Up Yer Tower! Rebellion 2023 - Day 2

 

The Del Strangefish Inexperience

Empress Ballroom

Day Two

Day two dawns and it is out of the blocks early for a 12.45 start, meaning time for one livener before entering the Gardens for a set by The Del Strangefish Inexperience. Del is of course Del Greening of Peter & The Test Tube Babies (in)fame. I don’t know much about the band but I am guessing that it is something of a vehicle for Del who now has entered the literary circle of punk musicians turned writers. I suppose if you are showing your face up there on the literary stage it makes good sense to have something to put up on the musical stage too. Keep the profile up whilst the Test Tubes step back for a while.

Whatever the rationale for the Del Strangefish Inexperience, it suits me fine as it offers Del a chance to play Test Tube songs that can now be legitimately be described as obscurities. Opening with ‘Intensive Care’ (‘Watch him play one note so well!’), the set also included ‘Excuses’, another early one from the  ‘Loud, Blaring, Punk Rock’ album, and ‘Boozanza’ (‘Anyone remember Trapper?’ Del asked). From memory, ‘Banned From The Pubs’, ‘Blown Out Again’, and ‘My Unlucky day’ were also in the set.

Some ours were then spent wandering and taking in the atmosphere of the weekend before there was a musical parting of the ways in that The Vapors were playing in the Opera House whilst Subhumans and Neville Staple were on in the Empress Ballroom - Melksham punk and Coventry ska of course won the Day for me.

Subhumans

Empress Ballroom

The Subhumans were brilliant as indeed they always are.

They were followed onto the stage by Neville Staple. The last few times that I have seen them I have been very impressed, but the loss of Terry and with it the final demise of The Specials still smarts. Nevertheless, Nev, Sugary and band made a very good account of themselves.

Neville Staple From The Specials

Empress Ballroom

Somewhere in between whilst giving my battered ears half an hours respite I saw a few bits from Attila The Stockbroker who was doing his thing in the Spanish Hall.

Attila The Stockbroker

Spanish Hall

What followed was my highlight of the festival, missed by most, but given the original band's history, that situation seems right and proper. In the Pavilion was TV Smith and Paranoid Visions Replaying Cheap. I'll skip over them here as an extensive post and gig will follow. Make do with a photo for now!

TV Smith puckers up at the prospect of reviving 'Cheap'!

Then last but not least for a weary punk... Steve Ignorant's Crass set.

I follow a Crass Records Facebook page and I am always amazed at the stick that Steve comes in for on the page... Crass sell out, merch slave etc etc. He has the blessing of Penny and the band to go out and play Crass material. Crass are popular around the world, but not so many every got to see them. I was 15 and down in Sussex when they split in 1984 so my first Crass experience was at the 'Gathering of the 5000' in April 1987.... a night of chaos with a handful of Crass songs thrown in.

I don't think what Steve does with the band now is Crass by numbers or Karaoke Crass as some have suggested at all. Certainly when it comes to songs like Bata Motel' and 'Poison in a Pretty Pill' Carol's vocals are faultless. There is great love and respect of the original in what they are doing with this material. Fair play to them.

Steve Ignorant Band

Club Casbah

And so to bed with Carol Hodge's dulcet tones ringing in my bleeding ears!

Steve Ignorant's Slice of Life The Winter Gardens Blackpool 1st August 2019

Crass..... a marmite band for sure, you either loved them or absolutely hated them. Two Crass memories spring to mind. In 1983 I was in the fourth year at school and bizarrely we had two music lessons a week (one actually singing and one 'music appreciation'!).... it was an odd school make no mistake. It must have been close to the end of a term and an alternative lesson was arranged whereby Mendelssohn, Holst and Brahms were ditched for 40 minutes in favour of our own choices. AC/DC, Depeche Mode and UB40...... my choice was 'Sheep Farming in the Falklands' by Crass. The teacher, a Mrs Edwards endured the Antipodean growl of Bon Scott whilst he described the 'Highway to Hell', along with the Essex pop sensibilities of a then squeaky clean Depeche Mode. What she wasn't prepared for was ...... Crass!

The record was placed on the dansette record player at the front of the classroom, the stylus placed on the disc..... teh band's Steve Ignorant intoned...

'Sheep farming in the Falklands, re-arming in the fucklands

Fucking sheep in the homelands, her majesty's forces are coming'

..........

Well that's as far as that one got and I earned a detention, but it was worth it!

In 1984 Crass called it a day, this was always their game plan......

Fast forward three years, now just 17 my mate and I had delved deeper into the Anarcho punk scene, which was always well represented in Brighton (we lived in Burgess Hill, not so far away). AYS (Admit You're Shit), Dirt, The Subhumans all played there. Sadly I missed some of these bands but did finally get to see Conflict at the point that their 'Ungovernable Force' was released. Antisect were a sight to see too. But Crass eluded us.In April of '87 the aforementioned Conflict announced a special gig, the so called 'Gathering of the 5,000' at the Brixton Academy that was to feature Steve Ignorant on vocals (along with Conflict's Colin Jerwood). This was intended to be a celebration of Crass and all that the scene stood for. I will post on this particular gig separately as I still have much of the stuff that Mortarhate Records sent out ahead of the gig as well as the reportage of the aftermath when things, perhaps predictably considering Conflict's then relationship with the Metropolitan Police, went somewhat awry.

My mate Matt and I were unbelievably exited to see Steve Ignorant and to hear Crass songs live (neither of us having had the opportunity to see the band in their own right). The gig was a classic, but the Met were lying in wait at the end of the gig and things turned nasty. Matt and I did not hang around to witness the semi riot, I was just 18 and he was still 17.... we came from Mid-Sussex..... and to be honest we had little appetite for a proper Brixton riot!

Now back on the time machine to August 2019 and there is that man again in Blackpool, with his 'Slice of Life'. I admit, I was ill prepared, a lovely looking lady on keyboards and two seated, I mean seated! dapper musicians on guitar and bass (as you can gather I hadn't heard the band before). Come showtime, an equally dapper Steve Ignorant joined his band on stage and began to play a set that initially confused me.... I honestly did not know what to make of the first three songs. After the gig, I described the band to everyone I knew and to Steve himself as 'Jazz Crass'. The band are extremely competent playing a backing that is not jazz but nothing that you would associate with that enfant terrible, Steve Ignorant. Steve's impassioned lyrics, generally more subtle than those of his first band, although not always, were delivered in that familiar Crass intonation. It was also a very visual performance from which I took away the theatrics of Jello Biafra with hints of Ian Dury and perhaps a little bit of Max Wall (sorry Steve), but we were in Blackpool!

Songs like 'Love & a Lampost', 'Eleven Chimneys' and 'Slaughterhouse' are tracks that I recall. Really different stuff and well worth a listen..... it's all on Spotify.

I recorded one song, 'Steve Ignorant's Slice of Life'.

'Steve Ignorant's Slice of Life'

Rebellion Festival, Blackpool

1st August 2019.

Post gig I met Steve and should have mentioned the teacher's outrage etc but the poor chap was desperate for a cigarette so I spared him my teenage reminisces!

Do They Owe Us A Living?..... Course They Don't!

I was sitting in front of the TV a week or so ago having my tea and watching the local news (BBC Look East - where nothing ever happens!) and my attention was immediately caught, when on cutting back to the studio after one news item, the screen was filled with the Crass logo!!

What followed was a brief piece on Steve Ignorant, now a lifeboat man operating out of Sea Palling on the wonderful North Norfolk coast.

An expanded version of the article can be found here.