VAGUE 21 Cyber-Punk (1988)

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I I I I I I I I IrI Itr r Ir tI II I I t I II I I CONTENTS: 14,1 ITOMYAGUE: MEDIAMESSIAH TVAGUE] 17] I BLAST 1988 [VAGUE] t19l I VAGUE: THE MUSIC TERMINATOR tvlcuvprnnvl t35l I CYBER-PUNK: TIIE FINAL SOLUTION [MARK DOWNHAM] tsl] I ENGLAND'S DREAMING: TJOU S,IVIGE: THE VAGUE INTERVIEW ILONDON'S OUTRAGE: JON SAVAGEI ISTYLE SUCKS: JAMIE REID] lclTr 68fi718812000: JON SAVAGEI T85] I CULTURICIDE tvAGUE] t95] I GIVE ME AN ISSLTE... TJAILTHE TATE 4: DICKARLENI [(;OD I FUCKING HATE TIME OUT: DICKARLEN] IFEMINISM AS ITASCISM: BOB BLACKI [ANIMALS AND MEN: LARRY LAWATAGUEI TAND FUCK LOBSTER TOO: ROBIN RAMSAY/VAGUE] lTolvr VAGUERIST THE OUTRAGEOUS PLAGIAR IST: VAGUE/TRAVIS/PERRY] tTOs] I CLASSWAR TDICKARIEN] 1115] I THE RAPE OIJ. LANGUAGE [JAMIE REIDI rr rI rr rr Ir II rI I II II Ir II I , Editor: Tom Vague t Cartoonish Perry Harris I ' Cover Design: Jamie Reid (firr Assorted Images) I Resident Richard Allen PlagiarisI Stewart Home I Cyber-Punk Method-Film Critic: Mark Downham I Vague Grunts [List Of Famous People I Knowl: Animal/ furne and Alex/ Dick Arlen/ Arun/ Ed Baxter/ Ifob BlaclV Caspar/ Margi Clarke/ Paula Clarke/ Bob Dobbs/ Derek and Tokn/ Mark Dovmham/ Karen ElioU John Hall/ Perry/ Karen and Jake Harris/ Stewart Home/ Andy Hopton/ Richard North/ Genesis P.Orridge/ Jamie Reid/ Sean Ridgewell/ Jon Savage/ Steve/ John Travis/ Sarah West f Roadcrerv: Jamie Maisey and AIlison Kimber I f Typesetting: Authority via Counter Productions. Printing: Aldgate Press, 84b Whitechapel High St, London El 7AX. I I lsBN t87t6920t6 NO COPYRIGHT LONDON l9tt8 I UK DISTRIBUTION: I Counter Productions, PO Box 556, London SEs ORL. I Housmans, 5 Caledonian Rd, London NI. I I I I Red Rhino [Cartel], The Grainstore, 75 Eldon St, York YO3 7NE. BM TOPY London WCI3XX EURO.DISTRIBUTION: . UT Communications, 10V Balbo, 20136 Milan, Italy. tl' I US DISTRIBUTION: I A Distribution, 396 7th St. #2, Jersey City, NJ 07302. I !-latland, lE44 Foothill Boulevard, Oakland, CA 94606. ! Marginal [Canada],37 Pine Av- enue, Toronto, Ontario M6P 1V6. I MAIN OUTLETS: I Compendium,234 Camden High St, I.ondon NWl. I Freedom, 84b Whitechapel High St, London El 7AX. I Hype, BuIl and Gate, Kentish Tovm Rd, London NWl. f lgnition,263 Portobetlo Rd, Lon. I RoughTrade, l30Talbot Rd,Lon, don Wll. don Wl l/ 16 Neals )'ard, Covent Carden. London W2. VAGUE BCM BOX 7207 LONDON WC1N3XX

I THE TEN VAGUE COMMANDMENTS: HoWTo BE LIKETOM VAGUEI ? [1] GETAWAYFROM II'IIEREYOU COME FROM AT THE FIRST POSSIBLE OPP,gRTUNITY AND NEVER, GO BACK IPR-EI'ERABLY GET OUT Ot,'THIS StrITTy COUNTRY . VIET NAM WOULD BE GOOD] I = -t = 2 -. [2] GET THE ROCK'N'ROLL LII'EST}LE ITIILLSHIT ouT oI.'YOUR SYSTEM By YOUR MID-20'S TTHEN GET THE WEIRD SHIT/CONSPIRACY THE. ORY/HEAVY POLITICAL PHASE OVER WITH AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE . AS DULL AS THIS MAY SEEM,IT HAS TO BE DONE]I l3l KEEP UP THE I'OOTBALL [AND ONLY SUPPORT EVERTON ORSPURS]I t4I GO OUT TO THE PICTURES AND THE SHOPS NOW AND AGAIN BUT DONT S(rcIALISE MUCH . IT IS'NTWORTH IT. WATCH TVA LOT [A}IY OLD RUBBISHIT [5] DRINK A LOT OF TEA AND COFFEE AND SMOKE AT LEAST 20 A DAY ISHOULD BE MARLBORO RE. ALLY IIUT SO LONG AS IT IS'NT SILK CUT ANY. THING'LL DO]I [6] NEYER GET Up BBFORE MID-DAY IMOST PORTANTONE]I U] WORK AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE [NOT AT ALL AT PROPER JOITS IF YOU CAN] I [It.I ALWAYS HAVE SHORT SPIKEY HAIR AND WEAR AS MUCH BLACK AS POSSIBLE IAND YOU HAVE TO rlE sKrNr{Yl I [9] READ SOME BOOKS [DOSTOYEVSKY/LESTER IIANGS AND WILLIAM GIBSON ARE PRETTY HIP WITH ME AT THE MOMENT. BUT GET JUNK POP. I\IEDIA TOO TO KEEP YOUR HATRED SHARPI T IIO] CULTIVATE T..RIENDSHIPS 1VITH NORMAL PEOPLE . PEOPLE YOU CAN TALK }-OOTBALL WTTH lAvotD wlilRDos, IIAVE soME LAUGHS AND GO ON BENDERS NOWAND AGAIN]I I THAT'S ALLTHERE IS TO IT I I NEXT ISSUE: THE LASTTEMPTATION OFYAGUE

Would you really rather sit arouud and watch TV than go out? ITAH I Doyou deliberately work at au houest but menial jolt. even though you could be making big $$$ as an ass-kicking executive? YES I Do you look down on those who would rather do idiot labour or go on the dole than try to achieve, as you have doue'J YES Are you fairly well assur.ed that you're smarter than the 'average' gazurba? YES I Do you get lixated on (rne amusing little activity and then 'go at it', day and night? OH YES firmk at thisl I -i 7 C tt: I .a a Are ;rou scientifrc rather than superstitious? BIT OF rloTH I Do you avoid looking too closely at beautil'ul 13 year old girls? Boys? f YES [dont you?...] Wlren you get impatient with an inanimate object, do you tear it all to shit? YEP At night at home, are you sometimes convinced Charles Manson is in your closet? PRETTY MUCH ALL Olt THE I TIME T Do you instinctively imitate dialects and mannerisms when describing a scdne? NO [I come tronr \Yiltshire] I Do certain textures or noises make your skin crarvl? yES [a lot ofnoises do] Do you often stay up all night? YES Does money'burn a hole in your pocket?'YES Does everytldng seem a little unreal to you? NO Do you haye certain secrets that no one else knows? NOT I Do you sometimes look back at yourself 3 or 4 ;ears ago and think, "God, u,hat a jerk?" YES Do 1'ou lrear voices muttering in your head, faint and indistinct? YES Do you use credit cards irresponsibty in hopes of later I I payneut? NO lbut I ryould if I had any] I Do you get messages from space beamed into your skult? NOr Are you a 'packrat', do you hoard material goods that you'll probably never use? Do you enjoy filing, stacking, resorting them? OH YES [that's ALL I do] I Would you love to go looting during a riot? YES I Do you worry about your brain? YES I Do you dream of controlling the world? NOI When you were a chiltl, did you torture small auimals antl N0I bugs? Do you tind it utterly impossible to compr.ehend the opposite sex? NOT UTIERIJ... YES Do you get psychosrxuatic headaches? YES I I Does your ternper stay dormaut most of the time, ouly to suddenly explode into qunsi-insane rage? YESI Do you like to drive fast as hell, with your car stereo cI'atrked up all the way? NO [I'm not american] I Do you of'ten 'tune out' the worftl while concentrating? YES ! AI,LY I Do you catch yourself shooting off at the mouth? DITTO r Do you sometimes want to fire a deer rille into your TV? oH NO, NEVER I Do you often lie when the truth would suffice? SOMETIMES I Do you blurt orrt well-meaut but uncouth statements and then imrnediately regret it? NO! FUCK OFF... sony f Do you sonretimes smash thc shit out of your finger wlren using a hammer? SOMETIMES Do you huve spells drrring rvlrich you are pissed offor depressed I'or what you later tlecitle was u(, good reason? N0 [it's ahvuys lbr a good rcuson] f ! I f AFTERTHISI I Haveyou ever had a psyclric experience? Seen a trt ()? N() Do you let jobs stack up, rationalising that you work better uldrr pressure? YES I Does disorder in your work ar.ea drive you nuts? YES I Do you spout broad generalisations on subjects about which you know little or nothing? OH yES [made it car.eer. out of itl I Do you find human folly amusing? NO luot Birrtic_ulr-rr:bl Do you live in your orvn little world? YES I Do you like to go out at night rvith friends, being rowdy and disturbirrg the peace, drinking and terirorizing I citizens? NOT SO MUCH NOWADAYS Do you get all cranked up and rnake elabor.ate plans that will nevercome off in a million years? YES Do you always need to fart during the mq.st solerul occasions? NOTALWAYS When you see someone in pain or discomfort do you laugh, or want to? YES I Married? NOI T Do you feel you 'lmarch to the beat of a drunken drumrner?" NO [everybotly else does] Do.you lbrget rvhere you just put things? OCCASION- I f I Divorced? NOI Dn you have enough Slack? NO [you can never have ! enoughl Do you recognise the necessity l'or law and order? NOPE I Do you like your job/school/chores? NOPE I I Paid enough? NO [nothing] In general, do you really give a shit? NO Do you read much? A BIT Watch the news much? YEAH Do you compulsively read any inane thiug (lalxls, ads) tltat happens tn be within vision? YEP Do you soruetiures get the impression that EVBRYBOIIY of thv o;lposite (or othenr.ise desired) sex is repulsed by you? YES If rve invadetl little countries or ftrught Russia rvith N- I I I I I Bombs, would you coddle dratt-dodgers? CUDDLE DRAI.'T.DODGERS?I tsl

Would you get the tuck out of the country? YES I Do people consider you odd? BETTER DO IIECAUSE I THINK MOST O}- THEM ARE FUCKING ODDI Do you have different personalities according to rvho you're talking to? YES I Do you sometimes make faces, sing, twitch, etc. for no apparent reason? YES I Would you just as soon let others nrake the tedious deci- I sions? YES Do you behave dlfferently with family than with friends? Do you automatically dislike members of strange religinus cults? YES [ANY rcligious cultsl When you get home from work, would you just as soon watch some cheap, stupid entertainment as more educational fare? YES Do certain 'types'of people get under your skirf YES Does it irritate the hell out of you to see writers use cliches? YES Do you fall madly in love, ALL THE TIME? NO I I I I I YEST Does everything always take twice as long and cost twice as much as you thought it would? YES I I Are you always late? NO Do you easily'blow things off and procrastinate? NO Is today's youth more l'ucked up than previous gener- t ations? NO [my generation was the last to get properly lucked upl I Do you clown around a lot? NO I Do your face and voice ehange grotesquely when you get excited? DONT THINK SO, PARTICULARLY I Do you ignore your health for long periods? NO [I'm always consciousof it, or my lack of it] f Do you sometlites get all 'spaced out'und 'dinry'for no apparent reason? YES [but I'm not comfortable with those termsl I Do you ever dream you are in elementary school, and you suddenly notice you are wearing no pants? NO [do you?] I When you were a little kid, if you tapped the left side of your chair a few times, did you then feel compelled to tap the right side of your chair an exactly equal number of timbs? YES! YES!...?l Do you sometimes go out beating up strangers? NO Doyou occasionally shoplift'in revenge?'N0 lI'm a crap I shopltfterl I Do you go on drug binges occaslonally? OCCASIONALLY I Are you more or less cheer{ul around others? MORE OR I LESS Do you sometimes thlnkyou should'qult?'YES Do you or did you do lousy things to your elders, just to bug them? YES Every now and then, do you tle up blind amputee women Which of the lbllowing words descrlbe YOtl? CITY PERSON: country person: suburbanite: HETERO [sort ofl: homo: bi: Omni: asexual:'good': 'bad': sensitive: TOUGH: FRUSTRATED: satisfied: ATHLETIC: healthy: ILL: wimp: sane: Half-cocked: insane: absent-minded: ALERT: lriendly: cagey: SULLEN: ANTISOCIAL: gooly: A FUNNY PERSON IN CONVERSATION: TIRED: en- ergetic: NERVOUS: LOOSE: lively: a wallflower: quiet: loud: blue collar: white collar: N0 COLLAR: TALENTED: untalented: intellectual: NO BULLSHIT: MOODY: ryeird: NORMAL: DEPRESSED: MANIC: NEUROTIC: PSY. CHOTICT RENEGADE: aggressive: subdued: NICE: grouchy: optimistic: CYITIICAL: PESSIMISTIC: SMART: stupid: IN- BETWEEN: GENIUS: cralty: shitty: N0WHERE: rich: middle-class: POOR: handicapped: macho: educated: uneducated: overeducated: and, finally, al'e you an EMERGENTILE, a REWARDIAN, or merely a ME- DIOCRETIN? I'M A MEDIA.CRETIN I Which of the following'phenomena' do you more or less believe in? ufos: astrologr: telepathy: precognition: telekinesis: psychic healing: pyramid power: ancient astronauts: ,ghostsr: trance revelations: Atlantis/Mu/etc: Bigfoot-type crea- tures: the Loch Ness Monster: NONE ABOVE: OTIIERS I I I The world condition these days is: bad: good: FUNNY: AS EXPECTEDI and indulge in mud sports, canings and Tasmanian Culture? NOTSO MUC:H NOWADAYSI I Do you have any phohlas. fears, compulsions? YES Do you sometlmes dwel! morbidly on things like sickness, world problems, death, drugs, pain, perversion? YES Are you even slightly sick in the head? PROBABTY I I Do you sometlmes fret irrationally over l'riends and loved I ones? YES Do you actually l'ear'Bob'at tlmes? YES Right now, you would like to have more: TIME: MONEy: FRIENDS: SEX: ALCOHOI,: TOBACCO: MARTJUANA: STIMULANTS: NARCOTICS: DEPRESSANTS: HALLU. CINOGENS: CLOTHES: BRAINS: OTHERS I f Do you figure there's a big depression on the way? NO [it's already herel I Do you think the aliens will stop us from destroying ourselves? NO I Do you often dream of a post-holocaust world in which you are top caveman? N() I Have you lost pretty much ALL faith in the government? N0PE [never had any anyway] I Do you bite into an apple and then worry about the weird, chemical taste on the skin? NOPE [cant say I do] Do you use our nation's President as a scapegoat? NOI Do you think justice can be 'bought?'YES Do you instinctively feel that all public figures ere liars? YES Do you get a mini-heart-attack every time you see a cop? f I I NOI t6l I I I WHAT YOU READ IS WHAT YOU GET T T I

{* $+ I t'irst BLAST THIS POXY COUNTRY I I BLAST ITS SHITTY PAST, ITS PHONEY PRESENT AND I?S EYEN IIfORE THO{TEY FUTURE I I BLAST THE VILLAGE MENTALITY OF ITS VILLAGES fespeciaEy west conrdry ones] AND THE VILLAGE MENTALITY OF LONDON,I I BLAST ITS LICENSING LAWS [at the root of most of it] but BLAST ENGLISH PUBS as]ryay [be they traditional rural/urban or trendy rural/urban - except maybe'Finch's'on Portobello and'the Warwiek'sometimesl I I BLESS ITS WEATHER T I BLAST ITS PATHETIC INCESTUOUS ARISTOCRACY, BLAST ITS PETTY BANAL MIDDLE CLASS [espe- cially the way they eat and those stupid big umbrellas they havel AND MOST OF ALL BLAST ITS STUPID, PREDIC"T- ABLEWORKING CLASS - In particular the builders on the St.Anne's Rd site. BLAST THEM, THEIR PARENTS, THEIR CHILDREN AND ANYBODY WHO KNOWS THEM. BLAST anyone who thinks its fun to jump up and down on a kango- drill at 9 O'Clock in the morning - 'Auf Weidersehn Pet' is so untrue. Builders aren't lovable and funny in the slightest. They're really Thatcherite Work-crazy,.tango-hopping twats! The one thing theyenjoy more than landing a job on something like Stoke Newington Police station, ii the sheeiiadl islic pleasure, you can se_elhey 1ll get, from playing with their phallic kango- drills at 8 O'Clock in the morning. WHAT IF THEY GAVE A BUILDING SITE AND NOBODY CAME? Who needs another imitation 18th Century Wimpey Home anyway? I saw one the other day with a'1"987'plaque on it, WANKERS! I don't know whose worse, the people who build them, the people who live in them, the people who design them or the people who write about them? BLAST THEM ALL ETERNALLY I I B_LASTlhose poncey bourgeois bastards who live in Hackney or off Portobello Rd but don't have any curtains - so they can flaunt their offensive wealth and pretentious bad-taste. And the trouble is they don't get what's coming to them - because the cockney barra'boys and street-wise homeboys really respect them and want to be like them. I'm talking about Yuppies of course but BLAST ANYONE WHO GOES ON ABOUT YUPPIES ALL THE TIME [the sign of the truly unimaginativel ! r BLAST'CLASS wAR' [the most unirnaginative youth sub-culture since,crass,] f I BLAST ANyTHTNG To Do wITH ACrD oR ADVERrismc Ithe biggest myth of the 60's and the biggest myth of the gO'sl C]URSE TIMOTHY LEARY OR WHOEVER IT WAS WHO FIRST MISTOOK MYSTICISM FOR SUBVERSION AND ETERNALLY CURSE THE LEGIONS OF ARSE-WIPE AD EXECS WHO RIP OFF TERRY GILLIAM I I Ancl BLAST [the other oneJ FREE-I\iIARKET MONETARISM or whatever you call it. Accountancy isn't exciting, banks and stock-markets aren't hip, white isn't. black. FucK THE I,ANK GENERATION I

I ETf,NXALLY CI.]RSE AITNBODYWHO HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH 'NIGHT NETWORK" OR LIKES ff IN AhIYWAY. You know what I like about 'Night Network'? Nothing. I don't like ANYTHING about 1tlgfu Network'. If that Thompfucking-son bloke isn't fued soon - and that prick Brown too - media blood will flow in the streets. Janet Street- Porter, the day is coming. FOR HOW MUCH LONGER DO WE TOLERATE MASS-MEDIA? T BLAST YOUTH.CULTURE. IT,S FINISHED, KIDS. YOU,RE TOO LATE I How I hate modern music, it goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, how I wish it would STOP! t BLAST any music - BLAST ANY MUSIC - but BLAST PARTICULARLY any music that's remotely like Erasure or The Pet Shop Boys. Or any Iilms that are anything like'Another Country' or have anything to do with David Puttnam [except'Local Hcro'J IF JOE ORTON WAS ALIVE TODAY HE'D BE HETEROSEXUAL. tr BLA'&T all british films, but particularly the ones 4bout public schools [except 'If....' and 'Good And Bad At Games'], chirpy cockney characters [them and the films about them], films about 50's Britain - the only decade more boring than the 80's [except 'Plenty' - better than all the Vietnam-angst films - except for 'Aliens' and 'southern Comfort'] and anything by Peter Greenaway [the english Jean-Luc] I tsLAST films about Vietnam [except for the one from the VC's point of view, which will never be made] and films about babies and babies [except Perry's] I BLESS Alex Cox for 'Repo-Man' and 'straight To Hell'. BLAST HIM ETERNALLY for 'Sid'n'Nancy' and for remind' ing everybody of that senile old social-worker Joe Strummer. f BLESS Julie Burchill, bless her fascist little socks. T HAVE alwavs been ready to defend I tvtt Thatchet againet- chargee .of dementie. but now even I am trorTled that the burden of nine-and-a-half years at Number Tbn is beginning to afflict her end turn her mind. 'iudgement tt€ deughter of a trry cenior civil rervant wae-recently introduced ta Mail on Sundav hackette Julie Burchill. Ifhen ehe told f,er father that she had met the the rrry senior civil Stalinist harpy. -hardly contain his exciteBervant could ment. "She's the only female columnirt who the Prime Minister reads religiously," he voueh$fed. I BLESS ADIDAS, MARLBORO AND SAINSBURYS - THE REST CAN FUCK OFF. I BLAST SOUTH LONDON - except for the Brixton Sports Centre - no, just blast South London. I BLESS THE MET for stopping U2 playingoutside the premier of their stupid film [when I went to see 'The Last Temptation Of Christ' I thought the IJZ trailer was the feature for a minute] I AND EVEN BLESS the NME New York correspondent who resigned rather than give the U2 album a good review. THERE IS SOME DECENCY LEFI - EVEN IN THE MUSIC PRESS! ,I,Ht{E rtgfLt *}lf YAXT Y0 lfiLL tiG tc txrY gjrx'**r& filxlfi rTarY Trl ?xt hltItrAfiEBjl",l tlAtu rSrt* fnrt*135 t{o* Y}aax I aII} Elvl fr.r,R8 Asa. gt}aq.

r BL{STLRT x: -=neral and partictrlarlv for the way they tried to blame everybody but their own GRoss h,:': t.he place and the firclt EI-ESS smokers on the tube NEGLIGENCE for Kings X I I tsLASTLRTAGAINfortheutter.contemptinwhichtheyholduspoorbastardswhohavetorelyonthemtogeturila-. 1 'rr're the laughing stock of the world, LRT, not-the people who don't use your stupid ticket-proclssing machiles - which r-' =r.work anyway, along with your old-fashioned fire-iiskilevators, signals, and where are thoie videos at Leicester Square r- Eh? Jesus!l I BLESS PASSENGER-ACTIONS [why doesn't it ever happen on a rube I,m on?l ! I BLESS 'THE GREAT ARISTOCRATIC ART OF DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING' _T!: eltenlof lour apathy, like sex and travel and ligging, has always been dictated by your class - but not anymore. I'cr BLESS UNEMPLOYMENT, doing nothing, ducking and diving, Gareth - this bloi<e I know whose beenon the dole 18 YEARS! [I've only made il to t0 myself] 1l vou don't understand why I think unemployment is a good thing - FUCK OFF - what are you doing reacling VAGUE rnrrr'ay? I BLAST all those social-conscience documentaries, pop groups and radio things, that don't ever mention the fact that ncuple might not wanl to work - When it's blatantly obvious that nobody does. \Iv old man doesn't, none of my mates ever did, wide-boys don't, the media-lamebrains that get all concerned don,t, ancl -hc rich certainly don't. Even - the lowest of the low - popstars don't want to work. In fact thais their only redeeming fea:rre. And the only reason I can think of why people STILL get involved with music - No matter howboring and reduidant -{.'. become, it's better than working ! IlwoRK "Dear Comrades Mondaymoming,wakingup inthe coldand fog. Cettingup atsix h the moming is a real violence, a little daily Stammheim nurning tLrough your life in the prison of work. It's that unsatisfied desire to steep, to snuggle down and think shurriedly about your life, your love, your miseries in the warmth il your bed, 'splendid stage of dreams and lovd'. Solitude of a dark iar*.'n, suffocated by smoke, criss-crossed by chilly heavily-wrapped igures clinging to bicyclehandlebars, scooters, steering wheels. Smogdirtied mist, suburban smells and colours, then at the city :entre you change coaches (this moming I've managed to get a seat lgain). The cold envelopes and penetrates, swallowing up the last :aces of warmth spread over your skin: not yet 7 o'clock and I'm rlready into the work-cycle. I refuse to begin my days like this, nothing to do with me, the :equirements of the office, the times oI the alarm clock. I hate that belll What do they want from me? A coach bringing me nearer and nearer to the oflice and all its accessories, worse than watchirng Sunday aftemoon TV, That's what refusal to work means, it isn't an idea, a myth, but this concrete need to stay in bed, strangle the alarm clock and take back time for yourself. It's the need to rest body and mind. Images and sensations from a short joumey to work, scribbled notes for a letter to the paper, looking for privacy. The coach stops, I get out into the square, follow the portico, cross the road, the other portico. I'm there, open the window, begin. And I can't even go to the newsagent - it's Monday and the dear ,red paper' doesn't come out, I won't find it there amongst all the others. Ciao, A comrade" "One Monday at the end of October" included in ,,Dear Cornrades: Readers' letters to'Lotta Continua"' edited byMargaret Kunzle (Pluto Press, Lon .r 1980) II I BLAST theory-freaks who dismiss anybody who does anything like bombing an army barracks, or assassinating a judge or something, because they haven't worked out their theory properly, and they're going to allenate the great lumpen proletariat. If somebody makes a decision to do something like that, they've had enough and they've gone way beyond theory. \{ell, it's better than bottling it up! I I BLAST conspiracy-theory freaks who - when anything happens like The Black Liberation Front planting a few bombs in the midlands - come up with a theory that it's neo-nazis really, trying to stir up racial hatred. After tht: 'It"alian Experience' of the police and god knows what infiltrating the Red Brigades, it's got to the stage where anything that happens is put down to state-sponsored terrorism. So don't do anything, don'[ riot, don't complain - Just write boring theories and wait for the glorious day when the lumpen proles organise themselves into Workers' Councils. WOOPEE- FUCKING-DO! I I BLESS THE AN(iRY BRIGADE AND ',A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE IDLTCK yot] StrcKERll - I DONT THROW BOMBS,I WATCH FILMS -

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BLESS - \.ET\YORK' 'LORD JIM' 'THE NIGHT OF THE GENERALS' 'THE JERK' 'INSIGNIFICANCE' 'RIVER'S EDGE' HIGH''THE JANITOR' 'TAXI DRIVER''BEING THERE''TIME BANDITS''THE ADVENTURES OF ,CKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8th DIMENSTON''COMMANDO' 'ALIEN''ALIENS' 'PLATOON''POLICE' A"SUBURBIA''VALENTINO''THE THIRD MAN"NO WAY OUT"THE BIG CLOCK''ANGEL HEART' :'ill[}-{-\cE WITH A STRANGER', ',MIDMGHT COWBOY', ',BARFLy', ',ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN' 'ApOCtAlflftpse Nowt''LAST TANGO IN rARIS''rERFORMANCE''cHINESE RoULETTE,,BURDEN oF DREAMS' ING BULL' 'SWIMMING TO CAMBODIA' 'STRANGER THAN PARADISE' 'SPECIAL BULLETIN' L''FITZCARRALDO' 'BADGE OF THE ASSASSIN' 'KOYAANISQATSI' 'THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND' RUNNER, ,AFTER HOURS, ,DOWN BY LAW, ,DIVA, ,SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORDENZONE"TF...."JAZZONA SUMMER'S DAY"A GRINWITHOUTA CAT"STRAIGHTTO HELL''SLAM. NCE' 'THE WTCKERMAN' 'GERMANY TN AUTUMN' 'EASY RIDER' 'A PRAYER FOR THE DYING' 'MURH9Ej[_B-Y_?ESREP' 'THE AMERICAN FRIEND', ',ONE PLUS ONE [SyMpATHy FOR THE DEVIL]' 'BLAZTNG FS{DDLES' 'RAZORBACK' 'THE LONGEST DAY' 'LOCAL HERO' 'SILVERADO' 'WANTED:DOA' 'ANGEL T DL:ST''SALVADOR''THE, YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY''CIRCLE OF DECEIT"THE ILLUSTRATED ,ENTER THE DRAGoN, ,THE PASSAGE' ,BAD TIMING, ,SAIGC)N, 3 UEN, 'UN CHIEN D,ANDALOU, 5 DRJEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE''QUADROPHENIA"THE BIRTHDAY PARTY''STEPFORD WIVES''GOOD lr* lrn BAD AT GAMES''cHINATOwN"THE posrMANALwAys RINGS TwICE,'INVASIoN OFTHE BoDysi$ T-ATCHERS, ,CHINA SYNDROME, ,THE wILD BUNCH, ,Go TELL THE SPARTANS, ,THE ODESSA FILE, g SALEM,S LOT, ,THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, ,THE LONG GooD FRIDAY, ,PURPLE RATN, 'LOC)T, ,THE r! uaNcnuRlAN cANDIDATE' 'THE GooD, THE BAD AND THE uGLy, ,LE cop, 'THE TAKINc iln igi; OFDYNAMITEIAKA.DUCKvoUSUCKER!1, .A -\o ,$ IlYI?1"ESC'AP_EFROMNEWYORK"WITNESS"AFISTFUL wAY To rREAT A LADv' 'THE oursIDERS' 'RUMBLEFISH' 'THE ouriAw JOSEv WALES, ,THE 39 ,THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, ,THE FRONT, ,AGUIRRE: WRATH OF GOD, ,MONTY PYTHoN S STEPS, THE HOLY -$iD GRAIL"MTDNIGHT RUN"THE MISFITS'I P E * :{} :* ,t br L $ r$ * q Q ft tB q & I BUGGER THE REST AND ANYTHING APART FROM 'COLORS' OUT AT THE MOMENT T I BLESS PLAGIARISM . THE ONLY TRUE FORM OF HUMAN EXPRESSION. '1984'[',WE',l/',APOCALYPSE NOW!',I',HEART OF DARKNESS'] /',NO WAy OUT'['THE BIG CLOCK']/'ANGEL HEART'['OUT OF THE PAST'I / MARK CHAPMAN ['CATCHER IN THE RYE'] / JOHN HINCKLEY JNR I'TAXI DRMR',II I BLESS HUNTER S. THOMPSON I BLAST him for letting'Time Out'and 'Blitz'run his stuff, forcing suckers like me to buy them [even though it's always just extracl.s from 'Generation Of Swine'] AND BLAST all the snivelling swine that try to imitate him I I I BLAST all designer-socialist style-culture magazines. I BLAST EVERYTHING ABOUT STYLE CULTURE - EVERYTHTNG IT TOUCHES TURNS TO SHIT. I BLAST THE MEDIA AND'THE MEDIATED WORLD WE LIVE IN!'I I BLAST6S/88I I BLESS 69189 ' I BLAST that C-hannel 4l(ieny Gable NF documentary/advertisement - OK to give the NF puhlicity, not Sinn Fein - we I get ya! I BLAST CENSORSHTP - 'THEY TRAIN YOUNG MEN TO DROP FIRE ON PEOPLE BUT THE BBC EDIT THE 'FUCKS' OLTT OF'APOCALYPSE NOW!" I I BLAST THE US ELECTTON, THE OLYMPICS, GIBRALTER MURDERS AND ALL THE OTHER '88 MEDIA EVENTS [ONLY THING I REALLY GOT INTO WAS THE EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS] I I BLASTFRANCEI I BLAST Guy Dcbord's impenetrablc texts. I BLESS Raoul Vaneigem's quotes ! I BLAST YEARS I979TO 2OOO I

I[EL{Sr]t llilliam Hurt [smug git] Yitzhak Shamir John Cleese Janice t ong Barry Norman [that's what too much ligging does to youl Arsenal F.C. Seething Wells Tom Watt Ian Bone lan Paisley' Paul Morley Derek Jameson Ben Eltou Eltharn Wellsby Tom King Liverpool F.C Anita Dobson Jimmy Hill C,erry Gable Patrick Harrington Geldof Emma Freutl Anthony Wilson fibr brorm-nosing Norman Tebbit] Bono Robert Elms The Fergie Monster Billy Bragg Michael Clarke leigh Bowery [complete twat] David Dunbar Michel Prigent John Brown Robin Ramsay Peter York Geraldo Rivera lan Rush Fuckface from 'Black' President Zia The Crap KHT Plumber Kenny Dalgleish Paula Yates Teny Waite Linda Fordham ()ary Oldham Rupert Everett Branson Bil[ Wyman Peter Wright Peter Stringfellow Geoqge Graham Stuart Adamson Phil Collins Julie Walters Andy Kershaw Liz Krrshaw Bilty-Bragg again Elvis Costello [except for his acting] Duncan Campbell Bono again Peter Gabriel Andrew Logan Gilbert and George George Harrison David Puttnam Peter Greetuaway Stuart Adamson again Midge Ure Prince SihanoukJean.Michel Jare George Bush Jetlrey Archerl I And everybody who is'nt blessed... IIBLESSII Percy Topliq AIan Bleasdale Paul McGann [for 'The Monocled Mutineer'] Hopper Jodie Foster Harvey Keitel John HinckleyJamecWoods Steve Martin, [most of the time] 'Sledge Hammer'Malcolm Mclaren Malcolm McDowall Patrick McNee Patrlck McGoohan Shane McGowan Edward Earl Johnson Kim Philby Tania [Che Guevara's girlfriend] Terry Gllliam Teny Jones Michael Palin Graham Chapman Eric ldle Joseph Conrad Michael Herr Francis Ford Coppolla Tim Page Nic Roeg [pretty much all of the time] William Burroughs [sometimes] Charles llukowski Crispin Glover Ellen llarkin Peter Ried Chrls (ira.y Lllrike Meinhof Sean l-lynn Meryl Streep ke Harvey Oswald Lindsnv Anderson Andreas Baader Tom Waits Lcila Khaled Chrlstopher Walken Christopher Plummer Bienventura Durrulti l'yotlor Dostoyevsky Lester Bangs Bob Black Fredy Peadman Jim Carroll Roberto Benigni Rod Steiger Benhazir Bhutto Christine Noonan Honor Blackman Alexandra Bastedo Diana Rigg Hans-Joachim Klein Umberto Eco Jane Suck/Solanas Rutger Hauer Robert De Niro [especially Harry Tuttle and Travis Bickle] Gerry Adams Philip K. Dick Che Guevara Montgomery Clift Bommi Ilaumann Marlon Brando William Gibson Astrid Proll Martin Sheen Carlos Gudrun Ensslin Franz Beckenbauer John Lurie Lturence Harvey Linford Christie Miranda Richardson Vivien Leigh Mickey Rourke Holger Meins Everton l'.C James Fox Robert DuvaII Werner Herzog Rainer Werner Fassbinder Jamie Lee Curtis Bernadette Devlin Humphrey [logart Lauren Baccall Bruce Sterling Charlie Watts Klaus Kinski Kathleen Turner Spurs Sigourney Weaver Willem Datbe Kenneth Williams Charles HawtreyYaleris Solanas Karen Eliot YasserArafat Patrick Bergin Kathy Acker W.D. Riclrter Ruud Gullit and the other one - Van Basten Patti Smith fibr all her sins] Martin Scorcese [for everything really] Gregory Hines Theresa Russell Tim Roth Irmgard Moller Abu Jihad Ben Johnson Brian Clough Jon Savage John Savage Tony Cottee Jamie Reid Burt Lancaster Lisa Bonnet lsabelle Adjani Nev 'The Save' Southall [shame about the rest of the team l Pauline Murray 3 Mark Downham Luis Bunuel Charlotte Rampling Jack Stephenson Lou Reed Kurt Voneglt James Came ron Gale Anne Hurd Michael liiehn Richard Hell I I And Sarah for providing the common sense that inspired this I .P lr

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flung fast-forward on the big wipe-out, the ultimate chemical edge - coming straight down at you like a thousand howl' ON AN EXPRESS.ELEYATOR TO HELL. DOWN! CIBER.SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU II ing screaming tons of heavy metal, that's going to jack-off your skull-case as a matter of first impressions. Cyber-Punk isn't mean, it isn't superlatives, it's total, it is truly critical. Cyber-Punk is potentially a scrambled mass of referential fictions stolen from the near future in search of an operational strategy for the living of life, my life, your life, life, which in itself is increasingly experiencing slippage into the virtual technologies of the near future. There you go super- imposing Bruce SterlingAMilliam Gibson over Guy Debord/J.G. Ballard and you're slipping again - everything is spinning, isn't it wild out here at the edge of theory. The real is leaking into representation and the feedback is a whitenoise of new mediations indexing themselves into the spec- NET'ICS, n. Study of system of control and comin animals and electrically operated devices tacular sub-strata in the interzone - oh so errogenous - where the real and the irreal exchange meanings I cdculating machines. I f. Gk Kuberuetes Steersman, Concise O$ord Dictionary' ) I TELEVISIONS, SAND.DUNES AND THE CON. TOURS OI,'YOURFACE HETROPHAGE: A VIRTUAL TBCHNOLOGY .S STALKING UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE TLTE E TAKE A LOOK AT THIS MAP, SIR! THE ,ITION IS QUITE OUT OF HAND,, : THE HUMAN GUE - THE CIRCUS OF DEATH. *T:i,4 SOCIETY INUNDATED WITH FICTIONS OF ER'' KIND,PANIC IS NECESSARY.' E{RDWIRED IN THE METROPHAGE I I Crter-Punk is pure blag. It is essentially some techniko- freet types cutting together a science-fi ction/critical-theory frrsover - with fictions ol'cverykind - in the post- Situati<lnh techno-cultural lragnrcntaLion, the norv architect,ure of ilropy. A wall of words. The humming of language. taki an eye-ball locked into the infinite televisual surfacel;eic knockdowns of the virtual and hardwired technologies Jrhe dominant Metrophage. Like the Videodrome itself is ps waiting there; all huge and self data-chatter in the semi- Iic information power web; while you feel Nietzschean and g'ur credit linc is gr-rod for the new DNA and micro soft imfants - still nothing gives, but then that is dialectics I I Max Headroom was Cyber-Punk. All smiles, napalm teeth and 'no contprendez'- he's so brittle when it's torture hour. All hail Max Headroom, the first post-bourgeois individual of black-lined aestheticized Liberalism, who actually vanishes, skids like Max Renn into the Spectacle, the Videodrome, the simulacra of the information system - call it the Schizmatrix, the call of the West. Max Headroom - call him Tom Vague, whose face can be digitalized and fractalized by computer-imaging, has organic - atomic structure translated into a cathode-ray - photonic double - is a linal statement. Pure pirate vid-disc beaming out of lower-eastside N.Y.C. and streaming hot out of Brazil on satellite bounceback, it's all in the signal, even the physiological - chemical changes. Max Headroom/ Max Renn/Tom Vague is living out a panic-conspiracy in television as the real world and whose moods are perfectly post- modern because they attenuate between the horror of kitsch, waking up to menace, dread and the circuit up-side to that well-worn wild euphoria between the ecstasy of catastrophe and the'terror of the simulacra, the double. Where is this? Oh we're in the fracial zones, they've just been thought up by a new recombinant mix,pf entropy/catastrophe theory and there is Karen Eliijt with her face pressed against the window - what are those guys doing in there? Max Renn. Paging Max Renn! Mr. Renn?...... I.... going under again. Come on Mr. Renn, the Videodrome waits lor you. You are Ma-x Renn..... aren'L you? So much cross-talk coming through the wires - it's a cluestion o[ ncw psvchologies I I CODES AND I-ICTIONS FROM THE MOON THE ARCHITECTURE OF ENTROPY Images and impression. Some cautionary tales. Cyberis an industrial my'th of the near future, a new techno- fiction. Cyber-Punk is probably some sort of new ionisttfieory, although I don't really feel like going fcrr the shifting uncertainties are so beautiful, so iruch'the ectures of entropy. Cyber-Punk is a mass of quesl.ions I Cyber-Punk attempts to de-mflhologize the established cultural codes, in order to decipher concealed strategies 6f dominaLion, desire, will, power, and the will to power. Cue dry ice, smoke, Leni Riefenstahl. Cyber-Punk allows new genuine symbols of our culture to speak. In essence, our increasingly cyborg [cybernetic organism] relationships with our own artefacts, technologies, hardwired abstractions are realized, reified, idealised, materialised in the more intense t37I

lerel of ideation and practice that constitutes Cyber-Punk. C$rer-Punk is a radical interrogation of the virtual techno@ies at work in contemporary society I of wreckage fuomVogrc to Contpenditttl\ on the exact nature of thecortrol data clrutterl I A STRANGI] AND TERRIBLE SEA CHANGE I s.r.r.u.e.T.I.o.N.I.s.T. vs. c.Y.B.E.R.P.u.N.K. I Situationist Cyber-Punk flicks aside the general form of \{arxist analysis [dialectical contradictions befween fu rces aod relations of production and their irreconcilability] and suggests that the classical definition of productive forces is too restrictive and expands the radical analysis of Guy Dehord further into the whole murky field of significations, [ansmissions, communications, materializations, reifications - programming phenomena. Cyber-Punk achieves a velocity which ruptures the very critique attempting to describe and analyse changes in virtual and hard-wired technologies purely in terms o[ rnaterial production I t Cyber-Punk is about being realistic, relentlessly honest and taking it head-on when the culting edge comes down and the blood really starts to run and it gets slippery underfoot. Cyber-Punk is getting into the challenging complexities and contradictions of working with new video techniques, newvirtual-technologies, of working for the Videodrome - through the very operational strategies of resistance which oppose it. It is new neuro- chemistries, new psychologies, new hacking programmes, the pirating of new electronics, the sort of street tech ofhipJtop - very hip, but don't they just hop to it when the money starts ringing - for whom the bells toll. Cyber-Punk is the literary incarnation of this colliding of fictional worlds, between the high-octane Iive star fantasies of the multi-nationals and the junk-cull feral scams of the street guerillas living off their products, but fan- I TOM VAGUE, HELICOPTERS AND THE SHAT. tastically mutating them I TERED REVOLVING DOOR I The brief handed out by Tom Vague for this issue, by one of his many agents currently operating the 'Get Lortdorr Swirt$ttgAgairr'crash programme; was that the aim of this issue was to be oblique, but then that is the architecture of entropy. The more information derived from Cyber-Punk concerning the near future. the more operational strategies o[resistance, growth patlerns, in response to the accelerating accelerations o[ the vir(ual technologies o[ the Videodrome. There is no typical Cyber-Punk, Tom Vague is a fiction, although the general project does have central themes, tenets and topics. I guess I'd better say it is an eighties mi- lieu - nineties, post-2001 would equally do - a fix on anything - it is a product o[ the interzone between hard technologies/ sciences and nihilo-romanticist surrealiLy. It's precursors are Michael Moorcock, Langdon Jones, Harlan Ellison, Samuel Delaney, Norman Spinrad, Brian Aldiss, John Varley, Philip K. Dick, Alfred Bester, the strange pulsing entropies of Thomas Pynchon, the panic-theory of Baudrillard, the Sifirutiortist ltilenruliotnl,Larry Niven, the Anarchists never interested me, Roger Zelazney, H.G. Wells, the'prog'arnrnirt14 pltcrtornena' control-databuzz of Guy Debord and the seminal gcnius of J.G. Ballard I I THE DRAINED LAGOONS O[ HER MINI) I In Cyber-Punk, as science fiction genre, one of the immediate traits is visionary intensity and imaginative concentration, a new level of intensified ideation. Cyber-Punk gorges detail - it uses carefully constructed intricacy and readily extrapolates into daily lite. lt goes [<>r crarttrtrcd or co,tdensed pr ose: rapid, dizzling,skidding bursts of novel in[ormation, sensory overload, a special brilliant feeling that makes you crisp at the edges - submerging the reader in the equivalent of a titanic sonic blast of inlormation. gre,at gulfs of linguistic intensity as the vassopressin hits f I LIIE IS A BEACH IN THE TER]VIINAL BUNKER f Cyber-Punk crunches together neuro- and physical chemistry, genetic biology, structural linguistics, cybernetics, hio- technology and cyborg engineering into a fantastic series of fictions I I WEASELING IN THE DATA NET I Cyber-Punk has a strong garage-band aesthctic. Pure Mexican - Central American radio. It grapples with the raw core of the near future. lts myths. Its ideas. Its coming practices. It is a pop culture which is theorizing itself into a more cohesive and self- determined existence. Cyber-Punk began as a loose generational nexus of writers swapping letters, manuscripts - ideas. Now Cyber-Punk is expanding into the inevitable empire state human. Skidding over fantastic new streams of situationist theory, high technologies, street or blag culfure and the furious reflections of a spiritually vacant, vagrant intellectual underground, strung out like a line t38l I WHAT EXACTIY IS HE TRYING To SELL? I Cyber-Punk makes clear that information is a name for the content of what is exchanged with the outer world as we adjust to it and make our adjustments felt upon it - to live effectively is to live with adequate information, the fictions of Cyber-Punk I I CROSS A STAKHANOVITE WITH A SADIST AND HE'LL EMIGRATE TO SOUTH AFRICA I

call them.technological artifacts or the virtual technlogies/ transmissions of the Videodrome I TEACH IT PHENOMENOLOGY, DOLITTLE I Cyber-Punk is probably negentropic, given the necessy contradictions waiting on the peripheries for the next interphase-cum-change - pure feedback. Systems energies into each other. Feedback exists between systhat are not in themselves closed but rather open and ingent upon other systems. There are no truly entropic ed systems in Cyber-Punk as there are in Situationist ; all processes impinge upon and are affected by other I Certain central themes spring up repeatedly in CyberPunk. Firstly the theme of body invaiion, the target veiricle: prosthetic fiT!!, implanted circuitry, cosmetic surgery, iybgr- fpace-, DNA, genetic alteration. Secondly, thJreii !g{-9dge of mind invasion: brain-computer interfaces, artificial-intelligences, neurochemistry - all the techniques radically redefining the nature of humanity, the naturi of in some way. A systemisclosedwhenentropy, vir- technologies, the Videodrome, gas or electricity bills inate the feedback process, that is when the measure of losl. is greater than measure of the energy gained. [t to feel like that deep- reading Situationist texts. A e is a good example. Attrition I IGUANAS, GENETICS AND THE ZEITGEIST The phenomena of Cvher-Punk, it's fictions, are realized Ts interpretations ol'mechanisLics and biologics which oegentropic, theil' su b-sysl"ems feed energies/new opernal strategies of resistance into each other. Computers everything. We've been building our secrets into software for years. We can collapse the commercial ing systems of the West. We can play the Visigoth and the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles in their silos. We can bringnews production at Wapping to a We can shut down the safet-v systems on a nuclear re. We can re-orbit spy satellites. All possibilities. We alhave tomorrow - it's today we want I THE LANDSCAPE IS CODED INTO DIALECTICAL ['KS THETARGETVEHICLE the self r I CROSSING OVER IT{TO CAMBODIA I Cyter-Punk engages the whole notion of the Spectacle the Videodrome, the satellite media net, the muliinalional corporation - they are the stuff of Cyber-punk and contin_ ually reappear in its fictions. For the spiritually vacant, everything has been said before, everything is fiction. Cyber_ Punk, marked by its use of surreal- visionnry intensiry, lakes ideas, psychologies, experiences and pushes them past thcir limits to new thresholds, to the point of virtual disintegration. Cyber- Punk rvriters use an almost unblinking crit'ical ohjectivity, a zero-point objective analysis takin from science and shot into literature for the more amusingly twisted aspects of short sharp shock value I I THE PERSISTENCE OT'THE BEACH Cyber-Punk, the computer is much more than an obtje-ct;For it is also an igon anct a metaphor that suggests new ways of thinking about ourselves andbur ,r"* new "nu'liorr*ents, ways of constructing images of what it means to be human The differentials between the sciences and the huthe gulf between literary culture, the formal ltrucof art and politics and the culture of science, the world ineering and industry - it's all converging. Cyber-punk tively understands that technical culture is moving fr;l95% of the Left in total are already thirty years bel and still receding. The advances ofsciences aie deeply rl - potentially revolutionary even, if utilized appropri- They are surging into culture at large; they ire invathe spectacle has transmitted into the virtual technoof the Videodrome. THERE IS NO SEMIOLOGY NCE AFIER GUY DEBORD, WAKE UP! WE ALREADY IN THE SPECTACLE ENHANCED. ional institutions, positions, practices have become fttely discredited or metamorphosed into a Sgt. pepI-ortel_v Heafts Club type of moral joke known as theSa lVorkers Paty. Cyber-Punk comes from the realm e the computer-hacker has locked into thepost-art polqrlture and it's discontents.,4gz tprop has been superbv visceral technologies. Cyber-Punk explores interespecially those between the multi-nationals and cultures - the street always finds its own use for things, r I THE DEPARTTIRE INTO ARTIFICIAL INTEL. LIGENCE f Cyber-Pun-kis a pop-culfira I f.ascination with Cybernetic systems including a vast array of machines and apiaratuses that exhibit computational power. Turing and Von Neu- mann were_ just describing topo-logical suifaces. Such sys_ tems contain a dynamic, even if wasted, quotient of intll_ ligence. Telephone networks, communication satellites, radar.systems, programmable lazer video-discs, robots, bio_ geretically engineered cells, you think this isn;t happening - Lhat's what they.wantyou to think, rocketguidance systems, videotex networks - all exhibit a capacitylo process infor_ mation and execute actions. They are ali cybbr _ cybentetic in that they are-self regula[ing mcchanisms'or systems with_ in predefined limits and in relation to predefined tasks. Cyber-Punk uses the computer and artificial intelligenci to symbolize the entire spectrum of networks, systems and det311

that exemplify cybernetic or outo,noted but httelligent iour I I Tgg CDI\{MAI{D MODULE masldvisor, feed the pilot, at a slowed down and selective pace, specific, strategic informatiori about the aerial environment, altitude, presence ofother aircraft, speed, and tar. get range. A system of perspective - virtual vision for those advanced outriders of teleonomic society rocketing across the dying algebra of the skyinto the retinal fictions of CyberPunk I I t C,vber-Punk explores the irony of the process of adopt- oe* ways of seeing, that consequently propose new hms of social organization. that become paradoxical or aradictory - in that this vcrry process of transformation I THE ECLIPSE OF THE SPECTACLE: RHIZOMES ANDVAGUE {Esns new practices, new levels of intensified visionary rreality - which are themselves engendered and substan- idr-recuperated by the existing form of social organization -rhich they contain the potential to overcome. Our sense I The pervasive imagery of progarnrrtitg ltlrurnneno are dreality is being adjusted by new means of electronic com;r.ation and digital communication - these technological 'Lrnges introduce new forms of culture. In Cyber- Punk, e lists the problems of the imaginary other, for being bman is defined in relation to cybernetic systems - compu- now enveloping us - a sensorily expauded data-chatter, image-flick world of digitized life and languages mcdiatcd trms. robol-s, androids and cyborgs - all the metaphors dange - everything is style - everything slips into the virtual tally inter-connected, planetary communications. He be- us bio-genetically engineered, eco-systems, expert sysI I R-ELIGION X (;ENETICS = POLITICS I Cyber-Punks not only understand that cybernetics is a conveyancebf information theory and cogniLive psychology, hot that these are the dominant phenomenologies of a vircual society. For instance, the problem of tracking anti-aircraft weapons against extremely fast targets [and no-one rnoves faster than a workerist trying to dodge the critiquel ha-s led to research into, and the development of intelligent ooechanisms capable of predicting future states faster than the unaugmented human brain can do - or that was until they qarted messing around with cyborg interfaces. Never strike ntere your opponent is, but strike at the space which they rill occupy in the future. [This tactical strategy gave the Specto-Sifirutiortists the edge they needed, Guy Debord uses it repeatedly with devastating effect in'socieg of the Spec- wcle.l No-one should forget the nihilistic synergism bers'een the development of cybernetics and military requirements, because waiting in the wings are the multi-nationals I I THE DYING ALGEBRAOFTHE SKY I The U.S. Airforce uncovered a critical flaw in the cre- ation of ultra-sonic jet fighters - the inadequacies of lhe bodyreflexes of pilots. The unaugmented human body cannot absorb or respond to the infonnation envirortntent of jet fighters moving at hyper- speeds. So the desigrrers created neads for fighter pilots. The U.S. Airforce is experimenting *ith compensating for the inabilityof human vision to malch tle speed and intensity of the information enlironment of jet-fighters; pilots will be equipped with virtual heads: special helmets which block out normal ocular vision and. hv lneans of a video-screen projected on the inside of the by video display screens - the formation of a discipline shift- ing inevitably towards cyber-space. Cyber-space as described by William Gibson in'New'ontoncer'was prefigured in Nicola Tesla's 1901 plan for a world system of t<> lieved he could engineer a globe unified by the universal registration of time and fully traversed by flows of language, images and money - all reduced to an undifferentiated flux of electrical energy. Tesla had a primordial understanding of the totalizing logic of the Metrophage and it's evolutionary stages - Leviathan, Capital, Spectacle, Videodrome, the Gesellsclnftert out in Cyberspace, complete with ambiguous paracletal artificial intelligence - television has emerged as the key component of a world system ! I THE SKIN AREA f We are all implicated in the practise of giving a conceptual solidity and unity to the evasive and seemingly ubiquitous entity that is television - well, I've used several identities - very simply, 'tlrc ntonsters we creote welconte us aboard.'Just look at us, we maintain an illusory coherence around what is a shifting coalescence of powers, dominions, thrones, objects, effects and relations. Even though all that is subsumed by television, the society ofthe spectacle enhanced, has historical specifitS technological under-pinnings, and links/ rhizomes into multiple economies, we and I mean all semiotic, media, phenomenological and situationist/ critical theorists have mystified it and situated it beyond the grasp of critical analysis, while at the same time endowing it with a despotic identity of social processes. The Videodrome has always been an aggregate of bodies, institutions, transmissions, ultimately programming phenomena in perpetual transformation. Cyber-Punk is the only active theory seriously identiSing and subverting the conjunctions it forges, the circulations it controls and the accelerating mutations it is undergoing. Pure Tornado moan I THEFINALVIOLENCE I At Porton Down. lhev make the most deadlv bacteriological germ-warfaro in the worlcl. Drop a tcst-tube at port4u

a ton Down. Total silence. We will have unleashed upon ourselves the final violence. The same is true of the Metrophage. The convergence of television, telecommunications, computers is creating an ideology of technological determinism and pre-fabricated futures, which mirror the present Spectacle. A transmission of dead souls. But the Spectacle and its metamorphoses are more than Frunkensteirt nrcets MW, the technological changes are also leaking into other zones: cultural, economic, geo-political, psycho-geo- graphic. Cyber-Punk understands the final violence, the corpscs, the nihilistic urban dead-zones, the Metrophage itself and is no longer merely isolating properties deemed to be intrinsic to a self-stabilizing semiotic system, which can be read as a super- structural transmission through which power is exercised - Cyber- Punk is hammering away against a system of appearances that is so thoroughly of the sociaVmaterial that its operations are indistinguishable from those of the entire hegemonic order. They are the hegemonic order I I A CRASH COTTRSE IN EXONERATION I The fictions of Cyber-Punk suggest that the Spectacle as television is a global tracery of linkages that seemingly pro- duce truth. But the thing about television, like any other spectacular power, threshold or dominion and its genocidal diployment, is that its unreasoning, endless surfaces conceil barely visible alcoves, striations, folds, gulfs, where things get really strange. tn Cyber-Punk theory, the Spectacle is a circuit of power that can be uniform and seamless as a macrophenomenon, but that is broken, diversified and never fullycontrollable in its local usage. They're always looking for the ultimate in mind control, but it's got ideas of its own and now its growing huge. We are the Spectacle. Our relationships and spiritual vacuum in the social are the Spectacle. Our iconographies are the Spectacle. Our atrocities are the Spectacle. Walter E. Kurtz really took his orders from the Spectacle. From us. From you. From the collective human ID and it really made a mess of him I I A DYING STARMAN FINDS THE NTH ROOT OF WONDERFUL I Adomo and Horkheimer admired the Spectacle for its ruthless unity, Trotsky gazed at the ice-pick and saw the Spectacle, a totalizing power, collective human nature, which even in its more primitive forms is uniform and whole in every part. Howtheyunderestimated Leviathan, those rationalisti, and now the collective human ID is leaking heavily into the post-modern again. The Cyber-Punks, like the Frankfurt 'tilking sltop'of Marcuse, Adomo, Althusser and company, know that the Spectacle is an inescapable reilied voracious semiotic web that ahsorbs and commodifies everything with a logic that, ftrr humanity is slipping into rhi- I Baudrillard takes the Guy Debord/ J.G.Ballard fascina- tion with'the'rirfit{t l conu nodifica tior ts or o.v'-s ta l l i za tior t of organic tiJb towards total extittcticul' further, towarcls narruiirrg u technological triumph of the inanimate - a negativeeschitology - the nullity of all opposition, the dissolution of history, the neutralization of difference and the erazure of any possible configuration of alternate actuality. At this cold .uier-dente cotJi. the absolute domination of digitized mimory - storage banks, not even dimly fathomable thlo-ugh the acqieous sireens of video display terminals' But it is in these very silent seas that Cyber-Punk dives and delves, through eiectronic eddys, currents, flows towards the nature of the-catastrophe, the final fractal zone. The failure of most Situationists is a failure to understand the nature of the catastrophe and flow with the crisis. Panic can be an incredible energiser. A prigognic carthexis I I THENOBLENEUROTIC I Philip K. Dick was influential on Cyber-Punk, in that his novel'A Scarurcr Darkly'touched on what is crucial in Baudrillard's disintegration into neurosis:'Biological lift goes on, eteryfl1i11g else is dead. A rvflet4 nruchine'like, like sotrrc ilrcect rcpeatirtg doonrcd pattents ovgrattd over. A sirtgle pa| tent. Thc failed codes of an escape ebrnbinatiott. Brtt ltow can 1,ort trttly escape yourself?' I I LET'S GETOUTOFTIME I For Baudrillard and his approach to Cyber-Punk theory, television - call it the Spectacle by any other name - is a paradigm of failed escape combinations, of implosive effects, of remembered codes that make you forget yourself to pieces: the Videodrome collapses any distinction between receiver and sender, between the medium and the real. Like Mallarme's Herodinde, and virtually all theorists, caught up in a sterile closed circuit with her mirror, Baudrillard's subject is locked into an wintemtpled interface with the videoscreen in a universe <tf fascination. The materiality of both receiver and television apparatus dissolves, along with the multiple and contradictory layers of institutional texture, such as the economic imperatives of the multi-nationals' Cyber-Punk both involves itself in this project and carries out a radical critique of lhe processes involved, with a view to transformatorY changer ! I THIRTYSECONDS OVERTOKYO : politics. It is all deep zometic fiscism. Religion x genetics for a spiritual absoAll a search psyche-ritual. Everything. I I WHO MAKES THE NAZIS? universal circulation. In Cyber-Punk, geographical frontiers no longer exist and in their place are being manufactured vast nrk:ro- t:loc[ronic territories. Information, structured bl automatic clata processing, becomes a new kincl of rarv ma- lute I l42l Technological miniaturization is a one-wayride, a symp ton of a global system moving towards domination and a

for the industrial myths of the near future. The conof home computer, television and telephone lines the nexus of a new virtual social machinery, which testo the spectacular consumption of the commodity and r FROM STOKE NEWINGTON TO BAADER-IVIEIN. HOF ddictions I I SHOCK THE MONKEY AND WATCH THE MON. EI'GET HURT I Through the 1960's television collaborated mobile in sustaining the dominant imagery of spectacular repre*sentation: in the vifiual annexation of all spaces and the liquidation of any specific signs that had occupied them. The television screen and car windshield reconciled visual experience with the velocities and discontinuities of the cmmodity, a spectacular-cum-contetnpla tivc I addictive/ lqpnotic identity-fulfillment relation to objects is underrined and supplanted by the new forms of virtuality, the Vi- market place. As windows they seemed to open on to a visual pyramid of extensive space in which autonomous movement might be possible - instead they have both become apertures that frame the subject's transit through streams of disjunct objects and affects, across disintegrating and hyper- abundant surfaces. Television has gone further and has grafted itself into other neLworks. Now the screens of the home computer and word processor have succeeded the automobile as core prodttcts,in an on-going relocation and hierarchization of productive forces. Video-games are the lrcginning of wholly revolutionary links with VDT's and the cameras pan as Baader- Meinhof stagger through thevideoarcade blindfold quoting Karl Mar4 but those links are altogether different from the prothesis of body and automobile I EVERY KIND f, For Debord, who lvas necessary for Cyber-Punk to have I Ense of critical-theoretical praxis, the auratic - virtual lrcscnce of the commodity was bound up with the illusion dis utter tangibility. But now there has been the gradual -rplacement of aura from images of possitrle objects to diCrrlrn flows of data, to the glow of the VDT and the postn#inal promise of access embodied there. Cyber-Punk is psibly a supersession of the process explored by Guy De- H, in which the seeming self- sufficiency of the comdity was a congealnrcn r of the forces that were essentially nbile and dynamic. Now, however, with pure flux itself a f furome itself I I A HEAYY MAGNUM, SOME BLOOD AND A SENSE DISSOLUTIONAND COMMUNION: FICTIONS OF O.F LOSS I There is no more opposition in the Cyber-Punk tories between the abstractions of money and the apparent materiality of commodities; money and what it can buy are: aow fundamentally of the same substance. There is a growing dissolution of any language of the market, desire, hysterical violence and berserker visionary states, into binar'ned zen-pulses of photonic interfacing t hat ext rapolat es the fictive unity of representation, the virtual into the material. Figurative images lose their transparence and are consumed as simply one more code I I t A planetary data-communications network has been physically implanted into the decaying, digressive terrain of the automobile-based city. One of the key roles of the expanding electronicgnd is to articulate a new social and geopolitical stratification based on the immediacy of access to iransmitted data. The aim of Cyber-Punk is to create a state of temporary grid-lock in order to insert certain secrets of its own. Cvher- Punk, as Philip K. Dick's novels and the films of David Cronenberg, deals with a near-future world congested with the coming technologies of everyday life and pushes the thresholds to the point where the psychoses rip through and the Metrophage gets ugly...I CORROSION, SEMTEX AND SOCIAL RESPONSI. BILITY I THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION ! I Cyber-Space is yet another development of five centuries of space-simulating techniques - you'd be amazcd who we have managed to replace with their own double. Rcproductive virtual technologies move ever onrvards with new parameters of mimeticftdelin,- call it holography. hig*r resolution television, cloning. the serial Karen Eliot and mv memory of the partially incinerated paper-skin facc of the lemale soviet MIG 31 fighter- pilot in lhe casualtv unit - smiling - as I hand her the semtex and absolution. Thcre is an immense drift of the image, electronic continents. to*-ards pure surface, endless skidding. In Cyber-Pun-k r*-hater-er drifts across the retinal socket, the screen or the home computer is part of the same homogeneity I Cytrer-Punk was essentially initiated by J.G. Ballard in 'Tltc Atrocitt, Exltibitiort'. Ballard details the collapse of a landscape through which lines of deterritorialisation have proceeded to absolute tolerances. Ballard explores fractured zones in which sheer contiguity replaces syntax and which extend only in terms of the ceaseless conjugation of bodies, architecture and images that briefly abort, then detach to make new connections. Ballard's landscape, the city inter-penetrated by image/events of car-crashes, astronauts and war crimes, demands an unrelenting and unremiu.ing effort of decipherment, made virtually impossible by the equh-alence of everything glutting the field I t43I

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eternity. The thriller of the 1940's has a particular affinity for urban imagery, since it's filmed from a perspective that skims, skids, skips over the city, a perspective that is immanent to its multifoliate currents I THEWEAPONS RANGE f A fully saturated spectacular space neutralizes the inter;aive detrium of paranoia at the very moment of inciting a For Ballard, empirical and quantitative practices become t Bip-side of psychosis and its loss of identities. The simuhim of coherence for Ballard results from the blank accudation of clinical data, laboratory recording techniques the objective observations of scientific research. J.G. l*tlard is a language in himself which only J.G. Ballard can rd I SYMBOLISMS, AIRSTRIPS AND MASS PRODUC. TION I These psychogeographic perspectives belong to ahero on the run [call it alrcroine - call it anything, it's going to get much more twistedl or at very least, on an irrepressible slide. lS'accessl Like madmen and mystics, (ho latest Tom Vague, they de- I ITULTINATIONALS: THOMAS IIINCHON'S fLY- E{G CIRCUS I Thomas Pynchon in 'Gravity's Railtbow'explores the ob- leration of outdated territories, languages, filiations, of any boundaries or form that has impeded the installation of ctbernetics - the theory ofmessages and their control is here hter-meshed with the hegemony of what Pynchon calls the rmega- cartel, the zuibatsu, the multinationals I tr UNDERSTAND SOMETHING. ALL FRINGE SOCIO.POLTTICAL GROUPS ARE WEBBET) TOGETHER, PULL ONE THREAD AND EVERYTHING COMES APART tr I THE COMING OF THE UNCONSCIOUS I Ballard's work is an attempt to grasp the contradiction of reprefentational analysis of the future directly. These in- scend into the maelstrom of our collective desires and longings, our collective unconscious, and follow the logic of the landscape in which they lind themselves. Incapable of mas- tering the situation, the Cyber-Punk tag renounces repairing it and attempts instead to join the flow of events, to follow its twists and turns; crossing over into Cambodia towards Kurtz, he jumped into the furnace where they keep the scary rnonsters and supercreeps and went a few rounds with the collective human ID and its demand for a sacrifice. Kurtz, did you really laugh at Nagasaki? Two types of images predominate in Cyber-Punkf hn-rtoit'. first there are inrages of crowds and of Tom Vague/ Deckard/IVillard cutting through them - laminar flows of people on wide boulevards, minor turbulences susceptible to sudden explosion and rapid coagulation capable of paralysing a city - grid-lock - where there are no longer spaces set asidelapart for gatherings. The movement of crowds sweeps in like controldata, while they re-run documentaries of refugees, and mix the most heterogeneous groups, sometimes homogenizing them, sometimes provoking clashes. Then there are also images of derelict spaces, spaces that have lost their original purpose which clutter Cyber-Punk fiction and Situationist psychogeographic theory: obsolete furniture and buildings [clocks, warehouses, mazes of alleyways, humanity's fallout] and zones which are not subject to any law - either urban planning or the dominant psychologies I undated near-futures transform our own present into the determinate past of something yet to come I I I ASHES TO ASHES, DUSTTO DI.IST... BLADE RUNNER: CYBER-PUNK GOES FILM. NOIR I When used by Cyber-Punk, the structure of fitrtr'noirA able to: 1 'Blade Runner' as aCyber-Punk film emphasizes the continuity between the contemporary world and that of a film dealing with the near future; not by insisting on the invariability or a permanence of society's characteristics and values, but by following 4nd sonlirrring the development of lines of force already at work. 'Blade Pur:nner'is about Tom Vague. Everything is ultimatelv speaking of Tom Vague. Just who is Tom Vague? He's you and he is spianing. revolving and dialectically free-associating: waiting for a message of some sort or another. 'Blade Rwtter'takes as its object the city a tactical rtruppittg s.vstetn - a liiing ride+close lor a fictional Cyber-Punk over- lay. In its essentiil-t'Blade Runner'is gazing back at Raymond Chandler and the Private Eye genre - allveryftlnr rtoir.You know. Tom Vazue in the back seal and you're all wrapped up in bandages again and the nurse leans over, all needles and clinical zen- and pumps you full of strange drugs - and just may'be y'ou'll nerrr come down this time and reaching the door handle takEs an [1l Develop images of urban crowds, panic, a set of escape combinations, from a skimming point of view. [2] Complicate, contradict, dialectically free-associ*e- reverse the relationships between centre and peripherl. A deserted centre, occupied only by visionaries, and a gukx life on the periphery create an image parallel to that of the urban exodus that has affected large western cities for mre than a decade - 5* orcrir [3] Denote spaces and objects whose original purprse been lost, due not to obsolescence but rather, to an vestment lof MEANING, VALUE SYSTEMS, PR4.ltrSl brought about by constant recycling - vehicles. shops. tems aad constructed from the most diverse elementq sut€ril posrng futuristic and archaic strata !

T] THE RELATTONSHIP BETWEEN TERRORISM AND THE GLOBAL MEDIA/VTDEODROME TS SIMPLE. FORCES LOCIKED IN MUTUALLY ANATAGONISTIC ROLES SECRETLY ABET EACH OTHER tr I AN IMMENSE HAL}"SUBMERGED CITY I 'Blade Rtuutcr"'s first task is to subjectivise he'terogeneous crowds, as they are seen through Deckard's/ Willard's/ Renn's eyes - yet another hero - who is immanent Ltr their movements and the savant cipher to their movcmcrntsr the narrative use of derelict spaces and the proliferation of patchworked, overinvested objects. The city, made up of these elements, is lurthermore bcttutd togetherby a deluge, a pouring rain - another element. Cyber-Punk stole from filrtt-rtoit' - and by the ubiquirou BLAG - a strcet langruge a patois of Vagqg- speak, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Anglic - used by the in-mixture of various groups that make up the.rnetroplis population I I KOYAANISQATSI I As for Deckard, he initially appears as the equivalent of the private detective with the voice-over of ftlntnoir - very existential, nihilistic and almost apocalyptic - as both a sensitive, messianic - failed messianic - possibly pathological spirit repelled by the state of the world and even while cradlinghis gun, shouting love at the heart of the world. Contradictions. The Cyber-Punk tag has to clear a path through a deliberately theoretically confused atmosphere of this fictive metropolis and distinguish the real from the irreal even in the most indiscernible cases. At the heart of the city this quest is hindered by the lack of an horizon, everything is Tom Vague, making ambivalent clues and unpredictable danger-cum-behavioural response patterns ever present. The Cyber-Punk cipher therfore nntsl tak:e one step at a timqfuwe chess - it always comes down to games, because they atways contain the idea of terrorl, yet allow herself to be swept into the multiple currents that cross the city and beckon at random. The investigation, the inquisition of forms, is no longer the central point, instead, the skidding, the drifting, the wandering the city, the vertigo of the city, the panic become the phenomenological-dialectical focus, as everything starts slipping t I DATAPANIK IN THE YEAR ZERO: THE l9th | 'Blode Rtuurcr'crosses the threshold beyond which the PROLETARIAN ASSAULT ON THE GLOBAL ELEC. TRONIC ECONOMY hwfier lets himself be captivated by the prey he should be capturing and by the very hunting ground on which the prey is completely at home. In'Blade Rtuurcr', the disguised villains whose multiple identities must be unravelled are no longer intellectuals salavaged by Tom Vague from oblivion l46t crr oh so/eirt nrc fatales but replicorrts, androids made indis- tinguishable from humans through the wonders of fictive genetic DNA montage shuffling - to hell rvith this,let's have a car chase and some assassins, fast music and pheronomes. At the end of their four- year lifespan replicants are rctired. Produced for service inthe off-world colonies in thedivision of labour, they have been outlawed on Earth since four of them rebelled - and the jo! of Deckard, the Btade Rtuurcr [Bounty hunter], is to fiml and eliminate them. Deckard is not really apivate eye, evenif he looks and sounds like one - that's nothing, virtually the whole of the left sound situationist nowadays, when talking about the media - he is an ei-policeman sfecialized in replicant hunting. He has indeed left the police - just asprivate eyes are former cops who either were fired for insubordination or who resigned out of disgust - he allows hiftself to be re-enlisted because, as his boss points out, outside of the police he is "little people", no one. The fear of identity loss I I SOME COMMENTS ONSYNTHETICS I The use of secret agents by the police, who can merge re theY they maintain a loose and where with the locale thevmonitor they or at least flexible relationship with the police hierarchy, is a recurrent theme in contemporary western cinema and Lonclon at large. These agents correspond to a new p<llice strategy madsnecessary by the complexity and obsessions specific to the Metropolis - THE METROPHAGE.They must be capable of adapting themselves unnoticed to a specific milieu. The only truly unpenetrated situation has becn the british situationist web of cells, contacts, individuals, Cyber-Punks, workerists - lt is clearly not enough to say these agents must appear as marginal in a society where all margins can be recuperated by the mainstream of the Spectacle and where any social'professional category is susceptible to marginalization - where the movement from the fringes to the centre is, like the approach to the Castle in Kafka 6y endless de-tours but also by unexpected shortcuts and waiting inthe High Castle is Tyrell/Kurtz I tr STALINISM IS LONG OBSESSIVE STREAMS OF CLAUSES - POSSIBLY SOME FORM OF CONFESSIONAL CANT tr I AN URBAN SOUND.SWEEP The hierarchyin 'Blade Rtuurcr"s japancse Los Angeles, is even concreLized in the pyramidal forms ol thc immcnsc I skyscrapers resembling Aztec structures. ll4to's saoilicirtly wlrc? The projector vehicles with their ads lor the crrlonics, the face of Tom Vague, do not merely cover the facades with images, but in doing so, they re-define them. No longer surfaces of seperation, they become potential screens, the Videodrome? And yet, as soon as a facade no longer serves as a screen, as soon as there is no longer an image projected on it, it tends to crumble, to cgllapse - leaving behind dilapidated buildings, fossil spaces. Such is the new double status of the facade: sometimes polished, auratic and homogenized by an image, it becomes a vertical plane on which all depth is reduced to mere surface, and sometimes it is pcrforated, permitting the unfolding on an horizontal plane of a field of unlimited depth but with no horizon. The co-ex-

hce of these two states creates many of the Cyber-Punk nblnisms in the film - from a projector vehicle above a in ruins to a videophone booth covered with -thbourhood &s and graffiti I I Roy Batty is a Blakean visionary, driven to acts of incred- I wlnt it is to be o slave." But Roy is not just another skirt-job, he's what every Amerikan militarist fantasizes about, the sound of the end of the world. Culture is disintegrating I AM NOT TYRELL, AT LEAST NOT IN THE SENSE rO{.J MEAN I At the summit sits Doctor Tyrell, president of the Tyrell Corporation, the corporate that makes the replicants. Interer*ingly, the production process does not take place in large bctories nor in hi-tech laboratories, but in workshops,black ffis scattered throughout the city. Tyrell is waiting for Roy. He's coming, Tyrell. Dont you hear that soul - biting tornado moan - he's got plans for you, Tyrell. Goodbye Tyrell. Foor Roy. All rage, confusion, bloody murder and remorse - oh so sensitive, such depth for a killing machine. How do emotions feel Roy? Yes! Conscience is the key! That's what it is to bc Kurtz, human. It is the judgement of conscience that defeats us...I I ROY BATTY: AYERY HUMAN INQUISITION I "Hcrc's Ro1,!" '61onr, Runner' is really about Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer/ nrc(hod actors in gcncral. Deckard sees his face on the VDT and knows he's looking at the final technology. An iron fist that is impossibly lifting the fascist jackboot off the face of liberal humanity, infact it is being shredded. Deckard has a relationship with all the replicants and the relationship is strange, elusive, multi-levelled, a mectingof Raymond Chandler withWilliam Blake. But with Roy Batty it is everything, it is full of speed and furious, hysterically violent, wild, berserk, dialectical, pure tornado moan, so crazy that Roy just has [o howl with emotional desolation, hyper- primitive and really dynamic. The relationslripisnoL horqosexual although homosexual apologists rvill incvitat:ly appeal to homo- erotica. ft'^r rrorz. Savage ritual always is. Sexuality is not an ultimate. Neilher is violence. The spiritual affirmation of life, ragged, red, raging and pumping oul of control, coming at you like the worst thing in the world is an ultimate - I mean ask Tom Vague, he knows all the big secrets I I around Roy and he just ignores the post-modern culture collapse, the values - panic and goes to meet Deckard. Roy lapses into vague homo-erotica when he speaks to Deckard - "Yott'd better get it up, because if you dont, I'ttt goirtg to tnve to killyott." - Roy is savage, dyrng undulation - pure herr and now rather than only slightly now and then I I THE STATE OF HUMANITY/ TORNADO MOAN/ DESOLATION I Roy's murder of Tyrell is the most meaningful statement in the whole of Cyber-Punk - "IT IS A FEARFUL THING TO MEET YOUR MAKER. - It is the way he kills'Tyrell. The whole film pivots on his expressions just after he kills Tyrell as he goes to meet Deckard at the end of the river. Royl Kurtz and Deckard/ Willard/ Hopper mirror-image each other. Roy has to force Deckard back to humanity, morality, mortality - hence the querulously ironic, "Arc'nt vott tlrc good tnan?" - here all language breaks up, evervthing crashes, all the certainLies break down. Roy is meant to bc Aryan. oh but he's more and that's the real twist. He's murdered Sebastian and Tyrell ruthlessly - as if coming to grips with a fantastic new logic, but as he descends in the lift he feels a growing sense of humanity - the moral inquisition, conscience. Roy is straight out of liberal Anglo-Western fantasy, angel-perfect and yet monstrously homocidal in dark stalinist - fascistic - liberal - democratic hues as he coctemplates a humanity which makes him exterminate ruthlessly with a self- destructing desolate compassion - a love that can kill. Roy lets Deckard sqrash him with a steel pipe, half smiles and reproachfully says - "Tltat huft!" - then goes after Deckard l.owards a final summation of historical errenr Deckard is good, the best any human suppressing his hlr. maniLy could be - infact he edges into super-human oterdrve when Roy's hunting him - pure lust4or,life. Rot's got Deckard all worked out, he actually forces him beyond his limits, watches him nearly die, then suddenly saves his life Why did you do that, Roy? Life knows its own, Roy. Tbere is no middle-ground, sainthood or brutishness - probab! a mixture I HIGH BIO.TECHNOLOGY I Helter Skelter!The Replicants are dangerous but fascinating, frightening but beautiful, often but not totally and intractably alien; they gradually emerge as the film's true emotional centre - and Roy who is gigantic, huge. existential, dying, embodies a love that can kill. Rov Battv uses a near- quotation from Blake to introduce himself: I I I ibly hulking Nietzschean greatness, because he embodies the world's p,ain. "Quite an erpereince to live in fear, tltot's 'Fiery the angels fell; deep thunder rolted Around their shores, burning with the fires of Orc-. [,AMERICA: A PROPHECY,] tr COMPUTERS MELT OTHER MACHINES. 2S. ING THEM TOGETHER - TELEVISIoN - TELEPHONE . TELEX - TAPE.RECORDER . VCR - LAZER-DISK - BROADCAST TOWER LINKED TO MICRO-WAVE DISH TO SATELLITE. PHONE. LTNE - CABLE - TV - FIBRE-OPTIC CORDS . THE HUGENESS, THE HUMMING, A TORRENT OF PURE LIGHT. A SEMIOTIC WEB, A GLOBAL NER\IOTTS SYSTEM THINKING FOR ITSELF tr

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:,:',;11it,';':l jiffi|ti l: ,l+811, iiiii::;iii:l::;l : :+ ffi;ri. I WILLIAM GIBSON/ NEUROMANCER/ MICRO. CHIPS/ IBM | 'New orrwnccr' is a Cyber-Punk science-fiction novel, de- finitive in style and content. Yanked from a japanese slum, rvhere he's been trying to repair his damaged nervous sytem and re-enter cyber-space as a cowboy and steal data lrom the great glowing subjective geometrics that represent corporate hotcores, CASE soon finds himself way out of his depth in Turkey, in the Sprawl [the long-predicted BostonAtlanta Eastern sea-board Megalopolisl and in Lagrane halostats out in corporation- dominated interplanetary space. CASE has been hired to penetrate the adamantine ICE prttntsiort Cotufieraneqswes Electronics I that incase the weird Lagrange-based Tessier-Ashpool corporation whose two AI's [Artificia I Intelligences ], Wttentilfte and N eurornancer play paracletal paradoxes and generate progrqtnnrirtg plrcnorrraru saturated industrial myth of the near future I E E Case met his lirst Modern two days after he'd screened the Hosaka's precis. The Moderns, he'd decided, were a contemporary version of the Big Scientists of his orm lute teens. There was a kind of ghostly teenage DNA at work in the Sprawl, something that carrled the coded precepts of various short-lived sub-cults and replicated them at odd intervals. The Panther Moderns were a softhead variation on the Scientists. If the technologr had been available, the Big Scientists would all have had sockets stuffed witlr micro-softs. It was the style that mattered and the style was the same. The Moderns were mercenaries, practical jokers, nihilistic techno-fetishists El tr trtrThe one who showed up at the loft door with a box of diskettes from the Finn was a soft-voiced boy called Angelo. His face was a simple graft grown on collagen and shark cartilege polysaacharideas, smooth and hideous. Itwas one ofthe nastiest pieces ofelective surgery Case had ever seen. When Angelo smiled, revealing the razor-sltarp canines of some large animal, Case was actually relleved. Tootltbud transplants. He'd seen them beforeElEl trtr'You cant let the little pricks generation-gap Jou,n Molly said. Case nodded...trtr I An equally interesting use of <Lata-buzz is explored in Michael Stanwick's 'Vacuurtt Flowers'- it has the usual overcomplex endle,ss power-game among the Gesellsclwftert or the corporate interests and kicks the hell out of humanism. Brucc Stcrling's 'Scltisrrruln"r' is franklv the mt'rst ctrmpLicatccl of thc Cybe r-Punk fictions - they are all irorth re adinu just for the fictive quality of the language I IICYBER.PUNK IS A REIiERENTIAL ANALYSIS ON POWERI IDENTITYI PSYCHOLOGIES I FUTURES I CI'BER-PUNK IS PURE BLAGTI I I'NEU ROIVIANCE R' IS ESSENTIALLY SY-IVTH ES SI I\G INIAGES OF POP CULTURE, APPLIED TO THE \-E-{R FL1TUREII t4el

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f Just qhat the world needs - another book about Punk. right, As JON SAVAGE says there's :r lot of unfinb L{ business yet to be attended to. For a start'Style CulI-'. that biggest bastard of all punk off-spring, needs to L rrslleuged properly and ridiculed as the Thatcherite l-nl that it undoubtedly is. Punk deserves a better grave th Slvle Culture', and a more adventurous obituary than t face'. To give Punk it's due it has\rt been wr.itten yet, h b1 tlre time you get to read this it should have been. TLc following interview took place during the linal stages JJoo Savage's research firr his book-cum-life's obsession, ETGLAND'S DREAMING'. The fact tlmt he's been grapphg Fith it for years, attempting to put the Punk phenomer into a wider context than usual, makes it not Just an- Scr'(Bet you) wish you were here' post-punk product but nething that's concerned with the present, and the fu- -r. Sty not expose those old wounds? Why not ask those old - rnanswered - awkward questions? And, most of all, why It dig rrp Punk? The music business is forever doing it h one lbrm or another, the advertisers do it all the time, ccn political parties do it. It's been muclr abused but it,s *ill unbowed - It wont go away. I THE FINAL I}ATTLE WILL NOT BE FOUGHT IN THE FUTURE, IT WILL BE FOUGHT HERE, IN THE }TEDIA... I pic. Ilobby Neel Adams. San l'rancisco, June 1988. r THE DONTWANNAI}ES I "r5'; The constant - which is expressed in different ways - is an approach to the same problem, which is of the media. The mediated life that we live, the whole mediated environ- ment really. I'd actually done these traces - I haven't decided yet rvhether I'm going to use them in the book - I did these 2 correspondences - which is an idea stolen from Greil Marcus. whrr did the 'Eltisbwger'correspondences, which you see in 'TOUCH: Riftml'... So I stole the idea of that and it rvas basically correspondence around the world - 'Nothing' or 'Don't Wanna' or nihilism. You know just the basic negative in whatever form. And also the key word, which is 'Boredom'. 'Boredom' is particularly interesting because it's much more definite than all the various negatives. Although the r-arious negatives are pretty interesting. And the kind o[ cxplosion of negatives you hadin19'77 - 'll/e don't care'l 'l dort't b'anno go dov,tt tct tlrc basenrcrfi'l 'I dort't cerc',' 'l{o Fufiu.c'l '.Yo Ftut'- you know all these Wo's'. all these 'Dort't lVuntns', all these... nothings. Bttt'Boredorrr'- you know, you go right back to Baudclairc really. From that kind of romantic poetrv, t'ou go all thc rvav through to Existentialism. I haven't found anv inDlD,4 but I guess I should look further. It's shot all the rvav through. It's a SifiMtionisf theoretical tenet. Vaneigem used it. and then it's also in Camus, and it's also in Beafiik existentialism. And then obviously it's all over Punk - I mean if vou actually look at how much. You know,'Bored Teenager' 'Boredont',Iggy Pop uses it. It's all over the place.'Boredorrt',lsuppose, is a shorthand way of describing existential desolation, isn't it. I W: Itbeconrc a catcltliltrose, oritwas cottsideredacliche, but it ltit ttpon a real feelirtg. JS: It had everybody saying 'Boring'all the time. Everything was bonilg. Even if you liked it, itwasboirrg.And I noticed it was in the Conflict leaflet for that riot they had in '87. I think it was, 'Iile\e so bored - 4 words wlticlt rrtean ntore tlrun tlrc collected wo*s of Man', or something. Have you got the leaflet? lt's in there somewhere. So, the point is, there was a lot of stuff,.which had been floating around, that was previously high-art or vanguardart, that came out of Pop culture. And that has a lot to do with the way England is, because England is not a culture. You know, the high-art in England, or Literature in England, is very much the preserve of a particular sort of elite. And it is very static, like the society in general, and pop culture is the only Lhing that moves - for various reasons, one of which is our proximity to language and also, in strategic geography, to America. So that after the 2nd World War, the thing in England I wasn't existentialism as much as pop-art. You know, that was the big artistic angle on things. It's quite easy to read all that up - It's the ICA Group, it's Richard Hamilton's'ftsr Wwt Makes Today's Honrcs S o Dffircrfi Attd S o Appealing' - all that stuff that was going on in '52, '54,'56. And I think, I'11 have to check this, that it got sold back to America and Andy Warhol then picked up on it. So, you've got the same situation as happened later with the english pop groups. Of England packaging and kind of having this severed outlook on american things. Presenting it back [o America, who then develop it in an industrial way. Thev didn't do that with Punk, well it took them a lot longer ts3I

to do that with Punk. Because it was so british, specifically british in a lot of ways, made it very difficult to sell in America. I think it's influence in America has been a lot more delayed. I think it's still idluential in America, even now. Whereas here it's just been totally assimilated in many ways. W: Do yoa thirtk it's different irt Europe? Afi rttoventents here don't seem to effcct people as nurch os they do irt Ett' I rope? JS: It's difficult to tell, I don't know enough about it. I have the sense that Europe is obviously much more diffuse, I and also it's much more immediately sophisticated. You don't have that deprivation that you have in England. Which is a cultural deprivation, whish means this obsessive concentration on various things. I think England is very culturally deprived. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but I think that's the case. Pop culture is the only thing, or has been the only thing that's been going, really. It's the only moving thing. lt's the only thing that has movement in this country. Hence Punk, the grand obsession, or one grand ob. session. I W: Do ltott nrcan with people like us, or ifi gerrcrolT I JS: It's hard to tell, I mean you're obviously very much an education for a place in society. And my place in society was to be a professional, like a lawyer or an accountant, or something like that. And in fact, I was studying to be a lawyer at that point. So, being very dissatisfied with that and not knowingwhat to do about it, suddenly seeing this thing come down the road, with a lot of other people who were very dissatisfied and doing something about it, was very attractive and incredibly liberating. You know, within a month of seeing my first punk concert - which was the Clash at the Fulham Town Hall. That was in October '76 - I was producing a fanzine. And it was almost automatic, it was almost like a sort of fury. I wasn't worried about whether it would fail or not, I just had to say something and, having seen this event, I had the confidence with which to say it. Because I realised that there were other people thinking along the same lines I had been in isolation. I mean, I think that's how a lot of pop movements work, I wouldn't claim any great specificity to Punk, in that sense. I think the intensityof Punkyougetin a lotofpopmovements. You probably get a similar intensity inAcid House. As intensity, as an intensive experience. influenced - This k something that's coming through at the moment, what I'm writing about Malcolm's adolescence. Which is to do withTeddy Boys and Rock'n'Roll - You tend to very much carry around the stuff that made a very big impact with you. But for me personally, I had 60's pop culture. You know, when I was 13 I didn't have rock'n'roll, I had t/re Beatles andtlte Rolling Stones, ) ru: But age wasn't necessoily a factor fu hutk? I JS: It began certainly by being a generational thing, it wasn't age, it was an attitude. I certainly remember that there were people of 'my own age who I suddenly couldn't speak to in 1976, because they didn't understand what was going on. And it was very much a case of - before it was successful and before it was seen to be successful - of having to juntp and not knowing whether you were doing the right thing. Because this is the great fallacy, this is the thing that gets eluded in historical perspective. Nobody really knew whether it was going to work. So you have an initial act of faith, of going with your instincts, or just simply what you feel about something as opposed to what the other people in your generation are doing. I was 23 in 1-976, so I could very easily have ignored it. To an extent I simply didn't think about it. I knew something like it was going to happen, on a musical level - I was always a pop fan, so my interest was primarily musical as opposed to political, at that point. And I knew something like it was I .: (t G G aa it -t I IAMANARCHETYPE i rut Do you take thqt as the shofi-li+,ed tlfitg tltat wos going to happen. [t seemed obvious and logical, and there were all these harbingers, like what was going on in New Prutk? York. about this the other day - I think something sparked, t think probably something sparked between Mclaren and Lydon. And something sparked Lydon off. I think that Lydon managed to galvanise people. And Mclaren and Lydon, and all the people around them - which was a group of about 20 people - managed to create this particular situation. Which was to do with very rapid movement, to do with a new generation being able to say what they thought about things. And obviously what they thought about things was conditioned by time and place, and I think that's probably one of the crucial things. W1vLydonmanaged to encapture that I don't know. Itwas certainly unconscious and the only conclusion I can come to about that is you're actually dealing with archetypes. You know, whether it's in the Jungian sense or whatever, it's that you're actually dealing with somebody who's neurosis is a wider neurosis. And if you look back in various descriptions of England, particularly Utopian or Distopian descriptions of England, you see Lydon. You see Lydon in Dickens. I W: Were you already witing about rttrtsic? I JS: I was unpublished. I wrote a piece in '75 which sort of vaguely predicted it. And I was just going by what I was liking myself, in music. Which was MCS and 'Nrggcrs', then Patti Smith and theRarlones.ltwas obvious really. But to an extent you don't even think about whether you're making a mistake or not. It was just ,Le t's Go! And of course that's a very romantic moment, and that's a very exciting moment. I think for a lot of people, certainly for myself going back again, probably for you, it was a time when I first got confidence in my own perception of the world. Because I suddenly realised that there were other people thinking the same things. And they were getting up and they were doing something about it. And they were actually - for want of a better word - expressing themselves. And actually had the confidence. I mean I'd been through an academic training, which is basically an analytical thing. And, obviously like all educations, Is4l I JS: It's very difficult to analyse this - I was trying to think

I ru: That was nafiral, wosn't it. In that first Sleazy (as in Gristopherson, as well as literally) pltoto sessiort, that tsrt't pttt ort. He was a Dickensiort choracter. I JS: Yes, I mean he was an irish Golem,vitb this burning that suddenlygot unlocked. The character that he re-er inds me of very much is 'steerpike' in'Tittts Groan, (Ob*tu display of Vagte literary igtorance), who, oh my god, & whole 'Titus Grcan' thing... I mean, to me,,Tittts Groan, i me of the most interesting books, it's like a post-war Dic- bns really. It hasn't got the story telling, it hasn't got the same rollickig story telling, those rollicking crowds that Dickens had. t's very precise, it's very gothic. [t's beautifully written, by fiis painter called Mervyn Peake, who basically wrote this ellegory of english society, around this thing called Gonnen;frasr. Which is a huge castle, which is kind of decaying and mulding, yet has a very strong tradition that was handed drx*'n from generation to generation. fu. it's a model of the static, hierarchical english society. And one of the central characters is this young boy of 17, l& calfed 'Steerpike',who is determined to subvert the whole s-r6tem, And the description of this boy, and the pictures, re exactly likeJohn Lydon. He has red hair, he,s gbt a high ftrehead, he's got very red, burning intense eyes, and he's *inny. And so, to an extent, you are in the realm of the unconscious. Which is dealing with archetypes, and national ar&etypes. Which is a very interesting thing to speculate ebout, and you cant really come to any firm conclusions about. But it's not just as simple as somebody forming a pop ft 9{'{* #k*t.rr;.* ! group and having a way with words. It's a bit more than that. And I think now that the most interesting thing a[ou1 Punk was not really that it rr'"; about music. I W: The nutsic, tltut's what it wss, but it wasn't tlrc be all artd end all. I JS: Well, at the time, certainly the music was terrific. It was speeded up,I loved it because it sounded like a speeded tp Wto and Kinks. And I'd always liked that sort of pop music because it was very inner-urban. It was quite sophisticated, it was quite tuneful, it had quite interesting lyrics about perception and media, and about looking at the world. It wasn't just 7 lote you, baby, baby, baby.' lt was about the way that these people saw the world, which was an interesting thing to write about. It had distortion, it had feedback and it wasn't so much this kind of soul boy model of the world. It was much more the kind of alienated existential model of the world. Which is the sort of pop music I always liked. You know, I'm very committed to that vision of pop music really. And one of the things I find loathsome about today's pop culture is that that way of looking at the world is sort of marginalised and institutionalised into the kind of Snitltsl Indie scene. Which I think robs it of it's power. And it's quite a powerful thing, because most people's adolescent experiences isn't going to clubs and hanging out and being groovy. You know, it's sitting in your bedroom being bloody miserable, getting obsessed about various records, which sort of help you interpret the world. You know, the socialised model of adolescence I think isn't there. r [CONTINUED PAGE60] - /??* The only time John and l\{alcolm saw e},e to e1e? -\ash- rille, 1976. tssl

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Tlat the Nazis did, Arendt said, rs something new: they altered the his of human action. In doing so, the lfris provided humanity with more *-n 6 burden - the need to compreH their actions - they also provided 'I WANT IT!! Ya know, whatever I do or whenever something pops in mY mind t believe it. And that's kinda the door to fascism, because when you start to believe something very strongly and you dont care if it makes any SENSE vis-a-vis some OTHER piece of information, then what happens is your actions start to become such that they are not clearly justifiable to other people. To other people they may Take a Depression (the,v dont ell it a Recession anymore) - spice qith a castrating bureaucracy (all the frcwer with the men in grey) and a sexuallv and socially frustrated people living off past (WW2) glories and violence recycled ad nauseum - add an accepted intolerance-as-a-way-of-life at all levels (ask any west indian) and the vacuum tedium of a country OD'd on its own greed - And you get a steam- riality long after its actuality has hecome a thing of the past...Once a specific crime has appeared for the Erst time, its reappearance is more seem to mean this or that or that or that. But what they dont understand is that to a REAL fascist i[ does'nt mean anything.' ing totalitarian stew. e legacy: "lt is in the very nature of frings human that every act that has mce made its appearance and has heen recorded in the history of mantind stays with mankind as a Poten- fkely than its initial emergence could rer have been." '...my medical experiences with men and women of various classes, races, nations, religious beliefs, etc, taught me that'fascism'is only the organized political suppression of the structure of the average man's character, a structure that is confined neither to certain races or nations, nor to certain parties, but is general and internadonal. Viewed with respect to man's character, 'FASCISM' IS THE BASIC EMOTIONAL ATTITUDE OF THE SUPPRESSED MAN OF OUR AUTHORITARIAN MACH1NE CIVILISATION AND ITS MECHANISTIC-MYSTICAL CONCEPTION OF LIFE. IT IS THE MECHANISTIC- MYSTICAL CHARACTER OF MODERN MAN THAT PRODUCES FASCIST PARTIES, AND NOT VICE-VERSA. 'The result of erroneous political thinking is that even today fascism is conceived as a specific national characteristic of the Germans or the Japanese. All further erroneous interpretations follow from this initial erroneous concePtion.' I BELIEVE ANYTHING. I "..Oh, rery strongly in fascism' Exbelieve tremely strongly - Not Nazism. I dont think fascism was ever done right. Fascism to me is when a Person'..Like, children are fascists...They're all fascist little buggers. They believe what they see immediatelY - BAM! And if thev see two contradictorY things, they'll helieve in both. They don[ see the connection, you know, like I just dont see it, I never have, I just believe real strong in whatever I want. 'When sexuality is prevented from attaining natural gratification, owing to the process of sexual repression, what happens is that it seeks various Itinds of substitute gratifications. Thus, for instance, natural aggression is distorted into brutal sadism, which constitutes an essential part of the mass psychological basis of those imperialisticwars that are instigated by a few. To give another instance, from the point of view of mass psychology, the effect of militarism is based essentially on a libidinous mechanism. The sexual effect o[ a uniform, the erotically provocative effect of rhythmically executed goose-stepping, the ex- hibitionistic nature of militaristic procedures, have been more practically comprehended by a salesgirl or an avetage secretary than by <lur most erudite politicians. On the other hand it is political reaction that consciously exploits these sexual interests. It not only designs flashy uniforms lor the men, it puts recruiting into the hands of attractive women. In conclusion, let us but recall the recruiting posters of war-thirsty powers, which ran something as follows: 'Travel to foreign countries - join the Royal Nary!' and the foreign countries were portrayed by exotic women. And why are these posters effective? Because our youth has become sexually starved owing to sexual suppression.' 'Unity had her place in the column. Fascism to her *as debutante life in reverse. literally in hlack instead of white. The recn:.iring march through London cc'uld te considered a Queen Charlo,tte's ball *e reall-v wanted to attend. suitat'\ dresrd to be sure.' ORIGINAL SOURCE OF QUOTES 2 & 4: WILHELM REICH. No great culinary skill needcd! Bc the first on your Block! And it sure as hell wont be Red. Ok - no great news - but what am I doing dragging these punks into politics?? For Christ's sake all these kids wanna do is have something to do - lig, po.", roik on - dont theyfsure thJy get vicious when derelict hippies start chucking beer bottles and get dumb but would'nt you? I mean, Punk's IT, is'nt it? Fucking intellectuals analysing everything, take all the fun away... we dont need you. Punk is very simple (the Warhol putons belong mostly to the NY contingent) - it polarises. Everyone notices it - most look away or shudder, others want to be it. It's a whole eezi-wrapped package: music (which you can do yourself) - clothes (which you can buy from SEXor do yourself) and outrage (which is yourself). What more do you want? Instant peer group. No questions asked or needed. So lar the number of bona-fide punks has been small (say 200 at most) compared to the number of angry young intellectuals/ journalists who have seen fit to use it and become it in the process... it's their chance to get the street life they missed out on through their background,4nd to use/ divert the energy and anger to their own frustrations. Punk is easy meat for the pro- fessional mind-gamers! There's noth- ing else happening (Frampton and Callaghan for Christ's sake) and any scene is badly needed. The punks dig it because they get publicity, credibility and record contracts - the intel- lectuals get cheap outrage. So now there's been this great media splash and come on and much seriousness: articles about influences and boring old farts and razor blades and flarcs and sleeping 16r'gh and ic-v stares and 70's urban blues and Ge sin- cerity and lack of pompositl r*iich is rapidly becoming ano{her aod I hare and I want...overkill. kiddir=" F-rryeoation is intense: some delirer, ubers (&e Damned) donl- Thete &-m you do well if your a5 equak yoor adr"mce t-qrl

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L-rpe - that's all you can hope for. The coverage invites imitation by its -dia motrbishness (I'm hip), salaciousness lBottling Shock Horror) and pure psh: the resultant shower falls on ferrile ground, in an age when Queen and -{t'ba are tops. Look: The eNMEy runs a review of the Clash gig at, the ICA with Sean's doctored earlobe rirrn pride of place. Naturallyenough t-he love- bites are all in the family, and tro one's too bothered, least of all Sean whose earlobe is alive and well. 5o what do you get? Reports filtering through from the Real Wasteland Glasgow, which tell of bona-fide mutihtions in response to what is obvious$the latestinthe Smoke. Aweird kind ..f wish fullilment. Punk as a vehicle for the writer's SM fantasies, let alone the Kids! So the punters are being primed for peak punk popularity... to date there have been more articles than records, eigs almost. The media gush has been a vital part to what punk's all about so the violence is all showbiz, and compared to the Teds and the Mods i['s nothing so far. All pop explosions have started out in small halls where 100 or so boozed and pilled kids have run amok. True - pogodancing does knk rough when seen on a TV screen, but it's pretty matey really. As for the showbiz - maybe it was'nt like that at the start, but since media coverage stressed violence, the audience and bands felt the need to act it out. So when Joey Strummer comes off the stage at the end of the Clash gig at the RCA with Sid V and sets about the hippies, who've been bombarding the band with plastic glasses and a beer bottle, he was quite justified. But he had to do it to recover credibility: he called the other creep up and invited him to "do it lrcrc - cause I cant see yow' filtlt"v face" - when the other guy appeared, nothing happened bar a bit of shoving. I mean, a punk bumpecl into iar - often the reports are, from first hand experience, different - or shall me and said sorry! So far it's been a tight, competitive but not unfriendly scene, considering. But I hope the Pistols are ready to face s-e say larger than life than the action. what Glasgow and Newcastle have In a spiral, outrage and violence are ready for them: Rotten wont be able to encouraged and amplified. get away so lightly with his audience harassment. But then he is on an lggy trip.,.The main difference is not in the violence-as- a-way-of-life schtick, but Attitudes: no fiutl I waruru be bontl I w'qrfi it rtowl I want eteryone to be rnel I hate eteryorrc wlto is\fi nrcl l\tt rrcw sild I can do what I wqrttl I lmte true lovel I gotta new Rollsl I wannq fiot of nw owrtl C'rttort ctutt artd we'll do ya!l I lwte sex. And a good time is had by all. The punks offer themselves and their music as a solution to the dole, Oueen, boredom, supermarkets and mortgages - 'Yott are tlrc problerrt': johnny Rotten would like to be seen as the solution. Which he and his co-conspirators are. Because the punk power is cutting through, and is there abuzz. And that cant be denied, Clyde. But when bor- ing journalists try and pin Rotten down to where his energy is going, he becomes abusive orvague; fair enough - bugger consistencv - but the result is that the onlv place the kicls can get the Ideologvcomponer-rt of their Punk Lifestyle Kit is from the gigs (if thev can eet to them), or from the reports and records. And that goes for Clash, the Damned and all the others. Now the cult is moving out, the bands find tiemselves in positions of leadership, elms5[, of the kids they represent some cant handle it at all, let alone coherently. And it's almost unfair to expect them to - they're musicians. I suppose the trouble is they've been set up as thinkers. Apart from energy ancl outrage, prutkistrto, as it's been seen, consists mainly of violence and kink gear. But with the overtly political nature of much of the material, Lhe violence as an answer to the dole, etc. To be fair, ttre Cllash have given an excellen[ in- terview (Snffin' Glue #4) in which they stress the positive side of their en- ergizing, but I douht whether the message will get through the violence bit. And Rotten dont care... As for the kink gcar ancl Nazi ephemera - it fits a peculiarly English kind of decay: perversity through repression given true expression - which in a way is great. At last the English fascination with WW2 linds the darker side (after hundreds of shitty war movies, Dunkirk is soo boring) and shilts to a current obsession with Nazism. The English have always been grcat ones frrr emotional and physical S + M - nowwe are asweak as so many kittens nationally, the bully-boy sexpower of Nazism/Fascism is very attractive and an easy solution to our complex moral and social dilemmas. The kid who thinks its cool to wear a swaztika and various bondage gear does it to shock - the sound of flashbulbs popping and heads turning is meat and drink. But it is'nt quite as simpk as that - there's a whole load of psychological triggers or whatever you want to call them involved in the wearing of Sn'aaikas and Nazi fashion that cant be isnored. The cult of the power- ful. the 'l w'srtt it rtot+'anll amg?nno grr ir'attitude and the general dc'ematics of punk (l want evervone to be mel is just too right for the vacuum follorxing tailerl hippie/acid mysticism and ethci - Hate and War takes over from Love and Peace (C'nnn aut and we'll tlo .val Let's get it togetlrcr) and is being marketed accordingly - it's a much more attractive call. The music is working its way to being an amazing explosion of anger and frustration ('I'rn Stranded' by the Saints and 'Search and Destroy' by lggy cut every- thing else to shreds): as a potential mass fashion it goes beyond excitement to be downright scary. Mmm - now I take a deep breath and dive into my own subjective paranoia. Simply, I see punk as the first stirrings, on a mass level, of a peculiarlyEnglish kind of fascism. Oh, that did'nt sur- prise you. The wearing rif Nazi uniform need'nt be an explici( slatement, just as fascism here wont- be likc in (iermany: we aint Germans. It,ll be English: ratty, mean, pinched, hand in glove with Thatcher as mother sadist over all her whimpering public school boys, the 70's Unity to finally consumate the fascist union. I know it's a very easy and trendy concept to throw about, but it needs one bright politician (Enoch) to make the link as has becn clonc by Clarter in the States, between Rock and Politics and it'll be a wipc-out. And when did you see more than [he token black at a punk gig? White Riot: watch the polarisation. Why does punk fit so good? Cause it,s a dance with death baby. And like every dance with death, it's soooooo attractive. I mean I love it, I really do, I write about it as a fan for Christ's sake but god it does frighten me good - The dance ofthe repressed released to become powerlul beyond their dreams. Rock musibians play with power (and who was it who told me they studied Hitler, some of them?) when most everyone (and that means you at the top) is powerless, of a kind that so far has shown little else (either real or hyped) than violence and energy is fucking dangerous. Anarchy indeed. Terminal decadence is here and will become action - the final vomit of a rotted society. Oh well - you can work out the rest: write a thesis if you want - I've tried a start. I just wanted to say it - feel it needs saying as we lemming our last few hours away. The punks dont need this for sure - good luck to them on their merry go round, because I'm still a fan... EJON SAVAGE, 'LONDON'S OUTRAGE" NOVEMBER 1976I tsel

I [CONTINUED FROM PAGE 55] I W: How abottt, rtot that the niltsic wasn't irrtpofiantbut, it was leadfiry sontewlrcre? I JS: It's hard to tell because of course when you lirst saw these groups you couldn't work out what the fuck they were saylng. I W: Especially tlrc Closh. I JS: Especially the Clash.Because the PA's were so bad. The Clash didn't get their sound right for 4 years. And what you heard, when I saw the Sex Pistols first time was just a bunch of slogans really. Which I liked,I loved the acronyms tn Anarclry irt tlrc UK'.I thought that was terrilic - 'Is tltis ilw IRA, tlrc MPLA'- I thought that was great. I could under stand that. That was like'Terrorist News'. But it was much more of a blur and a sensation. And a sensation also, which is very important, of really being put on the spot. You know, in every way, just totally challenged, which is very productive. And I was very freaked out about Punk. I was very attracted but I was also very freaked out about it, for about 4 or -5 months. You know, there was stuff about it that really disturbecl me, ihft I found quite frightening. Particnlarly, I was very freaked out by the use of the swastika, and.iust by the general atmmphere of violence, which was mtrre thealrical than actual really. \c rta i, co- And you found this music which encapsulated that - which is very liberating - and it \ryas yery claustrophobic. Which I loved, I love that sensation. I feel like that anyway, I don't have to take speed to feel like that - just feeling really boxed in. I W: Bttt the actual violence, ond another cliclte football violence, is it acnully sttch a bad tlting? Et'er1,body krtows it isn't as bad as tlrc rtrcdia makes it ottt to be. I JS: Well, I think that's what I'm trying to say - That the violence at punk gigs was implied rather than actual. I ac- tually found the specific Punk Rock concerts to be fairly kiendly. I mean even the Clash coming down off the stage at the Royal College of Art and attacking the audience seemed to be a theatrical gesture in common with their performance. It was the logical conclusion of their performance. It only started getting really violent when it started hitting ths: people who the rhetoric was aimed at. I mean the great rhetoric of Punk - which was basically an art school, sophisticated movement - was that, you know, we've got to reach the kids on the council estates. When it started reachingthe kids <>n the council estates that's when the mayhem started. From the middle o['77 onwards you get these horrific tales of punk groups being attacked on stage, and bottles flying, and riots going on in the auclience. Pauline Murray told rne: slrcr went t o see tlrc Pistols in about May'76,and the last time she saw them was about 18 months later, on the 'SPOIS'tour. She said the atmosphere had totally changed. It was much more really violent She hadn't found thern originally very violent, except in a generational sense. There was always an extent to which punk was irresponsible, but I think the last few years of socially responsible pop have shown you what an idiocy the idea of socially responsible pop is. The sort of pop ['ve always liked has been the rcally nasty vile stuff. Like the mid-60's Rollirtg Storrcs, who were pretty damned bloody violent. You listen to some o[ the very early Rollirtg Stones tracks, they're very puuky. TV: Isrt't tlrut llrc establislurrcnt's defhition of wlrut is rcsportsible? Tlrut was wlrcrt tlrc Storrcs werc sirtgirry about rcal I -4 6i ,iE tltirtgs. I JS: Well, there's an implicit you see. I never thought /re Stones were irresponsible - I was a bit older then. It was one of the things that I had to work through in my response t"o Punk. Which is a kind of political development and understanding politics, which began with Punk and is still going on now. So I wouldn't feel the same way about Punk if I was looking at it now. I had to go through a process of education 0 Glv lrJ i, U. tr!- r8 I LoNDoN's ourRAGE I W: Wwtyou saidirt'Loudort's Outroge', if -vou tell sortrcortc tlwt - eqtgting Ptutk witlr swastikas and.f'ascisnt'it sotutds like wlrut the nrcdio were sayingat tlrc tinrc. But it was an elenrcnt, just as fascisnt is an elertrcnt itt rock rtttrsic itt general. It's sontethirtgtlnt lruppened irt tlrc past, so it's botutd to effect tltittgs tlnt lruppen after - becouse it lwppened once? .IS: Yes, that's a quote by Arendt. I thought the punks wcre being semiologically naive, basically. As far as the music went - I think particularly if you haven't seen much violence, which if you're a middle-class boy like I am you actually haven't. Plus if you're feeling pretty violent around the world. I mean the great thing about this country is, that it is very claustrophobic, and that breeds a /or of frustration and a lot of anger and a lot of violence. I was feeling pretty damn violent because I'd got hemmed in and I wanted to lash out. I t60I which that started, which experiencing that started. I was forced to develop an attitude towards this, you know try and work it out, try and wbrk out where it was all coming from, what it meant and what I felt about it. I W: Tlrut nutst be dfficttlt writirtg tlrc book. Arv yott writirtg about Ptutk fr ortt now, or qrc you tryirtg to go tlu.ouglt witlt it? I JS: No, because I've trained my memory. One of the things I've been doing over the last 2 years is training my memory, so that I can put myself back into how I felt at a particular moment. I W:Wntabout saytlrc linkbetween tlrc Sittrutiortists and Ptu*? Because it wasrt't sorrrcthirtg lhat was knowt qt tlrc tirne, apafi frorrt latnie and Malcohrt, lwrdl.v a,Utotte st all. But rtow it's kirtd of taken for ganted, tlnt it was an on-goirtg process. But tlnt is very rttttclt q refiospcctive view. I JS: Well, this is the interesting thing about history really - Seeing Punk nowsenous/1,as something to do with the Situatiortists - which is obviously going to be something that l'm going to be writing about. And I am writing about seeing Punk within a context of the 20th Century. And maybe be- yond. Except I'm not going to go into that much because

k's just so vast - And utopian, sort of gnostic movements. fm- Takes it out of the rock'n'roll sphere which it's in, takes I TV: Olttes. I .lS: And, I mean, I'm looking forward personal\- to get- iout of the pop cultural sphere. You know, the sort of situ- ting it over with now. Because it's going to be nice to get rid lionwhere youseeJohnLydon andJoe Strummer on 'Mg/rl frctwork'.It's like camp pop history. And it makes it into an archetype. And then you realise lat if it's an archetype, then it will happen again in a differ- of my 20's. I W: Is tlwt it? To exorcise it? Like yott were sa1irry abottt tlrc Pwtk obsessiort, it seents to rne tlut people go to idiar lous extrernes to kill it off. I\n thirtkirtg of lulie Burclill and c{ form. Because this is something that is a human constant rithin the sort of society that we live in. And in fact in other mcieties. People do have different ways of looking at the world and, to an extent, at various times the impulse to put 6em into practise is going to be pretty strong. I W: The tlrcory that sonrcthittgthat's lwppened is inevitdl"v goirtgto lwppen again ht a different place, in a dffircnt wy. peopla like tlmt. JS: Well, that's quite a complicated subject. I think that you, any pcrson, has a need to bury their adolescence. I think I it's a hallmark of - not of maturity, because that's a loaded word - o[ simply moving into a different age. Which you do, i[ you're a man, if you're a male you move into a different age when you're about 30. You actually become a different person, I mean I think you actually chemically alter. You certainly alter in your head. You do actually, physically anyway, finish your adolescence, And I think that obviously if you're interested in writing, which I very much am, it's obviously working out where you came from, who you are, something pretty important - trying to construct an identity. And it didn't really begin as exorcising Punk at all. It just began because I was given a whole kracl of stu[[ and I thought oh well, this is interesting, I'll have to make a book out of it. And it's turned into this great saga because I came across various psychological and other blocks while I was doing it, that I had to resolve. Which has not been easy but it's been very interesting. Because if I'm going to {o this subject anyjustice it's got to have a lot of passion. Otherwise I might just aswefl packup andgo home. I think any great pop book has to be written by a fan. You can tie journalistic and you know, writerly skills to it. ie. Not just take everything everybody says to you. I did a book about //rc Kinlrs and I liked the Kiltlro enough to see me through doingit. But I was interested enough in this subject to want to do a really gorld iob on it. And the only way to do a rcally good job was (1 ) to set it in all-time. ie. The idea of this archotype and (2) scl it in a particular time. Which is the iclea of doing a social history basically of England be- twecn'75 and'79. It also, I'm finding, is getting a lot of my ideas about english society into it. Like how important pop is. And the way that cities work, you know the whole idea of Urbanisnt, I WHAT DIDYOU DO ON THE JUBILEE? LIS; Yes, and I think that's a reasonably healthy way of looking at it. And obviously one of the things that I've already written is a description of the Boat Trip. And I managed to get myself pretty much into horv I felt that day, simply by playing'Ncver Mind Tlte Bollocks' aboul. 4 timcs. I Tl/: You were on it werert'l vott, 'Wtat Did You Drt (ht Tltc Itbilee?' I JS: Yes, that dreadful thing I wrote for 'Sotutds'.Well, it wasn't dreadful, but I kind of cringe when I look at a lot of that stuff. I mean, I'm not ashamed of it but... you know, it's like looking at Malcolm Mclaren's art school try-outs in his folder, looking at somebody who hasn't quite learnt how to say what they want to say, and is trying various things ou! and sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. I very much teel likg that about 'Lortdon's Outrage'.I think half of it is totally brilliant, I cant believe I wrote it, and then the o{ier half is a bit awkward, all wrong, and I'm sure you feel the =me about *€qgtlve done. ;f;E= which I'm obspssed by. And that's very much a result of having read a lot of the background data now. One of the things [hat I really like about a lot of those post-war utopian movements is seeing other ways that the space is managed. [ find tha{ rcally intcrresting, and I want to workw-rore with that. And also you've got the other thing, which is thewhole idea o[ nilrilisrn and negation. The whole idea that you do have thcse clostructive impulses. Somel"imes these destructive impulses are very creative , and other times they're very destnrc/ir.,e. And they're very often self-destructive. And I think that anytrody who lived punk to any intensity - even somebody like me, who was basically a paid voyeur. I was a journalist throughout the time but, to be fair to myself, I did contribute a bit - But anybody who lived through it, with any intensity, had to go through this ridiculous come-down, this selfdestructiveness. After having been in the situation whcre you were destroying things, even if it was just your lormer personality, you still had to get through the destructive phase and the traps that you get in becoming self-destruc- tive. Which isn't very easy, particulady if you're a male I think. So, when you're dealing with punk, I find that constant with almost everybody I've talked to. That everybody, in either '78 or'79 or even later, had a terrible time. You know, they either got into drugs, or their groups split up, or they got really depressed, or they left music. Everything got very black. 16rl

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It sounds ridiculous, but she pul.s me into a red rage. More hecause of just what she is as a person. What I dislike most about hcr, I think, is that she applies this ferocious moralit-v-. whereas in fact her own behaviour is totally corrupt. I don't see what basis she has to make the moral judgements that I I ROM I.ASCISM TO I..ACEUISM she has. J TT': Hove you fotutd tlrat tl rc Punk S ell-out is attotlrcr orrc ? i*i m,irtg to get \)ott otrto yoto' cotilettqroroie s lrcre... I JS: Well, there's a lot there really... Why don't I start with re first? I think the problem is that a lot of Punk was kind r ae sthetic theory, and an aesthetic way of dealing with the qrrld. And also it was very emotionally adolescent. There TBs a concentration on the child, and there was a concen::rtion on adolescence. And when people pass [rom adoles:rnce. with a few ideas, into adulthood, unless there's some i:rt of politics to them they're basically going to assimilate mgtr dominant culture. \orv, you also have the problem of somebody like.lulie tsurchill, who to me is sl"uck in permanent adolescence and I Lhiflk she is a very sick woman. Because she is still stuck. E';erybody from that period, particularly John Lydon, who ;ad the most volcanic anger in the world, has come to terms r-ith their anger and has come to terms with that particular iestructiveness. Whether creative or destructive in the purEst sense. Whether black or whether white, however you *ant to put it. And everybody has come to terms with that. There's a lot :f unfinished business floating around. But basically that manic destructive anger has disappeared. Except for one Ftrson who still applies that same role model. That same :ierv of the world. It's very difficult for me to talk about, because I've actually met Julie Burchill quite a lot o[ times and iound her possibly - I don'|" want to glamorise her because I don't think o[ her as glamorous - But I do find her genuineh evil. Not in a particularly interesting or attractive way. Il"'s iike you see something that's sick in the street and you just :hirk"rrrrcl< and you go to thc other side of the strcet. You lon't want to get involved. It's not glamoruus, it's not excitine. it's no1 mythic. And I think she's verv dostructivc. I'r,e been in ridiculous situations. rvhere fricncls triccl (o make us speak to each othe,r and I relused to. Because ol what she's written about PWA's - People WiLh Aids - And because of what she's written about gay people, which is something that I feel very strongly about. So thal what I'm saying is you have to apply some morality to it, and some personal morality to it, and not even politics. It's just if somebody says something that you think is unacceptable, it's up to you to do something about it. Now, whatever reason she might have had for saying this unacceptable stuff is now irrelevant. If it's copping an attitude then she should have grown out of that years ago. It's not exciting, it doesn't shock people. I W: It lruyt't sen,ed art.y 1ttupose... I JS: Well, it's not a dialectic. I W: Like witlt Tltt obbirtg Gristle, st tlrc titne I lrud t ery seiorts dortbts abottt tlrcrtt. I .lS: I t"hink everybody did. I W: But tallcittg to Gert 5 years after... I JS: You're able to argue with Gen. I W: Yott cqrt see ltis poirtt, artd lrc lws proved sorrte poirrts o1' doirtg sortrc irtcrcdibly dodgt tltirtgs. Brrt .lulie gets away with it because she's like a sort of pet poodle for a lot of people. I mean for the kind of adults who hate pop culture, she's still like a trendy young thing. Now, you know I've worked in the mainstream media since '78 and I'm comparatively rare I think, in that I (1) take things very personally, I don't think it's all a bloody game. And (2) I am prepared to make judgements about people. And if I think they've behaved badly I'll sodding well let them know. I wont just laugh it off, or pretend to be nice to them, I'll confront thern with il. And people don't like that very much. But I don't think there's any other way to behave really. Because now, for instance, one very useful residue from lhe whole Punk experience is that everybodywants so much to be liked and to get on in the mainstream media, a bit of old Punk rudery really works. And not in the Burchill sense, butjust really cutting through the crap and getting down to the nitty-gritty of the situation really quickly. Instead of all this posing around that happens. So, I think the problem with Julie is that she provided the mytlr that people wanted, r,l.r-a-l,ls journalists. You talk to a lot of the actual participants in Punk and they're pretty scathing about her. I think that a lot of people feel that she pretty much made it off the backs of other people and then refused, likc everybody else in my generation, to reinvest. And LhaL's why I despise most of'the people from my generation, becausc thev didn't re-invest in the culture that had thrust (henl into prominence. Morley, Parsons, Burchill. They didn't put anything back. I suppose that's one of the things I'm doingwith this book. Although I didn't really set out to do that. But I certainly do feel a debt, in that a lot of these people created a situation where I could do what I wanted to do. And I turned round and I saw that nobody had written their story in any comprehensive way. And I thought the least I could do is get down my feelings about this and also tell their story. In other words, go and interview all the people that were involved, like Jordan, or Siouxsie, who was really interesting, or Steve Severin, who was really interesting. Or Berlin, who was a teenage rent-boy who was in some of the pictures. And all those sort of people,'and get their stories down. How did they get involved? You know, t think that's rpally interesting and nobody's done that. W: Wrut's happened to Berlfu? JS: He was a teenage rent-boy. He's putting on plays, you know, a writer. He's a very interesting guy actually, I like him a lot... So that it's a question of instead of turning around and using it for your own personal celebrity... I mean this is a very basic magical or political point. You know, the whole point about what to call black magic is that you take the powers that you have, which may or may not be yours - that's another area of dispute - and you then use them totally for your own I I lulie Burclill's sm,ing rcactiotwry tltirtgs for tto pttryose. I JS: Julic's like a bag lady, who comes up to vou iu the street, and she's smelling and she's stinking, and she r*'ops '.i-ru in the face. What do you do? You either kick her in the rteth, ur else you just walk away. So, in other words. tiere's nothing productive that comes out of that action. Aad if she rneans it, then I think she needs clinical help. t63l

I THSASSAULTON STYLE CULTURE 'If passion ends in fashion, then Robert Elms still is'nt the best dressed man in town.' 1 W: There is that elenwt irt Pturk, even the Blitz scene or wlrutever, people tlmt were sort of touched b1t Ptutk, all tlrcse people, it was just o, tnatter of time before they lrud their' 15 rrtirnttes. I JS: Well. obviously when anything happens, and the space is cleared, you're going to have a lot of opportunists. I don't mind opportunists, I think we're all opportunists. I think that pop is made by opportunists. I don't think that that's a problem. The problem at hand, particularly at hand, is that you get people who are opportunists, who pretend to have a greator morality. Who people take seriously as having a morality or a particularly worthwhile aesthetic. I fail to see this with all my contemporaries. As far as I'm concerned Tony Parsons, who I never thought was a very, very good writer, again fulfilled a myth. He has the one great card in his favour, which is something that he did before the music press, which was to do that book 'Tfue /(irls', which was in the Richard Allen genre, which places him right as the correct myth. Now, he's basically very much a yuppie, just trying to write decent co[our supplement journalism. I don't think that's very exciting.I don't blame him for doing it but I don't find it very exciting. I don't care really one way or the other l-o be honest, I don't dislike him particularly. Morley is a much more tricky case. He's somcbody with genuine talent. I think he's got a very strong aesthetic sense, but he has absolutely no politics. And the whole problem with the ZTT scam is that it basically asset-stripped a lot o[ the residue of punk, as if selling it on the International Monetary Market. So it's like those people who take all the money out of the cornish tin mines, the tin mines go bust and the money goes to America and Tokyo. That's what ZTT did. The 80's, the late 80's are all about celebrity, which is all to do with the concentration on the single p"iroo. And the important thing about anything that occurs, like Punk or evenAcitlHorr,re, is that it's a combination of as manypeople as get involved. It's a combination of 2C0 people, or 250 l,eople, or -50 people, or 100 people, or whoever. It's not just one sodding person. And this is what's at issue a lot now I think. I think that's one of the unresolved issues of Punk. The whole question of how there wasn't enough politics in it to stop people going the way of celebrity. And the whole point of celebrity again is that it's a reification of fame. In other words, people are famous for being famous. They're not famous because they do something, they're famous because they are kind of abstract. And I certainly feel to an extent that's what Burchill's about, and that's what Morley tried to be and failed. And certainly Morley, for awhile, thought he was somebody who was pretty special. Pretty damn special. And what has he done? You know, he's written a few good sub-titles, he was a good music press writer, and he wrote a couple of good press releases. ...... I'm not saying that I'm more moral, or I'm more political than they are, because I'm not. I'm subject to the same contradictions. But I'm still trying tograpple withtha,@d I'm very suspicious of those type of mass-aedia that they seem to have embraced. 164l lllt fi._": w&tclrstrayr and o; :tht$lr*1ijh*ffi-"",: I mean,I basically think that they've all turned prettyThatcherite, and I think that's a pretty weedy thing to do. Because if you look at the long term, if you have any view of history, you just see that this age will be over and then a lot of people will be looking pretty silly. I mean they're going to be looking pretty silly in 5 or L0 years time, when Thatcherism is out and lhere's whalever reaction there will be. They're going to look fucking stupid. I'm interested in the future, I'm not interested in the past and ['m not inl.erested particularly in the present, because there's so much about it that I dislike. I actuallythink it's almost a problem to become famous, in certain ways, in this particular period - because of the whole power politics. I W: I'trt doingahight than. I JS: It selects various people to be famous, in accord to what the power politics want to occur. So, you know, you are talking about Morley being briefly celebrated in pop culture, at a time when de-politicised entreprcneurialism is valucd. You are talking about Julie Burchill being celebrated, in a small way - I mean, these people aren't famous. They're well known within a certain context - You're talking about Julie Burchill being well known in a certain conte:<t, because she says extreme right-wing things, which people find very acceptable. You know, when you say extreme right-wing things, like gays should be put into concentration camps and M rs. Thatcher's absolutely fucking wonderful, then it makes thc less extrcme activities of the right-wing look prettygood. That does niake me very, very angry, because a lot of the sheep who are still involved in S/1,1e Culttuc are going to take that seriously, and I find that very irritating. W: So, ltow tttttclt do yott thirtl< Ptutk is resltortsible? went tluouglt o stage wherc I felt Ptutk had to be held rcsportsible for what's lnppening now. JS: Well, I felt that too but, in [act,I think lhat's to overestimate pop culture. Jamie made a very good poinL, when I had a go at him about this in the '{Jp Tlrcy Rise'book. I said 'you shouldn't have used swastikas, blah, blah, blah, you created the situation that now pertains'. And he said, well hasically that's crap, Mrs. Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and the people behind them have created the situation that per- I I :;-ffiil6. I

I thi* the point about Punk is that it is a bundle of con- BJictions, total contradictions, which is what is interesting *ri'ut it. It was at once anarchist and fascist. It was at once 'iCent and very gentle. It was at once very liberating and cr repressive. So different people, whatever their psycho\rcal quirks are, are going to take different stuff out of it. T;q could say that there's a lot of stuff, very good stuff, that's {s@€ out of Punk. But because of the way the media works, rl because of the way thaL politics works at the moment, un tend not to hear about it. l'd much rather see people in fie music press, or in the whole area of style and youth cultme. idolise the people in the Peqce Convoy, than I would rc ttrem take people like Julie Burchill or Paul Morley seri*eslv. I think the people in the Peace Convov, or whatever, rt 30 times, a zillion times as interesting as these people. 5o I think that it's a bit naive. I think you can say that punk re. enough of it's time to prefigure what would occur under Thatcherism. And to an extent, justlike the Beatles and,tlrc &rl/ing Storrcs and tlrc Wrc and the B.vrds in the 60's, presryrd thc kind of liberation that occurred. That there was the ,arious elements in Punk, the hard style, the aggressiveness, ie moral dogma, that presaged what was going to occur ender Mrs. Thatcher. But to hold it responsible? To me, that ,ur.i shows it was good art. i W: Bul every fortrt of corrurttuticatiort is a seties o{ cort;adic{iorts tltat vou lnt,e to work out. Artd rnaybe it did'rtt *ork out? I JS: Well, there's all sorts of reasons why Punk did'nt rork out. Firstly, I think the basic one was simply that the rcgaLive was over stressed. There were various reasons: The irct that the negative was very exciting. It was very exciting, i,ru know in1976,to go around being horrible to everybody. Because you'd had 5 years of really boring hippies. And they x ire'nt the original hippies, who were wonderful, they were rlie end of hippy detritus and that got very boring. It was -.erv monolithic, you know, you went to these fucking places end you saw these dreadful groups. When I was 18 I went to .ee these dreadful groups, I cant imagine why I went, like Poco, who were singing watered down country rock with .leel guitars. And it was vile, and it was smug, and it denied ro much of the human experience. So when somebody came along and said,'Yeah, well fuck ir.u! Wah!' and behaved like a spoilt brat, that was really exciting and very liberating. Behaving like a spoilt brat 12years ,.'rn is just behaving like a spoilt brat. And being negative 10 lcars on I dont think is particularly helpful, in that way, in a confrontational way. I think there are different ways of being negative. I think it's a double thing. Maybe you have to be rery positive, you know a kind of double-negative. Maybe re're now living in a age when it's impossible for anything cultural to go anyuvhere. I do think it has a lot to do with politics. And I also think it has to do with groMh of market segmentation, and the total penetration really of consumption into all our lives. I think the whole idea of consumption, which is a way of looking at the world, has really now penetrated everybody's subconscious. There's a very good book, called 'Distirtction'by Pierre Bourdieu, which talks about this, which actually says the liberated lifestyles o[ the 60's, the kind of mutant lifestvles, or lifestyles that we all thought were mutant but exciting, were actually presaging or bringing on aa era of more intensive consumption. Because there's no breals on it. I W: Yeal4 basicall.t, tlrut's wlrcre the Sifintiottists *.ettt a'rong. nrc sotrtc way tlrut Marc did'rtt prcdict autonration and 'ntff, ,.ital ttt'it. t|rc.1, tlitl'rtt prcdict Thqtclrctisrrt, Reagarrisrrt artd tlrc reof cortsutrrcrisrrt, thev tltottgltt it was gettirtg neqr the end f JS: Yes, so the future may very well be a refusal. Which is going to be very difficult for us. I mean I take Stewart's point to an extent. t think that's an interesting idea, the refusal to communicate, you know the communications strike I think is interesting. I also think perhaps more interesting than a communication strike is a consumption strike, the idea that people just wont consume. I think that will probably be the next area of refusal. And I think that will be a very difficult one for people of our generation to deal with, because that's what we've been brought up with. I dont know whether I'm going to be able to deal with it, I like my things I cant help it, it'd be strange if I did'nt because I've been taught to buy things now for 35/3 years. I think that will be one next area of refusal and, it's very interesting, you get very aggressive reactions when you start I went to a'Media Slrcw'meeting recently and I started sounding offabout this sort ofstuff, I got very aggressive reactions, people did'nt like it at all. But it seems to be something that has to be grappled with, because it seems to me that the rnodel of consumption that we have now is all to do with infantilism. It's all to do with keeping people who are of an age when they were growing up, when they were becoming more adult - in the best sense and not in a sense of losing whatever it is that's good about being a child, or good about being an adolescent but also taking on the good things about adulthood - which is basically not being selfish, or not being totally self-obsessed, or actually Lrying to think about the world as opposed to just yourself - is actually being submerged under this mountain of trivia and vanity. I mean basically even more now our society works on persuading people to buy things that they really dont need, I mean it's ridiculous. So that it's got further and further lrom basics since the war. W: I do rtotice a ceftain desperatiort about it tltouglt, you I krtow, witlt tlrc wlole enteryise ainffe thitrg. People are forced onto Enteryise Allowonce Sclrcnrcs but rtobody does tlrcrrt seriortsly, it lrus got a bit of a last fling feeling about it. Bttt that's jttst wisltfitl tltirtkirtg. f JS: No, it is'nt. Because it's based on an essential stupidity. I mean right-wing thinking is not particularly well thought out. What they're trying to do is to create a competitive society, a free-market society. And the whole freemarket works on the fact that a few people get the cream and everybody else gets the stale milk. You get a tiny layer of cream, you get a little bit of milk then you get a massive amount of rotten stuff at the bottom. So, to me, it's based on a fallacy. Tryingeto run a society like that, which they're inevitably engaged in doing, is a contradiction in terms. Because they're not running society, they're atomising society and I dont actually think they understand that fully, I really dont. I dont think they're that cynical. I think they're dogmatic. I think there are some cynical people in the Conservative Party. And I also think there are some people that do believe in this ridiculous theory. I noticed last christmas when I was driving through Rogents St, it just seemed totally demented. I mean it rc,ally seemed tobe crary,I was actually quite disturbed by it. It was consumer dementia, consumer psychosis. And, again, I said this at the lecture that I gave at the ICA, and people got really upset about it. One of the other people on the panel, this guy called Frank Mort, who puts forward the new moderate Labour Party consumption line, got really upset with me and said you're making a moral judgement about consumption. And I said, well I suppose I am really. ['m not saying that I put it inl.o practise but I'm trying to get to grips rvith this subject, which seems to be pretty important. I [CONTINUED ON PAGE 69I t6sI

STATE OF THE ART - ART OF THE STATE As the end of the Eighties draw to an end, the role of the visual arts is state of paradox. Never has there been such a profusion of visual communication in the media, and never has its content been more superficial and establish menVco nsu mer orientated. Its sum total seem s to amount to one continuous television advert. The marriage of style and avarice. ln many ways'The Society of the Spectacle' outlined by the situationists in the late Sixties has come of age. The media and television in particular has reduced politics, royalty, religion, crime and culture etc. to the level of one continuous soap opera. They all share the same sordid media bed. The push for change and liberation in the Sixties of America and Europe, has been nullified and superceded by a right wing revolution. The revolution, which the youth of the left in the late Sixties and early Seventies thought was their preserue, was subverted by the right. Greed and materialism are the new Gods, while compassion and the spirit are scorned. ln many respects much of the progress made up until the Eighties, especially in Britain, has been systematically curtailed both in politics and culture, and replaced with right wing legislation and philosophy. This has resulted in the means of communication, information and propaganda being in the hands of a select few. The power elites become more powerful and the rest more unable to change their lives for the better, unless they accept wholesale the new doctrine of consumerism. lt is high time the new communication technology is liberated. One manifestation of the late Eighties is its refusal to accept its own real time. There is an unreal and unhealthy obsession with the past and nostalgia. The 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's pop up every day. Today's teenager is an insincere mixture of allthe past teen cultures: all style and no content, pinned together like an Ad man's dream. Surely a new teenage identity will emerge soon, which is created by teenagers themselves - for themselves. This will reject consumption and Americanisation and will move forward and progress'teenage'- not staying stagnated and contained by establishmeht adults' idea of 'teenage', All these manifestations are reflected in the role of the visual in the last decades of the 20th century. They reflect the new conservative materialism - the rape and negation of the imagination. l66l

STYLE SUCKS The only values and standards are those of material success, Top of the Pops and media value. visual form is created by the manufacturer and the distributor (the companies) - not by the artists, performers or consumers. The gimmick proliferates; the superficial and the glibe titivate the establishment media. Censorship prevails because there is no mass outlet for any alternative ideas; only those which are accepted as the propaganda of the status quo appear. There has been great advancement in the visual possibilities of communication through new technology, but most lack substance or integrity and are used to push product and manipulate minds; producing passivity and superficial satisfaction, and negating the possibility of people thinking for themselves and controlling their own lives. It almost seems that the only way to survive is to be submissive or to join in the spectacle. The 'have's' have never had it so good - the 'have not's' have never been more had. The role of the arts is to liberate the spirit and the imagination; to create a new counter culture. We have become enslaved by fear: fear of cancer, aids, the bomb, isolation, failure. poverty It is time to be brave and kindle the fires of hope for the 21st century. l' I i( b {) Ir 5 rL I n ? ,'tl 7 c o { t t\ v ? l o .i o .l 1671

I F

I think the whole mode of address in the area in xhich lr'e work, which is youth culture/style cul'ture. - that end of the media is now bccoming very pervasive - it is fantasticallv egoc:entric. It is fantastically uninformative, ill-disciplined. it gets rne very, very angry. I pick up a lot of ths things norv and I just get furious. I really want to hit these people because there's so many more important things to talk about. I TV: Lookirtg at tltot last irtercst itt it since you ,Face, - I ha,ye,nt reolll, had nutclt stopped witirtgfor it, andilrcrc were a few otlrcr people wlo were wtitirtg iriiresting sntff _ But ,Tlrc Fa.ce' and style ailfire in generui lws safiritediverythirtg irt tlt-is country. It's dfurent elsewhere, you go to sornewltere like Gennarty, and nwybe they,rc not so'cooi, it,s a bit old hqt lhe tltilrys lnppering tlrcrc, bttt there qre things ltoppening. JS: First off, when I was writing for ,i-he isce,_ Let,s ad_ dress this - when I started writing for ,The Face,,which was issue No.6 October/November 19g0, Bow-wow-wow - So there you are, there was the punk link. It was at that point, No.6 I did Bow- wow-wow, No.7 I did Vivienne. So I was writing about the change: gvel,Malcolm,s project to bring life.and light into the world. Vivienne,s p.nle"ito bring [fJ and light into the world, which was a kind ofieaction agiinst the destructiveness of punk, which was a great idea it the time. I mean I thought the stuff she did atWorld,s Ertd waster_ rific, I think there were some really goocl ideas there. There are thingsabout Malcolm and Vivienne that totally <Irive me mad, particularly having to write their story and deal with them, but also I'm full of admiration f<lr them. Everybocly bitches about them but they nnde thirtgs luppen for iuck,i s.akg. 59 d_id everybody inyolved, particularly Malcolm, par_ ticularly.Vivieme, particularly Steve Jones, particufarly John Lydon. All these people deserve.o *och credit and people should really stop bitching about them, I cant stand it. The english mode of bitching i think is teriibly rlestruc_ tive beyond a certain point. So, togo back, when I started writing for ,The Foce,,at that particular point it was just a new migazine, let,s see what happens. Here we are, here,s anothei train in the station, let's take this one, where's it going to end, where,s the line going to end. And for awhile iiwas really interesting to write in.600 as opposed to 2,000 words. It wis a very go"od discipline to work to a magazine length as opposed-to a music press length. It was nice to be on colour piper and you could use the colour paper with great picturei to sav stuff. l,ve al_ ways been as interested in the visuals as I have in the writ_ ing, and it's a great frustration to me at thr rnoment fhat cant work in an area where the visuals are as impor(ant. l9ye. th9 fact that you can back the visuals off the worcls, think that's rea-lly important, it,s almost like making films. You get two different media. So, was- \/ery exciting. plus it was a group of new .that people, they all had different ideas about thJ woild. I *os doing stuff that was excavating youth culture, having theories about youth culture, having theories about media, basically stuff that has now become post-modernist concerns. But because I was'nt read up on all the theory, I did'nt know what I was doing. It was just kind of this is the way I want to see things and I read all this stuff later - It's called Post-modernist theory - and then realised that's what I was doing. What happened was there was'nt any distance, there was no politics, there was not a sufficient differentiation of all this stuff, from what was going on in politics, and what was going on in marketing. So, when the marketers came along and said we want to buy what you've got, everybodyjumped. You know, to the first thing. Everybody who was working on 'Tlrc Foce'at a particular time, almost everybody, is now working in Fleet St. You then had the problem that there are only about 3 or 4 acceptable venues in Fleet St, ,T'\rc I I PEOPLE ARE SIC'K EVER\,\ryHERE You see we have all this idiocy - I actually just cant believe i - You have all this idiocy of people wanting this ridiculous Iifeslyle, this ridiculous superficial, very kind of hot-house, rrry sterile type ideal. You know, the nice house, the nice design and everything. And outside our window the ozone Iayer's going, you know people are getting melanomas left and right, people are going down with various sorts of diseases - which to me are to do with radiation, like ME, which b a kind of viral multiple schlerosis, and obviously AIDS, which to me is related to radiation. And basically because of the way that we're living our lives, the whole fucking ecorysLem is cracking up And what are we living our lives for? This ridiculous sterile ideal, it's totally demented. So that we do have this sort of collective delusion really, and I think it's very serious. I mean, I think that it's really up to anyone's responsibility, in a wider sense, to do what the hell they can about it. Which is very hard, and I have'nt got the solution. J W: It just seents to he about tlrcse old chestnuts, yott krtow, thc farrily, beirry xtccessfril at work, getting a rice lnuse. I'rrt possibly lttcl<y because I'ye got sotrtetlingelse to do bttt everybodv seerrts to be gettirtg irtto it, irt one way or tlrc otlrcr. I JS: Well, it's obvious rubbish, that's the point. That's what's dcpressing about it. lt's obvious rubbish. It's obvioustr fraudulent. The problem is that there are no other ideas being presented, and I really think it's a duty - and this is r-hat I do believe, and this is why I get argy with absoluteh'all of my contemporaries and most people in the media k that I do believe it's a duty of people who are communi- cators, who're involved in shifting round ideas and bits of information, to start raising some of these issues. J W: Is'rtt tlrc poblem finding a new woy to sa.v tltirtgs? I JS: I dont think you even need to fiod a new wa-v, I just think people need the will to actually say these things.I acrnallythink you can saythem fairly simply. The problemmay rcry well be in finding a context but I think, hefore even the context is concernecl, you need the will. But *,hat happens rth most people I've bcen involved with in the media which k the Punk generation and the St,vle 'Face'generatioa. notndt's prepared to do that. They're all busy saying, well I rlink we should go and buy new socks this week. or llrs.Thatcher's wonderful, or yeah, well I wa^s reallv succsstul 3 years ago and you better listen to me because I'm ;rettv wondcrful - which is all anyone seems to be sai.ing. l6el

Guardian', 'Tlrc htdependent' and'77rc Obsen'er". You may think what you think about those particular venues and I'm not going to argue. I W: Is tlrut how yott got on 'Tlrc Obsen'er'? I JS: Well, I'll get to that in a second. You maynot accept that those are acceptable. You may quibble about the ultimate acceptablity of 'The Guardian'or'Tlrc htdependent' or 'The Obseru,er', but I dont want to argue about that now. I mean there are several arguments there. But everybody else jumped into allthese fucking douche-bag right-wing papers. I'm still very adolescent about this, it really gets up my nose. I hate all these fucking scumbag papers who support Mrs.Thatcher, I cant help it. Most of the people who I work with on 'Tlrc Observer'would think that's a pretty silly atti tudt: because, you know, we're all journalists. I'm not a journalist, t was'nt trained to be a journalist. I happen to be a writer and I need to make money, and working for newspapers, working for journals or magazines is a very acceptable way of making money and getting your name around. So they all jumped into 'Tlrc Mail Ort Srutday'or '7'1rc Evertilry Standard' or whatever. Except for Marek who went onto 'Tlrc Independent' ,Two of them are on 'Tlrc Mail Ort Stutday', somebody dse is on 'The Evening Standard', somebody else is on 'Tlrc Tatler', somebody else is doing this. I mean, give me a break. The way I got onto 'Tlrc Obsener'was infact through 'fte New Stqtesntan'and Simon Frith. In that I decided at that point, when I was getting fcd up with'Tlrc Face' at the end of '83, to go and write moro seriouslv, try and get more theoretical writing. So I started writing f.or 'New Society' and that failed lor various reasons. Basically because it was a kind of 50's liberal paper, and they did{+i know how to treat pop culture. So I then went back to'The Face',becattse there was nowhere else to go, and I carved out this space which was to do a series of columns. Which were to do with trying to devclop arguments about particular themes. Which were about Secrecy, the relationship with the US, the underlying themes in our society, you know, the dreadful influence of Evelyr Waugh. That dreadful thing about S4y'e Culttuu,I was saying that Style Culture was over at the end of '85, and I repeated this in '87, but people did'nt want to listen because there was too much money in it. And then I went back to writing for 'Tlrc New Statesnnn', I got into 'The New Statesnrun because I really wanted to write, to develop arguments; to develop theoretically, as opposed to just writing 'well, this is fantastic' and doing celebrity profiles, which is basically what those magazincs are about. And then I got into 'The Obsen'er'through Simon Frith, who I'd worked with and got friendly with. The first thing I did was an interview with the head of Radio 1, but the thing that really got me in there was a piece I did about Boy George, at the height of the media hysteria. I just said, this is totally pathetic and ridiculous, which it was, and so'l sLarted there. .r...8 .ffir \arl t ..'-':rE!I....:!# ffillll:i.:lffillllllllillffilllllllli ",I,X!,!:,,,:i :t:5ir ,::: t70l I llil.ll :ffi:::::: #*i 9",, ,ffi1 h, 'Hr Sl. ffi F..x fl,,.' :.W{ :: ...ffi..,.,' t{. 'ld:,1 .ffiil I STYLE SUCKS: KILL'EM ALL - LET GOD DECIDE I "rS; Yes, the dreaded Style Culfite. The problem now is it's become so monolithic and that has to do with marketing, and that also has to do with perception I lhink, and that has to do with the whole thing about consumption that we were talking about earlier. I think if you keep people involved with the world of pure sensation, then it's very difficult for them to think ahout more kind of spiritual and philosophical concerns. I dont mean religiono that's the organisation of these l.houghts, which I'm temperamentally very against. I dont like organisations of any type really. I'm very suspicious of them, and wary of them. But it seems to me there are some fairly fundamental problems that we all have to address, whether collectively or individually. And people really need to be doing this and they're not doing it. That I think is the fantastic and extraordinary, and literally fantastic in the original sense, failure of nerve, failure of intellectual nerve, failure of any sort of nerve. The point is, what I disagree about most, if you're in the media at all you're a conduit. The media is a conduit, if you're involved with it, you are a conduit. This is one of the reasons why I have all this stuff. You know, these last few days when I've been writing the book I've literally pulled out 20 books from various shelves to check things or get information. It's your job when vou're, in the media to take in an enormous amount of information and then to transmit it, in a form that is understandable, to people who then go and, if they want, look it up further. I think it's really important, the basic discipline of quoting your sources. By all means plagiarise but also tell people where you're plagiarising from. Then they can go and chase it up. A very good example - Morley, in lhe Franlcic thing. quotes one Lautreamont's poesies which is'War: H itlc Yourself', and I did'nt realise it had corne from therc until ahout 4 years later. Now, I would have been verv inl-erestecl to know that that came from Lautreamont and I rvould lravc liked to have folkxved that up lhere and then. But was thcrc any hint of this? No. So, then it's more a case of kindof dazzlitrg. Of people using this very, very powerlul thing that they have to dazzle other people with. To build up themselves, or to builcl up their own position within that tactical power-form or power-hierarchy.

) W: Mo* of these people tltot we're talking about, they just time during the last 10 years might have contracted the rirus. ,A* otrc or two books artd keep repeating tlrctn. I could net er k a pofessiotnl witer like tlrcrn because I dont want to be a And that gets your ideas about life sorted out prett]'quickly. I mean either you want to live or else you dont. And if you want to live then you want to live for something. You dont want to live just to consume. You know, you do want to do somethingwith your life and try to grapple with prohlems that are fairly fundamental, as opposed to what shirt lttialist. ! JS: Yeah, this society encourages that ofcourse. Particu- hrh-now, when you're being trained - I mean the new sys- m of education is to train specialists, and I always liked the ilea o[ being a generalist and I've been lucky to be able to pur that into practise. I mean I do work between 3 media ad people are very suspicious of this. People in television Earticularly are very suspicious of the fact that I do a lot of rriting. And I use that power and I really annoy a lot of people in television. Because I jusl kind of swan in and swan ,rut and, il'it turns nasty as it often does in television, I just Et very kind of obnoxious, which breaks all the television ct'rdes. tsut the basic important thing, and I do think that this is a basic outlook on life, is what are you in media to do? Are rrru in media to just build yourself up, and make yourself nch and famous and have sex? I rnean being rich and famous end having sex is of course quite nice, but there are actually more things to life than being rich and famous and having €x. And I dont think it's just a question of sayingwell, now I've bad all this, now I'm going to reject it. It's like a question of oaf ing - hang on, even when you get to the top of the pile, or *-hat our society thinks of as the top of the pile, it's nbt that [antasl"ic. There are other things which are much more interesting which are'nt oven being talked about. The point is, if you're at all interested, I mean there has to he another way of life than this. This way of life that we live in - whatever state you're in, even if you're in a [ortunate lIate or a reasonably fortunate state, or if you're in an unfortunate state - to me is just cracking up at the seams. The wholc point of society and particularly ours is to keep people concentrated on the instant. Or on the past as reflected in the present. Or on the future reflected in the present. ie. deferred. ie. The past reflected in the present is the re-writing of history, and the future reflected in the present is - if you work for this, you'll get this. Ok. As opposed to really thinking about the future and really thinking about long time-scales. At a point rvhich I do believe, and I do think it's obviously always been serious in differenl" ways, but it does seem to me that we are living in a situation that is peculiarlv serious. It does demand thought and activity, you know, pretty urgenLly and I just dont see that happening at all. And it's very frustrating for me because I believe that but thcre's no one that I can kick off. You know, all my cclntemporarics are busy writing about horv wonderful they are, or writing about how trendy it is to like black rappe,rs. I W: Bttt do 1,s11 tlrirtk tlrcre's qtn, wav of doing tlrut itt tlrc eslqblislrcd nrcdia, or pop crtlfiLre? I .lS: l'rn rnore opLimistic than vou are and I jusl think it needs people to want to do it. I think it people want to do it Lhen you can do it. I think it's eas.v- to blame a monolithic media system, but infact lhe media is peopled. I mean there obviously is an economic and a hierarchical structure to it, hut also people are willing slaves of this svstem. And you know I've spent a lot of my time kind of working out the angles on everything. What I can get away *,ith and what I u'ant get away with, trying to just push it. A space opens up and you grab it and you use it and maybe it works. maytre it does'nt but you just have to keep on trying. I W: I'rrt rtot acnmlly very optitnistic, rto. Bttt at tlrc end of jte da\, il's wl ru tever po sitior t you er t d ttp ir t an d wl ru t I' t t doi n g xifi ewctlv street level, I'rtt ttot orte of tlte kids ott tlrc street. I JS: Well, I've been forced to become optimistic because. :ince 1984, I've had to confront the whole spectre and rediry of AIDS. Because anybody who has been gal at an\' you're going to wear in the evening. And I think that forced me to become much more optimistic and much more positive really. You know, it's a real kind of crisis thing to have to go through. It's pretty fundamental really, you know, if you've got even a pretty small threat of death hanging over your head. Small because it's not automatic that you've caught it, but it certainly starts to concentrate your thinking. So you do start thinking about the eternal verities. Then again, this goes back to the whole point that I think our culture now in general evades everything, basically. It's a very escapist culture. And that was the great thing about Punk, to bring it back. Punk was actually throwing alienation in people's faces. That was exciting, really exciting. I remember in the winter of '76,1'd go up north and I'd wear kind of total drainpipes, splattered and an old 50's coat and Beatle boots, very pointy shoes. And I walked round the centre of Hanley, in Stokeon-Trent and I never seen such stares. You know, the whole place basically came to a halt. And I sort of promenaded around and nobody was aggressive, simply because nobody had ever seen anything like it and that's very exciting. But you need a certain kind ofbravado to carry that ofland I'm not sure whether I'd have that now. I dont particularly seek that sort of attention but it's very kind of psychologically satisfying at a particular point, to be able to do that. Saying 'Yeah, fuck you', in quite a subtle way, and that's what was exciting about Punk. I liked the whole celebration of the underside, the celebration of the anti-social, particularly now when seen from the point of viewof everythinghaving to be so social. Tltst's what people acnallv fecl.I mean the whole idea of people getting together in clubs - What I hate about the music/style culture is the unspoken assumption that we all agree on what is correct and acceptable. Well, you know, bollocks to that. It's I a 0q tt (n (t a r.D {{ r t71l

Ttrtruuc o(-hE I THIS IS WHAT STYLE IS ALL ABOUT! [tsuzzcocks: l-irst5hots, summer 1976]

:,]tal crap. We all agree that black is good and rvhite is had and all these ridiculous polarisations. Well, black pcople :rake just as much shit music as white people do. And907o :i hip-hop is total crap, just the same as 90u/o of indie-pop r total crap. And this kind of absurd lionisation, romanLic -iiuisation, I find it very patronising and very offensive. I W: It's all a cop out frorrt tlte awhuard questiorts Ptutk us btirtgirtg up. Like you werc sal,irtg black is good, wlite is \ot so yood.,. I JS: Or clse, it's you know the people who say that white s good are involved in this ridicubuslytiny and petty indie*ene. Which is obviously, patently of little interest to anyird,v. But it's a shame because you go and see people who -rre really trying to do something massive likeWire, who can *ill pull out really goocl, interesting music, which is still rele; ant and quite grand. Which I like and which accepts blackaess but is still vcry grand and it's very optimistic in another xa]'. And they iust get ignored or brackeLed in this absurd hdie-scene. That's one of the concerts I enjoyed most during the last year, going to see Wire, I thought they were ter- rific. So it's an evasion of what people basically feel, I think. I iink people dont basically feel socialised. I think people i:elthat they're very anl-i-social and very atomised and very iragn,entod and very powerless. I W: Arttl llrcre's tltis tltirt verteer of cairtg about social isi:r c.t... I JS: Wcll, that's funnily enough, I guess on balance, one :I the things I dont really mind. I mean I do find this very -iifficult Lo grapple with because there's part of me that feels -:uite sympathetic to the audiences at Nelsort Mandela and ' ir'e Aid.lt strikes me that they're kind of searching for i,:mething that they're not finding, and that's the only way irev can find to express that. So that, although people feel -.rirly atomised, I think that there is a possibility of bringing :"eople together. It's.iust that I dont think bringing people together in a con.umer club culture is at all a satisfactory way out. I think ;hat's a very petty, fake, short-term view, and I feel very .rrongly about that. I find the whole experience of going to ;lulrs actually rather boring. I think it's perfectly OK when ,,rlu're in an adolescent stage, taking drugs, running around rnd gossiping and queening it up in the toilets, or whatever :t is that you want to do. But once you get past that it does'nt auve anything really to recommend it. They're smelly, noiiev and vile basically. I'd much rather go to a park or someJring than go to a club. You know, you're probably more iikely to meet interesting people, you're probably more likeh to have more sex if that's what vou want. And I dont see inv way of this stopping hecause it's so tied into consump:ion, it's so tied into architecture. J TV: Btt( tltirtgs like Nelsott il{andelq and Live Aid orc -:etliq eyanls, tlrcv're not beirtg tltougltt about for real. I .IS: Well, I agree with Greil Marcus on this. Griel ltlar:us put this much better than I ever could. I mean the dar' :i the Livc Aid thing I absolutel.v hated it. I realh'loatied it. t -rroidcd it as much as I could, accept that it *'as unaloid:r'1c. It was all the rock music ['d ever hated. almo.t a]i r-tf r- I thought the music was total rubbish. And ohrii-ru-<lr it ::in[urccd the hegemony of this particular 11sgli3 gg11-<rrrn3r :.iture. that rve are attcmpting to grapple u'ith. t'r railing rg:insL llLrpc.ncling ou rvhat sort o[ ntclttd t'ou're in. alid ll-tt rr-- rc palt o[. which is one o[ the essential contradicti':n , of stuff. So it's kind of careerism masquerading as altruism. However it still strikes me that there is a basic impulse in there, which is this thing I was saying before, that people want a bit more than this ridiculous style culture. And they have no other way of expressing it. So that's the only way they can do it, if they think about it. If they dont then they'te just going along to have a good time, and I'm not going to gainsay that. So that I'm not really knocking the audience at all, I dont see how you can really knock the audience. I mean they either want to escape, they want a good time or they want to get involved in something. And if that's the only thing around, then that's not their problem. It's the problem of the culture and the people who're actually in positions of power in that culture, that they dont provide or get organised something slightly more exciting, or more productive. I mean I'm pleased with the whole South Africa thing because it's winding up Mrs.Thatcher rotten. It's great to see all these tapes. It's fantastic, I think that's really good. I'm thrilled to see Mrs.Thatcher getting pissed off in Australia. ['m sitting there going, yeah, yeah, let's hear english interviewers do this. I was absolutely thriiled to bits, I thought it was fantastic, because she just lcioked like a really horrible school mistress. W: It's bad tlwt tltst's so rare. JS: That shows the power she has. She's a virtual elected dictator, there's no doubt about that. And I do see her as a figurehead, I mean she is a very powerful figurehead. She's another archetype, and I do see her as being responsible for a lot of evil and a very, very dangerous woman. I dont see her as being totally responsible for it, I think there are other forces that are outside even her control. And I think her beliefs are very convenient to a lot of rather more sinister people. But there's no doubt that she has affected quite a considerable change. What I cant stand is the way that the sort of behaviour that she makes acceptable, which is the 'I'm right and that's it' sort of behaviour - which is basically Julie Burchill's mode which I find a totally unacceptable way of being, refuses to admit anyone else's points of view. .lust to relate it to your own life, to my own life, if you're a communicator and I hesitate to say writer because that has all sorts of precious connotations - ['m a communicator and I spencl mmt of my time communicating through writing - If you're going to be at all a good communicator you have to I I be able to see other people's points of view. Whether through discourse or whether through your imagination, because otherwise it just gets very boring. Vdi! few people are naturally brilliant enough verbally to be Rimbaud and Rimbaud stopped when he was 19. There are very few poetsThere ire very few people who can take that tunnel vision and make something really interesting out of it. And when they clo it only lasts for 2 books and then it gets very boring as well. So you have to change and how do you change? You only change when you rub off against other people and col- laborate with other people and find out how they think about things. That's basic education, that's basic learning and you knorv, people think they dont have to learn things in this societv anymore. Because there's this'I'm right and ulcr and LiveAid. Which is to do with rvhat ?ctS \\ete r{t that's it'. -vou get your position and you stick with it. In that sense I really do see somebody like Julie Burchill a. b'e ing an enemy. a very, very bad enemy. And Morley - I knir,* l keep coming back to these people, because they're toexpressthat, Ithinkit'sgood ar hand it's fun anyrvay lir Pul rour cards on the table. We're not in one gleat big -inriit'r rrrcdia atlfire. I like shaking people up, I like ann r1-ine p'eaple. People need to [s annoyed. "rsd because it's going to be on telly everybod)'' forr:lved, because it boosts their record sales and this :o'rt I "tu:1. \'cry dillicult to dealwith. !,that it obviously reinforces that hegemonv and sl'",i,.'lll'n frr-re wcre certain things that u'ere tlisgusting about -t-{u:lva-ots tL] s.i - [CO\TL\a-ED Oi.i PAGE 76]

I ENGLAND'S DREAMING I TV: OId optirrristically speaking wlwt do yott hope to achieve witlt this baOk? I JS: I dont know anymore, Tom. To be honest I just want to finish it now. I dont know, ['m so busy doing it that ['m kind of snowed in under all this data. I think, optimistically, what do I want it to do? I want the story to be told properly.I want pcople to look hack on Punk, not ns s,emsthing that was kind of jolly, rather camp and free and easy, and exciting pop culture, but as something that was disturbing and contradictory and kind of quite nasty. Not the waythat they thought it was. Quite challenging, you know, put you on the spot, what do you rcally think about things. I want it to do that. And also to tell the story - which is another skill, a narrative skill which is something else, which I like.I like the idea of telling stories. I like the idea oftellingnrytlts really. In a way the whole Ser Pistols thing is one of the best myths going. It's one of the best modern myths. I dont want to destroy it. I'm not like Albert Goldman, I dont want to destroy the myth because I think there's good things about the myth that can be used. I'm very interested in the fact that it was a time - and I want toget these voices in - when people who did'nt go to Oford or Cambridge, or did'nt go to public school, or even had the right opinions - which is what happens now. The Thatcher culture is not a traditional aristocratic culture but it's defi- nately a question of having the right opinions and dressing the right way - People had things to say and thought about the world, who were not necessarily privileged - whatever wayyou happen to be privileged at various times - could actually say things, and could actually produce things out of a rather miserable static society which was actually very grand. W: Wtot was it you were soyutg about it beifig s tinrc wlrcn people who werc working class werc reodirtgbooks and doirtg sfitff that working class people dont nonnally do? ,IS: No, I would'nt say that but what I would say is, what I liked about Punk is that it was intelligent. Some of it was very intelligent. I'm very committed to ideas and I'm very committed to people being intelligent. And I dont mean by being intelligent, parading their cleverness, I mean actually really saying something that's interesting in an interesting way, whatever it is. You know, whether it's a record, or a book, or even if it's the way that somebody walks down the street - And you find out when you talk to them that they are interesting, as opposed to being a style victirtt. Now you're in a situation where people dont value ideas at all and, in a way, I think class is almost irrelevant herc. I I I v6t think it's not irrelevant in terms of education, because obviouslyyou have a system and an incrediblyweighted system of education. But also in Punk times you had people like Mark Smith, whatever you think of him now. I have'nt followed his career recently, so I dont know. You had people like Mark Smith, you had people like John Lydon, you had people like Pete Shelley or Howard Devoto, who were'nt maybe totally poor but were not privileged, being intelligent and making brilliant intelligent songs - which translated what was going on into something that was acceptable and made people think. I think that's extraordinary and something I have ehormous admiration for. And I think that's something that's really important to re-state: That you dont have to be a style victim in order to live in this world. That you can actually use your brain and that you actually need to use your brain. W6ether it be to use the unconscious side of your brain, or whether it be to use your - artistic is not the right word - almost creative, in the widest sense, and that means politically creative as well as artistically creative. And what's the other thing I want to do with it? I want to tell all those stories, and I want to get down what I think about it as well. So there will be an element of excorcism, finally kind of working out almost all those contradictions, like the one about the swaztika, or aboul the violence or whatever it is. Which is quite hard to do if you're going to think about them with any seriousness. I think one other thing is that it was a different timc.I think that a lot of the people who read books, people who were younger than us - I mean we've had Thatcher now lor 1.) years, OK. So people who were 13 then are now people rvho are kind of getting involved with culture, have never really known anything else. It's a very different time - The mid-7O's were very interesting, in that you had this very weird situation, where you had the limits of freedom being tested all the time. You had what happened withTluobbirtg Gistle at the ICi{. You had these bizarre magazines in the States,like'Finger', which Vale of 'RESEARCH'showed me, which is like this totally demented sexmagazine. I meanl've never seen anythinglike it. Which is like every possible bizarritude in one magazine, whether it be straight, gay, fat people, youknow (No, I dortt Ed),the whole bloody gamut of oddity pictures in this magazine.With this kind of, maybe tacked on but, we're going to push this right to the limit kind of attitude. You had this total excess and this, just let's push this as far as we can before the shutters come down. And the shutters came down.I think that people have to remember that the shutters did come down. It was like when you linish a bar billiards game, Wrurtrl Down they came. And that's what happened and that really is'nt the way it has to be. So I think also by illustrating a time of crisis, a time of break-up, which was what Punk was operating in and that's why the music was like it was. You know, there was a time of real break- up. I mean London used to be half-derelict, the area you'ie living in now used to be a complete tip. It was basically a rubbish tip with a few squats. I mean it was the worst of the worst. Real marginalia, Right on the outer limits at one point that place. tt was like Nomansland, and that's all gone. W: Bttt it was interestirtg the dffircnt strucfitres and possibilitics tlnt cottld lru\,e cotlre out of tlnt. JS: Well, Punk came out of space. It goes back to the ideas of Uftqnism and the interesting thing about London at that particular point was the idea of space. There was a lol of space and people concentrated on this space. On all the derelicti<ln which created a certain space. I mean that was interesting, the whole thing was falling around your ears but there was still kind of space to maneouvre and that space I I

has now become increasingly tight. I TV: I dont tlti,rk squatti,tg crtlfitre is reolly ttp to tlttclt tto' wadays. I JS: It's too tight. I mean that's why I really admire the ideas behind tlrc Peace Convoy. Not even tlrc Peace Convoy, which is maybe too organised, but just that kind of transient, nomadic lifestyle. I do find that very interesting it's not something I could ever do. But it seems to me a perfectly logical response, an intelligent and quite a creative, positive response to what is going on. And I admire people who do it because it must be bloody difficult. I TV: Yeah, I tltirtk I've clnnged nty nind ahout that. I used to thi,rk tlrc poittt was to stoy prtt and dcal witlr it. Tlrc cit,v lrus to be dealt witlt, jttst to go off is'rtt tlrc answer - but it's ttp to voll. underestimated. I think everybody concentrates on the Sa' Pistols and the Closlt - for very good reasons in the case of the SexPlsfols, and for reasonably good reasons in the case of the Clash - but, you know, there were wonderful groups like Adv e rts, P e n e tru ti or t and X - Ray - Sper, who are forgotte n now, and the S/lrs. I mean they're effectively forgotten in consumer terms, you cant buy their records very easily. W: It's good in a woy, becouse tlrcy did\tt go ort to rnake fools of then$eh'es, tlrcy stoy irt tlrcir time. JS: I listened to theAdvets album again recently, and I never really listened to it properly, and some of it's just tefrific. You know'Tlrc Grcat Bitislt Mistake'. There's a wonderful line in it where TV Smith says something like 'The genie's out of the bottle now', that kind of thing, wlrut's lrc talkirtg about? That's qluite unconnv. I mean his lyrics were very, very sharpat that point. He was a very, very clever boy. And he's one of the people that I want to give a lot of time to in the book, because I just think the stuff he was saying in those songs was just fantastic. It works both as poetry and as commentary. Stuff like 'Quickstep'. The lyrics of 'Quiclcstep'is fantastic stuff. [t's like 'I got bored of beating up my mum', you know stuff like that, 'Stole some tunes off the radio','Found some people started to play' - It's all about how he formed a pop group. It's great. And it's very sort of mythic, which I like. I think people have to have myths. And, although I want to be factually correct, l'm enough of a lover of the whole thing to want to put forward a myth. I mean I dont want to put forward 'Tre I I Grcat Roclr'rt'Roll Swirdle'-yth, or the great rock'n'roll band myth, I rvant to put forward the myth of .lohn Lydon being like 'Steerptlce', or I want to put forward the myth o[ utopianism. or I rvant to put forward the myth of TV Smith singing 'Quickstep'wilh this ridiculous group that he had. W: It always will be nrytlu tuiless it's acfirully ltappening at llrc ti,rrc. I I DEATH IN JUNE 1977 I JS: I tl'rink it's a possible response. l'm not saying it's the only possible response. Perhaps it was Punk's failure to prescrrt itsel[ as the only possible response? But the interesting thing about Punk is that initially it was many possible responses, which became codified into one possible response and then solidified as one possible response, and that's the moment it kind of died. So it actually probably died when the Sex Pistols got to number one with 'God Save The Queert'and that was it. I think that was it. I W: After tlrut it was dffirut irterpretatiorts. I JS: In real time as something that was across a broad base. I mean, obviously there were many other times which had to do with the people who had been stimulated by that, and the people that then continued to do very intcresting work and be involved with very interesting politics around the world, which still occurs. But if you're just talking about the progress of that particular group of people, rather than pop group, that was the end of that. I mean, obviously there was some interesting stuff going on in the States in '77, it did'nt die, but that was the end of it's outward curve maybe in England. Then there was this terribly depressing time in 1978 when it all just collapsed, and everybodywas still tr-ving to prolong it but it had really dissappeared. You know, you were trying to get excited by the first LPsby Buzzcocks and Pertetrotitut and it just did'nt really happen. ThaL was rather sad really. You had all these groups that sounded absolutclv fantasLic on 4-track, like Pertetration, sounding a*ful on 24-track. I mean I really liked groups like tlrc Aclveffs and Perrctratiott, I thought they were terrific and I think they're very. \'erv I .lS: Well, I suppose the great unposed question that will be at the end of the book, I hope - there are two unposed questions, one of which is kind of in the passive sense, which is obviously when is this sort of thing going to happen again and where? - And I hope the other question will be, if I can write it properly, what are you going to do about it? You know, here is information. Here's, not a blueprint, here's how it happened, there's enough information for you to be able to put the connections together, what are you going to do about it? You know, the pack is there, you can rcshulfle it basically, why dont you? Because it's not up to me now. You know, you dont have the eneqgy at 34 that you have when you're 20 and pissed off. I'm not saying that one's better than the other, but you have to recognise that there's nothing like that arrogance and invulnerahility of a stroppy 20 year old or L9 year old, who thinks they can take over the world - because they dont know any better, because they have'nt failed, because they have'nt fucked themselves up, they have'nl seen people die. W: But do yott rtot tltirtk that pop cttlfitre lus kirtd of nut il's cotutse, rcal$,? Like radical sfident gottps did irt tlrc 70's? .lS: Well, I did. I think it's difficult to assess this and I dont have the answer, I veer all the time, I change my mind about this all the time. There's obviously an extent to which the industrial situation of pop music now is so emerged with all the other industries, and so in the heart of our culture, that it will never be as open for take over or disruption as it rvas in the Punk period ever again. Number one, that's obvious. I I Number two; music is something that is very difficult to control, and it's obviously in the interest of the music indusl-ry to contrcll music lrut it's actuallyvery hard to control. Because music deals with all sorts of intangibles, which dont have a lot to do with the way our society is run at the mo177 I

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I mean, I'm very interested in music because I think it has all kinds of intuitive - I mean this is all stuffwhich d by post- modernists and people who are involved *ructuralist psychology - But I'm a great believer in kind othcr forces, irrational forces. You know, I have'nt got a m in my bathroom but I believe that there are other of organisation, other than the rational model that we and I believe that very strongly. So there's all sorts of ways in which music works and one tfre ways in which it works, apart from a,s a passiffing particularly in this society it works as a model of the . It actually enables you to see a future, it works as lmphecy. t think that's a perrennial function of music and 5m have to interpret that to find out where you can go. And tdont think it's goirtg to go away. I dont think many people see it as being that. I think that in a fairly degraded musical culture at the mo='re living But I do think that is one of the functions of music and -nt. I think you can spot that. Whether it's a catalyst, I mean if mr hear a future it makes you think that a different future possible. And then maybe you can go and act on that. Itether it'll be an explicit catalyst like Punk was again I &nt know. I would saythat the musicindustryworks against iat the moment. But then, as I said before, everybody thinks the media is i sv monolithic. It is'nt, it's comprised of people who run & media, who work in the media. If they think they can do fferent things, then maybe theywill.I mean, in the the long rrm, I cannot see this particular sort of culture that we live a sustaining at all - Because it's like a pack of cards and a lmd gust of wind could blow the whole thing down. And I f,nk the more weird and wigg5r things happen, I think we'll re a polarisation with wiggy things like nuclear reactors Uowing up, weird things happening with the weather. And I$ink people will polarise into, - people who'l[ want to deal rilh this positively, which is to tiy and do something about &state of the world. And people who will retreat into this tird of 50's never-never land, which is basically what we're Iring in now. You know, thi:-t time when everything was.nice nd consumption was wonderful, you know, everybody lnew their place. So you're going to see a polarisation between that - I've xr*'got to the stage where I do see that I have enemies, that I do see it as being a struggle. There are people who are fiametrically opposed to the way that I see the world, and uuallyl'm arrogant enough to want the world to be. And I & have access to certain things and this is a view I want to lEt accross. There are people who have the opposite point driew and they are my enemies and it's quite a serious fight. Sounds a bit grim, does'nt il. I dont think that all the time. I .I.l; The only other that I would want to say, is that the Look is involved with the considerable process of education, rlich I hope will continue. Which is simply Iinding, resarching this particular way of looking at the world, which ]rbis very, very strong archetype. The Utopian vision, which i the stuff that Stewart's obviously written in his book and teink it's very important. It was more of an instinct which st me off in that direction, which I started on before, about !. {years ago, which is an instinct which made me start to hot into this. Because that's really what Punk seemed to be *out. And that's also very much as a result of talking to Juie and being involved with Jamie. Certainly the whole point of 'Up Thev Rise'and what I got rr of working with Jamie, and Margie as well, is the whole *a of the future and actually getting to grips with the fura of trying to eogage with the future - as opposed to the past, as actually trying to describe a future. I think that's so important,I think that's probably the most important thing for any communicating now. And the whole point about utopianism is that you see that there's a different way of running the world. The way that the world's run now not many people are getting an oppor- tunity to see that. So it's been an enormous privilege to rummage through all these texts and have time to kind of daydream about it. And obviously one of the things I'm going to do is to give a very comprehensive bibliography, so that this kind of data is down there. I think that's very, very important. IThis is totally the best, I was totally thrilled by this. There are almost no writers in this country that I like, particularly novelists - The idea of good witir,g, you know, I find it a kind of anathema, I cant bare it, Although I'm supposed to be in the business of writing. I find it very difficult to decide who I think is a good writer or not, I kind of dont think like that. So one of the very few writers I really admire is Ballard, for all sorts of reasons, particularly in relation to his time. You know, ['m a drooling fan, really in awe. And I phoned up one day to ask him to appear on this 'Media S/row' thing I was doing. I knew it was going to be difficult and I put it offfor weeks, and I phoned him up and he said, 'l hate television, I dont want to appear, it's going to be awful, it's going to have Germaine Greer and Richard Neville on it'. And I said, 'Well it may do'and he said, 'Well these programmes always have the same people'and I said,'Well if you appear on it, it wont have the same people on it, will it?' And he said,'Well t still dont want to do it and I hate television'. So I said,'Oh, fuck that, I'm writing a book about Punk, that's what's really interesting'. And he said, 'Oh good, I shall rush out and buy it'. He said, 'that's the last time anything interesting happened in this country,'!

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is the tip of a large, antinomian iceberg of people who have disengaged themselves - either by necessity or choice from what they see as a psychotic consumer culture. Because they refuse consumption, they are not identifidble as a consumergroup and therefore, as far as the media is concerned, they dont exist. Yet their mere existence is threatening. The'Mutoid' organisers take care in their relationship with the police and tonight's event has some spurious affiliation with'Comic RelieF, a post- 'I-ive Aid' nationwide charity event. But space is so tightly parcelled up in this country - as it is throughout Eu- mEM 1: 3.2.88. A derelict garage in Kentish Town, North London. The frontage to the street displays an old car mutated into a futuristic, 'Mad Max'style nightmare with horns and crests. 'THE MUTOID WASTE COMPANY' have been working inside for a week this dark, damp space has been transformed into an apoca- lmtic adventure playground. A limegreen Simca stands, sawn completcly in half: the engine still works, and at the climatic moment, it shoots across the floor in a shower of sparks. Around the walls, a series of tableaux: on one side, a pool with rubber tyres, steps and stones, a chute. On another, thirty toilet bowls are pilecl high on each other in Duchampian homage: over them, a fountain plays. In front of the stage, which is piled high like a me- tallic anthill, are ropes and stvings, and an old film crane for those adventurous souls who wish a closer look. For the more contemplative, there is a trip room, festooned with dayglo anddaz- zling ultra-violet lights. The whole event is masterminded with military precision lrom a specially extended, parody-gypsy caravan. This is SKIP CULTURE.'The Mutoid Waste Company' are an intinerant band o[ artists, sculptors, musicians, gardeners, etc, who travel the country turning rubbish - or what people lhrow away - into workable, moveable material. To them the lifeqvle is all important, not any PRODUCT: they dont release records. This event is typical of their way of working: they find a suitable venue, {usually) squat it and transform it through materials that are to hand. They then hold a concert - or a 'pa*y' h order to get funds. The audience tftev attract is a curious, undefined crossover: a mixture of hippies, punks ad the otherwise disaffected. They rear practical clothes - camouflage, pollovers, Doctor Martens boots - rith fantastic detail of dayglo colour c exaggerated images of decay. This rope - that the presence of a few hundred unkempt looking punk/hippies attract adverse attention: as the complaints about noise come in, the police raid the event with typical heavy-handedness: in a mini-riot, fiftypeople are arrested and manymore heads busted. Yet there is no report in the media: again, they might as well be invisible. (Still sottrtd like a bwtch of hippies, g:e rtrc Mork Paulhrc anyday. Ed.) European and UK hits last year \uas M/A/R/R/S's James Brown/Eric B. and Rakim cut- up 'Pump Up The Volume'. Culturcide's detournement goes beyond aesthetics. On the sleeve, they quote Lautremont: "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it'. They add: "Home taprng is killing the music industry...so keep doing it." These rerecordings break copyright to the extent that no permissiOn would ever be given, because they use not a fragment but awholework,and because the new lyrics attack the copyright holdcrs so severely: one principal target is Michael Jackson, not only a Pepsi-Cola popstarbut owner ofone ofthe largest song copyrights of all, the Beatles' 'Northern Songs', for which he paid $47 millkrn. Culturcide are moraiists: to them, Pop music has become the cutting edge of, as they chant over 'The Star SpangledBanner', "the big lie, the big dream, the big nauseating scream- ing sweating nightmare of Business America/Consumer America/Corporate America/Media America/Fascist America". their first LP in late 1987. Called ,TACKY SOUVENIRS OF PREREVOLUTIONARY AMERICA" it ITEM 3: A two month FESTML OFPLAGIARISM in London during January and February 19t18. Thc event, which receives very little mcdia attention, features: guerrilla perlbr- has fourteen tracks but no label ident- mances on the Circle Line of London's ITEM 2: A Houston-based group of artists called CULTURCIDE release ification. The reason behind this quickly becomes apparent: what Culturcide do is to take existing pop hits standards like Bruce Springsteen's 'Dancing In The Dark', or David Bowie's 'Let's Dance' - and crudely record their own harsh vocals and noise guitar on top. Their new lyrics, which (and here is the'art') blend very well with the familiar recordings, are vicious critiques of the music industry and pop process. Over Paul McCart- ney and Michael Jackson's vacuous 'Ebony and Ivory' duet, they shout "There is media in everyone/Manufactured by experienced prostitutes/Marketing smug hippie platitudes/Stevie and McCartney in perfect whoremoney"; while'Let's Dance' examines the relationship between 'star' and audience: "And if you say 'Dance', I'll dance with you/And if you say 'Buy', I'll buy/Because my love for you degrades me through and through". This is a little different from the sampling craze currently sweeping the music industry, where fragments from existing records are looped and cut into a new piece. This form has already become integrated into the mainstream music industry and its handmaiden. adr.ertising: one of the biggest tube; 'National Home Taping Day help kill the music industry'; various video/art installations of Fluxus type performances,'Hoardings' and stolen paintings. The centre of the festival is 'Karcn Eliol - Apocrypha', a group show byvarious people using the name 'Karen Eliot'. As the festival's pamph- let explains: "Karen Eliot is a name that relers to an individual human being who can be anyone. The name is fixed, the people using it are,nt. Anyone can become Karen Eliot by simplyadopting lhe name, but they are only Karen Eliot for the period in which they adopt the name. The purpose of many different people using the same name is to create a situation for which no one in particular is responsible and to practically examine Western philosophic notions of identity, individuality, value and truth." "Plagiarism," the pamphlet continues, "is inherent in all'artistic'activ- ity. At the beginning of the 20th century, the way in which pre-existing elements were used in 'artistic' productions underwent a quantitative leap with the'discovery' of collage. This development was prefigured in the writings of Isidore Ducasse, who is better known by his pen-name Lautreamont 18ll

In his 'Poesies', Ducasse wrote: 'Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it'. This maxim summarises the use to which plagiarism has been put ever since. Two, or more, divergent, elements are brought together to create new meanings. The resulting sum is greater than the individual parts. The Lettristes, and later the Situationists, called this process'detournement' but the activity is still popularly known as plagiarism. Plagiarism enriches human language, it is a collective undertaking far removed from the post-modern'theories' of appropria- cessing of history, but they omit any structural or political analysis - this is symptom, rather than cause or cure. The question remains: in whose service is this being done? As Debord noted in his 'Society of the Spectocle' (published December 1967), "Cttttttre fimred conryletely iuto cotttrrtodit.v rrul,st olso tum into tlrc star corrrntodity of the spectaailar society: in tlrc second half of this cenfitry, culfiue will ltold tlrc key role irt tlrc developnrctt of tlrc econonlv." What postmodernism really describes is a new industrial apglomeration of the global tion. Plagiarism implies a sense of history and leads to progressive social media industry. Media both spreads transformation. In contrast, the 'appropriation' of post-modern ideologists are individualistic and alienated. Plagiarism is for life, post- modernism is fixated on death." tel of a few multinational companies at the same time: this results, not in more media of the same quality, but in more media of worse quality, as the existing media economy is stretched to wafer-thin consistency. Post-modern- and becomes centralised - into the car- ism's characteristic cannibalism of his' I97 6 -7 7 -8 r-7 8-82-7 9 -83-80 -77 78-79-80 86-7 6-86-7 7 -7 7 -7 8-7 9 -80 76-81-82-83-77 78-79-8A-79 86 -7 6 -{36 -7 6-86 -7 6 -7 7 7 7 -7 7 -7 7 -7 8 -7'7 -7 8 -80 - L986', . STRAFE FUR REBELLION: 'NOT FOR RADIO': 1986. Since the late seventies and the failure of Punk, a post- modernist analysis and philosophy of culture derived in part from architectural theory and post-structuralists like Baudrillard - has been introduced into England and America to describe the media totality that is the perceptual, political, emotional and physical condition of the late 20th century. It is different to previous critiques of everyday life such as you might find in Dada, Punk or Situationist texts by Vaneigem and Debord; as it is understood and is practically applied, Postmodernism ties up a series of symptoms so accurately as to induce paralysis. The post-modern configura[ion is a closed circle, a locked groove; a typical cultural structure would be the Z{-hour- a-day cable channel, running programmes that are indistinguishable from adverts, running adverts that advertise, not a product, but themselves, both of which cannibalises all history in a serial dance - whether in centuries, or in the infinitesimal arabesques of post-punk style recorded above by DusseldorPs Srzle Fur Rebellion. Post-modern analysis of practitioners applaud this total act82l tory and art is one result of the new production line techniques of the media;another is that the media - etymylogically, from the Latin, meaning conduits or channels - becomes an end in itself rather than a means to an end. This black hole is a kind of nihilism to which the much vaunted elements o[ post-modernist play do not address themselves. Various organisations of material have become endemic to this new media ecology. The most common is that old feature o[ news-roclm incest, as lazy or harassed journalists look over each others' shoulders, the peg or the anriversar],. The last two years have seen various social movemen(s ol' transformation detourned through the way they have been incorporated into various artificial anniversaries: early in L986, the tenth anniversary of Punk; in summer 1987, the twentieth anniversary of flower power; in May this year, the twentieth of Muy 1968.The problems here are enormous: what was the peg for this anniversary o[ Punk Rock? No event in February 1976, that's for sure: everybody iust had to get in first. (Zig-Zug did therc's irt Jaturury - just {or tlrc rccord. Ed.) Flower Power in itself was a media con- cept: its twentieth anniversary was mainly based on the reselling of the Beatles' maudlin'Sgt. Pepper' on compact disc. As for May 1968 - another media periodisation - a recent article in England, in a nonsensical reversal, stated that 'tlrc 68 generution lecl to Tlrutclrcr'. Just as the current UK Government adverts lbr AIDS owe a lot to Situationist techniques as filtered through Punk, this politically inspired rewriting of history - concentrating on the original media surface, looking at events with the eye of the present not of the period itself - takes away the un- doubted power of these apparently disparate events, traditionally represented as quite seperate periods and ideologies. It is much more instructive to look at the connections hctwecn 1967168,1976 and thc presont day than the differences, many ol'rvhich rvcrc media inspired in the lirst place.'His- tory is rtrude b.v tlnse wlto say 7grr,' wrote Andre Malraux, and there is a line of negation that you can trace from the beginnings of commodity capitalism in the middle years of the last century: from the Russian Nihilists, the Frenchpoetes nmrrdr'fs, the Fu- turists, Zurich Dada, Camus, Sartre and on and on - through the Lettristes, the Situationists, les Enrages, the Maoists, through Punk to the cultists, ranters and pranksters of today. 'Negationis rtot ttiltilisn r,'wrote Greil Marcus in lrtfonu r t,Novemeber 1983, 'Niltilisrrr is tlrc belief irt rtotltingand tlrc wislt to bccortrc notltirtg. Negation is the act tlrut wottld rnake it self- evident to et'eryotrc tlrot tlrc world is rtot as it se ents - bttt ortlt,wltut the act is so irnplicitly cctrrtplete llwt it leqtes open tlrc possibilit.vtlwt tlrcwortd rnaybe notltirtg that rtiltilisrrt as well as creatiort nruy occttpy tlrc sutldenly cleared ten'ain 'When the Sex Pistols went public with their cry of 'Wo Fulurc" late in 1976 they were performing a philosophical negation which had not occurred in England in 1968. If the utopian ambitions and acute media sense of some Sifus had helped to spark the events of May 1968 in Paris, then in England they hardly penetrated. That year was a year of political farce: the debacle of Grosvenor Square, or the equivocations of rock stars like John Lennon ('Revoltttiorr') and Mick Jagger ('Strcet Fightirtg Man'). The Sex Pistols had to first perform a negation on this rock music itself and the music industry; when lhal had been done by March 1977, Lhey attempted to go further - attacking the heart of English society through its figurehead, the Queen. In a country with a by now deeply bu- ried tradition of philosophical and political thought and antinomian behaviour, it took the aclivities of a pop group to bring any mass negalion derivedfrom the last model, Situationism (Tttt, tttt. You nrcan'SifiMtiortlST tlrcorv'dorttyott? Ed.) - to the UK. Because of the deep constriction of English society, it's olten left to pop to express any sense of the present or the future, leI alone revolutionary politics. Any Situationist elcments in Punk are now well known. but in 1977, when they bccarne public knowledge -

nhrough the record sleeve for the Sex Pistols' 'Holidays lrt The Strr' - they rere revelatory. Situationist activity had been carried out in England by SI members like writer Alex Trocchi twho resigned in 1964), then by a rounger generation of agitators. Inspired also by the New Yotk Motherfackerc, Kirtg Mob staged events like gvrng awaygoods in Selfridges. Leading light Chris Graytranslated the first Situationist book in the UII 'Leaving The 20tlt Cenfitry' G974), the title derived from Intenrutionqle Sifimtiortiste #9, August 1964. Apart from many varieties of Nq the key'word of this negation was Boredont - Baudelaire's'Enntti', the favourite of Sartre, Camus and Valerie Solanas, and a founding Situationist principle: 'We are bored irt tlrc towrt, tlrcrc is rto longer any Terrryle of tlrc Sw4' wrote Ivan Chtcheglov in October 1,953. The Angry Brigade, the English terrorist equivalent of Baader/Meinhof, referred to it in their Communique 8: 'Life is so botirtg therc is rtotltirtg to do ercept spend ,vour wages on tlrc latest skift or slirt. Tlrc fi$rue is ours.' Boredont became the keyword of Punk in 1976: Malcolm Mclaren packaged the Sex Pistols to pose the question, "Wrut are the politics of boredorrt?", and the word spread like a rash through songs by the Clash, the Buzzcocks, the Slits, the Adverts, etc. This was backed up by the clothes that the Sex Pistols wore: [n Mclaren and Vivienne Westwood's shop, SEX, slogans from May 1968 and Valerie Solanas were sprayed around the walls. Others were stencilled or sewn into clothes - just like the Exis and Lettristes had done in the early fifties - examples include: 'Be Reasorruble - DernandTlrc hrrpossif;le', ABas Le Coca Cola','Prenez Vos Desircs Potu' La Realite'. 'Punk has been to date, the last 'great' cultural movement,' writes the author of 'Plagiarisrrt'. 'Its practitiorrcrs took rttunerotts st.vles attd ideas frorrt tlrc post artd rv-contbitrcd tlrcnt to cre- qte sonrctltirtg that was apparerfih 'new'. Slyle lu'x' is of ptitrrun' itrtponance, since tltc punk lrtot'(ttc'ttl *'as irttent ot, siruafirryitself irt tlrc nrcdia dis' course. htst cts purtk cortsisted of o series of quotatiotts ft'orrt ltost sh'le s, so itself was easilv quotable . Herrcc its sttc- cess.'Once Punk had lost its negation - by July 197'7 - and became assimilated, as was inevitable, into the music industry, these style wars facilitated the entry of post-modernism into an English culture still commercially led by the music industry. 0[ all of the many circular examples of style without politics, one is most glaring: the as- sumption of Lautreamont'War: Hide Yourselfl'by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, who put it on a T-shirt in 1,984. The design was pirated, turned into a fad and was gone within a month. The durfaces and products of Punk have become assimilated to the point that Rolling Stone, that bastion of the US rock industry, names in 1987 the Sex Pistols' 'Never Mind Tlrc Bollocks' as the second best album of the last twenty years - after iSgr. Pepper'. So is a false continuum estabhshed. There is, however, another continuum. It's clear that the events of May 1968 in France, or 1976177 in England were part of the same archetype: the utopian virus that has weaved in and out ofhistory. There are traces, for instance, in John Lydon's cackle, "I attt an anti-clrisrl" of the millenarian urge that is buried deep in English history in the Diggers and the Ranters of the mid-seventeenth century. As Norman Cohn says in'Tlrc Ptu'sttit Of 71rc Millenfuurt', 'It is choracte.istic of tltis kittd of rnover n er tr [revolutionary/millenerianism] tlrot its aints and prunises are (...too biblical, too biblical. I'm witi old Jean B. on that one, Though I still cant read his stuff or understand what post-modernism is. Ed's final note.) tr F'URTHER READING: EI 'PLAGIARISM'- 11.50, Counter Productions, PO Box 556, SE5 ORL. tr 'RESEARCH #11: PRANKS!'" $14.99,20 Romolo St, Suite B, San Francisco, California 94133, USA. 'Ultimately, pranks may prove to be the only possible pqwer an otherwise powerless individual may have in fully realized imperial society.' tr 'SEMIOTEXTIEI #13: USA'- $.8.95, 522 Philosophy Hall, Columbia botutdless. A social stntgg,le is seert rtot as a stnrgle for specitic, litrited objectives, bttl qs qt, cvetil of tuiqua itnporl- University, NYC, NY 10027, USA. 'And now we re-engage for a great civil war, tcsting whether the USA - ortce, dffircrt irt kirtd fiorrt all otlrcr any nation, the whole nation notion so deceived and dessicated, can long stntgles htown to ltistory.'This millenarianism is beginning to recur: therc are now only eleven years until the end of the century and the end of the millenium, in Western time. This may be an illusory organisation, but it oflers the opportunity to slip the shackles of a fake past and to once again engage wilh the present and the future. The phrase that keeps recurring now is Leaving tlte 2(hh Cennuy. There are new artistic and political connecti<lns being made betwpen the media rcfusers, cultists, ranters, plagiarists, poets and pranksters who slip in and out of all history, not least the tieedom his- tories of the last twenty ycars. Together wiLh rainbow ulliuru:a politics of pinks, yelltrrvs, blac:ks ancl rcds, and gre.ens. they offer wavs out ttl'our current impasse. While it is ntlt ine,vitable that a totally alLernative consciousness will emerge lrom lhe crucible of intensi$ring alienation, there *'ill be a fierce philosophical struggle during the next eleven years between the post-modernist and millenarian rie*'s of the world to match the ecopolitical strue€les that will also occur. To Baudrillard. the year 2fi)0 may well be ao 'entptt beaclt', but to many people it *-il! be. in Norman Cohnrs phra-=. 'a catqcltsrtt frorrr wlticlt the *'or[d is to emetge totolb transfonned attd rtdtenu:d-' endure?' E'VAGUE #16117: The 20th Century And How To Leave [t [PsychicTerrorism Annual' -' #181'19: Control Data Manual: Progrramming Phenomena And Conspiracy 'I'heory' '#20: Televisionaries' - All f2.50, Vague, BCM Box 7207, London wcrN 3xx. E 'APOCALPSE CULTURE'$9.95, Amok Press, PO Box 5L, Cooper Station, New York, New York 1027(t.'2U)0 years have passed since the death of Christ and the world is going macl. O.cuii prophets, nihilist kids, born agains and liberal humanisls are united in their belief in an imminent global catastrophe.' E 'UP THEY RISE! - The Incomplete Works O[ Jamie Reid' - Jamie Reid and.[on Savage, f9.95, Faber & Faber UK 1987. tr ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE PARIS BASED'CITY' MAGA. ZINE AND UK COMICZINE ,HEARTBREAK HOTE,L #4" IULYIAUGUST 1e88 (DESTGNER POSTCARD-PUNK IS.SUE - BUT WORTH GETTING AS IF 'WLL, ONLY FOR THE IAMIE REID , H EARTBRE,AK H O TEL' C OVER ). t83l

,..j; L de F t s"h, i .Y'5

plies. THE ASSAULT ON CUI,TURE [TITOPIAN CUR. I,-ROM LETTRISME T() CLASS WARI,: STEIRT IIOME [APORIA PRESS & UNPOPULAR KS] IT Asger rau off with Constant's wife; fanaticism saved ?orking' rclationship. llichelle marriefl Guy and together they plottetl to overcapitalismj but it ended in diyorce, marriage to the man Ralph and life in Salisbury. Gcorge was a revolutionary communist but debt forced into a job with the United States governnrent. Clstavwas sentenced for putting on 'an indecent exhibi. contrary to the law.' John was busted on a drugs charge. JerrT became inlhmous as 'the man who had a thousand r3asms forart.'I! ! Read their stories in this fascinating expose ofculturJ agitation.' tr THEORETICAL COHERENCE FOR "T3.50 Music8op Culture has made art a marginal concern but it still applies art's bourgeois values and hierarchies. Any old twat who picks up a guitar or hustles a job in lhe pop rnedia is an artist, everyone else is a punter, a fan, a member of the audience. So I suppose art's at the root of it all and tlre whole point of 'The Assatilt On Gtlttuu' is that ever since the tcrm took on it's modern meaning, whenever it did - in the 18th Century? - people have been opposed to it. Just as we're opposed to Music/Pop Culture today. We are opposed to Music/Pop Culture arc'nt we? Which is all well and good and relatively straight forward. The problems start when this opposition turns into theory. I dont see why there should be a problem myself, it should be relatively straight forward to demystift artlculture, showing the public that the King has no clothes, no problem. Yet, almost without fail, fairly obvious and easy to grasp arguments are dressed up in pretentious, impenetrable intellectualism and dont get beyond the hunpen intellecfirul circles from which they hail. You cant always blame state/establishment/media censorship, it takes two to tango (in Paris especially, but the brits ancl yanks can bejust as bad, and the russiafis, and the germans, and you should see some yugoslav stuff - a Laibaclt text I oncc saw made Guy Debord read like Srnash Hits). All the groups Stervart writes about are responsible for assigning themselves to their own cultural ghettos. But every one of them sights their raisott d'etre as reaching the ! It's alright, I take it all back, you dont have to read those boring old situationist texts after all. Someone has at last said the unsayable - Dont bother, it is'nt worth it, you'lljust end up as boring and insane as the people who wrote them. I should know, I have.'Shakc itt yotu'shoes speclo-sifimtiottirts, tlrc intenntiorrul power of tlte Riclturd Allen plagiaists *ill soort wipe you out!' 'Tlrc Assault Ort Cttlfiue'is an anti-art book, chronicling the contradictions, counter-culture coups and contenticlus capers of the various post-war groups (Front Lettfisnrc to Class War) - in a way not dissimilar to'The Boy Lookbd At lohruty.'No stone is lelt unturned, no ideological unsoundness left unslagged, all the stuff that is left out elsewhere is here. Mostly - it has to be said - at the sxpence of tlrc Sitttstiortist lrfienutiortol Because whether prc- or pt'o-situ lhe Situationist myth is never far from Stewart Home's sights. You have to know what the Sfn rudonist nryth is in the first place, I suppose, but you dont have tobe too familiar with the Misery of TlrcorylTlteot-v oJ' Misery to tbllow Stewart's Utopian Crurerts. Which makes a nice change for a start. It's all written sensibly enough for a beginner to undc,rstand, there's plenty of good anecdotes and trivia, and if you get bogged down with some of the more arty and obscure bits, the rockin'SifiMtionists, Motlrcrfirckcr:r and Punks are never far away. Not that I envisage 'Assault'becoming standard reading at Acid-House happenings, or making any in-roads on lhe football- fanzine scene - allymore lhan what I'm writing. It is'nt meant to. It deals rvith theproDlem of art, att lheory, political theory, post-modern theory, all that. It is'nt a proh, lem that the hunpen eletnents dont read theory or appreciote art, of course they dont, nor will they ever. That's not the way things are, thank god. But try telling that to the theory people. As far as l'm concerned, that's what Stewart Home's doing (here and in'SMILE). Contrary to the Sifimtionrsr.s'assertion that Afi is Dead', he's saying for most people it aever existed anyway. Ditto theory. The two go hand in hatr4 they're both bourgeois concepts. So why go on about it so much? Tricky one that. I dont actually, art does'nt mean anything to me. I prefer to go on abou[ music, but the same ap I 'SCREAMS IN OPPOSITION TO DEBORD' kidslproles - we're the ones wlto tutderstartd the hunpat eletrrctts and tltey will tutderstartd tts. I know how it happens, I've done it myself. You might start thinking about this sort of thing as a totally hip prole, but the more you think ahout it thc lower your proletarian credentials get. Becauso reul prolcs dont think too rnuch, lhey're too busyearningaliving, blah, blah, blah.I dont miud that much, it beats working (I think?) and to not be micldleclass either is'nt bad... But how the fuck am I going to get this back to art? See I cant even wriLe Lheory i[ I try... Basically dealing with art and politics and retaining a popular broadbase is'nt easy. Nobody's really done it yet, anyway. Punk got closest I think. Some were'nt even trying... lf l COBRA [Copenhlgen/BRussels/Amsterdam] IStewart kicks off in the 40's, wingDADA,s proposedprogressive wrcrnployrnenf as yardstick for their post-war successors - Things started rockin'again, after WW2, when Andre Breton returned to europe, shunning communism and declaring nn$c to be where surrealist activity was at. Stewart then follows the opposition to Breton,s mysticism, which took the form of The Revohttionary Surrealiit Gr.oup, brainchild of the belgian poet, Christian Dotremont. Dotremont subsequently teamed up with Lee Harvey Oswald lookalike Assault' .eoyer-boy, Asger Jorn, of the danish.Flosr group, and Constant, of the dutch group RefTat, to formCOBRA. Stewart briefly goes over the Cobra bisics, a bit of wife swapping gossip and concentrates on their ideas about new urban environments; which Jorn and Constant were to carry over into the Situqtiortist hilenrutional.

THE LETIRISTS the same time, in post-war Paris, the more controver- Itttrist Moverrrent was getting going. These are the boys inspired Malcolm Mclaren with their slogan-daubed es, gatecrashing other people's gigs and announcing Is Dead'from the pulpit of a church. However Stewart that impressed. Whereas he's a bit of a fan o[ Asger he wastes no time in giving Lettrist founder, Isidore the thumbs down. The only good thing he has to say t him is he was the Iirst to say, 'surrealisnt is dead.'He took a good stand against the nobilit-v of labour but, in ral, Stewart finds him too cultural by hatf. ,{nd this is where Stewart's main anti-hero makes his first ance - In 1951 one Guy-Ernest Debord joined Isou's ranks and produced (to me at any rate) the most [arrtsLettristwork:'Screarns ht FayourOf De Sade'- A foa- Ie- length lilm containing no images at all and only the rise of the projector going round (as soundtrack), some mdom dialogue and occassional flashes of light to break t monotony. In October 1952 the left-wirtg of Tlrc Lettist Moyenrcnt rhich included Debord and, his missus to be, Michelle Bernstein - disrupted a Charlie Chaplinpress conference at 6e Paris Ritz.Isou stuck up for Chaplin and denounced the Ldtrist renegades, who in turn denounced him and set up frrir own breakaway 'Lettist htenwtional.' Stewart describes the difference between the two thus; 'tlre Ll{ crcated aifiual works, while the LI intended to lit'c the anlfiu'al rctohttiort.'The latter dumped the former's litcrary espirations, in favour of developing embryonic LM ideas *out Urbanism, not dissimilar to fhose of Cobru's ConEant. The Lls theory of Unitary Urbanisnt or Psycltogc<t- goplty is best summed up in the sifirutiortist fave,'Fontutlo For A New Cr'4r' Written in 1953 by the eas(ern european h-an Chtcheglov for the LI, although apparently the LI, didlnt want him at the time. However aftcr Chtchcglov hacl spent 5 years in a lunatic asylum, he buried the hatchet with Debord and Bernstein and'Fonttrila'was finally published in 1958, in tlre first issue o['Intcnmtiortole Sifietiortiste.' Basically Chtcheglov says'tlrc strugle against potefty has oversltol il's ttltinrute goal - tlrc liberatiort of nnn frontrnateisl cares'and everyone's become obsessed with banalities gadgets and things, you know. To remedy this, he proposed a new experimental city, 'Tlrc Hscienda'- That is where the idca for the Manchester one came from, but that is'nt what Chtcheglov had in mind, exactly - 'Everyone would live in their owrt cathedrol,' different districts of the city would correspond to the 'diverse feelings tlrut one encowtters fut a'eryday lifu,' and the city dwellers would spend their time 'driftirtg'around wherever they fancied - rather than only going somehwere for a specific purpose. That's very fucking basically mind yoq Stewart puts it a lot more elloquently and traces the concept of Psychogeo- Wplty, back throughthe Futtuists, to Baudelaire and the Romantics, and even Charles Dickens. The trouble is, as usual, it never got much further than the theolv stage. And, as Stewart ponders, if it did wouldtlrc Hocienda have turned out that different to a New Town? Still, such pnclngeogmphical games as wandering about the Paris Metro at nieht rrund quite a laugh. But if tfrerre are doubts here about the merits of Uniton, Urbaniyrt. there's nothing but approval for thell's championing of Plagiarism. Or Detowrcnrcnl as they called it. Because 'ilutovations are generally a syntlrcsis of the alreas, krtowtt attd a tety rttirtor discovery, Giant leaps iruo the 'Un- krtowrt' seetn to occtu.ortly by accident, and cannot be consciously worked at in tlrc way tlrut nrcst htunan d*,elopnrcnt occut's.' Ultimately though, Stewart controversially, but rightly, accuses the Lettrists of snobbery anO iating _quite themselves too seriously. That's the failing of most of these people, they might seem quite a laugh in retrospect butthey were seious. T3] THE SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL: THE BoY LOOKED AT GIIY. AND LAUGHED I On .Iuly 28th, '1957, the Lettist hilemational amalgamatecl with the Intenrutiottul Mcttuttcrtt For An Intaginist Bauhaus to form Tlrc Sifimtiortist Intenntional. But, before we get onto the real meat of Assault Ott Cttlfitre', there's a chapter on theIMIB, the College Du Pataphysics and theMrcleafiists. This bit's a trifle arty for my tastes really. Even more obscure than the Lettrists and whether it's anti-art or iust plain art, I'm alienated from it anyway. This is where Asger Jorn comes back into the frame though, founding the IMIB vlrrth some Cobra inlluenced Ml- clcafiists, setting-up the Experimental Alba Laboratory (That's what he's doing on the cover.) and forging the link with the Lettrfsts. Next up was 'Tlrc First World Congress Of Liberated Artists'at Alba Town Hall, in September 1956. And that led to the unification of the LI, IMIB arrdTlte Londort Psycltogeograplical Society - ie. English-born artist, Ralph Rumney, who was expelled from rhe Sl in 1958 for not handing in a psychogcographical report on time, He now lives in Putney and Stewart interviewed him for Zs- sault'in1987. Nowtlrc Sl..even before theSI ('In lt's Heroic Phase, l9S7- 62) Stewart's got his teeth into Guy Debord - lhe new Isou - giving him a right slagging. Which he thoroughly deservea though maybe I would'nt knock him for the sartre reasors discovering other people's ideas, considering himself a geirilrclartist andthe ultimate ideological crime of assuming,that tlrc nrusses require lfitt and his cronies to 'provoke' tltem inlo changing the tenns of tlrcir owt existence. ' I'd just say that he was a crap writer, wilfully making his texts totally incomprehensible to anyone but other intellectuals. 57-58: - Debord and, up and coming new boy, Raoul Va- neigem hanging about the Sociology Dept. of Nanterre University, where Henri Lefebwe - assistdh by Jean Bau- drillard - is lecturing on his theory of 'Everyday Life.' lt ended in tears of course, with the situs accusing Lefebvre of ripping them off. Stewart's commentary, however, implies it was the otherwayround andthat the SI nicked alltheir Workers'Councils stuff from the Socialisnrc Ou Bafioie group. April '58: - the S/ make a general nuisance of themselves at the' Intenrutional Assentbly OfArt Ctitics' in Belgium. May '58: - public exhibition of Gallizio's 'Industial Painting' 'carn osses prodtced witltottt desigtt or fontrulatiotr' in an at- tempt 'to detowne tlrc strucfiue of thc ort nrurkeL 'June '58: Debord interviewed by the police following the publication of. 'IS No. 1.' Stewart lets him off for claiming to be .an 'aftistic tendency',when the police accused the SI of being'gangsters.' Various campaigns to get more mates out of lunatic asylums, psyclngeographicol repofis, more exhibitions of in&stial poirttittg - which became too succesful for the sias, purposes, so they put the price up and made the rolls longer. MeanwhileJorn had become a succesful proper painterand started supporting the hard-up Sf hard-core (which he cm. tinued to do, even when he ceased to be a member). I b* it's splitting hairs to question this as a bit of a cootradctio,o- ttel

But Ste*art doe s'nt and he splits those hairs pretty finely elsewhere, Jorn also financed the german 'Sptrr'(trace or trail) magazine. The 'Grup1te Sprrr' joined the 51 at the 3rd Sifirutiortist Conference (staged in lvlunich in April'59, with accompanying'Cttlfitral Putsclr llltilc 7'ou Sleep' flyposters) and included Kortutturc I founder. Dieter Kunzelmann' Already differences were developing betrveen Lhe dutch section and Debord, over the role of Uritary Urbanisrtt - More stuff on Unitary Urbanism, which admittedly is difficult to write about without getting bogged down in intellectualism. Stewart makes an admirable effort to explain the various arguments sensibly, but they're not going to mean much to anyone who has'nt read'Tlrc SI Attlltology,.' 59-60: - Expulsions and resignations start in earnest, this is what we want! At the 4th SI Congress, in London, a split develops between the Spur group and the french/belgian contingent, over the latter's romanticisin g- of Lhe ret'ohttiort- f [1.| The Situationists go to the cinema. London, September 1960. W I 12.l The Situationists iu conference [the Sthl. (ioteborg, r96t. ary poletariaf. Stewart sides with the germans and I agree with him on [his, but I cant say the difference between their 'collective, non- contpetitit'e prodttctirtn of aft'and Debord's 'realizatiort and suppression of art'means much to me. Anymore than the wrangles over psychogeograplry, guess you'd have to be there at the time. They patched it up anyway and went onto precede Thobbing Gistle,the Clash arulAdam and the Ants, by causing a bit of a scene at the ICA. On September 28th, 1960, there was a showing of Debord's film (which had been banned in Paris). Afterwards the assemblcd Siruafionisls gave a tribute to italian/scottish member, AlexTrocchi, who had been busted for drug trafficing in America (the Sl"s William Burroughs?), and made an announcement of a proposed attack on fhe UNESCO building. Proceedings were wound up br the S1 spokesman, Maurice Wyckaert, jibing; "Tlrc Sifintiortists, wltos<'ittdges you perhaDs irrrugirte yourselves to bct, will orrc doy jttdgc yorl We are waitiltg tbr you at llrc fiuttirtg." Then a member of the audience, rather unwisely, asked: "Con vou etplain wlrut eroctly SifiMtiottisnt is all about?" Guy Debord stood up and said in french; "Wc're not lrcre to artswer ctuttislt questiotts." Thcn all the Sifimtiorlsts walked out. And that was (he en<1 of tlrc Heroic Plruse. [4] THE SPECTo.SITT]ATIONISTS VERSUS THE SI'COND INTERNATIONAL I Now Stewart gets really controversial. ln 1961 (Stewart , hero) Asger Jorn resigned trom the SI (reason unspecifiec and (my hero) Raoul Vaneigem officially joined. At tha I [3] The Situationists on the farm: Al.ter the 5th Clon_ f'erence in Srveden. Guy Debord can be seen learting up against the tractor rvheel. telt year's (5th) 51 conference in Sweden, the ailfiral aru) po.itical camps split asurtder. Stewart sights a Raoul quol. (from the conference) to demonstrate the politicos' intrar: sigence, which he sees as the root of it: "It is a questiort rtot of elabot'atirtg tlrc spectaclc of rcftts' but ratlrcr of refitsirtg tlrc spectacle. In order for tlrcir elubttl . tiort to be 'aftistic' in the rrcw qttd qtillteriic sertse defirrcd tlrc SI, tlrc elenrcrts of tlrc dc.ruuction of tlrc spectacle tlti ' precisely ceose to be works of aft, Tlrcre is rrc suclt lltittg, 'Sifirutiorisnr' or A Sifirutiottist Work Of Aft or a Spectac,ailar Siftrutiortist... Ort positiort is tlrul of corrtbataril,s :. tween two worlds - cltc tltat we dortt ackrtowledge, tltc ttt' tlrut does trct yet etist.' Sorry Stewart. I tiont see what's wrong with that. I tli :, Vaneigem's brilliant (the things I dislike about Debor"

Eke about him). Sure it's utopian and romantic, like all Va- rigem's quotes - but I cant get enough of 'em, me. I suppose Churchill and Hitler were good at making quotes too - But ultimately the aildral/political S/ split is so much inellectual trivia and nothing to stay up worrying about, dear reader. However it duly split the Sl asunder. Dieter Kunzelnann and his Gnqpe.lpur pals questioned the actual revo,lutionarypowers of the,S/and in due course they were all erpelled. Shortly after them, in March '62,theswedish conringent also fell from grace with the Bernsteiry' Debord/ Vareigem faction. On their expulsion they formed The Zd Sinudortist Intenntional (or Sifirctiortist Baulnus),of which you hear very little. Stewart proceeds to make up for this, in some detail. I only knew of them as the 'Nosltists', an heretical tendency apparently about as low as you can get - accordingto'711rc SI Antltologt'. But they dont seem so bad. Nash, himself, in rhe Tirrrcs Literary Sttpplen lerrf, September' 64; 'The poirtt of deparfire is the dechislianisatiort of Kierke- gnard's Philosoplt.v of Sifimtiorts. Tltis rrtttst be conbined *itlt bitislt econonic doctines, gennon dialectic and fiurclt wciol actiott progratrurres. It involves a profotutd revisiort of l{am's doctrirc attd a contplete revolutiort wlnse gowtlt is n<tted irt tlrc scandirtoriatt concept of culfire. Tltis new idcobgt and pltilosophical tlrcory wc have cslled Sinrclog. It is bosed on tlrc prhrciples of sociol dentocracy in as nruch as it actudes all fomts of atiftcial pitilege." - which, to me at any rate, does'nt sound that different to *'hat Vaneigem was saying. The swedes were pretty big on graffitti and claimed responsibility for decapitating the mermaid statue in Copenhagenharbour - though I dont think they actually did ir. And maybe Stewart loads the scales a little too much in their [a;our. His assault on thespecto-sittqtiortist parisians is, nonet :heless, absolutely necessary and kxg overdue. Therc's no Jenying they got far too big for their boots, and lheir elilisnr lid more harm than good - But, in order to describe the ditbetween the trvo rival internationals, Stervart gcrts =rence limself back into very dsep art-theory waters. Surely sullice io say, Nel,ei'nirtd tlrc tlrcory), lrcre's tlrc slogans? Cant knock him for knocking Debord's impenetrahle texts but, I must admit, I prefer Vaneigem's sn appy 'Masters Willtottt Sloves'to Stewart's 'Society irt wlticlt rnetaplnrs of class dorrtirmtiort will be rcrtdered rrrcaningless.' And it's a toss up be tween Jacqueline De Jong's pictures and diagrams, in the srvedes' 'Siftrutiortist Tirrrcs' and the solid theory of 'Intenruionalc Sifirutiortiste'- But then I dont see what's so terribly wrong with 'Leavirtgtlte 20tlt Cenntry', or 'Otl The Potefty Of srudut Lifu.' Sure, these people wrote a lot of bollocks when they got carried away, I did'nt really expect it to be any different. That's what they did in the old student days. It cant really be taken directly today, in the context it was written at the rime. But it does need to be criticised to give the would-be impersonators of today second thouglrts. As for Paris '68 and all that, Stewart ma-kes short shift of the alleged sfr ntiortist involvement, as I some how expected he would. But was their role inthe Ever$s over-euphasised and the likes of 6sl fertainly not anywhere near the extent to which C/ass Wals part rn fie '85 Ri<lts was exaggerated. Staying in England for a ninute, the sitttotiortisl influence ontheAngnr Bipde wa* $' all accounts, very real. Unfortunately there's not much n the Artgias here but, as far as I'm concerned. if anvone :rer made an assault on culture, they did. Thev rrere'nt all ludents and neither are we! Ultimately though, the skinheads chanting, 'Sfitdens. Sruittrts, Ha Ha Ha!' at the Grosvenor Square demo in '68. sanr hv anyone except themselves i all. That's the Situatiorusts'lot. [s] TLUXUS INext up, John Cage, La Monte Young, Yoko Ono and co: the I'ftrurs Movenrcnt.I did'nt even know that Yoko Ono was anything more than John Lennon's bird. Avant-garde/ Neo-Dada/ Improviserl Music/ that kind of assault on,seious culfiffe.'They got political for awhile, with plans to dis- rupt'traffic during the rush hour, and by sending bricks through the post, that sort of thing. But, I probably dont need to tell you, it all went the same way as the Siruatiott- ists's'psychoge ograpl ry.' Not my bag really, some of it is undoubtedly funny but it all sounds like art to me. Interesting enough lhough in the context of utopian currents - John Cage and La Monte Young were of course an influence on the Velvet [Jndergrotutd (the F/rrusts also encouraged the Velvets'less cool west coast contemporaries), and TGIPW Indttstial Music also owes a debt to Flttt..ts. Gustav Matzger andhis Auto-destructit'e AlI is a bit more up my street. Gustav's 'One Person Afi Moveircnf, ran con- currently with F/ro'lrs and included an enlarged photo of Robert Mitchum beingblown apart and Yoko Ono's clothes being cut off. But the point is'nt that Mark Pauline andAfi Snil<cs are'nt anything new (Metzger pre-empted Stewart by only 10 years actually - with an art strike), but that opposition to art is'nt an isolated thing that recurs now and again, it's an on-going process. Anyway, GustavMetzger is the first person to get a proper thumbs up in'Assauft' since Asger .lrlrn^ [6] MAILART I Before we get onto Mail Arl there's a rather superficial chapter on the Dutch Provos, Berlin's Konunturc 1, the Motlrcfirckers,Yippies and John Sinclair's Wite Pantlrcrs. I'd have gone much rhore to town on these sort of groups myself, but of course it's Stewart's book and he's not chronicling counter-culture as much as tracing utopian currents. While the above were busy politically agitating the nonart Mail Aft movement was developing out of .F/rffirs. Still more Stewart's bag than mine, you know /igft tweight and hiltrtourous work which is'nt solcl as corturtodity but nniled to friertds and acqailtances. Founded by Ray Johnson and his ' N ew York C orre spon der t c e S clt ool' in the early 60's, the M a i I Att Nenryork really got going in the 70's, utilizing xero4'tlrc Itot new nrcdiwtt', rubber stamping, conceptual and performance art. It ranged from Anna Banana and her 'Bonanq Olyrrrpics', etc to Pauline Smith's 'Adolf Hitler Fan Club' inconsequential humourous paodies to'ort concerned witlr ettrenrcs, S + M ortd Pom.'This is where Gen and Cosey's Cotun Transrrtissiorts comes in, of course. (GPO became something of. a nmil afi ffortvr rn 19V6, when he was prosecuted by the GPO for sending an obscene collage - involving the Queen - through the post.) And Jerry Drev4'tlrc rrwrt wlto lrud o tltousand orgauns for arL '(Dreva posted his doirtgs to his friends.) Beyond Mail Att there is Multiple Nanrc Concepts and Neoisrrt. This is where Stewart comes in, with hts'group of a na rcho-afi pturks' and their'S M I LE' magazines; Aod The Poftlard Acaderny,Oregon, USA - Dr, Al 'Blaster'Ackerman and Daid'Oz' Zaek and their 'open pop-stu/ Monty Cantsirt - an attempt t o 'dentocrotise tlte star s"vstenl. 'Which. in rur_n tenuously links up with the next chapter, hutk. Ieu

:q.J,I- BENEATH THE VALLEY OF UL$TEM.U]XBilE mmffi a IHE THE i ir'i il ;(B l,'- i:1,!i a' { i-ti, taIL ".4. th a T d5 isI VriI.i'ia':' j.z' ll!'ad f;# ;rIryfiM,;ru B.EETHCIVEN. POPE, iishins5 of the old EH. VIOLET.ICE IEflale:***#- ' t-ooiif iteii t.icei carrfulll $r that you sD$'t cvcr-IorFel lhem. Qh Cod, hclp oi to arresl all thieve's and cut ott tBclr right hands, God, help our judges find success in oilrryog, llll ffiffii,*\; New's frorn lren some Fo,irYtale$ arg --a1 CRUCIFOX H I TT 1NG THC STAGE A.T H l DN I GI-iT AFl'ER .THE I'CFF IC iAL'' CE Lf BAAT IOI']S, AT 69 t,EAl',1 5T 'nJEST Of(E,.lUST A SAICK'S THROW FRC}M THE PALACE. ,.tN u,:tllJoe w.i. '69'pEAN ST. july23*o ltgltrrurr SUPPoHT e2

t7l PUNK I As somehdy has no doulrt already said, there are as lany definitions of Punk as there are people still interested ir defining it. Again, Stewart's is'nt necessarily the same as nine, but I go along with most of it. Basically his Punk soctbn is a critique of Dave Wise's 'The End Of Mttsic' (Box V2, Glasgow,1978), which certainly merits a more critical approach than my previous passive acceptance. To a certain esent anything that's called'The End Of Music'cant be all bad, but ii gets justifiably slammed here for containing such rurkeys as; 'hutk is the adnissiort tlrut nurcic lws got ttotltirtgleft to say brtt rrrone.v can still be nmde ou of total artistic bankruptcy with all it's swrogate n,;}.stitttotiotts for crealive self'etprcssiort itt our daily lives, Ptutk rttttsic, like all at, is the dcnial of the rcvohttiornry beconfiry of the proletaiat.' For a start, that's a dead give-away that the author be lieves, at some unspecified time, rock music did have something to say of artistic merit. In Wise's more recent Notting Hill pamphlet he reveals lhat, to him, this was'nt so very long before Punk. And as far as Art goes, despite his obsession with it, Stewart's prevailing attitude makes a lot more sense; '(Wise) goes on to repeat the specto-sittmtionist fallocy that ort is deod, whert fr ont a genuinely ntateialist perspective tlrcre will alwa-vs be art as lortg os tlrcre is a bourgeois class. Art cartnot die, because it is a social pxtcess, capitalist societies produce afl while notcapitalist societies dortt. As we lnve alre ody seen to itttlrute an essence to ott is rttysticisrrt.' And neatly sums up Dave Wise into the bargain; 'Altltottglt, as u hurtpctt-intellecfiml, (Wise) ntigltt find solace fut srtclt a cotrcept (the rct oltttionary becorttirry of tlrc proletaiat ), tlrc pr oletaiat whiclt lrc nt,vtltologises would firtd such ideas contpletely nrcwtingless, if b.v sorrrc freak of fate tlrclt sltottld ever conrc into corrtocl witlt llrcrtt.' That does'nt mean I go along with Stewart's assertion that 'tlrc influence bf Ftttrtnsrrt, Dada, tlrc Motherfitckers, Fltt-uts and Mail Afi is rnorc obviotts and funportan /' (than the Sinl- atiortist one). The utopian current is undeniably there in Punk, bringing along all these influences. I think it's down Lo to per oersonal taste which particular one(s) you're most into and project back through Punk as the most important. However the Mail An link (GPO/ bizarre names) and FunuisrnlDado (Adant and the Antsl CabaretVokaire) only really applies t<l specific cases and the people they influenced. Whcreas the Sifirutiortist influence (as it was through theSer Pistols) was more widespread, and also there as a spontaneous under-current - Because Punk is the first thing we've mentitrned that was'nt irtellecfircl. And Stetvart is absolutely right to site Richard Allen's 'Skinlrcad'books as being as important a punk influence, if not more so than the art groups. They certainly were on me. Then he goes a bit askew, grossly generalising thatAdarn antl tlrc Ants fans becamegodrs (most of them becams rockabillies), the Clash were coming from the left whereas the Banshees hailed from the right, and fails to note the lrc who fitcks tttuts will later joirt the churclt development of his local heroes Cisis - Or question the fact that they were ever tlat sussed politically, doing'Right To Work' and SWP benefits. As for theApostles and C/ass War? Well,I think we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for a utopian current there. More on the Angt Bigade might have put them into perspective a bit. Punk Elitisrrt was'nt necessarily a bad thing, after experiencing far too much of the,4narclolGuh dregs, I'd say if anything it was'nt slilisl snsngh. I Post-punk Mail Art? Canadian-rumanian (or some- thrng) Istvan Kantor's version of the Pofilqnd Acadenty's 'I S M.' More fittttist than sitrtotiortist according to Stewart, a one time leading Ncoisr light - 'Wdeo was to the Neoists wlnt tlrc ntotor cor was to Mainetti.' But Istvan Kantor himself comes off onlyslightlybetter than GuyDebord, being pretty much condemned here for stealing the Monty Cantsirt moniker for his own selfish ends. However,I think we're all agreed that the Neoisf show was well and truly stolen by Baltimore piss-artist (It should be needless to say that's literally speaking but I will anyway.) TentatitelyA, Convenience. I have'nt seen any Cotun Tronsntissiorts stuff, which I gather is more extreme, but Tent's 'Peeing on Bob's head'video has to be the end of art, really. The video elevated Tent (Real name: Michael Tolson) to sainthood in t/r e Church of the Sub-Geniln and provided Ste- wart with an excuse to include a bit on them - Think that's how I came to get mymention - Previously hb was responsible for the most notorious Srtb-Genfits stunt when, in 1983, he was arrested by 20 armed cops,'naked and covered in white grease palirr (Tent that is, not the cops),while beating tlrc decontposing carcasses of wo dead dogs stnuryfrom tlrc ceilirtg of a roilwa,v ttumel.'A hard act to follow. [9I CLASS WAR a 'Tlrc Assault Ort Culfitre'should have finished there, or perhaps with GodTold Me To Do It,anythingbut Class War. I suppose it makes for a snappy sub-title, 'Lettivrrc to tlrc Clturclt of the Sub-Genius'does'nt have the same ring to it. And, although Class War have some competition for Lhe crappest group here, theyjust about come out on top. But they're included sen ously? I just dont see how, after rigorously criticising the Sffiratiortists and co, Stewart can finish up saying; 'veryfew rilovenrcnts lwve lrud a (workirtg class) cttlfire as fid|1, a,tiailated and cottsciottsly oppositiorrul as that of Ptu* artd Class Wor.' Class War membership was no more working class then Punk, and Punk was'nt meant to be. Infaet being workitlg class was all that C I a s s Wa r aspir ecl to - A remarkably u nirlr aspiration for supposedly working class types, not to E!*. tion not a particularly interesting one. And as far as an a*sault on culture, or a utopian current goes, C/ass lfiarwc of no more importance than their fellow nrcdia ouoqF travellers of the late-SO's - be they neo-nazi boy scouts. A^cil House Millwall fans, satanist skateboarders or hiphop stcamers - media-glorifie{ trainspotters, the lot of 'en Class War's 'Better Dead Than Wed'record was'nt 'liLE Sex Pistols' anti-Jubilee record all over again'at atr in way. The idea was actually nicked from God.Told Me To /, who, if anybody had to be Ser Pistols to the Prince -trdrew/Fergie wedding, were they. (I should know I Nick Kent.) And even went one better in thaL the-v- didr back on hackneyed rock'n'roll cliches, like C/ass IIb dd every opportunity available to them. Ingluding atr omtrE stripper with Ian Bone's pub-rock band. HardlJ'the edge of anti-cultural activity. Just as Clqss ll"or *er€ an,vthing more than a cardboard cut- out. grasrs ttarfi*r ,r[ the Attgry Bigade and Punk, and everybod-v- knor*s iL If Class l4or did'nt exist drc Surr and Joe Strummer rury&d have had to invent them th ry fu restH ffl * sdfiF lrrtr I lr8tr

I Oh dear, I did'nt set out to put 'Assault On Cttlfire'down as much as I seem to have. I set out to praise it - not least because it's the first (proper) book to mention Vagrc.But, as Stewart admits in his afterword ,'tlrc autlnr ltas not entire' l),slud ltis subjective biases,'and neither has the reviewer, We all take the piss out of our enemies and romanticise our heroes. We've all been brought up to be fans, and I'm a Sifirutiortist fan, But, although it's possibly the worse cliche you can make, I think we're getting at the same thing - Towards the end of trainspotting and coming up with a way of putting s ifirutiorti st I whatever terminology into a pallatable io.or. B""uu.e there's some good stuff in there, underneath all the arty/ intellectual rubbish.I think Malcolm McLaren and Jamie Reid have come closest. And 'Tlrc Assault Orr Cultrtre'is a step in the right direction. That's it, who gives a toss about art anywaY? (;Lry DEBORD IN 1984. HOW COULD SOMEONE THIS UGLY BE SO HIP? I rqlK,\os SteBrt HoE c/o P O. 8ox 556 LoDdoo SE oRL 2/\tta8 16th Octob.r 19E8 Daar Luc, Hr S Hqi c/o Aporie Prrrt ll.u Rold ]O8 C..b.re.lI Tbtrt yoo lor lDrorrl!8 E th.t "Th€ BDd Ol lustc' n5 Publl6hed wlthout xlti readrrS Ey If yd'd troubled yourslt tL€ auths6 p€rr1slo! To ttrat I E6 already asre of thls fact' b@L, ,il'd i.v. r.a]lfrd OD Culture' j " It should. horever ' k quot. fro! pr6€ U oI 'fbe A6ult iILe after V.'6 coneot. rlthout EE Bnd Of luslc" aotcd tlai Pobllshed t! tyP€rcrlPt forD.' 1t had ta€n ctrcullt€d London. SEs D..r l{r llot. Jult a faHordr ln dat.Bcr of . frl.nd Yho! you hev' sritt'n rhc A..rult on cultu+ (ch 15). i;;-"i aa;b.sa-iuort ri'tt. you nrvc rrron Ln osttloo ta r eaEtrlo Irava ra. r to Ynooe.. .ctuellv e l.iiiLi.a'ttt. iert ltr Bad ot tturtc. Tilr tctt .""ii ii.it of ror tEiiiilEEiTIEET. (Ds) h.d t.nt to !il'on'' vho-thon Dubll.h.d rt fl!4!--q:!:l!-2glg&!. f r.t r rrb.r ol (1tr3 t{ob a. vou .xtta! 1l a tscula D.v.poaltloo lhlo you to ltc'at'ln ."a'i fliim br w tl a batt.r oE Dr"/?cturt" rhtch h'd Jiittrs-It rir iltrittortrt ''dd li.tcol. !Lsl.r.n' rl'to lq tlot' ;;;;;aa. i.iimroo or ?alr vl. lloE. that Data I ra. lf,Et of tho'rlrotrblr1o rlllou Perlr' irr-ti. o,.ii lrure PUbIl.h'r' illtili'.iE-i.i*i iAo rr qultr r lot of lxr..d D.bord 't th't tl" --ii-ioo"r (eod vr corttlolr rttdi't ttrd out m cilt[., lrcklng tn rlthoi3h rr cortrlnly rouldort h.vc u'nt'd ! f'rtI iiuiirot' - ean rrti-"i"-ifom rlih u. to qu.Dtlt.tlv.ly rrrlqrc u''fun') oe vcr hed i..*1 i* tlrit Drvr I nrvjt cul to P.itt vlth ' c'rird lrt' thc .;;thi; io do vlth D.bord.od !.v.r..t Lr6ovlcl, th.o .dltor of Ch..P Ltbrc. you crn so I'f vou rrl toiol tg pna.Dt 'n, old ttttlq-tottl! you r tu8t"t ri..o irq v.ri du5lo..-.N!c.. .a fict" 9't iour cetrlojutiS tn publlcrtlon d.t. chrtrt'd to th' ilctlon l.ctlotr cl...aarl. You.lao .stt'o oi your6, lc qn abu* ot the a'frtsnd' S€cotrdly, to dercrlh gls.6 tate Dre tbD a 51ry1e clatr or your Frt tt illl Lltsrt4, t€rr. (s1!e Cbrono6 - th. PubrrshlnE co+ary rlth Yblch you ar€ lDvolved sttl the truth) to coDelDce c thtt har a L16tdy of t*fD8 ]lb.rtles i I lsu csDtr€d or Cuy hbrd hv. f , Es n€v.r a P.rt o, tL. 'nterable 10 P$16'. Ltbrc and thc Cb.rp trEbllqb€r6 to tr r.l.tlor to IltG noD' tt 1€ hlltB€ tl.t ,s o+t .lJr rcf...rc. lta l! .r, €E' ttc tot!.rluol.ra - a DJor lnJlu.D6 o! th13 6.dP' th.D tk @815t5 of llttl. 31!6 3lrcto-alturtloll.t 't!.6y' -r.c1lcl. (xltL tho uP lD rurrsllst ld.ra oi thc FrtElfurt sol@l &Bd I llnd tt aE tE aft.rthil6ht)' .dd.d.lEt 8iEtcl of tbc'qrct.ol.' (that DJor tucb 'th.ory' nE a Y,'s c161r to tr$t ;.tl.r dlfflcult il INa.l) olou.Ir. lrllu.d to do, I 3t1tt tblul tt ff rcrth PotDtrrt tt @t rll(tlcult lltLottr Er€ !6 1n61tn1flaDt a6 CIas Ilt tutioul out tlat tLa - 8ltu.tloor..t tD ths '85 lD t, b@L, CleE Yar'6 lrvolv€eDt Yd. & I daDiltrat _ cY'E suPPorkr6 - 66 tba ot botb rtots d..Dita tL. clrl-dla aDdtE €qually blbtryy Th. 8t's rc]. lD 'radlal' M8lltrbl., faD of 6P.cto-tltuatloorsi'th€oryr, tlat you, a srvlle 1r;r6D1tt6rt. (rathei thn attarPtlo8 to BLald r.spoDd to ry b@t vlti ll€5 ard ah* i6 yet lDother ladlcatloD of I rale) lsu6 €16.6. ,ltl th. ti.or.tl€l you suPPort' banlruPtcy of the 'au*' thc td.olotlal fou16 6tocereI, StaErt Youra I ucv Forrvth ti,, ,fronos f.ondon,r,. '' ;6r r.Y.r' Eo-

TATE GALLERY 1-19 JUNE 19BB TOTAL DISSENT Art, Culture and Politics around 1968 TALKS, FILMS & VIDEOS I I TOTAL DISSENT: a role playing game for boys of dl ages. trEION l4th June'88, David Dunbar gave a lecture at the Tate Gallery, t ondon, entitled "The Situationist International verses Situa- tionism in the late Sixties". E E Mtchael Prigent, Andy "A,:<eMan" Sutton, and two unidentilied punks had installed themselves in situ and were handing outleallets tdenouncing'the event to people as they arrived. Thelr leaflet corr sisted of insults that had been over-used twenty years ago and a garbled rehash of the Situationist lntemational's incoherent theory. It seems that theywereworried that once the cultural authoritles got their hands on it this theory might become sullied. Therewas some talk about 'recuperation', but this was completely incomprehensible since there was nothing to recuPerate. EEWtr"r, Prigent accussed Dunbar oI being 'a llar', the critical section of the audience responded by shouting: "Yes Prigent, we already lorow Dunbar is a liar, and you're a liar tool You both mythologise the past," When Prigent failed to respond to this there were calls of "Make a speech Prigentt'. When he relused he was informed that he had a'fat mouth'. [ [ Eventually someone hom the Tate management called a vote for Prigent and his grouplet to be ejected. The vote was overwheln> ingly in favour of ejection. However, as it was being made, the individual who had told 'Prigent he had a 'fat mouth' shouted: "l don't believe in democracld". tlnforhmately, Prigent and hts grouplet didn't appear to share this sentiment. Theywerrt outsidewhere a late comer spotted them arselicking the coPs who'd been sent to arrest them, No wonder they dldn't get chargedl E E When the lecture resummed, the elements that had challenged IN q'R SCIETY W,EERE AIL calf gEtt ta TtlI![6 A ND Prigent retumed to the main event of the day- pouring scom uPon Dunbar's eulogisation of the Situatlonist Intemational. Among many other things, it was pointed out tJrat sifuaHonist 'theory' was based on'aesthetic dlstancing'and thus failed to appreciate the symbolic element inherent in much proletarian consumption. Speaking as they did from a 'high' cultural perspective, the SI had said nothing that was of relevence to the workers, wimmin, the unemployed, the racially oppressed or those living outside the 'first world' &c' &c. Thus instead of being 'universally' valid, situationist'theo4/ re flected the experience of the cultural fraction of the french bourgeoisie during the fifties and sixties. Dumbar was unable to cotmter the assertion that a$ a consequences of these facts situationist'theory' was incoherent. He was instead forced to resort to the subjective claim that he felt it was necessary for revolutionaries to understand the SI. E E Onttre t6th Jure'88, Prigent published "A Briel Introduction To The Critique OI Art History And Other Subiects' in which he cornpletely lalsified the events at the Tate. Not only does he make lalse claims about the sympathy ol the audience towards him; he corr> pletely ignores the interventions made by critlcal elements against his grouplet and the glistening obJect of their religious devotion - the Situationist Intemational. E E What happened at the Tate was a storm in a tea cup. It has no relevence to the'proletariat' orthe'revolutionarJrmovement'. Prigent could succeed better at being radical by going on a sponsored slim. lnstead, he will no doubt continue to act out his 'anti-role' oI 'revolutionary militant who rejects all compromise'. Alter all, as a self- satisfied middle aged slob, it's too difficult lor him to change the habits of a lifetime. Since his actions in no way endanger his inslgrrif icance; Prigent's essential passMty and conformity can remain his own secret misery. Some of us lorou, he spent his empty days running errands for Guy Debord (another imbecile whose insecuri- LOOK OUr.gS TIE FUZZI ties necessitated a character armour woven lrom the dressed up rebel imageryof theSituationistlntemational). Onewonderswhether Debord's D.T. was so bad that it prevented him from writing, Or perhaps 'the freaked out father of situationism'was just too busy making up stories about his past to take time off to write letters. Whatever the cause, the fact that Prigent spent the early seventies writing letters on Debord's behalf shows that neither was capable ol 'autonomous' or'anti-hierarchical' relationships. If Debord, Prigent and the SI in general are 'revolutionaries', what we need is a counter revolution...Il ENS TIIE TYRANNICAL IJ\NOT'AOE OF TOT^L DISSEhTT il l"il ts6t IIDICKARLEN

time comrades of the most influential section of its staff. An example of this is Alison Fell, who at one time worked for Ink. 'If Time Out's success had been built sn its ti61ings, the culture it had detailed had, in its turn, become dependent on the magazine..." Through its detailing of the personal connections between members - and former members - of the 'underground', Fountain's book demonstrates that for all their supposed 'openness' and'right-on attitudes', magazines such as City Lit'nits ate actually run on nepotism. Fountain (former City Litrtits'supremo') uses the 'failure' of the 'sixties underground E 'Undetgrowtd: tlrc LondonAltenrudte Prcss 196G74'by Nigel Fountain I Conrcdia, #7 .95 paperback). I Even a casual reading of 'Utder' gruund' leaves the reader painfully eware of how confused Nigel Fountain b about what he is trying to do with his rext. He simultaneously attempts to codiff and deconstruct the'myth' that *re 'sixties' was a golden decade of 'radicalism'. Although the text is ambivalent, the reading of it doed not aecessarily have to suffer from the same'flaw'. With a little distancing, it soon becomes clear that Fountain's confusion emerges from the fact that he wants to both romanticise his'hippie' youth and justifu the loathsome irieals of his 'trendy lefty' present. Despite Fountain's aims, the text still has its 'merits'. Although the emphasis is on the 'underground press', the book is not restricted to this subject. As a body of writing it provides a 'useful' - and very obviously subjective - account of the British 'underground' as a whole. Fountain's prose sty'e is a particularly bland brand of journal- lese. Despite - or perhaps because of - this the text is easy to read. However, the book is unlikely to hold the attention of someone who doesn't already possess a considerable interest in its zubject matter. The Prose is - if not bad - boring. The chief merit of 'Undergrotrrd' is to povide a checklist o[ the connections hetween the various members of the -cultural mafia'who these days moropolise the 'alternative' sections of tbe mainstream media. It's interesting ro discover that many of tlose who feamre heavily in the review pages of.City Linrirs started their careers in the -mderground press'; and are thus long press' as a fable to justi! the 'professionalism' of City Litrtits. The'underground press', so Fountain's argument runs, collapsed because large sections of its market were lost to more specialist publications - and the listings magazine Tilne Out was particularly important among these. After his firtation with the 'underground', Fountain worked for Tinte Outland he goes into considerable detail about the disputes between Tony Elliott (Tinte Oul's owner/publisher) and its staff. These eventually led to a number of its staff (including Fountain) forming a workers co-op to publish City Lirnits - a London listings magazine that now competes for the same marketasTinte Out. The issue that finally forced this break was when Elliott tried to intro= duce pay differentials between members of his staff. Seven years after its formation, Ciry Lilnits (and Fountain in his book) still make a'hue and crt' about howeveryonewhoworks for the magazine receives the same pay - despite the fact that the tele-sales staffreceive the same basic pay as everyone else plus commission (which in effect gives them a higher wage than anyone else working in the'co-op'). As part and parcel of his rantings about the wonders of. City Lirnits, Fountain not only omits to mention that there are actually pay differentials between the various members of 'his'firm; he goes out of his way to give the irnpression that this is not the case. He also studiously avoids the question of why for- malist approaches to 'equality', as practiced by the section of the'left'to which he belongs, are sterile. It doesn't take much reflection to realise that you can't make people with different 'needs' equal by giving them the same pay! One of the most fbsitive aspects of 'Undetgrowtd' is Fountain's brutal hone stv about the power of the listings magazines stich- in his view, have come to 'replace' the underground press: In this way, those members of the 'cultural mafia' who worked for Tinrc Out - andlater City Lirrrits - came, via their reviews and listings, to control which parts of the 'alternative' culture in London should be successful. Thus, while basking in their psuedo-sense of moral superiority, Fountain and his cohorts are very much responsible for the anaemic state of the most visible sections of the 'alternative' culture in London. Fortunately, beneath this bland exterior . and well away frorn the review sections of Cig Lirttits - there are signs of a cognter-cultural renaissamce that will hopefully wipe the 'right-on brigade'from the face of the metropolis... As an exercise in both'sixties'myth making and self- justification, 'Utdergrotutd'is a dismal failure. Fountain has inadvertently added fuel to the fire of those who hate both the 'sixties' and the'trendy left'. In his position as City Litrtits editor, Fountain demonstrated quite clearly that when it comes down to stamping out the reality - while reinforcing the appearance - of cultural diversity, the efforts of the right are equalled (if not 'bettered') by those sixties 'survivors'who when the time came were not too bombed out to get their hair cut, take a bath and adopt a 'right-on'pose. Fountain may consider sixties youth a'lucky generalion', personally - havingreadhisbook - I count myself lucky that I was'born too late'to be a mem- ber of that generation or its movements. Despite thq" long period of Tory rule, the possibilities for change seem greater now than during a decade'peopled' by so called revolutionaries who weren't capable of thinking beyond where their next'ioint' or'lay' was coming from. Fountain's book deserves to be read, as a warning to the younger generation of the horrific mistakes made by their parents. To paraphrase Mick Farren: nOur generation doesn't want or need a prophet, Our parents generation adopted'Che' and'Uncle Ho', Place your bets nowln I DICK ARLEN

ond nt nru tom? *$[* $nt irrr nr ; As the title of a childhood classic points out, Pigs k Pigs - and this regardless of the shape of their genitals. ilse Koch was a Nazi, not a 'sister'. Love is not hate, war is not peace, freedom is not slavery, and book-burning is not liberatory. Anti- authoritarians who would be revolutionaries confront many difficult questions. First, though, they should answer the easY ones correctly. tlqtruill Jlnttii;tttttti All hyperbole and metaPhor aside, what passes for'radical feminism' is fascism. It promotes chauvinism, censorship, maternalism, pseudo-anthropology, scapegoating, mystical identi- iication with nature, aPartheid, tricked-up pseudo-pagan religiosity and enforced uniformity of thought and even appearance (in some quarters, Hera help the ectomorphic or 'feminine' feminist!). Here is all of the theory and too much of the practise we should all be able to recognise by now. .l' i, 1i i1 An ominous tactical continuity with classical fascism, also, is the complementarity between private-vigilantist and statist methods of repression. Thus Open Road, the Rollirtg Stone of anarchism, applauded some anti-porn actions in Vancouver, not as direct action, hence understandable even if misdirected, but rather because they encouraged lethargic prosecutors to persecute. In post-World War L Italy, fascist gangs attacked socialist and trade-union organisations with the tacit approval ofthe police, who never intervened except against the Left' (The suppression of the 1WW in America followed a similar pattern.) As I once wonderingly asked; "How come these women wont get in bed with any man except the DA?" Not that I could care less about the porn-for-profit industry, for its'rights' o[ free speech or property. That is beside the point, rvhich is: ivhy single out this species ofbusiness? To target porn bespeaks planning and priorities, not elemental anti- capitalist spontaneity. Those who carry out a calculated policy cant complain if their reasons are asked for, and questioned. Fascist ideology always incongiuously asserts to its audience, its chosen $Ilffifi$ 0i lJHlJ$tl# e00r$ F,0, hr 11$? fMT$rffiffi{,*t $frlfl |l,i,t, i hating culture.' lf so, then either women have contributed absolutely nothing to culture, or there is is something more or something else to this culture than destroying nature and hating women. For their own purposes (some of which are as mundane as sexual rivalry with straight men for the women they desire), self-styled radical feminists actually reduce women to nothing but helpless, cringing near vegetables, passive victims of male contempt and coercion. This profoundly insults women in a way which the worst Patriarchal ideologies - the Jewish notion of woman as a sourcerJf pollution, for instance, or the Christian nightmare of woman as temptress and uncontrollable sexual nature-force - fell short of. They defamed woman as evil but could hardly regard her as powerless. The new woman-as-victim stereotype is directly traceable to nine- teenth century Victorian patriarchal attitudes reducing (bourgeois) wtlmen to inert ornaments. By denYing to women the creative power inherenl" in everyone it places women's demands on a par with those advanced for, say, baby seals. Suppose instead what only the most demented feminists and misogynists deny, tlrat things are'nt quite thatbad, that women have been subjects as well as objects of history. Thcn how can women - or any other suhorclinated group: workers, blacks, incligorrous peoples - be entirclv acquittcd ol' all complicitv in the arrangc,ments rvhich condetnn them to domination? Thcrc are reasolls for these accclmodations. There is no excuse for denying their existence. (.lust a quick comment on a striking imbecility in the quoted comment which passed unquestioned in K/O. It is generally supposed, and not only by' theWrcn God Was A Wonwrt crowcl. lhat women probably invented agriculture. Among the consequences of this discovery were - to say nothing of the state, class society, property, etc the destruction of most of the eco-systems which previously flourished. Ag- riculture has annihilated much of the diversity ofthe biosphere already, cre= people, that they are at one and the iamL time opp ressed and supeior.The Germans did'nt really lose the First ating deserts and extinguishing the habitats not only of countless plants and animals but also of the last re- World War (how could theY? Er hYPothesi they are superior) therefore, they were stabbed in the back. (But how could a superior race let such a situation arise in the first Place?) Men alone, we are told in a feminist AntiPornography Movement diatribe in Toronto's Kick It OYer,'haYe created the nature- destroYing and woman- ing to do with thsm. I dont like mos maining sLateless, classless human sc> cieties. What then of woman's innate affinity with nature? 'When God was a woman' it was already nocessary to abolish Her.) This is'nt sour grapes. lt has never bothered me that some women dislilie men, even to the point of having notts i $ * il il it h fl II l {r! ! fl { II l

nen myself, especially the archetypal rasculine' ones. I cant help but no:ce. though, that the vast majority of ;trrrrer feel otherwise. The radical ::'minisLs have noLiced it too and it :rives them to distraction. I would be .re lirst to agree that vast majorities ,-:n be wrong. But then I criticize ma.rities, I dont pretend to speak for -rem. Radical feminisl.s, in contrast, befter tbr what they've been through. not because they are politically correct We all have our antecedent embarass- but jtst because most males find porn gross, sleazy, and above all, inferior to the real thing. The feminist book-burners are cowardly opportunists. If what they object to is the subliminal socialization of women into subservient roles vis-a-vis .,re vanguardists. AS such they need to men (curiously, adopting the same :.rtionalize their animosities, and so lhey have, rnaking a dick- determinist Jemonology oul of their prejudices. .\s man-haters they cant help but be *oman-haters too. To equate pornography with rape - roles yis-a-r,ts butch lesbians is harmless fun), their primary, near pre-emptive preoccupation would have to be hcneath the rancorous rhetorical froth, this seems [o he the core APM ariom - is presumably intendcd to make porn seem more serious. And ict, if men call the shots and the sysiem's built-in tendency is (as we're lold) to denature oppositional initiatives of which the feminists'is the most revolutionary, then the likely result is rather to make rape seem more trivial. It's lhe old sLory o[ the woman who cried wolf. Accordin.{ to feminoicl epistemology, men unclorstancl nothing of the ri:al nature ol'women. One might logically suppose that the esLrangement of lhe sexes resulting flrom disparate roles and discrimination would work both ways, and so most of us attending to our actual experience reluctantly conclude. But no: men dont understand women, but women (at any rate their radical feminist vanguard) understand men. Women - feminist experts, anyway - understand pornography and its meaning for men much better than the men who write and read it - and lesbian-separatists, who avoid men and decline to have sexwith them, appreciate these verities best of all. The more remote your experience is from the real life of actual men, the better you understand them. Turning this around, is'nt the Pope, as he claims, the ultimate authorit-v on women and sexuality? The asserted connection of porn with rape is allegorical, not empirical. As a correlation it compares with the recently revived 'reefer madness' marijuana-to-heroin Rake's Progress line in its absurdity and in its suitabilit.v- for the state's purposes. If feminism did'nt exist, conservative politicians would have had to invent it. (Why, pray tell, did all-male legislatures ever criminalize 'obscenity' in the first place? And why do all-male courts ar- bitrarily exclude it from constitutional protection?) APM harpies, should they ever deal with people instead of their own fevered projections, would quest for freedom, and some are the discover that porn is of no interest to the majority of post-pubescent males - Cosrrtopolitan, Barbara Cartland romances, and the vast crypto-pornographic pop literature written for and snapped up by women. After all, the gore and violence are derivative: only vicl"ims can be victimized in any wa-v*. Fifteen years ago, the original women's liberationists (subsequenth, switched like changelings with today's priestesses, lawyers and upscale bureaucrettes) at least lashed out at influential enemies like Hugh Hefner and AndyWarhol. Nowadays they terrorize teenage punk anarchists whose collages insinuaLe, for instance, that Margaret Thatcher is a ruler, the 'mother of a thousand dead,'not a 'sister.' Such is the logic of this bizarre biological determinism: any animal equipped with a vagina is one o[ Us, any prick-privileged person is one of Them. One can only echo The Firesign Theatre;'Who am us, anpvay?' Male leftists are easy and often rvilling yes-men to feminist aggrandizement. They combine guilt at pasL improprieties (by and large, those who feel guilty - towardwomen, blacks, [oreigners, whatever - usually are) rvith a present ambition to get into the leftistfeminists' pants. Thus Berkeley, California, where I used to live, is crawling with male 'feminists' who converted, the easier to get laid. Much the same scam seems to be happening in Toronto and, doubtless, many other places. These ulterior ambititlns dont in themselves discredit the ideologies to which they are appended - one can come to the right conclusion for the worst of reasons. But insofar as the opinions at issue certainly seem l.o be idiotic to anyone without an extra- neous interest in embracing them, othenvise inexplicable parorysms by (male) iltellectuals seem to be most plausiblv explainable as self- interested insilcere raLionalizat ions. Possihlv the ideologv I've excoriated is somethins that some people had to work throush in order to free themselves to the efient necessary to ven- ture upon a project of collective liberation. Alreadr a feu, alumnae o[ [eminism hare nclved on to the common ments (Marxism, libertarianism, svndicalism, C)bjectivism, etc.) to put behind us. Had we not thought in ideological terms it's hard to believe we'd ever get to the point where we could think for ourselves. To be a Trotskvist or Jesuit is, in itself, to be tr bclievcr, that is to say a chump. And yct a rigorous romp through arr-r, systcm might show the way out of the Mastcr-System itself. Not likely, however, when wonren critics are ostracised as renegades while male critics are ignored or defamed as a matter of principle. (A precisely parallel mechanism lor main- taining a conspiracy of silence is worked by Zionists: Gentile critics are 'anti-semites', Jewish critics can only bc consumed by.'Jewish self-hatred.') Seperatism may be absurd as a social program and riddled with inconsistencies (scarcely any seperatists seperate from patriarchal society to anything like the extent Lhat, say, survivalists do - and nobody intervenes more to mind other people's busincss lhan seperatists). But semi-isolation makes it easier to indoctrinate neophytes and shut out advcrse evidence and argu- ment, an insight radical feminists share with Moonies, Hare Krishna, and other cultists. It's fortunate that their doctrines and subculture as initially encountered are so unappetizing. Indeed, l've noticed a graying of radical feminism: as Sixties politics and culture continue to gutter out, less and less women have had the proper pre-soak preparing them for feririnist brainwashing. Radical feminists (so called) in their early 20's are rare, and getting scarcer. Radical leminism.(no point disputing title to the phraie with its presenl owners), then, is a ludicrous, hatefilled, authoritarian, .setisf dogmatic consLruct which revolutionaries accord an unmerited legitimacy by taking seriously at all. It is time to stop matronizing these terrorists of the trivial and hold them responsible for pre- aching genocidal jive and practising every evil (even, if the truth be told, rape!) they insist has been inflicted on them. (Or rather, as it usually turns out, on some other suppositious 'sister': the typical radical l'eminist has had it pretty good.) How to lhwart femino-fascism? That's easy: just l"ake feminisl.s at face value and treat them as equals... then hear.them howll The Errrpress has no clothes.,. and tlwt's what I call obscene. I teel

laboratories and teachingrooms of the London Hospital Medical School. 5.3.88 Tom, Thankyou for sending me the latest issue of 'Vague'. ['m writing with particular reference to the piece on the Animal Liberation Front. There is a characteristic displayed by all armchair revolutionaries that should by now be familiar to everyone. While they spit fire and venom at the state, the spectacle, caPitalism or whatever, they always save their grea- test spite for revolutionaries who actually try to DO something. No matter how inept or ineffective the direct action taken, it always highlights the total lack of action displayed by these angst- ridden tossers of the radical chic press. Consequently any effective aciion comes in for the most bitter criticism. Such is the case with the anonYmous article on the ALF. The activity of the ALF is compared to the total inactivity of the rest of the Left, as if the ALF iisomehow to blame for this inactivity. A more likoly reason is that most of the Left is composed of peoPle who have neither the guts nor the organisational ability to get off their arses and do something against those they perceive to be their enemies. With an almost endearing lack of self-awareness, the author goes on to describe a movement built on recycled ideas and images of the 60's and 70's - apparently oblivious to thc lact that his/ her article is published in a magazine whose main activity IS recycling ideas and documents from the 60's and 70's! Not since the 60's have I seen a publication more like a facsimile o[ OZ magazine. (Miaow! Ed.) When it comes to the political history of animal/human relationships the author either ignores (or is ignorant of) examples which dont support his/her theory that animal rights is a bourgeois concern. He/she suggests that animal rights was invented as a joke by the french aristocracy during . the Revolution. (Was the smile on their face, I wonder, when their heads landed in the basket?) If the author needed to look for evidence in France, then the Commu- nards would provide a different example. During the 1871Paris Commune the mob released all but the most dangerous animals from the zoo, on the grounds that 'no living thing should be locked in a cage'. Closer to home wouldbe the riots in Edwardian London over the statue of 'the old brown dog'. Anti-vivisectionists erected a statue to all the dogs cut up while still alive and conscious in the $ Various attempts wcre made by (well- off) medical students and hired Whitechapel yobs to demolish the statue, which was defended by a united front of Trades Unionists, feminists and anti-vivisectionists. In the end the statue was secretly removed at night by the police who feared serious rioting, such was the strength of feeling in working class areas. Later the article becomes less endearing. Ronnie Lee was fitted up and is now serving ten years, so far in solitary confinement. Now - if you think that is not a matter for concern and protest then I siucerely hope that your mind will be concentrated by you being the next person to be fitted up and given a ten year sentence. (Charming. Ed.) Myannoyance over this article is that it is simply some nonentity using the ALF as a target uponwhich tovent resentment and frustration bred of their own transparent impotence. It has no redeeming features. [t does not even have the merit of straight-forward abuse and insult. Having climaxed by calling the ALF a Nazi Front, the pa- thetic author totally bottles-out and pretends that it was really only a request for discussion! I think it is very important to open discussion and be critical of what we do. I am a supporter of the ALF, but that does'nt mean I'm uncritical. But there is a dilference between comrades who have each others best interests at heart (ie. a GENUINE search for coherence) and plain slagging off. I would not have thought that the best way to initiate an honest dialogue between people was to start by accusing one of them of being a Nazi. In fao that would give them a good reason to ignore what you say. If all this article amounted to was a criticism of the ALF I would leave it to them and other supporters who are well able to respond themselves. My anger is over the printing of a totall.r unsubstanl.ial libel in accusing tk ALF of being a Nazi Front. My argu. ment with you, Tom, is that you chcxc to publish it. tt is a cliche, I know, br* this is the kind of journalism that be. longs in 'The Sun'. I'm aware thr 'pissing on everything' is what passes for a critique amongst King's Rod flakes, but there's nothing useful in L It is'nt even decent nihilism, in fatr. just like 'Ihe Sun' it is, in the definitire sense of tlte word, reactionary. You no doubt have your own reasor for wishing to become the Rupea Murdoch of radical chic publisht:. Happily, I dont have to join you. To i

tcltair rcvoh ttiot ru ry... ru dic a I cltic... Kirtgs Rd flake'? introductions of course. If it's tb latter, dont make me lauoh. Which brings me to the'(ALF)sup. pofters wlto are well able to respond tlrcrnselves' part of your letter. I'm sure That would make everything nice they are. Anyone who percieves &e offending page - at the same time rnding a letter of apology to theALF. But I'm also aware that anyone who ras thoughtless or arsehole enough to prblish it in the first place is unlikely and simple would'nt it? tf you were a wise old freedom fighter, holed up in a rural hide-out, imparting your wis- somebody to be their enemy on the basis of whether or not they eat meat, is somebody to be reckoned with - As to have what it takes to take such posi- publicity-seeker, publishing radical tirc action. So, in future remove my name from your list of contributors and refrain chic from my Kings Rd apartment? Unfortunately the reality of the matter. is'nt quile like that. Is it? You can see me as whatever you like and call me whatever you like - 'onnchoir revoltttionary.., radical cltic pttblicist' - any pblirh this unfounded allegation was rupid and irresponsible and serves ml-v to make our enemies smile. I wrld suggest that the most approprite action would be to recall all copies d this edition of 'Vague' and remove from mentioning'Spectacular Times' r using its material in'Vague'. I dont sppose you will lose much sleep over that, but it is the least I can do to dissociate myself from this cheap smear tactic against a group of comrades for *hom I have a lot of respect. - LarryLaw you really think that anybodywho goes about things differently is automatically a phoney and to be considered an 'a n r dom to willing young working class revolutionaries - And I was a trendy of those cliches - it'll go nicely with 'Post post-rrtodentist' (Tlrc Obsener) on the back cover of the next 'Vague'. But you dont know anything about me, at least going by your cheap shots - which did'nt even come close to the mark. On the other hand I know you're not cxactlywhat you make yourself out 4t4t88 Dear Larry, That's more like it! Fighting talk, eh? Now, why did'nt you sav you thought I was an' q n r t c I r a i r rc ro I t t t i t t r t n n'.., s irt i c.r re a,c li s t... Kir tgs Rd Jl a k c... Ru lttt't bl r t r- doclt of Ratlical Cltic' itt the I'irst place? Because you've becn wanting to say it flor some time, right? Thcn I could have told you what I thought of you and we could have cut all the patronising camaraderie crap which has passed between us up until now. I dont particularly wish to engage vou in a;rro-sirrr insult slinging session but there are some points in your lettcr which I would like to comment on; You once told me that Mark Downhan was a sadistic bastard: Now, far be it [ronr my intentions to psychoanalyse you - after all know nothing ab<lut you personally (as indeed you I know nothing about me - although you've.iumped to some rather amusing conclusions) - but the way you go about things seems to have all the hallmarks of masochism. I know this wont bc the first letter of this sort you've had. Yet the only letters my'rcactiortqnr - ltiss ott everytltirtg - rqdical cltic' has inspired like yours have been off to be. Fuck it - why not exchange a few insults - People like you talk about doing wild and exciting things, but what do you do: Put out patheticlittle gummed 'Dont Vote' stickers and tapes of your 'worksltops'in a squat (Wow!), which you held for, what, a few days? And are you darkly hinting that you've actually done some hunt sabbing yourself? Gosh! Life in Reading must be like fighting in some South American revolution, how exciting! I dont get to do much rioting and subversive activity myself, I'm too busy going to nightclubs and art gallery openings. I do agree with you about one thing though - that there should'nt be any- more 'spectacular Times' stuff in 'Vague'. I was'nt actually aware that there was any in this one and your name was only included in the pastcontributors list. (l'm sure that'll sell ting of your arse and doing some- whole project appears to have ground easy way out. to a halt, and I dont feel it's worth doing anymore on. But, if for argument's sake I did, what do you mean !'ou got to tell me not to use any of it? What are you talking about? Legal action? Physical threat? As far as the former go€s, I was'nt aware that an1'of 'Spectacular Times' think that everyone else needs to follow your experienced path, and not question your specialist knowledge and historical view of the world? Do think that's what annoys the author of the article so much, and mysell to some extent. I dont consider the rural regression/longing of the anarchopunk/whatever mov€I,nent to b0 getthing...I think it's a cop out and, just because 'tlte rest of the Left'dont find it so easy to perceive their enemies does'nt mean the ALF have got it right, it just means they've taken an or qucstioning their traditional little only people who act for the greater After living in London for 6 years that sort of thing does'nt b<lther me very much. Though I admit it did a lot when I lived in the country. However in the urban anarcho-punk/hippy community this is'nt the case - Ancl I I dont infact have any intention of using anymore 'Spectacular Times' stuff (and did'nt prior to your letter) Because, since the initial idea, the fy lslling me not to use any'Spectacu- good of mankind - sorry - Life? Do you toss if corporations experiment on said creatures before they slaughter them. And the Good guys making a stand against them, and not forgetting, on behalf of defenceless creatures. I think the article was deliberately offensive to try and point out that things are'nt that simple. By the way I did'nt write the offensive article. But I do take full responsibility for putting it in and will make no apologies for putting down your safe and simple sacred cow of a cause. [t needed putting down. Also, for the record, I dont eat meat myself and come from a long line of hunt sabs My great-grandad, who literally oozed radical-chic, once refused tb let the Marquis of Salisbury, or something, and the South Wilts hunt cross his peasant's plot, to catch a fox. (Haha) me loads more copies.) equally self-righteous, liberal old hippies, who dont like anybody upsetting pet causes. Do you really think that you and your puppy dog rescuing comrades are the a fascist, possibly...But there I go again being reactionary. But I think that's what the article in question is getting at. You seem to like seeing things in simple terms. In this case: The Bad guys gourging themselves on other living creatures'flesh, and not giving a lar Times' material? What right have was origina! including the name. Correct me if I'm *rong, but I always as- sumed it *'as material gathered from elsewhere (and ma-v*be interpreted slightlv differentlv). apart from your Finally, I did'nt put Ronnie Lee inside and, despite my current hw oppinion of you, I would'nt wish a similar fate on you or anybody. However, tha[ you seem to be saying that every living creature should lre freed from their cages but that I alone should be locked up for my sins, suggests that it wont be long before you're locked up an!*?y. Even then I'm sure you'll keep plodding along, putting out Your bffing little pamphlets to educate the m*ses" when the only people rltrr'll ner se= them are other middle clres rfi ren like vou. ' Trm \:glr tr.rl

things that I cant enforce. There would'nt be any point in taking court 14t4t88 action against you - it would be against my principles anyway. The thought of Dear Tom, Thank you so much for sending me physical violence is stupid - you must think that you are very important. As my horoscope. After you recieved my letter you must have got some idea of what it feels like when someone calls you a nazi. If you read my letter again, I think you will find that I did'nt call you any of those names. I described certain kinds of people and their responses. I suspect that many people of this kind make up 'Vague's' readership; certainly a number of them are to be found amongst those who write for 'Vague'. When confronted with these 'insults'you did, of course, have the choice of agreeingwithme and joining in with a condemsation of their attitudes and activities. (Yeah, and I think my dad's got communist sympathies, officer. Ed.) 1 offered these obsenations very nutclt on a'if tlrc caplits, weor it' bqsis - I cant be held responsible if yott fotutd tlnt sonrc of the caps fitted with a disagreeable degree of stnugness. There was no duplicity'in my response to you. In the light of your stupid and malicious remark about the ALF I read 'Vague' with new eyes. Only then did the feelings I expressed in my letter become apparent to me. I always assume that people are honest and fair until they show themselves to be otherwise. It is interesting to see that all your critics can be fitted into one category (putting people into categories is always much easier than dealingwith what theysay).I'll pass on a tip that Nick Brandt gave me years ago - "Your flatterers are your worst enemiest'. As you said, I am used to getting let- ters like yours, although most people who write such letters keep their reac- tionary ageism to themselves. You said that my criticisms were wide of the mark. Well, they would have been if I was aiming at a mark, but I was'nt. I was just shovelling the shit out to see if it stuck. If you are interested, your comments (which WERE aimed) were also wide of the mark. But when your only source of information is a badly parked christian with a grudge, then that is probably inevitable. t think you'll find that I said I do not want you to use ST material in'Vague' any nrore - and to remove my name you had already decided that ST is passe and you wont use it again, my re- quest that you should not use it puts you in a difficult position.What should you do? Not use ST material and look like you are doingwhat I want - or ttse it when you dont want to just to prove that I cant order you aroundE Unfortunately, you got so carried away with your retaliation and self-justification that you totally forgot to address the point of my letter, All the pointsyou mention about theALF are valid points for discussion. As I said, none of us 6re above criticism. That is the way we progress and correct theory. Slagging off has its therapeutic I Shortlyafterthiscorrespondence Lany Law died. So lt goes. Nevertheless it took place and I'm not going to brush it under the carpet and say what a great chap he was, although we had our difrercnces. He insulted me, my magazine, my friends and the people who rcad my magazine. I think the naturc of the argumeRt narrants running the letters, as planned. This is'nt a joke. I llked'Spectacular Times'. Infact I think it was probably the best situatlonist iusplrrd publication. It was certalnly the most understandable. But I dont thinkthe feellng was mutual somehow, and larrawas way olf the mark on this one. Give me a slngle lssue and I'lI glve you a tissue - You can rvtpe my ass with it. value (mainly for the writer) but it tends to make people defensive rather than in a mood for honest searching for the best way forward. What made me so angry was calling, without any supporting argument or evidence, the ALF a'nazi front'. That was an irresponsible, cheap and malicious smear. Such things only aid the enemies of us all. You made some interesting points about the ALF in your letter, what a pity they were'nt in the article. I dont think the ALF actions are cop-out. It is not their fault that the rest of the Left are such dumb-fucks that they cant see a CId zE [], i ri*t bs, [ oB! ztb igP HEe EEE ?a- <ffi o$! * FP: who their enemies are. Personally, I have no problem in identifying my enemies, the problem is how to de- 6:B stroy them. <:E I'm sorry that I have'nt managed to convince you that you have made a big mistake in printing this maliiious statement. Anyone can make a mis- take. But you seem determined to justify this article, which you agree is offensive. (You said it had to be. I must say that I am not aware that you have exhausted all comradely and construc- tive means to have the issues discussed.) Do you know the author well? 'Has the thought of black propaganda crossed your mind? Ask yourself; if the ALF are portrayed as nazis, who benefits? I hope you got a share ofthe payola. Larry. JEP >6$ 2B s. ;lr*ffil 0o & c!*-: U' Oci ,E r[- n (! L de l$$i tlr i Hle }IE EIio [ i;tI A3E OH: f# Eli ' ?48 r;Et vc6 OG lfflififffi -f? 9l!5A rEo <IE >iE name or mine, but I always find a star- € lr02l iffIIfiffI -Od trNE from your list of 'famous people I know'. Of course I cant force you to comply. I dont want you to use ST's tling disparity between what I want and what I get, so I never demand EiiE z8 fiHgu

tr 'Not really a book, bttt rtot a nlagazilte either, tltis is 147 A4 pages of borrowed, ipped-off articles, graphic and assorted fragnents on everythitrg front Bilderbery'86 nteeting personnel to ort essay front 'Lobster 8', encontpassirtg Quigley, Simadonist slogarts, ight-wirtg US cortspirocy tlteoies, IFK ossassilw- tiort, Charles Mqnsort artd P2. Tlrc wlnle tlirtg has beert sltutg togetlrcr b1, 'Tont Vague'wlto lns apporcttl.v spett the last 15 years rttoruttirtg tlrc loss of OZ attd IT: evet.\' poge is ot'upirfied in vaious colours, wlticlt looks rice, but rrnkes it lrut d to rcqd. Fttll of irrtercstirtg bits artd pieces, rtone of tltent et ahnted, this is a kirtd ofpsychedelic cortspiract, tlteoryt 5s11p.' - VAGUE #181L9 REVIEW BY ROBIN RAMSAY, 'LOBSTER #15'. E Dear Robin, for somebody who holds objective investigative-journalism in such exalted esteem, I was a bit dissappointed with your review of 'Vague 1,8119'. Surely such wishy-washy cliches and crass generalisations as 'Psychedelic Conspiracy Theory Soup'/'Last 15 years mourning the loss of OZ'l'Situationist Slogans' are the sort of thing you so readily condemn elsewhere, most notably - for me at any rate - in 'Vague 18119', Having said that, I dont really object to your general description of 'Vague'. I dont see that there's anything wrong with borrowing/ripping-off ar- ticles/graphics - Although more of it is original than you imply, I did get permission to use your 'r/w con. theory' piece and the bitswhich previously appeared in 'spectacular Times', 'Black Chip' and'International Times' - all of which I think were worth repeating. And I cant really complain about, 'the whole thing has been slung together,'because that it is indeed the wayit appears. I dont set out to appear quite as well organised as you, but the 'Slung together' effect had a lot more to do with shoddy printing than any deliberately weird psychedelic effect. Which brings me to the part of your reriew which I most strongly object to - Your implication that I'm some sort of rvell meaning but confused acid-casualty. longing for the days of 'Oz'. For the record T can assureyou I'm not and I hope the new issue (find enclosed) goes some n'ay towards making that clear. I thinl that's an extremely crass generalisation. the sort ofthing I'd expect frL)m a music paper. I had'nt seen a cop\.of 'Oz' or'lt' until a couple o[ h6mcr"trrk. ,..rg'61 li6;",,, '\ .;-= .. :: anv more like them rha,n ..1'. L.t*..r-r Finallv vour main criticisrn that n.'n; of the stuff in #18, 19 is eraluartd - T,, be honest, as far as the Bildcrbersurs. Freemasons, P2, JFK. etc. goes. I have'nt got a definitive evaluation to . make. Have you? They dont effect mv day to day life that much. I'm not put- ting down your heavy-duty investigative stuff but, at the end of the day, what difference would it have made if Harold Wilson had been assassinated? Personally, I think my point of viedstand-point/whatever is a lot clearer than yours - But you do things your way and I mine. Anyway, see how you get on evaluating'Vague #20' and in future stow the cheap shots. Yours sincerely, Tom Vague. EI Dear Tom Vague (and all who sail in him), you certainly are picky. After acknowledging that my description of what 'Vague' looked like, and a brief sketch of its contents, were about right, you get all fidgety about my references to 'Oz'. How the fuck am I supposed to know that you are'nt what it looks like? What it looks like is all I know - and pardon me for not'doing my homework' - what would that consist of? Ringing someone up - got a number? - and asking'Excuse me, are you what you appear to be?' You're kidding! Reviews, especially short ones are, of necessity, reviews of what it looks like it. If you did'nt know of 'Oz', then your overprinting wheez just shows that a stupid idea comes round more than once. ('stupid'because it obscures - to no particular end - the words, man, the words.) Anyway: I'm trying to explain the world (and, ultimotely, change it). Maybe you're into being entertaining. Different strokes. The new'Vague' I aint read yet: I'm too busy at the moment, but will give it serious attention and a review in'[,obster 16', sometime in the spring. I enclose your letter in case you did'nt keep a copy (I never do), and in case you want to see/remind yourself/selves of what you wrote. (Christ. I thought I'd given it a good reriew! Must be... one toke over the line a-nd I do miss 'OZ','lT', 'Streetlife'. 'Frendz" and all the rest; just could'nt sta-nd t!; overprinting). Robin Ramsay. E Dear Robin, just fuck ,:'fl F : r two-bit John Pilger. T\'. years ago and. if vou'd dixe your - 1tt1'

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I I H,qRRY OSTROKI entered the bedroom and took off his Dr' Martin shoes, white socb, Levi's, and black and white chequed Ben Sherman shirt. He was wearing a very revealing pair of black briefs. The way he filled them out left nothing to the imagination. He stood infront of his firll length mirror and moved his hands lightly over the upper part of his torso. Stopping now and again to pinch his nipples. Once he'd worked hirnself up into a frenzy, he reached down and rubbed his manhood, which had bulged out of his pants. Ostroki moved over to his bed and switched on the table lamp housed at its side. He tumed off the overhead light and slipped out of his briefs. Then as he stretched out on his King:Size bed. Harry continued rubbing and pinching his nipples with one hand, while he fondled his hairy balls with the other. His length was thick; and at seven inches not a bad size for a piece of meatwhich had been cut in boyhood. Harry spat into his hand and rubbed the saliva all over his cock so that the meat glistened. He rolled over and took a condom hom his bedside table. Undid the foll package, and removing the rolled up rubber, held it against the tip oI his erection. He stretchted it over the head of his lovemuscle. Smoothed the Durex down his length, making sure there was no air in it. Gave the condom a tug and anchored it into his pubic hair. Satisfied he'd perlormed the opera tion successfully, Harry held his meat up with a finger and thumb and admired the way he'd stretched the Durex over it. It litted him perfectly, not a wrinkle in it. His cock was throbbing and finally he spat into his hand'and rubbed saliva over the outside surface of the smooth rubber. OstroH had a mental picture of Lorez Roberts affixed to the movie screen in his skull. He moaned crazily as his hand moved in firm strokes along the length of his penis. Ostroki \raa no Ionger in Stoke Newtngton. Million year old genetic resPonses had taken control oI his body. A salty sea breeze blew across the mudllats' The scenes being proJected onto the movie screen inside Harry's skull were jerlgr. Then everything went black. Ostrokt made a few rapid pulls at the shaft of hi6 love muscle, then held his hand still at its base as liquid genetics came gushing out in a DN.A replay of the first star exploding. With his left hand still holding the erect length, Ostroki used the fingers oI his right hand to rrb the come around the head ol his cock He was back on the mudflats; the first amphibian to crawl outof thesea and enjoythewarmth of thesun playingacross his skin. When he started to go soft, Harry got up off the bed and walked to the toilet where he llushed the condom down into the London sewage system. Harry went back to the bedroom and lay ontop of the sheets. It was furmy how people still used bedding in the summer despite the Iact that itwas now totally unnecessary. Outside the rain was coming down in in a solid blanket; but this did little to ease the oppressively humid atmosphere. It had been raining for three weeks, the bolfins werepredictingthat the stormwould easeup and stop in adayor two. Ostroki wondeted how long it would be before the authorities evacuated london. Large parts of Norfolk were already underwater and Holland had disappeared over a year ago. Ostroki had lived in London all his life, but he would not miss it when he had to move. London, or at least parts of it, had once been a great place. Belore the war Bloqmsbury had been where the declasse elements had hung out. Then in the fifties it had been Soho. Notting Hill had taken over as Bohemian centre during the sixties. Camden took on the mantle as I-.ondon's leading cultural centre during the seventies. Islington had fulfilled this function during the early eighties, before being superceded by Stoke Newington which had hung onto the title through the days oI repression and ecological panic. Ostroki had been brought up in Knightsbridge, and his parents had bought him his first llat in Kensington. When he'd been converted to radical politics he'd used thelr money to move to Stoke Newington as an act oI rebellion. And here he was, still in Stokey, but he hrew it wouldn't be for much longer... Harry's thoughts retumed to Lorez. He'd never understood why she lived with that shithead Drummond. Everyone hrew her bofriend was queer. He'd only got a scene together with Lorez as a cover for his 'urmatural' acts. He'd never been seen with a woman before the govemment made homosexuality illegal. Drummond was washed-up. A has been. That was why the euro{ovemment hadn't rounded him up lor his political actMties. When the State had linally managed to bring the working clais into line, and quell the riothg which had tfueatened to turn the class war in Britain's irurer cities into a full blown revolution, the media suddenly announced that it was American backed:agents who'd been behind the trouble. For years the media had wrongly scapegoated Drummond and his Class Justlce group, who it transpired had never actually numbered more than twenty members at their peak; despite the fact that back in the late eighties and earlynineties the media had regualarly reported the Class Justice membership at anythmg between two and twenty thousand, Ostroki had never taken Class Justice seriously. For more tharr 1106I two decades he'd adhered to a spectosituationist critique. Ostroki believed that the modem capitalist system was a media spectacle and that Guy Debord's "Society OI The Spectacle" contained the complete instnrctions lor its revolutionary transformation. Ostroki's faith had never been shaken Not even after the specto,situationist movement had been taken apart and expoeed as hypocritical ln "The Assault On Culture". ln Ostroki's opinion the author had got his just deserts when the Govemment had locked him away in a mental institution. Only the spectasituationists had the necessary critique and inherited wealth that enabled them to go beyond the current repressive sltuation. Ostroki, Iike most of the small band oI spectosituationist militants, came hom a verywealthy background. Had he been a common prole his subversive actM$rwould have landed him in jail years ago. Fortunately lor Ostroki, his matemal uncle was a society photographer on good terms with both the royal family and most of the cabinet. The cops had firm instructions to keep their hands off him... I I sfevE DRUMMOND forced a credit card between the lock and door-Irame of a rotting Victorian terrace on Albion Road. He didn't need to put much concentration into being silent as he forced the door open. The heary rain more or less covered any noise that he made. Still, he was worried, bloody worried. The repression was getting heavierall the time. Adecadeago noonewould have believed that things were going to tum out the way they had. Pomo movies on daytime TV, homosexuality illegal, England sinking into the sea, and anyurge to rebellion crushed out of theworking class. In the past few weeks the cold war between the USA and the United European Communityhad reachednew peaks... Totopitall, a bleedin'Sorrelian was posing a threat to Steve's leadership. George Sanders had been a good Iieutenant - and a good fuck on occassion too, il the truth be told - but no red blooded Bakutinite could allow the invisible dict+ torship to be taken over by someone who believed that revolution was a myth. Someone who thought that the means - in this case an intense class struggle - justified the ends. Everything Drummond believed inwas at stake. He could not allow Sanders to seize the Class Justice leadership. Qf coures, a few of George's suggestions had been very clever indeed. .At this very moment the Class Justice comrades were in the process of eliminating the criminal elements who controlled the Stoke Newington dryg scene. Sanders had been correct when he'd said that taking control of local smack supplies was the only sure means o( intensifying the almost non-existent class struggle. De prived of a fix the working class would be forced to fight back... I I fnCNf ZEE lay naked on his bed. The matress sagged, badly, and the sheets needed changing. He was as oblvious to these facts as he was to the sound of the rain beating against his window-pane; to the sound of an intrudermaking hiswayup thestairs to Frank's room. Zee had taken a shot just half an hour previously. His head was filled with opium dreams... "Frank Zee, once the most promising writer of his generation... But writing wasn't enough, Frank had had to go FURTHER. If we look inside his headwe cansee theanswers to all thesupposedlyinsoluble questions oI IiIe. See the luminous, disembodied, letters floating across the movie screen on Frank's skull. Hear the soundtrack apparently meaningless words just stnrng together: 'God, ecstacy, the, but, and, silence, perhaps, subject...'You'll understanrd just how these words constitute the answers you seek if you follow Uncle Frank's advice and shoot up a little of his Chinese Wisdom..." Frank's head was lilled with these and other thoughts. His body was filled with a Ieeling of well being. Zee really believed that drugs aided the creative process. Tomorrow he would start work on that book he'd beeq threatening to write all his life. But first he had to get himself into the right frame of mind. Today he just wanted to shoot up and enjoyhimself. Tomorrow hewould compose the opening lines oI his magnus opus... Frank had been a masochist all his life. Despite his addiction he still got off on bondage. These days he rarely fucked his girlfriend Barbara. Still, he'd enioyed itwhenshe'd trussed himup immediatety after he'd shot up. Barbara had tied his hands together above lris head and then bound them to the headboard of their shared badfirank's feetwere tieil@ether and hewas aaked except for the p* of soiled hrickersrrith which his gklfricnillhad gagged his moutt Barbara had left Frank gagging on her dirtylaurdry and rushed out to meet some dricnds... FranHs.eyes had been closed for a long time. He opened thql as he felt a lorife cut the binding that held his legs together. Whrgab Iinally gotlhis visionto focus, Frank realised thateomdhing Lad gcrne terribly wrong in hhlife. Tbgrerson whoflfiffi ..sl&ing,€rn his legs was a stranger. But M krsseho he was.'Ha(l seen his.picture in many

r :aper. Until a year and a hall ago-when the cold war had broken out r-,::r the Americans -Steve Drummond had been Europe's best Imow rr-archist/self-publicist. For a moment Frank wondered iI this was -!---i!.e game that Barbara had organised. When he took in the mali- :.:us grin on Drummond's face he lorew this wasn't the case. Frank u"xted to scream: "Earth, Swallow me upl", But unforturately- as we :are already noted - his mouth was gagged. "Listen, smack de'ler," Drummond spat, "l'mgonna killyou. But :eiore you die Iwantyouto lorowwhyl'mcarryingout this execution, -:e logic of the organised proletarian movement is simple. You're --,aving along with the govemment's plans. They want street kids r;coting dope, to help calm rebellious impulses. You're supplying, :erefore we are Iorced to eliminate you as an unwitting element of : e counter-revolution. " "Ol course," Steve continued, "the occassional pusher gets :-u'rg. But that's all Ior public show. On the whole the unilormed a ckeys of the system teave you scum alone because you assist in the exooth running of the monetary cesspool of capitalism. I'm no :sychopathic killer. I don't like inflicting pain. This ls not personal. his is Class Justicel You must be eliminated so that the struggle can 1: onl" Steve waved his blade at Zee and took the terrified junk dealers :alls in his other hand. Frank had often had lantasies about being :astrated. He and Barbara had even played out a lew variations on ::is theme. Butwhat he got off on was the play element, the idea, and :ost of all the attention. Just because he'd often lantasised about :aving his balls cut off, about some leather clad mistress frying up his Jck and wrapping bread around it to make a hot dog, didn't mean '-:rat anyhomicidal maniac had the right tg tum his erotic daydreams ::to a reality. Steve didn't give a fuck about human rights, that was '.rst liberal wank. AII he cared about was justice, Class Justicel As he :rade a nick in the sack that contained Frank's balls, Steve hrew that :rtory and progress were on his side. The present eurcgovemment right be fascist, but - Steve reflected - you couldn't fight them with ieomocracy and la de da platitudes about individual rights. Fascism rnd democracy were the twin forms that the capitalist system :.ltemated between, depending on what best suited the historical noment. Therewas no point trying to fight fascismwith democracy. lhe only way to light fascism was to replace it with the Dictatorship :l the Proletariat. And iI that dictatorship was to have any meaning :or Steve, he and the Class Justice movement had to be the invisible >ilot at the centre oI its popular storm... Steve made another nick in the sack that contained Frank's :alls. He was enioying himself. He turderstood the historic impor:ance of his mission, but he was also cool, calculated and sadistic enough to take his time. Frank would have liked to have screamed. In a less painful situation he would have got off on the fact that his nouth was gagged wtth a pair oI Barbara's dirty knickers. But this scenario was different. It had gone way beyond play and entered the realms of something far more sinister... Steve hacked deeper into Frank's flesh, hacked until he cut out Zee's balls. Frankwas writhing inagony, the agonymadealltheworse by the fact that he was turable to give it guttural expression. He could :ro longer taste Barbara's body odoour on the pair oI dirty lorickers; but the gag still bit into his mouth and prevented him from giving oral expression to his innermost leelings of torment, Steve had got up from the bed - he hadn't wanted to get Zee's f,lood over his expensive clothes. A grim smile played across his features as he watched the wriggling death-throws of his trussed up victim. Full consciousness ol his castration flooded Frank's senses, but unlortunately not for as long as Steve would have liked. Corr sciousness ebbed from Zee's mind almost as quickly as the blood flowed from his body... Stevewas sure that his victimwould die from blood loss, shock or a combination of the two. But Steve was a professional and liked to make his kills a hundred per cent certainty. The show was over, the snivelling shitbag who had helped destroy the working class mov+ ment was unconscious, there was no more fun to be had from watching his agony. Steve slammed his blade into Zee's heart, once, hvice, three times. Using his blade as a pen, Drummond r+rote t}re r*'ords 'PIGS' and HELTERSKELTER' in blood on thewalls olZee's room. He wiped the hrife on the bedsheets, released the clip mechanism and pushed the blade back into the handle, before retuming the rr'eapon to a corF cealed pocket in his raincoat, I I SARSARA CULP cursed herself for catering to Fraaks u'l:rs" ii she hadn't stopped to tie him up she wouldn't have been ,a:e a:.i nissed her friends,.. When she saw a figure emerging from her and Frank's pac '::: .\lbion road, she ducked into the shadows. She breathed a s'gi. cl :elief when she saw it wasn't the cops. Barbara had never 'ree: ntroduced toSteve Drummond, but she recognised the Class -'usi.ce .eader instantly. Back in the late eighties and earlynineties he c :ee:: a constant feature of newspaper articles and television specials on the anarchist'menace'. Since the cold war had broken out with the USA, the media had rewritten history and claimed that the riots and social discontents of the recent past had been the work of American provocateurs. It was now widely achrowledged that Dnrmmond had been no more than an opportunigtwho'd become a media star on the basis of the outlandish claims he made lor his tiny organisation. It had been well over a year now slnce he'd faded into obscuridr. Seeing the Class Justice supremo leave her place made Barbara assume that the loss of his media rating must have caused Drummond to tum to smack... I I CgORCe SANDERS got a Hck out of making it with l,orez Roberts, especiallywhen he got to fuck L.R. in her boliiends bed. A,t one time George had counted himself a good lriend of Drummond's - indeed they had briefly been lovers. But rivalry lor the Class Justice leadership had poisoned both friendship and love. George had never Understood Steve's belief in all that Bakuninite crap. Sure power was attractive, but there were better ways of attaining lt than through a revolutionl II 'orthodox' anarchists and communists really belleved they could setup the perlect socie$rsoon afterthe,glorious, dayonwhicl the revolution triumphed, then they really were the wor$t kind ol oppressors - the type of wanker who actualty believed they were doing good when they fucked people over. Revolution, in Ceorge's opinion, was a myth. The means, the struggle, was everything. The end, the myth of a revolution which was never tcrbe, was simply an effective method of preventing stagnation and decadence in-the present. The struggle was glorious and would go on loreverl If revolution rvas ever achieved, and the perlect society set up, then that would be the end of humanity. There would be nothing to struggle lor, nothing to achieve. It was a horrific, almost unthinkable, scenario. Indeed with it's emphasis on product, rather than process, traditional revolutionary ideology reproduced rather than went beyond capitalist mental sets, Lorez was ontop ofGeorge. Her mouth Iocked on his. Her tongue exploring, George prelerrd hls sexual partners to take the top position. It gave him something to struggle against. And itwas easier to get comlortably positioned being undemeath, That way your weight rested on the bed rather than on a pile of bones. Sandeis could feel his cock hardening again. Lorez and he had already made it nine times that night, and he hrew that they were about to make it again. George wasn't sure whether he really fancied lorez. He often suspected that he just got ofl on the fact that he was fucking Drummond's sex partner. Of course, theoreticallyanarchists weren't supposed to go in for monogamous relationships.,, but then anarchisttheoryveryrarelyhad anything todowith the realworld or how anarchists functioned within it. George had never urderstood how Steve had got involved with [.orez. Steve had claimed it was tactical. He'd started seeing her pretty soon after the eurGgovemment had passed its anti-gay'crime against nature' laws. But George had seen right from the beginning that there was something more than an alibi against imprisonment in the relationship Steve established with Lorez. And because of this Sanders had found himself attracted to Lorez, inlact she was the first and only woman he'd ever had a long term relationship with... Lorez was wondering if she was turning into a fag hag. Belore homosexuality had been made illegal, she'd never been parlicularly attracted to gay men - or women. But slnce the laws had been passed banning all forms of homosexual expression, she'd found herself incre"slnglyattracted to people who'd once agaln come to be legally defined as 'se:mal deviants' and 'perverts'. lorez liked fltrting with danger, maybe that was the attraction. Certalnly il Steve ever lound out that she'd been making out with Sanders, he'd blow his top... Of course, Class Justice embraced a pol5rmorphous sexual perversity. But only in theory, Only in their propoganda. In practice theywere no more liberated than the most lrigid bourgeois. At lirst Lorez had found it a kick hanging outwith the dangerous militants in the Class Justice group. lately it had become a bore. And after the papers had printed the true Class Justice membership figures, r+ vealed that even at its peak the 'movement' had rarely exceeded twenty members, then the fact ol her association no longer stood as a s)rmbol of prestige among her more'radical' friends, f I HannV OSTROKI couldn't hold back his feelings any more. He iust had to see Lorez. That's why he'd gone out into the rain. \[hv he c got soa-ked, Now he'd nrng lorez and Steie's door bell and no oti€ iai als*'ered his urgent summons. The lights were all out. Harrr- cec-_r: :o break in. if he could iust find some dirty underr*'ear beirr;=-= :: -ore:, then it would make the trip worthwhile... Tte grourrd floor window was of an old fashionec s*: a=E:t_ i I tr-l

It was easy enough to force open. Harr5r climbed into the darhress and gradually his eyes got adiusted to the l,ack of light' Water dripped fromHarqy'araincoat and onto the filthy carpet' OstroH decided that he could accomplish his search for dirty linen without switching on the lights. Then he was stnrck by a horrific thoqht. Supposing Drurnmona got off on wearing women's underwear. It wasn't so lar fetchedl It was well krorvn that he was gayl Supposing Harry lound some eoiled krickers and rubbed his face, genitals, and other parts of his body with thern He'd get oll on it as long as he imagined the lingerie-belonged to [.orez. But il he found out later that Drummond had actually been wearing the underwear as a part of his perverse sexual practices, then Harry lcrew that he'd feel'dirly' Iorrreeks. OstroH noticed that he had a hard on, butwould not admit to himsell that he found the thought of homoerotic practices, even Yery tame ones, incredlbly exciting... Harry had moved into the halhray and could hear noises coming from upstairs... Noises that sounded like the pants and gasps of a couple er4aged in an energetic sonral rmion. Ostroki imagingd Lorez and Drummond maklng love. He didn't want to witness the scene but somethingdrew himupstairs and into the bedroom... Lorez was ontop of a man but to Harry's shock and horror it wasn't Drummondt It was George Sanders, another Class Justice diehardl Lorez and Sanders were oblivioue to Ostroki's presence. A long buried genetlc code had taken control of their bodies. George hrew that Loiez's sex iuice had dampened his crotch and thighs; but this hrowledge was instfurctive because he had lost all conscious control of his body and mind. lorez was lost in the totality belore tlmd Her nerves thrilled atthc,arayGeorgewrlthed beneath her, but her mind registered only cosmic unity.'. Ostroki's feelings wore a boiling turmoll. Until a few minutes ago he'd believed that he had only one rival for the love oll,orez, Now he krew that he had twol Ostroki had no control oI his bodyassomethinginhis subconscious told him how to stack the odds ln his own favour. His lmuckles went white as he gripped the glass ashtray that he'd found resting on the bedside table, Ostroki pushed l.lrlrez oll her mount, then with his hrees on Sanders chest, repeatedly smashed the ashtray into the anarchist's skrrll. Bythe ttme L.orez had recovered and pushed OstroH off George's limp body, the glass had shattered into hundreds ol pleces. Sanders was dead and OstroH's hand badly cut. "You fuckin' maniac, what the fuck do you think you're doing comlng in here and murdering peoplel" lprez screamed. "l love you." OstroH replied limply' "lt's not love, lt's obsese ionl" Lorez retorted. "l retumed all your stupid Iove letters. Couldn't you take a hfuxt?" "l could finish olf what you were doing with Sanders'" OstroH suggested. Lorez gave a snort and began pulling on her clothes. Ostroki sat on the end of the bed, Lorez stormed out of the house iust as Steve opened the front gate. "Hey, where you going?" Drummond shouted after her aS she ran down the road. He didn't get a reply and was too tired to go chasing after her. He'd just committed a murder, so it was unfair to expect him to go chasing after anyone; let alone the woman he loved who was obvlously upset about something, but Bahmin only hrew whatl "What the fuck are you doin' in my house?" Steve demanded as he blocked the hasty exlt Ostroki was trying to make' "l iust killed S.. S., Sanders," Ostroki stammered, "l caught him up in the bedroom fucking [.orezl" 'Cheers lor saving me the trouble of hlling him myselfl'Steve flashed a gpim smile. "Can I go.now?" OstroH asked nervously. "No, Peepfurg Tom, you're gonna have to stay until I've checked out your story. And if it's true you're gonna have to get rid of the body." Steve took OstroH by the arm and led him upstairs. When he saw all the blood he. got really hot. Steve had ahrays found sexral tealousy an erotic stlmulant. He'd long hrown'that Ostroki was obsessed with Lorez and that lorez hated Ostroki's guts. 'Come into the spare bedroom." Steve commanded. "That little scene has got me well steamed up." "W.. What are you proposing to do?" Harry stammered' "Fuck you, of course." Steve replied. Ostrokiwasgoingweakat the lmees at the thought olSteve's big hard cock being rammed up his arse. Hewould never admit it as long as he lived, but he krew that a sexual encounter wittr Steve was something to be savoured and enioyed. However, Ostroki still lelt a strong need to maintahr his heterosexual identity. He came up with the verbal Iormulation by whtch he could be coerced into the act whlch he so desperately desired, "l s.. s.. say," Ostroki starnmered, "you wouldn't report my little mwder to the police iI I refused to let you fuck me?" 'Of course not" Steve replied, "l'm an anarchist, the only authority I believe in is my own. I was bom to ruIe and I don't need recourse to unilormed otficers of the law. But to be pleasurable all sex has to be consentual. II you dori't wanna fuck I'll just have to wank tloEI mysell off." "For de Sade's sakg" Ostroki swore getting down onto his Imees, "don't be such a llberal Of course I want your big, hot cock splitting myarie aparl You must krow that, I iustwanted a little S/ M foreplay, that's alll" "Fuck thatl" Steve screamed. "Just get your trousers down." Ostroki complied and soon the two men were beating out the primitive rhythm of the swamps. They had left Stoke Newington far behind them. Ostroki w.as rwimming in the warm swill of a tropical sea. Steve had retreated to a point beyond time. Orgasm hit them like a DNA encoded replay of the lirst star explodlng. They had reached that peak from which man and man can never jofurtly retum.,. From primitive unity they were shot back to the horrifying reality of the capitalist present. I I OSfnOru was in the tollet. Sacher Masoch his arse felt soret He Ielt like he'd had constipation for a month. Still, when he actually got a lump ol excrement to shoot out ol his arsehole and into the toilet bciwl, it'*as near ecstacyl And the soreness, as well as being painful was also very pleasant. Harry now realised how deeply he'd corr Iormed to socleg/s demand that he rePr€ss any erotic krowledge of his anus. Its pleasure potentialities had for too lo4g been ignoredl His recent arse fucking had indeed been the firststage in avoyageolirurer discovery... Steve was wondering how much bleedin' longer Ostroki was gorng to keep himoelf locked up in the toilet. Drummond was pretty sick of waiting for Ostrold to get his shit together and do something about disposingofsanders'body. Still, Stevewas enioyingthe old hip hop and house records he was playing. The Denise Motto was particularly good. Class Justice had always understood the music of the people. In the Iate eighties they'd sponsored a 'Rap Against The Rich Tour' as part of their campaign to bring about the earliest possible demise for bloated yu.ppie scum, Back then, no hope Trotekyite organisations had still been trying to promote their cause with the aid of old tlme pr.rnk musicians. Although Steve had dug Punk at the time, in his mind itwas dead issue bythe end of'77. The Trots had proved iusthow out of touch they were when thelr front organisations relied on the services of old time white rockere. Maybe if the left had lollowed the Cliss Justice example and used black music as a Promotional tool, then the present authoritarian government would never have succeeded in outlawing all forms of communist activism' Back in the eighties, those who had preferied white boy music to hip hop had failed miserably in the youth recnritment stakes. And thus they had only their reactionar5r musical tastes to blame for the fact that Europe had long been'in the iron grtp of the rightl Steve's thoughts were interupted by the sound of his front door being kicked in. He rushed lnto the hallway brandishlng his blade; ready and prepared to defend himself in the great anarchist traditlon of people's iustice. Steve did not recognise Barbara Culp. Did not hrow that she was the girllriend of a man he'd recently niurdered. But he recognised death when he saw it. Knew that the hatred ol this wornan and the proletarian band behind her was greater than any anger he possessed or had ever even ,elt. "Bastardl" Barbara scrbamed as she blasted Steve's head off with a double barrelled shot gun. "The proletariat takes its revenge. We lonow who you are. Have guessed your aims. But our claes doesn't want or need anarchist leaders. Wankerswho thinkwe should lollow their commands and who are morally outraged when they discover that we prefer to shoot up. We need no Cod or master. We much prefer our opium dreams to your paltry ambitions. You have never understood us. Never couldl We have our orvn mental sets which don't involve your pecking orders or notions of autonomy. Wc believe in the collective subiect, not the indMdual and all the associated liberal abstractions of freedom and democracy. We spit on you and your liberalistic creed of anarchy." Up in the toilet Ostroki was literally shitting himself. His excre mentwadwateryand offered no pleasurable resistance to his bruised sphincter muscles. He had heard the voice of the people and quicHy leamed that all his revolutionary pretentions were so much hot abThe class who he had so long tried to politicise had spoken. All hc could leel was despair. He would never lead them. The working cla were ungovemable, whether the method of govemment be democracy or the invisible dictatorship ofwhich the anarchists, trotskyiter and spectesituationsists had so long dreamed. Ostroki felt the fir* stirrin$s ol remorse for not having taken his fathers advice and ioincl the Tory Party.,. r $

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I I ARTCOLLEGE FANZINES: (Note: Tom Vague never went to art college.) UNITE (1976-78on and off) Edited by the legendary Richard and #73 - Southern Death Cult. American Indian Movement. Sex Gang Children,'Hippies: disturbing new cult', WOMAD, Banshees: 'so long and thanks for the fishnets', 'Platinum Logic', Burroughs:'HnaI Edited by the equally legendary Tim Academy'. (Plus super'Vague-kurst' PROTO.VAGUE SAI,ISBURY Nancy. CHANNET 4 0978-79) Aylet, who went onto manage the Glaxo Babies. #L- Banshees, Ants in Salisbury, Pop Group, Wire, Glaxo Babies. #2- Clash 'Sort it Out': incendiary Strummer interview, X-RaySpex, Adverts, Undertones, Smegma. pull-out poster.) a #L4 - SouthernDeath Cult: last interview, Death threats, Pete Scott on the 'End of Work', 'sterilization of american indian women', 'Those not so lovable spikey tops': a critique of anarcho-punk, Iggy Pop: 'A Lesson in Nightmare'. :.. * pg6gtif'fil :: lit .,1i, i. pJ '' -*-<4 I VAGUE BACK ISSUES 1979.1984: i),*,w,,fin *n-'t;J I ,ti,,rl(itntrrii i,r6. rrfr*t , 14lilc '' illB a ) #L - Banshees, Ants, Swell Maps, Red Crayola, 1st Mere Punk Festival. #2 - Gang of 4, Red Crayola, Joy Division, Buzzcocks, Futurama 1. #3 - Ramones, Boys, Clash: 'Rude Boy' interview, Raincoats, Tours. I I #4 - Revelation Rockers, Mikey Dread, Animals * Men, Moskow. #5 - Ants, Human League, Cure, I Passions, Undertones, Specials, Scars, *o ****u I #15-'The End of Music: Vaguerant', Stop the City, Church of the SubGenius, Bee on Charles Manson, Get- ting the Fear: 'Dune Buggy Attack Battalion', 'Magick, Sex and Greenham Common', 'The Longest Walk' (ArM). I VAGTJE BACK ISSUES: ONLY #9IIIII4 & 15 STILL AVAILABLE: 70p EACH [INC. P+PL f 1.00 OVERSEAS. lan Curtis obituary, Another Pretty Face, "Shit fun at Stonehenge", AntiVivisection, Fanzines A to Z,'Great ffiffii aR'n'R#6- Swindle'. ,rsSfr'thdlt* PopGroup, Slits, Crass, Devo, Gary Glitter, Jam, Martian Dance, Mo-dettes, Fanzines Ato Z, Michael Moorcock's Pistols book. a #7 - ANTZINE: 'Ants lnvasion' tour programme: old Ants stuff. I #8 - Ants'Frontier'tour diary, Bauhaus, Echo and the Bunnymen, Specials, Skids, Rezillos, Mo-dettes, Program, Bowie, Futurama 2. I #9-Bow-wow-wow, Monochrome Set, Gods Toys, Classix Nouveaux, Wasted Youth, Damned, 'Last of the Mohikans','The End of Bournemouth': Village retrospective. a #10 - Banshees, PIL, TV Smith, Richard Strange, Jordan,'2002 Revue', Thompson Twins, YlZ,'Ptopaganda', Royal Wedding/Riots pinup. f #11 - Crass, Nukes, '81 Riots, Royal Wedding Porn, Cassctte Piracy, PR retro, Futuramas, lg6ry'Party' tour, Vu retro, Cramps centro-spread, 'Confessions of a Sheepshagger'. f #12 - Ants '75-'80, Theatre of Hate. Killing Joke, UK Decay, Danse Societv. Waller on 'Sounds', Pete Scott on William Burroughs, 'Our Brave Lads': Falklands tribute, '* Tho'se Lorable Spikey Tops', VIZ, 'Love and Romance'. (+ Regular features from now on.) -^u ot uutls "The Kids likc it." (Adam Ant, L980) MGUE #16117: THE 20th CENTURY AND HOW TO LEAYE IT [PSYCHIC TERRORISM AN. NUAL]: First Vague annual from 1984, revised and reprinted by popular demand (to cash ig on 68/88). Now typeset and dot-screened: 'If.... is the middleword in Life'byMick Mercer, 'The Boy Scout's Guide to the Situationist International': the effect the SI had on Paris '68 and all that, and through the Angry Brigade and King Mob to the Sex Pistols, 'Psychic TV: Selected De-program of New Television': extensive interview * 'Control Process': Manson/ Nixon/ Jim Joneg 'Decoder': 'Nothing Short of Total War'l'Muzak'/'Behavioural Cut-ups and Magick' by Genesis P.Orridgd Klaus Maeck intervied'Burgertrefui/ Frogs/ Crowley/ Dreamachinei BEroughs and Gysin, and 'Eurotourtt': Vague over europe travelque. I t4.00 uNC. P+Pl, f45D OlE*SEAS.

I VAGUE #l8ll9: CONTROL DATA MANUAL: PROGRAMMING PHENOMENA AND CONSPIRACY THEORY: 'Videodrome' by Mark Downham, Riot Control, 'Groucho Marxism,: Spectacular Times,'Worldwide Alie- nation Inc.' by Mark Stewart, Bilderbergs/ Trilateral Commission, p2: David Yallop interview, Freemasons, Jack the Ripper, Illuminati: Robert Anton Wilson interview by Richard North, Occult roots of Nazism, Righf fl wing conspiracy theories, Nixon, JFI! God Told Me To Do It, Neoism, UFOs, Scientology,'Psychedelic Fascism': Manson/ Processl Solar L,odge, 'The Great Church/ State Scam', Beast 666: 'You are number 666','The *lq.filg Prisoner' by Mick Mercer, TechnoFear: Hackingl Zap- ping/ Advertisingl Subliminals. [23rd ANNMR.- SARY OF JNX -ASSASSINATION COMMEMORATTVE ISSUEI I f 2.50 UNC. P+Pl, f3.00 ovERSEAS. - ta IINTNHNTI : PBocB.*e.!{frrrEsc& F}fttliK}tfEr$a. l>Al:E tl^l-,.1, IT I'r-caii.\&I:it4-'vllrlll<!:)F{)Mli"t"r1<1 Alitr} ((,{rlrepf,E_A{cy (;i 'r'ttJ.Nli .'t\'tt:: ,.& vlttlri a<r:.-lil<r:'f-:rtin_l:1 la:j1.-airat-':'1'^(-.rtrI..^* t:a!i:,s-'iai ,lrrj.Er:. \ va1 D\:a ; uI: (Iilj 6:,i. t,Yil-.in::L.r'tj,i-^!nN* trnP.ll <'aL ra' a.frM>1.v.^L-:Y-r(i)Al-.1!U1i)t: ii-.r.iiN4'iar:)N IN<:rMt),.Y':1 trnIIoN.rr-ri It?t ,ia'l<1irY . ,t:jr::tlr:tTAvI: .)Aa; NI:i1:1, Cv.att[-arrE <;i.<riti!.. liArilt>irLi(]'rfllai;llrat,Irr:lkril7t<Jr:1aS,r'ItI1r\ari,A,\1, <it)lt14r1i!iI+n, 't'^'t,t:talt:11(.rt,t::ra.t' .)r'ix -t'lrl: txr::r_.riA!i!:)iiai./._l ]rrr)rari:R ,ni..trt6: r-r't x-rarr*t) iir{I1-1r_r.:rHIN^,1-l sNf !I1..:ir)N-ii{:r-:rll.'r't()or':r..rE ti<rNs,:r'1liia:y'irrtl:CaIl::s-4(l:{1!:(rr.. x.\lir;u-f..!-(;}r'I*}t:!?tr:i arri-rr,:l'I! !I\.:lN-.IF',r-IEOlSir:i:?i4Lr..\',:1.\.:i 1.1!': tlN!) 4)!r !it,i,)<t:.,N*:rr?lt:;.l.(LN-iiirr:)...fiEN:t.rai-al-t*--?a1, !,'.-:t .;{irt-'r,,i::r-;lrNi). i:tlirri(:rr.,sLAf l:: r;,:lar{-r{lia.'1 I.rj:sA-'1trr:: rrRi,i<rNf.rR-Jr^'!^--r>arJr:-rlaarrrN/tr-zl,,r'r all{:;-4lrr::aTr::;1$a:-iillll!r-ri:iAAL::i-ir't::Rrt Al.:r(1 E-at'3tt.fi!a Al.:l(1 Ah11 trirt)4,:rlai-?:-lcz:tINi.}"irarN! l:-qr.rrt:ls alr{:;-/1r)rI::A?r::tttli:-jlllri!{.,i:,rliL::j-ir't::RIl !.AI'3:t.Ii:l Artl: lr*{)(:,:rlai.al-lCZi:lN}1":j.fNS l:,}:rtrl:1 't.t' r'::, a!..1:.., ::''o';iIi q(ivr:irI: Ti.r],r-,1Ijt:ri.A!:N<)r:li ciitaf rti'rlr'iril, ixl] :,:8 L.,,a.lrr 4L.r., ltl' $A tl l;r:v r::I.(>F -, . F:r i: r.::!r'1' ai)r:N r rr r ta(tr-.3.,, 'itN)ai G, lof ,-f-l(-A:SJAS9',IA?IO}. ,3r.1 <(},rnktCitrGlltATtt,E A}.rllYcfttl:Y ItlttIG-----------.,i:ri*r'.1 r,ri.{lrli-i; ,aEtrrr-(;,:f!t]trt)Nlf11rs.2:t4 rrlt(;l{ ril.l-a)Nr.:(ie Ntr-A()!t(:r}r Tlrnlrf: -nr4:r't..qrli..r:A:),1-':ilrDON 'rr+t-.tr\')'r' rltJ/i,r' UI1-!ra.)tra;Y2\uii,i:; r1^i..r,l)(!N:t:AN lrr-r.Y..{)Nr.}(?N Nt-t)t\ t:lf l_!t PCSil YrI*'T'lrYlrrrarirN-i"i) :rti:!l :r9(:.>ir<:1ljliY.r..z)Nrt(tr:; ra.!n n!'i,.8ilf! l,QNirA$ ,:lu,:)iJ-L,':lt' l'dNi:::.a)l1N L:a:i il it\rr-\rLiJ.lri B. .t :). 'Post-post modernist.' (THE OBSERVER) 'Immaculately glossy and bulging with tales of subiective valour... Tom Vague as personality takes the central role... will really make your day (con- siderably gloomier than it already was).'(MELODY MAKER) 'Increasingly obnoxious and reactionary...If Tom Vague could wake up to the 1980s he could become both publishing king and cool novelist.' (NME) f VAGUE #21: CYBER-PUNK HANDBOOK: 'Vague - The Music Terminator': Mark Downham meets William Gibson and Guy Debord in the Videodrome: 'Cyber-Punk: Hardwired in the Mctrophage', .Ion Savage and .lamie Reid on'England's Dreaming': the last word on Punk(?), 'London's Outrage' and 'City 6817718812000' by Jon Savage, 'The Assault on Culture' and 'Class War' by Stewart Home... I 'Armchair Revolutionaries... Angstridden lossers... a facsimile of OZ ma- f 4.00 uNC. P+Pl, "t4.50 ovERSEAS. gaz.ine... the kind of journalism that belongs in the Sun... Kings Roacl flakcs... Reactionarv... thc Rupcrt Murdoch of Radical Clhic Puhlishing.' I VAGUE #2OZ TELEVISION- ARIES: Is Stoke Newington really like a bad night in Saigon? Did the Baader- Meinhof Gang copy the Sex Pistols' Bill Grundy interview? And what have football fanzines,'Apocalypse Now' plagiarism and'Euroterrorism' got in common? To find out acquire this issue: Which also contains - 'The Abolition of Work' hy Bob Black, the latest from God Told Me To Do It ancr 'Smile'supplement by Karen Eliot. (LARRY LAW, SPEC]TACULAR TIMES) 'Sensationalist underground journalism.' (DAILY TELEGRAPH AVIATION CORRESPONDENT) 'C)h No, no, no, PROLL) (ASTRID 'l dont throw bombs, I watch films.' (TOM VAGUE) I f 3.00 [INC. P+ P], f 3.50 ovERSEAS. \AGLlE HCft,I [,]{^X ?;{}? L{}tl.l*{}F{ vrcrfri }}iH r MAKE CHEQUES AND POSTAL ORDERS PA}'ABLE TO VAGUE I

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EXFf ' LENTRE P0llPIDOU 1,fi t 42 77 iZ li t 1'/'Llij-12-ic, 1L'r 1;, ' u:3*; L ; r' 1 F*n 7o 3ffittEE1b : tq-4+t 737 lfvT I -b e .t \. ) (( {hR L.€- ?trskrrr }* QLtbuqw# ?ctt{'*'t''E E fl' Atrf'fr I l.,t-trrA-r(ro ./ar--*'rf/tt-,r-t\ A,- +-'1-V J - I \?rr:#+i* ffi$tffi; Ig' \cc zI :l .r' M $ s[, $Erl >( i ,.*4!i! y,yA*,, pd-ttr{?-Dr f -.,e-.ft r Do cl.r4{-/vTJ /Trct ns i+ f I rill;',1'l' oi;ii\i.';l 6;1.111:,.1:;i Pvw "-.-.:iS--,r'lijg-i....,. 7l'fu \ -€2 tlz v 1 r t5/.2 Pt3 L*'<-J( i'^,A&i-/. & /"#**J fi'"vr'7+ I I +j:'.i-rj.iiir . A., (r L'*'rnr r_'A-u-rr.Ldtycf?T' l-LdtYcr?T I /;4('Ntt-*ttYtf ' ,,., p\c-rt+S t'** 'itA* Vtt*-L'l ' 'r'tf-o-Fst7'/t J["5 "-r + /l \-,,(- 0,, /, ! \ 1'tl1,Mtrvf ' Lart tin, fl.r ' ' c,K AoclL ^*i'L,t ,sw.t,uou(; ,; ' t >5 :r :l t

ffigumGe ."i.,r,1 ( \r .\i i \\\ t, way lo ellecl change le lo etlmulsto lt by lho use ft new language. Thle le more ol a necoeolty now bo$use the languago ol progreoslve thoughl has elfoc\hrfy beon captured (raped) by lhe New RIghl, rhe con- ftollere ol communlcallon: Hadtcal, Llbortarian, Rovolu-. !on, Progreoslvo... Thelr pul-down ol the Iolt le to callq f 'old.laehloned', but how cen goclellsm bo old-!aeh. ,r .rfinoa when lt hae nevor exletod? il ifl forde llke 8ebol, Strlke, Unlon, Domonslrato, Protosi,, ie dlecredlted and vlrlually outlawod. Bul ln tho tong ' rney are luet lylng dormant. Now le tho tlnlo to \rm pedlct lhe way o[ - tho noxt mlllenlum now scopo, now new language. One sttompt at prodlctlon was ,6!.rlon, Sltuanonlst concopl ol lhe Slxtloe: thls loreghad$eIod lho soclety of lhe e peclacle whlch le monlfoetlng belf ln the Elghlles and NInetlee. bw lc the llme [or anolher loap lorward, a tlmo whlch ill have lo be more splrltual, compaee lonats arrd uni\f!al. Language har reachod a polnt whoro ll hae lost |arly all lla eymbollom and mdglc; thle hae gradually * fen orodod, nol lust ovsr lho last low docadoe but []t tn" last mlllonlum. Worde now moan nolhlng; thoy f, O Juet lools lo mysllry 8nd to gol your own way. )ucatlon has become doclrlne. We rally around :, /;tUateU concepls auch as monelarlsm and groocl, but / lV ,r. made lo appear new snd oppoeltlon lo thom as p. We awalt tho next Soulh Sea Bubblo or Wall Stroct lilapoe wllh almosl lnovltabte reslgnstlon. Tho nsw orld clty c6nlros rlse ln lhe shapoe of Babsl and rmmon, A new dopree slon awaltg ll ll le nol coun- c torod, Tho o6lablishmonl csnnot imogino oi cic;i,. :: Il wlll thoroloro 6tognato in ils ovrn dross. Tho r\:'.: ; rosourcea aro oxhauelod, tho plonot plui'lde:oo;.-": ravagod, \ c t Tho pooplo ln powor who controi our Cos:::.:3 ;-: bllnd, doaf and dumb. Thoy act oc nior.ia: :c:i:- ! i whoeo e ell-motivatlon und aciioils a;e i-c- c: : ' Ignorancc, bigotry and tunnoi vislo;. l.-.est 'trr-r-dr! havo no lovo for humuirlty or our p:.:.8: ]-z;,r r ::ow vlslon ond now dialoguo, a nov" s;.;.1-r".' \i rfi5;an on avarlco or outdalod post-ind;Jsl::^E :"5;:';l;''s;m ri;; Eli vorlty and universalism. A iove ci e::: ,Tii[ | i.{.l.r,i& 'l undorsland tho vrhoic, 04 \Yo havo soid our soiils xi"i ,!3r'E-