[kj] Killing Joke live bbc ect

B. Oliver Sheppard bigblackhair at sbcglobal.net
Thu Jul 19 12:08:56 EDT 2007


For what it's worth, the DVD of _The Day the Country Died: Anarcho-Punk
from 1980 - 1984_, dir. by Roy Wallace, recently out on Cherry Red
Films, even mentions Killing Joke when Amebix are interviewed. As in the
book of the same title by Ian Glasper, the singer of Amebix goes on
about seeing Killing Joke at the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Rally
in 1980 at Trafalgar Square impacted the future band tremendously and
inspired them to try to make their own noise.

I've never thought KJ were anarcho-anything. From what politics I can
glean from, say, KJ 2003, for example, it's anti-war, anti-US
imperialism, a lot of stuff is anti-corporate ("Money Is Not Our God"),
the pics of Nazis saluting the pope in the Spanish Civil War -- and all
that's fine with me. But I've read plenty of interviews from the 80s
where KJ members basically rail against Crass, et. al. and claim they
cynically played the CND gig just to fuck with people (which Amebix
singer Rob Miller also relates).

I think Simon Reynolds saying KJ leaned close to "fascism," in his book
_Rip it Up and Start Again_, is hilarious. But Joy Division dealt with
the same stuff.

-Oliver



Phillipps Marc wrote:

>

> Hi Mel,

>

> I wasn't knocking Oliver just pointing out that KJ's interpretation of

> MP3 sharing is probably a little different to old 80's anarcho punks :)

>

>




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