Thursday, February 17, 2011

The Living Legends




     Definitely a dangerous band. They started out as Page 3 and played several violent, sexual, disturbing, somewhat political gigs. They were also known as Class War(the name Page Three was chosen by the band by sticking a pin into a book and naming themselves whatever they got from that). Often they would hide their real band name or pose as a different Page 3 to avoid having their shows canceled due to their bad reputation. After irritating Crass with their porno punk antics, Crass unplugged their equipment and refused to play any further shows with them after a gig in Swansea. Unfortunately for Crass, Ian Bone angered a bunch of football hooligans and Crass had to get involved.


      Ian Bone is noted as the head of Class War, the most dangerous man in Britain and founder of the Class War Magazine. His ideas supported a violent anarchist revolution and he was often arrested. When the Living Legends began gigging, they would have strippers all over the place and play music with very offensive and violent lyrics. Ian is a ray of hope, and a strong anarchist figure with brilliant ideas. It wasn't until The Living Legends split that the band Class War began.


     Luckily, two Living Legends recording sessions from 1981, 1982 and some live material from the late eighties were found from BBP so the band managed to get documented on tape and later on a discography CD. The line-up that went on to record the session with 'Island Wars' and that played at the 101 club with Conflict was Ian Bone, Doc Whelan, Roland Cleaver, Gareth Joseph, Dean Poole and Nicky Evans. Ian Bone also took part in the hilarious Class War zine. The band promoted violent anarchy, and just like the Apostles and the Rondos, saw too many flaws and Pacifism and Crass to bring any sort of change.


     Anarchist Ian Bone is still active to this day and has taken part in several debates and interviews. An autobiography is also out.



"Tory Funerals"


There's some occasion, some special events
You could say they were heaven sent
They engrave the stones with Roman Numerals
My favorite ones....... they're Tory Funerals

Conservative Ministers or Tory MPs
There's one sure way for them to please
They can call me a bastard, call me a red
In return......... just drop dead

Tory Funerals........ Tory Funerals
I want more of Tory Funerals
Tory Funerals........ Tory Funerals
I want more of Tory Funerals

ORDER! ORDER!
The Speaker for the House of Commons - For it is he!
It is my painful duty to have to inform the house that the Rt. Hon member for Finchley
Mrs. Margaret Thatcher has........ dropped dead!

(Cheers, laughter, party poppers, etc)

I couldn't care less I couldn't give a toss
At the sudden death of a factory boss
They ruling class are really hated
All I want......... is them cremated

Dig 'em out the graves when they're dead Corpse don't care if it's kicked in the head
Rip 'em apart, forget former glories
One good thing..... More dead Tories


Tory Funerals


"Premature Ejaculation"

PES are fucking up mu sexual relations
PES are ruining all the deeper sensations
PES are preventing possible penetrations
PES are giving me shorter and shorter vibrations

Verse

I'm coming too quickly, I'm coming too fast
It gets worse and worse 'cos I know it won't last
When I look in her face she looks aghast
No sooner have I started and it's over at last

Verse

I've tried to think of something else every time I screw
No sooner have I though of it I'm almost through
I've tried counting sheep or closing stable doors
But when I count the first baa lamb
Out it pours

Verse

I've tried using durex, a condom or a sgeath
She even puts it on for me using her teeth
Just got it on looks lovely and firm
When out it comes a white waxy worm


Downloads:

Demo Swnasea Studio 1981
The Pope is a Dope 1981
Cardiff Studio Recordings 1982
Better Dead than Wed 1985 Mortarhate
Live at the Action Arms, Hackney, London
Mr. Grins Studio Recordings 1995
Live in Cheltenham 1999
Unknown 198X
http://www.box.net/shared3lgpl7hd(all together)

14 comments:

  1. Ruben, first off wanted to thank you for stopping by my little slice of the internet. You have a lot going on here worthy of checking out. Thanx for doing what you do. A request? Could you upload this Living Legends/Class War thing...dying to give it a listen. Thanx again.

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  2. Alright. I will have this one up sometime on Friday.

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  3. Actually, I found a better program to upload these so I have it up now.

    http://www.box.net/shared/1o3lgpl7hd

    You are going to need Itunes to download my files. Like 5 tracks don't have names, but once you put the songs in Itunes, they will all be labeled correctly.

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  4. Thanx a ton Ruben, downloading as I type. No worries about the m4a format. I have itunes, but I just use http://www.nch.com.au/switch/index.html to convert my files to whatever format I need them in. I'm sure that after I listen to this I'm going to want to humt it down and get a copy for myself. Perfect timing with that wedding just happening. Thanx again

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  5. Your welcome. It is going to be almost impossible to find these tracks anywhere, but there is an official remastered CD that has all these and a info booklet on ebay. It is a split CD with another band called Unit(ex-The Apostles). There should be one floating around Ebay right now. I noticed the wedding because everyone was talking about it here but I didn't think it was worth all that attention. No offense but all weddings are the same to me.

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  6. cheers! been looking for LL recording for years! but the download link is dead. is it possible to re-upload? mighty thanks!

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    1. http://www.box.net/shared/1o3lgpl7hd worked for me

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  7. Doc whelan is dead now. Good riddance! He was a bully.

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    Replies
    1. Really? I never saw that side of him.

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  8. Thank you so much for sharing, I downloaded this and the 2 7" pope is a dope and better dead than wed have album titles. do you have a track list for distingushing album's and demos

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  9. thanks for the info, interesting

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  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  11. The Box URL worked. Hilarious I didn't have all our own stuff.
    PS '...the band Class War started' No, no. Class War was a lose collective of various editorial groups round Britain, which took it in turns to produce an issue of the paper. There were later attempts to put the melee on a more organised footing as the CW Fed, - but it was never a band. That said, The Legends were a kind of house band and played benefits at and for Centro Iberico etc.

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