punk and its relationship to anarchy, we can move on to a closer study of anarcho-punk. In the following section, we will investigate if and how Crass determined the unfolding of anarcho-punk subculture along with how anarcho musicians and fans understood the concept of anarchy.

Notes

1 Nicholas Walter, About Anarchism (London: Freedom Press, 2002), 26.

2 Andrew Vincent, "Anarchism," in Modern Political Ideologies (Oxford, V.K., Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1992), 114; Daniel Guerin, Anarchism, trans. Mary Klopper (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970), Il.

3 The Haymarket Anarchists are a famous example of such establishment machinations. In May, 1886, a group ofanarchists was accused ofthrowing a bomb at police during a labour rally in Chicago. The upper classes and legal authorities vilified the defendants in the press and during the trial by promoting the idea that bomb-throwing was the on1y possible outcome of being an anarchist - and that, in fact, largely constituted the prosecution's case. Despite no solid incriminating evidence, the anarchists were hanged and became martyred in radical and workers' circ1es. These events are also the origin of "May Day" (May 1) which is still observed as "Labour Day" in many countries 42

around the world. For a full historical account ofthis period, see Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984).

4 Walter, About Anarchism, 29.

5 Rudolf Rocker quoted in Noam Chomsky, introduction to Anarchism, by Daniel Guerin (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970), xii.

6 Chomsky, introduction to Anarchism, by Daniel Guerin, xii.

7 Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism (Edinburgh, London, Oakland: AK Press, 2004), 16.

8 Walter, About Anarchism, 49.

9 Allan Antliff, Onlya Beginning: An Anarchist Anthology (Vancouver, B.C.: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004), 7.

10 Walter, About Anarchism, 38.

11 Ibid, 39.

12 Chomsky, introduction to Anarchism, by Daniel Guerin, viii.

13 Saul Newman, From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation o/Power (Oxford: Lexington Books., 2001), 25, 26, 27.

14 In explaining what he saw as the differences between Marxism and anarchism, American anarchist Murray Bookchin also points to the latter's main elements: "Anarchism posed the question not simply of a struggle between classes based upon economic exploitation ... but a much broader historical question that even goes beyond our industrial civilisation. [The question for anarchism was] not just classes, but hierarchy; hierarchy as it exists [everywhere] .... [Anarchism was also concemed] with domination; domination that may not have any economic meaning at all .... If we are to really achieve a liberatory movement ... in terms of every aspect of life, we would have to tum anarchism because it alone posed the problem not merely of class domination but hierarchical domination; and it alone posed the question not simply of economic exploitation, but exploitation in every sphere of life .... We have to go beyond classism to hierarchy and beyond exploitation into domination." Transcribed from: Anarchism in America, video stream, directed by Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher (1981, Pacific Street Film Projects, Inc.), http://video.google.ca/video play?docid=5896151564855675002&q=anarchism+in+america

15 Although Nietzsche was not the only one to write about nihilism, he is the philosopher most associated with its explication. Simply put, Nietzsche 43

considered nihilism as a perspective ruled by a totallack of purpose and meaning. The nihilist places no value on anything and even denies the very concepts of value and meaning. Christianity was also a nihilist beHef system to Nietzsche because he felt it emphatically devalued people's physical existence by focussing obsessively on the afterlife. It also bound humankind to a permanently imperfect and subjugated role to divine heavenly beings.

16 Part ofthis history is explained weIl in: Peter Pozefsky, The Nihilist Imagination:Dmitrii Pisarev and the Cultural Origins ofRussian Radicalism (1860-1868) (New York: Peter Lang, 2003). Other useful insight is found in: George Woodcock, Anarchism: A History ofLibertarian Ideas and Movements (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1962).

17 Woodcock, Anarchism, 15, 13-14.

18 Daniel Guerin, forward to No Gods No Masters: An Anthology ofAnarchism, ed. Daniel Guerin, trans. Paul Sharkey (Edinburgh, London, Oakland: AK Press, 2005),2.

19 Two publications that fall into this category include The Rebel Worker, a radical paper created in 1964 by the young members of the IWW in Chicago, and its U.K. sister publication, Heatwave. An excellent anthology of the se publications has been created in: Franklin Rosement and Charles Radcliffe, eds., Dancin' in the Streets! Anarchists, IWWs, Surrealists, Situationists & Provos in the 1960s As Recorded in the Pages ofThe Rebel Worker & Heatwave (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing, 2005).

20 Roy Lisker (a Free University instructor) quoted in Allan Antliff, Anarchy and Art: From the Paris Commune to the Fall ofthe Berlin Wall (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007), 161.

21 Antliff, Anarchy and Art, 159. The "Youth International Party" was established in America during the late 1960s; famous yippies include: Abbie and Anita Hoffman, Nancy Kurshan, and Jerry Rubin. The Provos - short for "provocateurs - were Dutch activists who carried out their own performance art in addition to experimenting with progressive social programs. For more specifics on these groups and "prankster-style activism" see Antliff, Anarchy and Art, 133-180.

22 Susan Simensky-Bietila quoted in Antliff, Anarchy and Art, 162.

23 Simensky-Bietila quoted in ibid, 154.

24 Simensky-Bietila quoted in ibid, 163.

25 Jason McQuinn quoted in Infoshop.org. Anarchy After Leftism webpage. 44

http://www.infoshop.org/afterleftism.html. Part of this desire to severe ties with the traditionalleft is quite likely a result of anarchism' s tangles with Marxism which were described above. Over the past several decades, anarchists have spent perhaps as much time explaining how they are different from communists as they have in outlining the details of anarchist doctrine. For this reason, then, McQuinn can be counted among those anarchists whose efforts can be understood in part as an attempt to stand anarchism on its own independent ground and not define it against communism.

26 Jason McQuinn, "Post-Left Anarchy: Leaving the Left Behind" (Institute for Anarchist Studies, November 10,2003), http://www.anarchist­ studies.org/artic1e//43/-1I11 (accessed October 29,2006), ibid, ibid.

27 See Todd May, The Political Philosophy ofPoststructuralist Anarchism (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994) and Saul Newman, From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation ofPower (Oxford: Lexington Books., 2001).

28 Newman, From Bakunin to Lacan, 157.

29 Nadia C., Your Politics Are Boring As Fuck (CrimethInc Reading Library, n.d.). http://www.crimethinc.comllibrary/english/yourpoli.html.

30 Put another way, the rhetoric of fighting "The Man," not being like your square parents, etc., would have nicely complemented a shallow knowledge of doctrines that placed anti-authoritarianism at their core. However, this critique is not intended to completely deny the possibility of sorne sincere and knowledgeable anarchists getting their first introduction to radical ideas through involvement with the sixties counterculture. See, for example, Susan Simensky-Bietila' s descriptions of her experiences with 1960s counterculture in Antliff, Anarchy and Art, 133-180.

31 John Ingham, "The Sex Pistols Are Four Months Old," Sounds, April 24, 1976.

32 Jon Savage, England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), 231.

33 Malcolm McLaren quoted in Charles M. Young, "Rock Is Sick and Living in London: A Report on the Sex Pistols," Rolling Stone, October 20, 1977, 75.

34 Savage, England 's Dreaming, 188.

35 Malcolm McLaren quoted in Chris Salewicz, "Anarchy in the UK," The History ofRock, 1983.

36 Neil Spencer, "Don't Look Over Your Shoulder but the Sex Pistols Are 45

Coming," New Musical Express, February 21, 1976.

37 The "Anarchy" single was not released until November of 1976, but it had been a part of the band's live set for a few months, and more than likely this is the point from where it entered punk discourse as a popular buzzword.

38 Carolyn Coon, "The Sex Pistols," Melody Maker, November, 1976. Aiso in: Rock She Wrote, eds. Evelyn McDonnell and Ann Powers (New York: Delta, 1995),94.

39 See Young, "Rock Is Sick and Living in London."

40 See Simon Frith, "Beyond the Dole Queue: The Politics of Punk," Village Voice, October 24, 77-79.

41 Langdon Winner, "The Strange Death of Rock and Roll," in Rock and Roll Will Stand, ed. Greil Marcus (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 53. For a recent and thorough overview of this trend see also Bernard Gendron, Between Montmartre and the Mudd Club: Popular Music and the Avant-Garde (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).

42 The stream of overtly celebratory fanzine writers on Crass occurred as a result of two mutual factors: first, by already being part of an adoring audience, the se fans tumed to initiating zines often for the express and sole purpose of interviewing Crass. Meeting the band was virtually guaranteed because - and this is the second factor - Crass made it known that they would freely grant interviews to alternative press.

43 Paul Du Noyer, "Crass Anarchy & Peace," New Musical Express, February 14, 1981, ibid, ibid.

44 Mike Stand, "The Aesthetics of Anarchy," The Face, December, 1981.

45 Paul Tickel, "Crass: The Revolution Will Not Be Hippified," New Musical Express, 1979.

46 X-Moore New, "Seditions ofYouth?" November 7, 1981, Tickel.

47 Albert Meltzer, Anarchism: Arguments for and Against (Edinburgh, San Francisco: AK Press, 2000), 88.

48 See, for example, Phil Sutcliffe, "Old People Can Be Rebels Too," Sounds, November 24, 1979; Tony Puppy, "In Search of Freedom: At the Heart of the Mob," Punk Lives, 1983; Mike Sinclair, "Zounds Demystification," Sounds, September 19, 1981; Tony D., "In Search of Empty Playgrounds, or, How Tony D. Encountered the Mob and Lived!!" Zig Zag, n.d. 46

49 Lance Hahn has written articles on many different bands, but a partiallist includes: "The Mob," MaximumRocknRoll, July, 2001; "Flux of Pink lndians" MaximumRocknRoll, February, 2002; "The Story of Zounds," MaximumRocknRoll, April, 2002; "Come on Baby, Let's Do the Revolution: The Story ofChumbawamba," MaximumRocknRoll, September, 2005; "Rudimentary Peni," MaximumRocknRoll, February, 2003; "The Faction," MaximumRocknRoll, August, 2005.

50 Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History ofthe Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 9, 10; See also David Laing, One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1985); Savage, England's Dreaming; Frith, "Beyond the Dole Queue."

5\ Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning ofStyle (London, New York: Routledge, 1979), 105, 161.

52 David Laing, One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1985), 125, 126, 126, ibid, ibid, 112, 113.

53 Savage, England's Dreaming, 28.

54 George McKay, "Postmodemism and the Battle of the Beanfields: British Anarchist Music and Text of the 1970s and 1980s," in Postmodern Surroundings, ed. Steven Eamshaw (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994), 152. 47

Section 3. Anarcho-Punk: Origins and Development

3.A.I. Crass: The "Total Package"

A significant part ofCrass's impact was their self-construction as a "total package." Not only did their gigs and records aesthetically and thematically reinforce each other, but Crass backed up their rhetoric by putting it into practice in their everyday lives as much as possible. By presenting such a tightly entwined musical-political project with an aesthetic that was as potentially shocking as it was assaultive, Crass established a discursive space around themselves which became the generic launching site for anarcho. Crass's self~conscious "process of self-marginalisation," as George McKay labels it, was not only a vital foundation for the band' s image, but it was also the means by which they created "an alternative audience, an alternative market..[and made] a critical statement both on [mainstream] punk and on the capitalist music industry."l On a broader scale, their activity "sowed the ground for the retum of serious anarchism ... in the earlyeighties.,,2 Understanding anarcho-punk as a genre or subculture as weIl as the resurgence of anarchism both inside and outside of punk during this period cannot be done without first making a thorough examination of Crass. We will begin by describing how Crass interpreted and reacted to the first wave of punk and then move through each part of their "total package." The section after that will discuss their effect on the anarcho genre, reception in the punk community, and sorne of the contradictions in their work. It should be noted beforehand, however, that punk was not the band members' first foray into performance. Beginning in the late sixties and continuing into the seventies, many members of Crass were involved in visual arts, folk music, writing, and especially performance art (under the name Exit) in the vein of Fluxus. Much ofthese activities centred around Dial House (the open­ door, rural residence established by Crass drummer and co-founder Penny Rimbaud in 1967) because it had the space and facilities to allow for such 48 activity; with the se means already at their disposaI, the house later became the location where Crass formed, lived, and carried out its work. Roused into action by tirst wave punk bands, Crass's feelings of inspiration quickly gave way to hostility when they felt that punk had "degenerated from being a force for change, to becoming just another element in the grand media circus.,,3 Such a shift is not surprising when we consider Crass's romantically idealised vision of what punk represented. This vision, which still persists in punk discourse to this day, claims that: "Punk was an attitude .... [It] was about personal politics;" "[it] was a statement of authenticity that couldn't be adopted as the flavour of the month. Like the blues, punk was the people's music, made for the people, by the people.,,4 Believing that the tirst wave of punk had betrayed or lied about its ethics (that is, that it had "sold-out"), Crass decided that "it was up to us to put the record straight. We weren't going to be made into another set of market-place victims. This time round we were going to make it work." Thus, they set out not only to denounce commercial punk bands for their failings, but also to restore what they perceived as punk's original ethic of'do it yourself' and non­ conformity. In order to "make it work," they felt that they had to devise certain tactics which would "divorce [them] from the rock'n'roll pantomime" and would steer them clear of "the cult of personality" inherent in many rock bands: aU the credits for their work were simply listed as "Crass," members dressed entirely in black (aU the time), interviews with the established press were largely avoided, and photo sessions were never granted.5 Even gigs, which were never advertised but spread through word-of-mouth, often occurred in venues and communities where bands had never, or rarely, played. It may seem unusual that these people would choose to form a punk band at aU since most ofthem "weren't [particularly] interested in making records" or even in punk music itself.6 They were, however, "interested in making statements" and, as Crass biographer George Berger explains, "because of their overview that punk was part of a wider maelstrom, almost a direct descendant of the previous [sixties] counterculture, [Crass] saw no reason whatsoever to 49 abandon what they saw as the huge potential of punk just because it was being challenged in the fashion mags" or because the first wave of punk bands had lost their supposed integrity.7 Punk music provided a means through which Crass could accomplish three interrelated goals: first, they felt punk music had an immediacy to it which would make their own work more widely accessible; second, they wanted especially to reach those fans of the Sex Pistols et al., who were also disillusioned with mainstream punk's selling-out; and, third, to communicate to this audience a message that dispelled the "No Future" nihilism cultivated by mainstream punk. By the end of 1977, it was widely believed that first wave punk's co­ optation had been finalised and this left ample room in the punk scene for new, fiercely independent (i.e., "authentic") bands.8 Whether it was intentional or not, Crass' s adoption of a largely "real" or "populi st" punk aesthetic, rather than a "new wave" / "pop-art" style, soon thrust them into this vacant niche. Having already been together for about year, "the release of [their first record in 1978] saw a quantum leap in the band's popularity - it was what a significant portion of the great punk public had been waiting for. The 'real' punks had been waiting for a 'real' punk band to come along and Crass was in the right place at the right time, saying the right things.,,9 In what way did Crass present themselves that so enticed these "real" punks? Their earliest form of public exposure was their gigs which over time became complex multi-media affairs; various banners hung as an elaborate backdrop to the stage, films were screened on banks of TV s, radicalliterature and zine tables were often present, and leaflets made by Crass were handed out by band members. 10 Other crucial aspects oftheir gigs were free or cheap admission and audience interaction: before and after playing, Crass would mingle with the audience and discuss various ideas with them. Crass "[took] pains to remain accessible and value[d] direct contact very highly."ll Even though this practice became tedious due to fans' constant repetition of the same questions, it still paid offbecause, in hindsight, sorne attendees have said that talking with the band was more influential than actually seeing them play for the first time. 50

As for their records, the artwork and design that accompanied them was an extension ofwhat went on at gigs: the black-and-white sleeves were crammed with stencilled messages and slogans (e.g., Be Wamed! The Nature ofYour Oppression Is the Aesthetic of Our Anger!), elaborate hand-painted collages of surreal and/or grotesque, juxtaposed images (e.g., happy families amongst bombed-out buildings and corpses) adomed the co vers and were interspersed among the lyrics, which were always transcribed in their entirety.12 And ifthat was not enough, additional pamphlets, pull-out posters, and/or patches were included as inserts, which was a pretty good deal, especially since one of the stencilled messages on the records assured a cheap purchase by dec1aring "PAY NO MORE THAN f1.99," 75 pence, etc. 13 Of course, by directly printing the low price onto their records, Crass were doing more than just trying to highlight good value. Most often, they said they did this as a way to keep record retailers from jacking up the prices and to try to "force others to follow" their accessible pricing scheme. 14 But there were other reasons for selling records so cheaply: because they had a very low-cost lifestyle (discussed below), Crass wanted to pass on their savings to buyers and make their work affordable to a much larger audience. In musical terms, their first record, The Feeding afthe 5000 (1978), presented a hardcore version of "real" punk by featuring shouted vocals (often delivered in a loosely structured ranting style), fast tempos, heavily distorted guitars, etc. The words were mostly incomprehensible so that the listener was forced to read the printed text (which was printed in a deliberately shoddy manner so that one had to read and listen closely to make sense of the lyrics). However, it has been often overlooked that there were considerable "art" or avant-garde touches on this album which were to increase over the next few years of recording. On Feeding, the use of silence, spoken/shouted monologues, experimental noise accompaniment, through-composed songs, and unusual repetition of material certainly make this record something more than a manifestation of "the spartan side of first generation punk rock" which Laing identifies as the prevailing musical aesthetic of "anarchist punk." 15 Even the 51 altemation of different vocalists between songs and the wider range of dynamics, tempos, and song lengths (00:36 to 03:48) put them on a more 'experimental' level than other "populi st" punk bands such as Sham 69 and the Exploited. Subsequent works were to foreground these aspects even more, but as their songs became more complex (resulting from better technical proficiency, thicker and much more varied textures, multi-sectional songs, etc.) and experimental (sound collages, sampling, etc.), their sound remained sufficiently within a loose punk framework of distorted guitars, quick tempos, and frenetic vocals; therefore, even ifthey were becoming increasingly "difficult" artistically, they were never perceived to have crossed over into, or too strongly mixed with, other genres. Of course, how their records were produced was just as crucial: there was definitely no room for compromise with the majors; Crass wanted, very literally, to do it all themselves. They had no roadies, no publicist, and they soon set up their own labels (Crass Records in 1978 and Corpus Christi in 1980) in order to maintain total autonomy over, and sole responsibility for, their work. 16 Unlike sorne other independent labels which had distribution deals with a major label or sought mainstream chart success, Crass did not see these as options. For them, labels had to operate on a basis of total separation from and disregard for the mainstream music industry. At the same time, Crass Records acted as an outlet of sorts for the production and distribution of a variety of radical literature (zines, flyers, pamphlets) written by the band in an attempt to explain and spread their ideas. Their labels' services were extended for free to other bands not only as another way of passing on the advantages of their cheap lifestyle, but also to invest the money from their record sales back into the punk scene that supported them. Crass believed that by releasing records of like­ minded groups (but with a policy of only one release per band) they were contributing to the expansion and maintenance of a community built on "meaningful political dialogue.,,17 By designing all the label's products in a visually similar manner, Crass clearly defined their half of the conversation, both in terms of who was on their si de and what they were collectively saying. 52

More importantly, these joint endeavours had the effect of making "Crass Records and Crass the performing band ... interlocked aspects of the same musical/political activity.,,18 Of course, this activity was predicated upon certain beliefs which were the common thread binding together aIl the other aspects of the "total package" discussed above. We will now outline the sources and content ofCrass's political beliefs, and how they put sorne ofthem into practice in order to demonstrate their "authenticity." Although all the members shared a common interest in libertarian thought and wanted Crass to be a "political" band, they did not initially conceive of themselves as explicitly anarchist. It was not until after the release of Feeding that the band felt "increasing pressure to c1arify [their] political affinities" and took up the anarchist label and symbol (a'circ1ed "A") as a means to disassociate themselves from the left (Rock Against Racism, social realists) and right wing (National Front, skinheads) factions that were each fighting for ownership of 19 Crass. Indeed, because of the political-subcultural tug-of-war, their use of the anarchist label, as described by Rimbaud, "was more by default. We'd got the peace banner to tell people we weren't interested in kicking shit, and we put up the 'A' banner as something to get the left and the right off our backs.,,20 By refusing to take sides, Crass "avoided the standards poles of youth subcultural politics of the time" and were thus able to demarcate their own political and cultural ground.21 Past this function, how might we interpret their invocation of anarchy? Their work revolved around one essential message: "There is no authority but yourself," which, to them, translated as "anarchist self-determination." But this philosophy had little to do with any real understanding of anarchism's history. As the band has said, given their influence on reviving anarchism and giving it a new space from which to proceed, "it seems ironic that in those days had anyone mentioned Bakunin, we would probably have assumed it was sorne kind of vodka.',22 Clearly, none ofthem had read much, ifany, anarchist literature. Rimbaud c1aims to have read about the anarchist movement in 1930s Spain when he was young student, but he did not have this in mind at the start of Crass. The 53 following comment, on the other hand, is an appropriate summation of his circa 1978 relationship with anarchism and it is one that holds more or less true for the other band members:

1 wasn't aware of anarchism until about one year into Crass. 1 knew what

it meant in the 100se sense of the word before .... [When we began to hang the anarchy banner at gigs] we started getting asked what we meant by that. 1 realise[d] that outside ofmy own libertarian stance, 1 didn't know what the fuck it was about. It was then 1 started looking at what it actually meant in terms ofhistory. 1 hadn't actually had that much interest in it [then] and 1 can't say 1 have now [in 2006].23

ln terms of its purpose, this loose idea of anarchist inspired individualism was as much a means to oppose mainstream punk's conformity and corporate recuperation of as it was to oppose a national culture which, Crass felt, was unhealthily conservative and repressive. As we might expect, this accusation was only to intensify with Margaret Thatcher's ascent to power in 1979. Finding little of worth in "respectable society," Crass portrayed many ofits aspects (religion, education, government, the police, etc.) as soul-destroying, mind-warping institutions, and often summed themall up at once as "the system." The victims here, though, were not just the working c1ass, the unemployed, or the kids, but a very generalised "you:" that is, anyone who was outside of the se institutions and especially anyone who wanted no part of "straight life." Thus, the politics on their albums were defined mostly in a negative, oppositional sense; one was told what not to do and what to be against, but offered relatively few c1ear and positive options. Yet, what ultimately made their definition of anarchism so ahistorical, idiosyncratic, and problematic was its basis around personal politics rather than political theory or philosophy, especially in their early years. "For [Crass], anarchism has nothing to with mass movements or smashing this that and the other - but it has everything to do with throwing off society' s control of your 54 mind.,,24 As one member defined it: "Anarchy is an awareness which rejects outside influence, it is an attempt to develop one's own life, one's own awareness, free of the conditioning which people are subjected tO.,,25 ln total contradistinction to the analysis of the state usually engaged in by anarchists, Crass initially said that even though "we don't agree with what's happening to the world, ... it doesn't matter at all about the government, they can get on with their roles and regulations." Instead, people with a vested interest in resistance had to "learn to step outside of that and form our own roles, for ourselves, for each individual."26 Rimbaud's definition ofhis own anarchism, with its elevation of individual experience and outlook far above any study of politics, again puts the emphasis solely on the personal rather than any theory-based critical apparatus:

There was a fundamental ideology which was fundamentally anarchistic that 1 had. From organising ... [free] festivals to Exit to all the things that have gone on here, it was part ofmy ideology. 1 was posing the question: do 1 actually look at serious anarchist tracts to see to what extent 1 can defend them? 1 actually chose not to. 1 thought bollocks, my anarchist tract is my life. l'm not actually interested in what Bakunin or Proudhon said?7

That Crass would champion anarchism as sorne form of personal libertarian individualism rather than a worked-out cri tic al theory is more understandable when we consider their relationship to sixties hippie counterculture. Most members of Crass were old enough in the sixties (teens to twenties) that they were greatly influenced by the politicised atmosphere of the time. Although none were full-fledged hippies, sorne did participate in the free festival scene established by the counterculture and/or discovered radical ideas for the first time when they encountered the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND: a major organisation in the peace/anti-war movement of the late 1960s). Members of Crass were later to criticise hippie for various reasons (for example, its "ostrich-like approach to life," its thinly-veiled "superiority complex," or that it 55 was just "really boring and dull"), but the band did not dismiss it wholesale as their younger punk predecessors had done?8 In the early 1980s, Rimbaud, echoing at least a few other members of the band, pointed out that "critics of the 'hippy generation' would do well to remember that the majority of such [activist and advocacy] organisations, plus alternative bookshops, printing presses, food shops, cafes, gig venues, etc., are still run, for the benefit of all, by those same hippies.,,29 In light ofthese facts, Crass's exaltation ofpersonal autonomy, coupled with their heavy promotion of pacifist and vegetarian ideas (including the use of the peace sign and CND symbol), appears at least in part derivative of the hippies' vaunting of the same ideas. To an equal degree, their refusaI to place anarchism anywhere on the political spectrum (and instead putting it on a psychological or personallevel) recalls the politically empty "radicallifestyle" put forth by many sections of the counterculture. Their alternative communallifestyle also brought them into close orbit around hippie stereotypes, but we will retum to this later. Before we fall completely in line with the "hippies in punk disguise" thinking, it is best to note that sorne members of the band had attended art school (Rimbaud even taught at one for a while) so it is possible that they encountered anarchist ideas through the study of dadaism and surrealism. Certainly, the aesthetics ofthese art movements were to become major influences on Crass's work along with the general mingling of "high" and "mass" art forms that took place in British art schools (as described by Frith and Home in Art into Pop; see Section 1). The influence of Situationism is also apparent in a few respects: not only did Crass make sixties SI-styled broadsheets and go on graffiti campaigns around London with their Situationist slogans (as protesters did in Paris, 1968), but their need for confrontation and spectacle (especially their endorsement of and involvement in the Stop the City! events in the early 1980s, where street barricades were used to shut down London's business district for a day) shows sorne serious attention to Situationist rhetoric and ideas. Even ifwe want to be aH-inclusive by saying Crass's ideas about anarchism come from sorne mixture of aH of these sources - and, in fact, they do 56

- the group was nonetheless perceived to have created its own "brand of anarchism.,,30 Whether or not this perception arose because Crass's anarchism was so different from the usual "anarchy is chaos" equation, or from anarchy' s use in mainstream punk discourse, or because people sensed its lack oftheoretical grounding, is difficult to tell. What is clear, on the other hand, is that Crass largely validated and authenticated their anarchist status and their anarchist "brand" through their lifestyle practices. Crucial to this authentication process was Dial House. Despite being "very much a 60s aspiration," Crass insisted that the house, located just north of London in rural Epping, "was not a fucking commune! It was a house where we alllived and ate meals at the same time." The premise of Dial House was (and is) for it to be a self-sustaining (e.g., growing their own food), open-door residence where visitors could freely come and go. Unlike communes, there were no rules or regulations for visitors or inhabitants (with the exception of no drinking or drugs in the house) but "the washing up al ways got done; ... the place was never a shithole.,,31 When the music press got wind ofthis information, the labels of "commune" and "hippy punks" inevitably followed and dogged the band for the remainder of their career and in spite of their constant efforts to shake off the labels. However, it was precisely this living arrangement that set Crass apart from other "political punk" bands at the time because it demonstrated that Crass were deeply committed to alternative lifestyles and that they, as they frequently pointed out, were "living proof' that such lifestyles were possible. Long before Crass, the house had had such a reputation as a place for kids to hang out and encounter alternative ideas that Berger believes that "you could compare Dial House to Malcolm McLaren's Sex emporium: ... both had spent the seventies entertaining lost youth and both would make an enormous cultural impact on punk." At Dial House, fans had the opportunity to meet the band in a setting which made for quite a different experience than a conversation at gigs. Rimbaud explains: "Anyone who came here was always quite devastated by the degree to which this place rounded the edges. They were devastated, in a very 57 positive way, by the sheer beauty ofthe place, being so much in contradiction to the manner in which we publicly appeared."32 Besides also providing "a ready-made network of contacts," Dial House had even greater bearing on the band both in terms of Crass' s libertarian thinking and even their very existence:

The fact that we were living proof ... that you could live in a certain way, that ... you could live for very, very little, was why we thought as we did. This place was, and is, key and central to Crass. 1 don't think Crass would have had the physical environment in which to be created, it wouldn't have had the background on which it based its creation. But not only that, the very fact that it was a very secure environment which had minimal upkeep and cost, which had sufficient room for a large number of people to live for bugger-all made it central.33

Despite so dramatically putting forth an alternative to mainstream punk and established society, Crass did not, apparently, want to be an example followed to the letter, but only wanted to show that there were other ways of living. In various press articles, Crass repeatedly expressed that they were not "looking for converts or recruits to their way of thinking [or living] ... because that would be setting up yet another system"; they were "just making a statement," which listeners could do with what they liked.34 Their primary intention was "to get people to question things instead ofjust accepting everything that cornes along.,,35 Here, we must retum to the nature ofCrass's anarchism and ask, as cultural studies scholar George McKay does, "how do you move beyond the call to simply be yourself? ... What's the response to the charge that anarcho-punk is merely a form of 'prosaic laissez-faire individualism'?" McKay feels that "even ifCrass's 'idea of "self" is never adequately explained, in a way to make this observation is to miss their achievement ... [because their] project ... is a more local and achievable one. That is, the effort to keep possibilities open through the cultural milieu ofpunk.,,36 Joumalists somewhat critical ofCrass also 58 conceded that punk was "a beginning, opening up possibilities which people are still exploring in a variety of ways" and could at least partly redeem Crass in that context.37 Certainly, Crass's politics were anywhere from vague to confusing, and shot through with polemics. To sorne observers, it may have been too simplistic or unnecessarily forceful ("a series of shock slogans and mindless token tantrums") but its confrontational manner and critical assault far exceeded that of the first wave of mainstream punk and this is what helped Crass make their impact felt. 38 Also, it may have been precisely their anarchism's vagueness that helped pique curiosity in radical ideas. By skirting around it, provocatively mentioning, but never really directly addressing the issue, those listeners sufficiently shaken up by Crass's ideas were forced to turn to other sources ifthey wanted to learn more. Ultimately, whatever fault we can find with their politics does nothing to diminish their role in influencing many people to get directly involved with activism or alternative living, a point that is evident as early as 1981, when Crass remarked that "we 've lost most of our original following because they're aIl up to something themselves now.,,39 Of course, it was indispensable to the total image that Crass themselves were politically engaged. Their first noticeable activity in this area was to raise awareness for CND. A dwindling and obscure group by the late seventies, Crass's public relations on CND's behalfhelped resuscitate the organisation by bolstering its profile and consequently its popularity and active supporters. Given CND's sixties origins, it still had a distinct hippie identity to most people ten years later. While such a crusade would have added to Crass's hippie overtones, it is clear in hindsight that Crass were able to effectively transfer the CND and peace movements to the core of the punk underground's agenda. However, these accomplishments have also been exaggerated into claims that Crass revived CND single-handedly, but, as McKay notes, "there were a lot of other things going on too; ... Crass had a role to play, but l don't know [that] rd want to overstate it.,,40 Aside from CND, Crass spent most of their first two years trying to "get [anarchy and peace] out of the pre-conceived meanings" that people were putting 59 on the concepts, but it was perhaps inevitable that the band would eventually be approached by the organised anarchist movement. In 1980, they agreed to do a benefit single and gigs for specific causes of this movement and "that was when we stopped being just a band with something to say and turned into something which was much more politically hardline and out there in the political arena." A more significant turning point came in 1982 when Prime Minister Thatcher engaged Britain in an armed conflict with Argentina (it was a war in aH but officiaUy dec1ared name) over the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. The war had two effects for Crass: on one hand, after already working on their fourth album Christ: The Album for over a year, Crass felt embarrassed and slow­ witted that they did not get the record released until after the conflict was over. On the other hand, as Rimbaud explains, "if s not impossible that had the Falklands War not started, [Christ: The Album] would have been our final album. ArtisticaUy, that' s where l would have liked to have bowed out. If it hadn 't been for the Falklands, we wouldn't have known what to do, because we'd said it aU. And l don't think ... any ofus were about to start repeating ourselves.,,41 Although Crass had always been reacting to their social environment in the sense ofberating the status quo, mainstream punk, or societal complacency, the shamefuUy slow release (in their opinion) of Christ: The Album and the outbreak ofthe Falklands War changed their approach: "From then on, we developed the ide a oftactical response .... If something happened, we'd get something out as quickly as we could." Prior to the war, they had spent considerable time and attention on the aesthetic production of their work, but afterwards, "we didn't think about any ofthe artistic merits or values, which is why that stuffis bitter and craggy.,,42 There is no denying that the remainder of their output is generally heavy-handed, both in its musical and rhetorical style (e.g., 1983' s "How Does it Feel (To Be the Mother of a 1000 Dead)?" which is a reference to Thatcher and the casualties that she arguably forced the British military to incur during the war). But iftheir last few records were produced as a knee-jerk reaction to the acts of the Thatcher government, the Falklands War perhaps had the unexpected side-effect of validating Crass' s thoughts on the 60 nature of "the system," or at least of Thatcher's government. As George McKay viewed the situation:

[The Falklands] struck me as the confirmation of everything that they feared - that we were now slipping over. There was a grand conspiratorial side of Crass - the system will get you, everything was the system - ... but in that moment the state was mobilised and the army went out and killed people and got killed.... 1 don't think they were over-dramatising- 1 thought Crass understood how important it was for the British establishment to have a victorious war.43

By the end of 1984, Crass broke up. Their "total package" had been overwhelmingly successful in getting them attention from different social pockets as weIl as putting them at the forefront of anarcho-punk. At the same time, sorne of Crass' s particular and peculiar ways of thinking, working, writing music, etc., led to sorne unexpected reactions both from people who said they were fans and others who were nothing of the kind.

3.A.II. Crass: Contradictions, Reception, Positioning

As we might expect, the contradictions Crass engendered in their work were to prove highly influential on their reception and on the rest of the genre. Many joumalists and listeners admitted to a startling confusion on seeing the band for the first time and then meeting them in person. Here was a group that presented themselves as "the most mechanical, inhumane, terrorizing, [of aIl the punk bands], much more so than the Pistols .... A great black void full of aIl sorts of horrible images. A total bombardment." It is perhaps no surprise, then, that many first-time observers thought Crass was a fascist group. This presentation was in "total contradiction to after [gigs] when [they] would be wandering around eating marmite sandwiches and drinking cups oftea.,,44 Sorne reporters thought it "remarkable that ferociously assertive music cornes out of such a reflective, even 61 meditative, process of seeking the honest answer" and emphasised that although "the music might be brutally uncompromising and violent, ... as people they're in no way dogmatic or hostile.,,45 For those critics who were unrelenting in their degradation of the band, this contradiction was seen in different and much more problematic light: to them, Crass had brazenly fused together the very same things which mainstream punk had spent two years vigorously driving apart. The mainstream press, too, had also been working for the past few years to curb any remnants of sixties libertarianism (recall Savage' s discussion of this summarised in Section 1). Thus, in 1976 and 1977, hippie was popularly considered anathema to punk in every way - it was a useless relic of the past (even if this was not actually true) - and then, less than a year later, here was a band that had the gall to talk about pacifism, communal living and play punk music! The relatively advanced age of most Crass members did not help this situation either. If punk was supposed to a "revolt of the young against the youngish," the music of the new generation, how could it be successfully harnessed by those from the previous one? Of course, Crass and many oftheir fans were not too concerned by this matter, and, as we shall see, at least one other anarcho band made it part of their mission to erode stereotypes about rock and rebellion as being the terrain only of teenagers and young adults. There is no doubt that Crass were aware of the contradiction of communicating messages of peace and hope through aggressive images and music. They shrugged-off those who attacked them for their hippie overtones, "liked the idea of dispelling the 'macho-aggressive thing'," and intended the disjunction between their musical performance and actual dispositions to cause "confusion that put people in the middle and said, make your own fucking minds Up.,,46 McKay sees this tactic as "provoking the listener, but leaving them unpositioned.,,47 However, past beingjust "a form of self protection" against music industry and political interest group co-optation, Crass believed that it was entirely necessary for their music to be so harsh for other, more important reasons.48 Paul Du Noyer explains that: 62

If the sound and image which Crass project is unattractive, then they'd argue thafs because ifs a direct attack on things which are themselves ugly .... Ifthey write violently about the things which disgust them, ifs because they feel violently .... They refuse to sweeten the pill because they believe their way is the way that gets through to people .... Crass might reach fewer people, but when they do they cut right through, from top to bottom. And that' s more important to them.49

Rather than being the "poison in the machine" that McLaren designed the Pistols' to be, Crass's desire to "cut right through" shows their preference for the idea of the structural shock-effect described in Section 1. To accomplish this using punk music, Crass had to exceed the auraI and rhetorical severity of recent mainstream punk bands with a style that was even more extreme, and they certainly succeeded. While it may be expected that older establishment critics would dec1are Crass "unlistenable," even the young and hip punk critic Tony Parsons heard nothing in them but "nasty, worthless" "piffle" and "three-chord thrashing."so Many oftheir fans, on the other hand, adored them precisely for their ferocity. Another striking contradiction between Crass's rhetoric and practice is the de-personalised, collective presentation of a message of the highest solipsistic individualism. "Be Yourself' says the homogeneous body of Crass, as it deliberately hides the individuals within itself. Crass did occasionally state in interviews that there were widely differing views and personalities within the band, but we cannot easily detect this in their work. Crass was meant to be a unified voice on its own, not an entity made up of the collection of a number of distinct voices. As described above, many of the de-personalising, anonymous tactics they adopted were intended to avoid rock star personae, and likely to prevent their own personalities from being imposed on or copied by listeners (and also apparently for protection against legal persecution). But can a group really instill individualism when they so refuse its admission in their own work and they stubbomly hide themselves under a collective banner? 63

Sorne reporters also commented on how the group in face-to-face conversation displayed a much more sophisticated and nuanced political analysis in comparison to what was on their records. Was it just that Crass did not want to give too much away in their songs and risk foisting a manifesto on listeners or even back themselves into a political corner? Or did they simply feel more comfortable elaborating ideas through discussion rather than lyrics? Or, finally, maybe critics and observers just needed to lower their expectations a bit and realise that not everything can be clearly explained in rock songs? Crass understood this, and that is why they started handing out pamphlets, which led at least one reviewer to conclude that "there's more thoughtfulness, informativeness [sic] and persuasiveness injust one ofCrass's pamphlets than in their entire rant of a set. ,,51

In hiding their individual identities and backgrounds, as well as living in a communal setting, Crass thought they could present themselves as "classless." In this regard, however, they failed quite miserably. In the late seventies and early eighties, Britain's subcultures, and those who wrote about them, were too focussed on class interests for anyone to get away with suspending the matter altogether. If anything, Crass's efforts to appear "classless" raised the issue even more. Since at least half of the band members were middle-class, the accusation was often made by the press and certain punks that, like the hippie counterculture that so influenced Crass, only those who came from a privileged socio-economic background could pretend that class could be ignored and then have the means to "drop-out" to the countryside.52 Crass appear to have further alienated a large sector of the punk scene by being unaware of many aspects of the latter' s lived experience. After the first wave of punk, as Berger notes, hordes of kids from all over Britain migrated to London and established squats (i.e., dilapidated, abandoned, or vacant buildings 'illegally' occupied and ideally inhabited with the intention ofrestoring them to liveable conditions) all over the city. The living conditions in these places could vary greatly, but no matter the level ofbasic necessities, any squat potentially was, and frequently became, a target for vicious attacks by skinhead gangs and 64 this fueUed a mutual enmity between the two subcultures. Despite constant rumours that skinheads were planning to cause trouble at gigs, Crass refused to bar them, or anyone else, from attending. Hoping that their message might prevail and get through, Crass maintained this position even after a violent row between members of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP; not exclusively made up ofpunks, but favoured by many ofthem) and skinheads occurred at a 1979 gig. Crass appeared to blame the SWP for the fight just as much, if not more than, the skinheads and this incensed punk squatters who saw the band's reaction "as a clear case ofCrass being out in Epping and out oftouch with [squatters'] everyday lives in London.,,53 In the final analysis of many punk squatters, Crass appeared very out of step with the alternative punk movement that they identified themselves with:

As members of a post-sixties intellectual avant-garde privileged elite, living in their Safe Epping Forest Home, Crass adopted the style but not the substance of punk. Dial House was never a squat and its inhabitants never had to confront the 'in yer face' reality which the survivors of the punk squatting scene had to as part of their daily life.54

1 do not wish to weigh in on the argument over punk authenticity's dependency on squat living, but the pers on quoted above is correct in stating that Dial House is not a squat. Therefore, even if we still hesitate to call it a commune, the discontinuity between Crass's lifestyle and the squatters' was a source of tension, especially since the former was untenable in many ways for most city-dwellers (e.g., having the time, ability, and especially the space to grow your own food). It is not too surprising that those who agreed with the squatters' opinions and who were also looking for a stronger form of radical activism would be drawn to groups such as Class War. Formed in 1983 by 'traditional' anarchists, Class War stirred up controversy and panic in the mid-eighties media because oftheir highly provocative tactics (as Stewart Home explains, whatever the press maligned, Class War glorified, e.g., riots, property destruction, terrorising the 65 upper classes, etc.).55 Demonising all but the proletariat, they had an agenda (violent working-class uprising) that clearly mismatched with Crass's pacifist aims. Although they had benefited greatly from the political interest generated by Crass, Class War's assessment of the band was swift and dismissive: "The only band to carry the musical-politicalline forward was Crass. They have done more to spread anarchist ideas than Kropotkin, but like him their politics are up shit­ creek.,,56 This indictment seems to have registered very little with Crass, but their vehement individualism had already put them "at odds with ... 'organised anarchists'" during earlier collaboration attempts.57 Believing that anarchy, as an "awareness," could not be organised (and if it was it would likely assume a left, right or hierarchical taint), Crass only lent support to activist groups but would never merge with or share in control of them. Crass said that they wanted to inspire people to take up the struggle without becoming the "vanguard" that guided it. Having helped finance the establishment of the Anarchy Centre in London in 1981, Crass soon suffered a backlash as result of their involvement with it. 58 Rimbaud attributes the trouble to anger over Crass's refusaI to assume sorne kind of leadership role in arbitrating disputes concerning how the centre should have been run. On the other hand, according to Berger and quotes from other Crass members, the atmosphere of "moral superiority ... [and] political correctness" that dominated the centre had the effect of associating Crass with that same holier-than-thou image which, in turn, caused an "anti-Crass" trend. "We'd been ruling the roost for too long," said Crass lead-singer Steve Ignorant, and while there were many "bands that came after Crass [that] out-Crassed Crass by being even more scruffy ... dirty ... square and ... miserable than we were meant to be," a definite split occurred in the punk scene between those who "became even more politically correct ... [and] heavy on the anarchy bit" and those who were politically-engaged but were also, or more so, interested in "having a laugh.,,59 Crass, band members say, were too serious for certain sectors of the punk scene, and although this argument has accuracy, it is likely that Crass's "classless" middle-class status, generational identity, and rural positioning 66 also had a significant alienating effect. At the same time, this split could very well be the point at which anarcho truly became recognisable as a distinct sub­ genre within "real" punk. Another contradiction written about by McKay concems aUegations that Crass appropriated capitalist strategies. Explains McKay:

For aU their self-marginalisation they would still use effective sales techniques and pitches to get their views over, their records bought, listened to, read. They foregrounded the cheapness of their self-produced and self-released records .... As they developed, and released the records of over twenty other ... bands, their designer label, their radical chic corporate identity, was a statement of organisation and longevity.6o

McKay seems to indicate here that by employing methods such as their "Pay No More Than _" stencils, Crass undermined their effort to limit the complicity of their records in the capitalist system. By highlighting the economic side of their products, they made them most visible as commodities and this, of course, would have destroyed any aura of "pure art." However, because Crass "were interested in making statements" and ideas available, an "authentic artiste" image would not have been a concem to them, whereas making a subversive comment on big business was. By blatantly acknowledging their work as a commodity, they showed an awareness of the potential contradictions in espousing anti-capitalist rhetoric through products in the marketplace. Claiming that they were entirely above and beyond capitalism definitely would have been very problematic, but since they acknowledged and sought to temper their unavoidable complicity in this area, they arguably put themselves on a more legitimate critical ground; it was their way of "try[ing] to make their own sense within a system they abhor[red].,,61 Yet Crass' s use of a uniform style of sleeve design (which included the very recognisable Crass logo) for aH their labels' releases shows a definite savvy for selling product. "People like coUecting" was Rimbaud's explanation for their 67 labels' healthy sales, and while we should not discount that point, is not a deeper reason behind this phenomenon Crass's "guru status" within the anarcho-punk scene? If the Crass logo could make or break new bands, does that not strikingly indicate that Crass Records was imbued with the power to control, to sorne degree, the taste and trends of the scene? And, whether it was true or not, did not even the appearance of encouraging Crass copyists "by releasing records that sounded like parodies of their own" run the risk of seriously damaging the "confidence in their supposed integrity,,?62 However, while anarcho-punk historian Ian Glasper acknowledges that there was "a whole slew of bands" on Crass Records who "sounded like Crass" (partI y because Rimbaud also produced them) and went "in a very similar direction" politically, he adds, with sorne hyperbole, that "Crass [also] unleash[ ed] sorne of the most challenging ... music imaginable .... Artists as eclectic as The Cravats, Poison Girls, [and] Annie Anxiety." Perhaps the stylistic division of bands on this label is a larger reflection of Crass's mixing of avant­ garde techniques and popular forms in their own work (a mix which, as mentioned earlier, came in part from their art school experience). Rimbaud admits that he was largely responsible for selecting which bands to release and that his own tastes inclined him to choose acts that did not fit the typical "real" punk mould (Annie Anxiety, for example, half-sang her long poems over looped and rather non-rock accompaniments). Conceding that the label made little or even lost money on their avant-garde releases, Rimbaud is hesitant to say that the Crass-derivative groups were selected because they were "saleable punk" (even though they were). Instead, he says that he wanted to give these bands an opportunity where they otherwise may not have had one. Tellingly, he only grew to resent a band's close imitation ofCrass's style if he eventually found himself "at odds with them politically.,,63 Rimbaud unfortunately does not elaborate much further, but, nonetheless, this comment indicates that perhaps Crass wanted stronger control over the politics of their scene than they let on. If that is true, it also has more than a whiff of hypocrisy: one should not encourage others to think for themselves and then resent them for coming to different conclusions. 68

Sorne members of Crass have denied that they possessed any kind of dominant status, but others were very much aware that their older age, forceful rhetoric, and successful record labels could only end up making them leaders, even if they had tried to circumvent that outcome. This positioning was to have greater political ramifications later in the band's career; by 1983 or so, Crass were perceived by many as "an alterative authority ... in the 'right' political position" against the conservative government and the public that supported it.64 McKay points out how Crass's anarchism pitted them against the totalising narratives of the state yet their poli tics were constructed in an equally totalising manner. 65 Contemporary critics sensed this too: "[Crass] are too absolute .... Listen to [them] and you will hear that nobody tells the truth about anything ever." Other critics dripped with sarcasm about the band's perceived hypocrisy: "Crass are ... our very own perfect little institutionalised anti­ institution.,,66 But, as with mainstream punk, this was to become a crucial structural method for anarcho: the total opposition of the leading band helped feed the negative unity of the genre, bringing the scene together in complete antagonism to pretty much everything outside itself. Further still, it united the early avant-garde and populi st elements within anarcho in that both strains, to paraphrase Laing, Frith, and Home, rejected the cultural status quo and saw much value in using shock-effects to express their rejection (see Section 1). Many retrospective accounts describe the anger, isolation, disillusionment, etc., people felt and how anarcho-punk gave them a place to focus these feelings and put them to sorne kind of use. That Crass and other anarcho bands still get new fans many years after they dissolved does speak strongly to their work as "a statement of ... longevity," if only because feelings of anger, etc., are, obviously, perennial emotions which will continually attract newcomers even if they approach anarcho from a completely different background than its original participants. Even hostile critics who saw Crass as "nothing but a caricature and a joke clinging to crummy outlaw conventions" and deemed their music as "uniformly abysmal," predicted that "on the strength oftheir image and attitude, ... they will surely last forever.,,67 69

Crass's total package and its imbued image of sincerity gave the anarcho scene a focal point around which it could loosely organise itself and its networks (fanzines, gig circuits, etc.). Although they did not create the genre single­ handedly, Crass was the catalyst that drew together previously disparate malcontents and gave punk a new meaning and direction by introducing their version of anarchy to it. At first labelled "hippy-punk" or "peace-punk," it is not entirely clear when the primary moniker for the genre switched to "anarcho­ punk," but the transformation appears to have been well underway by 1980 and then to have solidified within the next couple ofyears. As much as Crass was a positive influence on anarcho-punk, they were also to bec orne an equally divis ive force, although one could argue that their controversial or demoted status was equally important for the genre's development. One source of rupture, according to Berger, resulted from conflict between urban and rural areas: "In London and sorne of the other bigger U.K. cities, people were doing it for themselves. They appreciated the effort Crass was making, but they didn't needthem. However, in many of the smaller, more remote areas, people seemed to be waiting for Crass to take the lead." Rimbaud, on the other hand, draws the boundary between those whom he considered were genuinely committed to alternative practice and those who were interested in Crass and anarcho's rebellion only as a passing interest: "The alternative punk movement ... was monopolised by people who identified with and vicariously lived off the energies of people like ourselves. Those who didn't were away somewhere else doing it themselves.,,68 By disbanding in 1984 without ever having sold out to commercial interests, Crass established what was perceived as a pure origin and archetype for anarcho as a genre. For several years after Crass' s formation most, if not all, following anarcho bands would be measured against their example; even bands later critical of Crass would still grudgingly acknowledge the historical importance oftheir work. However, it is inaccurate to say that every anarcho­ punk band began only under the impetus of Crass. While they certainly inspired many new groups and informed their aesthetic, politics, and rhetoric, there were 70 also bands which started up concurrently with, but independently of, Crass. Again, since Crass was a major focal point for the genre, sorne of these bands did end up working with them in different ways. Others remained almost completely outside of involvement with Crass and networked with activists and artists within their own underground scenes. AlI of these groups nevertheless ended up categorised as anarcho. In order to understand this development, we will now tum to examining sorne of these other groups and attempt to determine how and where they were positioned within the genre as weIl as how they did or did not build upon Crass's example.

3.B. Beyond Crass

3.B.I. Otber Anarcbo Bands

Like Crass and many other punk bands (anarcho and otherwise), the Mob and Zounds formed in response to the first wave of mainstream punk, but this is only part oftheir history. Crucial to these two bands' development was their involvement with the hippie-anarchist band, Here & Now. One of many off­ shoots of the band Gong (which formed in the late sixties), the members ofthese and other hippie-radical groups had a large role in establishing various free festivals and tours, as weIl as contributing to the culture of the travelling lifestyle (i.e., long-term or life-Iong transience) throughout the seventies in Britain. Because of Zounds and the Mob's distant location away from the London punk scene and in the more remote parts of Oxford and Somerset, respectively, it was the free festival scene of the seventies which proved to be the "perfect incubator" for them. Although both bands had played a few gigs on their own initiative, it was Here & Now that gave them their first chance to tour, introduced the two bands to each other, and first brought them into "that gray area of hippies, punks, and activists.,,69 By taking an interest in nascent punk bands, Here & Now were able to affect younger groups' political sensibility with their own radical anarchist 71 politics. Feeling alienated not only from mainstream society but also from traditionalleft politics because of "its infighting and dogma and rules" the members of Zounds "were instinctively drawn towards anarchy, not because we had much of a clue as to what it was about, but we just wanted to be left alone to pursue our own weird trip and not have people tell us what to dO.,,70 Joseph Porta, drummer for the Mob and Zounds, pays greater tribute to the effect of Here & Now: "Here & Now were far more radical and influential than any of the bands who came onto the scene through Crass Records. Ifit hadn't been for them, the Mob would probably never have left Somerset, and almost certainly wouldn't have followed the anarchist line.,,7! Enamoured with the idea of the free festival, the Mob and Zounds decided to carry out their own free "Weird Tales Tour" with other punk-inspired, radically-motivated bands, the Astronauts and Androids of Mu, who had also been support groups for Here & Now. Described in hindsight as a gruelling experience, the tour was significant if only for its encounter with Crass. Typical of descriptions about first-time meetings with "the" anarcho band and visits to Dial House, both the Mob and Zounds have discussed how they were "tremendously impressed by aIl the people in Crass" and their lifestyle. Said Steve of Zounds: "They were reaIly funny, very intelligent and had very powerful personalities. 1 admired their analysis and commitment and knowledge.,,72 Crass also took a liking to these two young bands and offered both the opportunity to record on Crass Records. The release of these records (a 1981 single for the Mob and a 1980 EP for Zounds) and their new association with Crass (which also entailed sorne shared gigs) was to remove them somewhat from the hippie/traveller scene surrounding Here & Now and to establish them nationally in the anarcho-punk scene.73 These records not only sold weIl because of the link to Crass (who, keep in mind, also had wider me ans of distribution), but audiences at gigs became larger and were made up of a slightly different demographic. Earlier gigs had mostly been attended by "bohemian ... squatters and hippiefied punks," likely because both groups' squatting lifestyle and hippie association with Here & Now drew in crowds with similar interests. Post-Crass 72 gigs, however, added to audiences "a lot more working class kids who stilllived with their parents.,,74 It is likely as well that, where Crass was "looked up to" or sometimes mistrusted because of their age, these teenaged bands would have been simultaneously relatable to both at-home kids and young urban squatters. The work ofboth Zounds and the Mob differed in a few ways from the fast, distorted, and heavy sound which dominated a lot of anarcho bands by 1980- 81 and this too helped them have wider appeal. After listing sorne of the group's early influences (Can, the Byrds, Velvet Underground, Pere Ubu, Buzzcocks, the Beatles, etc.), a member of Zounds once characterised their music as "marrying the weird and unusual with a pop sensibility.,,75 In comparison to certain other bands in the scene, such as Crass, Conflict, and Flux of Pink Indians, this statement does have sorne accuracy. Among Zounds' limited output (a handful of singles, EPs and one LP whose coyer was drawn by anarchist artist Clifford Harper), there is a much larger incorporation ofpop aesthetics: the bass is quite melodic, the vocals are often organised in regular phrases, synthesisers occasionally play catchy riffs, and the drums frequently use standard rock accompaniment pattems.76 Overall, each instrument is clearly defined within the songs' structures which often follow that of more conventional pop songs. However, punk aesthetics are still prevalent here (for example, Zounds' vocals are at times strained, shouted, or otherwise exaggerated, fast tempos are regularly used, the distorted guitars rely on straightforward power chord riffs, and there is usually an overall structural simplicity in their songs) which, along with their subject matter, align this music more with anarcho expectations. Yet, Zounds also largely bypassed anarcho' s tendency of sloganeering and instead raised political issues by focussing on personal behaviour, alienation, and paranoia. They then related these things to everyday situations in such a way as to criticise the status quo, the nuc1ear arms race, and occasionally the anarcho scene itself. In contrast to what many considered was Zounds' "more mature rational perception of anarchism and politics," the Mob was seen to have a "'vivid but vague' approach" (which apparently led to "sorne enmity" between the two groups). Feelings ofparanoia and alienation also infiltrate the Mob's lyrics, but 73 these are usuaIly secondary to the use ofpost-apocalyptic imagery. Indeed, from Lance Hahn's article to various postings on the Internet, words such as "doom," "bleak," and "despair," along with sorne perception of "underlying hope," are repeatedly used to characterise the group's lyrical settings and moods. This sense of "foreboding" and exploration of "dark regions" in their work apparently made the Mob appealing to the gothic subculture which was beginning to emerge around this time. However, their particular musical and lyrical style also drew praise from establishment music critics. This press coverage revealed how listeners both inside and outside the anarcho scene perceived the Mob's difference from other bands in the genre: "Here are evocative images unafraid of fragility and optimism, the freedom of a madness which places more value on concerned awareness than on the whys and wherefores ofpolitical theory, a freedom beyond the various vociferous causes belabored elsewhere in the anarcho-punk carnival." "Despite such oppressive [song] titles, ... the music is surprisingly - and stunningly - accessible." "Ticking off society while winking coyly to the Crass camp, they are capable of far more than The People In Black will ever be. For although their ideology is similar their melodic approach finds wider appeal.,,77 But not every band that got involved in the anarcho scene was a group of young people who benefited from the assistance of experienced mentors. Formed in Brighton in 1976, the Poison Girls eventuaIly moved near Crass in the countryside north of London. This makes them, to my knowledge, the only prominent anarcho band other than Crass to have lived in a rural area during the peak oftheir career. Poison Girls were tightly involved with Crass from 1979 to 1982 and the two played over a hundred gigs together, aIl of which were benefits and many were held on behalf of the CND. 78 Like Crass, Poison Girls helped to revive the CND and to establish the anarcho scene through constant audience interaction, the activities oftheir own label (which also supported the work other artists), and touring around both the U.K. and Europe. However, while they are usually given their dues, Poison Girls appear much less celebrated in the genre's history; for example, despite his own comments about how Poison Girls were just 74 as important as Crass in the early days of anarcho, Glasper apparently does not think that they warrant their own separate entry in his book. Generally speaking, their neglect is attributable to a few possible factors. First is the issue of age: Crass had members that spanned a twenty-year age range. Sorne commentators noted how certain members looked like ageing professors, yet, in contrast, Crass' s main vocalist, Steve Ignorant, was in his late teens at the start of the band. The front person for Poison Girls, on the other hand, was Vi Subversa, a forty-something single mother whose presence was uncomfortable for many young punks because they felt it was like seeing their mother on stage. Whereas Crass tried to hide or gloss over their individual differences of age, Poison Girls consciously politicised theirs and tumed it back not just on punk, but on rock culture as a whole: "It has been said that we should leave it to the kids, rock'n'roll is theirs and we had our chance. But that seems very crippling to any sustained movement for change because all the time people who have leamt something are being cut offfrom the people who haven't." Added another member: "The rebellion of the young is sanctioned. They are allowed to be rebellious. So people don't take notice, they assume you will grow out ofit. For people of our ages to be doing it is significant." Finally, Subversa pointed out that: "We share the same angers and frustrations that the kids have. That's what has been a closely guarded secret and l' d like to be a part of opening it up. It' s a very repressive thing in society when a sex or an age group is gagged.,,79 Sexuality and gender are issues intensely explored by Poison Girls, and this subject matter has also helped place them at a distant second to Crass. Even when Crass released their 1982 "feminist album" Penis Envy the reaction was disappointingly mixed. Thus, since Poison Girls had made gender issues a central pillar in their work, it is likely that they were frequently at odds with the hidden sexism of the anarcho scene. 80 Approaching gender with an anarchist-feminist perspective, their songs pick apart the issue from a variety of angles: difficulties with raising children, the faB-out of the Women's Liberation movement, on-going patriarchy in the family and workplace, the ideology of women "needing a man" and men needing to be "macho," teenaged pregnancy, and, of course, sexism and 75 misogyny as perpetuated by both sexes. Reviewers, not unlike sorne anarcho­ punks, often found such analyses difficult to take or relate to: "The se songs hurt. When 1 reviewed the record [Hex] 1 accused them of extremism which would tend to drive men and women apart rather than heal the undeniable wounds inflicted over generations." Not outmanoeuvred, the band had a sharply perceptive retort: "Why is male anger accepted as the universal screarn of discontent whilst female anger is just neurosis?"Sl Rather than having constantly rotating lead vocalists, their songs were mostly fronted by Subversa (who also played guitar) while the men in the band sang back-up vocals. Poison Girls, unlike many other anarcho bands, persistently straddled the divide between Crass's early hardcore and experimental style and run-of-the-mill pop. Catchy guitar riffs, keyboards, and simple rock drumming routinely altemate with military drum roUs, noise accompaniment, and distorted power chords. These and other elements often combine in a way that gives the impression of a cabaret. Subversa was also perhaps the most unique (and intelligible!) singer in the genre; having a low, rough voice. she had the ability to perforrn a breadth of vocal styles and suitably match her voice to the character of the lyrics. which demonstrated a vocal sophistication rarely found in anarcho and likely stemmed from her own cabaret experience. ln contrast to the Mob. Zounds, and Poison Girls, groups such as Conflict. Flux of Pink Indians (a.k.a. Flux) and Dirt more closely typified the perceived standard of the anarcho sound. There is little attempt arnong these groups to make use of pop aesthetics or allusive lyrical imagery. The music, although not entirely uniforrn between these bands, is an extension of the harder aspects of the first Crass record: the vocals are nearly always strained, even shouted, the tempo is often incredibly fast and driving, and the textures are usually kept well distorted and thick. The lyrics, in a manner again similar to Feeding, are most often delivered as frenzied rants and frequently assume a finger-pointing, condemning tone. However, while Dirt's lyrics are similar to the sloganeering and generalised accusations of Crass, the lyrics of Conflict and Flux try harder to explicitly identify and explain critical concems. Sorne of these concems expand upon 76 themes first raised by Crass (e.g., the violence of governments, anti-war protest, etc.), but issues such as animal rights, institutionalised charities, and the effects of media, political partisanship, and technological progress are vigorously treated by Conflict and Flux whereas Crass only touched on or entirely overlooked them. ln their earliest years (circa 1981), both Conflict and Flux had better reception in the music press than Crass which caused sorne interesting re­ evaluations of the latter: "Although 1 don't agree with a lot ofwhat Crass say and record, when they assist excellent bands like Conflict and Flux, they have my full endorsement." Formed under Crass's influence, Conflict wanted to "make [their] own statements, not regurgitate Crass's.,,82 That said, they took on a number of Crass's practices (no posing for photos, extremely cheap gig admission and records prices, communal living) and continued to affirm Crass's definition of anarchism as being "anti-political" and a "frame of mind" even as they attempted to outline sorne specifie social ideas: "We calI ourselves anarchist. That doesn't mean we believe in chaos - our ideal society would be one of small self goveming communities with people being able to run their own lives. But above all we're trying to say that we don't want to be used by the political Left or Right." It is no surprise, then, that certain reporters dec1ared that: "As with other like-minded people l've met, 1 find Conflict's 'anarchism' to be a very personal and rather inconsistent philosophy. ,,83 Near the end of 1981, Conflict was becoming "the hotte st young anarcho punks in the country." Two years later sorne even felt that they "are probably now more influential than their original mentors, Crass.,,84 Assuming that Conflict did rival or even overtake Crass in popularity, to what can we attribute this development? One reason might be that Crass had drifted too much from their original punk sound, although they had not entirely abandoned this framework. But it was also around this time that Crass was suffering sorne damage to their reputation as a result of their abstinence from running the Anarchy Centre and the criticisms they received from the squatting community. Although Crass remained hugely popular (audiences still packed their gigs and records sold very well), the straight-ahead "populi st punk" music performed by 77

Conflict interested those anarcho fans who believed the genre should stick to that aesthetic. Furthermore, Conflict' s eagerness to address the hot topic of animal rights (much less discussed by Crass), their young age (late teens in 1982), and their efforts to keep "dissent in the streets, arguing with people instead of bellowing at them from any safe Epping Forest bunker," gave the group an image which may have appealed to a large working-class audience supposedly turned­ offby Crass's "Sixties hippy drop out/cop out ineffectualism [SiC].,,85 IfConflict did not succeed Crass in the early and mid-eighties, their continued existence on vehemently independent and outspoken political grounds has made them one of the very few anarcho bands with twenty-something years behind them and a perennial favourite of the scene. Unlike Conflict, Flux became interested in politics only after meeting Crass in 1978 and at first they heavily emulated Crass's early style. Flux's later work caused mixed reactions within the scene because it was perceived to bear an unsatisfactorily close resemblance to industrial music (e.g., Throbbing Gristle, SPK).86 Such a venture was likely made less palatable by the numerous lyrical attacks the band made on the anarcho community's narrowness (in outlook, taste, etc). As Hahn states, in addition to this topical matter, they intended their choice in musical style to be "caustically antagonistic to what was happening in the anarcho scene that they came from. ,,87 Retaining something of industrial but including more overt dance and pop influences in their final LP, the group broke up the following year (1987). One of the other few groups to roundly criticise the anarcho scene, have the gall to hook up with the majors, and reinvent their sound more than once, was Chumbawamba (Chumba). Based in Leeds (Northern England), their early existence was heavily influenced, again, by Crass, but the two bands had little to do with each other. While many anarcho bands tacitly earned their "right-on" stamp by having a record put out on Crass's label, the closest Chumba ever got to benefiting from this practice was by having a song included on a compilation album.88 Nonetheless, the group, similar to virtually every other band in the scene, secured their anarcho credentials by operating out of a commune/squat, mailing out 78 free demo tapes, and constantly participating in benefit gigs and political campaigns. Aesthetically, they also closely imitated Crass at first, but distinguishing characteristics quickly surfaced: the use of stage theatrics, props, costumes, and an overt sense ofparody and satire, starkly contrasted with Crass's austerity and often gave the effect of a cabaret. A more concentrated effort on group singing also hinted at the greater musical experimentation to come. Lyrically, they evolved from long diatribes that veered towards streams of shouting and sloganeering to more recognisable pop structures. Similar to Crass, their album notes are frequently crammed with radical quotes and information and have been often subjected to bans or other censorship. Chumbawamba is one of the few anarcho bands to have continued working past the eighties. By the early nineties, they had earned a reputation for "celebrat[ing] resistance and deviance rather than complain[ing] about 'the system'" as well as for getting into trouble for sorne of their high-profile pranks which they have continued to do throughout their career.89 While these acts and other forms of direct action might have affirmed Chumba as "anarchist extremists" in the press, their evolving sound steadily put them at a growing distance from the anarcho scene. Although their 1997 album Tubthumper is usually marked as the point at which Chumba "sold out" by writing "commercial" sounding music to insert themselves into the mainstream, this is something of a deception: the band's first full-Iength album (1986) had already diverged at numerous points from the "typical" anarcho-punk sound (by using very non-rock instrumentation, musical skits, etc.) and their 1990 LP, Slapf, really broke with expectations because ofits blatant incorporation of pop aesthetics (dance rhythms, sweet hom arrangements, etc.) which were noticeable not because they were entirely new in Chumba'a work, but rather because the "punk" element was now substantially less than before. In between these two records, the band released English Rebel Sangs 1381- 1917 (1988), an a cappella recording of folk songs. If anarcho-punks were not worried about the integrity of this album, it is because a move in this direction would not have been perceived as a threat to purity. Folk is, after all, another genre of "protest," with its own rigorous expectations of authenticity and separateness 79 from the mainstream and folk-punk hybrids such as a Billy Bragg were not unusual, or unpopular, at the time. Of course, with Tubthumper the righteous indignation bellowed from all over, but the band had thoughtful replies for any "sell-out" accusations: "If we're going to get people involved, we want people to listen. A lot of people are happy making music which are works of art but have limited appeal. We're not" because "our intention is to get a platform. We can't make pop music in obscurity.,,90 Ifthey wanted to cast a wider net, then, "the worst thing we could have done was not gotten involved with [the majors] and still be stuck in the limbo we were in before .... Our whole thing is about communication." As described above, their move away from the punk scene and sound had begun sorne time prior to EMI, not because they were working on coldly adopting a marketable sound for the sake of fame and profit, but because they felt anarcho culture was becoming rigidly conformist and stifling; "everybody seem[ed] to be getting the idea that this is what radical music should sound like - as in guitars, shouting loud anti-Iyrics" and Chumba sought to counter this trend.91 In embracing their "love-hate relationship" with pop culture, the band felt a diverse and changing style was integral to their political identity. Anarchism, for Chumba, entailed the absorption of outside influences, otherwise, one ran into "blinkered" closed-mindedness and the inability to get one' s message across. As Chumba progressed their sound, they believed that they had successfully avoided such dead-ends.

3.B.II. Disillusionment

It is difficult to pinpoint when anarcho really began to tum in on itself. Sorne say the scene was unimaginative from the get-go, that all Crass had done was inspire a legion of insufferable clones and maybe a handful of reasonably creative groups. Most often, 1982 or 1983 is cited as the culmination or start of anarcho' s stagnation, while other observers place that achievement with the end 80 ofCrass in 1984. Having been such a dominant force in the scene, their break-up led to "no dialogue, no signs of change," and to many people "treat[ing] their words ... as gospel never to be deviated from." Crass did not intend this outcome, but their complete withdrawal from the scene and abandonment of continuing political engagement only further served to "cast [them] in marble" along with their ideas on anarchy.92 From the evidence given above, each of these arguments has sorne merit, but it is hard to tell if any one is more accurate than the others. Rather than trying to make a definitive answer, what should be recognised is how and why this decay occurred. One problem, perhaps the ultimate contradiction, which many anarcho bands and fans sooner or later discovered, was that by having such a hard-line sound, image, and/or attitude (even if only by reputation, association, or perception), there was not much possibility for expansion once a fan-base had been established. That is not to say that all anarcho fans were only hardcore squatter/political activist types. As we have seen, several anarcho bands overlapped with other genres (hippie, goth, industrial, folk, pop) which drew favourable attention from listeners outside of punk and diversified audiences in terms of class, age, and subcultural membership. Furthermore, since anarcho had itselfbecome a full-fledged subculture by the early eighties, a lot ofnew faces came and went in the scene as kids passed through a Crass or anarchist phase or maintained an allegiance limited to only one or two specifie anarcho bands. The negative unity that bound anarcho also possibly put a stranglehold on it; at first, the scene was a reaction to both the failure of mainstream punk and the frustrations first vented by mainstream punk, that is, a reaction against the status quo, unemployment, etc. Scene unification was then consolidated by the expression of an anarchist identity and the establishment of a separate economic sector. But by the early eighties, Thatcher's systematic dismantling of government social programs and militaristic aggression gave anarcho a new focus which other off-shoots of punk at most brushed on. Although the genre made a persistent stand against this turn to the political right, there were c1early downsides, as has been indicated by a member of Flux: "1 guess you endlessly 81 search for new issues to write/protest about. If you're not careful, finding an issue to complain about could become more important than finding a solution to the problem.,,93 Indeed, anarcho too often emphasised what it was against, rather than what it stood for, a point which is vividly underscored by the titles of a current anthology series of the genre in the eighties: Anti-War, Anti-State, Anti-Society.94 Anarchism, in turn, became a check-list ofthings to avoid and condemn, rather than a flexible strategy for change. For the people who continued with serious radical activity (e.g., founding radical and anarchist book publishers, distributors, working for causes such as Amnesty International, etc.), the limited and confused scope of anarchism in this subculture was quickly revealed, but those who remained deeply invested and self-isolated in the scene clung to their opinions with a dogmatism that made "occasional bouts of individuality and imagination ... only barely tolerated by the majority.,,95 Such a view extended to aIl aspects of anarcho: not only did one's "politics" have to meet a certain standard, but clothes, music, living arrangements, etc., were aIl rigorously scrutinised for their acceptability. By approximately 1984, anarcho had become a subculture a lot like the first wave of mainstream punk which Crass had harshly reprimanded in 1978: an "in-club" of sorts with too many prescribed rules which were aIl the more strictly enforced because of their supposed basis on the highest political correctness. For the first few years, it had been able to draw in a varied audience oflike-minded social misfits, but a significant portion ofthese got turned-off as artistic and political ideas became increasingly narrow and stringently fixed. At this point, more than ever, the "total package" appealed little to those who had always been content with "the system" or who were not content with the rigidities of the subculture (that is, excepting those who took an interest in it as a youthful fad). This begs the question: how can you expect to change the world when you stay in an insulated ghetto and produce work that will only appeal to members of your separatist community? Chumbawamba realised the potential ineffectiveness of this, which is why they broke rank with anarcho and pursued a diversified sound and a major label contract. Many other bands just grew tired of the 82 increasing conformity and stagnant ide as and dissolved by the late eighties. As one highly critical ex-anarcho described it:

1 don't think there was much beyond a kind offantasy.... It was so insular­ how anyone can talk about an anarchist society that excludes anyone who doesn't have the right record collection is beyond me. There were a lot of sincere people, 1 don't deny it, but there was also a lot ofhot air. Sure, we all did the same gigs and got interviewed by the same fanzines, but we were all just talking to each other. What is the point in trying to change the people who are already the same as you? Yes, 1 felt very connected to something, and 1 loved it at the time, but looking back 1 can't quite see how it had any more real value than any other clique.96

At the same time, sorne participants' revisiting the past has also brought to light other causes of friction within anarcho in its heyday. Asked if there had been any pressure to conform to the sound or the style of Crass, an ex-member of Zounds replied:

They chose the songs from our repertoire. We played it and Penny [Rimbaud] and John [Loder] ... record[ed] and produced it. To sorne extent they directed the performances, particularly my vocals .... They made us use a session drummer who played Joseph's part. That was difficult to take as authenticity is quite important to me. After the recording they mixed it without us there and brought it to us for approval. 97

For other musicians, however, the products oftheir alliances with Crass were less satisfying: "Penny was a great producer, but also liked to be in control, so bands were seldom at the mix, and you were apt to find your record coming out with unexpected over-dubs of crying babies on them.,,98 Crass's generosity, then, was conditional: they "were a band who wanted things done a certain way. They had a vision and they were not into compromise. Which is not to say they were 83 unreasonable, but if you wanted to work with them then obviously it was on their terms." Interestingly, such authoritarianism as practiced by Crass does not, on the whole, seem to have caused overwhelming damage to their image or reputation. I have come across daims that Poison Girls ended their relationship with Crass when the latter refused to use a sleeve design by Subversa; however, I suspect many bands, especially perhaps young ones, took a similar attitude to Steve of Zounds:

Nobody forced us, or anyone else to do it .... We liked them and dug what they were doing. We were happy to be associated with them. So they designed the cover, wrote the blurb and we wrote the songs and played them. Let's face it, the main reason it sold so many was because of the association with them. If it had just come out anonymously maybe it would never have been heard.

Yet, one could also argue that Crass ultimately did not reconcile their ideas and practice. Despite aIl their disavowals of leadership, others in the scene saw that "there was a very strict hierarchy in the Crass camp that was acknowledged but accepted. Crass at the top, Poison Girls were their second in command and Zounds, Flux and the Mob were favored subjects.,,99 If "Crass and Poison Girls [really] were quite insular and very much in control oftheir scene," how could this not have affected the rest of the genre or contributed to the outcome described above? Further still, even if Crass themselves did not pressure others to conform to their musical style, this did not prevent audiences from having specific and even very strict expectations as to what an anarcho band should sound like. In the end, the staunch separatism demanded and enforced by participants led to many problems down the line. Although total segregation may have been useful or even necessary as a starting point, stubbornly holding on to such a position made it very difficult to interact with, or positively influence, the wider world without being branded a traitor, as one of "them." However, while anarcho may have largely become a cliquey subculture, it still managed to have an influence outside of itself, as 84 it had originally set out to accomplish. Obviously, it did not change the world to the extent it wanted to, but sorne of the reverberations that it caused were not minor ones and will be taken up in the "Conclusion" to which we now turn.

Notes

1 George McKay, "Postmodemism and the Battle of the Beanfields: British Anarchist Music and Text of the 1970s and 1980s," in Postmodern Surroundings, ed. Steven Eamshaw (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994), 152.

2 Jon Savage, England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992),576.

3 Penny Rimbaud, Shibboleth: My Revolting Life (Edinburgh, San Francisco: AK Press, 1998), 74.

4 Penny Rimbaud, "Untitled," New Musical Express, Winter, 1982; Rimbaud, Shibboleth, 78.

5 Rimbaud, Shibboleth, 77, ibid, 102.

6 Penny Rimbaud quoted in Richie Unterberger, Penny Rimbaud Interview. Perfect Sound Forever (1996), http://www.furious.comlPerfectipennyrimbaud. html.

7 George Berger, The Story ofCrass (London: Omnibus Press, 2006), 160.

8 See Berger, The Story ofCrass, 123, 159.

9 Crass's lead singer Steve Ignorant quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 126.

10 AlI ofCrass's films were created by Mick Duffield. Three of them­ "Autopsy," "Choosing Death," and "Yes Sir, 1 Will" - were later compiled into one source and made available for purchase; see Duffield, Mick, Christ: The Movie, VHS, Exitstencil Films, 1979, 1981, 1984.

Il Paul Du Noyer, "Crass Anarchy & Peace," New Musical Express, February 14, 1981.

12 This example slogan is from the sleeve ofCrass, Yes Sir, 1 Will, Crass Records, 1983, 121984. AlI ofCrass's artwork was created by Gee Vaucher (a.k.a, G. Sus, who was considered as much a band member as any of the others). Much ofher work has been compiled into: Vaucher, Gee, Crass 85

Art and Other Pre Post-Modernist Monsters (San Francisco, Edinburgh, London: AK Press, Exitstencil Press, 1999). For a brief discussion of Vaucher's artwork within the context ofCrass's politics, see Allan Antliff, Anarchy and Art: From the Paris Commune to the FaU ofthe Berlin Wall (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007), 182-87.

13 Each new release had to be reca1culated for its 'just above production cost' priee, which was always much less than average records priees for the time.

14 Mike Stand, "The Aesthetics of Anarchy," The Face, December, 1981.

15 David Laing, One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1985), 113.

16 Crass soon realised, however, that they could not quite do it aIl and acquired John Loder as a financial manager who also entered into a production partnership with Rimbaud. In regard to DIY, many commentators have observed in retrospect that, in fact, not everyone could do everything themselves. DIY, then, is probably better understood to mean an emphasis on keeping aIl aspects of production within a committed independent community, rather than expecting every individual to be their own manufacturer, accountant, design artist, etc.

17 Penny Rimbaud, preface to Love Songs, by Crass (West Yorkshire, England: Pomona, 2004), xxv.

18 George McKay, "CRASS 621984 ANOK4U2," in Senseless Acts ofBeauty: Cultures ofResistance Since the Sixties (London: Verso, 1996), 90.

19 Rimbaud, Shibboleth, 108.

20 Rimbaud quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 128.

21 McKay, "CRASS 621984 ANOK4U2," 89.

22 Rimbaud, Shibboleth, 109.

23 Rimbaud quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 128.

24 Du Noyer, "Crass Anarchy & Peace."

25 Pete Wright in Radio Sheffield, Radio Interview with Crass, circa 1983.

26 Quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 137, ibid.

27 Rimbaud quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 170. 86

28 Rimbaud, Shibboleth, 66; Crass vocalist Eve Libertine quoted in Berger, 49; Ignorant quoted in Berger, 161.

29 Rimbaud quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 161.

30 Du Noyer, "Crass Anarchy & Peace."

31 Berger, The Story ofCrass, 42; Ignorant quoted in ibid, 162, ibid, 163.

32 Berger, The Story ofCrass, 78; Rimbaud quoted in ibid, 165.

33 Ibid.

34 G. Sus (a.k.a., Gee Vaucher) quoted in In the City, "Interview with Crass," 1981.

35 Pete Wright quoted in ibid.

36 McKay, "CRASS 621984 ANOK4U2," 98, ibid.

37 Graham Lock quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 157.

38 Steve Sutherland, "Keep off the Crass," Sounds, 1981.

39 Quoted in Stand, "The Aesthetics of Anarchy."

40 McKay quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 226.

41 Wright quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 129; Rimbaud quoted in ibid, 170, ibid,209.

42 Ibid, 220, ibid.

43 McKay quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 215.

44 Rimbaud quoted in McKay, "CRASS 621984 ANOK4U2," 90, ibid.

45 Stand, "The Aesthetics of Anarchy."; Du Noyer, "Crass Anarchy & Peace."

46 Rimbaud quoted in In the City, "Interview with Crass," 1981 and in McKay, "CRASS 621984 ANOK4U2," 90.

47 McKay, "CRASS 621984 ANOK4U2," 89.

48 Du Noyer, "Crass Anarchy & Peace." 87

49 Ibid.

50 Tony Parsons, "Crass: Feeding ofthe 5000," New Musical Express, March 3, 1979.

51 Adrian Maddox quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 224.

52 At the same time, this required a strong determination to ignore the working­ c1ass band members - not an easy feat to achieve, since lead vocalist Steve Ignorant sang in a strong and undeniably working-c1ass accent. Nonetheless, joumalists much preferred to portray Crass as being thoroughly middle-c1ass and to deride them on that basis.

53 Berger, The Story ofCrass, 149.

54 Alastair Livingstone quoted in ibid.

55 See Stewart Home, The Assault on Culture: Utopian Currents from Lettrisme to Class War (London: Aporia Press & Unpopular Books, 1988).

56 Class War quoted in McKay, "CRASS 621984 ANOK4U2," 77.

57 Stand, "The Aesthetics of Anarchy."

58 In addition to releasing bands' records, such tinancial contributions were a way for Crass to avoid the embarrassment of riches which they began to experience once their popularity increased. Combined with their policy of no drinking or drugs (as part oftheir anti-rock star beliefs), this calculated deprivation almost had the appearance of asceticism. Once again, Crass did not intend their fans to adopt identical practices, but sorne did take up these lifestyle choices with an even greater puritanical zeal.

59 Ignorant quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 192, ibid.

60 McKay, "CRASS 621984 ANOK4U2," 90.

61 Stand, "The Aesthetics of Anarchy."

62 Berger, The Story ofCrass, 177.

63 Ian Glasper, The Day the Country Died: A History ofAnarcho-Punk, 1980- 1984 (London: Cherry Red Books, 2006), 19; Rimbaud quoted in ibid.

64 Rimbaud quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 230. 88

65 See McKay, "CRASS 621984 ANOK4U2," 97.

66 Stand, "The Aesthetics of Anarchy."; Sutherland, "Keep offthe Crass."

67 Sutherland, "Keep off the Crass."

68 Berger, The Story ofCrass, 178; Rimbaud quoted in ibid, 234.

69 Lance Hahn, "The Story of Zounds," MaximumRocknRoll, April, 2002, ibid.

70 Ibid.

71 Hahn, "The Mob," MaximumRocknRoll, July, 2001.

72 Zounds singer Steve Lake quoted in Hahn, "The Story of Zounds," ibid.

73 The Mob, "No Doves Fly Here/I Hear You Laughing," Crass Records, vinyl 7" single, 321984/7 7", 1981. Also available on: The Mob, Let the Tribe Increase, Broken RekidslRugger Bugger, CD re-issue, original LP and expanded content, 1993; Zounds, Can 't Cheat Karma, Crass Records, vinyl EP, 421984/3 7", 1980. Also available on: The Curse ofZounds (Broken RekidslRugger Bugger, CD re-issue, 1993).

74 Lake quoted in Hahn, "The Story of Zounds."

75 Ibid.

76 In addition to the EP already cited in n. 72, Zounds recorded and released the following vinyl 7" singles: "Demystification/Great White Hunter," Rough Trade, 1981; "Dancing/True Love," Rough Trade, 1982; "More Trouble Coming Every Day/Knife," Rough Trade, 1982; a second EP: La Vache Qui Rit, Not So Brave, 1982; and their only LP: The Curse ofZounds, Rough Trade, 1981. The contents of all of these records are also available on: The Curse of Zounds, Broken Rekids/Rugger Bugger, CD re-issue, original LP and expanded content, 1993.

77 Joseph Porta quoted in Hahn, "The Mob."; Tony D., Johnny Waller, Mick Mercer quoted in ibid.

78 They also released a record on Crass's label: Poison Girls, Chappaquidick Bridge, Crass Records, 421984/2 LP, 1980. Aiso available on: Poison Girls. 1995. Statement: The Complete Recordings, 1977-1989, Cooking Vinyl, 5 CD re-issue of all releases.

79 Poison Girls' drummer Lance D Boyle quoted in Phil Sutcliffe, "Old People Can Be Rebels Too," Sounds, November 24, 1979; Poison Girls' guitarist 89

Richard Famous quoted in ibid; Vi Subversa quoted in ibid.

80 These developments mirror patterns in mainstream punk, which alleged that another of its revolutionary elements was its equal opportunities for women. Rock history, of the male-dominated variety, tells us that for the first time women were participating in a popular music genre almost as much as men (this itself is highly arguable: one could make a strong case that women had always been very active in popular music, but their accomplishments have frequently been ignored in favour ofmen's contributions). However, this did not stop critics from grounding the music in patriarchal terminology, as we can see from the not infrequent "stud," and "macho" descriptions of punk, nor did it prevent men from treating female musicians with the same disrespect given to them in the pasto It is interesting, too, to note that the connections that the Sex Pistols and other mainstream punk bands had with gay culture (borrowing sorne of its fashion trends, hanging out at gay clubs) have been often ignored. Both contemporaneous and historical accounts of punk make little mention of any homosexuallinks, and mainstream punk may have deliberately engineered its own disengagement from gay culture as it began to receive greater industry and journalistic attention. See Savage, England's Dreaming, 139, 147. Returning to anarcho, it is significant that the gender themes found in the Poison Girls' songs appear to have been taken up in a meaningful way only by one other band, Y outh in Asia. Discussing topics such as the pressure on women to attain ideal beauty and the trauma of rape, it is perhaps not surprising that the band recorded and released their only album, Sex Object (Millennium Tapes, 1982) with ample help from the Poison Girls'. Youth in Asia's discussion of gender issues appears to me as a predecessor of the riot grrri subculture's (which broke into the mainstream in the 1990s with bands such as Hole and Bikini Kill) exploration of similar themes. Lance Hahn supports this view: "1 doubt Bikini Kill or Sleater-Kinney were aware ofYouth ln Asia. But nevertheless, they are kindred spirits." (Lance Hahn, "Top Ten Anarcho Demos," It's a Living, but It's Not a Life: The J Church/Honey Bear Records Newsletter, 13.8,2005. Aiso available at: http://www.j­ church.com/articles/newsletter13-8.html) lan Glasper, on the other hand, partly repeats the mistakes he made with the Poison Girls: Y outh in Asia have their own entry in Glasper' s The Day the Country Died, but it omits any mention of feminist issues in their work.

81 Phil Sutcliffe, "Old People Can Be Rebels Too," Sounds, November 24, 1979; Poison Girls, Hex, X-N-Trix, 1979; Richard Famous quoted in Sutcliffe, "Old People Can Be Rebels Too."

82 John Opposition, "Muck and Crass: CONFLICTing Reports About the State of Anarchy in 1982," Sounds, May 16, 1982; Conflict singer Colin Jerwood quoted in ibid. 90

83 Jerwood quoted in Steve Cross, "The Final Conflict," Melody Maker, July, 16, 1983; Opposition, "Muck and Crass."

84 Garry Bushell, "Guy Fawkes Was Right," Sounds, September 12,1981; Garry Bushell, "Conflict," Sounds, September 24, 1983.

85 For an example ofConflict's emphasis on animal rights see: "To A Nation of Animal Lovers," Mortarhate, 1983; Bushell, "Guy Fawkes Was Right."

86 If most anarcho-punks genuinely hated industrial music, l am not entirely sure why. Both came from a similar mix of previous cultural practices (dadaism, performance art, cassette culture), shunned the mainstream, and liked noise as well as gruesome shock tactics. A lot of industrial also made sorne form of social commentary, but its sometimes communist-influenced politics and other times fascist imagery is probably what raised anarcho' s ire. At the same time, sorne anarcho-punks simply hated anything that was not anarcho-punk.

87 Lance Hahn, "Flux of Pink Indians," MaximumRocknRoll, February, 2002.

88 This compilation album was the second in a three part series put out by Crass Records: Bullshit Detector, Volume 2, Crass Records, triple compilation LP, 221984/3 LP, 1982.

89 Colin Larkin, ed. "Chumbawamba," in Guinness Encyclopedia ofPopular Music (New York: Stockton Press, 1995),810.

90 Dominic Pride, "Chumbawamba's Winding Path to Charts," Billboard, 109:44, November, 1997.

91 David Grad, "Interview with Chumbawamba," in We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews, ed. Daniel Sinker (New York: Akashic Books, 128, 125.

92 Chumbawamba, "Peace-Punk and Crass," Chumbawamba's Official Website FAQ Page, http://www.chumba.com/FAQl.html.ibid.

93 Hahn, "Flux of Pink Indians."

94 These are Volumes 1,2,3, respectively, and are issued by Overground Records.

95 Andy Martin quoted in Hahn, "The Mob."

96 Porta quoted in Hahn, "The Mob." 91

97 Lake quoted in Hahn, "The Story of Zounds."

98 Porta quoted in Hahn, "The Mob."

99 Lake quoted in Hahn, "The Story of Zounds.", ibid, ibid. 92

Section 4. Conclusion

Let us begin this final section by returning to the central question of this project: what does anarchy mean in the historical and contemporaneous discourse about punk? For most scholars and critics, we have seen that anarchy in mainstream punk is largely defined as an aesthetic: a post-modem version of dada, an artistic representation ofpunk's energy, or, in the case of the Pistols', a summation of "don't-give-a-fuck"/"no future" nihilism. There is no political meaning here, and whatever political slant people tried to attribute to punk in 1976 (e.g., working-class kids' music) quickly evaporated, along with perceived notions of independence, after the first wave' s spate of maj or label contracts. Mainstream punk was political in the sense that it articulated a social commentary rarely se en before in popular music, but there was no manifesto or concrete political activity; no one wanted to too closely link themselves with any "-isms." Crass, however, wanted to take punk's critical assault to the limit, to voice their opposition to "the system" while also showing their disagreement with other subcultural groupings which, to them, were just as problematic as the government, upper classes, etc. In order to accomplish this agenda, Crass devised a two-tier approach: first, they developed a tight image, the "total package," which presented their extreme rhetorical and aesthetic style in such a way that it served to marginalise them from the mainstream (punk or otherwise) while it simultaneously enticed others who felt similarly angry or excluded. Second, Crass identified themselves with anarchy as a me ans to say "fuck off to any politicos" and to distinguish their group from other politically-charged subcultures. l This move proved greatly successful in creating room for other people and bands who wanted an alternative to far left, right, and mainstream groups of the time. Although they occasionally referred to their anarchism as a form of politics, Crass ultimately defined anarchy as a personal mindset, an almost introspective process shaped by and through individual experience. They may have possessed an interest in politics, a healthy disdain for coercive authority, and 93 the ability to detect authoritarianism in sorne of its latent forms, but the ideas of Crass are not, properly speaking, anarchism. Instead, their work boils down to a highly solipsistic conception of the term that is unconcerned with, and even balks at, the study of historical or theoretical constructs of anarchism as discussed in Section 2. It may be tempting to try to understand Crass's philosophy as sorne primitive ancestor ofpost-Ieft anarchism's self-theory, but, although further research may be needed in this area, self-theory at least developed a framework explaining its emphasis on the individual through its understanding of history and doctrine. Neither can Crass's ideas be understood in relation to post-structuralist anarchism, for they rely far too much on the "us" and "them" essentialism that post-structuralist anarchism rej ects. 2 The emphasis on the personal and individual has sorne far-reaching consequences: just as we often hear how "punk is an attitude," a "way of life" (and notjust a subculture, genre, or style of music), so does Crass's use of anarchy reduce it to a similar level. Rather than de-emphasising or simplifying the intricacies of anarchist doctrine, Crass appear to deny that "real" anarchy is or can be politics. They furthered this perception when they shunned organised politics in the misguided belief that organisation and coordination will inevitably lead to authoritarianism and destroy anarchy as an "awareness." Crass's opinions in this area account for their chronic difficulty in successfully co-operating with organised activist groups. Indeed, several members of the band have said that a big reason for their disbandment was the increasing burden that they felt they were under. Because they were "getting representatives of Baader-Meinhoftuming up in their garden, ... the IRA claiming to be watching their backs, ... [and] letters from the Houses of Parliament," Crass were wary of "getting embroiled in other people's fucking power games.,,3 At the same time, increasing self-doubt (i.e., were they still having any effect?) and confusion over how to proceed (e.g., whether a pacifist position was still tenable or not) caused fissures within the band that also contributed to their break-up. However, this chain of events within the band and the external pressure they felt from different sides of the political arena must be 94 connected. In other words, if their individualism strongly impeded their ability to develop strategies for their own sustainable activism, how could it really have equipped them to successfully navigate the various political intrigues that they were later drawn into? Such a firm distrust of political organisation also explains why Crass leaned more towards consciousness-raising than starting movements, concentrated campaigns, etc. Here too is perhaps the area where the influence ofhippie is most obvious, because what the band was really promoting was a form of militant libertarianism which they had first picked up from certain elements of the sixties counterculture. Having a lot of anarchism' s style, but not enough of its substance (to paraphrase a quote from Section 3), Crass's ideas actually belong to a category of radicallifestylism: anarchy as attitude.4 What, then, is a more suitable label for Crass's politics? The best candidates 1 believe would approximate something like "anarchistic radicalism" or "anarchistic individualism." "Lifestyle anarchism" also seems applicable, especially because Crass often put forth their lifestyle as the valid basis and explanation of their anarchism more than any social analysis. However, this term may be a less desirable choice since its mainly pejorative connotation in anarchist circles risks overshadowing the positive contributions Crass made with their work. 5 Maybe a name as simple and obvious as "Crass anarchy" would convey the right amount of parochialism. Although Crass's use of anarchism largely failed to address society and power structures in a meaningful, constructive way, this does not render it entirely useless. Instead, 1 would argue that the value of their work lies in what cultural studies scholar George McKay proposed, that is, "to keep the possibilities open." In my view, their vague sense of anarchism in fact may have helped their influence go much farther than if they had had a finely crafted political doctrine which could have easily excluded or alienated a large section of the audience that they were trying to reach. Furthermore, in choosing a free-form radicalism, Crass created the space which other bands such as Chumbawamba, Conflict, and Poison Girls were able to step into and voice their own diverse interests, promote new causes, and, in turn, open up additional possibilities by exposing other avenues for 95 political action. These bands (and a multitude of others not mentioned in this thesis due to space restrictions) thus performed the function of expanding and diversifying the purview of anarchistic radicalism, alternative practice, and, perhaps most of all, musical aesthetics within anarcho-punk. While most of these bands were generally not any more knowledgeable of anarchism than Crass, they did generate interest in a greater variety of causes and organisations which led to increased activist involvement. But Crass may have blocked as many possibilities as they opened up. By offering their labels' (conditional) services and the benefits ofbeing associated with their "authentic" and "sincere" image to lesser-known bands, Crass reinforced and probably increased their leadership status, inadvertently making their "total package" a model example for others to comply with. Additionally, the group's short-lived ability to adapt to shifting social conditions, followed by their equally visible withdrawal from anarcho circles perhaps made it inevitable that the individualism Crass vaunted would lead to a large portion of their admirers continuing to revel in a self-absorbed subculture which only "state[d] an identity, and very little else.,,6 Equal parts fan and critic, Chumbawamba explains this side of anarcho and how it relates to Crass:

We had a lot of respect for Crass, but ... we stopped supporting peace­ punk ideology even before Crass split up. It's not ... Crass's fault, but the elitism and the ghetto mentality of peace-punk stinks. We're not interested in a revolution that is more to do with what you look like, what music you listen to and what you eat. That's not a revolution; it's a subculture. Crass had sorne fantastic ideas but they never really changed with the times. Instead, they split up and their ideas are always in danger ofbeing anachronistic because they've never been adapted: sorne people stick doggedly and determinedly to an ideology which was rooted in 1982, not 1998.7

Aside from Crass, certain real world events were to have an important effect on anarcho. In 1982, the Falklands tested anarcho's anti-war conviction 96 and must have intensified for many anarcho-punks and other activists the feeling of "an eschatological imperative in the air at the time, this sense of doom, ending, nuc1ear eschatology [which] was aIl there in the zeitgeist."s Although the Falklands is important in anarcho's history, it is the Miners' Strike of 1984 that is described as a greater turning point for anarcho both as a subculture and as an aspiring radical movement. Unlike the Falklands which ideologically unified much of Britain, the Miners' Strike was the first opportunity for punks and others to enter into the fray of a heated national controversy steeped with issues of British c1ass politics (which, under the influence of 'classless' Crass, many of these punks may have been previously trying to ignore). Crass biographer George Berger interprets the impact as a serious eye-opener:

Punk bands everywhere, in fact ail kind of bands everywhere, played benefit gigs for the striking miners. As the anarcho punk movement got more directly involved with the miners - on the picket lines and in the kitchens - two cultures met for the first time .... For the upper middle­ c1ass elements of the anarcho punk movement - and there were many, particularly in the south - this was their first real contact with working c1ass culture .... [It] seemed like the anarcho movement had studiously ignored the class war going on around them, often not realising ... it was being waged.9

Chumbawamba, on the other hand, see things a bit differently: "The Miners Strike gave the peace-punks a taste of the real world, and sorne of the peace punks took to it and moved from just being part of a subculture into revolutionaries; a lot couldn't cut it and just went back to being [content with] a record collection, a puritanical attitude, a set of clearly-defined rules, and a hair CUt."lO Views such as Chumba's indicate that involvement in the strike fully tested, for the first time, anarcho-punks' actual commitment to working for change rather thanjust talking about it. Yet, there had always been critics - such as rival politicos the Socialist Workers' Party - who sawanarcho mainly as a trendy subculture or as a group of middle-c1ass kids on a brief detour before "disappear[ing] into the halls of 97 academia, respectability, the Labour Party, the media and property-owning classes." Il What, though, about those people who became committed activists? Frequently, they left the genre behind as they embraced a broader understanding of radical politics (especially by the time that the scene had been reduced to people "arguing amongst themselves about who was still wearing leather shoes,,).12 It was a simple case of incompatibility: the vague and contradictory "personal anarchism" of anarcho-punk did not sit very well with a thoughtful political philosophy when it became clear that more than a motto of "think for yourself' was needed to make a serious effort at affecting social change. Anarcho-punk's frequent way of dealing with the world (i.e., "Let's cut ourselves off from the rest of society and then criticise it to no end.") may have worked briefly for its time and place, or as a first step in radicalisation, but as former squatters and punks grew up and moved on, they needed more realistic and constructive methods to engage society and to adapt their tactics to new situations. This is evident in the observation that most of a generation of "British .. . politicos (who are still active) have their roots in that music scene, but ... those [same] people ... aren't at all interested in peace-punk.,,13 Sorne may hold on to a nostalgia for the music of their past, but it is probably fair to say that many have no interest in CUITent anarcho scenes. The meaning of anarchy in anarcho-punk, then, is two-fold: on the one hand (the downside, in the eyes of internai and external observers), a large section of those involved in the scene explored anarchy and radical poli tics only on the level of individual perspective and, as a result, anarchy became a "lifestylism [that] was celebrated, not derided" as many anarchists believe it should be. 14 In the other sense, anarchy indicates a conversion of self-awareness into serious political awareness and direct action; and it is because of this process that Crass and anarcho are "probably responsible for giving the anarchist movement its th strongest influx ofnew blood [in the 20 ] century." When we consider both meanings of anarchy at once, then, we see that the resultant effect is a "twin 98 legacy of either a responsible, changing anarchist milieu or a few thousand snotty­ nosed punks glamorising the eighties and the politics of denial." 15 But is it really fair to judge the worth or influence of anarcho (or any cultural formation) on an "aIl or nothing" basis? Do we want to say that the genre was valuable or "authentic" only if a major percentage of its community went on to militant radicalism, or that it actually failed because it contributed to a lifestylist corruption of anarchism? It is unclear if most former participants would take this view (even if sorne activists would), or would instead have an opinion similar to anarcho historian lan Glasper: "1 am not anarchist. ... But 1 am a lifelong 'fan' ... of anarcho-punk, with strong anarchistic tendencies, and many of the ideals instilled in me as a direct result of the music 1 listened to as a youth have remained with me to this day .... [Although] l'm at the beck and calI ofthe system with my regular life, 1 certainly know my own mind [and] 1 don't swallow their lies hook, line, and sinker.,,16 Certainly, many in the scene gave up, to differing degrees, the lifestyle that they had had during the early eighties, but there are many like Glasper who feel that they have retained sorne sort of "anarchistic streak" leamed in their youth. It may be, too, that anarcho was a rare, non-mainstream source of lasting self-confidence for its participants. Perhaps it was a former member of Flux who described an overall effect of the genre weIl when he said that: "1 guess we thought we were changing the attitude of the world, but influencing a few people's lives in a better direction was more like it.,,17 Although the focus here has been on the British scene from the late seventies to the mid-eighties, anarcho's influence has gone beyond these limits. A few European anarcho-punk bands (The Ex, BGK) appeared at the same time as the first British anarcho bands, but a large community does not seem to have developed on the continent to the same extent as in the U.K. Perhaps oflonger­ term importance was anarcho's effect on numerous American punk scenes (with the exception of New York City which was the home of "arty, " apolitical punk in the late seventies and early eighties; see Section 1, n.S). As a whole, punk in the United States has a similar variety of divisions as in the U.K.: "arty/avant-garde" punk vs. "real" punk, politicaIly-concemed bands vs. "mindless fun," as weIl as 99 regional differences. Other political punk sub-genres (e.g., hardcore) emerged as well, but 1 am not about to start another genre mapping here; American punk has had much of its history documented in a variety of books, zines, etc., and 1 will leave it to other scholars to make a thorough study of these sources. But punk authorities frequently daim that "European punks historically [have been] more politically active than their North American counterparts," and to figure out what, if any, important points of correlation there are between American punk and British anarcho during the eighties, we will now very briefly discuss the role of politics in the former. 18 To begin with, politically-concemed American punk bands of the early eighties (e.g., the Dead Kennedys, Black Flag) often did not identify themselves with a specific doctrine. Was it not necessary for them, as it was for Crass et al.? Did they feel that they would be uncomfortably pigeonholing themselves? A thorough answer will have to be uncovered in future research, but for now let us consider a statement made by leading American punk, Jello Biafra (singer/frontman of the Dead Kennedys), on the role Crass played in his own political development: "1 didn't agree with the hard Hne that Crass ... took over the years but it helped me decide what line 1 wanted to take instead. Namely, live my own life the way 1 wanted to .... You have to identify what you as an individual can dO.,,19 It is curious that Biafra has taken "the Crass message" in exactly the manner it was intended even though his statement is offered as an explanation as to why he disagreed with the band; however, just as in Britain, not everyone would ingest Crass' s brand of individualism in such a potentially constructive way. Bands as ide, other sources of radical ideas for American punk audiences in the 1980s came with new fanzines such as MaximumRocknRoll (MRR) and Profane Existence (P E). Both of these zines published information on politics and music, with PE doing so from an explicitly anarchist perspective. Once again, ties with activist groups such as Earth First! and the Animal Liberation Front were created and 10calIy-based projects (e.g., alI-ages, non-profit venues such as the 924 Gilman Street project) were initiated in many places. 100

A great source of information on punk audiences is Craig O'Hara's well­ known book, The Philosophy ofPunk: More Than Noise (1992), which the author wrote after ten years of activity in American underground punk scenes. Focussing on the ideas and values of punk rather than its musical style and bands, O'Hara states that he is writing about punk intemationally. However, although he does regularly mention British and European punk, the book still has a slightly heavier American slant. Most pertinent to the CUITent project is O'Hara's outline of the way in which anarchist politics degenerated similarly in both European and American punk scenes. This first excerpt, which l believe is about American political punk culture, is reminiscent of the problems that were created by the inward-focus of the British anarcho scene:

Many punk anarchists have been content to stay within their own circle and have rejected the possibility ofwidespread anarchy. This attitude can be interpreted as a conception of "personal" or "lifestyle" anarchy. Here one would consider himself an anarchist but would resign himself to the fact that other people are not capable of ruling themselves. This idea echoes the epitome of bourgeois culture. The beliefthat "l'm OK but everyone else is messed up" is not anarchism, but has found a pathetic home in many punk anarchists' writings.20

The above excerpt also reminds us of the short-sightedness that can be caused when political ideas are vigorously taken up without sorne attempt to look deeper into the philosophies behind those ideas. The excerpt below, again by O'Hara, expands on this topic and explains how anti-intellectualism can threaten to undo the efforts of everyone (i.e., bands such as Crass and traditional anarchists) who has tried change public opinion on anarchism for the better:

Many punks have tried to read or promote the anarchist be1iefs of the activists Bakunin, Goldman, and Kropotkin, as well as discussing the works of living authors such as Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, to 101

show how they relate to the modem punk movement and its activist goals. Unfortunately, sorne punks who consider themselves anarchists have not been interested with the formalities of classical anarchist thought or have been alienated by the apparent "intellectual" aspect of the movement. ... The refusaI or inability to study what they were so emphatically endorsing resulted in sorne having the idea that anarchy is only rioting, fighting with police, and causing chaos. Sorne punks were content with expressing rage and destruction as a form of anarchy without its real political connotations.21

Indeed, by the end of the eighties, sorne of the problems associated with these different interpretations of anarchy had even reached the mainstream press in America. In 1989, the New York Times reported on the fissures within the anarchist movement in an article provocatively titled "Anarchist Convention Ends with Exercise in Rioting"; the portions relevant to this discussion read as follows:

SAN FRANCISCO - Anarchists from around the world met here this week to discuss history, debate philosophy and share their visions of a stateless society - and then concluded their activities Wednesday night with a two-hour riot. For those involved, it was an exercise in their vision of anarchy, and no one was seriously hurt. But the disturbance ... disappointed conference organizers who had sought to improve the public image of anarchists .... "People think we're mad bombers ... " said [a conference organiser] "We have to counteract that by showing that anarchists are responsible people." ... [At the location] where ... the conference ... took place ... there was a sense that two distinct groups make up this movement. At one extreme were the bearded eIders versed in the works of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. At the other were the punk 102

anarchists with pierced noses and partI y shaven heads ... versed in the works of Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten. "Punk took on anarchy without any sense of the history," said [a conference organiser], speaking of the younger faction. "A lot of people

think anarchism started 10 years ago with the Sex Pistols." ... 22

It is highly improbable that these punk anarchists became politically active due only to the inspiration of Sid Vicious, the Sex Pistols or any other first wave British punks. Instead, most were likely motivated in a milieu where bands such as the Dead Kennedys or Conflict were the most popular. Implied in the excerpt above, at least sorne traditional anarchists were unaware of the existence, let alone the ide as of Crass, Chumbawamba, etc. Because they did not know about the efforts of anarcho-punk to move anarchy away from its negative connotations, this older generation of anarchists saw the young punks' destruction of property as stemming directly from the old stigmas about anarchy. However, in an unfortunate irony, the behaviour of the rioting anarchist punks described by the New York Times and O'Hara brought anarchy full-circle and gave the term a third meaning in anarcho/political punk discourse. This third definition ended up matching mainstream punk's conception of anarchy as pure chaos; a development which allowed the general public to perpetuate their usual stereotypes and perceptions of anarchy (and punk's use of anarchy) as destruction, violence, etc. This brings us to one final point regarding anarcho' s legacy. Besides adding to and altering the meaning of politics in punk, anarcho gives itself credit for contributing to various protest movements. Its basis for this claims is that it established a steady core of (currently middle-aged) activists first inspired by, but no longer interested in punk, in addition to continuing to attract younger, less experienced punk fans-tumed-protesters. Anarcho's participation in this arena was initiated by "Stop the City!" and the Miners' Strike, but those inspired by anarcho-punk have recurrently been active in similar events long past the 1980s; for example, the "PolI Tax Riots" in London (1990), "Reclaim the Streets" events (throughout the 1990s and after), "Buy Nothing Day," "08 Summit Protests," etc. 103

How numerous their presence is, to what degree individuals maintain involvement in such happenings, or to what extent present concern over climate change, nuclear armament, theocratic governance, etc., has made punks feel a similar "eschatological imperative" as there was in the early 1980s, will have to be uncovered in future research Cit would also be worth investigating the extent to which anarcho must always feel such an imperative in order for it to maintain its identity and to have issues to organise itself around). For now, however, it can at least be said that the idea offrequent direct action is an integral part of anarcho's self-perception and a crucial way for it to preserve its belief that it is an authentically radical, vehemently oppositional culture. In the introduction to the 4th edition ofhis book, O'Hara states that The Philosophy ofPunk was a summary ofhow he viewed the international punk scene in 1992 and admitted that in the years to come it could wind up entirely outdated. Part of what 1 hope to have accomplished here is something of a reverse tracing of O'Hara's work by returning to the source of sorne ofthe present day notions of anarchy, its relationship to punk, and how these have been understood both inside and outside of anarchist and punk communities. This has entailed reconsidering sorne of the long-standing accepted work on mainstream punk as weIl as examining previously neglected or new work on anarcho-punk in order to show how both bodies ofwritings have interpreted anarchy. Having also made a study of the anarcho genre and subculture, 1 have tried to show that disparate ideas about anarchy were shaped through a complex negotiation of politics and popular culture resulting in anarchy being understood as a justification for certain lifestyle and personal choices or in Ca strangely inverse) relation to its history as the political doctrine of anarchism. Of course, there are many issues that 1 was not able to coyer here and thus possibilities for additional research in this area abound. Perhaps the most obvious would be undertaking a study of what changes or continuities have occurred more recently in the anarcho-punk subculture for which the observation of relevant chat rooms and messages boards could be a worthwhile starting point. Other research may investigate what relationship, if any, there is between punk 104 and anarchism outside of North America and Europe. In addition to this, one could explore the claims of sorne fans, such as Glasper, that anarcho was entirely welcoming of sexual and gender equality; the obvious question being how do we explain the difficult acceptance and subsequent generic marginalisation of Poison Girls, the mixed reaction caused by Crass's own feminist album Penis Envy, or the aH-round lack ofbroaching queer issues? There is even greater discrepancy regarding issues of race because, for aH its anti-racist sentiments, anarcho remained largely, ifnot entirely, the domain ofwhites. Did non-whites feel that anarcho's individualism was not constructed in a way that sufficiently addressed or was appropriate for their own ethnic experience, and/or was there in fact sorne latent racism in the scene that participants have conveniently overlooked? It is unfortunate that this thesis could not accommodate much exploration of anarcho as a possible model, or seed of a model, of resistance to dominant structures. In an unpublished paper, 1 have written about the tactical methods of Chumbawamba containing greater potential for serious modes of resistance than the lingering anachronism of Crass. 23 Because the broad genre mapping presented here contains many other possible case studies and because it raises many complex issues regarding radicalism (even if sorne sectors of anarcho-punk were perhaps not as radical as they thought they were), further investigation of these things is definitely needed. One ideal outcome ofthis project, then, would be for more examination of smaller case studies with a lean towards linking up anarcho-punk and comparable subcultures with anarchist and radical theories currently being developed in other fields?4 By doing so, we can continue to work on creating viable alternatives to existing structures.

Notes

1 Penny Rimbaud quoted in George Berger, The Story ofCrass (London: Omnibus Press, 2006), 129.

2 Saul Newman, who has distilled numerous post-structuralists' theories on power and Stimer' s concept of egoism, caUs this an "oppositional structure of identity" which, among other things, privileges certain forms of identity above others. Creating the representational identities that are the basis of this oppositional structure - in our case, the "authentic radical punk" - "inevitably exlcude[ s] and dominate[s] other identities and ways oflife," because these do not conform to the ideal. Domination and authority are thus not only reproduced within the subculture of anarcho-punk because one must adhere to the model of the "authentic radical punk," but are also reaffirrned outside ofthis subculture; anarcho-punk's identity is constructed as an oppositional identity to dominant society, and therefore it is dependent on that which it is opposes. See Saul Newman, From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power (Oxford: Lexington Books., 2001), 171, 164. Because Newman makes a sturdy argument for combining anarchism with post-structuralism to create a new ethics and strategy of resistance, it would be a worthy exercise for future research to read anarcho-punk in light of his analysis and of those thinkers from whom he draws (Stimer, Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Deleuze, and Guattari). AU ofthese people are, as with anarcho-punk, greatly concemed with power's origins and operations as well as how to resist it.

3 Rimbaud quoted in lan Glasper, The Day the Country Died: A Historyof Anarcho-Punk, 1980-1984 (London: Cherry Red Books, 2006), 27.

4 It is arguable that this move to base anarchism on personal perspective may have also given sorne anarcho-punks an excuse to opt-out of activism altogether and instead focus on their own individual beliefs, lifestyles, etc.

5 For a thorough critique of lifestyle anarchism see Murray Bookchin, Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm (Edinburgh, San Francisco: AK Press, 1995).

6 Rimbaud quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 234.

7 Chumbawamba, "Peace-Punk and Crass."

8 George McKay quoted in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 214.

9 Berger, The Story ofCrass, 252-53.

10 Chumbawamba, "Peace-Punk and Crass."

Il Martin Lux in Berger, The Story ofCrass, 151.

12 Rimbaud in Glasper, The Day the Country Died, 27.

13 Churnbawarnba, "Peace-Punk and Crass." 106

14 Ibid. See also: Bookchin Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism.

15 Chumbawamba, "Peace-Punk and Crass," ibid.

16 Glasper, The Day the Country Died, 6.

17 Colin quoted in Lance Hahn, "Flux of Pink Indians," MaximumRocknRoll, February, 2002.

18 Craig O'Hara, The Philosophy ofPunk: More Than Noise (London, Edinburgh, San Francisco: AK Press, 1999), 71.

19 Jello Biafra quoted in David Grad, "Interview with Jello Biafra," in We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet: The CoUected Interviews, ed. Daniel Sinker (New York: Akashic Books, 2001), 45.

20 O'Hara, The Philosophy ofPunk, 87.

21 Ibid, 96.

22 New York Times, "Anarchist Convention Ends with Exercise in Rioting," July 29, 1989.

23 Laura Dymock, "Popular Anarchy" (final paper, Crossover, Faculty of Music, McGill University, Montréal, 2006). This paper makes extensive use of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the field of cultural production in order to compare Crass to Chumba. Along with post-structuralism, Bourdieu's work is another source of cultural theory which would be greatly useful in future research on anarcho-punk and in situating the genre within a broader historical-cultural framework. See, for example, Pierre Bourdieu, "The Field of Cultural Production," The Field ofCultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993).

24 For example of studies of anarchism in relation to cultural and literary developments see David Weir, Anarchy and Culture: The Aesthetic Politics of Postmodernism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997); Sandra Jeppesen is a PhD student at York University whose working title for her dissertation is: "Anarchy Revolution Freedom: Toward Anarchist Cultural Theory." Published work ofhers that is related to her research includes: "Where Does Anarchist Theory Come From?" Institute for Anarchist Studies. January 12, 2004, http://www.anarchist-studies.org/article/articleprint/51/-117/. 107

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Discography

Anti-Society: Anarcho-punk Compilation Vol. 3.2006. Overground Records, compilation CD, OVER 107VP CD.

Anti-State: Anarcho-punk Compilation Vol. 2.2005. Overground Records, compilation CD, OVER 105VP CD.

Anti-War: Anarcho-punk Compilation Vol. 1. 2005. Overground Records, compilation CD, OVER 103VP CD.

Bullshit Detector, Volume 2. 1982. Crass Records, triple compilation LP, 221984/3 LP.

Chumbawamba. 1988. English Rebel Songs, Agit Prop, 10" and CD, PROP 3.

1990. Slapf, Agit Prop, LP and CD, PROP 7.

1997. Tubthumper, EMI, CD, 724349523821.

Conflict. 1983. To A Nation ofAnimal Lovers, Mortarhate, vinyl EP.

Crass. 1978. The Feeding ofthe 5000, Crass Records, vinyl 12" album, 621984. Aiso available as CD re-issue from Crass Records, 6212984.CD.

___. 1981. Penis Envy, Crass Record, vinyl LP, 321984/1 LP. Aiso available as CD re-issue from Crass Records, 321984/1.CD.

____. 1982. Christ: The Album, Crass Records, vinyl double LP set, Bollox2u2 LP. Aiso available as CD re-issue from Crass Records, 221984/2.CD.

____ . 1982. "Sheep Farming in the Falklands," Originally re1eased anonymously as a flexi-disc and with no label identification. Aiso available on: Crass. 1986. Best Before 1984. Crass Records, 5 2LP/MCICD.

___,. 1982. "How Does It Feel (To Be the Mother ofa 1000 Dead)?" Crass Records, vinyl 7" single, 221984/6 7". Aiso available on: Crass. 1986. Best Before 1984. Crass Records, 5 2LP/MCICD.

____. 1983. Yes Sir, 1 Will, Crass Records, vinyl double LP, 121984/2 LP. Also available as CD re-issue from Crass Records, 121984/2.CD.

The Mob. 1981. "No Doves Fly Here/I Hear You Laughing," Crass Records, vinyl 7" single, 321984/7 7". Also available on: The Mob. Let the Tribe Increase. 1993. Broken RekidslRugger Bugger, CD re-issue, original LP and expanded content. 114

Poison Girls. 1979. Hex, X-N-Trix, vinyl LP. Also available on: Poison Girls. 1995. Statement: The Complete Recordings, 1977-1989, Cooking Vinyl, complete CD re-issue of aH releases.

___. 1980. ChappaquidickBridge, Crass Records, 421984/2 LP. Also available on: Poison Girls. 1995. Statement: The Complete Recordings, 1977- 1989, Cooking Vinyl, complete CD re-issue of aH releases.

Youth in Asia. 1982. Sex Object, Millennium Tapes, cassette tape.

Zounds. 1980. Can't Cheat Karma, Crass Records, vinyl EP, 421984/37". Also available on: The Curse ofZounds. 1993. Broken Rekids/Rugger Bugger, CD re-issue.

____. 1981. "Demystification/Great White Hunter," Rough Trade, vinyl 7" single. Also available on: The Curse ofZounds. 1993. Broken Rekids/Rugger Bugger, CD re-issue.

____. 1981. The Curse ofZounds, Rough Trade, vinyl LP. Also available on: The Curse ofZounds. 1993. Broken Rekids/Rugger Bugger, CD re-issue, original LP and expanded content.

____. 1982. "Dancing/True Love," Rough Trade, vinyl 7" single. Also available on: The Curse ofZounds. 1993. Broken Rekids/Rugger Bugger, CD re-issue.

___. 1982. "More Trouble Coming Every Day/Knife," Rough Trade, vinyl 7" single. Also available on: The Curse ofZounds. 1993. Broken Rekids/Rugger Bugger, CD re-issue.

____. 1982. La Vache Qui Rit, Not So Brave, vinyl EP. Also available on: The Curse ofZounds. 1993. Broken Rekids/Rugger Bugger, CD re-issue.