Various Artists ‎– "New Criminals Volume 2" (New Crimes Tapes ‎– NC6) 1982

It's New Criminals Volume Two and its jam packed with unmusicianly joy.
The Apostles are probably the worst Anarcho-Punk band ever...which is a good thing by the way.
Attrition, are as DIY sounding as Industrial electronica can get.....speaking of 'Get'.......
We have 'The Get', which includes at least one Stripey Zebra,who are almost as wonderfully dysfunctional as the Zebras themselves.
Train Fares,apart from the great band name, are the blue-green Algae of the Indie primeaval soup, which evolved eventually emerging as mudskippers,or stuff like Talulah Gosh.
Terminal Disater, avert the total disater of the anarcho-punk carbon copyist mass grave, by being totally incompetent at replicating said generic dead end.
Cold War,are badly recorded Rema-Rema wannabes.If they had Martin Hannett producing they could have been as big as The Danse Society.
Twelve Cubic Feet, were almost the very first fully functional 'Indie' band....well, it was either them or the TV Personalities, Subway Sect,or Dolly Mixture?
This Bitter Lesson, are usually fine exponents of the pubescent art of anarchist poetry, which is normally hilarious.....but the two tracks on here don't reach those laughable heights of uber-seriousness. This can be found on their highly recommended 'Value Of Defiance' tape....coming soon to these cyber pages.

A fine compilation charting the shifting waters of the 1982 music scene,and the first glimmerings of the 'Indie' curse.

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The Snails ‎– "Shitting Bricks" (New Crimes Tapes) 1981

New Crimes Tapes liked their Anarcho-Punk-a-likes-a-lot. Here's The Snails, who could easily be mistaken for Zounds.The vocalist has that trademark 'I Know Something You Don't Know' quality that the singer of Zounds had in bucketsfulls.
The Snails could have been big if they'd released a vinyl LP like their sound-a-like compatriots.
There's no lyric sheet, but somehow I know everything they're ranting about.....the usual stuff....Vivisection, Fox Hunting, Thatcher, The Nuclear Menace,Factory Enslavement, Religion etc...you know.Preaching to the converted was an Anarcho-Punk speciality.Either you agreed with it all or you don't....nothing was gonna change;only for the worse.
Looking back, the Nuclear Threat produced a great era of creativity. Thatcher was a socialist compared to even Corbins labour party today; thanks to her financial support of myself, on both the dole, and Enterprise allowance schemes i've never had to work in a factory,or have a job, in my life.....especially as she had them all shut down, and liberated thousands of slaves from the mines. If anything, Thatcher was the Punk Politician. She wanted the same things as the Punks; more money, a future(ie a job and fuck the rest of you).This is the victorian version of Anarchy, as personal freedom rather than some weird form of communism that Crass promoted.....and everyone doing it for themselves.....think about it. Even Johnny Rotten became a property Baron millionaire, and I shudder to think what ancestoral homes those trust-fund hippies in Crass inherited.
Yep its worse now, but at least Fox Hunting is banned eh?

Tracklist:

A1 Think Tank
A2 Factory
A3 Comment
A4 From Foxhunts To Oblivion
B1 Thatcher's Victims
B2 Cocktail Version / Army Manoeuvers
B3 Church

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Autumn Poison ‎– "Songs Of Anger, Songs Of Hope" (New Crimes Tapes ‎– NC8) 1983

Who would have thought that the magnificent Stripey Zebras would become a joyless Anarcho-Punk band, banging on about Fox Hunting and war in place of the far more subversive subjects of Donny and Marie Osmond, Greta Garbo, and Disco's.
These chaps wanna lighten up a bit!?
On a topical note they do mention Govt chemical weapons facility 'Porton Down', just down the road from Anarcho-Punk homeland, Stone 'Enge........WARNING*! Spinal Tappisms could follow!?
Autumn Poison indeed,This week those filthy Russians have poisoned two of our finest British piss heads in near-by Sailsbury, with some discarded Novichok Nerve Agent.Conspiracy Theorists will draw sweeping conclusions about the coincidence that this facility is so close to these 'attacks', and that its in the middle of the World Cup.....whatever basically. But i am not unaware that the roots of this modern conspiracy syndrome madness that led directly to the election of leaders that make their nemesis 'Thatcher' look like Mahatma Ghandi; had their roots in the very same Anarcho-Punk culture that bangs on relentlessly about leaders such as Trump.Oh the Irony!?....what would the lickle children of Stone 'enge have said? (told ya*).

Tracklist:

A1 Hiroshima
A2 War Crimes (Afghanistan, El Salvador)
A3 Fox Hunting
A4 Uranium
A5 Worship The Bomb
A6 The Power And The Glory
A7 Smokescreen
A8 Swords Into Ploughshares
B1 Animals Are Not Ours To Eat, Wear Or Experiment On
B2 Who Would Rape Mother Earth?
B3 Contributory Negligence
B4 Dirty Business
B5 Porton Down
B6 The Sun Says
B7 Sense Your Own Strength

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The Stripey Zebras - "Live in Burnett's Bedroom" (New Crimes Tapes NC1) 1980

Basically,..... very basically,....this tape is a classic.
It's up there on a podium of pure cardboard alongside anything by such UK DIY  treasures as Danny and the Dressmakers, The Midnight Circus, Instant Automatons,Door and the Window, The Jubilets,The Barron Balls or even The Prats!?
Favourites on the Southend gig circuit,they had buckets for drums, a singer who sounds like an Essex version of Snagglepuss,or maybe Jinx the cat, on glue, and made an album in the drummers bedroom. Burnett was promoted to real drums at their live gigs, which was the first time he'd ever been behind a kit......now that's punk rock purity.
Then as with everything 'beautiful and pure', it becomes contaminated by the outside world. Eventually they decended into making more 'sophisticated' music, got better at their instruments, and wrote about 'serious' issues....yawn!
The evil virus of Anarcho-Punk penetrated this perfection, and various members formed various Crass style groups.....tut tut tut?
Graham Burnett, went on to create the fanzine and cassette label 'New Crimes', and form more 'serious' groups 'Enola Death' and 'Autumn Poison'.
Sadly the sub-genius that was Martin Fulton,the singer, died around the turn of this century i am informed! Why his fizzog doesn't adorn thousands of t-shirts worn by tormented adolescents the world over, and Kurt Cobain IS .....is quite frankly, a mystery of Marie Celeste-like proportions. Dave Mcullough ,late of 'sounds', should have re-edited his extremely daft obiturary for Ian Curtis, and replaced the lead subject matter with Martin Fulton....'He died for you'?

Track listing:

1 Monsters On TV
2 Disco Disco
3 Sgt.Bilko Plays Pop
4 Donny & Marie
5 Greta Garbo Goes Shopping
6 Carry On
7 Wild Thing
8 Fanzine Junky
9 Sheena (Easton) Is a Punk Rocker
10 Steptoe & His Dad
11 Sore Eyes Party
12 Walking Home
13 Skelington Flat
14 Seance Disco

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Various Artists ‎– "New Criminals Volume 1" (New Crimes Tapes ‎– NC2) 1981

From The Thought Criminals to "New Criminals" Volume 1 on New Crimes Tapes, An Anarcho-Punk leaning fanzine label from Southend-On-Sea.

Despite appearences from The Subhumans and Flux of Pink Indians, there are some UK DIY classics on this.Especially from the DIY myth that is Stripey Zebras, and 86:Mix...which is a new one on me.

Tracklist:

A1 –Sinyx - Animal
A2 –Sinyx - Suicide
A3 –Sinyx - Fight
A4 –The Subhumans - Parasites
A5 –The Subhumans - It's Gonna Get Worse
A6 –The Subhumans - Drugs Of Youth
A7 –86:Mix - Describe Yourself
A8 –86:Mix - My Desert Is A City
A9 –86:Mix - The Party
B1 –Stripey Zebras - Sgt. Bilko Plays Pop
B2 –Stripey Zebras - Greta Garbo Goes Shopping
B3 –Stripey Zebras - Monsters On T.V.
B4 –APF Brigade - The Profesionals
B5 –APF Brigade - Ban The Bomb
B6 –APF Brigade - No Effect
B7 –Flux Of Pink Indians - Left Me To Die
B8 –Flux Of Pink Indians - Is There Anybody There?
B9 –Flux Of Pink Indians - Life After Death
B10 –Enola Death - Fox Hunting
B11 –Enola Death - The Sun Says

Tracks A1 to A3 recorded live at Dave's practice room 10.05.81.
Tracks A4 to A6 from the 3 part cassette "Demolition War".
Tracks A7 to A9 recorded live at Southend Rascals 09.04.81
Tracks B1 to B3 recorded live at Rochford Zero 6 01.12.80
Tracks B4 to B6 from APF Brigade's live cassette.
Tracks B7 to B9 from the FOPI demo tape.
Tracks B10 to B11 recorded in Wayne Kermode's garden shed, May 1980. Enola Death formed in March 1980 and split up in June 1980 in a wet field near Stonehenge.

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