CRASS BAND PAGE
 CRASS
|
CURRENT NAME
|
Crass |
|
FORMER NAMES
|
- |
|
ORIGIN
|
United Kingdom |
|
STATUS
|
Disbanded |
|
FORMED IN
|
1976 |
|
GENRE
|
Punk rock |
|
STYLE
|
- |
|
LYRICAL THEME
|
- |
|
BAND ADDED
|
2004-04-06, 00:00 |
|
LAST UPDATE
|
2007-10-05, 14:42 |
Crass was born in late 1976 nearby Essex, England as he
brittlest and most hard-line radical of the first wave of British punk
bands, Crass issued a blitz of records that were ruthless in both their
unrelenting sociopolitical screeds and their amelodic crash of noise. The
horrors of war, the arbitrary nature of legal justice, sexism, media
imagery, organized religion, the flaws of the punk movement itself — all
were subjected to harsh critique. Like few other rock bands before or
since, Crass took rock-as-agent-of-social-and-political-change
seriously, and not just in their music. In addition to putting out their own
fiercely independent records (though the majors were certainly not
knocking at their door), they also formed an anarchist commune that worked
with other artists and labels, and on the behalf of various political
causes. But they were also afflicted by considerable tension between the
medium and its message — not more than a few thousand people were ex!
posed to Crass' very broad social concerns, and their musical
inflexibility guaranteed that the band would be preaching to the converted
almost exclusively.
In keeping with early punk ethos, Crass assumed obviously fake stage
names. The membership changed a bit over the years, but the group's
mainstays were vocalists Steve Ignorant, Eve Libertine, and Joy de Vivre.
Drummer Penny Rimbaud and G. Sus, who did tape collages and provided the
distinctively bleak black and white artwork on the fold-out posters
that usually enclosed their LPs, were also important contributors. Their
late-'70s recordings may sound like just so much hardcore punk decades
later. But at the time they were indeed shocking assaults of noisy
guitars and relentless drumming, backed by throaty, angry rants that were
made incomprehensible to many ears by the heavy British accents and the
sheer speed of delivery.
They were the definitive uncompromising punk band, which guaranteed
them a cult following of very disaffected youth, and also ensured that
they would never come remotely close to mainstream exposure, or even to
many new wave playlists. An undiluted lyrical message was far more
important to Crass than commercial considerations, and until 1984 they
cranked out anarchist-leaning recordings without much variation in their
attack. Occasional experimental cuts were promising variations on their
format, particularly when they branched into tape collage, or spoken
poetry. Those were largely the exception rather than the rule, though Crass
weren't without the occasional moment of humor.
Crass always intended to disband in 1984, and true to their ideals as
always, they did exactly that when that year came around. Even for those
with no taste for the band's brand of confrontational punk, they
deserve recognition as one of the relatively few acts in the music who
attempted to live their values, and not just sing about them.
| Session musicians Add - Fetch |
| Unknown / none |
