Depending on your
perspective, legendary British collective Crass was either the truest band of
anarchists to ever strap on guitars -- loudly, proudly advocating radical ultra-left
politics through its atonal avant-punk music, Dadaist collage artwork, and edge-dwelling
DIY lifestyle -- or it was a snotty, pompous, and amateurish bunch of untalented
crypto-hippies who thought its shit didn't stink. One thing most people would
agree on, however, is that the chances of seeing Crass play live in the 21st
Century would be non-existent. The band started in 1978 and broke up in 1984 --
end of story, right? Er, maybe not. Read on.
This week tickets
went on sale for a March 17, 2011, show at Slim's that's being billed as Crass.
In fact, it's technically a band called the Last Supper, which is led by Crass
frontman Steve Ignorant and exists solely to play Crass songs. Penny Rimbaud,
Eve Libertine, Phil Free, and other original clan members aren't part of the
proceedings. For the casual fan, that might be fine. After all, didn't John
Lydon just play in town a few months ago with a band called Public Image
Limited, despite having only Lydon and no other original PiL musicians? Nor is
this the first time Ignorant has taken the stage to play those old Crass
anthems: in 2007, he performed the band's entire 1978 debut album, The Feeding of the 5,000, over the
course of two nights. "Me and the
band are really looking forward to this," Ignorant blogged about the
forthcoming U.S.
tour on his website. "Being able to the play the Crass songs in places
where Crass was never able to go will be an honour, and a huge amount of fun as
well."
Not everyone is so
enthusiastic about Crass v2.0, however. "I acknowledge and respect Steve's
right to do this," Penny Rimbaud was quoted as saying (in the UK Guardian) about Ignorant's Feeding of the
5,000 concerts in 2007. "But I do regard it as a betrayal of
the Crass ethos." A lot of spange-scraping gutterpunks won't be happy
about the Last Supper/Crass show's $21 ticket price, either. It's a far cry
from the days when Crass LPs came with stickers insisting you "Pay No More
Than" a ridiculously low amount of money compared to similar products on
the record store shelf.
Then again, Crass
was also one of the very first to declaim that "Punk Is Dead" -- it's
the title of Track 5 on The Feeding of
the 5,000, in which Ignorant sneers that "it's just another cheap
product for the consumer's head" -- so cynics can easily laugh that this
tour is simply one more vain attempt to revive that fetid old corpse. You'll have
your chance to make up your own mind when the Last Supper is served on
Thursday, March 17.
