The Story of Crass
Contents:
Lists with This Book. I didn't love this book so much as I loved reading this book. As a lifelong fan of Crass it was an amazing window into the circumstances and approaches of the individual members of the band that reinforced my love of Crass and gave a clear window into their historical context.
Having said that, I think this book will do nothing for people unfamiliar with the impact that this band has had on punk and anarchist subculture. If I had not grown up surrounded by crass t-shirts, patches, tattoos and ge I didn't love this book so much as I loved reading this book.
If I had not grown up surrounded by crass t-shirts, patches, tattoos and general Crass reverence, this book would lead me to believe that Crass was a terrible band that only impressionable teenagers liked, whose politics were naive, sheltered and privileged, whose music ranged from mediocre to awful, and that the band themselves didn't even enjoy making the music. Hell, this may be true, but without fully understanding how much this small group of individuals undoubtedly shaped the future and politics of punk music and anarchist subculture, this book may be less than satisfying. I may be overstating this, but it really did seem like a pretty harsh telling.
What rings true from reading the book, however, is that despite the fact that Crass enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame in the punk underground, their priority was always modeling the integrity that they felt the commercial punk acts such as The Clash and The Sex Pistols were severely lacking.
They were aggressively courted by mainstream rock press and labels, but resolutely refused, preferring to promote the DIY ethic and independent anarchist lifestyle that had brought them to the level of notoriety they achieved. They were a milestone in that they were the first punk act to have radical and anarchist politics who were dedicated to living the life that they were promoting rather than using their politics as a sensationalist gimmick to sell records. The book details how they took all the money that they began making and turned around to invest it back into the culture that supported them by creating anarchist spaces, putting out records of fellow punk acts and supporting various causes and campaigns.
It goes in depth explaining that nearly all the members of Crass were old hippies who had already been plugged into a radical scene, politics and all, and who had already been exploring their avant-garde aesthetics and presentation for years before punk came along and inspired Crass. I understood this to some degree, but the abstruse artistry with which Crass always presented itself had always left me with a mystified curiosity as exactly how something so perfectly strange could ever have happened and gathered a massive, loyal following.
Reading this book somehow demystified the Crass experience for me while only reinforcing my respect for the band and the personalities that made it what it was.
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Perhaps one of the most interesting things that this book brought to my attention was the way in which Crass was absolutely essential in punk subculture co-opting anarchism. It hammers home the point that Crass not only advocated for an anarchist approach, but modeled a viable anarchist lifestyle with their don't call it a commune, Dial House.
That they were the first punk outfit to present anarchism as something practical and applicable and more than sloganeering. And most importantly that they could give two shits about the anarchist "old guard.
The Story Of "Crass" by George Berger
In one fell swoop they breathed new life into anarchism, creating a durable anarchist subculture that has thrived for decades, while at the same time resolutely turning their back on the established anarchist culture. This merging of the punk aesthetic and anarchist values has essentially created an iron-clad relationship between the two wherein punk culture has consistently dominated the anarchist dialogue at least in the U. It makes me wonder what the word anarchism would even mean to us today if it weren't for this band redefining it and cementing it to punk subculture.
Most members of Crass cooperated with George Berger in making this book and it kind of makes sense in that acidic Crass way that this book could not be some puff piece to mythologize and hype them into the annals of rock history. It is a warts and all account, and maybe it is a reflection of the integrity and character of Crass that the book is so harsh. When I first started reading this book, I was very excited.
Sadly, we're living through similar times now. If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support? Just kick it till it breaks. But to Berger's credit, the interviews are extremely well conducted and give a lot of information not easily found on the internet or in the liner notes of the "Crassical Collection" re-releases. The Story of a Punk Rock Survivor. A little poorly written, but an immersive read on a band whose music I've never fully appreciated, but have found their ethos quite fascinating. Offering an account of the subversive band that took punk to the limit, this title tells their stories of putting out their records, films and magazines and setting up a series of hoaxes that were covered by the press.
It begins with thorough details of the individual members of the band and the early art happenings, etc. Unfortunately this level of detail soon fizzled out and the book unraveled into a mess of meanderings and Rolling Stone style rock journalism. The author reads like someone completely new to the band and has trouble describing their music at all, using dismissive generalizations such as "unlistenable" when talking about a live recor When I first started reading this book, I was very excited. The author reads like someone completely new to the band and has trouble describing their music at all, using dismissive generalizations such as "unlistenable" when talking about a live recording which is actually not at all unlistenable.
That shouldn't be good enough for anyone who is seriously interested in reading about any kind of music. The book focuses far too much on sensationalism and highlights controversies without getting into any sort of balanced description of the music beyond brief, irrelevant opinions. It contains the term "singafuckinglong" which should give you a clue as to the depth of the author's abilities.
The Story Of "Crass"
He also seems to fail at any sort of intelligent analysis of the bands' philosophies and just decides everything is "shocking" or "funny" as though that is enough. Maybe he should write about the Sex Pistols instead - he can't seem to stop mentioning them in this book. Then it gets even worse and you start to realize that Berger does not really even like Crass because all he seems to write about is how terrible all their music is and how all their critics were right. He basically admits this in the epilogue, "I always thought the Poison Girls were a far better band than Crass, and it puzzled me that Crass was so much bigger and more influential.
Was it out of some weird need to take them down a peg or just pure ignorance and inability to write? Given the way Berger forms sentences, I have to assume it was a combination of the two.
The Story of "Crass"
There are a few good moments in the book which detail things I hadn't read before that are very exciting to read about. But those moments are really sporadic and don't hold this thing together. With all the first-hand accounts and stories, it is a bit depressing that this book turned out the way it did. Did the author manage to quote every single word of "Last Of The Hippies" which I do recommend reading over the course of this? I do not recommend this book to anyone. The music of Crass music largely speaks for itself and this book does not help you to appreciate it.
If you want to learn about Crass, listen to their incredible albums and read the lyrics and essays and then make up your own mind about it. An exhaustive exhumation of every bit of history, every idea, and every opinion the band ever uttered. You really get an immersive experience, from the late '60s, when Penny and Gee acquired Dial House, through the turblulent early '70s, into the punk era, and beyond. With only a few exceptions, just about everyone involved with the Crass endeavor is mightily forthcoming with their thoughts and opinions. It's a dense read, and you will really step away from it with an increased understanding of An exhaustive exhumation of every bit of history, every idea, and every opinion the band ever uttered.
The Story of Crass [Book] (2009)
It's a dense read, and you will really step away from it with an increased understanding of everything from squatters to free festival culture to the difficulty of separating the National Socialists who want to stomp your face from the Trotskyists who want to talk your face off about the working man in the abstract. The material about the Faulklands War was fascinating and a good historical overview of the act itself and reading the transcript of the fake recordings was exciting and slightly dangerous.
Berger goes far into Penny Rimbaud's history, tracing his childhood and education at art school to his first interest in politics into his first experiments with improvised music and later punk music. Berger does the same with other members of the band, mostly Gee Vaucher, but Steve Ignorant and Eve Libertine are included to a somewhat lesser extent. The book features in depth interviews with members of the band, although at times it seems to focus more on Ignorant and Rimbaud than it does on the rest of the band.
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But to Berger's credit, the interviews are extremely well conducted and give a lot of information not easily found on the internet or in the liner notes of the "Crassical Collection" re-releases. A good majority of the book is very well researched and is written from the perspective of someone who lived through a lot of the story with the band. The first hand accounts of certain events like the Stonehenge festivals can be nice but there are times that the book seems to devolve into Berger trying to relive his glory days coming up in the punk scene, falling into personal anecdotes about various shows or protests or squats that have little if anything to do with the topic at hand.
At times the insight into the Crass' actual music is lacking. The book sometimes feels like, "Here's a lot of wild stuff that went down and then they put out Penis Envy! No group has come close to their fierce idealism. Let's face it, no other group could be bothered to put up with the constant police harassment or the poverty. Crass were the missing link between counterculture hippies and punk's angry rhetoric. The fact they got so big with no radio play and music so uncompromising is testament not just to their communication skills, but also to their generation's willingness to experiment.
The band released a series of records that spliced art-school in the best possible way , avant-garde collage with white-heat, punk-rock anger.
The Story of Crass [George Berger] on donnsboatshop.com *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In-depth interviews with the main movers in the punk rock. Start by marking “The Story Of "Crass"” as Want to Read: Crass was the anarcho-punk face of a revolutionary movement founded by radical left-wingers Penny Rimbaud and Steve Ignorant. George Berger is a freelance writer, with Punk Rock DNA.
When Crass got mad, they got really mad, and they were ranting and raving at the UK during a mean and miserable time, when Labour buckled and Thatcher took over. The music of Crass can only properly be understood in this context — the decaying nation, state brutality, the miners' strike, the Falklands war, and the death of 60s idealism.
Sadly, we're living through similar times now. Are we too cynical to create an answer like Crass did? There are plenty of political rockers, and many are effective, working inside the mainstream.
But Crass were very much on the outside and on their own terms — they were like the Gandhis of rock. They said no and people listened. Few could be bothered with that kind of hardship today. Crass were always about more than just the music. They kept the flame burning with albums that came packaged in brilliant, incensed artwork from Gee Vaucher, and they were active in promoting pacifism, vegetarianism, communal living and hope in the middle of the collapse of punk rock.