Music and politics

by **streeb** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 2:49 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>and then the whole madchester thing which eventually got Blur elected<hr></blockquote> Ha ha!! Seamus - first band I ever saw live was SLF in Hull, either 79 or 80. I still can't believe my dad let me go - Hull was a coach ride away from my town. Notwithstanding Robert Reed's fine post about PJ Rourke's Clash T-shirts, the bottom line for me is that bands like the Clash and SLF put my head straight. Looking back, I think SLF was probably a little more righteous and naive, the Clash a little more complex and cynical, but the results at the time were good. When the Miner's Strike happened, me and my friends STARTED a band, JUST to play at a benefit. Friendcatcher - "Fascist Groove Thang" was by Heaven 17, who were largely crap, but that song was massive at my school and a lot of us visited a dictionary to find out what "fascist" meant. Of course, it WAS in the air at the time. Every week, the NME brought politics to youth. It was probably misguided, because Red Wedge was one of the more ostentatious results and was - as you say - a little diabolical. I remember the Redskins coming out against it, which confused me at the time. Neil Kinnock cosying up to Paul Weller etc was a dry run for Cool Britannia, I guess. What a rip. "Laddism", ecstasy, baggy and all that (much as I loved Stone Roses and Happy Mondays) closed the door on political consciousness in the UK's pop culture. Oasis and Blur sealed it. Getting back to Paul Weller: I grew up in Grimsby, and once the Jam folded and Style Council began, most of Weller's fans became what we called "Dressers". I suppose they were distantly related to the Mods, but their entire purpose was to take on the trappings of prosperity, even if it meant (and it usually did) stealing fucking Benetton sweaters. To a man, the Dressers were violent, stupid, and actively opposed to the left wing. Very ironic given Weller's efforts, (and another illustration of Robert Reed's point). Don't know what it was like anywhere else, but that was Grimsby in the '80s.

by **friend catcher** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 3:11 pm

I'm glad to see the world as I remember it confirmed from independent sources. Heaven 17- Of course it was. And the south Manchester dressers were close first cousins to the Grimsby Dressers with the possible exception of drinking huge quantities of cider and football related violence with Man City Everything I grew up with in music got chucked in the bin around 1988, i noticed it on a visit to the much derided Hacienda which had been a wateringhole for skint students like me. From being quiet as a graveyard to the the repetitive beats and whistlblasts of Acid House in less than a month. Place was suddenly crushed with Ecstacy happy children and hi energy dancing. Beyond that were raves and tripping and no cares beyond making it to the next one. Some people I knew made the transition into that culture with ease and enthusiasm but I never did. Think maybe that people who came of age to that soundtrack will have little to feast on in a musical nostalgia fest such as this(cue serious slagging)

by **streeb** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 3:34 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>And the south Manchester dressers were close first cousins to the Grimsby Dressers with the possible exception of drinking huge quantities of cider and football related violence with Man City<hr></blockquote> Ah yes... rest assured, our dressers were legless on snakebite and breaking heads on behalf of Grimsby Town FC. One of the weirdest things that ever happened to me: Chelsea was playing Grimsby in some round of the FA Cup - I would have been about 16 or 17, so sometime in 83 or 84 - and the entire town was shut down. People didn't leave their houses that day, because we knew what we were in for. I didn't give a shit about football and was determined to go out, and I did, and on the way home, I managed walk right into the riot that was predictably taking place on the High Street in Cleethorpes. I was with my friend Ranting Robin Rabies (he was a Ranting Poet, ahem) and somehow, we managed to float through the battlefield unmolested. It was as if our PROFOUND disgust with the situation protected us. We just walked right through, shaking our heads, pointing things out to each other. And trust me, it was CHAOS and we should have been injured. At one point a panda car came screaming around the corner, hit some kid, and he landed with his head on backwards. It was fucked. The next day, and the day after that, there wasn't a single word - not one - in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph. I've had a couple instances now of inexplicable fearlessness, and I've somehow avoided a beat down or worse.

by **friend catcher** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 3:53 pm

Glad to hear you passed unscathed through the Chelsea hardcore. I think I always had the opposite luck and got twatted without reason by neanderthals from every club that had them.The penalty of living in a town with two clubs. Chelsea had a serious national front presence in those days and I had a few encounters when i was a student at the art school near the stamford bridge shit shack. This isn't the thread for a discussion of the mafia takeover at Chelsea but I'm inclined to do some digging on Abramovich, seems this mafia golden boy hasn't been touched in the European press for some reason.

by **Joe Hillshoist** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 6:09 am

Huh we are worse than old hippies. all the good music finished by 1985....<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"> <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"> Seamus i should have guessed you were into stiff little fingers. this whole board is a bit of a suspect device. system of a Down are good. great fun to listen too and I still jump about. The saints before Chris bailey sold his arse. Me ole mate from Mindinao, Datu, his stuff is political, but not in the way we understand politics. same with Blackfellas like Archie Roach, my minds gone blank..., Wurumpi band, "Treaty" was political. Paul kelly, (aussie songwriter) has a few gems, but they are really locally based. as was Goanna band in the old days. Midnight Oil. Especially red sails and triple especially 10 to 1. And before. Every teenager in Australia grew up listening to that music, or avoiding it. "The US forces give the nod Its a setback for your country..." Insurge put out as couple of good discs in the 90s. Poison Idea, well they are not really political, but anger is good.... Heaven 17... well now I've heard it all. And Paul weller, was he a psy op? or just a prat who had a way with words? I used to love the Jam. but I still love hearing the specials. there's heaps of good political hip hop btw especially in OZ. BTW HMKGrey who posts here reckons that rave culture and e's helped stop football violence in England for a while. I had heard that before, what say you lot? EDITED FOR: oh yeah music and politics - ever hear of Billy Bragg? Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=joehillshoist>Joe Hillshoist</A> at: 7/3/06 4:25 am

by **Joe Hillshoist** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 6:19 am

This thread is weird, first 2 pages now 3, maybe I am a bit too wasted... Anyway the goths weren't all drivel. Nemesis In a jungle of the senses Tinkerbell and Jack the ripper Love has no meaning, not where they come from But we know pleasure is not that simple Very little fruit is forbidden Sometimes we wobble, sometimes we're strong But you know evil is an exact science Being carefully correctly wrong Chorus Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals Everybody happy as the dead come home Big Black Nemesis, parthenogenesis No one move a muscle as the dead come home We feel like Greeks, we feel like Romans Centaurs and monkeys just cluster round us We drink elixirs that we refine from the juices of the dying We are no monsters, we're moral people and yet we have the strength to do this This is the splendour of our achievement Call in the airstrike with a poison kiss Chorus Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals Everybody happy as the dead come home Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis No-one move a muscle as the dead come home How bad it gets, you can't imagine the burning wax, the breath of reptiles god is not mocked, he knows our business Karma could take us at any moment Cover him up.....I think we're finished You know it's never been so exotic but I don't know, my dreams are visions We could still end up with the great big fishes Chorus Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals Everybody happy as the dead come home Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis No-one move a muscle as the dead come home From Oil and Gold, by shriekback.

by **Joe Hillshoist** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 9:48 am

Hows this for an awesome hip hop song. it got constant national airplay on triplej last year, or the year b4 - whenever it came out. Starship Trooper Lost in deep cover, “Dear John,” said his lover’s last letter Emptied a full clip to feel better, Slipped a rung on Jacob's ladder, Desert boot camp deserter got stung by death adder, Don’t get mad get even madder, A10 tank killer fodder, Interrogate? Why bother… My brother for a last cigarette, no please not yet One last dance, lest we regret Look me in the eye, GI, and tell me you’re not tired, Tired to death sir, tired till it hurts Now this shit couldn’t get much worse Well it may… We march at the break of day And come what may, rules of engagement say We will stand to the very last, shrapnel blast A casket goes home…. Sons and daughters wrapped in stars and stripes to keep ‘em warm (background voice “Give peace a chance…that doesn’t mean anything” “It’s like give peace a chance”) Under red orange dawn we draw the line And those on the other side must stand and fight Tracers like fourth of July in the night Lighting up like Hiroshima… The perfect sight **** CHORUS****** I’m a Starship Trooper This is my letter to dad, transferred from Saigon to Baghdad And now I’m dead… An allied soldier, with skin boils from Ebola I’ll bring you back a souvenir of what we stole Repeat I was only nineteen Joined for the pay packet Now my full metal jacket won’t take one more hit I don’t give two shits about oil interests But depleted uranium, just gave Joe a fit Captain Kurtz said, “fight till the hurt stops“ Yet all I can see is burned crops And mates shell-shocked Morphine under lock and key Their AK’s talking to my M16 Pray for friendly fire Haven’t seen a priest, but plenty of funeral pyres Triage nurse is dying My name in the paper Next to a faceless dictator And another flag to drape Hey yo, check Here’s the commanding officer A total mess again Crying in the mess tent How to make mice or mince meat of his men…. ****CHORUS***** Repeat I’m a Starship Trooper This is my letter to dad Transferred from Saigon to Baghdad And now I’m dead An allied soldier…………………..(with skin boils from ebola. I'll bring you back a bit...) Big thank you to the little ozi batter for that one.

by **robertdreed** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 2:08 pm

That rap is powerful. It reminds me of "Machine Gun" by Jimi Hendrix. Speaking of a 1960s song that turned a lot of minds around- and, unlike present-day songs containing anti-establishment political content, it actually got considerable play on the radio when it first came out, and for several years after. It's a measure of how nutless format "classic rock" radio has been since the dawn of the Reagan era, that that song has gone unaccountably missing from their playlists. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 7/3/06 12:15 pm

by **robertdreed** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 2:16 pm

That Shriekback song reigns supreme. Easily one of the highlights of the 1980s. My favorite part We are no monsters, we're moral people LOL. The lyric, and the delivery...

by **Joe Hillshoist** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 9:45 am

I turned on the radio this morn and Starship troopers was one of the first songs that came on. Gotta love synchro. And nemesis goes off. I saw a live video of it on rage once. That show would have been worth seeing. I always loved the song but as the years passed... the chorus made sense to me growing up in the 80s, but as time goes on you just have to wonder what inspired it. I have heard that Hunter S Thompson refers to adrenochrome, a substance distilled from sacrifice victims blood, as one of the most intense drugs he ever took, but that was so long ago now, long before that movie with Johhny Depp or whoever was in it. Which I never saw, and I never read that Fear and loathing, where he is supposed to refer to it. I have heard others refer to it over the years, but never any printed references. Except one. A weird book, that scared me more than the necronomicon ever could. It was a weird manuscript published by Loompanics back in the 90s. It had a disclaimer, one that referred to how it turned up unsigned at the office, with a reference to the fact that it was a former member of the group that had seen the wrongness of it who provided it. If you lot want a conspiracy... As much as I believe anything its RAWs spagetti theory of conspiracy... But this book and the intervening years have tested that belief. And the weirdest thing is that I went straight to a bank to get the cash, came back and it was gone. (There was no way I was buying a book that had the stuff in it it did on a card). it was gone when I got back. It was about 80 to 100 pages long, all white, can't remember the title, I saw the loompanics logo and for same reason grabbed it. But in the bookshelf it was almost invisible, tucked away with much more interesting things around it. It was the manifesto of a group that were working to instigate a one world fascist dictatorship based on slavery (via wage slavery), black magic and human sacrifice. the group had no ideals or racial grounds, discrimination was on the grounds of intelligence and lack of compassion only. These people seemed to know their stuff and sketched out an agenda that has since skirted very close to reality. there was no specific reference to the twin towers, but it sounded like the PNAC would suit its agenda, and it was working toward using the US as its main (though temporary) base. I try to think of it as a fake or hoax ala the infamous Protocols (which are fake, read them carefully), but it seemed a very accurate predictive document. It was in Polyester books, an offshoot of Polyester records, which used to have oil and gold bTW. I still have a copy of O & G on vinyl somewhere in my parents house, or my brother has it.

by **friend catcher** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 10:04 am

Synchronicity strikes back. After previous discussions on punk=good, goth= useless, etc I found a torrent for Sisters of Mercy and played it see if it's utter crap or not. Start to read the previous post by Joe where he mentions andrenochrome whilst simultaneously track 18 of SoS download begins - called andrenochrome. Never even heard the effing word untill today and then two sources in five seconds.

by **Joe Hillshoist** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 11:18 am

Thats a bit weird.

by **robertdreed** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 2:23 pm

Adrenochrome is mentioned in the book Drugs And The Mind, by Robert S. DeRopp, which came out in about 1962. At the time, it was one of the few generally available books out containing references to mind-altering drugs, and their effects. (The real explosion in the literature of psychedelics didn't begin until the mid-late 1980s, and 1990s.) Adrenochrome is mentioned in Drugs And The Mind. One thing about it that is noted is that it comes from decomposing adrenalin- not, as HST stated on Fear And Loathing, from the fresh stuff. And I seem to recal that it requires injection to work- unlike Thompson's scenario, in which it is imbibed by mouth, from a tiny bottle. The effects are different, too- including splitting headache, and the appearance of a large glowing red spot at the center of one's vision. Hunter Thompson was always on about educated drug use...I have little to no doubt that he had read Drugs And The Mind, and "adapted" some of the details to his account, which is almost certainly an over-the-top fictional fable. There's even a moral to the story- don't go playing Alice In Wonderland with shit you just heard about two minutes ago...

by **Seamus OBlimey** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 2:47 pm

Because Andrenochrome (the song) was a big hit at the goth nightclub I used to visit (only because it was the only place open after the pubs had shut, honest). I never had a clue it was some kinda drug, I'd probably have gone looking for some if I had known. I do know the Goths always thought they were better than us punks. I thought that was because they wore more make-up and washed regular but maybe they did know more? <blockquote>Quote:<hr>BTW HMKGrey who posts here reckons that rave culture and e's helped stop football violence in England for a while. I had heard that before, what say you lot?<hr></blockquote> Yeah I think I can vouch for that, but I saw it more from an anarcho punk angle thus.. When the pigs (and I don't use that term lightly) trashed the free festivals (1985..) The punks and hippies stayed in their squatted warehouses through the summer and hosted raves instead of heading for the countryside where they knew the pigs were waiting. So a lot of townies (ie. dressers) got into weed and ecstacy and dancing and making friends. I never attended sporting events at the time but I know anti fascist groups were openly handing out leaflets to football crowds and football violence became a big taboo. I know the band Chumbawamba and a group called AFA (anti fascist action) played a big part in this locally but not much more detail.. anyone wanna fill me in? I have to admit I completely missed Shrieback so I've some catching up to do. Yeah Joe, how could any rebel not be into SLF.. we had hundreds of years of "troubles" and never needed laws like they tell us we need now. Perhaps domestic terrorists are more acceptable than those bloody foreigners? Keep on rocking in the free world!

by **Joe Hillshoist** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 10:20 pm

Seamus that old U2 cover "Van Diemens land" could have been written about some of my ancestors... It probably was actually, and others too of course. Certainly fits. Haven't yet traced them back to Ireland, they were in tassie by the 1830s tho. One of the family names was Manion. If that means anything. Robert thanks for the info on what HST was talking about. The relationship between adrenochrome and schizophrenia is an interesting one. I have also heard some epileptics synthesise it in their systems. There is a ref in the "we drink elixers" thread.

Music and politics

Re: SLF

Thanks Streeb and Seamus

Re: Thanks Streeb and Seamus

Media silence

Re: clash city rockers!

Re: clash city rockers!

Re: clash city rockers!

Starship Troopers

Shriekback

Re: Shriekback

Re: Shriekback

Re: Shriekback

Adrenochrome

RE: That's a bit weird

Re: RE: That's a bit weird

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