Fatal Microbes - Violence Grows

I haven't posted any anarcho-punk for yonks now, so here's a classic from the genre. Fatal Microbes were a London band that included two children of the Poison Girls' Vi Subversa - amazing that she was old enough to have two children in their own band in 1979 - who later went on to form Rubella Ballet, the resemblance to whom is quite noticeable. I don't think the Microbes ever recorded anything after this, so they're pretty much the epitome of the one-hit wonder. Except it wasn't really that much of a hit, except among anarchist punks. Which I never was, incidentally, though I did find a lot of their music interesting.

If you're here solely for the indiepop, and don't like anything harsh, discordant or screechy, this isn't the one for you.

The Mob - The Mirror Breaks

Anarcho-punk bands were always famous for their willingness to experiment musically, which is one of the things I admired about them. This is a really good example. Musically it's practically jangle-pop; Marc's vocals are obviously a bit harsher than what you'd usually expect from that genre, and lyrically of course it's typical apocalyptic gloom. Still, not a million miles from what McCarthy would be doing in a couple years' time.

Rubella Ballet - Slant and Slide

Always had an odd fondness for this band. Their origins lie in the anarcho-punk scene (there are musical and family ties to the likes of Poison Girls, Fatal Microbes and Flux of Pink Indians) but I always thought there was a bit more of a goth element to their own sound. At times, though, they could also be surprisingly poppy, though those weren't necessarily their best times. Think All About Eve, if they weren't crap.

This is a B-side to their 1984 single "42°F".

The Mob - No Doves Fly Here

Here's another one from the anarcho-punk archives. Like a lot of 1980s punk, it dealt with the prospect of nuclear war (and in a particularly apocalyptic fashion, it has to be said). In my old-fogey moments I've often pondered how difficult it must be for Kids These Days to understand what an enormous fear that was back then. Strange that we seem to have largely gotten over it, even though there are more nukes in more (and madder) people's hands now than ever before.

Anarcho-punk doesn't really lend itself to having many songs that you could truly call classics of the genre, but this is one of them.

Crass - You're Already Dead

I was speaking recently of anarcho-punk so here's one by the ultimate anarcho-punk band. A lot of Crass's stuff is really unlistenable to me today - I know it was pretty unlistenable to a lot of people always - but to their credit at least they were never hesitant about experimenting with styles that diverged quite significantly from a generic punk sound. A bit like Chumbawamba in that respect, although Chumba's divergence was usually in the direction of increased listenability while Crass's was usually the other way ...

The significance of this one, for those who care about such things, is that it seems to indicate a change in philosophy from their previous "Don't want your revolution, I want anarchy and peace" stance. It was their final single, though, so it's hard to be sure where they would have ended up.

Chumbawamba - Behave!

You probably can't write anything about Chumbawamba without mentioning "Tubthumping", so let's get that out of the way first. OK, it was annoying and overly commercial and not necessarily the most intelligent lyric ever written. It was also pretty catchy, and I quite liked it at first, although it was obviously a little bit overexposed.

Anyway, forget about it. Chumba had been making fantastic records for well over a decade before that rather unfortunate brush with megastardom. I first encountered them some time around 1985, when a friend copied one of their demo tapes for me. At the time I was listening to a lot of anarcho-punk but of course I was still a pop kid at heart and they blended the two sounds in a way that few other bands have managed so well. I admired their refusal to be stuck in a box, either musically or politically; and on the latter point I also appreciated the fact that they didn't overlook the Irish conflict - unlike so many of their associates in the English punk scene, who were happy to condemn their government's atrocities everywhere else in the world but ignored it in their own backyard.

I saw Chumba here in Dublin last year - amazingly, only the second time I've seen them in their long career - and they were as inspiring as ever. Their 2008 album The Boy Bands Have Won isn't the best thing they've ever done, IMHO, but at least it should silence anyone who still thinks they've sold out.

Here's one of the highlights of their "dance" phase, from 1992's Shhh.