Anarchist Punk

Ive been listening to Anarchist Punk bands like Crass,Subhumans and Conflict and maybe its just me but these bands have more of an artier asthetic than most punk bands and from what i have heard so far they have experimental tendencies that many prog fans can enjoy im not saying there prog but does anybody agree with me

krusty wrote: Crass were probably closer to hippies than most hippies,all vegetairians, based on a commune in Essex, very amature musianship but I feel a definite RIO influence to some of thier material and politics, though Crass were even more left wing. The Poison Girls are with checking out with Vi Subversa vocals very similar to Dagmar Krause. IMHO. Most of the bands on the Crass label (Conflct, DIRT, Flux of Pink Indians, etc) were pushing the 'message' over musical quality. The Subhumans were an exception to the above as they seem to be slightly less political and also better musians as well.

It was an era when punk split into many different factions , Crass and their ilk took on a hippy aspect without actually being hippies , though they were as close as you could get to it . I think musical ability took second place to getting a message acrosss , though by their material they limited who would listen to the message ...those already converted .

You had Oi that just seemed to revel in violence  , Thrash punk as in the GBH/Discharge mould , Cult , Theatre of Hate  etc went for the Goth route , Stranglers and a few went mainstream/pop . The Exploited after a promising first couple of albums became a parody of punk.

The most uncompromising of the Anarcho bands were probably Conflict but another well wortha  listen are Zounds ( quite tuneful band , no way thrash ) and Rudimentary Peni  .

Syzygy wrote: Crass had some interesting ideas but absolutely no quality control, which meant that they could get a bit monotonous (I know they experimented with different sounds, but once they got a new idea they would recycle it with different lyrics to fill an album).

I played "Stations of the Crass "  a few years back , after about what must be a 15 year gap in etween listens , it doesn't age very well , the production is awful ( but £2.99 a double album what do you expect ) , the guitar is scratchy to say the least , almost like its put through a fuzz box or something .

I heard they were in trouble a few years back for tax evasion , they hadn't realised that tey had to pay tax on their recorded sales and owed a fair amount . I think in the early 80's they were the biggest punk band around for a while , yet they were totally uncompromising and very anti commercialism  , probably took punk in that form to its most extreme , they were copied by many bands afterwards who all took very similar ideals. Musically not that great but you can't really fault them for sticking to their guns all of the time . Of all the types of punk that existed , this was probably the most anti commercial of the lot , like hippies with extreme attitude . Conflict took the message a bit further , rather than preaching peace  etc , they said something to the effect that if someone tried to hit them then they would hit back ........ I think these were among the first animal liberationists  in that era .