The Smack, Whitstable
The Smack, Whitstable, 21st July 2004:
This open stage was worthy of note only for the sheer glib hideousness of some of the performers. Now, as you may have noticed, I think it’s safe to say that I am no Socialist, but I am willing to concede that Socialism has, at its basis, a simple desire to propagate equality in an industrial society. George Orwell wrote in the 1930s of the left’s alarming ability to attract cranks and noted despairingly how, as a result, the honourable ideals at the root of Socialism could never succeed or be accepted as the majority of people ended up equating “crank” and “socialist” as one and the same.
Same as it ever was, it would seem. On Wednesday we were treated to a Crusty duo bashing out whiny, bad folk “protest” songs (songs of protest or songs designed to induce protest? Hmmm…); bleating away about all the “Fascists” in government and elsewhere and what “they” are trying to do. Who are these Fascists? Where are they? What precisely are they trying to do? Have you ever seen one? Do you even know what a “Fascist” is?! After another super-dirge about “goodbye trees” and “hello CFCs”, and something about “rising seas”, I was about set to poke out my own eardrums with the end of my guitar strings. Moon Soon June Croon, That’s called poetry, it really is… The Crusty duo’s fan club seemed suitably pleased and some of them performed too, though fortunately only subjected us to cover versions rather than the results of their own confused and ill-informed thought processes. I noted their high street-derived attire and the odd conspicuous logo (do anarchists really wear Reebok?!) and wondered if they were aware of the incompatibility between their professed opinions and their clothes. Maybe the amount of dirt they were carrying around with them was an expression of protest at The Man and his “Fascists” duping them? To call these dunderheads “Socialists” is, I suppose, to do a gross disservice to your average certified-sane left-winger. I don’t even know whether the Crusty Duo would term themselves as such, if their idea of “Socialism” is even half as confused as their idea of “Fascism”. No, Wednesday’s crowd belong to a bizarre, mutant sub-strain that is closely to related to the Respect Coalition and just about any another banner-waving, shout-you-down, group of cranks that tacks “Coalition” onto the end of its moniker. They have no relation to the progressive idealism of old school Socialists (like, say, George Orwell). Their thought processes are entirely reactive, to the point of paranoid delusion, and they are purely defined by what they are against (and this in itself is pretty vaguely defined, other than some indistinct, emotive, catch-all bogeyman term like “fascist”). Come to think of it, their banal, simplistic sloganeering is pretty much at the same stunted level of “debate” as the BNP.
At one point, the cabin fever was so intense that I decamped to The Neptune to get my “other half” for moral support. When I returned we had Paul and Ruth and their unknown keyboard player. Now, I sometimes find their heavily Beatle-inspired music a little over-mannered, albeit superior to your average pub combo fare. However, after the travesty of the Crusty Duo (surely it was a wind-up) they sounded like the Second Coming (of the Messiah that is; not the much-hyped and over-delayed ramblings of a load of Manc coke-heads).
A very short Psychotic Reaction set was abridged by guitar problems (broken strings and a shite pick-up that suddenly seemed to render bass strings inaudible!). Finally, we had an unknown solo performer who was pretty good, but I was so dazed by earlier events, I forgot to ask who he was. Maybe next time. As has happened before, an attempt at using an open stage as a gig warm-up merely ends up with us losing the will to live. But, as has happened before, this usually bodes well for the gig in hand.
Set list:
- The Medway Crab Fisherman (Williams)
- Blitzkrieg Bop (The Ramones)
- The New Victor (Dick Dale)