I’m still picking up anarcho-fanzines and clipping collections through eBay – where they’re not insanely priced. A purchase from last week included a couple of gratis CD-Rs, one of which included some live anarcho-gigs recordings.
I was really chuffed to find that amongst those recordings was a full through-the-mixing-desk version of Crass’s set from a gig in Exeter in May 1984 – a gig that I organised. I wasn’t aware that there was a recording of this date, and was really happy to (accidentally) track down a copy.
I’ve picked up many a tape from BBP over the years. But on top of the output of DIY tape labels and distribution services, there must be *so* many personal live recordings from 1979-1984 anarcho-gigs out there – whether mixing desk run-offs or basic-as-hell condenser mike recordings from portal tape recorders. Let’s hope most people take the time to transfer them to digital before those thin strips of analog tape (now 25+ years old) stretch and snap irretrievably.
Hi Rich – I see there is a copy of Ability Stinks on ebay from 99p … if you don’t have it already.
Matt
is that the one with Annie Anxiety and No-Defences? I thought that was 1983? Maybe my memory is faulty. I was at a Crass gig in Exeter around then though.
Hi Sean – I was involved in putting together two such gigs – the first was on 17 September 1982 (with Crass, Dirt, Annie Anxiety, ‘Choosing Death’); and the second on 6 May 2004 (Crass, Flux, Annie, ‘Choosing Death’, No Defences and D&V) both at St George’s Hall, Exeter. So you would have been there in May 1984?
I was
. One of 3 crass gigs I went to. I was squatting with some of No-Defences in Camberwell, but just happened to be visiting my mum who had just moved to Devon, so got to go to the gig. We travelled back to London overnight ( a sleepy driver nearly getting us killed a couple of times) after the gig, I remember getting into London at dawn.
I liked No Defences politically and musically, but any traces of them seems to have disappeared.