Free book (ended) - The Story of Crass [Punk Music History/Biography]

[ATDrake]

The Story of Crass, by George Berger, is a history/biography of the punk rock band Crass, courtesy of PM Press. This is available to Canadians and possibly others in the Kobo store, and to US persons at the Borders store.

Synopsis
In-depth interviews with the main movers in the punk rock movement Crass members Penny Rimbaud, Gee Vaucher, and Steve Ignorant detail the face of the revolution founded by these radical thinkers and artists.

When punk ruled the waves, Crass waived the rules by putting out their own records, films, and magazines and setting up a series of situationist pranks that were dutifully covered by the world's press. Not just another iconoclastic band, Crass was a musical, social, and political phenomenon: commune dwellers that were rarely photographed and remained contemptuous of conventional pop stardom.

As detailed in this history, their members explored and finally exhausted the possibilities of punk-led anarchy. This definitive biography of the band not only gives backstage access to their lives, philosophies, and the movement that followed, but also to never-before-seen photographs and rare dialogues.

If the Add to Library button at Borders gives you a technical error, you can get the book by using the Borders Desktop Reader to search for the book and select "download" from within the app. It'll be automatically be added to your library at the website, and after about a day or two there'll usually be an ePub download button also.

[anabelee]

In Kobo this book is not available for international, but

[SensualPoet]

You might check again at kobobooks: there appear to be two different entries, one free, one $9.69.

Free and Can$9.69.

Very odd. But true! Or, only in Canada, you say? Pity!

[mr ploppy]

Another one for the Peculiar instances of georestrictions thread. How does it handle the photos and illustrations?

[ATDrake]

Groups them all together into several bunches of black & white sections. This is probably how they were presented in the print version, too.

I had a quick skim, and this seems like a pretty serious, decently done book. Tries to put the band's activities into historical context with whatever UK cultural/political happenings were going on at the time (Thatcher, IRA hunger strikes, et al.), and it's got some footnotes.

[doreenjoy]

I keep seeing this thread pop up in the Recent Posts lists, so I had to come in and say how much I *loved* Crass back in the day when I was a punk-ass teenager.

Now I've said it, I can move on to more productive things....

[Donnageddon]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

I keep seeing this thread pop up in the Recent Posts lists, so I had to come in and say how much I *loved* Crass back in the day when I was a punk-ass teenager.

Now I've said it, I can move on to more productive things....

Same here doreenjoy.

The free ebook downloaded fine here in Seattle-ish, USA.

[mr ploppy]

I never cared much for most of what they did myself, but I would still rate Bloody Revolutions as one of my favourite songs of all time. Mind you, I do prefer the Radio Schizo version these days.

BTW, would any of you be interested in helping me with this? I'd be interested in whether any of it makes sense from an American perspective.
http://marcusblakeston.wordpress.com/

[ATDrake]

I'm Canadian and punk, if I've got the dates from the Crass bio right, seems to have had its heyday before I was born. But your story excerpt makes enough sense, even though you are missing a few commas before the "he says/I say" bits.

I got that the protagonists were on welfare and complaining about Thatcher's warmongering in the Falklands. However, I may be slightly more acquainted with these things due to general Commonwealthiness than US readers might be.

[candide]

I was very tickled to see that due to tiresome legal restrictions, a freebie book about Crass isn't available in the UK. they'll be ROFLing in their tartan slippers at that.

[Iztok67]

Hi

I apologise if thise isnt proper question.

In my country (Slovenia) thise book isnt aviable. Can somebody upload or PM me with free version? I woud be really thankfull.
I get to know abaut Crass in former Yugoslavia and you can imagine how it was dificult to get their records here. I will spare you the details but it was hard . They influenced my youth quite a bit.

Thank you in advance.

Iztok

I apologise for my english

[carpetmojo]

If you are into/remember/hate/love punk, which you must do one of if you're reading this thread....I recommend the excellent music of "The Bad Shepherds".

Live they are brilliant, their 2 albums as good, nearly [ "By Hook or by Crook" and "Yan, Tyan, Tethera, Methera "].
They take punk music, re-arrange, and play on "thrash" mandolin [Ade Edmundson], uillean pipes [Troy Donockley], and fiddle [Andy Dinan] - and a few other things.
They will surprise you !
Truly original - well, apart from the original music that is !

"HOW THE BAD SHEPHERDS CAME TO BE…
Adrian Edmondson was a teenager when punk arrived. The songs of The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Jam and The Stranglers were the soundtrack to his life through the late 70’s and early 80’s, and like a lot of people of his generation he was fond of playing these songs to himself at home on his acoustic guitar.Cut forward to 2007: after a boozy pre-Christmas lunch in Soho, Ade stumbled along to Denmark Street, home of many alluring musical instrument shops, and whilst inebriated, ‘accidentally’ bought a mandolin. Surprised to see it sitting there in his kitchen the following morning he nevertheless picked it up, worked out a few chords, and started playing the same songs with a mandolin accompaniment – it sounded really interesting..."

Hope it's OK to give this :- www.thebadshepherds.com

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Iztok67

In my country (Slovenia) thise book isnt aviable.

Unfortunately, the book is no longer free as the promotion seems to have expired sometime within the past year, otherwise I would have suggested you use a VPN IP proxy and a fake US address which would have allowed you to obtain geo-restricted e-books from Kobo.

Hope this helps and welcome to MobileRead!

[mr ploppy]

The paperback is cheaper and better than the ebook, as long as you don't want the first printing. The ebook is full of typos and the images are too small and in the wrong places.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

If you are into/remember/hate/love punk, which you must do one of if you're reading this thread....I recommend the excellent music of "The Bad Shepherds".

Burnt Cross are the natural successors to Crass. And unlike Crass they are prepared to don a black mask and put what they preach into practice

They also make all their music available free through Moshpit Tragedy (though you can also pay for it if you want). Their cover version of The Apostles' Mob Violence is probably their best so far.