Well Forked But Not Dead.

I know I've written about Crass here before, but for some reason ever since Christmas time I've had their seminal double LP "Christ The Album" on heavy rotation. Maybe it's the election? Or just a feeling inside of needing to wake up (again!) and take notice (and act!) on things happening in our world at the moment. I consistently find it amazing that while we live in a time with one of the most powerful youth culture movements in over twenty years, a good majority of folks seem more interested in having the right jeans on than in actually doing something about their world.

"They began to suffocate...and their possessions multiplied"



So, for anyone who doesn't know already, Crass formed in England in late 1977. They planned to operate only until the symbolic year of 1984 – the totalitarian bogeyman year made famous by George Orwell. However, neither Crass nor Orwell had any way of predicting just how bleak Britain would become for many of it’s citizens under the spectre of then prime minister Margaret Thatcher, and the final year of Crass as an active band came at a time of worsening social climate and what seemed to some to be imminent social collapse. The relationship between Crass and punk rock had always been one of convenience at best. Like Throbbing Gristle, the ethos of Crass had very little to do with rock’n’roll; sound was simply a medium to deliver the message at the heart of their mission, along with their film collages, propaganda, and seditious tape manipulations. The Crass sound was rudimentary, omitting such non-essential elements as melody and variance. In 1982, Crass released "Christ The Album" a boxed set double vinyl LP package, including one disk of new studio material and another, entitled "Well Forked.. But Not Dead", featuring a live recording of their June 1981 gig at the 100 Club in London along with other tracks and fragments. The album also included a book, "A Series Of Shock Slogans and Mindless Token Tantrums". By 1983, the group switched their attack to become an attack on the very nature of music itself. Crass had shaken off being any sort of “punk band” at all. Their statement on the Falklands War, "Yes Sir I Will", was an hour of cacophonous free-noise with the vocals hammering home their political message in no uncertain terms. The album was perhaps intended to make the message the ONLY thing listeners would hear. And what a message it was.



I HIGHLY SUGGEST, dear readers, that you go buy, borrow or steal a Crass record. Any of them will do really. Looking at the year ahead of us, as well as the amazing changes that are possible if we can stick together, I promise Crass' music and message will be an inspiration for times when you might feel (as we all do sometimes) that you've lost the plot.

To read an incredible essay from Shock Slogans click HERE