The
One: Artistic Events That Change Lives.
Have any of you thought about those events that are known
collectively as The One? I used to call them ultimages, that is to say,
ultimate images. I refer to books, films, paintings or music that we
encounter for the first time and which suddenly transform our lives in
some significant manner. I gave this some thought recently because some
of these items either no longer interest me or else my relationship to
them has changed since their discovery.
Ron
Grainer: Doctor Who
– discovered circa 1969.
I assume we are talking 1969 because Patrick Troughton was still
playing The Doctor. What makes this piece so effective is not so much
the music itself but the superlative arrangement by Delia Derbyshire,
hammered together at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop where she worked
throughout the 1960s. It could have been 1968 I suppose but I think it
unlikely that ones’ memory is reliable before 4 years of age. This
music constitutes an ultimage because it is the first piece of music I
ever consciously remember hearing. It is also the first piece of music I
learnt to play (albeit very badly) on a piano.
Ludwig
Van Beethoven: Symphony No.5
– discovered in 1976.
At ten years old I had no real interest in music except for
certain television signature tunes, my favourites being Doctor Who,
Panorama (which in those days used the 4th movement of the 1st Symphony
by Sergei Rachmaninov) and the BBC World Service science programme
Discovery which used part of the Suite No.1 by Igor Stravinsky. This
last case is ironic since I absolutely loathe and detest everything else
he wrote! I also liked The Sweeney by Harry South, mainly because I
associated it with fast cars hurtling through grim, deserted east London
streets, litter blowing across the screen and so on. I had already
become aware that I was ugly and disabled so when this boy Harding
offered to sell me a long playing record for 50p, I bought it not
because I wanted it but because I was grateful that anyone was willing
to speak to me.
When I played it at home that evening, I was abruptly flung into
heaven. It was not always a pleasant place – parts of it terrified me
– but it was also grand, profound and occasionally glorious terrain
that I was desperate to explore. Before my 11th birthday I had, via
evening and weekend jobs (my parents never gave me pocket money) saved
up sufficient funds to acquire the complete symphonies and piano
concerti by Beethoven. They don’t all make the grade – to this day I
am unable to understand all the fuss made over the Eroica symphony –
so much bluster, bellicose noise and shouting – give me the 8th every
time, a magnificent and hugely under-rated work.
Anthony
Burgess: 1985
– discovered in 1977.
I knew about all the furore caused by the Stanley Kubrick film A
Clockwork Orange. I wanted to read the original novel but in the second
hand book shop, the only one by Burgess was 1985 so I bought that
instead. To say I was impressed is like saying world war two was rather
irritating. I bought and read 1984 by George Orwell as a result. I
then threw it in the canal in disgust; what utterly trite,
over-rated garbage! But the Burgess book led me back to the book shop
(Popular Books, a small chain of second hand stores that were brilliant
for children and unemployed people – sadly these shops no longer
exist, possibly because hardly anybody reads books these days) where I
discovered science fiction (see below).
Edgar
Varése: Arcana
– discovered in 1979.
By this time I had acquired a formidable collection of classical
records – Sergei Prokofiev, Gabriel Faure, Paul Hindemith and Gustav
Holst being my favourites. At my second secondary school (Arnewood in
New Milton, Hampshire) was this art teacher called Mr Mastrand. I am
forced to admit that all art teachers are either alcoholics, paedophiles
or bonkers. Fortunately for me, Mastrand was just bonkers. He was also
the most arrogant snob I have ever met. At each art class we were
assailed with Stockhausen, Berio and Xenakis at armour piercing volume.
This may be why to this day most avant garde classical music appeals to
the more homicidal side of my nature. Then one morning he played this
1927 gem by Varése. I knew it wasn’t proper music. I knew I
shouldn’t allow myself to like it. However, I asked Mastrand if I
could borrow it. He was so shocked that anyone should actually want to
listen to one of his horrible racket records he almost crapped himself
with gratitude. By the end of the week I was convinced. The album was
deleted and it took me years before I eventually managed to track down a
copy in a second hand shop (Harold Moore in Great Marleborough Street).
Thanks to Arcana I realised that music could relinquish traditional
melody, harmony and rhythm yet still be valid and enjoyable.
Patrick
Moore: The Sky At Night
– discovered some time during the late 1970s.
I still can’t remember when I first sat and watched The Sky At
Night. I don’t think punk rock had happened so it may have been before
1976. For the benefit of overseas readers, The Sky At Night is in the
Guinness Book Of Records on two counts. First, it is the longest running
television programme with the same presenter (Patrick Moore) and second,
it is the longest running television programme with the same signature
tune (At The Castle Gate by Jean Sibelius, the greatest composer Finland
produced and one of the top ten greatest composers who ever lived). It
is a 25 minute programme broadcast very late at night once a month,
usually at about 1 o’clock in the morning on a Monday on BBC1 and
repeated on BBC2 a week later. It is the one truly educational and
informative astronomy programme on British television and its format has
never changed since it was first broadcast in April 1957. Admittedly the
graphics are somewhat better now. I have seen excerpts from some of the
early broadcasts and the sets appeared to be constructed from cardboard
and plasticine. Patrick Moore evidently made a significant impact on me
because I have never believed in God, flying saucers or ghosts. My
rational, humanist, logical beliefs firmly grounded in pure science are
attributable to him because, as a result of the programme, I started to
borrow astronomy books from the library written by him and people he
recommended such as Fred Hoyle and Isaac Asimov. I believe I can even
attribute my libertarian beliefs to this programme. I remember being
absolutely astounded – almost intimidated – by the gargantuan
immensity of both time and distance when one studies the universe. This
put nationalism, racial purity and political squabbles very clearly into
their true perspectives.
John
Wyndham: The Midwich Cuckoos
– discovered in 1980.
Authors dread their books being placed on the school curriculum
reading list; they know that children will learn to hate them and thus
avoid those authors for ever afterwards. However, when we were set The
Chrysalids by our English teacher, Mr Holmes, I think I wanted to like
it because Holmes was one of the very few decent teachers at Alton
County Secondary School where generally I suffered seven shades of hell
and abuse at the hands of most of the other cowardly thugs who taught
there. (For a full account of this disgusting school, see the relevant
article in the booklet that accompanies our album ‘Rock In
Opposition.’) When I told Holmes I enjoyed science fiction but not the
silly American bug eyed monster stories, he told me I might find other
books by Wyndham of interest. He also gave me the names of Arthur C
Clarke and Isaac Asimov. Mr Holmes, if you are still alive (highly
probable) and reading this (highly improbable): thank you. I purchased
no less than 4 Wyndham books that summer: Day Of The Triffids, Trouble
With Lichen, The Kraken Wakes and The Midwich Cuckoos. They were all
highly enjoyable but the latter story, written in 1957, was just simply
the best book I had ever read by anyone ever. It is an unfortunate fact
that most science fiction novels are bereft of much character
development since the hardware and science allegedly leaves little room
for it. A writer of quality (Clarke, Asimov, Wyndham) will generally
prove this does not have to be the case. Without qualification I
recommend this book to anyone, including people not interested in
science fiction.
Roberto
Gerhard: Collages
– discovered in 1981.
Still fascinated by Doctor Who, I discovered that some of the
electronic sounds used in it were created by a modern classical
composer, Roberto Gerhard. The first record of his I ever encountered
was Collages, composed in 1960, for orchestra and tape. It was the first
piece to combine electronic sounds with a live orchestra and even though
it really was a little too avant garde for me, parts of it fascinated me
and to this day it remains one of my favourite pieces of music.
Hans
Werner Henze: The Tedious Way To The Place Of Natascha Ungeheuer
– discovered in 1982.
Britain was aflame. Thousands of working class people took to the
streets and rioted. Was this an expression of their response to
Thatcher? If so, why had they voted for her in 1979? Other people my age
who were aware of politics listened to The Jam if they were intelligent
or ‘oi’ punk rock if they were not. I was still not interested in
pop music. To me it was all so conservative, so closeted and so
tediously conventional that I simply could not take it seriously. To
this day I can’t remember how I encountered this piece. I do remember
I was in HMV on Oxford Street. I looked at the cover and it simply did
not look like a classical record. Here was this young black man in army
fatiques in front of a brass quintet, each wearing world war two battle
helmets. The percussionist Stomu Yamashta was bashing lumps out of an
old car. I looked at the reverse and read the line-up: a jazz quintet
was included among the performers.
I was already familiar with Henze via his 2nd Symphony and his
superlative cantata The Raft Of The Medusa. I took a risk and bought the
record. Before the end of the week I think I had played it over a dozen
times and driven my neighbours to distraction…or ear muffs at least.
The music is nothing special – typical of the noisome racket composers
tended to make in 1971. However, the text, by Chilean poet Gaston
Salvatore, was something completely different. First, it inspired me to
learn German. Second, it inspired me to study political movements and
the history of class struggle in the world but (and this is crucial) not
purely from a Marxist perspective. Third, it persuaded me to add
intellectual rigour to my own lyrics which I had begun to write a couple
of years earlier.
Five
Or Six: Folded – then everything else
– discovered in 1983.
I purchased a compilation album called Perspectives To Distortion
because it contained a track by The Lemon Kittens whom I had discovered
the previous year when they played at the Africa Centre in Covent
Garden. They were supported by Twelve Cubic Feet, the group I had
actually gone to see because my own little band, The Apostles, had
supported them on numerous occasions at concerts we played in and around
London that year. Their drummer was the older brother of our guitarist,
Pete Bynghall. What? Oh yes, Five Or Six – well, I’d never heard of
them but I played the whole album (most of it is utter rubbish) except
Folded which I played to death. I reckon I wore the record so thin in
that part that it was virtually transparent. Before the end of the year
I had just about everything that marvellous group released. Their
existence proved that ‘pop music’ could be original, innovative,
eclectic and, most importantly, intelligent. Their influence on my own
compositions is profound. Now for the absurd part: at the time of
writing (March 2005) none of their records have been reissued on CD.
Arthur
C Clarke: A Fall Of Moondust
– discovered in 1984.
For years I wanted to read a science fiction book devoid of bug
eyed monsters which presented its protagonists with a purely scientific
problem and then proceeded to find a solution by strictly plausible
scientific means. This excellent novel not only fulfils this function
but achieves it with verve, excitement and quiet dignity. If anyone
wants to know how to write proper science fiction then they should read
this book first. I read it again in 2004 and it was just as brilliant,
perhaps more so since I had completed a home study course in physics and
astronomy by 1997 and I was able to appreciate properly the impact of
the problem and the elegance of its solution. As usual, Clarke populates
his story with interesting and convincing characters.
The
Wall: Dirges & Anthems (the whole album) – discovered in 1985.
This strange album is of interest because it is the closest I
ever came to liking a punk record. It was released in 1982 and came with
a free 7” single. Allegedly they were a punk band but this music
contains interesting melodies, memorable harmonies and intelligent
lyrics, 3 factors never normally associated with punk rock. I discovered
this band via a glue sniffing punk who briefly stayed at our house that
summer when Boris Becker won at Wimbledon. I still don’t really know
why I like this band so much; I collected their entire recorded
repertoire and I still enjoy it to this day. However, typically, this
album and the singles from this time have yet to be reissued on CD.
Fred
Hoyle: Frontiers Of Astronomy
– discovered in 1988.
During the latter days of The Apostles a few people began to
write letters to me. I was always the least approachable member of the
band (apparently) so I tended to receive less mail than the others.
However, many people who purchased our records became acquainted with my
fascination for and knowledge of physics and astronomy. This provoked
some interesting correspondence and on one occasion I mentioned on a
record cover that I had been trying to locate a copy of this book,
written in 1955 and long since out of print. It is a classic and it
turned Fred Hoyle into a household name provided those houses were
inhabited by intelligent people. Well, this sporting chap from Brighton
sent me a copy he had found in a second hand shop. I sent him a free
copy of the next Apostles record which, in retrospect, I consider hardly
fair. I definitely had the more profitable part of the exchange there.
The book was even better than I expected. I had never been satisfied
with the assertion propagated by so many scientists that the ‘big
bang’ model of the creation of the universe was an accurate
description of events. The ‘steady state’ model depicted in this
book, while imperfect, is so much more logical and convincing that even
now I find it difficult to take any other model seriously. I am in a
minority, true, but that does not mean I am wrong.
Ice
T: Lethal Weapon
and Freedom Of Speech – discovered in 1989.
The Apostles were booked to play a couple of concerts in
Scotland. So there I was, sat in this comfortable house in Leith,
Edinburgh, when Jess Hopkins played me an album called Freedom Of Speech
by someone called Ice T. That is how I discovered rap and hip hop. Thank
you, Jess. Now, bare in mind I didn’t listen to pop music radio
stations and I didn’t own a television. I was aware that there was
this new black music genre called rap or hip hop but I paid scant
attention since my only other encounters with black music were soul
(which I found rather boring) and reggae (which I hated). I was so
shocked and impressed that when I tried to put on my hat I was scarcely
able to find my head. I wanted to discover more…so (see below).
NWA:
Straight Outa Compton (the whole album) – discovered in 1990.
The next year I returned to Edinburgh. The Apostles had disbanded
and I went purely to escape from London for a week. I visited Jess again
and he played me some truly horrible pop rubbish by some American bands
but he also treated me to this rap outfit called Niggers With Attitude.
I thought it was impossible to be more powerful and direct than Ice T. I
was wrong. The whole album was a revelation. When I attended the punks
picnic on Cramond Island, I was perplexed and frankly irritated that
anyone could still find punk rock at all relevant. Most people there no
longer wanted to know me because, with the demise of The Apostles, I was
no longer a minor pop star and so not worth their attention. I suppose
it was the raw, white hot aggression in NWA to which I could relate.
The
Prodigy: Crazy Man
– discovered in 1993.
I had begun to spend Monday evenings at the Hippodrome in the
west end of London with my Vietnamese pals. Monday was Chinese night and
it was there that Tony (Chau Hoang) introduced me to techno, rave and
dance music. The first piece I heard that I recall clearly was this
‘b’ side by what became one of my favourite groups. From this
auspicious start evolved my entrance into the whole rave culture scene
and I quickly became addicted.
Sidney
Lumet: The Offence
– discovered in 1993.
Sean Stokes moved into our house for a few months in 1993 and
brought with him his television. I hadn’t even seen a television since
1983 so the novelty was amazing. The technology had advanced so much
that for a couple of weeks I could watch almost any old crap just to
marvel at the new slick, smooth presentation provided by linear editing
combined with digital graphics. However, it was a film made in 1972 that
made me realise what I had missed during the decade I deliberately
avoided the one eyed god. This film shows Sean Connery and Ian Bannen at
their very best. I have never seen better acting, anywhere, ever. Even
the sound track, by British classical noise merchant Harrison Birtwistle,
is entirely appropriate: clarinet and electronics create a subtle,
disturbing background at specific tense moments during the events which
are told in a non-linear fashion, very much in the manner of Reservoir
Dogs by Quentin Tarantino. I had never heard of this film before. The
story of the rape of a small girl in a suburban new town like Milton
Keynes is given an unsettling twist when it transpires that there is
literally not one sympathetic character in the entire film. Bannen plays
the prime suspect but even at the end of the film we realise he may have
been innocent. Connery plays the neurotic police inspector who is
incessantly haunted by images of all the past atrocities he has
witnessed in the line of duty. Trevor Howard plays the hard, bitter,
cynical detective inspector called upon to head the investigation into
the death of the prime suspect after he is accidentally killed by the
police inspector during the interrogation. The interrogation itself is
surely one of the most intense scenes in the entire history of cinema
anywhere in the world. I purchased this film as soon as it was released
on video in 1999 and although I’ve watched it at least 6 times so far,
I have yet to grow bored with even a second of it. I most emphatically
recommend this strong, intensely disturbing film to anyone who enjoys
intelligent cinema at its best.
The
Chemical Brothers: Leave Home
– discovered in 1994.
Tony also introduced me to the works of the Dust duo soon afterwards at a nightclub rave he organised himself with his pals. This number was frequently requested by the punters and I could understand why. When I hear this now, I automatically think of crowds of travellers and protesters lined up in woodland across the country as we tried to prevent the destruction of our forests by property developers. I think of all the derelict buildings we squatted where we held our own raves and created a revolution we could dance to. I think of the excitement, the ‘buzz’, as we all celebrated a culture we had invented. ‘The brother’s gonna work it out’ indeed!
Ng Wu Sum:
Bullet In The Head –
discovered in 1996.
Yuen Woo Ping:
Tiger Cage – discovered in
1996.
T F Mous: Men
Behind The Sun – discovered
in 1996.
As I’ve had Chinese friends since I was at school, it is odd that only in 1996 did I properly discover Chinese films and that was initially due to Dave Fanning more than most of my Chinese and Vietnamese friends. Theban Dang introduced me to many obscure Hong Kong films that were not (and in some cases are still not) available in the west. The three films listed are all of equal importance in the effect Chinese cinema had upon me. Previously I had only ever seen parts of Chinese films, bereft of English subtitles, at friends houses, watched by their parents. My pals tended to be more interested in the latest action films from America which was frustrating for me but totally understandable. They had grown up with Chinese films and were bored with them, even those they liked. Oddly, it is the Chinese and Vietnamese people born in Britain who often exhibit a greater interest in Chinese films because often they have not been so rigorously exposed to them during their childhood. Anyway, these 3 films cast me into the world of Chinese cinema. Little did I realise then that only 8 years later, in 2004, I would finish the first textbook ever written outside China that gives a detailed history of Chinese films from 1905 to 1997. To date I have nearly 400 Chinese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong films in my collection. That’s how much these 3 films inspired me.
Joanne
Rowling: Harry Potter & The Philosophers Stone
– discovered in 2000.
My previous experience of popular cultural icons had already
taught me to avoid any mainstream items, be they on film, on record or
in print. I bought this book for the younger brother of one of the
members of Unit (I prefer not to identify him because I wish to prevent
any embarrassment it may otherwise cause him or his family) who was
having serious problems learning to read and write at school. The Potter
phenomenon was at its height and this Chinese family were as middle of
the road as anyone. However, being curious, I decided to read the book
first. The rest, as they say, is history. That book had the same effect
on me as it had evidently upon millions of other children around the
world. That week I purchased The Chamber Of Secrets, The Prisoner Of
Azkaban and The Goblet Of Fire. By the end of the year, my office at
work was plastered in Harry Potter posters.
King
Crimson: The Construction Of Light (the whole album)
– discovered in 2001.
It was Dave who made me realise that progressive rock was not
simply an interesting but historical curiosity. But whereas it is true
he introduced me to the delights of KC, I was not totally impressed with
their work, except for two pieces, I Talk To The Wind (1969) and
Fracture (1974). I was curious when I discovered that there were 3 later
incarnations of the band: 1981-1984, 1995-1997 and a contemporary one
that is currently active. Now I am familiar with what happens when a
band splits up and then reforms a decade later: all the originality,
vitality and innovation vanishes; it is replaced by the sound of some
tired old men playing middle of the road rock. The evidence is there if
you wish to become depressed and cynical about pop music: Deep Purple,
The Groundhogs, Wire, The Buzzcocks and even Alternative TV although
they at least were never as woefully embarrassing as the efforts of the
others. Colosseum almost manage to sound decent but they still sound
like a bunch of dads. Crimson break this tragic mould entirely,
primarily because they never attempt to recreate the music for which
they became associated in their former incarnations. Thus each new
version of the group is a new progression with young ideas. The discs
released by the 1990s version of the group actually sound like the
raucous transmissions of some slightly unhinged bunch of American
teenagers from Seattle. Suitably intrigued, I bought their 2001 album
second hand from Reckless Records in Islington for £4.99. I could not
believe what I was hearing: here was music that was young, vibrant, full
of energy and it bristled with bold, brave ideas yet two of the group
members were almost old enough to be my grandfather! When I am their
age, I want to be able to release music like that.
Simon
Hughes: A Lot Of Hard Yakka
– discovered in 2002.
I have no idea why I began to love cricket but I clearly remember
switching on the television one afternoon in 1969 or 1970 (I don’t
think I had started school yet) and being fascinated by all these men in
white track suits and black caps, most of whom just stood there and did
nothing to help this frantic fellow who every half an hour dashed up to
a trio of sticks and hurled a ball to knock over a further trio of
sticks at the other end. Sadly, this idiot with a block of wood in his
hands kept knocking the ball away. Maybe that is part of the reason I
became a bowler and fielder rather than a batsman. Anyway, when I was in
The Apostles, Bynghall reminded me of the delights of cricket. I started
to listen to Test Match Special on Radio 3 (medium wave). Viv Richards
had started to reduce bowlers to tears around the world and Ian Botham
was in his prime. It was a marvellous time to become interested in
cricket again. Fast forward to one rainy afternoon in Islington.
Reckless Records was closed so I stepped into this charity shop a few
doors down the road on Upper Street. There was nothing to interest me
but, because I had no wish to have gone all the way there for nothing, I
spent £1 on this book in the belief that I might read it one day. I had
never bought sports books because, to me, sport is something you do, not
something you read about. Well, I soon realised why Hughes is such a
popular sports writer. That he was a first rate bowler for his counties
(he played for first Middlesex then Durham) also helped. I was hooked. I
wanted to read another book like that. What is important is that it
persuaded me to take up cricket again, despite my disability. I have
since bowled our youth club team to victory on 3 occasions (and, let’s
be honest, batted them to defeat on 2 other occasions). In 5 matches I
have made 15 catches and taken 47 wickets but only scored 23 runs, 17 of
those in one uncharacteristic innings. My batting skill is such that I
have been out first ball no less than 4 times.
The
Charlatans: Weirdo
and The Wish – discovered in 2004.
In November 2003, Garlen Lo joined UNIT, thanks to U-J. He
finished his university degree course at the Surrey Institute Of Art
& Design in April and an exhibition of successful students work was
staged in Bethnal Green in May. I had arranged to meet Garlen there to
watch his 20 minute film and discuss his plans for the group for the
next 6 months. It was soon evident we had very little in common in terms
of our musical tastes. He did not share my enthusiasm for progressive
rock, gangsta rap, drum & bass, techno and rave. I could not
comprehend his delight in The Libertines, Oasis and Brit Pop. During the
1990s when my mates and I went clubbing, Brit Pop was to us just some
silly retro sixties fad that we all dismissed with thinly disguised
contempt. However, I had to wait for an hour or so in this pub next door
while Garlen helped his tutors and fellow students set all this
technical gear up and obviously I was unable to assist in such an
activity so I stayed out of their way. This pub was run by and for
middle class trendy art school types. I have no complaints – it was
the sort of pub you could take your children to, if children were
allowed into pubs, which they are not, because this Britain and Britain
lives in fear of anything and everything even remotely associated with
freedom.
Anyway, on comes this music: a break beat with Hammond organ and
swirling vocals. This is followed by another similar number only this
time it’s an instrumental. Both pieces sound a little like Bob Dylans’
backing band but with far more interesting music and the bass guitarist
and drummer sound as if they’d rather be recording backing tracks for
NWA. I asked the barman what sort of music this was. ‘It’s The
Charlatans, one of the first Brit Pop bands from Manchester.’ Well,
due to my association with Garlen, he introduced me to Blur and
Radiohead. Finally, he actually managed to convince me that even Oasis
had written a few decent songs before they became boring old men in
1997. As I gradually listened to all those CDs he lent me, I realised
what I’d missed during that decade of raves and clubbing. Never mind,
the records remain. Oddly, The Charlatans are not one of the bands
Garlen rates as highly as the others but, because of that Saturday
afternoon in the pub next to the Truman Gallery, I now associate The
Charlatans with Garlen and the bold new direction he gave to UNIT.
Andy
Martin 6th March 2005.
☺ Now The Dance Is Dead ☺
In November 2004, The Prodigy (the first major pop act to
come from Essex) released their first album since 1997. It reached No.17
in the national charts. In February 2005, The Chemical Brothers
(originally from London but who met at Manchester university and adopted
that mecca of popular culture as their centre of operations for the next
decade) released their first album since 2002. It is currently at No.15
in the national charts. Both these groups were regarded as the epitome
of all that was excellent in what was loosely termed ‘dance music’
in the 1990s. However, much of the material on these two contemporary
releases is hardly what would have been recognised as dance music in
1995 even though on an aesthetic level, the music is among some of the
best these outfits have ever released.
A colour supplement issued with The Guardian newspaper in 2004
proudly announced the death of dance music in a three page review. So
are The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers simply living out the fag-end
of the dance craze in a tedious repetition of those punk bands like
Discharge and The Exploited who tried to keep the rotten corpse of punk
alive after 1977? Were they repeating similar instances of an even
earlier age when beat groups in 1967 reverted to playing cabaret venues
if they were unable or unwilling to mutate into psychedelia like all
their more commercially successful peers? One thinks of the group UK
who, in 1979, tried to prove that progressive rock was still alive and
well. On the contrary, they proved nothing of the kind. Their two
albums, while technically most accomplished, were rather boring and sunk
without trace at the time although they sold reasonably well when they
were reissued on CD in the 1990s, no doubt purchased by middle aged
middle class types alienated by the dance craze that swept the nation at
the time.
The analogy should not be taken too far.
1)
Punk
rock lasted just 3 years, from 1976 to 1979.
2)
It
was a movement in complete isolation with no other musical fashion of
any worth to compete with it.
3)
It
was a direct reaction against the alleged irrelevance of the previously
prevailing musical scene to life in Britain in 1976.
4)
(This
is most crucial) it was musically an extremely conservative genre
afflicted with severe limitations. Technical ability was not only
regarded as unimportant, it was even dismissed as bourgeois! In a
misplaced desire to be direct and honest, the music was simple to the
point of being primitive. Basically, the music had nowhere to go after
every possible permutation had been played, rehashed and regurgitated in
garages and clubs across the land.
5)
The
political posture of most of these groups was precisely that: a pose
designed to boost street credibility.
Perhaps the most odious example of this last salient point is a
group called The Clash whose meticulously manicured record covers
contrived to present the band to their public as a bunch of political
revolutionaries, of aural guerrillas intent upon the downfall of western
capitalism. In fact The Clash had nothing much to say and were bereft of
any means by which to say even that after the first two albums. They
made records for CBS, an American multinational corporation involved in
the arms trade. The nadir was attained in 1980 when they released an
album called Sandinista. The cover showed the four band members lounging
on a flat bed rail truck in some rural setting intended to imply
Nicaragua. Each of them was attired in military combat drag, an allusion
to the Sandinista rebels. This cynical use for personal glorification of
an image by a mere pop group of a nation of people engaged in a struggle
against a military dictatorship is deeply offensive.
Here is where the analogy fails to retain an ability to be
completely convincing.
1)
The
dance craze lasted from 1990 to 1997, over twice as long as punk rock.
2)
It
had to compete with Brit Pop (Blur, Oasis, Pulp and Radiohead being the
most obvious examples) and the burgeoning, relentless march of gangsta
rap (NWA, 2 Pac, Puff Daddy, Ice Cube, Three Six Mafia, Snoop Dogg
Snoopy, Master P, Ghostface, So Solid Crew and a whole host of others).
Brit Pop and Gangsta Rap were hugely successful, both commercially and
aesthetically. Gangsta Rap in particular succeeded where punk rock
failed, that is, it spoke for a marginalized section of society with
wit, anger and eloquence. Even now, in 2005, there are gangsta rap
outfits in operation which, though they now sound a little dated, are
still highly enjoyable and definitely relevant to the social milieu they
represent. Compare that to the lamentable attempt of punk rock in the
1980s whose groups trudged ever further down a vacuous little cul-de-sac
populated by sad social misfits unable to face reality or the passing of
time.
3)
The
third point is also salient. The dance craze was never a reaction
against anything. On the contrary it evolved from a curious amalgam of
American hip hop, European industrial noise groups and a mutation of
disco. When teenagers first flocked to the Spanish island of Ibiza in
1991, their sound track must have sounded like tunes written by aliens
to the local population. A brief digression is in order here. Consider
the two drugs favoured by punks in the late 1970s: amphetamines and
alcohol. Both are killers. Both render the participant incapable of
coherent speech or activity. By contrast, the favoured drugs for the
baggies were ecstasy and marijuana. Both are virtually harmless taken in
moderation. Both render the participant able to converse (on a somewhat
eccentric level, to be sure) and, in the former case, leap about in
alloyed joy. The euphoria may well have been false but I preferred to be
among my pals who were laughing, joking and having a good time on E than
with a bunch of sad, miserable brutes incapacitated on alcohol, choking
on their own vomit and starting fights they could never finish.
4)
When
we encounter the fourth issue, here we are obliged to confront a
problem. Critics of dance music complain that it is little more than a
repetitive succession of computerised electronic sound effects set to a
moronic 4/4 beat. I have to accede to there being a degree of truth in
this but only in the sense that there will always be third rate copyists
who try to emulate the more artistically successful efforts of their
peers from the first division. For example, Travis and Coldplay were
initially poor, meagre and much less accomplished relatives of their
heroes Radiohead. That they later managed to produce more interesting
music coincided with a corresponding decrease in the musical influence
of Radiohead on their own works. In any case, The Orb, Paul Oakenfold,
Leftfield and their peers at the Ministry Of Sound were never going to
produce progressive rock or freeform jazz for one simple reason: their
music was designed primarily for nightclubs and raves. It was functional
music, a sound track for a scene raised on computers and the internet.
The use of collage had never before been so effectively utilised.
Through the use of digital manipulation, samples of music from any and
every source (even classical, country and western and swing bands from
the 1940s) were infused into this joyful electronic melée.
5)
As
for politics, our rave culture was political in action. We preferred to
club together and do something rather than inflict polemical diatribes
upon our audience with every record we released. Any fool can sing about
the injustice of the world from the clinical safety of a recording
studio or on a concert hall stage. Well, when crowds of teenagers (and
older people) flocked to our dwindling forests and woods during the
1990s to prevent motorways and tower blocks being built in their place,
these were the same people you would see next month at squatted
warehouses, dancing to the latest remixes from the Ministry Of Sound.
They were not punks.
Note: most American punks who read this will either find my
comments above faintly offensive or simply confusing. To them, I
apologise right now. I am well aware that there is and has been for over
a decade a strong political consciousness among the American punk
movement as is revealed by their support of AK Press to give just one
example. Besides, there is no equivalent of Rave Culture in America.
Point 5 above applies to Britain only. To emphasise the issue, during
the first years of the new century, we encountered many punks in London
who started to squat empty and derelict council buildings. This was new
– punks had ceased to bother with this form of direct action since the
early 1980s. What had caused the sudden change of attitude? We found out
soon enough when we asked them: they replied in strong French and German
accents. So that is the way it is: to locate punks who are politically
active, we have to import them from Europe. (Also, I admit in this
instance I was personally biased in their favour because it turned out
two of the German punks owned copies of Fire & Ice, our 3rd album!)
During the 1990s (which must rate as the most inventive decade in
the history of popular culture) hip hop itself mutated into garage,
jungle and drum and bass as black teenagers in America and Britain
became more financially secure and learnt to use computers as
instruments of artistic expression rather than mere functional tools.
Over in Europe, teenagers interested in the avant garde realised that
those same computer programmes (Q Base being the most celebrated)
enabled them to create in their bedrooms what people their parents’
age had to labour over in a recording studio for £100 a day. In the
best techno and dance music the phrase ‘anything goes’ comes to
mind. Even if the beat was unfortunately tied to 4/4 with an unnecessary
rigour, what went over the top of it was often extremely inventive and
interesting. The combination of mutated found sounds, stolen music from
previous eras and computer generated original sounds resulted in music
that kept us fascinated and enthralled for nearly a decade. At times it
may have been self indulgent but then so is much progressive rock, jazz
and modern classical music. The acid test (excuse the pun) is this: do
people like it? In market terms, does it sell? The answer to both
questions is ‘yes’ although the latter question is utterly
unimportant of course, unless you are some sort of business executive or
financial consultant in which case you are a sick bastard who doesn’t
deserve to live anyway.
I go further in my assault on the paucity of punk rock to achieve
anything. In the 1990s we squatted abandoned factories and warehouses.
We held our own raves, complete with sound systems and DJ’s from our
own social circle. We had no need of heroes or experts. We did properly
what the punks tried to achieve a decade earlier. Why did the punks
fail? Well, to be fair, it is not accurate to dismiss all their efforts
as failure. The Zigzag club was opened up and squatted by members Crass,
The Mob and my own group The Apostles, although it was Crass who
organised the event and who must receive most of the credit for its
success. It is believed they squatted the Centro Iberico in Westbourne
Park but in fact this old school had already been squatted by a bunch of
elderly Spanish anarchists – all the difficult work had been completed
before the punks were invited in. I know this to be so for I was one of
the young teenagers involved in this dubious enterprise. But at these
and many other events, there was almost always trouble, usually in the
form of invasions by skinheads.
Anyone born after 1980 will not know what a skinhead is so permit
me a brief digression. The original skinheads were a coagulation of all
the brainless dross from the late 1960s who used to be mods but while
their peers grew their hair and became hippies, this bunch preferred to
opt for big boots, braces and beer, liberally watered by heavy doses of
fascism. In the early 1980s, there was a mercifully brief skinhead
revival as social misfits too inadequate and unintelligent even for the
punk circuit, went to Carnaby Street and decked themselves out in Levi
501’s, Ben Sherman shirts and Dr Marten boots. The British National
Party rubbed their hands with glee as a new gang of brainless cannon
fodder was provided for their rallies. The radicalisation of the Asians
in British society combined with a new pride (fuelled by hip hop lyrics
and proto-gangsta rap outfits) exhibited by young West Indians (or black
British as some of them like to be called), informed a popular rebellion
that rendered the mere existence of these fascist thugs untenable. By
the end of the 1980s it was simply not realistic to be a skinhead if you
wanted to celebrate your next birthday. I have no problem with this.
So, the punks were usually unable to police their events when
gangs of skinheads invaded. The woeful diatribe of pacifism prevailed
among the punk scene and this allowed cowards an escape clause: ‘it is
wrong to commit acts of violence so I will not fight back or defend my
colleagues when some mindless thug assaults him with a crowbar.’ In
all the raves I attended, I cannot recall any major incidents of
violence. There was the occasional minor fracas but what do you expect
when 200 teenagers are crammed into a squatted warehouse in Essex? What
surprises me is how little violence and trouble occurred in the
circumstances. Curiously, a major reason for this is due to the choice
of drugs. Ecstasy requires an increased intake of water but it
absolutely does not mix with alcohol. When you have dropped an E or two,
even the thought of alcohol is anathema. It is unnecessary and
irrelevant. Ecstasy encourages friendliness and gentle euphoria. Alcohol
is a depressant that also encourages aggression. In the chill out rooms
of our raves you would occasionally (but not always) smell the caustic
aroma of marijuana fumes. I hate the stuff but one fact remains: you
never see a group of people loiter outside a club spoiling for a fight
after they’ve had a few spliffs: even if they wanted to cause trouble,
they simply couldn’t be bothered.
There was a further advantage both The Chemical Brothers and The
Prodigy exhibited over any of their punk forefathers: a refusal to
countenance the childishly immature hostility to purveyors of other,
older music genres. For example, the album Surrender by The Chemical
Brothers features guest appearances by Noel Gallagher of Oasis (on Let
Forever Be) and Bernard Sumner of 1980s group New Order (on Out Of
Control). That would be like The Clash featuring, say, Phil Collins as a
guest vocalist on one of their numbers – which would have been
interesting. Had they done so then at least one number by The Clash
would have been sung properly. The attitude of the punks toward other
genres and cultures was that of a group of children who prohibit anyone
different from joining their gang. There were even punk records released
in the 1980s with lyrics that brazenly insulted rap and hip hop even
though such an assault was utterly unprovoked; I have never encountered
a rap record that gives punk rock a verbal kicking. (If there is one,
then I want a copy!) Anyway, this was another reason why the punk scene
stultified and died a death so quickly.
Perhaps an additional contributing factor was the social scene at
the time. The 1980s, after all, is the only decade in the history of
popular culture when there was actually no pop music of any worth, value
or relevance to what was happening. The whole decade can accurately be
dismissed with this pithy summation: crap politics, crap fashions and
crap music. In fact this only applies to Britain. In America only the
first half of the decade was similarly afflicted for in 1985 the
nations’ youth culture was saved by the birth of hip hop, house and
rap. However, white teenagers who were not interested in this music had
little else to celebrate.
As one of my numerous digressions, notice that the two major
British youth cultural phenomena of the 1990s, Brit Pop and Rave
Culture, were of little interest to most of America. In fact, the
majority of American teenagers expressed virtually no knowledge of, or
particular interest in, groups like Oasis or The Chemical Brothers.
Instead they had the Seattle scene with groups like Nirvana and R.E.M.
to keep them amused. Such was the quality of these groups that it is
quite possible American youths felt no need for the import of oddities
from the UK. I use the word ‘oddities’ deliberately for both Brit
Pop and Rave Culture were essentially British phenomena even though many
of the techno and rave outfits included samples from American house,
garage, R&B and rap in their repertoire. In fact it was in mainland
Europe that the rave scene became really popular and where techno
records achieved high sales figures.
So by 1999 the rave scene had dissipated and become characterised
by small, isolated underground groups of people who continued to party
but the original vitality (and commercial viability) had evaporated. It
is therefore hardly a coincidence that The Prodigy released the superb
album The Fat Of The Land in 1997 and then remained largely silent until
their next record, the single Baby’s Got A Temper in 2002. Their next
album, Always Out-gunned, Never Out-manoeuvred, only appeared two years
later in 2004. These records reveal an increase in rock music samples
and a decrease in the techno music style that characterised their 1990s
recordings. The same is true for The Chemical Brothers. Their 1999 album
Surrender is far more gentle and introverted than their previous
records. Their next album, Come With Us, witnessed a return to form
perhaps but it still sounds a little reticent compared to the all out
assault that informs Dig Your Own Hole, their second album which was
released in 1997. It is interesting that the best albums by these two
outfits were released in 1997, the same year that three of the most
famous and respected Brit Pop bands The Charlatans, Blur and Oasis
suffered a marked and evident decrease in originality, vitality and
urgency in their own records. It appeared that dance and techno had come
of age while Brit Pop had begun to lose its direction. However, as we
have seen, this was soon to spiral into second rate repetition or
obscurity within a couple of years.
When I purchased Push The Button by The Chemical Brothers in
March 2005, I admit I expected to be largely disappointed. That this
album is actually as vibrant and interesting as their mighty 1997 opus
is a tribute to their skill and imagination. However, this is not really
a dance album. Like The Prodigy, they have moved on and started to
incorporate less techno and more rock / hip hop into the mix, with
convincing results. That there is virtually not a single weak track on
the album is a testament to this. However, this poses an intriguing
question: how relevant are The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy to
teenagers in 2005. How many teenagers know who these groups are? I
purchased Push The Button on Saturday morning on my way to work (in a
Chinese youth club). As a result, I had the CD with me when I entered
the Chinese Centre. Now, Chinese teenagers display musical tastes that
are often rather curious and frequently old fashioned or else they adopt
the same tastes as their black, West Indian peers.
The Chemical Brothers are regarded, like The Prodigy and Oasis,
as a product of the 1990s, being the kind of music to which their older
brothers and sisters listened and raved about. Consider the elapsed time
between The Fat Of The Land and Baby’s Got A Temper, for example: 5
years. In popular culture that is a long time indeed where much can
change. In 1963, The Shadows and The Beatles enjoyed top ten hit
singles. By 1969, The Beatles were history, King Crimson, Deep Purple
and Jethro Tull were the flavour in favour and it would have been
unthinkable to have been seen walking into school with an album by The
Shadows. The same can be said for a later period: in 1975 you were
‘cool’ if you had the latest albums by Hawkwind, Manfred Mann’s
Earth Band, Yes and Genesis in your ‘pad’. By 1980, if you still
owned any of these records then you kept them hidden somewhere more
secure than a Swiss bank to make damn certain your friends never found
out.
There is a difference between previous generations and the
current scene, a difference I find especially enervating: it is now
quite difficult to be considered ‘uncool’. If you own a progressive
rock recording from the early 1970s you are likely to be considered
‘into retro’, that is, you are interested in historical rock music.
It is no longer embarrassing to like music from previous generations and
genres. You can own a box set of 1940s recordings by Louis Jordan and
this is quite acceptable. In fact, the only certain method to ensure you
are treated with derision is to proudly boast a love of current chart
fodder such as Hearsay but a year from now, of course, no-one who reads
this will know who Hearsay were – such is the ephemeral nature of
commercial pop fashions.
The insular nature of the punk scene in Britain is evident by the
fact that even today, in 2005, there are actually people who still want
to make and listen to punk rock records. Most of these people are sad,
middle aged types who lack imagination or originality but, worse still,
there are even teenagers who consider punk rock ‘cool’. This is so
bizarre that I no longer even find it sad. This is like a sixteen year
old in 1971 forming a skiffle group and trying to find an audience for
it. The difference here is that if you form a punk band in 2005, you
will be able to find an audience for it although it is very small,
elitist and oozes with inverted snobbery. Groups who display technical
proficiency are treated with considerable suspicion. Groups who play
more than one style of music are actually regarded with contempt. Also,
if you seek to succeed in the UK punk scene, it is essential that you
are white, able bodied and preferably heterosexual.
If anyone should accuse me of invention, I can state a direct
case very close to home: our group, Unit. Over the past two years we
have been attacked, ridiculed and insulted but only by purveyors of punk
rock. This is for three main reasons. First, because we include purely
instrumental works in our repertoire and we use flute, clarinet,
saxophone, keyboards and vibraphone as regular instruments in our group.
In punk rock, you are only allowed to use shouted vocals, electric
guitars and drums. Every number has to be short, fast, in 4/4 time and
vocal. Again, in Rave Culture, diversity was celebrated. We wanted to
hear unusual instruments and novel vocal techniques. Punk rock is all
about obedience to a strict and confining set of rules. When I read what
some of these punks say about groups like ours, they sound just like my
dad.
Second, although we hardly ever include brazen, empty displays of
virtuosity in our music, it is apparent that 4 of the 5 members of Unit
are technically accomplished musicians with formidable degrees of skill.
Now, it does not require much skill or ability to play punk rock. This
does not invalidate the music. On the contrary, it is important that
there are kinds of music in which everyone can participate. Other than a
decent knowledge of a good computer programme like Q Base, it was not
essential for the purveyors of techno and dance music to be skilful
musicians. So I do not seek to ridicule a group simply because they did
not attend the Royal Academy of Music. But we were actually attacked
because we dared to display our obvious technical ability! One little
punk fanzine, Fracture, tried to be crafty and, irritated by our
ability, criticised us for being ‘hopeless’ and ‘crap’. The
public must have been rather bemused, then, when no less than seven
other magazines, two of them punk zines, remarked on our ‘superb
musicianship’, our ‘obvious skill’ and ‘evident ability’, even
though the two punk zines in question otherwise really didn’t like our
style of music despite our musical ability. To quote one of them:
‘bands like this are obviously very capable musicians and their music
is clearly very clever but that’s probably why I find it so boring.
Give me a good dose of hardcore thrash any day. What’s the matter with
not being a virtuoso?’ To answer this question: there is nothing wrong
with not being a virtuoso but there is plenty wrong with refusing to
exhibit any imagination, originality or intelligence. There is a whole
world out there – why be so narrow minded and ineffably conservative?
It’s time for another of my digressions. I mentioned above that
4 out of the 5 Unit members are highly skilled musicians. In case you
wonder, I am the one who is not so adept but then I do have an excuse: I
was born with severe dispraxia which means I should not even be able to
play a musical instrument at all. There are some (like the writers of
Fracture and Idwal Fisher, two notoriously right wing fanzines who want
everyone in the world to be just like them) who will insist that I still
can’t play music to save my life (and they may have a point there, to
be honest) but does that mean spastics are forbidden to participate in
pop groups? Are we forever supposed to sit at home and marvel at what
everybody else does but never have a go at playing music ourselves?
Well, stuff that! I have as much right to release records as anyone else
and I won’t have anyone tell me I can’t, least of all a bunch of
elitist has-beens who are still stuck in the eighties. Is it too much to
hope the UK punk scene will one day wake up and realise the world has
moved on since 1977? Probably.
Third, successful punk bands in the UK are white, able bodied and
heterosexual. That is partly why they are able to sell so many CDs: they
are acceptable to the majority. When we played concerts in London,
Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh and even Brighton, we were subjected to
racist taunts from audience members who dressed like punks – so I
assume they were indeed punks. It is perfectly understandable that such
people should find our complex and varied music irritating. It is
absolutely not acceptable for these same people to subject us to
racially motivated abuse simply because we do not play punk rock. (Why
should we? After all, we are not a punk band.) I have lost count of the
number of times I have been threatened and insulted for being a queer,
for playing ‘faggot rock’. Now I am aware that European and American
readers will find all this most disturbing and strange. I should add
here that, to date, while there are plenty of American punks who clearly
don’t like most of our music, we have yet to encounter even one who
has ever actually insulted us and certainly they have never ever
resorted to racial or homophobic abuse. What does this say about
Americans? What does this say about the British?
Were there no decent, interesting punk bands, then? I could be
churlish and state that the previous question contains a blatant
contradiction in terms, like ‘military intelligence’ or ‘caring
conservatives’. How can I possibly give a fair answer to that
question? I don’t like punk rock; the genre does not interest or
inspire me at all. There must surely be many decent and interesting
individuals who are involved in the punk scene, some of whom are in punk
bands, but their sloganeering, bombastic rhetoric for lyrics, coupled
with their noisome, tediously predictable racket for music, means I am
unable to tell one punk band from another. There was a band called Total
Chaos from Gateshead in Newcastle. They broke barriers and infused
their brand of punk rock with elements of folk music and the avant garde.
They achieved this in a thoroughly convincing manner even though they
were not what you might call technically accomplished musicians. They
utilised their limitations with consummate skill so that only another
musician might realise they were not top of league for virtuoso ability.
They released two 7” records, one 12” record and a track on a
compilation album. After that they vanished into obscurity and to date
none of their works have ever been reissued on CD.
America has been served rather better for interesting punk bands.
There are the two F words for a start: Flipper and Fugazi.
These two bands prove what can be achieved if a group refuses to obey
the intense conservatism of the punk rock code. There was also an
amazing band called Artless who were easily as musically
competent as ourselves and almost as catholic in their tastes. They
released an album in the 1990s called Crassdriver that remains one of
the most inventive albums by a punk band ever released. This, too, has
never been reissued on CD as far as I am aware. (If I am wrong here and
it is available on CD then would someone please let me know how and
where I can obtain a copy? You can contact me via U-J on our e-mail
address.)
There is (was) a liberating aspect of Rave Culture that was never
properly addressed by the punk scene. How many people can afford to
spend £200 a day in a small recording studio to record an album?
Radiohead spent £100,000 to record their first album, Pablo Honey. Fair
enough, they were backed by EMI, their record label. But prior to the
Techno and Dance revolution, the only means by which one could release
an album of decently produced music (regardless of the quality of that
music itself) was to book a recording studio, not for as long as was
necessary but for as long as one had sufficient funds. The rave scene
liberated us from all that. Once one had paid the initial expense of
purchasing a decent computer with the requisite software (which would
require around about £1,000), any further expenditure was negligible.
One could spend how ever long was necessary to perfect a track and then
burn each CD privately if necessary. If the CD proved really popular
then it was financially feasible to pay for a batch of discs to be
copied professionally.
I am not old enough to recall this from personal experience but I
am informed that these days, the punk scene has changed from the
ideology it once represented. Now the most respected punk bands use the
most expensive instruments and it is the most professional production
jobs that receive the most laudatory reviews in punk fanzines. As I
always suspected, punk rock is still for little rich boys to shock their
parents and impress their peers with how much they spent on producing
their latest single. At least, this is true in the UK. Their lyrics
about third world poverty are sung into microphones that cost enough to
feed a family from Somalia for a month. I find the political posturing
of punk bands so tediously pompous. You know that most of these snotty
nosed oiks will buy and sell on the stock market ten years from now or,
if they are successful, they will sign up to Polydor or CBS and claim
they were never really punks in the first place. Are we having fun yet?
Can you now understand why every member of UNIT is proud to say that we
are not punks, have never been punks and never want to be punks? I am
aware there are people in America, Europe and Japan who like and support
UNIT, who also call themselves ‘punks’ or who identify with the punk
scene and who may therefore find my remarks unnecessarily hostile. To
all these people I say only this: the members of UNIT live in England,
Great Britain; my sentiments are the direct result of the treatment we
have received from the punk scene here. No overt criticism is directed
here to any of our American, European and Japanese colleagues.
To conclude my defence of the innovation, originality and
intelligence of the rave scene as opposed to the elitism, pomposity and
extreme conservatism of the punk scene, perhaps I should be fair and
admit that the dance is dead. We had a laugh and a giggle during the
1990s, despite the fag-end of Thatcher and the miserable grey fog of
Major but the Blair witch hunt regime, which is far worse than anything
Thatcher could have invented in even her most volatile fantasies, helped
to kill off the last fragments of hope. Fleetwood Mac played at the
Jimmy Carter election party; Blair and his cohorts tapped their feet
along to records by Oasis at their first party conference after they
were elected. The government were never able to co-opt a rave outfit for
any of their sordid little functions. I am grateful for that at least.
Where do we go now? The Libertines – The Strokes – The White Stripes
– is that it? Is that really the future direction our popular culture
is to go for the next ten years? Oh, please, let there be more than
that.
Not apparently relevant to this review but a last desperate
attempt to end on a note of optimism, we must congratulate Helen Steel
and Dave Morris, the two people who, unaided by any organisation, single
handedly took on the might of MacDonalds and won! After a 13 year
struggle in the European human rights court, they won their appeal
against the original British justice decision that initially ruled
against them for their campaign of leaflets and propaganda against one
of the most vociferous exponents of global capitalism in the world. It
is the story of how it is possible for two ordinary people to take on
one of the largest multinational fast food chains in the world and win.
Name me one punk band that can claim a similar achievement.
Andy
Martin (c) 2005.
