In my Junior year of high school I met this kid named Adam. He wore ripped clothes and had a mohawk, kind of scary looking. I wasn’t all punked out like that, but I guess I was odd looking enough that one day he walked up to me and started talking. He made me this tape a week or so later. It is a weird combination of songs. Side A is bunch of poppy punk or kind of punk (Carter USM) bands while Side B is all selections from albums released by anarcho-punks Crass. The former was mostly familiar territory (I had listened to Carter in my UK new wave/synth-pop time) though this was most first exposure to the Pogues (songs which actually turned me off from them for a long time as this is not their best work). The latter was completely new. The shift from the hardcore political shouting of Conflict to the glossy pop sounds of ex-Damned Captain Sensible is odd and things get stranger with the minimalist song from Zounds. Then, of course, there’s Crass. This tape opened a whole new avenue of punk to me, one which I have explored off and on since then. I still love singing along to Big A Little A.

(I threw the tape out months ago, but scanned the liner notes and photographed the tape before doing so.)

Submitted by:

Derik Badman