Music

[richardfamous]

OK so lets talk about music.
The music scene that Poison Girls helped create, in the late 70s and 80s, was a vibrant howl of protest against the complacency of the times. Whether it made a blind bit of difference is another matter, but no one can deny that there was an outpouring of real anger aimed at 'the system'.
Where is it now? Why aren't we screaming and shouting from the rooftops at the state of this crumbling, corrupt, western capitalist neocon mess that we are in. Maybe there are no words that rhyme with austerity!

[kjelli]

Some old friends from you, with a new name, Israelvis, and some new members but still the core from Angor Wat, Wix & Viggo.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a3zdRMzub8

[richardfamous]

Welcome Kjelli.
Glad to hear you are still making a noise. Big hi of course to Viggo and any of the Blitz crew who are still around. I have good memories of Trondheim (I bought a pair of pink winklepicker shoes there for 50 Krone (!!!) that became my stage shoes). By coincidence I was talking to a Norwegian woman yesterday who told me that the Blitz Cafe was in the house that Edvard Munch was born. Explains a lot!
Keep in touch
Richard

[back2front]

I think there have been a few bands over the years who have kept giving off against Mr System, usually in the anarcho-punk genre - yet anarcho-punk is so conservative that it's often become about box ticking subject matter (anti-cop song - tick, obligatory animal rights tirade - tick, anti-war doom-gloomery - tick etc) rather than intelligent and heartfelt and dare I say it - original, while the music itself is so non-adventurous - three thrashy chords against Christ or your money back.

I think Poisons and Crass and one or two others were genuine but adventurous too, in the sense that they moved in different musical directions while remaining lyrically astute and passionate. But a lot of bands which followed kept within those shadows to the extent that protest music became synonymous with it and ghettoized as a consequence, while the bastardized varieties of what constituted 'anarchism' were laughable and disturbing in equal measure.

The exceptions were bands like Chumbawamba, Subhumans, The Ex, M.D.C. (and others) still going and still relevant.

I watch bands like System of a Down and Rage Against the Machine who appear to have an intensely political agenda but are signed to big corporate labels who make them put beeps were swearwords are so as not to offend. Yikes. Much of what passes for protest music has been subsumed into capitalism and the dissenter is now another marketing demographic. One can buy revolutionary apparel for all the family!

But then as we get older most of us lose touch with what is going on in the world of music so all of the above could be entirely irrelevant, though I suspect not.

[back2front]

Spoke too soon, Chumbas have called it a day... www.chumba.com/

[richardfamous]

Sorry to hear the news about Chumbas, I remember getting their first demo tape (in amongst the pile that we got sent), and being won over straight away. They did several gigs with us, the first in 82(?) the last if I recall was in Berlin in 87 (or so). Good people and a great band.

[back2front]

Yes I followed them since the miners strike, an institution!

On a more happier note: www.allthemadmen.co.uk/pages/want-to

[richardfamous]

Well, we have to support the three women from Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alekhina, who are still in jail, facing 7 years inmside, for singing an anti Putin song in Moscow. I know that at times I thought that what Poison Girls did was 'dangerous', but it never ocured to us that by singing a song we could land up in jail.
If you don't know about this case, find out about it - If you do know then make sure all your friends know too.
Make a noise, make a fuss. When artists start to get arrested all hell should break loose

Richard

[back2front]

I heard they were on hunger strike:

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russian-punk-band-pussy-riot-goes-on-hunger-strike-7912702.html

Madness!

[andyt]

Here's a link to buy my new album which comes with a 96 page hard-back book.

Cheers, Andy T.

www.allthemadmen.co.uk/products/andy-t-life-at-tethers-end