Refused.

[lordgalvar]

To futher reinforce the regional influences of punk, using examples that D.o.S. has provided, east and west coast powerviolence.

Black Army Jacket does not sound a whole hell of a lot like Spazz (or any of Stikky for that matter), Man is the Bastard, No Comment, Lack of Interest. Same idea, different executions, different influences. That's why we have "scenes" and there are things like DC Hardcore and Japanese Punk. No one band can influence everyone, except the Ramones (because they were first, but they were influence by Phil Spector/bubblegum/garage/and psych). To reduce the complexity of any living thing/movement/culture to one solid influence is ignorant.

That is how we got East/West Blast Test. A meeting of two ideological scenes with different expressions within the same time frame. A kind of unique album.

A lot of the Denver scene bloomed from the Denver Gentleman. The don't sound anything like the Ramones or Sex Pistols. And stuff like this is why I love punk. UK82 and Anarcho where concurrent with second wave commertial punk in the UK, while things developed completely different in South America (Attaque Frontal, etc.), Japan (The Stalin, GISM, Gauze), Denmark (stuff on Plurex like Tits), Canada (Subhumans, DOA), California (Hardcore), DC, New York, etc. It's awesome that so many people have different intrepetations of the same ideas.

[lordgalvar]

I think the only people who can really determine whether or not they compromised their own principles that are the people in the band. Like, what are we supposed to get self-righteous about: a bunch of old dudes making an album for the hell of it? The fact that they're selling it as a Refused album? It is a refused album, and you had to pay for your copy of TSOPTC, so it can't be the commodification aspect, right?

So Refused have put out an album. Collectively, we don't like it. Whether you think they're pissing all over their legacy by putting out a bad record (seems to be the consensus from fans) or making another not-so-exciting album to go along with the others, that's what they're doing. I doubt this album will sell more than TSOPTC, I doubt this album was ever created with the idea of selling more copies of TSOPTC, and I can't say they're betraying their principles by making a bad record, which seems to be the beef here. It's not like they're going around saying "I wish Ronald Reagan was still alive so he could crucify Noam Chomsky" or anything.

There was a really good interview with Penny Rimbaud about this sort of thing when the Urban Outfitters/Crass Jacket thing hit. Whole thing is good, this is particularly pertinent:

I know that a lot of the DIY punks and the anarcho punks are going, “Oh, bloody rip-off!” Well, they’re not being ripped off. The anarcho punks have been ripping us off since the beginning of time, doing rather pale reproductions of both our music and our art. So as far as I’m concerned they’re just in for what they can get, and that’s laissez-faire [economics] at its most extreme.

I’m quite sure some people who follow us will be pissed off. But they’re not looking at the bigger picture. The sort of people who will be pissed off are the sort of people that are very happy to be working on a very small, almost ghetto existence within a particular genre of thought, a particular genre of action, a particular genre of behavior, and particularly a predictable set of political ideas. Well, the world’s changed a lot in 30 years and I think we’ve got to get hip to that.

http://www.vice.com/read/crasss-penny-r ... bands-name

Alright, all great points D.o.S. Refused do what they want. We can never speculate what they are thinking. Punk ethics are different all over the world (in the UK, most bands have managers and labels...there isn't a lot of this photocpy and a cdr stuff over there).

The only thing I have to comment on is Penny:

Crass is my all time favorite band. I have like 5 copies of every record (crassical collection, vinyl, beat up copies, etc...I ain't that crazy)

I remember when that interview came out, a lot of people I talk to (from around there/that scene) kinda just wagged their fist in that teenager jerk-off motion. Penny set up that scene to be like that where they rip him off. Penny, aka JJ Ratter, is around 15-20 years older than Steve Ignorant. He started out worshiping the peace preached by John Lennon, and then he followed the hippies to Stonehenge. It all failed. He had always romantised the idea of the "guru". When they setup Crass records, it was a brilliant idea that hadn't really been done before: use the profits to make more bands do the same. Unfortunatly, if you didn't have the sound he (or maybe John Loder) was looking for, you got cut out. Flux of Pink Indians wanted to sound more rock and hardcore. The album was remixed with the thin crass style production (very much influenced by Penny's influences). There are two versions of the early Flux stuff in print: flux's mixes and penny's mixes. This is also the reason that the first Conflict album and EP sound so different from the rest of their catatlog (and also why Colin* signed bands like Exitstance and played with AOA because they didn't fit Penny's mold). When Part1 released their first demo, Penny asked them to be on Bullshit Detector 2. Part1 said their sound changed from the demo to the early goth sound (every song is just bathed in flanger). Penny cut them out. Rudimentary Peni gave them the money for their first EP. The Androids of Mu were told by Penny to drop their drummer or he wont release thier stuff. They refused and went into obscurity. Even recently he went in without the other band members and remixed all the crass albums and even a few Cravats albums.

Penny has also recently been featured in Red Bull Record Label articles. He cut a bunch of people out of royalties and releases with his buddies at Southern (they are threatening legal action over 35 year old records that never sold). He has kind of bullshitted people for a long time. He says some amazingly awesome, well thought out things, but always seems full of himself. What 12 years ago he was begging for donations so that he could finally own dial house. Where was 20 years of royalties? Crass had 3 gold records by that time. I also think he thinks people see him as selling out when they don't or really don't care. Was the Crassical Collection artistic or just a way to keep a paycheck? It don't matter to me 'cause I like it.

Selling out isn't about taking a paycheck for your work, which is the ultimate goals of a lot of these bands which what I think is missed a lot of times. Selling out is more about comprising yourself to take advantage or profit from a situation via subterfuge. Resistance 77 is great example of "selling out". In the early days of UK Punk, Resistance 77 were nobodies. They broke up. Whatever. 30 years later, they come back and are all the sudden skirting the border between NF and harmless? They wave St. George's Cross all of the place and sing nationalistic songs. When I went to Rebellion in Blackpool last year, they were one of the most well supported bands there. No body remembered them until they put a Knight Templar on their album cover. That is selling out.

Another thing that was weird was that the Subhumans are like no big deal there but the Ruts, the freaking Ruts, are like huge. Weird. haha.

I'm getting tired and I think I am forgetting what I am talking about. This shit is way easier to sort out over beers than trying to find which page a post was on. Sorry if I am missing the point.

*don't get me started on Colin Jerwood and stuff. It's a whole 'nother mess. RIP Paco.

[lordgalvar]

More on Penny and Crass:

I think Penny excels at being a mastermind of sorts which frustrated the band. It lead to Crass falling apart after "Sheep Farming in the Faulklands" and "Yes Sir I Will". Steve wasn't confortable with all of the lyrics Penny was pushing (I think he felt sympathy for the troops because they were from the same class as him, where as Penny and Gee got to go to art school from their middle class roots and had the freedom to live an ideology). Penny also took over all recording duties. But before that, with the hoaxes, the publicity, the "anarcho" sound*, and the early "DIY"** ethics, and the way Crass operated, was pretty brilliant. I know they opened up doors for me to discover things on my own and think for myself (and be able to view "stars" as people). I am very greatful to have Crass in my life, but I am not going to say that they were perfect or influencial to every band after them. Discharge, Amebix, UK Subs, Toy Dolls were all going at the same damn time. Yea, Crass did a lot, but they wern't the only game in town.

I just saw Penny and Eve do "Yes Sir I Will" with Penny's vision of free jazz, spoken word, and INTENSITY! It wasn't good...it just seemed forced but it doesn't diminish my love for Crass. There is just something about their sound for me: it's like a perfectly organized spike of chaos that was always about to break but it always came back to some weird basic, primal base (which Amebix took all the way and Sore Throat took the other).

Don't remember what I was going to say here.

*: Which is another thing: for him to say that the scene at the time was ripping him off is pretty over the top. I can't say in anyway that AOA, Oi Polloi, Conflict, The Mob, Zounds, and the Cravats all ripped off Crass. Maybe in the way that the operated from a DIY perspective, not sound, and shouldn't that be a positive thing that he would be proud of?

**: a bad word in some UK punk circles (and here too). Just because somebody doesn't want to play a free gig shouldn't mean shit. I had a band member quit because we played a bar and got paid (the one fucking time too, a whole $35) and the money wasn't for a cause (it went to our tab...not to mention we drove 300 miles for it).

[lordgalvar]

Alright, if you knew Crass, you'd know that the issue wasn't the Jacket or seeing what he said as a "slap in the face to fans". Understanding the basic thing that Crass said, "There is no authority but yourself"*, would let you still love the band as a band and tell Penny to "Fuck off 'cause I can think for myself". A part of this is the media playing into his need to be a guru, but the basic idea of Crass (even the fact that they refused autographs and stuff) is to think for yourself. Penny is a human. He has to live. I don't have to listen to him. Don't really care what he thinks happens. Urban Outfitters ended up with a Crass Jacket and Lady Gaga with a GISM one...so what? (Urban Outfitters does sell used items from time to time, but I do believe that jacket was wrong with the wrong logos...whatever, it's easier to point out people that don't listen to the band that way...also, they sell Zvex pedals in UO down in LA...was waiting for Beck to play the Orpheum and the wife and I got there 4 hours early so we burned some time in there looking at books). Also, Penny stands for too much to a damn fault. He basically squatted in the same building for 35 years until he finally bought it (dial house) even though he came from a good family in a very classest country. Everything Penny does and says is calculated based on his ideological principles. He may be wrong, but to say he doesn't stand for anything is wrong.

The DC hardcore scene ain't where punk started, bud, no matter how many loopholes you jump through to justify your beliefs. Punk was used to descibe 60s guitar bands but it was a NY magazine that featured the bands from around NY at the time. The Ramones were the first of those bands to be called punk, but the Dead Boys, Heartbreakers, New York Dolls, Suicide, London SS, Vibrators, Iggy Pop, MC5, Cock Sparrer (1974 they started) were all going that direction...The Ramones just hit it right and were the most kind of stripped down. Richard Hell was the basis of punk fashion taken to what-the-hell-is-her-name designer by McClaren

I saw Toy Dolls, Jello Biafra (I have talked to him a few times for quite a while actually. Super Nice guy), Squarepusher, and Empire of the Sun at Coachella. good Enough for me to get the hell out of LA for a weekend. Shitloads better than that hipster fest FYF (except I got to see Boris there but they had to lead into Ty Segall who I think is terrible**).

Oh, the best Boris album is Vein, both disks. Or the CD re-issue. If you saw that I wrote hardcore I was listening to Devo hardcore at the same time and was thinking of the names of the disks.

*: Yea it is cheesy
**: funny tangent*** there was talks of my old band doing a split or something with his band at some point years ago. Glad I didn't haha
***: isn't everything I type a tangent?

One more tangent: in my first band, we played a pool house and I was the singer. I just did dumb silly songs about transformers and whatever I was thinking about at the time and kinda did that Racebannon**** thing before I knew they existed...maybe they didn't yet, I don't know. It was the 1990s. I grabbed this kids hand that had that Straight Edge X on it and pulled out a marker and turned into a volkwagen logo and siad something like "I turned that straight edge frown upside down" Then I went off on a 7 minute rant about Ian/Minor Threat and how my ICQ friend drank with him in a bar and they did a bump together and shit. His best friend, getting the joke, agreed with me and I made the kid cry. That is ideological dedication right there. Kid never came around when I was over after that.

We had a big, violent (when in numbers) straight edge population around my region. Nazi Skins came from Fresno, Billies/Punks/SHARPs from Bakersfield, and SEs came from the mountains/Tehachapi.

Anyway, Albini, in his write up about the "industry", uses a former minor threat member as an example of one of the recruiters that record labels used to lure bands into their evil trap! haha.

**** Satan's kicking yr dick in was pretty good/other stuff not as much

[lordgalvar]

OK, I think last one:

Too Long Didn't read?: I'm an English major too (got close to a MA and was like 1 credit away from a BA in history too), but if you think I am going to spend my time to write right on a damn tablet you's nuts. Brand New Sucks. Refused sucks. KMFDM sucks (no they do...not being a fanboy, just thought it was funny). People are full of shit when they talk about how awesome they are. La Revancha was a great album. Black Army Jacket had some good stuff and some junk. Cock Sparrer exists and Resistance 77 are nazis.

Refused (might have) influenced a bunch of shitty bands that don't need this SEO opportunity. They didn't influence most "punk" bands especially The Endless Blockades or Syphillitic Vaginas. Or Dishammer. Or Knugen Faller. Or Terrible Fellings, Masshysteri, Ratka, Gas Rag, etc.

[lordgalvar]

A few more things and I will shut up:

Penny is like 68 or something now. Charlie Harper is 70. They were both in their 30s when punk hit. Charlie Harper was a hairdresser for the Rolling Stones and stuff. Penny was like 16 years older than Steve Ingnorant when they met. Steve brought punk to the old hippy's house and Penny saw it as a perfect outlet to work with where he saw the hippy fail that combined art, music, literature, and philosophy (and he could get chicks...yes, he talks about that in Shibboleth). Both Penny and Harper are old now and they have had to come to terms with their mortality (like I am sure most people do). Charlie Harper has had like 5 heart attacks. I don't blame them for getting a little cash so they don't burden people with bills when they are no longer able to take care of themselves.

When I first met Charlie Harper, he was such a nice, awesome dude. He went out to the street and spray painted me a shirt. He didn't have to do that for some dumb kid in an oil/ag town, but he did. All DIY all the way. When I talked to him last year, he seemed wore out and they were selling so much more stuff. Then the UK Subs basically formed a record club and a paid app. He has no retirement, no 401k or stock options. He was the underground diehard for 40 years with no home and just enough to support his kids as he perpetually went town to town. He got to live the life and if he needs moeny to retire, I can't blame him for trying to milk his brand for profit. I don't have to support it or think it is cool, but UK Subs is his band and I couldn't imagine touring yourself to death. I'd imagine Penny is in somewhat the same boat, but he also has to keep that Crass ideological center or else his brand is destroyed. I know Penny has done some questionable things (that are hearsay/private, so I ain't going to talk about it) but to discount his legacy because of some dumb quote he made as he comes to terms with being a "guru" for 35 years with nothing to show for it as he approaches the end.

edit: I also kind of hate talking about this stuff. Everybody should just like who they like. It always ends up sounding like one of my least favorite things: the punk rock big-league play. "Do you know Manbiki Chocolate? or Off Mask 00? No? Oh, you must not be into punk." I hated that stuff growing up. My neighbor had a Business record. I asked if I could hear it (this was when we had 14.4 connections and you'd have to go surf the BBs). He told me that he wont let me hear "underground" stuff until I stopped sharing it with everyone because "he found them and they were his discovery" and when he showed me 7 seconds/Misfits/etc. I took the mix tape to my one friends house. He became a huge Conflict fan which pissed the first guy off. I dunno, I usually just throw out Lord Galvar as my name drop. If they say they know the band they are full of shit. haha.

edit too: forgot to address the Refused producer thing. Don't know much about the dude, honestly. Ramones worked with Phil Spector, Clash worked with some big name guys, Crass had John Loder,

Something else about Penny/Crass's influence: Crass records released the first single by KUKL which featured Bjork. Flux of Pink Indians, also started on Crass Records, splintered off Crass and down the road morphed into Flux which ran the One Little Indian Label. One Little Indian put out Sugarcubes. Southern Records was the company that Crass Records is kind of an imprint of now. Dischord is very closely related to Southern also.. Southern was founded by John Loder with help from Penny/Crass Records. Corpus Christi was also an off shoot of Crass Records that Penny didn't feel fit with the Crass ideals (Rudimentry Peni, UK Decay, Alternative). Southern Lord is distrubuted by Southern in Europe (and there are also more ties). So see, even Boris feels the influence of Crass.

[lordgalvar]

I'm eventually going to shut up, I swear:

As for the Locust being based off of Spazz. Maybe in the tiniest little bit, but that is pretty doubtful. The locust were part of that GSL crew out of San Diego. By the time those bands like FM Bats, Holy Molar, Le Shok, etc came around, Powerviolence was in a kind of stasis. Spazz was gone. Man is the Bastard was being weird (some times they were around, sometimes not), No Comment and Infest were gone. I think one of the dudes from Lack of Interest was found burned in the trunk of car. They were probably more influenced by Siege, Born Against*, and stuff like that that would eventually lead to Arab on Radar, USA is a Monster, and Lightning Bolt. I remember the Locust being more on the Dillinger Escape plan side of things than the old LA or SF Power Violence Scene. They also had a lot of influence from the emo and screamo scenes in San Diego and also probably from scattered bands like Pixies, Melt Banana, and Pussy Galore. The San Diego scene was weird...very emo. The Locust were always just about to spill over into lame screamo stuff when I was younger. The Powerviolence scene, at the time, was seen as kind of brutish, passe, and childish. Powerviolence cameback like 10 years later with new fastcore bands like macgrudergrind and hummingbird of death. The crusties started getting into grind and powerviolence to compliment their D-beat, crasher crust, and crust. I don't know anymore because the scene in LA is , shhhhh, only at secret house parties and I'm not supposed to know that. Eventually that Providence based No Wave scene kind of got copied out here in California which lead to Mai Shi, Shearing Pinx (Ty Segall), Abe Vigoda and stuff like that. It's not that simple, but I can hear the cross continental trade.

I think Cattle Decapitation was originally kind of a joke. No original members are in the band and they are pretty legit these days, eh? (I ain't much of a metal head, so I am not sure that is accurate). They had the same lineage as the Locust and Le Shok.

The old Powerviolence people kind of went of to Japanese Grind and Noisecore for a bit. 625 thrashcore was importing stuff like Conga Fury and Mind of Asian. Voetsek (I think they run the label, don't remember for sure) and stuff kind of brought power violence back into fashion. It got hot again, but was more splintered and specific (stuff like fastcore, thrash (unrelated to the others/'twas just a name). Grind also got popular out west and the D-Beat and crustier bands kinda went that way. Some of the bands that wanted to make it as emo and screamo were kind of morphing into No Wave bands. I guess some of them turned into crap like Ariel Pink. Don't know 'cause I got married and had a job. Couldn't go follow the tides as much any more.

Like I have said before: this is very specific to ones own experiences and what happened around your area. And this is just my take on things. "They ain't no authority 'cept yourself, bud".

Speaking of Siege...damn their influence went a ways for only releasing those, what, 6 songs?

*:First show I ever played was with Wrangler Brutes. My first show was supposed to be with Union 13 in the 1990s but my bass player quit for his church band.

I think I am done with my rant, finally, haha. It starts on page 9.

[D.o.S.]

I read the whole thing.

I never listened to the Hardcore version of Vein. just the 'noise' version.

Thanks for posting.

[lordgalvar]

I read the whole thing.

I never listened to the Hardcore version of Vein. just the 'noise' version.

Thanks for posting.

Hahaha. sorry.

[D.o.S.]

What, no, there's a lot there -- I won't really have time to respond in depth until later.

[lordgalvar]

What, no, there's a lot there -- I won't really have time to respond in depth until later.

I honestly didn't know what to say either I was kinda beating myself up over it for few days. I kinda dug myself a whole and rambled my way out of it. I was like going to write this really nice, editted, concise piece. Then I said fuck it and went for it...I was n't going to sleep anyway. I'm going to reread it. Ugh, I hope i didn't talk myself in circles or sound like an idiot.

When Refused stall a kitchen remodel on ILF.

[casecandy]

JESUS CHRIST! Now we're cooking with gas.

Forgive my brief response... how could I really respond point-to-point to all that?! LOL

First off, I completely and totally respect your knowledge of punk music. It exceeds my own a thousand times.

However... HOWEVER...

When I said that "punk started in D.C.," I said, FOR ME, it started in D.C. I'm not that dense. I'm well-versed in the Detroit proto-punk scenes that birthed The Stooges and The MC5 as well as the New York scene that birthed The Ramones and their contemporaries and their lesser-known, rougher compatriates, and then everything that went down in the UK. I know that stuff. Not like you know that stuff, no, but I agree with you, punk did not literally start in D.C.

For me though, it did. The punk and post-hardcore I like, and the indie rock that tied in with it, started in D.C. Actually, as much as Black Sabbath started doom metal, Rites of Spring started emo, and Fugazi started post-hardcore. Black Sabbath had its Blue Cheer, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple, and then it had its NWOBHM; Rites of Spring had their Minor Threat, The Misfits, and dozens of smaller bands that you no doubt know more about than I do, and then they had their D.C. hardcore, but no one is going to argue with the fact that Sabbath were the first important band with all the checkmarks for doom, and I don't think anyone sensible would argue with Rites of Spring and Fugazi initiating post-hardcore in the same way.

I'm not going to even attempt to argue you on YOUR music, I'd look like an idiot. But you guys forget that you're arguing with me on MY music, which you seem to think is lesser than yours, but believe me, it's living and it's breathing with thousands, millions, of fans, and I'm telling you, when I talk to "my" people (Absolute Punkers as opposed to ILFers) they ARE influenced by Refused, they are influenced by D.C. It's as simple as that. It's literally a fact.

So yes yes yes I believe you when you say how important Crass is. You're going to have to believe me when I tell you that the music I listen to is equally important to a different but equally large and widespread group of people.

I have a very different conception of what punk music was important and what good music sounds like than you guys do, and that is okay. And I am outnumbered her on ILF and that is also okay. But if we were on my Internet turf, so to speak, you guys would be the outnumbered ones.

Am I making the argument that just because a lot of people like something, that it is good?

Fuck no! Otherwise we would be sitting here debating the merits of Taylor Swift and Katy perry.

I'm saying, there is a large and real community of musicians who cut their teeth on Deja Entendu and Full Collapse and The Artist In The Ambulance, and you can't just say "Oh, they have the wrong idea, because Crass."

Earlier I referred to my/our generation. But I forgot that generations are meaningless nowadays. It's not like the '60s where the whole generation (the one that people tried to put down just because they g-g-got around) shared the experience of Hendrix and The Who and The Beatles expanding their minds. There are generations within generations.

My sub-generation, then, is the emo post-hardcore pop-punk generation, and we are legion, and we have a shared, meaningful experience, and a shared, meaningful history, that goes from D.C. to the Bay to the Midwest to Long Island and Florida and Seattle and back again.

We listen to Rites of Spring, Jawbreaker, Fugazi, Dag Nasty, Embrace, The Get Up Kids, Jimmy Eat World, Mineral, Promise Ring, Braid, Texas Is The Reason, Further Seems Forever, Dashboard Confessional, Refused, Thrice, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, Glassjaw, Death Cab for Cutie, Bright Eyes, My Chemical Romance, mewithoutYou, Say Anything, The Wonder Years, Underoath, Poison The Well, Dillinger Escape Plan...

Where you say, "Oh, that's when punk died" we say, "See, that's when punk was born" and we don't give a shit if you don't like our music... I don't give a shit, because it's for me, not for you. That's cool. DIff'rent strokes.

Say you hate Brand New and Refused but their sweat on the insides of their tour vans and my blood on the concrete venue floors poured and it proves that it means something. Just as much as all the old stuff that I admit that I don't know.

I can't really go toe-to-toe with you... but you can't just say "That's not real punk, see, THIS is real punk" because THAT is paper-thin ice.

P.S. Both versions of Vein are good

[casecandy]

What, no, there's a lot there -- I won't really have time to respond in depth until later.

I honestly didn't know what to say either I was kinda beating myself up over it for few days. I kinda dug myself a whole and rambled my way out of it. I was like going to write this really nice, editted, concise piece. Then I said fuck it and went for it...I was n't going to sleep anyway. I'm going to reread it. Ugh, I hope i didn't talk myself in circles or sound like an idiot.

When Refused stall a kitchen remodel on ILF.

I read the whole thing too

[casecandy]

What, no, there's a lot there -- I won't really have time to respond in depth until later.

Agreed

[D.o.S.]

Wait what's wrong with Taylor Swift?