by Joachim Hiller
OX Fanzine
October 2015
Former CRASS-Drummer Penny Rimbaud published Shibboleth in 1999, a book in which he already wrote a lot about his adventures with CRASS, his hippie years and the fight about Dial House, the commune of CRASS. Ever since then he’s been writing essays regularly, but before Shibboleth his output was limited. Most of his works were CRASS-related, such as “Reality Asylum” (1977), an angry statement about christianity, or “A Series of Shock Slogans And Mindless Token Tantrums” (1982) about the death of his friend Wally Hope. Hope and Rimbaud once organized the Stonehenge hippie festivals in cooperation. The festivals enraged both politicians and police. 1975 Wally Hope was arrested and imprisoned for possession of LSD. He died in prison. In a text coming with the 1982 CRASS record Christ – The Album Rimbaud refered to Hope’s death as murder by government authorities. The Last of the Hippies is a re-publication of this text and helps to understand the intellectual and political context of CRASS’ agitations. Rimbaud’s analytical introductory remarks about the political development in the UK and the 70s punk scene are almost more fascinating than the text itself. One must not agree with everything he writes but it can’t be denied that describing the SEX PISTOLS as only interested in money and CLASH as hypocrites are interesting statements regarding the history of punk. If you are interested in CRASS and anarcho punk in general you shouldn’t miss out on this book.
