the 90s continue…
Behind The Mask is an ongoing series, chronological deep-dive into the back catalogue of UK DIY punk two-piece ACTIVE MINDS. Each part looks at three releases, track by track, with vocalist/guitarist Bobs offering his thoughts and answering questions. If you are new to this series, and would like to start from the beginning, here are the links:
FREE TO BE CHAINED LP (Loony Tunes) 1997
death metal, techno and Hüsker Dü
Almost ten years after their debut album (1998’s Welcome To The Slaughterhouse), the band pulled out all the stops for this 20 track monster. Reaching back in time for fresh recordings of early AM and SAS songs, as well as a welter of new material, AM continue to play around with different styles – including an experiment in techno. It also came with both a lyric booklet and a guide to getting involved in the DIY underground.
Was Free To Be Chained recorded at the same time as the I’m Not A Tourist… EP? Where was it recorded and who by? Any changes to recording methods?
Bobs: It wasn’t recorded in the same session as the EP, but it was obviously recorded around the same sort of time. In fact, the album was recorded at two separate sessions, as far as I remember – one for the A Side and one for the B Side. In those days we used to record live in the studio and aim to get a session finished and mixed in a weekend, so doing a full album in one go would have been to much to try to fit into a weekend’s recording session (the first album had been recorded in parts too).
As with the “Tourist” EP, this was recorded by Dale Tomlinson at Studio 64 in Middlesbrough. No change in recording techniques – we still stubbornly stuck to live recordings (much to Dale’s irritation, I’m sure!).
PP: In the DIY guide included with the release, you detail how to ‘cheat’ tune a guitar, an effective DIY method you use to this day. Have you seen other guitarists using it over the years? Are you aware of anyone having taken inspiration from AM in this way? Does the method have limitations or extra freedoms?
Bobs: Stu from Satanic Malfunctions used to play guitar this way, as it was something that I’d shown him. I seem to recall a couple of people telling me that they’d started using this method after reading the instructions in the LP, but I can’t remember who they were to be honest, and I don’t think they were any bands with any longevity. This particular tuning was something that I worked out for myself, and at the time I wasn’t aware that anybody else used any alternative tuning like this. But since then, through watching various music documentaries, I’ve found that some very famous names have used a very similar “Open E” tuning (with perhaps one string tuned differently to the way I do it). I think Bo Diddley and Duane Eddy pretty much used it all the time, and it was also sometimes used by Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, The Smiths and other rock luminaries.
The method definitely has limitations, and having set out on this journey nearly 40 years ago I still can’t play the guitar properly so, in a sense, a method which was supposed to cut corners and make playing guitar easier has actually held me back at the same level of ineptitude as I possessed as a teenager!
But it does provide extra freedoms too. The fact that I’m playing a bar chord over two octaves, rather than the usual one, can create a pretty powerful sound for just one guitar. And playing different chords on either the higher or lower three strings whilst leaving the remaining strings open can create either a jangly guitar sound (which we use quite a lot) or highlights which can mean that it can sound like more than one guitar playing.
Side One opens in grandiose style with the nearly six-minute At War With Satanists. A mock-metal intro descends into a flurry of ultra-fast hardcore, archetypal ‘mosh’ section and scathing spoken part. Written some years earlier, it sees the band take to task the sadistic lyrics of death metal bands, criticising former punks who defended them. Dig of Earache Records gets a mention, as do MORBID ANGEL and BATHORY.
PP: You state in the sleeve notes for At War With Satanists that the song was written 8 or 9 years before release and that the initial bands were more ‘tongue in cheek’ than those that came later. Is the ‘death metal/extreme lyrics’ phenomenon something you continued to observe? If so, what are your thoughts on how it progressed/regressed/developed?
Bobs: It’s a style of music that I’ve always liked, so yes I’ve continued to observe it to some extent over the years. The murders that happened in Norway in the ‘90’s may have been a turning point for some, and the fact that many of the musicians are now much older and have a more mature perspective means that their later work usually has less odious lyrics than their earlier material.
But there are still some bands out there with very dumb lyrics, and that can be dangerous when it spills over from fantasy nonsense about demons into hateful and violent rants more rooted in the real world. There are some bands out there with shockingly violent misogynistic lyrics that could easily be the soundtrack to some lonely “incel” lives, which is worrying. And there is a whole sub-genre called National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM) – the emergence of which has never surprised me.
But there are also bands who have taken musical influence from black metal, and added it to really socially and environmentally conscious lyrics. Many of these have some connections to the punk/hardcore scene, but not all of them. So looking at how this scene developed isn’t so straightforward – it branched off in numerous directions, some of which are very disturbing whilst others may be heartening.
By contrast, No Difference uses 18 seconds of blast-beat-ridden ultra-thrash to take a zero tolerance approach to vegetarians and vegans’ attempts at justifying the wearing of leather. With the recent popularity in veganism, I wanted to ask Bobs a wider question:
PP: With regard to the vegetarian/vegan topic of No Difference, I’m curious about how you view the way veganism has gained traction in recent years. Personally, I feel that a trick may have been missed in vegetarianism as a stepping stone to veganism, the larger population more likely to embrace such a thing en masse. That said, I do appreciate that veganism has gained much ground in recent years. What are your thoughts on this?
Bobs: Veganism has certainly had a huge impact in recent years, so I’m not sure that it’s needed a lot of stepping stones or that any tricks have been missed in terms of making it more acceptable to the masses. The pace at which it’s become an everyday part of many people’s food vocabulary has been quite surprising, I think.
Even for those who choose not to go full vegan, but follow a strict vegetarian diet, the popularity of veganism in recent years has had a really beneficial effect. Obviously, there’s a much greater array of meat-free alternatives available in shops, but the eating-out experience has also been transformed. Very few places would now feel that they could survive without catering for those who choose a meat-free diet, and the incentive to provide those meals as vegan rather than just vegetarian has meant that catering establishments now have to take much more care to make sure what they’re serving doesn’t use animal ingredients. That means that restaurants preparing “vegetarian” meals that use animal fats, or non-vegetarian cheese, will become much rarer. Basically, they’re having to become much more aware and knowledgeable about preparing food for those who are not eating meat, which is a massive win.
The re-recording of Looking Beyond The End Of Our Noses from the 1995 YACOPSAE split EP, though a fine melodic moment – catchy chorus, great riff, gruff vocals and all – doesn’t really add to the original, if anything, sounding a little tinny in comparison. That said, there’s no shortage of short, sharp thrash, and the 11-second Leave It Out is as tight as anything they’ve done thus far. Ten years before the smoking ban, true to form, they address one of the elephants in the room: smoking at gigs. As a member of this dubious club, it always felt wrong, but addiction will hand you the spade and watch you dig a hole in which to bury your head. Subsequently, I welcomed the indoor ban when it came.
PP: On Leave It Out, you called for a ban on smoking at gigs. You had to wait another 10 years before this finally happened. Can you describe how this affected you?
Bobs: Leave It Out was written after some pretty bad experiences at some gigs, particularly in Eastern Europe, in which cramped venues with very poor ventilation and a culture in which smoking was still very widespread created a real problem for me with breathing. You have to take such big breaths to project your voice when singing, and if the air’s full of smoke particles it can totally fuck your throat up. The change didn’t affect us quite as much as you might expect – at least not initially. Whilst I certainly welcomed the ban, we tended to play a lot of our gigs in squats on mainland Europe. Due to the nature of the places, even in countries in which smoking in venues had been banned, smoking bans often weren’t enforced in these places. When you have a venue which fears losing its license, they were far more likely to enforce the ban than those venues operating outside the law. Over time though, I think the general culture of most European countries has changed, so I think most smokers wouldn’t be expecting to be able to smoke in indoor public areas these days, so those experiences of trying to sing while everyone is stood just a few feet in front of you smoking have thankfully now disappeared.
The Sport Of Gentlemen is a re-recording of an SAS (pre-AM band) song, from the rare, 1985 10-track Suave And Sophisticated EP. Listening to its evolution from rough n’ ready, less focussed roots to thrilling piece of short, fast thrash, is fascinating. It tackled the then hot topic of fox hunting, the liner notes predicting that the practice would inevitably be banned. Eight years later it was, though the hunts continue to find ways around the ban.
I asked Bobs for his view on the situation as it stands today, the initial victory notwithstanding:
Bobs: Well, the ban now puts the hunters in the wrong legally and, for most people, morally as well. I don’t think the strength of that judgement should be underestimated.
The practicalities of enforcing the ban are an exercise in understanding the problems of writing watertight legislation. Drag hunting, for example, was something that anti-hunt activists were providing as a post-ban solution for those who still wanted the “thrill” of horses running with the hounds. But this has been used by some to continue hunting, by claiming that hunts are arranged to follow dragged trails and that the catching of any foxes is accidental. Other exemptions in the Law can also be used by those looking for loopholes to wriggle through. The legislation then falls into that grey area that a lot of laws fall into – that of having to prove intent, which is never straightforward.
However, I think that the fact that the public seem overwhelming supportive of the ban, and want those who continue hunting to remain on the wrong side of the law, is a very positive thing. I don’t think even the Tories would want to risk public anger by reversing the ban so, although the victory might not have been as total as many may have thought at the time, I think the practice of hunting for sport is something which will be seen as acceptable to an ever-decreasing subsection of society as time goes on.
Another reworking, Evo-Stik featured on the 1986 compilation EP A Splitting Headache On A Sunday Afternoon! Officially the band’s debut, it saw them stand alongside Scarborough bands SATANIC MALFUNCTIONS, RADIO FREEDOM and INDIAN DREAM. A mid-paced chugger with a catchy ‘woah oh‘ chorus, it shows that, despite the bands’ reputation for caustic thrash, they were knocking out catchy, melodic numbers right from the start. It’s pretty much intact too, tightened up a little and all the better for a cleaner production. This song was written 14 years earlier, while still at school, a commentary on the prevalence of glue sniffing among school kids. Thankfully less common at the time of this release, its inclusion is used to make a wider point about drug abuse.
Religious Fraud, the ubiquitous anti-religion song, is a chugging punker with differing speed changes. It details how religion is used to keep people in line, allaying fears of there being no afterlife to explain away senseless death. A Lesson To Us All is a fascinating song to look at, both musically and lyrically. Close to five minutes long, it has an interesting ‘cold’ guitar sound that contrasts with the melody. The restrained vocals let go on the slow ending for an emotional note. Telling the story of a misfit kid who didn’t fit into the uniformity of the education system, he eventually dies at 21 after constantly butting up against the narrow confines of society’s expectations.
PP: A Lesson To Us All is a bleak story of a person falling through the cracks of a rigid educational system. Having experienced this myself and also having had a child with special educational needs, I can see how things have improved, though still far from perfect. Did you have any direct experience of this at school and any since that point to improvements?
Bobs: No, this song wasn’t written about any personal experiences I had at school – just things that I saw happening to others. Personally I enjoyed my school years, and did well there, but I did see people who were falling through the cracks. When you were a punk rock kid in school in the early 80’s, there were some people I was hanging around with through shared musical interests who were definitely struggling.
I remember once going to a classmate’s house for the first time. He lived on a very run-down housing estate, with high crime levels. Perhaps he didn’t want us to see where he lived, but I found out where it was and, together with another friend, we called on him. He seemed both pleased to see us and a bit embarrassed. We went in his house and there was virtually nothing in it, except for a sofa (that his dad was asleep on) and a TV. His bedroom didn’t have even have a bed in it – just a mattress on the floor, along with some bits of wood and a hammer and nails. He said that he was just “making his bed” – I got the impression he was actually trying to put one together with some scrap wood that he’d got out of a skip. There was no table or chair for him to sit at and do homework. Seeing it had a profound effect on me, and affected the way that I viewed kids around me who were struggling academically. What chance did he have to succeed at school?
After leaving school, I’d sometimes hear stories about people who were classmates whose lives had turned out pretty tragically and, even though they might have been people who I hadn’t been at all close to, these things can still be shocking and sobering to hear.
Have things improved? I don’t know really. I can see that the educational system is trying, but it doesn’t necessarily have the resources to properly cope. There seems to be far more exclusions from school than there were in my days, but perhaps that’s a false perception (the current trend is downwards, I think, after reaching a high in the mid 90’s). The problem isn’t just a rigid educational system, and I don’t think it ever has been. It’s also about poverty, and about parents with inadequate skills and resources to care for themselves properly, let alone their children. Kids need the right environment at home, not just at school.
commodification & cowbells
Every so many years, the music business sniffs around musical subcultures in an attempt to commodify rebellion. It rarely ends well. Following on from the more tuneful, similarly-themed The Road To Fame And Fortune (I’m Not A Tourist… EP), Deja Vu sees the band back in short, sharp, shock territory. Who’d have thought that you could write a song about the commercialisation of the underground punk & hardcore scene and romp it home in just 35 seconds? I guess that’s what liner notes are for, the clippings in the booklet name-checking BLAGGERS ITA and CHUMBAWAMBA, the two big ‘sell-outs’ of the time. Similarly, musically at least, the brief savagery of Wasted Brains manages to squeeze in tempo changes and, of all things, a cowbell. The lyrics are interesting in that, though the band support the legalization of drugs, they use their platform to point out their harmful effects, including those of cannabis. Out Of Season sounds positively considered in comparison, though it’s still a full-throttle punker with a catchy hook, a pointed observation on the anti-political correctness trend that took hold in some sections of the punk and hardcore scene at the time.
PP: Out Of Season could have been written today as regards the so-called ‘woke’ culture wars. Do you see parallels with the anti-political correctness trend of the time the song was written?
Bobs: Yes, there’s certainly parallels. In fact, I think this is probably a universal never-ending theme as people struggle for a more inclusive and tolerant society – there’s a backlash from those who are resistant to change.
The role of social media these days has changed the nature of this discourse though. I’m not sure that the term “culture war” would have ever been appropriate in the past in the way that it is now – it would have seemed far too melodramatic a phrase. But now we’re living in a world in which not only are people encouraged to take very entrenched and uncompromising positions by the nature of the medium, but they also often formulate their ideas in echo chambers which simply reflect back their own world view. This can lead them to the incorrect conclusion that their arguments have already been won, and can also create a mindset in which vicious and insulting criticism of anyone who disagrees with them is considered acceptable. I don’t think this is going to help to achieve the sort of consensus that we should be aiming for.
Yawn Yawn sees out Side One, the band setting their sights on shallow scene trends. At the time, it was the ‘subcultural imperialism’ of the bandana/skate-thrash craze in the States, subsequently adopted by the UK, so SUICIDAL TENDENCIES get a mention. The US adoption of the UK’s crusty new-age traveller look is also touched upon. Musically, it’s fast n’ tight, with a bluesy section and a withering spoken piece. Side two kicks off with the gritty experiment in techno that is Prison Of Stupidity. Canny use of repetition, film samples and punky shouts ensure that, though the track revolves around dance music, it still feels like it’s been fed through the AM mangler. Lyrically, it tackles the apathy that allows for the erosion of civil liberties.
PP: Prison Of Stupidity takes on a techno/dance music style. As many in the hardcore punk scene took this path, what was your view at the time? Did you attend any raves or appreciate any of the music? How was the song put together?
Bobs: Despite the song having that techno-style, rave culture wasn’t something that I got into at all. I never went to any raves, but I did appreciate some techno/dance style music – I’ve never been one to limit my listening to one genre, and am always likely to incorporate a range of influences into the stuff I write.
In the pre-digital recording age, the track was put together on a 4-track home recorder by overlapping different looped sections. It wasn’t an easy way to do it accurately (someone more technically minded than me would have no doubt made a better job of it), and there a couple of parts in which the clarity becomes a bit muffled by layering segments on top of each other which aren’t quite in sync.
No Need is short, fast and tight with machine-gun guitar, calling out so-called anarchists’ reliance on drugs and alcohol. If I have a favourite on this album though, it’s Young, Fit Males, one of their finest catchy, melodic punk tracks, and one that will keep popping into your head. No strangers to playing squat gigs, the lyrics are based on some of their experiences.
PP: Young, Fit Males discusses the conditions in squats you have visited, both good and bad. You’ve talked about these experiences in interviews before but I’m interested to hear if you have found any changes over the years since?
Bobs: We’ve always said that many of the squats we stayed and played in over the years are some of the most inspirational places we’ve ever been, and that’s still the case. But there were some times when those putting on gigs in squatted venues didn’t seem to realise or care that things such as working toilets were a necessity rather than an inessential luxury if you’re wanting to host a public event. The song was about some instances we came across when those squatting buildings weren’t prioritising the sort of work needed to make the squat a reasonable place to live, or use as a venue that you’re inviting others to come to or bands to sleep in.
I think the instances of us staying in really dire places has definitely reduced over the years, although it does still sometimes happen. Sometimes it can’t be helped – people have limited resources, and are doing the best with what they have. I don’t want to start talking about particular experiences we’ve had, because I don’t want to point a finger inappropriately at those who may have been doing their best under the circumstances, which you aren’t always able to accurately assess on a brief visit to play a gig.
Careering towards the end, the brothers have honed their thrash skills down to a fine point, so the pulse-pounding Cogs And Spanners is a delight. With insightful lyrics about not giving in to victimhood, they urge the listener to exercise some level of control, whatever kind of shit might be thrown at them. Gutter Press is slow, chugging and menacing, with mesmerizing riffs. Its talk of tabloid newspapers, owned by the rich with a political agenda, giving the public divisive sensationalist articles, could have been written today about social media news feeds. Barriers‘ 17 seconds of pure speed points out the importance of mixing with people outside of your subculture. Free To Be Chained could easily have closed with the MOB-like, emotional tour-de-force that is What Will The Future Bring?, surely an unsung, anarcho classic. Thematically though, closing with the five-minute title track makes sense.
Despite protests and campaigns, the Tories passed The Criminal Justice Act (1994) through parliament, curtailing many freedoms, including certain aspects of protest (notably not repealed by the Labour government). Free To Be Chained looks at the grim results of people sleep-walking into further restrictions. Bleakly, this has been repeated nineteen years later with 2023’s Public Order Act, which goes even further. Documentary/news samples feature heavily in the intro, with fast punk music quietly building in the background before bursting through. there is some great chugging guitar on the bridge, bowing out on some angry spoken word, adding an anarcho-punk flavour:
“In many ways, it’s the apathy and gullibility of the public that’s to blame. If all the squatters, the animal rights campaigners, the peace campers, the homosexuals, the Marxists and the anarchists were imprisoned tomorrow, would the people rise up in disgust and overthrow the government? Or would they be able to cover it up and justify it to the general public – make them think that those imprisoned probably deserved it anyway? Think about it…“
Free To Be Chained
PP: There are many different musical styles on the album. Were there any bands/artists in particular that you were influenced by this time?
Bobs: No more than the usual for us – some old-school hardcore, some more “indie” guitar music, some metal. The intro of At War With Satanists is taken from VENOM (as was the song title, obviously). We were aware at the time that Young Fit Males has a tune with strong similarities to SNUFF (although I can’t remember if this was just a coincidence, or a more knowing rip-off). I guess What Will The Future Bring? has a definite similarity to THE MOB. And as with many of our records, those in the know should be able to spot a little bit of HUSKER DU influence – albeit put through our usual ACTIVE MINDS mangle.
PP: What are your overall thoughts on the album today? How was it received? Any other stories about the recording sessions?
Bobs: I think the album stands up fairly well, for the time it came out. It’s certainly more varied than the output of a lot of bands of the era, and some of the fast stuff is really pretty tightly played. The recording is a bit patchy – the vocals, in particular, are sometimes a bit muffled, but that’s partly a result of the way that we were recording live in the studio. I certainly think it stands the test of time better than the first album. The use of the guitar splitter putting the signal through a bass amp as well as the guitar amp means that the guitar sounds far fuller than it did on the first album.
I don’t have any specific memories about notable things from the recording sessions, or specifically about how it was received. Because it came out at the same time as the Tourist EP, I think a lot of reactions at the time were about both records, as I guess a lot of people were getting both of them together at the same time. We put them out together because we had more songs ready to record than just an album’s worth, and mailing out records for overseas trades made more sense when you were trading multiple titles and could send out bigger, more cost effective packages. By this time, Loony Tunes had pretty much ceased to operate as a label other than one which put out ACTIVE MINDS material, so we were no longer able to write to other labels and distros offering a handful of recent releases for trade. Putting out both records at the same time therefore made sense in that respect.
A few of the songs from the album became staples of our live set for many years. Looking Beyond The End Of Our Noses was always a particular live favourite and one of our most popular songs – we still occasionally dust it off for an encore even now.
As sprawling and inventive as Welcome To The Slaughterhouse is, Free To Be Chained is more successful due to a tighter performance and chunkier sound. A veritable feast for ACTIVE MINDS fans, it’s wildly varied, both musically and lyrically, with the band continuing to forge their uncompromising path.
1st pressing of 3,000 copies
2nd pressing of 1,000 copies
Both pressings identical
The album is out of print. At time of writing, you can pick it up on Discogs for around a fiver, or play it on YouTube.
THE NATIONAL LOTTA E EP (Loony Tunes) 1998
noise punk and nationalism
1998: ACTIVE MINDS release The National Lotta E, a full-colour, glossy-covered EP, contrasting sharply with some gnarly sounds contained within.
Opening with one of their best examples of melodic punk rock, The National Lotta E is mid-paced, with a simple, catchy hook, chugging guitar, and a mammoth ‘woah, oah‘ chorus. Add some admirably restrained drumming, this is simple, earthy punk, like hardcore never happened. The lyrics make some interesting points about the public’s addiction to the national lottery – introduced in the UK in 1994 – and the government’s war on drugs, Ecstasy being en-vogue at the time. An overarching theme of the tabloid press shaping public opinion to suit their agenda rams the point home.
Given that the tabloid press is as rabid as ever, and ever more right wing, coupled with a media landscape changed beyond recognition by social media, do you have any hope that the situation could ever find balance and if so, how would you like to see this achieved?
Bobs: It’s difficult to imagine these days how any sort of balance can be struck. Now that we live in the world of social media it’s clear how much sensationalist content grabs all the attention and uses up all the oxygen of our public discourse. Tabloid newspapers are competing now against the scantily informed rantings of a thousand self-styled commentators and influencers. I can’t see how that is going to end well. At least Tabloid newspapers do have a clear agenda, and it’s one that can be challenged and argued against. Social media companies don’t – they give free rein to everybody with an opinion, but the end result is that they act as systematic mischief-makers and disinformation spreaders. Misinformation and vitriol gets casually thrown into the maelstrom of public discourse, and the companies who facilitate it simply observe and profit from the chaos that ensues. In the social media world, the spreading of news is being handed over to people or groups whose agendas and legitimacy are not at all clear to many people who are listening to what they say. It’s easy to put together a pretty professional-looking web-presence and pass yourself off as far more established or significant than you are. Look at a group like Britain First – thirty years ago, they’d have been lucky to get half a dozen people to a meeting in a pub. These days, they can put out a fairly slickly produced video and pass themselves off as a far more significant voice than they are, and have thousands of other people naively sharing links to their propaganda and disinformation. The old adage goes that “A lie can travel halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on”. That’s truer now than it has ever been. Obviously, none of us can predict the future, but I can imagine a time when the current form of social media is less powerful and ubiquitous. The Cambridge Analytica “scandal” should have hardly come as a surprise – as Jaron Lanier says, to private social media companies their advertisers are their customers, and their ordinary users (or at least access to them) are the products that are being sold to those customers. But there was quite a backlash against the idea of social media companies harvesting information about you and selling it on, so if that business model becomes too discredited then social media, as it exists today, may not survive. If people had to pay to engage with it, would it have the sort of reach and power that it does at the moment? It’s hard to imagine that it would, but it’s also hard to imagine what a post-social media world would look like too. After all, when we put out “The National Lotta E” in 1998, nobody could have imagined the way in which people interact with news and the media today.
Learn (about societal values we are brought up to accept without question) is a re-recording of the track from 1995’s split with YACOPSAE, (Part 3). This short, fast punker is performed pretty much the same, but with a fuller, bassier sound. Insomnia has MOTÖRHEAD propulsion, machine-gunning guitars knocking out an insistent riff. Zooming in on the people who work in weapons factories, the band wonder at how they justify it to themselves. Sick World has a little DISCHARGE about it but lyrically is where it shines. Holding a light to how we become inured to death when the scale is huge, they argue that we can only heal the problem of violence by recognizing that every death is a tragedy and that, ultimately, we must learn to love the planet. So many years later, so many of the same concerns. Contradiction is a surprising re-do of the song from the 1996 split with FREAK SHOW, (Part 3). A brutally effective ‘echo’ effect on the vocals and a tougher production make this well worth a revisit, one of the bands’ experiments in drawn-out, dirgy noise. Yet another re-recording, Treeconomics, again from the YACOPSAE split, also appears here in a much harsher form. Verging on noise, an odd tom sound adds to a distant, disconcerting atmosphere. Pretence presents us with 20 seconds of harsh thrash with a suitably noisy mix, lyrically warning of peer pressure to drink alcohol when young. This strangely compelling EP closes on Lest We Forget, a straight-up fast punk song with shades of d-beat, that oddly distant sound evident again, particularly on the vocals.
PP: With such noticeable difference in sound between tracks, where it was recorded, who by, and were the odd quirks intentional or was it to do with the mix?
Again, this was recorded with Dale at Studio 64 in Middlesbrough. The recording does have pretty varied sound mixes on each song – this was generally intentional, as we often use different guitar pedal set-ups, for example, for songs which have a different feel to them. Listening to it now though, the differences between each song seem a bit more stark than I remember, and probably than we intended. The mix on Treeconomics was definitely influenced by Japanese “noise punk” like CONFUSE, GAI – a very fuzzed out guitar sound and a lot of prominent toms. I don’t know particularly what we were thinking with the vocals on Lest we Forget though – the vocals on all the last few songs are actually very low in the mix. This can sometimes happen when you’re mixing songs in the order they’re going to be on the finished record, and you start becoming overly influenced by the last mix that you heard. On Treeconomics, I think it makes sense with what we were trying to do, but for the last two songs the vocals sound much too low in the mix when I listen to them now.
Lyrically, Lest We Forget reiterates the importance of always being on guard against neo-fascism, through the lens of the rise of nationalism in Europe throughout the 90’s (BNP in London, Le Pen in France), and how moderate governments bring in laws to appease far right voters. In the wake of the super-charging of nationalism and the hijacking of the immigration narrative by Brexit, I asked Bobs how he saw the situation develop from initially writing the song:
Bobs: Well, obviously the world has changed quite a lot since then. We had the 9/11 attacks, followed by terrorist attacks in the UK and mainland Europe (London 7/7, Manchester Arena, Brussels, Paris Bataclan and Charlie Hebdo offices). Incidents like these will always be things that can be used by the far right to gain support, because people understandably become more scared. You have to address people’s genuine and legitimate concerns, but in the modern world of soundbite politics it’s not necessarily easy to do that in the nuanced way that we really need. The far right don’t care about nuance and shades of grey – they’re happy to deal in black and white rhetoric, so can make swift political capital from people’s fear.
Brexit, and its aftermath, were clear examples to me of the political left being deaf to the legitimate concerns of ordinary working people who were dissatisfied with the way things were and wanted change. The Labour Party seemed to be sleepwalking into the whole debate – utterly unaware of how it was going to play out. I remember hearing the BBC’s political correspondent (I think it was Norman Smith) saying that when the Referendum date was first set, members of the Labour Party were “rubbing their hands with glee” at the thought of the Tories tearing themselves apart during the months leading up to the vote. It struck me at the time how utterly naïve this was – to think that the issue of EU membership was one that only Tory voters got themselves into a lather about, and that Labour could simply back Remain and come out of it all unscathed and smelling of roses. The fact that, as many of us remember, it wasn’t too long ago that the left was generally more sceptical of the European project than the Tories seemed to go completely over their heads. If Labour central office had changed their mind on Europe, they seemed to just imagine that everybody who voted for them had as well. Lessons from European elections, where UKIP had done well in Labour strongholds, were completely ignored.
The upshot of all this was that Labour were totally unprepared for the result, and had no policy ideas at all for a post-Brexit Britain. Many on the left seemed to view the result as such an obvious mistake that they shouldn’t bother thinking about how to make it work, but simply put all their efforts into having the result overturned. This was both extremely naïve politically, and seen as patronising by the public – proof that Labour politicians, having asked them to choose in a Referendum, had no intention of listening to that result.
And all of this has meant that, virtually ever since the Referendum result, the right wing have been setting the political agenda here. So yes, you can say that the right have hijacked the immigration narrative, but the left generally wouldn’t engage with the notion of a post-Brexit UK, and so have allowed that right-wing narrative to become the dominant one. I have no doubt that this refusal to acknowledge the result and move on handed the last election to the Tories – despite the fact that the deregulated fantasy world that many of the chief Tory Brexiteers originally wanted was nothing like the sort of interventionist policies that a large swathe of the Brexit-voting working class wanted or needed.
PP: What are your overall thoughts on the EP today?
Bobs: I think it sounds a bit patchy, listening to it now. I still think National Lotta E is a good song, and it’s one that became quite a favourite at gigs (although it took longer than we expected to catch on), but perhaps the recording variations in the songs mean that the whole record doesn’t gel together as well as some of our others.
The National Lotta E is certainly a mixed bag. It does though, have a mighty punk moment in the title song, and the disorienting sounds on the likes of Contradiction and Treeconomics make for an enjoyably uncomfortable listen. At time of writing, still available from the band for £1.50.
3,100 pressed
ACTIVE MINDS/PETROGRAD SPLIT LP (Skank/Sacro K-Baalismo) 1998
New Labour, Luxembourg & merch
Hot on the heels of National Lotta E came this startling split album with Luxembourg’s PETROGRAD, their stunning set of thoughtful, anarcho tuneage matched by a clutch of vital new songs from ACTIVE MINDS. Coupled with some colourful sleeve art and a chunky lyric booklet, this split, a benefit for the animal rights activist Dave Callender‘s Justice Campaign, was a juicy prospect indeed.
PP: This release came out the same year as the National Lotta E EP but sounds like a step up in production values. Where was it recorded and who by? Can you remember any specific changes/differences in recording to the previous two releases?
Bobs: Listening to it now, yes I suppose it does sound like a bit of a step up production-wise, but I don’t think we saw it that way at the time. It was still recorded exactly the same way – live in Studio 64 with Dale as the engineer. I guess it may just have been that there were quite a few longer and more melodic songs on this record, so it has a bit of a different vibe to it than previous ones – less chaos, so a lot of it is a much clearer sort of sound. It still goes a bit mad on songs like Sponge…
ACTIVE MINDS
Laying their cards on the table from the off, Jackboots And Braces. documents attempts by Nazis/fascists to hoodwink voters by appearing more respectable. A song that manages to be catchy in riff, verse and chorus, it’s fast and melodic, maintaining the band’s rough n’ ready edge. The guitar sound on Walking Billboards is chiming, suiting this mid-paced gem and, at over 4 minutes long, it never loses your attention. Lyrically, AM are at odds with the popularity of band t-shirts, seeing them as no different to the free advertising of football shirts and corporate logos.
As the band have always maintained a stance on not producing or endorsing their own t-shirts, I wanted to ask Bobs if his view on this remains unchanged:
Bobs: We never wanted to run a clothing store, and I don’t really see why it’s become expected that selling T-Shirts is an integral part of being in a band. It wasn’t like that when we started, and that suited us fine. Back in the 80’s, big rock bands may have been expected to have stalls of merchandise, but DIY punk bands? Not really…
I don’t really understand the need for people to tell the whole world what band they like – it seems such a trivial thing. So I’ve never wanted us to get sucked into it – even though I can understand the economics of it, and how bands can make money from selling shirts which can help to subsidise their activities and tours.
There have been a couple of officially sanctioned ACTIVE MINDS T-shirts though – there was an ACTIVE MINDS/ THISCLOSE US tour shirt, created by Dan from SPHC who organized our joint tour over there, which he did to help him cover the costs of getting us over. And then our friend Sonia, from Newcastle, wanted to do one to raise money for a local hunt saboteur group. We’d just put out the Religion Is Nonsense 10”, whose sleeve is printed on fabric and can be used as a backpatch if people wanted to. We felt that this design was something which had a message which was understandable even to people not embedded within the DIY punk subculture, so we gave her permission to use that design to do some shirts.
If you miss AUS ROTTEN, who were operating around the same time as this release, The Triumph Of The Till‘s relentless d-beat/CONFLICT mash-up will fill your cup, a wordy rant on the perils of mass consumerism.
PP: The Triumph Of The Till talks of the search for meaning in consumerism. In the years since, there seems to have been a growing desire for a simpler life. Do you think that there can ever be an ‘endpoint’ to mass consumerism fueled by ads and media? Assuming that free market capitalism is finite, what, for you, would be a positive replacement and/or way forward?
I’m not sure that I’d agree that in the past couple of decades there’s been a growing desire for a simpler life – amongst some people, perhaps, but we’re definitely been dragged in different directions as a society. The ever increasing price of property, and a lack of affordable and secure housing options, means that younger people today seem to be caught in a trap in which taking simpler options seems pretty impossible. Personally, I’ve never been too interested in earning money, and it hasn’t been a priority for me in my life – I’ve got enough to get by, but I always prioritised having free time to live the life I wanted to live. I’m not sure that it would have been possible to live the life I have if I’d have been born twenty five years later.
Of course, there is a turn away amongst some people now of having too many physical possessions, but I think a lot of that is about living more online lives. You don’t necessarily need a personal collection of music, films or books if you access everything via the web. But that also means that we’re getting sucked into forever upgrading tech devices as old ones become supposedly obsolete and unable to access anything. And also the time people spend on social media these days is obviously being monetised by the social media providers, because they’re private companies. If you’re not paying to use something, then the likelihood is that you’re the product that’s being sold – and who are you being sold to? Advertisers who are trying to sell you stuff. So if people think that they can escape the consumerist world by retreating into free-to-use online sphere, then I don’t think that will ever work.
What has happened though is that many people have started to question whether free-market capitalism can live up to its previous claims and provide ordinary people with the things that they need. Over the past couple of decades, the lives of ordinary people in industrialised societies have become so much more precarious and insecure than they used to be. Short-term work and high costs of living, with little security of income or tenure, is not what people need to live stress-free, contented lives. Even the rise of some seemingly right-wing populists can be down to people’s dissatisfaction with the status quo of free-market capitalism.
A positive replacement or way forward? Definitely not the sort of ideas that those populists who are trying to capitalise on the discontent are putting forward, but not a reliance on the neo-liberal economics which are cracking at the seams either. Those ideas have been the dominant economic thinking since the early 80’s and are responsible for much of the insecurity and global environmental damage that we’re now living with.
I think the answer has to be smaller economies – not obsessed with growth, but more focussed on reducing inequality both within and between societies. If economists and politicians didn’t obsess about GDP, but instead looked at reducing the gap between the richest and poorest in society and used that as a way to measure success, then very different policies would arise. A lot of it would involve redistributive taxation and a greater provision of things collectively rather than assuming everyone has to own everything they need themselves.
Lower levels of economic activity overall are vital if we’re to live in a sustainable world, but that can’t be done in a humane way unless the work which must be done (and the financial rewards that accrue from it) are shared. And that, in turn, means that people must be confident that their basic needs will be provided by society as a whole – otherwise we’ll remain in a dog-eat-dog world where everyone has to just look out for themselves. The Covid pandemic, because it impacted on everyone ability to earn a living, did help people to realise that we need to collectively be far more responsible for everyone’s financial security than had been the norm for the previous 40 years or so. The important thing for the future is for people to see that the crisis caused by the pandemic wasn’t unique – the climate crisis, for example, needs to be addressed in the same way. It needs a collectivist approach, where we make sure that everyone’s basic needs are going to be met – otherwise we’re going to carry on with a scramble for resources globally, and those who rely on the exploitation of fossil fuels for their economic security doing everything they can to resist change.
Melodic and patient, the band know they’ve hit on a cracker and play it cool with Lynching Party Politics, which advocates political progress through peaceful means rather than violent retribution. By contrast, musically speaking, people wear fashionable opinions like clothes on the crazy-time of Sponge. A stark intro leads to some ultra-screaming-thrash, with incredible riffs and one brutal guitar sound. CCTV and increased police surveillance were burgeoning concerns around the time of this release, and the band wasted little time getting stuck into them on Smile, You’re On Candid Camera. Top-tier ACTIVE MINDS, this mid-paced, melodic number is graced with a strong hook, powerful vocal performance, confident playing, and some hugely satisfying guitar parts buried deep. It showcases some of the bands’ best song-writing, as well as a chorus to chew on. Ditto Democracy? Sounds Like A Good Idea To Me, for different reasons. This six-and-a-half-minute song is bursting with creativity, never feeling its length as you wait to see what it will bring next. Beginning with a spoken intro over a stark musical backdrop, a single guitar line dominates the pounding build-up for a full three minutes. Layering on the tension, the drumming is immense, the whole thing eventually exploding in a welter of thrash sparks. A jaw-dropping moment for the band, both lyrically and musically, as they cast an arched eyebrow over the difference between the official definition of democracy and what we have. It makes for a fascinating, if depressing, read.
PP: The comparison of our system of democracy with the dictionary definition is interesting (Democracy? Sounds Like A Good Idea To Me) as the former looks nothing like the latter. I’m guessing that, at the time of recording, there would have been a new Labour government. Did you have any sense of hope for change, or did you just assume business as usual?
I can’t remember exactly when it was recorded and how long it was between recording and the release. In those days, there weren’t great delays between recording and release, so yes – we probably recorded it shortly after the 1997 Labour election victory. It wasn’t written as a response to the 1997 election though, and could have been written shortly beforehand – I can’t remember now. I was obviously thinking about the “democratic” process in the UK at the time of writing though.
No, I was never under any illusions about Blair’s government. Being actively involved in Green politics at the time, I was obviously paying quite a lot of attention to what Labour were saying in the run-up to the election, and it was pretty clear, I thought, that they’d promised not to “rock the boat” too much so that they wouldn’t scare off the media barons and wealthy entrepreneurs that they were trying to woo.
One of the things that became clear very early on after Blair became Prime Minister was how much extra power having a large majority gave you – especially when largely comprised of quite naïve new politicians who felt they owed their political careers to Blair’s popularity. This seemed to create an atmosphere in the Labour Party whereby the leadership couldn’t seriously be challenged, as they had more than enough votes from MP’s who were pretty blindly loyal and obedient. No matter how contentious an issue might seem, his huge majority meant that it could be pushed through – unlike the previous John Major administration, in which his slim majority meant that he couldn’t get issues like privatising the Post Office passed in the Commons because it didn’t take many dissenting Tory MP’s to sink the idea. Within a year of Blair winning the election University Tuition Fees were first introduced in the UK. You have to wonder whether or not that could have happened if he hadn’t had such a huge Parliamentary majority.
PETROGRAD
Hearing PETROGRAD for the first time when this record was released was one of those pleasant musical surprises. This Luxembourg band play thoughtful anarcho-punk, with a folk tinge and a gleeful sense of adventure, a little like CHUMBAWAMBA. Across their career, they infused elements of dance, calypso, reggae, and indie into their punk soul. A year after this album, the band would release the pitch-perfect, largely unsung full-length Isabelle.
The tantalising intro of1997, a punky backing with a news announcer-type voiceover – on the State’s scapegoating of foreigners to hide the poverty, injustice and oppression inherent in capitalism – serves as a Hors d’oeuvre before the skate-punk speed of Chameleon steps out of its comfort zone with tuneful guitar stabs and harmonious male/female vocals. There are jangly guitars on Seven, female vocals reminiscent of LILIPUT and GIRLS AT OUR BEST! on Jumble and Cotton Myth‘s lilting rhythm, Martin Luther King sample and dub shades playing like first album-era CHUMBAWAMBA tackling reggae. There’s a faithful cover of CRINGER‘s* unpolished pop gem Pay To Play (from the 1989 Maximum RocknRoll compilation album They Don’t Get Paid, They Don’t Get Laid, But Boy Do They Work Hard!). Pooh is a schizophrenic beast of a song, Romeo And Julian flowing like an extension of it, settling down into a fast indie punk vein, and Perhaps One Day ends their side of this split on a curiously jaunty note. Still struggling to shake that CHUMBAWAMBA feel and, largely due to its semi-acoustic nature, ultimately comes across like DANBERT NOBACON with a backing band. Lyrically, they cover societal conditioning, the importance of clarity in punk lyrics, slavery, homophobia and anarchism. As with ACTIVE MINDS, they come with explanations, fleshing out their often gentle prose style.
*Though the band have stated that they got their name from the 1914-18 name of the Russian city of Saint Petersburg, CRINGER also had a song called Petrograd.
PP: How did you hook up with PETROGRAD? Did you ever meet/play together?
As with the other splits we did, the idea of the split Active Minds / Petrograd LP was the other band’s originally. Diff (Petrograd guitarist) contacted us and asked if we’d like to do it.
At some point Diff invited us over to Luxembourg to do a gig, but I can’t remember if this was before or after he’d asked us to the split. I think it was after (but before the split was out), so that will have been the first time we met. We played the gig in a tiny place somewhere in Luxembourg – it could maybe have even been a practice space of some sort. Anyway, we got on well with them and they were really nice people.
We helped set up a little tour for Petrograd in the UK and played at least some of the gigs with them – maybe even all of them? Probably not, because I guess they also had some contacts in the South and I don’t remember playing down there with them. I’m pretty sure these gigs were after the split LP came out. Maybe even after their next LP “Isabelle” came out – that’s a great album. They were a really good band, both musically and lyrically.
PP: Discogs states that this record was available in different coloured variants. Do you know how many copies were pressed in total?
No, I can’t remember how many there are in total (if I ever knew). The album was pressed in Austria by Sacro K-Baalismo, so they arranged all that. I can’t even remember if we knew about the different colours it was going to be done in until it came out. I’m guessing there may have been 1,500 in total – possibly even 2,000, but I don’t know really.
PP: How was the record received at the time and what are your thoughts on it today?
As with a lot of our releases back then, I can’t really remember exactly how other people received the album. I was pleased with it. The cover artwork took us a little by surprise when we first saw it, because I guess it looks very unlike our other releases – it’s the only one that doesn’t have our logo on it! But it’s pretty cool, I think…
It was the first split LP that we’d done (after a couple of split EP’s) and that gave us scope to put longer songs and a bit more variety on it than we’d had on other splits. Jackboots And Braces was a live favourite for many years, as was Lynching Party Politics. So it had songs on it that I’ve always liked – although we’ve since re-recorded better versions. In all, I think it still sounds pretty good for the stuff we were doing at the time. And the Petrograd stuff is great.
Sounding vibrant and fresh, this is a prime highlight in the bands discography, with the discovery of PETROGRAD and their refreshing take on punk rock an added bonus. The 12″ x 12″ booklet, as well as including the story of jailed animal rights activist Dave Callender, contains some great artwork, lyrics and song explanations from both bands. At the time of writing, there are affordable copies available on Discogs. Not available on any streaming services but you can listen to it on YouTube.
Huge thanks as ever to Bobs for answering my questions with thoughtful, honest answers. You can contact the band through their bandcamp page
PERSONAL PUNK 