The Story of Crass

by George Berger

This is the b format edition of the critically acclaimed biography. It is an amazing account of the subversive band that took punk to the limit! Crass were the anarcho-punk face of a revolutioary movement founded by radical left-wingers, Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher. Not just another iconoclastic band, Crass was a musical, social and political phenomenon. Teetotal health freaks who were never photographed and remained contemptuous of conventional pop stardom, their members explored and finally exhausted the possibilities of punk-led anarchy. Here, members have collaborated on telling the whole Crass story giving access to many never-before seen photos and interviews. They tell the stories of putting out their own records, films and magazines and setting up a series of hoaxes that were dutifully covered by the world's press.

Genres: Music, Punk, Nonfiction, History, Politics, Art, Biography

304 pages, Paperback

First published September 4, 2006

About the author

George Berger is a freelance writer, with Punk Rock DNA. He has written for Sounds, Melody Maker and Amnesty International among others. He has published two books: Dance Before the Storm: the Official Story of The Levellers (Virgin Books 1999) and The Story of Crass. George is the founder of Flowers in the Dustbin. He lives where the mood takes him and funds allow.

Reviews

[Arf Ortiyef · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I first started reading this book, I was very excited. It begins with thorough details of the individual members of the band and the early art happenings, etc. Unfortunately this level of detail soon fizzled out and the book unraveled into a mess of meanderings and Rolling Stone style rock journalism. The author reads like someone completely new to the band and has trouble describing their music at all, using dismissive generalizations such as "unlistenable" (when talking about a live recording which is actually not at all unlistenable). That shouldn't be good enough for anyone who is seriously interested in reading about any kind of music.

The book focuses far too much on sensationalism and highlights controversies without getting into any sort of balanced description of the music beyond brief, irrelevant opinions. It contains the term "singafuckinglong" which should give you a clue as to the depth of the author's abilities. He also seems to fail at any sort of intelligent analysis of the bands' philosophies and just decides everything is "shocking" or "funny" as though that is enough. Maybe he should write about the Sex Pistols instead - he can't seem to stop mentioning them in this book.

Then it gets even worse and you start to realize that Berger does not really even like Crass because all he seems to write about is how terrible all their music is and how all their critics were right. He basically admits this in the epilogue, "I always thought the Poison Girls were a far better band than Crass, and it puzzled me that Crass was so much bigger and more influential." Why did this asshole write this book? Was it out of some weird need to take them down a peg or just pure ignorance and inability to write? Given the way Berger forms sentences, I have to assume it was a combination of the two.

There are a few good moments in the book which detail things I hadn't read before that are very exciting to read about. But those moments are really sporadic and don't hold this thing together. With all the first-hand accounts and stories, it is a bit depressing that this book turned out the way it did. Did the author manage to quote every single word of "Last Of The Hippies" (which I do recommend reading) over the course of this?

I do not recommend this book to anyone. The music of Crass music largely speaks for itself and this book does not help you to appreciate it. If you want to learn about Crass, listen to their incredible albums and read the lyrics and essays and then make up your own mind about it.

[Joshum Harpy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't love this book so much as I loved reading this book. As a lifelong fan of Crass it was an amazing window into the circumstances and approaches of the individual members of the band that reinforced my love of Crass and gave a clear window into their historical context. Having said that, I think this book will do nothing for people unfamiliar with the impact that this band has had on punk and anarchist subculture. If I had not grown up surrounded by crass t-shirts, patches, tattoos and general Crass reverence, this book would lead me to believe that Crass was a terrible band that only impressionable teenagers liked, whose politics were naive, sheltered and privileged, whose music ranged from mediocre to awful, and that the band themselves didn't even enjoy making the music. Hell, this may be true, but without fully understanding how much this small group of individuals undoubtedly shaped the future and politics of punk music and anarchist subculture, this book may be less than satisfying. I may be overstating this, but it really did seem like a pretty harsh telling.

What rings true from reading the book, however, is that despite the fact that Crass enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame in the punk underground, their priority was always modeling the integrity that they felt the commercial punk acts such as The Clash and The Sex Pistols were severely lacking. They were aggressively courted by mainstream rock press and labels, but resolutely refused, preferring to promote the DIY ethic and independent anarchist lifestyle that had brought them to the level of notoriety they achieved. They were a milestone in that they were the first punk act to have radical and anarchist politics who were dedicated to living the life that they were promoting rather than using their politics as a sensationalist gimmick to sell records. The book details how they took all the money that they began making and turned around to invest it back into the culture that supported them by creating anarchist spaces, putting out records of fellow punk acts and supporting various causes and campaigns. It goes in depth explaining that nearly all the members of Crass were old hippies who had already been plugged into a radical scene, politics and all, and who had already been exploring their avant-garde aesthetics and presentation for years before punk came along and inspired Crass. I understood this to some degree, but the abstruse artistry with which Crass always presented itself had always left me with a mystified curiosity as exactly how something so perfectly strange could ever have happened and gathered a massive, loyal following. Reading this book somehow demystified the Crass experience for me while only reinforcing my respect for the band and the personalities that made it what it was.

Perhaps one of the most interesting things that this book brought to my attention was the way in which Crass was absolutely essential in punk subculture co-opting anarchism. It hammers home the point that Crass not only advocated for an anarchist approach, but modeled a viable anarchist lifestyle with their (don't call it a) commune, Dial House. That they were the first punk outfit to present anarchism as something practical and applicable and more than sloganeering. And most importantly that they could give two shits about the anarchist "old guard." That they didn't want to be associated with the traditional labor/leftist anarchist movements, because they regarded themselves as representing a different breed of anarchism. In one fell swoop they breathed new life into anarchism, creating a durable anarchist subculture that has thrived for decades, while at the same time resolutely turning their back on the established anarchist culture. This merging of the punk aesthetic and anarchist values has essentially created an iron-clad relationship between the two wherein punk culture has consistently dominated the anarchist dialogue (at least in the U.S.) ever since, and anarchism has been able to retain a solid foothold in the collective awareness through a limitless stream of angry teenagers drawn to the bold aesthetic of punk. It makes me wonder what the word anarchism would even mean to us today if it weren't for this band redefining it and cementing it to punk subculture.

Most members of Crass cooperated with George Berger in making this book and it kind of makes sense in that acidic Crass way that this book could not be some puff piece to mythologize and hype them into the annals of rock history. It is a warts and all account, and maybe it is a reflection of the integrity and character of Crass that the book is so harsh.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exhaustive exhumation of every bit of history, every idea, and every opinion the band ever uttered. You really get an immersive experience, from the late '60s, when Penny and Gee acquired Dial House, through the turblulent early '70s, into the punk era, and beyond. With only a few exceptions, just about everyone involved with the Crass endeavor is mightily forthcoming with their thoughts and opinions. It's a dense read, and you will really step away from it with an increased understanding of everything from squatters to free festival culture to the difficulty of separating the National Socialists who want to stomp your face from the Trotskyists who want to talk your face off about the working man (in the abstract). The material about the Faulklands War was fascinating (and a good historical overview of the act itself) and reading the transcript of the fake recordings was exciting and slightly dangerous. However, as we grind toward the end, with the last few chapters increasingly padded out through ever longer quotations from Penny Rimbaud's "The Last Of the Hippies," and as every single band member gives their voluminous thoughts on what it all meant, the act of pushing forward through the book felt like I was walking down a hall whose walls were initially getting narrower, and then were lined with sandpaper. But for the first 90% of the book, the reading is great and worthwhile.


Also, if you know me and my musical proclivities, you can imagine that Berger and I diverged paths on the merits of "Yes Sir, I Will." I think it's one of their very best and most vital albums, while Berger diverges from this opinion by being wrong.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read, 04/2022: Time has lessened a bit of the harsh judgement I had of this book the first time I read it, especially regarding the many editing errors. The story of Crass is a fantastic one, and one anyone even remotely into punk should read. The only serious misstep here I can really gripe about this time around is the lack of details presented about the band’s later years; there is a lot of time spent on events leading up to the formation of Crass, and less and less about their later years It’s a notable imbalance.


This book could certainly have used a more detailed editing; I found multiple elementary spelling and grammar errors that shouldn't have been there (one of my ultimate pet peeves with any text I read, so I feel the need to mention it), and lots of murky and repetitive content once you get toward the middle of the book. That being said, I've been a Crass fan since my early teens, and the fact that, until I picked up this book, the only substantial material I've read about Crass has been written by the band members themselves was a redeeming enough quality. If you like punk, I would hope that you like Crass, and you should probably read this book.

[Jesse · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bizarrely written, ATROCIOUSLY edited (in desperate need of a copy editor, with errors almost every page, and also of a line editor), this is nonetheless a pretty fascinating book about a fairly fascinating band. Its criticisms are, for the most part, welcome, and it covers a lot of the reasons why people hated the band as well as why they were beloved by some. Learning about the people involved and their motivations was worth suffering through the writing: they're much more fully-formed and conflicted than their detractors might imagine.

[C.J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outside of their music and the heartfelt worldview that it put forward, the now-classic British punk band Crass were pretty much an enigma even to diehard punks. None of the nine members could have been easily recognized if one had bumped into them on the street, they rarely toured abroad (their only American gigs happened long before their first album was conceived), they dressed all in black, performed without elaborate stage lighting to illuminate them (making shooting live performances pretty much impossible - photographs and a couple of grainy super-8 films are the only live visual documents of the band, although several live audio recordings exist). This book, which everyone in the group (save one member) participated in for interviews and such, gives a long overdue and welcomed illumination to the people behind the band.

[Matt Ogborn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so happy to find an informative book about Crass, but there are many things about this book that drove me crazy. For instance, the grammar and writing are mostly awful throughout. A good editor would have made a world of difference. Also, Berger clearly doesn't particularly like Crass's music. He grudgingly grants that a few of the records are kind of good, but he totally dismisses others. Why did he write this book? I wasn't look for a puff piece, but why spend time writing a 300-page book about something about which you're not passionate?

Still glad I read it, though.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it was worth reading, but the author's writing bothered me/seemed lazy at times. For instance, quoting long (1+ full pages) excerpts from "The Last of the Hippies" at several parts of the book; throwing in quotes by band members and others without always putting them in any context, etc. In this regard, it seemed more like a collage/zine of artifacts than a well-put together biography or history of Crass. I still enjoyed reading it and learning some new stories.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

From an informational standpoint this was pretty amazing, but the level of writing and some of the author's editorializing was just awful. Does anyone reading this book need his track-by-track opinion of "Feeding of the 5000"? Probably not. Same goes of an endless (and it really did feel endless) analysis of the difference between hippies and punks. Still, there was a lot in here I didn't know about the band, I just wish a bit better writer would tackle this.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really well written, (although at times a bit harsh on the criticism) history of one of the most important punk bands/radical political groups. Crass has been left out of almost all histories of punk and cultural studies of leftist, radical movements. Hopefully this book is just the beginning of remedying this egregious oversight.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

EXCELLENT history of Crass. A must for anyone interested in the era they were playing and UK punk in general. I loved this book.

[Jada · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, so this review is mostly positive.

People that know nothing of punk rock will claim that the scene "died" in '77 when the Sex Pistols went kaput. For many, the Malcolm McLaren band was the pinnacle of punk rock, the cream of the crop, and when they went under after a truly horrific American tour, the scene croaked with them. This is both true and false. It's true that the Sex Pistols were the most well-known punk band at the time and punk's notoriety went down after the group split. Punk purists will only listen to British punk around that era and nothing else. Groups like The Clash went more mainstream, The Buzzcocks created an arguably more suburban and parent-friendly type of punk with pop-punk, and other bands like Siouxsie and The Banshees went on to create a darker sound we know as Goth.

So yeah, Big Punk kind of died in 1977.

But the argument of punk "dying" is false because punk is a DIY movement more than anything. As long as there are people who can kind of play music and want to make punk music then there will be punk music. Though "traditional punk" seems to have died, other heads sprouted from that angry Hydra. Post-punk, cold wave, no wave, and other types of experimental music took note of punk's energy and motto of "do it yourself" and made music they wanted to hear they way they wanted to hear it. Plus this argument centers punk solely in specific area during one specific time when music that is now considered the foundation of punk came from the US almost a decade prior. Punk isn't linear,so the story of punk shouldn't be linear either.

The irregularities of punk is where George Berger centers his argument. The Story of Crass is, of course, about the history of Crass, a political collective-cum-band that existed from 1977 to their eventual disbandment in 1984. I wanted to use the verb "played" in that previous sentence, but Crass did so much more than just play music. They were a political group more than anything, making music as well as visual art, poetry, and using other mediums that expressed their anti-establishment, anti-Thatcher, anti-war message. Instead of taking the traditional biography route and having Berger tell us about Crass, he blends history and personal anecdotes along with what I can only assume are the longest interviews ever with the former members of Crass and the people that knew them. This narrative is jarring to the reader when they first start the book but, if we remember that Crass were anti-capitalist and cared about a collective goal rather than a series of individual goals, this group story makes sense. It allows members like Penny Rimbaud, Joy de Vivre, Steve Ignorant, and Phil Free to talk about themselves and their own personal experiences rather than have someone prescribe emotions and narratives to them.

Crass was, to say it lightly, a lot. They were doing a lot, they were saying a lot, and they were being a lot. Starting from hippie roots, they were mobilized by punk's give-no-fucks attitude to express their emotions and thoughts over butterfly guitar picking and unintelligible lyrics. (I'm not joking: you need to read Crass's lyrics because you won't understand a word they're saying otherwise) More militant and wordy than other band out there, Crass created anarcho-punk at a time where capitalism and democracy were crumbling in England. This was Crass's greatest feat and their biggest downfall. Crass's political edge pigeon-holed them as the "political band" that turned off people wanting easy punk listening (an oxymoron if there ever was one) and the government. They were expected to be political all the time, something that really came back to bite them in the ass during Margaret Thatcher's early reign over England.

This is not a book for someone that is new to punk. Berger writes with the assumption that the reader already knows something about the history of punk and post-punk, so this book isn't recommended to anyone who wants to use this book to learn more about punk. Don't come into this book expecting to get a brief history on any of the other bands that existed in the same timeline as Crass like the Sex Pistols, The Damned, or The Clash. If you want to learn more about them or the history of early punk (often called '77 punk) then I would suggest Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil's Please Kill Me or Simon Reynold's Rip It Up and Start Again if you want to learn more about the history of post-punk. And, while Berger's inclusion of Crass's own words is necessary for telling a holistic narrative, there are times where it becomes overwhelming. Berger adds many of Rimbaud and de Vivre's poetry and writing into this book, which is cool until you remember that sometimes Rimbaud gets a little too academic.

So, overall, this is a great book. Much like the band it is discussing, the reader should be ready to re-evaluate traditional narratives when reading this book and open to new ideas being introduced. Crass wasn't right all the time, and Berger makes sure to tel us this. But, when they were right, they were fantastic.

[Julie Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally! Started this almost a year and a half ago and finally finished (this is what happens when there's not an audio book to accompany for when I'm driving; I tend to fall asleep shortly after I start reading print books lately).

This is an excellently written biography of Crass, my favorite anarcho-punk band of all time, and one of my favorite bands (period) of all time. I learned the backstory of all of the members, the origin of the band, and all the amazing stuff they did. They are (still) my heroes. They lived a life in sync with their values, preached by example, used their creativity and the power of music and the punk scene to influence and make change politically....throughout the book, I just loved them more, which is rare for me. Every time I learn more about my favorite punk bands, I usually walk away feeling a bit more informed but less impressed by them (like when Anthony Kiedis's book made me hate the Chili Peppers and Greg Gaffin's book left me questioning everything I thought I knew about Bad Religion and the punk scene of the 80's and 90's).

Interestingly enough, you could see Berger's lack of bedazzlement with Crass in his writing, so this was not just blowing smoke up their arses. He tempered the praise with criticism and admitted in the Afterword that he doesn't think they were as great as another band or as great as they may think they are, but their actions and words leave no doubt that they are the GOATs. Deep gratitude to Berger for documenting their place in history in this way. Fascinating, creative, intelligent, engaged, humble people doing good for the earth and civilization...an example to us all.

HIGHLY recommend to Crass fans of any generation.

[Keiron · Rating 1 out of 5]

a very poor read up on Crass- half of the text is borrowed heavily from Penny's other books and when the author takes his chance to shine he makes up words to describe the music of the band such as using"singafuckinalong" among other diatribes, and at one point and towards the end you question why he wrote a book on crass in the first place when he openly admits to never liking them and preferring Poison Girls over them. like most autobiographies, there are some nice pictures of the band and nothing much else afterwards. For a more detailed and entertaining read on Crass, I recommend Steve Ignorant's book "the rest is propoganda" which is not 90% all about crass but far better read than this. avoid like the plague.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t know much about the band apart from their music, so I was happy to learn quite a bit, but I hated the writing. Some quotes were used twice in different chapters, which is annoying. Some stories are not clear. I couldn’t suss if the Wedding flexi was actually released or if the magazine discovered the hoax before sending it out. Clarity is important! Berger excessively quoted lengthy passages from Rimbaud’s Last of the Hippies.
Some nice pix, including one, thankfully, of the exterior of the legendary Dial House.
Also, there are a million acronyms throughout, which are hard to keep track of. I would have appreciated an index of them and their meanings.

[Gregory Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book bummed me out. While he dutifully examines their work and times in granular detail, the author doesn’t much enjoy the music of Crass and seems almost resentful about their place in punk history. Also, I preferred Crass in my mind being solely their ideas and music and images, not of the personalities that created them. I never thought I’d ever roll my eyes at anything Crass until I started reading Steve Ignorant interview quotes. Ugh. Still, if you’re interested in punk history you could do worse than reading this.

[Valraven · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS IS ONE OF THE BOOKS OF MY LIFE
Crass is one of the best bands in the world, only them were true punks, they almost reached an anarchist way of living like no one before. Penny Rimbaud is a fucking genuis, with his idea and those of the band they created something that was crazy. The sad thing is that they were the most influential but also the most hated band because of their "power".
So good to see their story written somewhere, it really inspired me and more and more i'm feeling like i wanna a be a fucking punk like them.

[Luigina Mazzone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ho cominciato a leggere questo libro aspettandomi la storia di una normale band e ci ho trovato di tutto: omicidi da parte della polizia, governi assassini di sinistra e destra, la LADY di ferro che stermina la classe operaia, minatori, argentini. La storia di donne casalinghe annoiate con figli che mettono su una band punk, comuni che non sono comuni, la storia di una casa fantastica. Occupazioni e politica, poca musica, ma tutto condivisibile.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was hugely fascinating and readable because of the Crass story and characters involved. George Berger did a good job of pulling it all together, although I didn't agree with some of his personal interjections, and would like to read an account that gives more attention / credit to Crass's music.

[Grant · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the band, and this had some very interesting tidbits about them. But, as others have mentioned: could've used a once-over for spelling and grammar, it quotes whole pages from a Penny Rimbaud pamphlet (presumably, many Crass fans reading the book have already read said pamphlet), and the author doesn't seem to personally like Crass all that much, which is odd.

[Gina Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

All the information you could want about the band but it’s a very dry read.

[Nick Reeves]

Excellent insight into one way to live life as an outsider.

[Zoë Birss · Rating 4 out of 5]

A baptism into the world of enigmatic second-wave anarcho-punk band, Crass. Community living, vegetarian friendly, passionately nonviolent, radically feminist, viscerally antichristian, stalwart with integrity, unflinchingly honest, hospitable with conviction, and more than two decades older than most of the other charting punk bands of their day, Crass is certainly one of the most fascinating punk bands of all time. This book unloads the whole experience of Crass, from the histories of their various counterculture communities alongside the hippies and freaks of the sixties, through their inception and rise from 1977 through the early eighties, until their legendary end in 1984, as they said they would when they first began to experience fame five years before. This is a must read for anyone interested in punk rock, and for anyone interested in the expression of popular anarchism in the late twentieth century.

Upon reading some other reviews, I must add: The edition I read was badly in need of an editor. However, I read the book as though it was a very long, very thorough fanzine, a genre/medium that has much different expectations of its finished product and message than a typical book. So, this is a very raw book, but consistently so with most other underground and direct publishing from the punk and popular anarchist scene. I didn't find it bothersome.

[YNOT · Rating 2 out of 5]

i dunno...
i had 'obsessed' over this book fer like coupla months....
and then having read it...
was left 'unfulfilled...'

prob th' best part(s) are about...
the Pre-CRaSS 'AVaNT-iMPRoV' GRouP 'EXiT'...
OTheRWiSe, much of th' book seemed...
rather a rush job culled fum brit music weeklies & fanzines...
with sum after th' fact more recently dun intvws /w/ the author...
not bad, but cert nothing revelatory...

i guess that was th' point...
"maintain the CRaSS 'mystique' "...
as far as th' band members were / are concerned...
sorta like 'omerta' & the mob ( pun intended )
if that was th' intent, then job well dun...

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author does a stirling job of unravelling the story of punk & indeed British rock's most enigmatic band, the black-clad anarcho-hippies Crass. It's fascinating to finally hear the goings on straight from the horses mouth, the only downside being that the enigma that always shrouded the band and made them so utterly fascinating is stripped away with every page until the bubble finally bursts. Nevertheless, this is a essential purchase for anyone who was remotely interested in the intense, black & white underbelly of late '70s/early '80s Punk rock.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitive and hard to put down. From the major events (the Falklands War and the 1984 Miners Strike) to the small details (Paul Weller's comment that he admired Crass, everyday life at Dial House), this tells me so much that I've always wanted to know or wish I knew. This book, though flawed like its subject, affirmed my profound admiration for this group of people, for awhile known as the band Crass, who did so much to show what could be done. Consummate artists, true activists, unwavering stalwarts of anarchy. "There is no authority but yourself."

[Shawn Shit · Rating 4 out of 5]

a very good book for any crass fan, having read many reviews and opinions prior to readin this book i expected to hear more about the exploits of their contemporaries and other crass bands, of which much was left out. anyway, if you have already read any other books in the crass library specifically shibboleth by penny rimbaud, that fucker kind of shoots this book in the foot, it gets quoted a bit much. regardless, sweet book.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty quick read and a great overview on Crass and its indivdual members. Although I'd rather the book was set up like "We've Got the Neutron Bomb" or "No Beauty Without Danger" where it was more the members giving their accounts without George Berger's interjections, it was still an insightful look at the most misunderstood/active/honest punk band in the history of music.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crass might be the only band in history that actually lived by the ideas they preached and never "sold themselves out". I'd be fine with them making some t-shirts or something so they could actually live off of that legacy, but then a bunch of stupid people would believe that somehow detracted from their message.

[Joe Callaghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little poorly written, but an immersive read on a band whose music I've never fully appreciated, but have found their ethos quite fascinating. George Berger doesn't seem to really like Crass at all though. The best bits are quotes from those involved with the band, and not the bits Berger wrote, who spends most of the book sort of slagging Crass off. Weird.