"Zounds has been described as a political band. It has been labelled as squat-rock, pop-rock, peace-punk, anarcho-punk, post-punk, psychedelic, punk-pop and a million other things.  But those are just labels, I'm not that bothered what people call it really." Steve Lake, June 2013 This is part Steve's autobiography, part band history and part insiders story of the 1980's UK anarcho punk scene.     Zounds was formed around the nucleus of Steve Lake  and evolved from a number of jamming sessions with other musicians and friends in Oxford, taking in influences from the Velvet Underground to the Sex Pistols. The band began performing gigs in 1977/78, and became more politicized owing to troubles with police and unfolding events of the cold war, and became more and more involved with free festivals, alongside The Mob, with whom they developed a close association. They met up with fellow anarchists Crass when, legend has it, their van broke down on the road. They made their way to nearby Dial House, where Crass were based, who helped them with repairs. The two bands became friends, and although musically very divergent, they shared many common political views. After undergoing several line-up changes Zounds shortly afterwards released their first EP, Can't Cheat Karma, on the Crass Records label. The EP featured possibly their most well-known track "Subvert", a call to arms against the grind of daily life. The release of this EP and association with Crass led to an increase in the band's profile in the embryonic Anarcho-punk scene, touring with both Crass and the Poison Girls, as well as performing several squat gigs in West Berlin. The band released their first album The Curse of Zounds on Rough Trade Records in 1981, recording and mixing the LP within five days. The cover art, by anarchist artist Clifford Harper, featured a painting of fire fighters apparently trying to put out a blaze at the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. However, the picture continued onto the back cover, which showed that in fact they are spraying the fire with petrol, thus feeding it. In this book Steve Lake, principle writer of the band Zounds, collects all the band's lyrics and illuminates each with a relevant commentary. It contains personal reminisces about how the band and their peers lived, it delves into the background of the lyrics and looks at the wider social context in which the band operated. 

Zounds Demystified: Lyrics and Notes

Biographies & Memoirs

Steve Lake

Arts & Literature

Active Distribution

In the years since the end of the Cold War many new social movements have started peacefully, only to adopt a diversity of tactics as they grew in strength and collective experiences. The last ten years have revealed more clearly than ever the role of nonviolence. Propped up by the media, funded by the government, and managed by NGOs, nonviolent campaigns around the world have helped oppressive regimes change their

The Failure of Nonviolence

Peter Gelderloos

Max Stirner's The Ego and Its Own is striking and distinctive in both style and content. First published in 1844, Stirner's distinctive and powerful polemic sounded the death-knell of left Hegelianism, with its attack on Ludwig Feuerbach, Bruno and Edgar Bauer, Moses Hess and others. It also constitutes an enduring critique of both liberalism and socialism from the perspective of an extreme eccentric individualism. Karl Marx was only one of many contemporaries provoked into a lengthy rebuttal of Stirner's argument. Stirner has been portrayed, variously, as a precursor of Nietzsche (both stylistically and substantively), a forerunner of existentialism and as an individualist anarchist.

The Ego and His Own

Politics & Social Sciences

Max Stirner

Philosophy

<p>How is it possible to live free and joyful in this world of domination? The key idea Nietzsche offers us is this: don't hide from struggle in fantasy worlds or imaginary futures, but affirm life, say yes to life here and now. With all its violence, cruelty and loneliness; and all its encounters of tenderness, wildness, delight and possibility.</p>

Nietzsche and Anarchy

SHAHIN

Fuck Neoliberalism: ... And Then Some!

Simon Springer

Levi Gahman

Eat Like it Matters: Food choice, nutrition and wellbeing in a capitalist food system

Isy Morgenmuffel

Charlotte Cooper

Punk Matters: Interviews with Punk Artists and Activists

Gertfried Ambrosch

Overcoming Burnout

Nicole Rose

<p>A DIY guide to basic herbalism using easily findable plants, often weeds, Note that this is a UK title so plant names and availability will vary from the US.</p>

The Prisoner's Herbal

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Gardening & Landscape Design

Anarchism in North East of England 1882 - 1992

Tyneside Anarchist Archive

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