Crass – Bullshit Detector 1, 2 & 3
From: £24.99
Available on black & grey vinyl.
With the purchase of more than one album you will receive a complementary tote bag.
Free tote bag with any two or more LPs!
Description
On June 9th Crass Records, alongside One Little Independent Records, will reissue their iconic three volume compilation series ‘Bullshit Detector’ on 12” vinyl, available in both classic black and limited-edition grey.
‘Bullshit Detector’ was the name of a series of compilation LPs put together by the anarcho-punk band Crass and released on their own label. Three editions were released between 1980 and 1984, consisting of demo tapes, rough recordings and artwork that had been sent to the band. The sound quality of the ‘Bullshit Detector’ series was mixed and often basic, or even poor, as Crass would master the tapes directly to record without any additional production or enhancement. For Crass, the expectation of a polished performance was missing the point.
Sleeve notes from Bullshit Detector Volume 3 read; “Don’t expect music when the melody is anger, when the message sings defiance, three chords are frustration when the words are from the heart.”
The title ‘Bullshit Detector’ was derived as a reference to the Clash song ‘Garageland’ from their first album, a song covered by Chumbawamba guitarist Boffo on the second volume.
The series is notable for marking the first appearance on vinyl of Napalm Death (on the third volume). The “POWER” sleeve with marker pen art was designed by Haggis, AKA David Hargreaves lead singer of Youthanasia PX.
Further evidence of the compilation’s legacy can be found in a fourth, unofficial ‘Bullshit Detector’, this time an international compilation, released by the Swiss independent anarcho-punk record label Resistance Productions in 1994. There have also been records released in a similar style and with similar sentiment such as the ‘Bullsheep Detector’ compilation of Welsh punk bands released in 2012.
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’.”
Tracklist
Vol 1
- Andy T – Jazz on a Summers Day
- Counter Attack – Don’t Wanna Fight For You
- The Alternative – Change It
- Clockwork Criminals – We Are You
- Reputations in Jeopardy – Girls Love Popstars
- Crass – Do They Owe Us a Living? (Drums and vocals only)
- Amebix – University Challenged
- The Pranx – 2 Years 2 Late
- The Sinyx – Mark of the Beast
- Frenzy Battalion – Thalidomide
- Icon – Cancer
- The Speakers – Why
- A.P.F. Brigade – Anarchist Attack
- Fuck The C.I.A. – Right or Wrong
- Caine Mutiny and the Kallisti Apples of Nonsense – Morning Star
- The Sucks – Three
- Porno Squad – Khaki Doesn’t Go with My Eyes
- S.P.G. Murders – Soldiers
- The Eratics – National Service
- Red Alert – Who Needs Society?
- The Snipers – War Song
- Armchair Power – Power
- Disrupters – Napalm
- Andy T. – Nagasaki Mon Amour
- Action Frogs – Drumming Up Hope (Ferret Skank)
Vol 2
- Waiting For Bardot – Voice of U.K.
- Omega Tribe – Nature Wonder
- The Suspects – Random Relations
- Your Funeral – Think About It
- Kronstadt Uprising – Receiver Deceiver
- Deformed – Freedom
- No Label – Let’s Get It Right
- The Rejected – Same Old Songs
- Boffo – Garageland
- XS – Fuck the System
- Polemic Attack – Manipulated Youth
- Gardener – A. Gardener’s Song
- Toxic – Tradition of Slaughter
- 1984 – Break Up
- Insert
- Toxik Ephex – Police Brutality
- Sic – Low
- Molitov Cocktail – Ain’t Got a Clue
- Naked – Mid 1930s (Pre-War Germany
- Capital Punishment – We’ve Realised the Truth Now
- Anthrax – All the Wars
- Endangered Species – Slaughter of the Innocent (Curiosity Kills)
- Pseudo Sadists – War Games
- Total Chaos – Psycho Analysis
- Dougie – War Without Winners
- St. Vitus Dancers – The Survivor
- Stegz – Christus Erection
- Metro Youth – Brutalised
- Normality Complex – Black Market Shadow
- Youth in Asia – Power & the Glory
- Riot Squad – Security System
- Destructors – Agent Orange
- The Pits – U.K. in Dreamland
- The Bored – Riot Style
- Toby Kettle – Theatre Comment
- Chumbawamba – Three Years Later
- Passion Killers – Start Again
- Amerikan Arsenal – Get Off Yr Ass
Vol 3
- Avert Aversion – Oh What a Nice Day
- Awake Mankind – Once Upon a Time
- A Nul Noise – Hibakusha
- Animus – Nuclear Piss
- Peroxide – Ministry of Death (M.O.D.)
- Untitled – We Are Taught How to Kill
- Xtract – (Waiting For The) Genocide
- Verbal Assault – Not Yet Ron
- Fifth Column – Counterfeit Culture
- Potential Victim – People
- 7th Plague – Rubber Bullets
- Rebel – Genesis to Genocide
- Alienated – Living in Fear
- Barbed Wire – Weapons of War
- Rob Williams – Lies
- Reality Control – The War is Over
- Youthanasia PX – Power
- Sammy Rubette + Safety Match – The Ballad of Maggie the Maggot
- Politicide – 51st State
- Markus Abused – The Killing Machine
- One Man’s Meat – Your Country Misleads You
- Direct Action – Death Without a Thought
- Crag – Voice Your Protest
- Attrition – In Your Hand
- Napalm Death – The Crucifixion of Possessions
- The Impalers – Sun, Sun, Sun
- Health Hazard – Picture Show
- Phil Hedgehog – Radio Times
- Malice – Faceless
- Michael Kingzett Taylor – Paranoia
- Brainwashed Pupils – The Demonstration
- No Defences – Work to Consume
- A.N.E.E.B. – Berlin Wall
- Carnage – Carnage
- Warning – Beasts of Fiction
- State of Shock – Excess Youth
- Neale Harmer – Hard Nut
- Dead to the World – Action Man
- Dandruff – Life in a Whiskey Bottle
- Richard III – Will You Care?
- Funky Rayguns – The Hare and the Tortoise