zine contribution draft
i think crass is a really fucking great band. here are my reasons why:
1. "bloody revolutions" was the first, and i mean very first, punk song i ever heard. mind you, i was in eighth grade, thinking i was cool and rotting my brains to the backstreet boys and the spice girls. (okay, fine, i still like the backstreet boys and the spice girls.) the boy i had a bit of a psycho crush on gave me three songs to listen to: bad town by operation ivy, punk rock love by the casualties, and "bloody revolutions". imagine going from "quit playin' games with my heart (with my heart) / before you tear us apart (my heart)" to "are you going to be the big man with the tommy gun? / will you talk of freedom when the blood begins to run? / well, freedom has no value if violence is the price / i don't want your revolution, i want anarchy and peace." listening to that song was like a slap in the face. it took me a while to like it but when i learned to, there was no turning back. the point? crass kinda changed my life.
2. being a crass fan is like being part of a club. when i meet someone that likes them as much as i do, it's automatic coolness. we're friends for life.
3. unlike my other favorite band (yeah, dandy warhols, i'm talking to you) crass has every album available on vinyl. BIG DEAL, man! plus, each sleeve opens up into a poster depicting some really crazy, fucked up black and white images and collage, all of which is very in your face, satirical, funny and/or horrifying, and just plain fucked up - in the best way possible.
4. crass is a punk band who digs anarchy and writes political songs. i know that sounds crazy, but it's true. they dig very deep into political, environmental and animal rights issues, and are incredibly, mind blowingly intelligent and knowledgable about the things they are singing about. i've learned so much from the band, especially because i used to be so ignorant, having lived in pop music land for so long - where the only things you can learn about there is love, relationships, and boy band dancing. which isn't saying much.
5. crass once helped me with a report for class! i was writing on fluxus (a diy, anti-art art movement where you learn to appreciate the simple things in life) and came across the composition 4'33" (a four minute and thirty three second long composition that is complete silence, so that the actual peice consists of the sounds of the environment the audience hears while the silent peice is being performed) and i learned that crass made a couple of references to this composition. in the song "they've got a bomb", there is a moment of complete silence, and when crass performed this song live, they stopped everything so that everyone could take a break from the energy and noise, confront themselves, and consider the reality of a nuclear war. also, on the early pressings of "the feeding of the 5000", the workers at the record plants refused to include the song "reality asylum" (which is a really fucked up, awesome song.) to stick it to the man, crass left two minutes of silence in place of "reality asylum" on the record, and called the song "the sound of free speech". suck on that, the man! (needless to say, i got an B but that's because the teacher was a total dumbass lunatic.)
6. eve libertine. she was a bigger female role model for me than britney spears or hannah montana will ever be.
7. you know how when you sing along to songs, you kind of have to also mimic the way it is sung, or use whatever accent it's in? that's where it gets fun, because steve and eve and joy all have REALLY FUCKING COOL english accents. therefore i have a "REALLY FUCKING COOL english accent" when i sing along! and it makes me smile.
looking at images of crass when they were together...you can just tell how much energy and passion they emitted. steve ignorant has some other projects going on at the moment, but on his website (www.steveignorant.co.uk) he has probably the biggest collection of images of crass i've seen in one place...a google search will produce a good collection of album art, any decent record shop will carry their albums, looking into each respective band member's post crass careers yields some interesting results, and if you can find it anywhere, watch their film Christ: the Movie - it's brilliant. but most of all, if you've never listened to this band, open your mind and give them a go. you won't be disappointed.