crass re-releases new albums, so what? new releases, releases fuck. Grew up listening to Penis Envy and Christ, for some reason i seemed to be the only one of my friends that had their albums, i don't remember anyone ever talking about em, just listening along when I put in the cassette while driving around the valley or off to some punk show at the cobalt, etc. Each album comes with a booklet that talks about the album along with lyrics, and a fold out poster that has the original artwork and the original handwritten lyrics.
As you can see in the center of the above, all the albums form up like voltron. So far I have only found 3 of the 6.
This is the first reissue I picked up. Never heard this actual album before, and it just destroys, that first song is so over the top and in your face that it's impossible not to think about it. Songs like Banned at the Roxy, So what?, Do They Owe Us a Living (the many variations on this reissue), Sucks are all very catchy along with pretty much all the songs on the album. Harsh recordings, one guitarist is more rhythm then actually playing many notes, it's almost like they took a percussionist and put him on guitar.
Only disappointing thing on this first collection is the extras, it's interesting to me to hear just Rimbaud and Ignorant recording songs as vocals and drums only, but the soho and demo stuff is all not really interesting to me personally.
The main songs all sound great, it says they brought the bass up so you could actually hear it, glad they did.
If you never heard Crass, you should probably start with Penis Envy and then go to this album or you could even go to this album first actually. This album was also one I never heard till I bought the reissue. The opening song is amazing, single woman's voice and then noise, then Ignorant screaming MOTHER, into the third change for the song, a very hooky bass line with that percussionist guitarist adding a great layer and counter to the noise like lead of the other guitar with Ignorant snarling away in that classic english punk snotty voice.
Overall a lot of songs are in the vein of Feeding the 5000, only Crass have clearly stepped up the song writing, and the quality of the recording. Where it defers are songs like The Gasman Cometh, that mentioned opening song Mother Earth, and the album contains some preludes to one of my favorite albums growing up Penis Envy (Darling, Walls, Shaved Women).
The guitars are vicious at times, harsh and add a great atmosphere (specially notable on The Gasman Cometh).
The extras are live Peel session recordings. If you get the album they allow you to download the original live versions of the songs that originally accompanied the album. The Peel session stuff sounds good. Sounds like the announcer gets cut off at times as the band begins to play again, good punk stuff.
Here it is, my first exposure to crass. The album that led me into Bikini Kill, Heavens to Betsy, Sleater kinney, Helium, excited to find bands in the area like Pedal Pushers/Firesign, and generally search for powerful female bands.
This album got in my head and i couldn't stop listening to it. Reading on the internet now that you can find all this stuff, it sounds like Crass were starting to get the benefits of living together and practicing. It really is apparent on this album, the growth.
While all the songs are great, Health Surface to me was the song that stood out the most and still does. It sounds like some fucked up super nintendo metroid song in the best way possible.
The booklet reveals more then i could find online in my quick 2 second search about the My Wedding story. Basically Crass approached a magazine as Creative Recording And Sound Services and a 7inch was released with the magazine featuring this song. After they found out and linked it back, they were appalled sending out apologies etc. Too late, the idea of Crass at work, they were against the 'system' and that was a clever way of fooling the mass, creating anarchy in that one way, rather then just singing about it.
Rimbaud mentions this album made it into the charts at 16, and sold well only to disappear from the charts immediately after that initial week even though the album started selling better. He believes the album was bought off the charts so the big labels could squash the idea of DIY selling well.
When I was a kid, I remember skating down the main street in Santa Barbara with some friends wearing a Crass shirt. A bum punk rocker guy asked me "if crass were so against the system and selling out/making money, etc, why would they sell t-shirts". I didn't own a computer when I was kid, there wasn't information readily available, I just shrugged cause I had no idea what to say to it. Turns out, Ignorant was bummed that they were always broke and companies made Crass shirts, selling them to stupid kids like me, and the band never got any money from it. Believe it if you want, I don't know what to believe anymore with everything and everyone skewing things to benefit themselves. I wish i still had the shirt.
PS: (Ignorant playing Crass songs live without Crass so many years later? no thank you, I will keep them in my mind how I envision the original idea of the band rather then waste 30 bucks to see a guy play old songs. Last time I did that was for Eric Burden and the 'NEW' animals which fucking sucked. I got free tickets through work and they started playing a rasta version of house of the rising sun while he wore sunglasses in the darkness on stage. Exit, stage left even).
