What's Spinning, Vol. 34
Some punk rock, some history...
I decided to pull out one of the rarer punk albums in my collection, today, and let's talk about this history altering album.
Crass was an anarcho-punk band based in England during the 70s and 80s. They were very anti-establishment and let everyone know about it.
This album, How Does it Feel, is centered around the British Invasion of the Falkland Islands. This was actually such a hotly debated album for a few reasons:
1. Margaret Thatcher and her political party actually wanted to prosecute the group for what they deemed as lies and slander. They deemed it a volatile and distasteful representation of the reasons the English invaded the Falkland Islands.
2. The band actually came into possession of classified information from an informant in the British army that took part in the invasion. But they didn't stop there, and this is where it gets crazy...
The fabricated a call between Thatcher and US president Ronald Regan. In the call they were discussing the sinking of the Argentinan ship, The Belgrano, and the missile attack on the English ship, HMS Sheffield. After they finished the recording, it was secretly distributed all over Europe. But that's not all...
They ended up fooling MI6 and the US State Department who ended up believing this was a KGB propaganda attack to undermine the western powers. Heck, even the KGB thought this was one of their agents work.
Shortly after an investigation was launched and MI6 determined that the band created the tape and forced them to turn over all their classified documents.
Pretty far out if you ask me.
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Crass - How Does it Feel (To Be a Mother of a 1000 Dead)
Crass Records, 1982
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