Crass and DIY: hear how they shout, hear what they shout

Marco Pandin lets us discover Crass and their Stations of the Crass, a self-produced record released in 1979

Coming back from a trip to London, at the end of summer 1979, a guy called Marco, like me, living in my neighborhood gave me a record that he didn’t like. I took it because of its unusual cover and without really knowing what it was about. It was ‘Stations of the Crass’, a record that struck me from the first listen: at that time I knew practically nothing about the Crass, or rather I had heard something about one of their censored pieces, but I had never heard them. I was accustomed to experimental and difficult music, some heavy rock, stomping and smashing, I had listened to both Gong and Fabrizio de Andrè and I had a vague idea of the sound of anarchy in them, but I had never read such explicit lyrics combined with such rough and rattling music – I was also playing in a band then, for me, the tension and the noise of the basement were very recognizable.
‘Stations’ was a double album, the two discs housed in a cover that opened like a poster: on one side an incredible collage, on the other a thick forest of words. Statements, lyrics, explanations, poems, tons of typed words. I didn’t feel like putting the cover-up on the wall: my room wasn’t very big and I would have had to take down the Che Guevara poster or the one with Frank Zappa sitting on the toilet. The music that came out of the record was rough but unsubstantial, blending in with the dozens of other bands that suddenly populated record shop shelves, radio airwaves, and music journal pages. It was untalentedly played, recorded without any great insight or innovation for the time and overall unattractive, but the lyrics were very direct and explicit. The pissed offness of Crass was not so much in the sound as in the shouted lyrics. In fact, more than pissed off, these screamers seemed to be disgusted, stunned, amazed at the apathy that suffocated kids like me. It was a desperate calling to move your ass, filled with swear words, shouted in black and white. No half measures.

Listen to what they shout in “White punks on hope” – white punks on hope, it’s a mockery of a song made just a few years earlier by the American Tubes (“White punks on dope”):

“They said that we were trash
Well the name is crass, not clash
They can stuff their punk credentials
Cause it’s them that take the cash
They won’t change nothing with their fashionable talk
All their RAR badges and their protest walk
Thousands of white men standing in a park
Objecting to racism’s like a candle in the dark
Black man’s got his problems and his way to deal with it
So don’t fool yourself you’re helping with your white liberal shit
If you care to take a closer look at the way things really stand
You’d see we’re all just niggers to the rulers of this land“

In “Big man, big M.A.N.” Eve and Joy, the girls in the group, yell and scream at husbands, soldiers, priests, and policemen:

They’re telling you to do it,
Grow up and tow the line,
They tell you if you do it,
Everything will turn out fine.
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, what a wonderful life,
God, queen, country, colour telly, car and wife.
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, what a wonderful life,
God, queen, country, colour telly, car and wife.
It’s great if you can do it, it doesn’t take a lot,
Just means you must destroy what sensitivity you’ve got.
Well, that’s an easy bargain for the things you’re going to get,
You can treat the wife like shit, own a car, a telly set.
Slip off in the evenings for a little on the sly,
And if the wife complains, fuck her first, then black her eye.
There’s lots of worthwhile jobs for the lad who wants to know,
Lorry driving’s fun, you’re always on the go.
One hand on the wheel, the other up some cunt,
Or jerking off to Penthouse with motorway up front.
The police force offers chances for a bright intelligent lad,
To interfere with anyone ’cause they’re there just to be had.
It offers quite a range for aggression and for spite,
To take out your frustrations in a justifiable light.
It’s a mans’ life in the army, good pay and lots of fun,
You can stab them with your bayonet, fuck them with your gun.
Look smart in your uniform, that always pulls the skirt,
Then when you’ve fucked them good and proper, tell them they’re just dirt.’Cause man is spelt big M.A.N. it’s the letters of the law.
Man is spelt big M.A.N. that’s who the law is for.

Listening to “Fun” when I wasn’t even twenty-two was practically like getting a slap in the face:

“Have some fun while you’re young, son
Fun while you’re young, fun while you’re young
Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun
It’s gonna go on, fun, fun, fun
It’s gonna go on, fun, fun, fun
It’s gonna go on, fun, fun, fun
It’s gonna go on, it’s gonna go on“

I was really into that album so I did the most mundane thing I could do, which was to write a letter to Crass and send it to them at the address printed on the cover, which was the address of the Rough Trade shop in London. It wasn’t a typical fan letter: I told them about myself, my mates and what was going on in my area. I was a bit worried there wasn’t anyone on the other side. I hoped it wasn’t another joke, or worse, another lie: there have always been so many promises made (punctually never kept) from concert stages and songs on records. And instead, after a while, I got a reply: not a circular letter but a handwritten letter, in the envelope there were also some flyers. They were nice, thanked me and asked me if I could keep in touch. So I sent them another letter, then another and another, and they always replied.

In the early eighties me and my mates and used to run a fanzine, Rockgarage, so during the summer holidays of 1982, I took a trip to London and took the opportunity to drop by Rough Trade and bring them a few copies of the early issues (there were translations of the Crass and Poison Girls lyrics) and offer them trade. In the shop, I met Scott Piering, who at the time was more of a Smiths fan, but phoned John Loder and arranged to meet up a day or two later. John was really friendly and generous, he gave me some records as gifts and the phone number of Dial House inviting me to call the joint and visit them.
The first time I went to Crass in Epping was in June 1983, I went there with Gino Collelli – singer of Wops, an anarcho-punk band from Venice and a great friend of mine. We got there and immediately our perspectives changed: we thought we were two desperate provincial kids on a pilgrimage to the headquarters of the coolest and most dangerous anarchist group in the world, but instead, we found ourselves as the center of attention. It seemed really strange that there was someone a thousand miles away who appreciated their work and was even inspired by it. We had brought with us our cassettes and fanzines, which they liked a lot. In short, they asked us more questions than we asked them, and if they hadn’t been so friendly and affectionate it would have been embarrassing. We all drank tons of tea and ate lots of homemade toasted bread with Marmite.
In the years that followed, I was a guest a few more times at Dial House, even with my partner, they routinely sent me material and invited me to gigs – I only managed to attend one gig and that time they even let me hook up my recorder to the mixer. Then they split up, but we still see and hear each other, I can still track everyone down: I exchanged bad jokes on the phone with Pete Wright, the band’s bass player, just between Christmas and New Year. Pete and I are very close friends, he’s always been very close to my family and over the years he’s become a sort of big brother.

Returning for a moment to ‘Stations’: the anarchist political song of the eighties is like a knife that plunged its blade into the heart of the great political issues of our time. There have been no better words to scream out anger and despair, no better sound to make the noise of marginalization and unemployment. There were no better words to describe the nuclear nightmare and the sneer of the powerful, no better sound to describe the police charges, the awareness, the impossibility of resignation. Anarchist punk finally opened our eyes: we found ourselves tired of unemployment exploitation, fear, and heroin. We were suddenly obsessed with the idea that we had to do something about it: we didn’t want to die in a factory or end up drinking in a bar until we couldn’t drink anymore, or in a park with a syringe stuck in our arm. Anarchist punk lit the fuse of courage under our asses: there was nothing to lose, and we had our whole lives ahead of us.

Crass wasn’t afraid to get their hands dirty and throw shit at the queen, the pope, the government, the police, the priests, the warmongers, the politicians, the right-thinking people, the millionaire punks, those who prefer to keep quiet, those who don’t care.
By refusing obedience and silence they have restored dignity to protest. They convinced many young people to use creativity as a weapon. It’s a good thing they were British: if it had happened here, they would have searched for their souls by force of blows and then made them disappear inside some pylon of the motorway. Anarchists, pacifists, anti-militarists and vegetarians, Crass were considered (this is the opinion of the court judge who, considering their records “vulgar material containing offensive words” condemned their album “Penis envy” for obscenity and sentenced them to silence) “an association that operates at the extreme limit of legality”. It is the limit that separates us from freedom: the one that those who govern us will never allow us to cross.

Article by Marco Pandin – stella_nera@tin.it
Translation by Punkers

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