History of Anarchy?

You can blame that on Crass, I guess.

There always been bands that had an anarchist edge, but Crass made it into a packaged concept, kinda.

 

In England punk basically started with a discontent towards the way the government ran things and a frustration with the lack of revolution actually coming from the hippy era if I remember correctly. Apart from that it was basically a teenager's music and they will most likely be rebellious and anti-authoritarian anyway
So yeah.
I don't really know what happened in the States, but I imagine a similar kind of discontent. Same for Australia or anywhere else really.
Even the pistols made 'anarchy'-songs, for whatever that's worth, so I guess it's just always kinda been there, but no one fully materialised it like Crass, methinks.

 

There's a book written about Crass called The Story of Crass.

 

Not read it, though I read Rimbaud's book, which is ok, though bit 'arty'.

 

don't be lazy like a boss haha, yea crass like, though it has been a movement as it were for a while and popular amongst musicians and some student movements, the sp's even sung anarchy in the uk, they sorta meant it, the class system in the uk, they also all it the commonwealth ahahaha like the building of the taj mahal who cut off all the hands of is workers so they wouldn't build another like is o for shithouse, now go search armchair anarchist tut

 

CRASS were kinda the way in but The Sex Pistols, and Malcolm McClaren in particular, were influenced by the Situationists. The Situationists were a council communist group based in France in the 1960's and 70's. They were quite heavily involved in the events of 1968 and the French oh-so-fucking-nearly-a-revolution.
CRASS were more influenced by the hippy radicalism of the late 60's and early 70's. The drummer Penny Rimbaud was involved in the Stone Henge Free Festival - a massive event that ran until brutal state repression in 1985.
A good book to read on the subject is Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism by Peter Marshall. It's a history of anarchistic thought from Taoism through to the early 1990's and covers the advent of punk and anarchisms effect on it.
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/Titles/4 ... 0006862451

 

there was 'hippy' that hung round them that was sent to mental health for troublemaking, he was odd but not fucked as he got them off their 'punk' arses to do someit by giving literal and metaphorical examples, anything and so it goes...everyones alwasy looking for the next god that isn't there, doesn't exist but history and experiance does, do whats right

 

You're thinking of Wally Hope and he predates CRASS.
wikipedia

 

division, no thanx and taa mr/ms glasgow

 

Its Mr and you're welcome

 

You're description of the Sex Pistols as "commercial" is ridiculous. The Ramones enjoyed somewhat greater popularity, but from a casual perusal, it looks like their most popular song was "Rockaway Beach", which climbed all the way to number 66 on the top 100. By today's standards, and modern pop acts like Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears, or even contemporaneous pop acts, the Ramones didn't exist. The Clash were the most "commercially" successful, but the band took pains to live by their ethics, and never hid, in fact, very loudly proclaimed, their political ideas until they broke up. They may have sold a lot of records, but to describe them as "commercial" does them a disservice and is at best misleading.

 

Malcolm was influenced by the situationists, but this wasn't a direct influence on the band.

You beat me to it. Marshall's book is excellent. Required reading, as far as I'm concerned. It should be noted there are a number of mostly minor factual errors and such, but this is probably inevitable given the ambition of his project. Under the circumstances for one man he has done an incredible job of tying together and explaining the history of Anarchism and tracing the roots of it's ideas back to Taoism and Greek philosophers.

Daniel Guerin's "No Gods No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism" is also quite good, but much smaller in scope.

 

stop defending bands on major labels, the arts good the action isn't dur

 

There's no reason to have to defend these bands as the criticisms leveled against them are so fundamentally bogus. It's the stupidity that really bugs me. Although, it should be mentioned that indie labels as we know them did not exist at the time. That came later with bands that were musically inspired by the Pistols, The Clash, etc., and then got the idea of putting out records, themselves, which became the thriving indie industry that exists today. As we can only experience time in one direction (So far, at least.) this criticism makes no sense.

Although, the Pistols were dropped from every major label, and Virgin, the only company that would take them, was very small,as the company was only about four or five years old at the time and had only a few artists signed. I don't think thery had any A-list talent at the time. Anyhow the Pistols didn't really make any money until years after they broke up, anyhow. The Clash kept themselves in debt to the record company for years, sacrificing royalties to keep record prices down. The Ramones were on Sire, but as I said, in terms of popular acts, they weren't selling a shitload of records.

 

your kinda right but soo wrong that it hurrrts, now shutup haha, stop reading books godammit haha, its hurtin ya brain, and don't quote ma txt speak haha ie: it doesn't matter, stop defending these bands actions, they were mistaken and have said as much, wat came after does not matter in context as individuals did that not the bands and major labels big or small suck shit, enda story 'i read a book' so did i woaaa

 

Ha, yeah, books are shit, most stuff I read about punk is bullshit.

 

Just wondering here, I seem to recall you kind of sticking up for the Pistols some place else, so which side of the fence are you actually on?

 

yes but not alllll the time, and read my post before that woa nelly