Crass

Steve Ignorant - singer N.A. Palmer - guitar Phil Free - guitar Pete Wright - bass Penny Rimbaud - drums Gee Vaucher - artwork Eve Libertine - singer Joy De Vivre - singer Mick Duffield - movies
Crass , a collective of artists of anarcho-punk inspiration, was born in 1977 around Dial House, a community home in Sussex. Penny Rimbaud (Jerry Ratter), founder of the squat and Steve Ignorant compose songs under the name of Stromtrooper but quickly opt for Crass , inspired by a song by Bowie. The first concert takes place at the improvised street festival in Huntley Street. The band then performed at the Roxy, a performance that ended in a gigantic drunkardery causing the scene to eviction, a situation that was imported by the title "Banned from the Roxy" and the essay by Rimbaud, Crass at the Roxy. In the summer of 1978 Pete Stennet, owner of Small Wonder Records, came across a demo of Crass and released an 18-track single, The Feeding of the 5000. When it was released in the spring of 1979, it appeared amputated with a title, "Reality Asylum" being replaced by two minutes of silence called "The Sound of Free Speech" in response to factory workers who refused to press the record because of the blasphemous character of the song. Crass released the single Reality Asylum a while later on his own label, Crass Records. The reactions are immediate. The group is the subject of complaints from civil society and joins Scotland Yard's collimator. It was at that time that Crass recorded for John Peel. After the release of Stations of the Crass, Crass performs some shows for the benefit of the defence fund of imprisoned anarchists, known as Persons Unknown. As a result, Bloody Revolutions was registered with the Poison Girls whose income allowed the construction of a libertarian centre. Crass is firmly engaged in feminist struggle as early as 1981 with the release of Penis Envy . The success is immediate but the album seems to be the subject of a cabal on the part of the majors, fifteenth of the English charts the first week, no longer appearing in the top 100 from the second. It was also at this time that Crass was more actively involved in the political mix. Christ the Album was born when England entered the war against Argentina for supremacy over the Falklands. Resolutely pacifist, Crass asserts his opposition by emerging an anti-war flexi that is worth its members being immediately called traitors. The band persisted in its opposition by directing How Does it Feel to be the Mother of a Thousand Dead ? by which he attracted the lightnings of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives. Crass returned to the charge in 1982 with the album Yes Sir I Will but internal tensions and the judicial consequences of his political activism, notably the hoax of Thatchergates Tapes on which a false conversation between Reagan and Thatcher was transcribed, forced the group to surrender the weapons in 1984, leaving a considerable legacy which would later be claimed Conflict, Amebix or even Napalm Death.