I will not serve the warmongers who seek my loyalty
‘Cos they don’t ring true any more
Chorus:
Sawdust and empire - the nectar of the few
So give the devil his due and break away
Sawdust and empire in the pub and in the pew
But I won’t drink with you on empire day..
Yes, the Falklands War certainly caused many an impassioned exchange of views, and as the title of this book suggests, I certainly don’t have a problem with arguments! Reasoned debate, and even loud, alcohol-fuelled and not particularly reasoned debate, is part of the stuff of life: I have quite a few friends who don’t share my political views. Fascism and racism, however, are different matters entirely. In 1982 fascists had been a real problem at gigs (and elsewhere of course) for quite a while, and the problem was getting worse. Along with many others I was determined to do everything I could to oppose them.
The National Front had suffered a heavy defeat on the streets in 1977 and at the ballot box in 1979, but they most certainly had not gone away: they had switched their attention to the football terraces (where they were very strong in some areas, especially in London) and, increasingly, to the music scene. Back in the late Seventies I had been present at several attempts by fascists to disrupt Rock Against Racism gigs and, by the beginning of the Eighties, the unashamedly Nazi and violent British Movement was taking over from the National Front as the organisation of choice for your average fascist bonehead. Songs like ‘Ghost Town’ by the Specials and ‘Staring at the Rude Boys’ by the Ruts summed up the situation very well: at many punk, ‘Oi’ and ska gigs you could be more or less certain there would be trouble from sieg-heiling boneheads. (Note the term ‘bonehead’, not ‘skinhead’: true skinheads knew/know their cultural origins in the Jamaican reggae, ska and rocksteady of the late sixties and are anti-racist.) For a time the fascists certainly held the upper hand, invading gigs and intimidating punters.
It has to be said that the situation wasn’t helped by the attitude of some on the Left. I am not someone who looks for trouble, but I am most certainly not a pacifist, and it seems patently obvious to me that if you are at a gig (especially a Rock Against Racism gig) that is attacked by fascists, you, or someone, has to defend it. Some people, however, came up with that old cliché, ‘it’s descending to their level’ or, even worse, ‘male violence is male violence, whoever is doing it…’ (I’d love to have heard them say that when the Nazis were rounding people up in World War Two!)
Furthermore, the Socialist Workers Party, the people behind Rock Against Racism and the Anti Nazi League and the original source of the ANL ‘squaddists’ who confronted the fascists head-on, had recently decided that ANL/RAR and anti-fascist activity wasn’t part of their agenda any more, and right wing violence at gigs was no longer a priority for them.
On 8 May 1982 I learnt that the hard way.
In mid 1982 fascist activity in the music scene was at its peak, encouraged by the xenophobic, violent atmosphere engendered by the Falklands War. Certain London punk pubs and clubs were known Nazi bonehead hangouts, and the most notorious was Skunx, a punk/skinhead club which had opened in early 1982, based at the Bluecoat Boy pub near Angel tube in Islington, North London. The people who ran the pub said they weren’t fascists, and claimed to be upset at the balance of forces which allowed groups of Nazis to intimidate bands and punters: after visiting the place one day I challenged them to let me do an anti-fascist gig there and, somewhat to my surprise, they agreed. Soon I had the slogan: ‘NO PUB IS A NAZI PUB!’ and then the line-up: Newtown Neurotics, Sub-Active, a young punk band from Henley, and myself as headliner. We put the word out to everyone we knew on the left, especially to the SWP and what was left of ANL/RAR, and did the same in the punk scene, appealing for a big turnout to show the fascists exactly what we thought of them.
By now the Neurotics (as we always called them, and they later became) were going from strength to strength: they had recorded two great singles, ‘Hypocrite’ and ‘When The Oil Runs Out’ on Steve Drewett’s own No Wonder label, and Leeds based CNT Records were just about to release their third, a double A side of the massive and self-explanatory ‘Kick Out The Tories!’ and the classic ‘Mindless Violence’ – another song with its roots in the trouble which constantly reared its head at gigs and elsewhere. I had started to write for Sounds (under the rather silly pseudonym of John Opposition) and, in an act of spectacular and shameless nepotism, my very first review was of a Neurotics gig in Brixton: word about the band was certainly beginning to get around.
I had just had a rave review in Melody Maker as well as the Sounds feature and the NME coverage, and John Peel was busily playing the EP I’d done with Swells: despite the fact that I had only been gigging for a year and a half, Attila the Stockbroker was a name quite a few people had heard of, and I did my best to make sure that those who had heard of me knew exactly where I stood politically. I hoped, and believed, that a gig that openly made a stand against fascist intimidation and violence in the punk/skinhead scene, held at a club with a reputation for it, would get a lot of support.
On the morning of the gig I had a call from Garry Bushell, who told me that he had firm information that a group of hardcore fascists, including some of the London organisers associated with various football ‘firms’, were going to attack the gig. He himself had been on the receiving end of nazi thuggery (contrary to some rumours, the fascists hated Bushell: although we have our aforementioned differences, it’s important to point out that he has always loathed racism and has been targeted himself) and I took what he said very seriously. There was no way we were backing down, though – opposing fascist violence was the whole point of the event, and from recent numbers at gigs I fully expected that we would have enough people on our side to deal with any trouble. The venue had promised to provide extra security as well.
We turned up, did our sound checks, and soon Chris Moore arrived, along with his and my mutual friend Dagenham Pete, a big, affable but very hard redskin (left wing skinhead, for the uninitiated: nothing to do with Sitting Bull or the gridiron football team from Washington DC). At that time, Chris was writing for the NME as X Moore: as Chris Dean, he’d just started his seminal, inspiration punk/soul crossover band The Redskins (see above) who were to release their first single ‘Lev Bronstein’ a couple of months later, followed by the awesome ‘Lean On Me’ which certainly fulfilled their manifesto ‘to sing like The Supremes and walk like the Clash’ and paved the way for them to become one of the greatest (and most politically aware) bands of the mid Eighties. Anyway, Chris confirmed everything Garry Bushell had said: on his way to Skunx he’d been in the same carriage as a large group of fascists who were discussing exactly how they were going to carry out the attack. I warned the (two!) bouncers and we waited for the anti-fascist hordes to arrive to help us defend the gig.
And waited. And waited…
A few friends and supporters arrived: Joy and Mary, by now becoming very much a part of my life, a few of Sub-Active’s mates, two or three people I recognised from political rallies and a gaggle of twenty or so Attila/Neurotics fans, most bringing apologies from various friends and fellow fans who (let’s not beat about the bush here) were too scared to show up. But we were well outnumbered by the fascists: forty or so of them, nearly all boneheads in the obligatory green bomber jackets apart from the organisers, who were casuals. I recognised quite a few ‘faces’. Rather than just charge in and start smashing things up, which is what I half expected, I had been surprised and rather amused to see them enter in dribs and drabs, presumably to avoid detection by the bouncers, and pay their entrance money quite meekly (subsidising us ‘commies’, since our fee was a percentage of the door take). Then, even after they had seen us, the ‘junior section’ just moved to one side in front of the stage and stood there, obviously awaiting instructions from their leaders. They didn’t even buy themselves a beer: they just stood there in silence. To be honest, we didn’t know what to do:
they hadn’t attacked anybody yet, so we decided to start the gig in the hope that the anti-fascist cavalry was just about to arrive. It wasn’t.
The atmosphere was utterly surreal. Sub-Active played to about forty silent, sullen and menacing fascists standing, fittingly, on the right of the stage, while thirty or so of us (only about half of whom would be any use at all in the forthcoming battle, by my reckoning) did our best to cheer them on from the left. The Neurotics did the same. It was now obvious that the fascists were waiting for me to do my set: why the hell they didn’t just attack me there and then and get it over with I had no idea, since I was standing a few feet away from them, but that wasn’t their plan. I think they were expecting me to refuse to go on, but there was no way I was doing that, since that would have given them exactly the result they were looking for. I was going to get a kicking for sure, but it would be in a cause for which millions had given their lives, and that put it firmly in perspective. I’d survive. I wasn’t going to go quietly either, and I knew that at the very least Dagenham Pete would be on my side, which evened up the odds a bit for starters!
Pete, now known as Pixie: I’ve seen you a few times over the years, and I salute you. You saved my arse that day…
The Neurotics’ set came to an end. I got on stage and plugged my little electric mandolin into the phaser unit. The fascists spread across the floor in front of the stage, elbowing our supporters out of the way. Some were reassuringly young and scrawny and obviously stupid even by fascist standards, because when I started my set a few actually applauded the first number until their ‘fuhrers’ gestured at them to stop: the main bunch, though, were big and knew exactly what they were doing, and the attack was only a matter of time. I did a couple more songs to virtual silence - our fans were only too well aware of what was going to happen, and so was I. Time to get it over with.
I put down the mandolin. ‘So what do you want me to do now? Keep going? Any requests?’ I said. This did the trick. ‘You fucking Commie’ one of the older casual types shouted. ‘Shut up!’ I said, abandoning caution to the winds. ‘Listen to this…’
I started doing my anti-fascist poem ‘Andy Is A Corporatist’. The heckler (I was told later he was the stepson of Colin Jordan, the notorious British Nazi, no idea if that was true) jumped on stage, grabbed my mandolin and smashed it over my head. Unbelievably, I hadn’t thought about the possibility of my instrument being used as a weapon, and I knew instantly that its neck was broken: mad with rage I took a swing at the bloke and then a group of twenty or so fascists charged the stage and started battering me. Suddenly there was the big figure of Dagenham Pete beside me, fists and boots flying, pushing them back: then the two bouncers waded in with baseball bats, and, encouraged, many of the band followers joined the fray.
Some of our people sustained minor injuries, I got a fair few whacks in the initial attack and my chin was split open, but even though the odds were against us the fascists were pushed out of the venue and the doors locked. Pete took me down to the dressing room where I surveyed my poor little mandolin, its neck broken, and then Joy and Mary took me to hospital to get my chin stitched up.
The NME ran a big story the following week, written by X Moore from his vantage point under a table (so I was informed!) ‘Attila gig wrecked by right wing prats’. The post mortems started, with a phone call to my ‘comrades’ in the SWP. ‘We’re not your personal protection squad’ was their retort. That’s not what the gig had been about, I said: it was a question of opposing fascist intimidation and defending our culture from the Far Right. My views fell on deaf ears. The SWP had decided that anti-fascist and cultural activism was no longer a priority and they wanted to sell newspapers outside factories. To people like me they were becoming completely irrelevant, and apart from a short and misguided stint in the Labour Party in the mid 1990s, that would be the end of my involvement in any kind of organised party politics.
A shame. I’d love to join a decent modern left wing party with mass appeal, but there simply isn’t one in the UK right now.
Along with many other bands and performers up and down the country, the Newtown Neurotics and I – now often a double bill, since they were getting plenty of attention in their own right – had loads more trouble with fascists in 1982/1983. There would often be a small bunch intent on causing trouble who needed to be fronted up/thrown out: after Skunx we were much more careful about ensuring a reasonable balance of forces. Sometimes, however, things would get rather Wild West. For instance, I remember a gig at the Compass Club in Bletchley (Swells and the excellent Anti Social Workers punk-reggae talkover trio were on too) in early October 1982 which turned into a mini-riot.
Bletchley. How ironic. My Mum had spent the war at Bletchley Park playing a tiny part in the successful war against Nazi scum, and there they were, seig-heiling at a gig, 37 years after having their arses kicked in World War Two. There were threatening phone calls, too, and I remember Steve being sent one of his singles back, through the post, broken and covered in scrawled evil. ‘I hope your mum dies of cancer of the breast’. Given what had just happened to my mum, I wish I had been able to find that particular piece of Nazi filth myself.
At the time we felt very much on our own. I knew that there was indeed an organised and very militant anti fascist scene developing, especially in Hatfield, around a group of militant ‘squaddists’ angered by the party’s new line on combating fascism, who had been thrown out of the SWP after a disagreement at the party’s Skegness rally in 1981. I was there, and saw it first hand. In fact, I’d already met the ‘Hatfield Reds’, as they were called, at a Mayday rally in Harlow earlier in 1981: but it wasn’t until 1983 that they really got stuck in gig-wise with us. They certainly made up for lost time, though, as you’ll hear…
Skunx didn’t last long, fortunately. After a year, at most, the police closed it down, and although in most cases the closure of a venue is bad news, I didn’t shed any tears over the loss of that one. And, surprisingly enough, the battle of Skunx had one very positive effect on the next 30 plus years of my musical life - it eventually led me to Nelson, my mandola. An awful pun, to be sure, but one done in a heartfelt tribute to the late, great man.
Ever since I had started gigging as Attila, I had had an ambivalent feeling about my chosen choice of instrument. A little electric mandolin put through a phaser unit was certainly original, portable and had a certain shrill charm but I often wished I had something with more presence at the bottom end, as it were. I had never learned the guitar, and didn’t want to, so I carried on with the mandolin: after its brave end at Skunx I had to find a new instrument. I did get another mandolin, a semi acoustic one this time, and carried on like that for a while (I’m pictured with it on the cover of my debut album) but became increasingly fed up at its trebly limitations. Someone in Harlow told me that there was such a thing as a mandola – like a mandolin, but an octave lower. After some hunting, I found Lincolnshire luthier John Le Voi’s instruments on sale at John Alvey Turner’s music shop in London. And there was Nelson, a beautiful acoustic mandola, waiting for me.
I added a pickup. Nelson and I have done about 3000 gigs and countless recordings together, and hopefully there are many more to come. Material things don’t bother me much as a rule, just means to an end, but I love that mandola. And John Le Voi made me a custom made, unique, solid electric version, which I now use with my band Barnstormer: that one has a name as well. I’m sure you can guess. Winnie.
Sadly, Skunx was not the only venue in London where the fascists were welcomed, or at least tolerated, around that time: unbelievably, another place was the famous 100 Club in Oxford Street. And before I leave the topic of trouble at gigs with Nazis, albeit only for a while, I must mention one of the most memorable arguments of my life: the one I had at the 100 Club with their musical and spiritual leader, Ian Stuart of notorious Nazi band Skrewdriver.
By mid 1982 I was doing regular work for Sounds magazine, reviewing and interviewing prominent and up-and-comi
ng second generation punk bands (Peter & the Test Tube Babies, The Adicts, Conflict, Action Pact, Infa-Riot, Redskins, Anti Social Workers - plus US outfits like the awesome Dead Kennedys, Henry Rollins’ first band Black Flag and The Minutemen). When Black Flag played the 100 Club, Sounds asked me to review the gig. I leapt at the chance - then I realised that there was a problem.
It sounds bizarre, I know, but at that time, for a short period, what is essentially a thoroughly respected and world famous gig venue had earned a justifiably dreadful reputation as a hangout for Nazi boneheads, especially Skrewdriver and their leader Ian Stuart. Skrewdriver, one of the earliest punk bands, had just reformed and ‘come out’ as Nazis and alongside other fascist bands like Brutal Attack they regularly played the 100 Club, in those very early days still unopposed by the Left (though they soon would be well and truly opposed, all over the country). As at Skunx, there had been plenty of incidents of fascist-inspired violence at gigs. It wasn’t a pleasant place to go, but I wasn’t going to miss the chance to review Black Flag, whom I’d heard lots about but never seen live, and off I went.
I was shocked by the relatively poor turnout for a band with their growing reputation, and it was obvious that the atmosphere at the 100 Club was driving people away: groups of fascists were hanging around looking menacingly at the punters who had come to see the band. However, as far as I could see, there was no actual trouble brewing, and I decided to head down the front, where a reasonably decent crowd had gathered. The gig started, and I forgot about the dangers as Henry Rollins and Black Flag delivered a storming set: then, near the end, I felt a tap on my shoulder, and turned round. It was Ian Stuart, with a gang of fascist hangers-on in tow. I was counting on remaining anonymous, just a punter come to see Black Flag. He had recognised me. Shit. ‘I want a word with you’ he said, beckoning me to follow.
ARGUMENTS YARD Page 10
