Anarcho-punk is dead“Is there something I can learn?
Do I need a business man to promote my angle?
Can I resist the carrots that fame and fortune dangle?
I see the velvet zippies in their bondage gear,
The social elite with safety-pins in their ear,
I watch and understand that it don't mean a thing,”
By 1978 Punk was dead then CRASS came along and gave it a new lease of life/gave it meaning/inspired us to do things on our own/to believe in our own power/to squat/to protest/to fight back/to say fuck off to the pathetic punk pseuds who posed but didn’t practice/ CRASS didn’t play the game/they played their own games/ CRASS played alternative venues/used alternative media/put pay no more than prices on records/ CRASS tried to be as anti-capitalist as they could and not be part of the spectacle/ That is why they inspired a generation, it wasn’t their music but their attitude and actions that made them different, made them significant/ what this farce in Shepherds Bush says to us is -we don’t care anymore, what CRASS stood for is no longer relevant, now punk is just a puppet show for business men to profit from/for young punks to mistake this show as the real deal when it is in reality just a whitewash/ the shame is that just one member of CRASS can fuck up the reputation and respect that the band earnt and kept by his greed/ shame on Steve and the rest of the performers playing out their roles as lackeys of the music business strumming their cocks/ don’t really care if they make any money from this event/Steve gets the same considerable royalties that all CRASS members still do/what hurts is the betrayal/the renouncing of an ethic/DIY or EMI?/ well we know where CHUMBAWONGA went/ If our music entertains but does not make us super rich it has failed/now Steve and chums take the CRASS name and dirty it in the filth of a festival of forgetting what mattered/Promoting what? Just the promoters bank balance and a sense of nihilism/I just wanna play my guitar, what does it matter, it’s not important/ maybe not to those who’ve given up/those who don’t care/those who just want a beer and a good nite out/maybe pick up some skirt too eh?/but it matters to those who still care/those who still kick against the pricks/and it matters that an ideal can be degraded by the weight of hypocrisy coming from those that hold the microphones/ It matters that there are still many bands, labels, organisations, squats, co-ops, activists trying to do something worthwhile/still trying to fight back without being compromised into irrelevance by the capitalist machine/ People who work and play for their beliefs and ideals and not just to see their names in lights or in the papers or to pocket a few extra quid/DIY NOT EMI remember that mantra?/NOT EMI meant not doing things with or as capitalists do/ Bands promoters and labels that copy the business parasites are no more DIY than Madonna or Billy Graham/Life is a continuous run of compromises our ethics determine where we draw the line/ Pretending to be CRASS, playing at the Empire is a step way over the line/Anyone who thinks this gig is cool either never understood the significance of CRASS or just doesn’t care anymore.
Jon @ctive
“Yes that's right, punk is dead
It's just another cheap product for the
consumers head
Bubblegum rock on plastic transistors
Schoolboy sedition backed by big time promoters
CBS promote the Clash
Ain't for revolution, it's just for cash
Punk became a fashion just like hippy used to be
Ain't got a thing to do with you or me”
