Crass

Steve Ignorant announces Crass sets with HIRS & All Torn Up; 'Bullshit Detector' reissues coming

Steve Ignorant Band recently announced that they’d be playing a set of Crass songs at Riot Fest, and now they added that they’ll also do Crass sets at some Northeast headlining shows, with support from Philly queer-grindcore collective HIRS and NYC political punks All Torn Up.

That’s an all-around great bill, and it hits Cambridge’s Sonia Middle East on 9/11, Brooklyn’s Meadows on 9/12, and Philly’s Ukie Club on 9/13.

In other Crass news, Crass Records are reissuing the Bullshit Detector comps, which were home to tracks by Crass, Chumbawumba, Amebix, Omega Tribe, Kronstadt Uprising, Boffo, Toxik Ephex, Anthrax (the UK band), the first appearance on vinyl by Napalm Death, and more. They’re coming out this month via Crass Records/One Little Independent on both classic back and limited-edition grey vinyl. Here’s more, via press release:

After punk had already been co-opted, re-packaged and sold back to us, ‘Bullshit Detector’ Volumes 1-3 were, and still are, seen by many to capture the purest ethos of punk culture, an event that inspired hundreds to take to their bedrooms and garages and join the DIY revolution. Crass believed in the power of community and that their movement was for everybody, these compilations are an admittedly harsh but important part of that story; when Crass gave punk back to the people.

Penny Rimbaud expands; “Back in the day, the late seventies and early eighties, when Crass ruled the waves, or is that ‘waved the rules’, hundreds if not thousands of inspired individuals and groups set about ‘doing it their way’, setting the new rule that there were no rules. Ears ever to the ground, Crass got to hear about these ‘new pretenders’ and they liked what they heard. Sending out a call to arms, they began to receive cassettes by the bag-load; good, bad, sad and sensational, conclusively proving, despite Crass’ own ‘Punk is Dead’ mantra, that punk was very much alive.

I have always felt that ‘Bullshit Detector’ was the most honest statement ever made on the true nature of punk as it really was and still can be. Not the ruination of pop pretensions, but very real statements of how it could and should be; a better world for all of us, rather than a crippling strangulation for all but an elitist few. Yup, we did it our way and, in truth, that’s the only way it CAN be done. Here’s to ‘More Bullshit’.”

Pre-order the reissues here and stream the Napalm Death track below.