Keep Laughing!: May 2021

I feel like a dipshit writing so often about my youth. I will say at this age at least I’m not alone in looking back. However I feel like I ‘m largely alone in looking back in disappointment more than pride. Maybe it’s a self defeating gene in my brain that I foster? I write about frivolous shit like the aesthetics of punk rock or even more disastrous and disappointing the politics of punk rock because it’s a simple subject to take on unlike more important issues like Israel/Palestine, or how to rid the world of plastic. I’m concerned about both things but I’ll never find the cure. Instead I find solace in something so masturbatory only a teenager should give a shit, but here I am pushing 50 writing about punk junk yet again.

To be fair to my own self image I must admit the story I’m about to share fell in to my lap this weekend and I’m compelled to write it down because it’s funny and pathetic in equal measure. If nothing else there’s the potential for laughter to be had, by me if no one else.

I have a collection of records so vast it could choke a music snob and leave her gasping for air while drowning in a sea of 7” singles by Siouxsie and the Banshees. I wonder if I’ve done much more than waste time these past 20 or so years smoking incredible amounts of hash and flipping through stacks of vinyl in search of happiness. Not sure I found it, but I’ve been able to get a glance at it briefly in the search for gems and other minerals in the form of shit like this amazing record by the New Toys. This small record has brought me an incredible amount of happiness.

This record has also made my life better. My fave long player by King Tee.

Or this incredible record by the Superheroines. So unusual it doesn’t seem to fit into a genre.

I might have spent a lot of time by myself at the record store, but I don’t think it’s been a complete waste. It’s been fun for the most part. Recently however I’ve been less obsessed with finding contentment in collecting platters, and I’ve become more invested in trying to better myself. I’m working on becoming a better man and I still have pretentions for changing the world. Maybe that impetus will never leave me. Hopefully it won’t. Fuck this world. A better one is coming and I want to be a party to that!

With more time on my hands the pandemic led me to discover the wonders of Discogs where I found the boundless financial joys of selling my musical taste to other misguided searchers who have money.

To the uninitiated I’ll clue you in to Discogs glory and shame. It’s an internet site that helps you gauge the value of records of all different genres and pressings, as well as being a marketplace for you to sell your wares.

I’ve made some serious scratch by peddling my finds on this site. The capriciousness by which people are willing to part with their money is a sight to behold. I’ve been surprised but not entirely shocked by the amount of money some are willing to throw at a bid for temporary happiness. I’ve played that game myself. Salivating over a recent obsession, wanting, desiring, fiending over it. Then pulling the trigger, shelling out the cash, and reveling in the knowledge it is mine! That joy is fleeting, and it’s often replaced by newer obsessions as time goes on. And yet just as often that joy is palpable.

I learned from experience that almost every time I’ve gone off the deep end and spent more than I should have on a beloved record, I get bit in the ass by finding the same record months later, sometimes in better condition, for pennies. It’s pretty rare for me to do that shit anymore.

If you ever find this record I’ll pay upwards of $50 for a clean copy.

In any event, I sold a Beyonce record I bought on a lark for $100. I sold a Janelle Monáe record for $100 too. These records aren’t the old, and don’t seem especially rare, but there’s no explaining the yearnings of the human heart. For some time now I’ve been considering liquidating my whole punk and metal collection. With everyone coming back to the fold in terms of vinyl worship I think I could make a killing with the hunks of slab I’ve acquired. But there are weird mental ticks that are a part of record collecting.

Let’s face it, music can exert a powerful charm over our lives. It can be timeless. It can put you back in time. It provides tears, laughter, possibly even wisdom?

Then there’s the satisfaction of ownership. Which is a mixed blessing. I hate capitalism. Along with everyone else I’ve navigated the rough waters of capitalist America and somehow not shit the bed, which I achieved through skill and no short amount of luck. The thing I liked the most about Jesus was when he up ended the money changers tables. He did other cool shit too but that was probably my favorite bit. Anyway, as an anti-capitalist I have a hard time stomaching people speculating on something I treasure so much as my youth, of which punk rock played it’s role. There was a time not long ago when you needed physical copies of recorded music to be able to hear them. Technology has gone a long way to make music more accessible to everyone with an internet connection. So now ownership of rare recordings has become a niche world that brings it’s own issues.

Why would someone pay hundreds of dollars for a rare punk record? I can only answer with my own experience. The fleeting joy of completing mt collection of early Discharge singles. They look so cute in my house. Which speaks to a desire to turn my living room into a museum.

Are you buying street credibility when you purchase a rare piece of punker history? Who could say. It’s good to know the artifacts still exist. But maybe they should be in a museum? That was part of my motivation with archiving the Vegas punk scene. It felt like it was slipping away into obscurity. Now I hope it does slip away into obscurity as it seems to have eclipsed it’s own mythos in the minds of many.

That’s one slice of punk rock dynamics that will forever be pathetic to me and yet it’s the inevitable for punk rock adherents. This being that the scene you belong to is the only one that matters. As an outcast, I never even fit in with the other outcasts in punk rock world. But I was there to be a witness. When I assed out I could’t ever be compelled to give a shit about the generations that came later and in fact loathed them and gave zero credence to their expression. I think most people have that experience. Fuck the new generation and fuck everyone who missed the boat the first time around. Are those rare records the tickets to that boat?

Who knows what, why, or how? The fact is there are people with money to burn. When are we gonna burn those people and get back our freedom stolen on the daily from us? I suppose we will all need to be backed into some serious corners before the revolution can free us temporarily. If we aren’t backed into a corner in 2021 what the fuck, right?

I’ve broken down a few times and started selling and chipping away at the hardcore punk hold outs I’ve amassed in my collection. Got serious money for some old Swans records, got some good money for a Dark Angel record. I could go on. It started getting ridiculous. And then I started playing games and making jokes just for kicks. One of these jokes just became a whole lot funnier.

I sold one of the first records I ever bought this week. I’ll start at the beginning.

My first job was at Little Caesar’s Pizza in the Kmart shopping center on Bonanza and Nellis. It fuckin sucked but I finally had some cash to buy smokes, go to shows, get adults to buy me beer, and buy records. This stoner kid Marty at Eldorado had a few rare punk records he was trying to sell and since I was king shit of the east side punkers he worked hard to get me to come by his house to look at some records his brother had. Turns out his bro joined the navy and was shoving off for parts unknown but he left behind a few 7”s that Marty wanted to liquidate. Even back then people were hip to the fact that punk records were rare and therefore valuable. It was a sellers market then and probably always will be.

I don’t remember what all records he was trying to pawn off on me. There were three 7” records. The only one I bought was this strange CRASS record that wasn’t even on the CRASS label. I thought I was getting the shaft because he wanted $5 for this 7”. But I relented and coughed up the dough.

The record was Rival Tribal Rebel Revel. But as mentioned it wasn’t on the CRASS label which always seemed strange to me. It felt like it was a special record and somehow I managed to hang on to it until this week.

I’ll give some background on who the band CRASS were and how much they meant to me which will heighten the absurdity of what follows.

CRASS were among the first in the original punk scene in England, if not the first, to dive head first into far left idealism featuring many of the trappings of the 60’s “hippie” vision. Conflicts that were relevant to the 60’s, didn’t go away with the coming of the 70’s. Or the 80’s, or the 90’s or the 00’s, or… you get the idea. Feminism, environmentalism, anti-nuclear, anti-war, anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, animal rights, anti-racist, and every other similar causes which would fall under that umbrella. CRASS were admittedly genius to graft these same issues onto the blank slate of punk rock, especially since the first punks, and virtually every generation since has been a breeding ground for fascist recruiters. At the onset of the first wave of punk many punks were quite vocal about hating hippies, thankfully CRASS and other like minded scene participants saw how important it was to continue the struggle that the hippies identified, the alternative being the continuation of capitalist exploitation of the scene, which would eventually happen, or the acquiesce of the scene into fascism, which would come to haunt “punk” to this day, and as we know it’s knocking on American society’s door currently. CRASS set the standard for carrying that banner which is a continuation of the tradition of resistance.

Also, beginning with their first drunken shambles of a gig they inspired a spirited, sloppy, thrown together aesthetic, which has (sadly) also been a continuing tradition in the realm of punk rock activism. It involves passion against the oppressive system, obnoxious “punk” theatre, and a serious desperation that was always two steps from the bottomless pit of depression considering the subject matter. Stakes were high, (they still are) CRASS weren’t fucking around, but they liked to party too.

Their aesthetics were brilliant. Stark black and white graphics, collage, stencil art, focusing on the all important message. Part of their urgency stems from the sheer amount of things they had to say. They had so much trouble on their mind (refuse to lose) it was like the singers had to spew it out at top speed to fit it all in the song.

They inspired one of the first sub genres that would be a force for good and bad in the underground for decades afterwards, the Anarcho Punk scene. It would dictate much of the undergrounds politics through the 80’s, somehow that thrust fell by the wayside in the 90’s and seemed to disappear all together with the dawn of the new millennium. Things have returned into sharper focus in the last few years. Would you agree?

I remember my own initiation into the world of CRASS. Even as a teenager I was skeptical of Anarchist thought. Get rid of all government? Even at that point in my life I’d met plenty of garbage bag people to see the fallacy of letting us as a community take care of ourselves. We may hope for the best from our community and sometimes the community delivers, but you can’t count on the community to be there to make the buses run on time. The Vegas scene of which I was a part went from Peace punk CRASS inspired lunacy, to straight up fascist nazi skinheads over the course of a few months. Even punks are trendy sheep by and large. I didn’t see a future in the fronting that anarchists inspired. It’s akin to Libertarians, another teenage daydream unworthy of serious consideration. Libertarians and anarchists may have seemed viable when we were an agrarian society, but we are well past that place as a society. As an industrialized society with urbanization that reflects a population of millions, I don’t trust my brother to be there for me.

Regardless of the breadth of their beliefs CRASS is an institution worthy of celebrating for helping to carry the weight of the left on their drunken backs. I’m sure they would hate to be labeled as such. Which makes them all the more beloved.

The truth and it’s consequences were heartbreakingly spelled out over the life of the band. I recall lofty highs of hearing these people speak the truth to the power structure. It was inspiring and it made me take what action I could as a young man and it made me take what actions I can as a grown man. It was equally distressing to feel the full pressure of capitalist society so large and untouchable. Too big to fail. I remember tears from listening to CRASS, but just as often they inspired resolve. It seems silly to put so much emphasis on CRASS as an impetus, they are merely a continuation of the struggle of which all nonconformists find themselves as we face down injustice and try to find a way to survive and still retain our morality and dignity. I think I’ve found a balance which makes sense to me. That’s enough, for now. At least that’s what I’ve continued to tell myself so that I can go on with my life without completely losing my shit.

CRASS has it’s share of detractors to be sure. I’d hazard a guess that I know more people who hate rather than admire them and I understand why. First off for being a music group the music tends to be really bad. I feel like being musical was like 5th or 6th on their list of things to do. Secondly, they’re British, so they already work to a disadvantage in my book. Especially since they’re EXTREMELY British in terms of the hard to follow accents and the fact that they appear educated. Among my most favorite of their graphics is the following words blown up big in a fold out poster: “The nature of your oppression is the aesthetic of our anger.” I had to look up some of those words in the dictionary but I felt confident, and smarter when I did. Still, it’s that kind of pretentious bullshit that can only be viewed as heavy-handed. Nobody likes a know it all and CRASS were nothing if not sure of themselves. Somehow I never heard CRASS as preachy, they just seemed determined and desperate, perhaps because I agreed with their anger? Of course I was happy to throw my lot in with anyone screaming at the top of their lungs back then, it made the anger valid.

The Nevada Test site was an hour drive north of Las Vegas. The end seemed nigh. It was rapturous righteousness. CRASS was what the hippies were crying about on steroids.

It’s hard to chose a favorite album, each one is so different. But my top two have to be Penis Envy, and Yes Sir I Will. Penis Envy is CRASS at their most musical, but it’s still CRASS, so the bar is low. I love that Eve Libertine does all the vocals on that album. I saw her play an unplugged show in 1990 in downtown LV, and there was a drive-by shooting, which was a very 1990 Las Vegas thing to do.

Yes Sir I Will is CRASS at complete meltdown. It’s not even broken into songs. It’s just continuous music through both sides. Sure, that sounds about as overblown as a Yes album but CRASS somehow pulls it off and knocks it out of the park. It gets pretty unhinged at points but never loses focus. Eve Libertine steals the show on this album too, vehemently breaking down monumental truths with a poetry of the oppressed. Maybe that’s why they chose her to sing every song on Penis Envy? She fuckin nails it. Listening to every album now it’s hard not to see her as the best vocalist and mouthpiece for CRASS. I was moved to tears from this album as a teenager, and it still holds up well. It’s breathtaking even as I listen to it as an old man. Especially when Eve said “Maybe our lives don’t matter that much?” Also when she shook with rage screaming how nuclear weapons could destroy all life on planet earth! She wasn’t bullshiting. There’s a lot of brilliant lyrics on display in this album but perhaps the most relevant piece is a simple two sentence phrase:

It is up to us all as responsible citizens of Earth To work towards the downfall of the powerful elite

Today’s current crop of fascist have angled themselves as victims and somehow the left is the elite to be brought down. This is the same tactic the original nazis used in the 1930’s. If nothing else the fascists have gotten smarter by learning history, or the masses have gotten dumber to forget it. Which story do you want to believe? Who do they think they’re fooling? You?

Yes Sir I Will is CRASS at their most didactic and it’s thrilling. Nuclear war will destroy all life on Earth! Utter contempt! Fuck Thatcher! There is no authority but your self. Even the fold out poster is a mockery of conformity and the sad irony of kowtowing to authority at all costs. It’s a photo of an airman from the royal air force. His face mutilated from a battle involving the Falkland islands. He is being given a medal from Prince Charles in this photo. The prince tells the airman to “Get Well soon!” To which the airmen replies, “Yes Sir, I will.” Devastating.

There are many CRASS haters, which is par for the punk rock course. I once had a long conversation with a douchy rock star musician I knew from Vegas, who ended up moving to Portland to become a douchy rock star here. The Clash became a topic of conversation for some reason, likely because he brought it up. I mentioned I wasn’t as aware of the Clash’s music because Crass and Rudimentary Peni talked shit about them which made me avoid their music for the most part. This rock star dumbshit was dismissive of CRASS and Peni, and wouldn’t stop talking up the Clash. Which of course made me dislike the Clash even more and double down on my love of CRASS. “The name is CRASS, not Clash, they can stuff their punk credentials cause it’s them that takes the cash!” I've since come around and appreciate the Clash more now, but I'll never ever respect them as much as I do CRASS.

Punk rock, as a general rule, and CRASS specifically, survives and becomes more popular every year for one simple reason: a new generation find their rage in the same trough from which CRASS drank. No one is more confident in their convictions than CRASS. It will hold appeal forever to each new generation looking up from the gutter. And each older generation looks to pop that enthusiastic bubble of self righteousness by downplaying it as naiveté, or shitting on the perspective of youth just because that’s what old people do. As an old man myself I have mixed feelings in this regard. Of course I’m annoyed by 15 year olds shouting slogans in my face especially when I shouted those same slogans and they were two generations removed from my own generation to start with. But there’s a morality and an urgency at play here which has never really left my purview. CRASS is not the bedrock of my moral worldview, they helped to inform it in a way but that train was already moving by the time I discovered CRASS. However I still respect their perspective and passion. As a seeker of truth I strongly believe the youth are smarter than given credit. I hope they get their shit together faster than mine did. Too many of my generation are clearly establishment. Even the ones who are still junkies which is too pitiful if it wasn't so disgustingly ignorant at first blush. FIGHT WARS NOT WAR is a sentiment I will take to the grave.

Here’s the funny part...

I sold a CRASS one sided 7” for $280 on discogs.com. I listed it originally for $400 as a joke not thinking someone would bite. It was a bit of a shock when someone offered $280. I took it.

In some ways I expected to have a reckoning with my younger self in relation to this moral quandary. But is it a moral quandary? The kind of person who would clutch pearls over the decision to make bank on a CRASS record is the kind of person who would probably steal it to sell themselves if given the chance. I understand that bands, specifically these types of anarchy punk bands would put labels on their records reading Pay No More Than, in an attempt to discourage the collector marketplace which inflates the price to outrageous fortunes due to rarity.

Surely I must mention the unseemliness of how our culture goes on to commodify everything, and eventually co-op even movements designed to be counter to capitalist bullshit. And the disgusting reality of "comic book" collector nerd douche bags who don't even give a shit about the sentiments and are just out to make a buck or consume "the product" no matter how noble that product may claim to be.

Still I think I deserve something for keeping this thing looking good after 30 years.

Anyway. Fuck Authority!

There is no authority but yourself.