Speed Of History

Super cheesy promo video for the single from 1980.

05.25.2008 Speed of History Show 131

Playlist:

A.C.A.B. - Skinhead For Life
Last Resort - King Of The Jungle
The Warriors - Horror Show
The Oppressed - Joe Hawkins
Antisocial - New Punks
The Business - Suburban Rebels
Los Reactors - Dead In The Suburbs
The Diodes - Death In The Suburbs
Screeching Weasel - Hey Suburbia
Amebix - No Gods, No Masters
Amebix - The Beginning Of The End
Amebix - Battery Humans
Amebix - Fear Of God
Amebix - The Power Remains
Spectres - Visions Of A New World
The Estranged - No Love
Marvelous Darlings - Careerist
Latex Novelties - Teenage Idol
Transistors - Riot Squad

I found out about this band while doing my anti-police sets for last weeks show. Malaysian Oi! from the ’90s. They have since reformed as THE A.C.A.B. and are supposedly playing indie and post punk kind of stuff. I should check that out sometime. In the meantime here is a modern Oi! classic.

One of the best singles ever released on Bristol’s Riot City Records. The Underdogs were from Leeds in Yorkshire, released in 1983. With a sound I’d pitch somewhere between Stiff Little Fingers & Toxic Reasons. Great single, from one of those bands that just disappeared….

East of Dachau is one of my all time favorite punk songs. I first heard this band not that many years ago. A Punkcore band called CROPKNOX covered it and it was by far the best song on their album. A bit or research (HRPS I think it was) quickly told me it was a cover so I of course had to immediately track down the original.

As far as I know this has never been reissued, save for popping up on some Riot City comps here and there. I have it as part of a collection of their stuff called Riot In Rothwell, but even that I am unsure of the provenance of.

Great down-tuned, mid tempo, melodic and gloomy punk that I constantly swear No Hope For The Kids owe their career to, right down the WWII/Cold War themes.

East of Dachau
Johnny Go Home
Dead Soldier

Live in 1978, cut outs early and all around really strange.

05.11.2008 Speed of History Show 130

EDIT:  File should be okay now, 7/28/08.

Playlist:

Cock Sparrer - Where Are They Now
The Clash - Death Or Glory
Sham 69 - If The Kids Are United
Sham 69 - The Cockney Kids Are Innocent
The Who - Won’t Get Fooled Again
Led Zeppelin - The Song Remains The Same
The Cars - Moving In Stereo
The Cars - Candy-O
The Cars - Panorama
The Cars - Since You’re Gone
The Cars - Hello Again
Camera Silens - Pour La Gloire
Trotskids - Gueule D’Enfer
Snix - Unite
Reich Orgasm - Futur Pour Tous
No Hope For The Kids - Cold Touch Of Death
The Soviet Valves -Sight That Harms, Gaze That Harms
Frustration - Vice
Street Brats - Destination Nowhere
Manikin - Death March

Sacramento-area man sentenced to 19 years in terrorism plot
By Denny Walsh - dwalsh@sacbee.com

Published 12:00 am PDT Friday, May 9, 2008

Eric McDavid, who went on the road to learn what was beyond his middle-class, suburban Sacramento upbringing and returned a prisoner, was sentenced Thursday to 19 years and seven months in prison.

At the conclusion of a lengthy hearing before a crowded courtroom, U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England Jr. found McDavid’s plan to “disrupt government and commercial installations” overrides his lack of a criminal history and a reputation among family and friends as “a peaceful individual.”

England denied defense lawyer Mark Reichel’s request for bail pending appeal.

In an extremely unusual move, deputy U.S. marshals allowed McDavid’s traumatized and tearful mother, father and two sisters to hug him before he was taken away.

McDavid, 30, was found guilty by a jury in September of conspiring with two others to burn or blow up a federal facility.

Two veteran lawyers – Assistant U.S. Attorney R. Steven Lapham and Reichel – went head to head on whether the terrorism sentence enhancement should apply.

Reichel argued forcefully the jury did not find a necessary element: that his client conspired with Zachary Jenson and Lauren Weiner to target the government installations specified in the indictment.

He argued that even Jenson and Weiner, who testified against McDavid in return for leniency, said there was no conspiracy among the three of them to focus on a U.S. Forest Service genetics lab in Placerville and the Nimbus Dam and neighboring fish hatchery in Rancho Cordova.

He said the conspiracy against those facilities, if there was one, was between McDavid and “Anna,” an undercover FBI operative and the fourth member of the group, with whom McDavid was infatuated.

But Lapham said it is “undeniable … that McDavid was the one who first advocated using explosives when he recruited Weiner and Jenson in August 2005,” and that he targeted the genetics lab even though he knew people were living there and could be accidentally killed.

McDavid’s parents and sisters addressed England, telling him their son and brother is a caring, gentle person who would never deliberately harm someone.

Lapham, however, said he cannot reconcile that image with “what Eric McDavid became.”

“I don’t believe it was all talk,” England declared, adding it ceased to be that when the foursome bought bomb-making materials and began trying to make an explosive device.

England acknowledged that the terrorism enhancement is “an onerous provision of the law” but said he is convinced Congress meant it to be applied in cases like McDavid’s.

“It’s a new world since Sept. 11, 2001,” he observed.

With credit for the maximum amount of time off for good behavior and the two years and four months he has spent in jail since his arrest, McDavid should be released in mid-2022.

He was studying philosophy at Sierra College in Rocklin when he decided to crisscross the country by hopping trains.

But some of what he would learn was unimaginable as he embarked on this odyssey.

He learned merely talking of blowing things up and attempting, however unsuccessfully, to make a bomb is domestic terrorism, especially in post-9/11 America.

And, while it’s unlikely any lawyer could have done a better job than Reichel, he learned the government has crack prosecutors like Lapham ready to go after him with all the tools at their disposal.

Finally, he learned that femme fatales are not just characters in old Raymond Chandler detective novels.

McDavid’s anti-Iraq invasion stance led to loose associations with self-styled anarchists and radical environmentalists who traveled the country demonstrating at events.

Anna came into his life and, for him, the association morphed into a romantic attachment. She was attractive, strong-willed, exciting and older. Although cagey about her age, she is probably somewhere in her 30s.

A Florida college student, she was recruited by the FBI in 2004 to penetrate the protest movement. For any such investigation to get around U.S. citizens’ freedom of assembly, the agents need proof of criminal acts. That’s where Anna came in.

She was invited to a CrimethInc Convergence in Des Moines, Iowa, in August. Through Jenson, whom she had met earlier at a G-8 economic summit near Atlanta, she made her first contact with McDavid.

Then 27, he grew up in Orangevale, played football at Casa Roble Fundamental High School and worked as a carpenter while at Sierra.

They were together later that month at the Republican National Convention in New York – where Anna’s aggressive behavior got her arrested – and again in the summer of 2005 at Weiner’s apartment in Philadelphia.

At the latter location, Anna testified, she noticed right away that McDavid seemed dramatically more radical. It was also then that he first expressed his deep feelings for her. Just how much of his transformation was to impress her became a critical issue at the trial.

Reichel tried to build an entrapment defense around Anna and again argued entrapment Thursday.

But Lapham scoffed at the theory, and England refused to adopt it.

Jenson and Weiner, both 22, were allowed to plead guilty to lesser charges that carry a five-year prison cap. Jenson is scheduled for sentencing Aug. 7; Weiner’s is set for Thursday.

And here is an article about the agent provocateur, “Anna”, and her entrapment from the most recent issue of ELLE magazine.

05.04.2008 Speed of History Show 129

Playlist:

The Dicks - Pigs Run Wild
The Rowdies - A.C.A.B.
Demob - Anti-Police
The Boys - Cop Cars
The Kids - Fascist Cops
Fucked Up - Police
AK47 - The Badge Means You Suck
The Authorities - I Hate Cops
The Reducers - Scared Of Cops
7 Seconds - We’re Gonna Fight
Civil Dissident - Death For A Buzz
The Instigators - Free (You’re Not)
Part 1 - Black Mass
U.K. Subs - C.I.D.
U.K. Subs - Stranglehold
U.K. Subs - Warhead
U.K. Subs - Teenage
The Transmitters - 0.5 Alive
The Transmitters - Paper Boy
Antidote - Koldermodel
Seize - Everybody Dies
The 4 Skins - A.C.A.B.