Last Amendment
Encyclopedia
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band Crass
Crass
Crass are an English punk rock band that was formed in 1977, which promoted anarchism as a political ideology, way of living, and as a resistance movement. Crass popularised the seminal anarcho-punk movement of the punk subculture, and advocated direct action, animal rights, and environmentalism...
and others. Although Crass formally split up in 1984, Penny Rimbaud
Penny Rimbaud
Jeremy John Ratter , better known under his pseudonym of Penny Rimbaud, is a drummer, writer, poet, former member of performance art groups EXIT and Ceres Confusion, and co-founder of the anarchist punk band Crass with Steve Ignorant in 1977.-Biography:Rimbaud Jeremy John Ratter (born 8 June 1943,...
, Gee Vaucher
Gee Vaucher
Gee Vaucher is a visual artist who was born in 1945 in Dagenham, East London.Her work with Anarcho-punk band Crass was seminal to the 'protest art' of the 1980s. Vaucher has always seen her work as a tool for social change. In her collection of early works Crass Art and Other Pre Post-Modernist...
, Eve Libertine
Eve Libertine
Eve Libertine is a British singer.She was one of the two female vocalists who worked with the influential British anarcho-punk band Crass...
, Steve Ignorant
Steve Ignorant
Steve Ignorant is a singer and artist. He co-founded the anarcho-punk band Crass with Penny Rimbaud in 1977. After Crass stopped performing in 1984, he has worked with other groups including Conflict, Schwartzeneggar, The Stratford Mercenaries, Current 93 , US punk band Thought Crime, as well as...
, Andy Palmer and Pete Wright
Pete Wright (musician)
Peter Wright, better known as Pete Wright, was bass guitar player and vocalist for anarchist punk band Crass from 1977 until 1984. Occasionally he is credited as Pete Wrong on the bands' record covers. After the dissolution of Crass he formed the performance art duo Judas 2.-References:...
came together in November 2002 to put on a concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall
Queen Elizabeth Hall
The Queen Elizabeth Hall is a music venue on the South Bank in London, United Kingdom that hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. The QEH forms part of Southbank Centre arts complex and stands alongside the Royal Festival Hall, which was built for the Festival...
on London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's South Bank
South Bank
South Bank is an area of London, England located immediately adjacent to the south side of the River Thames. It forms a long and narrow section of riverside development that is within the London Borough of Lambeth to the border with the London Borough of Southwark and was formerly simply known as...
in opposition to the at that time proposed War on Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
. Although they did not all appear on the stage at the same time, most of the ex-members of Crass participated in the event under the name of The Crass Collective, along with other performers such as Ian MacKaye
Ian MacKaye
Ian Thomas Garner MacKaye is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, musician, label owner, and producer. Active since 1979, MacKaye is best known for being the frontman of the influential hardcore punk bands Minor Threat and The Teen Idles, the post-hardcore bands Embrace and Fugazi, as well...
, Goldblade
Goldblade
Goldblade are an English punk rock band from Manchester, England. The band formed in early 1995 when ex Membranes frontman, John Robb, put the band together with Wayne Simmons and former A Witness vocalist Keith Curtis on bass, Rob Haynes on drums and Jay Taylor on guitar.The band signed to...
, the English Chamber Choir, Fun Da Mental, etc.
The Crass Collective continued to put on gigs and performances, usually of a collaborative nature, on a regular basis throughout 2003 at the Vortex Club in Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
, London. In October of that year however they changed the name of the project to Crass Agenda. Works by the collective have included Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
cabaret, an interpretation of Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
's poem Howl
Howl
"Howl" is a poem written by Allen Ginsberg in 1955 and published as part of his 1956 collection of poetry titled Howl and Other Poems. The poem is considered to be one of the great works of the Beat Generation, along with Jack Kerouac's On the Road and William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch...
, Crass' Yes Sir I Will
Yes Sir, I Will
Yes Sir, I Will, released by Crass in 1983 , was the band's last 'official' album. The record consists of one continuous piece of music spread over the two sides of the original vinyl release , making it the longest punk song ever recorded, although this is intercut with two brief interludes; a...
and an update of Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
' play Under Milk Wood
Under Milk Wood
Under Milk Wood is a 1954 radio drama by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, adapted later as a stage play. A movie version, Under Milk Wood directed by Andrew Sinclair, was released during 1972....
, in which property developers move into the mythical Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
village of Llareggub.
Others that have worked as part of Crass Collective/Crass Agenda include disability rights advocate and actor Nabil Shaban
Nabil Shaban
Nabil Shaban is a British actor and writer. He founded The Graeae - a theatre group which promotes performers with disabilities. He has a son named Zenyel....
, Pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
Dylan Bates, saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
player Ingrid Laubrock
Ingrid Laubrock
Ingrid Laubrock is a German-born jazz saxophonist, who plays soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones.She studied with Jean Toussaint, Dave Liebman and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama....
, John Sharian
John Sharian
John Sharian is an American actor whose film credits include The Machinist and Saving Private Ryan and whose television credits include CSI: Miami and Spooks.-Education:...
, Julian Siegel
Julian Siegel
Julian Siegel is a UK Born Jazz Saxophone and Clarinet player, writer and arranger.Siegel has toured and recorded with Greg Cohen and Joey Baron and was awarded the BBC Jazz Awards 2007 for Best Instrumentalist....
, Gene Calderazzo
Gene Calderazzo
Gene Calderazzo is an American jazz drummer, born in New York, but currently residing in the United Kingdom where he is a visiting tutor at the Birmingham Conservatoire, the Royal Academy of Music, Trinity and the Guildhall...
, Kate Shortt
Kate Shortt (musician)
Kate Shortt is a pianist, cello player, songwriter and comedian. Since training as a professional musician at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, she has performed her cabaret style sets at the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as the Hackney Vortex Club, the King's Head Islington, Jermyn Street...
, Ed Jones and others. During 2004 Crass Agenda were at the forefront of a campaign against the closure of the Vortex jazz club, which has now relocated to Hackney
London Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
.
In June 2005 the project was renamed Last Amendment, with their website, declaring the name Crass Agenda as being "no more". Their first live performance using this incarnation was on 30 June at the New Vortex club in Hackney, east London.
Discography
- Savage Utopia - featuring Eve Libertine, Christine TobinChristine TobinChristine Tobin is an Irish born jazz singer from Dublin who has been part of the London jazz and improvising scene since the second half of the 1980s. She has been influenced by a diverse range of singers and writers including Betty Carter, Bessie Smith, Leonard Cohen, and poets WB Yeats, Paul...
, A-Soma, Louise Elliot, Kevin DavyKevin DavyKevin Davy is a British jazz trumpeter, based in London.Born in Nottingham, UK where he lived until 1986, whereupon gaining a place to study at Manchester Polytechnic, decided to move to the city...
, Phil Robson, Liam Noble, Davide Mantovani, Matt BlackMatt BlackMatt Black is a British DJ and one half of music duo Coldcut .As a college student, he was a member of a band called The Jazz Insects, whose first single was played by John Peel in his radio show...
(of ColdcutColdcutColdcut are an English dance music duo, comprising Matt Black and Jonathan More. Their signature style is electronic dance music, featuring cut up samples of hip hop, breaks, jazz, spoken word and various other types of music, as well as video and multimedia.-1980s:In 1986, computer programmer Matt...
) performing work by Penny Rimbaud (Babel LabelBabel LabelThe Babel Label is a record label was founded in 1994 by Oliver Weindling. It primarily records and releases jazz albums from UK artists. Ongoing relationships include artists such as Billy Jenkins, Christine Tobin and Huw Warren. A close relationship has been forged with a number of musicians from...
/Exitstencil, 2004) - Penny Rimbaud's How? - poetry based around Allen GinsbergAllen GinsbergIrwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
's HowlHowl"Howl" is a poem written by Allen Ginsberg in 1955 and published as part of his 1956 collection of poetry titled Howl and Other Poems. The poem is considered to be one of the great works of the Beat Generation, along with Jack Kerouac's On the Road and William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch...
, recorded live at the Vortex Club. (Babel Label/Exitstencil, 2004) - In the Beginning Was the WORD - Live DVD recorded at the Progress Bar, Tufnell Park, London, 18 November 2004 (Gallery gallery Productions @ Le Chaos Factory, 2006)
External links
- Last Amendment upcoming events
- PUNKCAST#1065 Video of Rimbaud/Elliott - Last Amendment - at Gavin Brown Passerby NYC on Nov 8 2006.