BadComrade wrote:Anything good about this band is overshadowed by the fact that millions of teenagers wear fucking crass patches along side subhumans and anarchy patches on their lame little jackets with their lame little haircuts and their lame little chain wallets.

I don't think it is overshadowed...but Rimbaud himself admits it makes him sick to think his legacy with Crass is now a jacket patch.

I don't see a patch on a jacket when I spin the records...so that's cool with me.

BadComrade wrote:Anything good about this band is overshadowed by the fact that millions of teenagers wear fucking crass patches along side subhumans and anarchy patches on their lame little jackets with their lame little haircuts and their lame little chain wallets.

We all know the kids you describe (and recognize the immaturity and pretentiousness of their uniform and conformist subset). Yet, I think it takes a higher level of immaturity, call it meta-immaturity, to give a rat's ass about what the kids are all wearing these days.

I don't know what's more lame: fifteen-year-old, fake-o gutter punks, or thirty-year-olds who puff themselves up by hating on fifteen-year-olds for being fifteen-year-olds.

Oh, wait, you work in a record store.

BadComrade wrote:Anything good about this band is overshadowed by the fact that millions of teenagers wear fucking crass patches along side subhumans and anarchy patches on their lame little jackets with their lame little haircuts and their lame little chain wallets.

Who cares more about image, Crass or you? Crass' music stands alone. If some punk copies another, it doesn't say anything on the quality of their music.

Lots of people hate crass. I for one, do not.

I have a lot of admiration for Crass because they stayed true to their "agenda", so to speak. They played on grabge instruments. They painted graffiti and political messages on the london underground. They didn't dress in any fancy "punk rock" clothing. They detested any "light shows" and etc. on stage. They never claimed to be anything more than an anarchist band and promoted these beliefs through their music. I admire any punk rock band that did this.

Crass didn't make some of the most pleasing music to listen to... but then again, war isn't pretty, right?

NOT CRAP.

Not Crap for a lot of reasons.
Certainly not crap for consistently having the best snare sound ever. I don't really like snare drums, but theirs always sounds hella sweet.

They had a lot of mediocre songs, they are the minority.
Penis Envy is fantastic all the way through.

CRASS were an outstanding band. Their music was great and their humour was so much more bitter (and actually "ha-ha" funny than usual UK music humour). Shit like The Gasman Cometh, Where Next Columbus? Mother Earth, Bloody Revolutions, etc. is always going to be ahead of the curve.

Not crap.

You can't beat those first two albums.

No Crass- no Southern. just something to think about there.

Feeding, Stations, putting a level of conscious thought and activism into punk. Not crap. no way, no how.

Penis Envy is the only one I listen to and it's great so NOT CRAP

BadComrade wrote:The point I was making is that everything the band did and stood for has practically been distilled down to the punk rock equivalent of a Von Dutch clothing logo*.

I don't think you mean this literally. What they did and stood for never entered the "distilling process," to follow your analogy. Only their graphic design was scooped, much like a Misfits or SubHumAns font can be swiped (oh but the heavens will shake with wrath if someone does like the Nike/Minor Threat ripoff ad and makes a sneaker poster with CRASS-style stencil border all around!).
Anyway the truth is, what Crass did and stood for WAS distilled by members of the "scene" who took their still-formative beliefs and behavior and turned it into punk dogma. The "movement" decayed from the inside; think about that.