The Origin History of the term "Hardcore Punk Rock"

[Magda Hassan]

How A Punk Band Fooled MI6, Scared Margaret Thatcher And Almost Caused A Diplomatic Incident


11. BuzzFeed phoned former Crass singer Steve Ignorant now a volunteer lifeboatman in Norfolk to tell him that the 1982 spoof tape had been discussed at high levels of government in both Washington DC and London.



12. This is what he said:

It makes me a bit worried about governments because if they could be fooled by something so ridiculous… well, someone told us that there was an MI5 dossier on us but we didn't take it that seriously.
I'm quite stunned [the recording] went that far.
[Bass player Pete Wright] just vanished upstairs one day with a load of little cassette tapes and with a razor blade and sellotape was slicing together stuff that he'd recorded off a black and white portable TV that we couldn't tune in properly.
Just as a joke he had it sent to Europe and sent back to various newspapers from Belgium. We didn't think for a second people would take it seriously. But obviously people did.

:: Thanks for that Kara! Hilarious and pathetic at the same time. Love how all these old punks and rockers who've made it to old age are still doing socially great things like volunteering their time as life boatmen or setting up freedom of speech defenders like the EFF and funding AIDS research while people like Thatcher could not be seen in public with out a police protection whose only 'friends' are war criminals and equally despised and worried their secret stash of stolen money would be discovered.