[kj] OT: The Day the Country Died: A History of Anarcho-Punk from1980-1984

[pssyche23]

I bought it a while back (shortly after getting the Crass book) mainly for 
stuff on the likes of Rudimentray Peni, SubHumans, Flux etc - there is also 
a DVD out (haven't seen it though) ... you make a fair point with "I have a 
very cool girlfriend who recently got me remastered editions of early 
Killing Joke albums (like Revelations), and there still isn't a decent 
retrospective that deals with that band in its proper context as one who 
started in the late 1970s touring with Joy Division yet who are still around 
today, slogging ahead in the trenches of modern underground rock" ... of 
course, much depends on the opinions of the author ... it doesn't help that 
KJ have always been difficult to categorise ... they featured in the Sounds 
spin-off mag "Punks Not Dead" but I always considered them post-punk, then 
there's "alternative rock" or industrial or experimental rock (circa WTF, I 
mean how do you define Who Told You How ? Jungle Rock?) ...maybe just rock 
... there were a few positive references in Simon Reynolds post-punk book 
"Rip It Up And Start Again" but then Mick Mercer's "Gothic Rock"  book had a 
fairly large section on UK Decay yet very small dismisive passages about the 
likes of Killing Joke and Theatre Of Hate. And didn't UK Decay first use the 
"gothic" reference as a bit of a pisstake (the cover for the Black Cat EP 
was shot in a graveyard) before any scene developed ? So they were really 
post-punk too. And as for the bloody NME, they have tried to rewrite 
history - in their world the Anarcho Punk thing never happened - there were 
never hordes of goth/punk-like punters milling about the place - cos they 
were all listening to the Human League, Blue Rondo Al A Turk, Kid Creole and 
ABC ... and shite like that ... just like with The Face magazine and how it 
went so downhill after a dozen or so brilliant issues (2 major positive 
features on KJ in number 5 and 13 then a feature on the new punks, about 
issue 20 in 1982) - no wonder the NME go on so much about The Smiths - in a 
greatest band ever poll, the NME put The Smiths at number 1 - that was only 
a ploy to deflect attention away from the other total shit they used to 
cover over the period from 1980 to 1984 ... altogether now, C U N T S !

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "B. Oliver Sheppard" <bigblackhair at sbcglobal.net>
To: "A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)" 
<gathering at misera.net>
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 8:23 AM
Subject: [kj] OT: The Day the Country Died: A History of Anarcho-Punk 
from1980-1984



> http://www.cultpunk.com/?p=168

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> -Oliver

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