ICON A.D. "Don't feed us shit" Ep, 1982

This immodest writeup should be my last leisurely stroll in the flowery gardens of 80's anarchopunk for a while, not that I am growing bored with it but I intend to tackle some faster shit when it's time to go back to school next month, something urgent that makes you want to twat your boss. Icon A.D. therefore feels like the ideal band to momentarily part ways with that specific wave as it is an act that is bound to leave a sweet taste on your all delicate palate.

2006 was a great year as far as I am concerned. As I mentioned in a previous review, it was the year when The Day the Country Died was published and the Overground compilation Anti-Society was released, both of which, although they were, strictly speaking, unrelated, worked together to open up further musical and subcultural perspectives and gave momentum to the nerd machine I was steadily becoming by exposing anarchopunk greats to avid me. Moreover, with Zidane headbutting Materazzi in the World Cup final because of what was basically a "your mum is so fat that" joke, probably costing France the game (or so goes the national tragedy anyway and the official narrative), 2006 was very close to being the perfect year indeed. The stenchcore revival was at its peak and I still had a perfect hairline. What could go wrong?

Just like for many other bands, I first heard of the Leeds-based Icon A.D. through the aforementioned cd compilation and the song "Seeing is believing" which was actually an unreleased number from the band that was supposed to appear on a third Ep that never saw the light of day. Luckily enough, miraculously even, Overground Record released the same year the band's discography, Lest we Forget, shortly after Anti-Society. Truth be told the label focused meaningfully on anarchopunk in the mid-00's with retrospective records of The Mob, Rubella Ballet Naked or The Disrupters, all of which swiftly landed in my collection. Cd's were probably not as uncool then as they are now and must have still sold, but interestingly Overground reissued both Icon A.D. and The System's discography on vinyl just a couple of years ago, a sensible move considering most of the record-buying public no longer buy cd's. 

To get back to Icon A.D. I was obviously as proud as a peacock parading on an Aldi carpark to know a band people from my generation were manifestly so uninterested in. And still are for the most part. Just like The Sears, Icon A.D. never seemed to garner much interest outside of some old-timers' who were really into them and almost always quite dithyrambic. Punk works in mysterious ways I guess especially since, like The Sears again, Icon A.D. had a great-looking Flux-like logo that would just look amazing on the jacket of any Insta-obsessed comrade. The London bias that prevailed in the 80's certainly made it more difficult for bands from the North to get noticed, although their Ep's did do well in the indie charts, but these days the equalizing factor and the decontextualization of music through streaming as dominant cultural practice significantly undermines this aspect as most people cannot even be bothered to check where bands are actually from. At the end of the day, I suppose only the real ones know, or care to.

Don't Feed us Shit is close to being a perfect record. It has everything, from the fantastic memorable tunes you can instantly hum to, the upbeat spontaneous, almost naive, energy, the poppy dual female vocals, it is an Ep that has stood the test of time better than a lot of 80's UK bands can claim. The record opens with a riff reminiscent of the Cockney Rejects but the song quickly goes in a more melodic, positive way as if the Londoners had been fed exclusively on Lost Cherrees or A-Heads. Icon A.D. were primarily an old-school punk-rock band (not to mention a family affair with husband, wife and some siblings) and sounded closer to the original '77 wave of punk than the Crass tribes but with an anthemic quality that unmistakably tied them to the subsequent 80's wave, like a Demob or No Choice for instance. As a result Icon A.D. is a band that can appeal to many people and they often get some airplay whenever my mum comes for tea (oddly enough she was never that much into Chaos UK or Disorder). A genuine classic that never disappoints from.

Don't feed us shit!

  

THE SEARS "If Only..." MLP, 1984

Twenty years ago, Ian Glasper - UK punk's official archaeologist - wrote about The Sears as "one of anarcho-punk's best-kept secrets" and, rather extraordinarily, it still stands true today even though we have access to even the most obscure bands, some that released the one demo in 1983, did just 3 gigs, one of which took place in a shed with bins for drums, and played for about 6 months in total. Alright, The Sears did use bins as a drum kit at some point but they were around for four years and did release a wonderful album on Bluurg Records, a well-respected label run by Dick Lucas from Subhumans, so not exactly your local garage band. And yet, The Sears remain vastly overlooked as the absence of bootleg shirts on Etsy tends to indicate (it's pretty much the unit of measurement to gauge a band's popularity these days), this is all the more incomprehensible that they have a brilliant recognizable logo depicting a bat (or is it a ghost?) that would fit on the fanciest jackets of any postpunk revivalist. Indifference to The Sears is one of history's mysteries, like UFOs or my dad firmly thinking he would have made a decent addition to the French Résistance in 1940 even though he is afraid of spiders, heights and gluten. I can picture the Nazis shitting themselves.

I remember in the 00's seeing quite a few cd's (homemade-looking cdr's sometimes) from Bluurg Records and stupidly sleeping on them but I don't think The Sears ever got that treatment although there is a trace of a cdr on Discogs (I have no idea when it was done and by whom) but thankfully not atrocious vinyl bootleg. Will If Only... enjoy a proper official reissue one day? Pretty likely I reckon what with Mad Butcher Records releasing old materials from the likes of A-Heads or Potential Threat (and any old UK bands really, it's like the label has gone into a frenzy) and with Sealed Records' recent work on Karma Sutra or Alternative there is ground for hope because in terms of quality, The Sears' album was certainly up there. I have no idea why the record is classified as a mini-album as it is 26 minutes in length, a perfectly acceptable format for the genre (I wouldn't have been against a couple of extra songs though if I'm honest) especially by today's rather ungenerous standards - to give you an example modern classics like Vampire's What Seems Forever Can Be Broken or Subdued's Abattoir are shorter than this.

I would have first heard The Sears, who were from the Midlands, thanks to the inclusion of the grandiose track "Not prepared" - that opens If Only... - on Overground Record's wonderful cd compilation Anti-Society from 2006, the third volume ouf of four released between 2005 and 2007 that introduced so many of us to brilliant obscure anarchopunk bands. "Not prepared" was one of the highlights of the cd and illustrated the band's undeniable energy, tunes and intensity, a balance not many bands managed to pull as well as they did. 2006 was also the year The Day the Country Died was published so that it can be said to be a pivotal year for me because, as much of an already massive fan of British anarchopunk as I was (notably through the Mortarhate and Rugger Bugger cd reissues), these Overground cd's and this book further opened my eyes to a world that was much wider than I thought. It was not just The Mob, Omega Tribe, Icons of Filth or DIRT, it was The Sears, it was Anarka & Poppy, it was Famous Imposters, Reality Control and Anathema and it was incredible and it cemented my love for the peculiar and unique scene. Besides the booklets included biographical notices about the bands and therefore provided me with precious intel for the punk trivia nights I quickly started to rule over, ruthless like a vegan at a free tofu festival.

Strangely the members of The Sears are very negative about the album, basically claiming it sounds like shit, that it should have been much better and they cannot bear to listen to it. I understand being a little exigent with what you do but such comments are insulting to those of us who play in genuinely shit bands and can only dream of producing something half as good as If Only.... Apart from the short and sweet UK82 number "System psycho" the songs all demonstrate the writing flair of the band and how they could tell great punk-rock stories in 3 or 4 minutes. The songs have plots with often softer, darker melodic intros, bursts of punk energy in the middle, sometimes epic direct conclusions too and overall, this moodiness and versatility that always sound tuneful, catchy and powerful, and just punk as fuck really, make the work stand out. At times the music reminds me of Lost Cherrees on the eerier poppier softer moments, of A-Heads when the bouncing punk flow kicks in, of The System when there is a need for a catchy chorus, of Conflict when it gets proper angry and confrontational and in your face. The powerful, emotional, haunting female vocals are certainly the band's main assets (some of the best in the genre arguably) but one should not disregard the care put into the songwriting and, as mentioned, "Not prepared" epitomizes how a grand old-school punk hit should sound like. Lyrically the band was on point too with "Body hold" about imperialism or "Statistical rape" being well ahead of its time (it was written by a third person) with its critique of rape culture and how the pigs dismiss claims when it suits them. Apparently the whole packaging wasn't meant to look like this and the band had prepared a different artwork and lots of visuals that ended up not being used at all so one can only imagine if The Sears had gone for a proper booklet and different aesthetics.

Nevertheless If Only... exemplifies the concept of "obscure classic". It has all the elements that make a record great and worthy of adoption into the canon and yet it remains vastly unknown. But if you ask me, it only requires a well-produced reissue for the punters to rediscover this anarchopunk jewel. I bet the prats are not prepared.

Prepared?          

THE SYSTEM "The Warfare" Ep, 1982

The System. A very special band indeed. Fair enough the name is a little strange, if not eyebrow-raising, and whereas I feel like I am the coolest cat in the neighbourhood when I am wearing my The System shirt, passersby look mightily unimpressed ("The system? Well, what about it? Does this prat think he incarnates the System?" I hear them think) definitely because they can't be arsed to spot "is murder" at the bottom and not because I am well into my forties, am about as unthreatening as a 5 year old and yet still believe I'm gonna make it in the wrestling business. But then I often treat them with Coitus or Genital Deformities shirts so I suppose they are also relieved that, for once, my great clothing style does not cause property values to drop. Oh well. I live in social housing so I really don't care.

One of my fondest memories of The System was when my best mate and I, admittedly very drunk, blasted the Thought Control Lp at full volume in the middle of the night many moons ago and started dancing around the coffee table in the living room in some sort of crusty danse macabre, singing along to the brilliant tunes like tuneless crows and clapping our hands like foolish happy seals. Because that's what really set The System apart from a lot of their anarchopunk peers in the 80's: the bloody great punk tunes. Of course the anarcho wave was replete with bands using tunefulness and melodies to get their point across but what worked so well with The System was that they borrowed theirs from the first wave of UK punk rather than poppier stuff like Zounds or Lost Cherrees for instance. I first ran into this Wigan-based act (up North, a name made famous by Orwell) through the aforementioned Thought Control Lp that I ordered directly from the Skuld Releases website sometime in the early/mid 00's. I trusted the label like a skinhead trusts his braces: faithfully. I expected Skuld Releases to deliver and it almost always did although on paper it was odd to see the label release in 1997 an Lp recorded in 1983 by a British anarchopunk band. Needless to say that it was great to be able to say that I technically owned an original record of this beloved wave of mine. That was well before I sold a kidney in order to buy the original pressings of their Ep's. Throught Control provided ace punk songs to sing along to and it sounded like the ideal break from all the dark crust that was omnipresent then.

As I alluded to, The System took their sense of tunes and catchy songwriting from the so-called '77 wave, something guitar player Andy clearly points out in The Day the Country Died. Whereas many anarcho bands from 1981 on started out influenced by Crass and their early followers, The System had been playing together since 1980 and the members had all been dicking around in bands since 1978 so that a large part of their influences, in terms of melodies and versatility and impeccable hooks and catchy compositions, can be located in bands like Slaughter and the Dogs, Crisis, Menace or The Ruts. And of course, the band remained gritty too, and on that level there is also something of the Upstarts in The System, and of course, it is undeniable that when they quickly got to tour regularly with bands like Flux of Pink Indians and the Crass Records crew the band also conveyed a tribal anarcho vibe and the appropriate politics. The System stands as one of these rather rare anarchopunk bands that can appeal to any punk-rock lovers. The music offers tuneful anthems you can sing along to in the shower (you don't actually have to shower, just being in the bathroom works just as well), it sounds aggressive enough to please your average UK82 believer and they have that melancholy, moody atmosphere that will speak to the vegan anarcho crowd and . In the end, just fantastic catchy punk-rock with a message.

The Warfare Ep was released in 1982 on Spiderleg Records, the label run by Flux of Pink Indians (The System's drummer would actually record the song "Tapioca sunrise" with Flux later on) notorious for releasing records by Subhumans and Amebix, and it includes three memorable punk songs produced by Penny Rimbaud, an unbeatable clue that it will have that typical "anarcho sound" that we've grown to associate with that scene. Opening with, arguably, the band's most iconic anthemic number "Dogs of war" with its infectious, boisterous chorus, the Ep has one of my all-time favourite anarchopunk songs: "Their corrupting ways". With its dark guitar leads, its hypnotic bass lines and its potent, passionate chorus, it is the perfect 80's blend of angry old-school punk-rock and postpunk. There are few punk songs that I consider perfect in the sense that they could not be better and I would not change anything about them (Demob's "No room for you", Naked's "Mid 1930's" and The Samples' "Dead heroes" are other significant examples) and "Their corrupting ways" is one of them. The very Flux-ish third song "Nervous breakdown" is another definite win of course with its heavy tribal rhythms (they did love those beats back then) and its simple structure and riffs, just a good way to make The Warfare stand out among the dozens of UK punk records released in 1982. And let's not forget the great artwork with several paintings (and the traditional foldout poster) illustrating the themes of the songs and, while they are no Otto Dix, they absolutely scream "1980's" and look sincere and original. Great stuff. The next year saw the release of the Is Murder Ep, another stellar punk Ep but I do prefer their first one. 

This copy has some patent surface noise so you've got the full English breakfast here. The band's first Ep's and a full demo can be found on the ...Is Still Murder reissue on Overground Records that is still available (on vinyl, the 2005 cd version with additional songs, among which a song from The Insane (!) by mistake, is of course out-of-print. The band is still going, albeit in a different version, and still really good by the way.     

The SYSTEM

EXIT-STANCE "Crime against humanity" Ep, 1984

The transience of punk bands' popularity is a phenomena that should be studied one day. It is dictated by contexts and trends, by fashion and by how what is deemed worthy of likability is connected with who loves it and why they do. I feel it was not so long (although it probably was a while ago actually I just do not want to admit the passing of time) that few people from the "DIY hardcore scene" around me gave little if any fuck about Exit-Stance. Punk bands connected with Conflict were associated with either mohawked punks or crusties, two tribes renowned for asking for cigarettes, or worse some change, at gigs which is generally frowned upon by the heavily tattooed New Balance-wearing population. Anarcho bands like Hagar the Womb had a clear tie to Conflict through Mortarhate Records, run by Conflict's frontman Colin, but because they were catchy and a bit pop-oriented, they were officially cleared to be listened to. Milton Keyne's Exit-Stance did not have this luck and their heavy, beefy and direct approach at first did little to convince large segments of "da scene" to give them a go. 

Well, I did pay a bit more to be honest.

The black-clad crews of course already knew about one of the most potent and original bands of this peculiar punk wave - or they brilliantly pretended to by posting Youtube videos - when vintage anarchopunk and its insta-friendly visuals started to enjoy a larger comeback in the mid 10's and have become, I believe, well respected since then. I also think that the recent appreciation for the band's old material can be linked to the success of Berlin's Industry, a very fine band highly influenced by the classic Exit-Stance sound - by which I mean their first Lp A Self Portrait At The Stage Of Totalitarian Domination Of All Aspects Of Life is basically a tribute and even included a cover of "They kill dogs" - that has been playing many of the coolest punk festivals and, helped by its second Lp being released on London's La Vida Es Un Mus, a label whose reputation and reach pretty much ensure your band will be touring and enjoying great distribution, managed to appeal to many people far outside the International Federation of Anarchopunk Nerds - I happen to be the leader of the French chapter and subscriptions are open. 

On the one hand, witnessing new people, even those who wouldn't know their Icons of Filth from their Anti-System, uttering dithyrambic perorations about Exit-Stance is positive because, first, I also love the band and, second, it allows me to say that I knew them first and mastered their discography since those intensive anarchopunk classes, given by some proper old-timers with bad backs who owned the original records, I took in 2003. On the other hand, it makes me want to behave like a dick and pompously explain that three members of Exit-Stance originally played in the bizarrely named Ethnic Minority, "didn't you know? What a shame, I thought that people wearing an Exit-Stance badge would. And were you aware of Bristol's Exit-Stance, an excellent punky goth band? Yeah, nah, I thought not". But at the end of the day, I do thank Industry for at least making people checking the band and, who knows, maybe other similarly influenced bands would pop up and I would have to shut up for once.

In any case the first Ep of Exit-Stance - a particularly and laughably hard name to pronounce for a French person - subtly entitled Crime Against Humanity stands as one of anarchopunk's hardest and most intense works of the 80's. The three songs included on the Ep were recorded during the same session as "Operation successful", a song specially recorded to appear on Mortarhate's very successful Who? What? Why? When? Where? compilation Lp that showcased the band's strengths that put them on the punk map: punishingly heavy tribal beats, hypnotic guitar riffs and some of the most aggressive, most frontal, angriest vocal flow and prosody of the genre. As a listener you get the impression that that mental lad at the back of the bus decided to sit right next to you and started shouting at you about political violence, oppression and ecology for 7 minutes like an anarchist doomsday sayer. When you mention Exit-Stance people will rave about the incredible, and yet seemingly simple, drumming and the impassioned vocals reminiscent of Conflict or Icons of Filth but arguably even more pissed off. In The Day the Country Died bass player Jevs reveals that the drummer was really into Killing Joke and I like the idea that Exit-Stance blended the heavy tribal beats of this band with the more primitive approach of mid-paced songs from Chaos UK or Disorder or even Flux of Pink Indians and with the angry rants of Conflict, or indeed, Crass. Of course it would be silly to think that the band did it consciously but from the safe place of retrospection it makes sense. 

This is an absolute classic and if you read this you are probably already well aware of it. I don't know why it was not released on Mortarhate like the mini-album While Backs Are Turned in 1985 but on its sub-label Fight Back. Quite surprising. Something to do with pressing numbers? Another hidden reason? It had nothing to do with styles as records from Vex or Legion of Parasites were released under the Fight Back banner. The fact that Crime Against Humanity has not been reissued yet is rather shocking but the Mortarhate (and therefore Fight Back) catalogue having been sold, it is Radiation Reissues that takes care of the operations and from what I see they almost never do Ep's. But then Legion of Parasites' Undesirable Guests originally on Fight Bacl as well was eventually reissued on General Speech so who knows what will happen with Exit-Stance's jewel. 

Exit-Stance of Humanity

   

 

DIRT "Object Refuse Reject Abuse" Ep, 1981

When feeling blue, a lot of people indulge in what they call "comfort food" in order to feel better. Something familiar, predictable that brings back - if temporarily - that feeling of safety and warmth. Granted, some of that "comfort food" must be called "comfort booze," and "comfort hangover," afterwards but I suppose it fulfills the same purpose: getting over shit through what you intimately like, through familiarity, for instance through greasy crisps, a can of cider and the blasting of Why - not that I would ever need to be comforted, I just bought my second yacht thanks to Terminal Sound Nuisance and the fourth attempt at hair transplants seems to have finally worked as my scalp is not as purulent as last time (that one Turkish barber advertised on Youtube was dodgy indeed in the end, I should have been more cautious). I am a spoilt man.

From my tiny spot in this big bad world, a good way to feel better, if only briefly, is, of course, to play a vintage UK anarchopunk records that I have listened to death for the past 25 years and whose corners, circumvolutions, flaws and every single tiny details I have learnt to love. Just as important to this comfort-seeking enterprise is the exact memory of where and when I first bumped into the band, in this case Dirt. It's funny how you can remember - usually fondly, even though it might have been a crap show - gigs that took place so long ago but are barely able to name the opening bands of last Tuesday's concert. I bought my first Dirt record on October, 4th, 2002, at an Inner Terrestrials gig in a venue called Fahrenheit near Paris. Unless you were there at the time, there is little chance that you have ever heard of this venue but it used to play an important role in the alternative punk scene between 1984 and 2008. For the record Nirvana played there in December, 1989 in front of a manifestly rather scarce audience although listening to some old-timers who suddenly pretend to have been there indeed you would think they played to a full house.

But back to my petty story. At this Inner Terrestrial gig, a band I really enjoyed then and still do, Active Distribution had come along and they had set a little distro table with political fanzines I would mostly pretend to be interested in in order to look cool and sophisticated and a couple of cd's the label had put out among which was Dirt's double cd discography Black and White, referenced as Active 1 for you nerds and originally released in 1997 so I suppose I was lucky to find it at all for cheap then (it now goes for more than 40 euros on Discogs). I am aware everybody hates cd's these days because they have no cachet - and because Stranger Things is set at a time when they did not exist yet they will therefore forever be deemed unworthy of coolness and of viral Tik Tok videos - but the cd version included two amazing unreleased songs that were not on the vinyl version. Who's the fool now, huh? 

I would be lying if I said it was love at first sight between Dirt and I and it did take me some time to get used to Deno's unhinged shrieks, especially on the band's early years. When I did totally get it, I couldn't help but think how disturbing and challenging the vocals would have been 20 years before, back when it originally came out. By then female vocals in punk were still tacitly expected to have some melody, some tunefulness to them. Of course, punk-rock questioned gender norms and expectations and bands like X-Ray Spex, Crass of course or Vice Squad did challenge the conventional image of female rock singers and while there were evidently angry and passionate political female rock singers before punk, they did not really sound angry and did not shout in the microphone like demented howls if you know what I mean. Dirt took things one step further in 1981 with Deno sounding deliciously tuneless on this first Ep and showing no pretense of any intellectualism (unlike Crass I guess) or of any London art schools bollocks or of poster punk stardom. The legendary repetition of "Object refuse! Reject Abuse!" concluding "Democracy" remains an iconic (as Gen Z's would say) bit of anarchopunk history and the best way to deter burglars. 

It is easy but nevertheless true to claim that a Dirtless world would have been more boring and many a young punk - female or male actually - might have been influenced by the strident vocal style and by the efficient simplicity of these four songs and thusly galvanised into action. On this level, I would personally argue that Dirt's snotty punky discordance was as important as Chaos UK or Disorder's, although their influence may have been more circumscribed to the anarcho realms (this is very difficult to assess from our perspective as many local scenes then were not as split and tribalism not as prevalent as we can imagine and people freely listened to all sorts of punk and besides, let's keep in mind that no less than 13000 copies of Dirt's Ep were sold at the time). 

In any case, and if the amount of patches and shirts still worn today is any indication (which it probably isn't, the band may just prove to be more Insta-compatible), Dirt remain one of the most loved anarchopunk bands of the era. As mentioned the crazy, defiant shrieky vocals of Deno are still what they are primarily known for - for good reasons as they still sound so mental and spontaneous almost 50 years later as I got to experience by playing the band to my "I listen to a bit of everything" work colleagues - but I would venture that the three-chords simplicity, the raw sound, the energy, the distortion, the primitive tribal beats, the frontal punk vibe and the dual vocals (let's not discard Gary's ace vocals as well) all make this Ep an absolute 80's punk classic. Of course, a less thoughtful, more direct version of Crass is an obvious point of comparison as they definitely borrowed their mentors' love for noise and distortion - and let's not forget to mention that the Ep was obviously produced by Penny Rimbaud whose very precise, strict, inimitable ideas of what bands were meant to sound like went on to define what we know call "the classic anarcho sound". Rereading Glasper's The Day the Country Died I noticed Gary mentioned that they would listen to 6 Minute War a lot in the band's very early days and that Dirt was at first basically a faster, noisier version of their songwriting, which makes a lot of sense sense; and I personally would throw The Epileptics/The Licks in the mix as well - albeit in a much spikier mood. Finally, one might contend that Dirt's long-standing popularity also has to do with their image that, along with their music, was significantly more punk than a lot of their anarcho comrades like Flux, The Mob or Omega Tribe who were often discarded as "bourgeois" or "hippie shit" by the spikes'n'studs crews, especially in the pre social media days. But Dirt never were, perhaps because of the punk-as-fuck spontaneity of their sound, they were paradoxically easier to listen to alongside Chaos UK, The Exploited or The Business, and because later on they reformed before it was fashionable to do so and toured with DIY crusty hardcore bands like Hellkrusher or Final Warning and played many DIY festivals and squat gigs in the 90's, they definitely maintained that anarchopunk street cred, all of these elements making them such a respected and beloved band.

So yeah, there's nothing like Deno's vocals when you are looking for comfort and now that I think of it the band foes very well with a cold can of cider and some crisps. 6 minutes and 30 seconds of delight.

Object Refuse Reject Abuuuuuuse

    

KŁAMSTWO "Alienacja" tape, 2002

The times we currently live in suck. 

I wonder sometimes how I would be if I was a teenager in 2026. Of course, I can imagine myself being some sort of avant-garde enlightened Tik Tok influencer claiming to be on the verge of success, but this imaginary self born in 2010 would also probably be more miserable than the actual one of 1999 and might be firmly convinced that the world as we know and hate it is about to be annihilated by some madmen. And that's without mentioning the insane pressure that punk kids have these to pretend to love Turnstile in order to fit in. In my days when you were getting into "real punk" you had to pretend to hate Green Day because they were sellouts and dared to have tunes (which was the same thing). It was much easier and a cheap way to look rebellious. The irony in all this is that, I'm told, current teens fantasise about the 90's and even the 00's, an unspoilt pre social media - to be understood as prelapsarian - era, free from hateful online bullies and the constant stress to be connected, visible and available at all times which does sound horrible. The anti Myspace critique of the mid 00's do feel almost innocent in retrospect and have the aroma of desuetude, those days when punks still believed that social media and the world they carried in their dark hearts could be resisted. Not the most clairvoyant moment in punk history I'll grant your that.

Will the Kłamstwo tape cheer everyone up? Well, I think it might do the trick, at least for a while. This Polish band was all about energy and tunes, great ones, that will survive in your head for a couple of days. This rather obscure act were from Knurów, a mining town in the South of Poland where, according to the band's presentation online, boredom ruled in the 90's, the future felt bleak and punk was the ideal means to face reality and be creative, so not exactly a fancy seaside resort I presume. A classic punk origin story. The term "kłamstwo" means "lie" in English and it is, clearly, much harder to pronounce but isn't punk as much as a network of friends as it is a network of languages? I don't know much about the band itself and while I would love to have a great anecdote about how I came across this largely hidden gem, I'm pretty sure it just popped as a recommendation on bloody youtube which is certainly an unromantic anticlimax and a perfect example of how the internet sometimes makes our passion feel tame. But anyway, I clicked on the thing because I like Polish punk (knowing a bit of Polish I knew where they were from) and it was love at first listen.

Kłamstwo played tuneful and highly energetic female-fronted political punk-rock (the two doves logo suggests an anarcho leaning) with that distinctive Polish flair for catchy guitar hooks and vocals. The introduction from the label Zima you can find on its website (amazingly the tape is still available) says that the youthful band formed in 1998, somehow managed to record a very DIY demo in 2000 that they were unhappy with (one song off this recording "session" made it to the tape as a bonus and to be fair I think it's not that bad) and as result went to a proper studio to record 12 songs in 2001, the album Alienacja that would be released in 2002, and... well, it looks like it was pretty much it. The band then appeared on a massive tribute to Dezerter in 2006 but, not owning the thing, I am unable to tell you when the cover was recorded. Similarly I could not find any details about the members' whereabouts following the end of the band sometime in the mid 00's I assume. Zima was and still is a very active label that specialised in alternative music, not just punk but also reggae (the genre is very popular in Poland), that notably released the whole discography of legendary 80's band Śmierć Kliniczna who were local to the area and dozens of other weed-smoking acts I have never heard of (since I read somewhere that smoking weed could make people enjoy Manu Chao I firmly decided to never smoke again).

24 years later and Putin is still in the charts.

The label's blurb indicated that Kłamstwo were influenced, among other bands, by Post-Regiment, Konwent A and Kanada, three bands that have strong female singers. If the comparison to the immensely influential Post-Regiment can make sense (not just vocally but also because the guitar player tries to infuse some memorable melodies although Post-Regiment's sound remains somewhat sacrosanct) and is fairly obvious, the Konwent A parallel proves to be more relevant as the two bands share a similar sense of tunes and intensity. The chance that you would have heard about Konwent A is slim - unless you are an old-school punk from Poland - as they never released anything when they were originally active in the mid/late 80's although there are, of course, live versions of their songs recorded at the Jarocin festival. Pretty classic story for a Polish punk band at the time. This said, Konwent A must have circulated in DIY fashion through tapes and the appeal of the band is easily understandable. I would also throw the 90's band 105 Lux from Gdynia that displayed musical qualities and some elements of the songwriting that Kłamstwo would make their own and because of my own musical background I cannot help but think of tune-driven UK bands too like Dan or Sofahead too or even 90's DIRT, bands that made punk energy melodic.

The Polish scene has had this long tradition of strong female-fronted punk with a message and Kłamstwo fits right into this category. Some tunes on the guitar leads are absolutely brilliant and I challenge anyone to listen to "Konformista" and "Miasto" and try to resist the urge to whistle to the tunes. Of course, you can tell Kłamstwo were still a young band and there are a couple of sloppy moments, however the production is very clean, if basic, and highlights the catchy guitar work and the deceptively simple vocals that sound warm and upfront. It's such a shame that they never recorded more. 

Alienacja

OUTCRY "S/t" tape Ep, 2017

Damn, I can't believe it has already been more than a month since I last enlightened heathenish punks with my wisdom and my impeccably tasteful, splendiferous record collection. But you know, I'm a busy man, what with me constantly traveling to give patronising conferences all around the world or to take part in the numerous photoshoots I do for prestigious magazines. And that's without taking into account all the fan mails I have to reply to, a very time-consuming process indeed. I suppose that's what comes with fame as the reliable and fussy keeper of the precious crust tenets, a bit like Charon but with a "pay no more than" tag.

Anyway, here I am, back again with a tape from a sadly short-lived Halifax band: Outcry. I must have first heard of Outcry through their demo in 2016 that was released on Runstate Tapes, a Montreal based tape label that was quite prolific (with some cracking releases from the likes of Apärä, Mock Execution or Ultrarat) but hasn't put anything out since 2023, but then we all need a break sometimes. Since the late 00's, Halifax has had a strong tradition of quality punk and their local bands almost always hit the mark - not unlike an instance of sustainable agriculture although the farmers probably use pesticides like hard cider or cheap speed - and as a result I am always confident when dealing with them. 

To get back to the band's demo, and their overall modest production, I feel it can be said to be largely of its time, anchored. In that respect Outcry certainly captured the mood of the revivalist time in terms of influences and vibe. Musically the band's sound is rooted in the rich in punk points old-school UK82 and anarchopunk sound of the 80's that, from a synchronic perspective, was also adopted by contemporary bands such as Lux, Rubble or indeed Vivid Sekt (although this lot had been around for some years by the time Outcry so that, if I see them in a similar stylistic light, they might have been an influence, if not literally at least conceptually). The music can be said to be retro with a strong UK vibe something that Rosie and Adam already worked on in the aforementioned Abject Pax but not as straightforwardly. I suppose one might argue that this subgenre, this "anarcho UK82", filled a gap and answered the need for snotty catchy spiky punk-rock done by learned DIY punks.

The first recording was fine in its own right and paved the way for the much superior - not to mention available - second effort, a tape Ep (right?) released the next year. The recipe is similar but the production displays more of that raw and snotty energy, managing to confer a genuinely old-school vibe like few did. In fact, were it not as purposefully executed - as intentionally perfectly referential and close to perfection if you wish - you could have someone believe that Outcry were actually a band from Wigan that recorded an Ep for Bluurg Records that never came out because the drummer got pissed and lost the tapes until they were found 25 years later in his mum's garage. I am a sucker for vintage worship so needless to say that I relate to the music here as the band navigates fluidly between established UK82 bands like Vice Squad, The Expelled and their modern Barcelona based interpretation, anarchopunk bands like DIRT, Toxic Waste (especially with the bass lines) or even a primitive version of Crass and I'd throw in some of the 90's anarcho sound of Media Children, A//Political or Mankind?. We're definitely not far from Avaricious as well but I would be at a loss to claim that Outcry had heard about them. 

What I particularly enjoy on this tape stands in the bounciness of the songwriting, the catchiness of the riffs and the high-pitched vocals, the simplicity of the beat, they all work well with one another. Outcry do not reinvent the wheel here but if you need some petrol for your female-fronted UK punk engine then they gloriously do the trick. Just good punk-rock that rules my own safe sandbox. I am not sure when the band stopped playing but Rosie kept playing anarchopunk music when she moved to Montreal through her involvement with The Conscripts a band that had members of Primer Regimen, Malokio and PMS 84 that vanished at some point and whose Lp remains somewhat enigmatic. 

I think my version of this Outcry tape is the self-released one by the band (I don't remember how I got it because I am well into my forties now and I just forget things) but two other European versions can be found, one on the Kiev based No Name Distro and the other on Oscuridad en mi Vida, a tape only sublabel of the always reliable Symphony of Destruction from Brittany. 

Tragically singer Rosie passed away in 2020. I have never met her - or anyone from Halifax now that I think of it - but I enjoy and love many bands she was a part of like Zygome (whom I previously covered) or the underrated Abject Pax among others so that it always saddens me when someone from our punk microcosm dies. La Vida Es Un Mus released a 12" Ep from Rosie's solo project Cry Out (the name seems to indicate that it was very much a continuation of Outcry). It was already meant to be but by the time of her passing the recording was not quite finished so that the result may not sound just like she envisioned it. The result is still very fine, probably more akin to the eerier, more progressive side of UK anarchopunk like Toxic Shock or Annie Anxiety, possibly Faction too, but still keeping that direct snot-punk vibe. An interesting work for sure that is still available and the perfect tribute to a very creative person.

Outcry