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Jun 12, 2023 By Dom Gourlay

Crass Records reissued their iconic three volume compilation series Bullshit Detector on Friday 9th June. Released in conjunction with One Little Independent Records, the full series Bullshit Detector volumes 1-3) came out on 12” vinyl and are available in both classic black and limited-edition grey.

Bullshit Detector was the name of a series of compilation LPs put together by the anarcho-punk band Crass and relased on their own label. Three editions were released between 1980 and 1984, consisting of demo tapes, rough recordings and artwork that had been sent to the band. The sound quality of the Bullshit Detector series was mixed and often basic, or even poor, as Crass would master the tapes directly to record without any additional production or enhancement. For Crass, the expectation of a polished performance was missing the point.

Sleeve notes from Bullshit Detector Volume 3 read; “Don’t expect music when the melody is anger, when the message sings defiance, three chords are frustration when the words are from the heart.”

The title Bullshit Detector was derived as a reference to the Clash song “Garageland” from their e[ponymous first album and is also covered by Chumbawamba guitarist Boffo on the second volume. The series is notable for marking the first appearance on vinyl of Napalm Death (on the third volume). The “POWER” sleeve with marker pen art was designed by Haggis, AKA David Hargreaves lead singer of Youthanasia PX.

Further evidence of the compilation’s legacy can be found in a fourth, unofficial Bullshit Detector, this time an international compilation, released by the Swiss independent anarcho-punk record label Resistance Productions in 1994. There have also been records released in a similar style and with similar sentiment such as the Bullsheep Detector compilation of Welsh punk bands released in 2012.

After punk had already been co-opted, re-packaged and sold back to us, Bullshit Detector Volumes 1-3 were, and still are, seen by many to capture the purest ethos of punk culture, an event that inspired hundreds to take to their bedrooms and garages and join the DIY revolution. Crass believed in the power of community and that their movement was for everybody, these compilations are an admittedly harsh but important part of that story; when Crass gave punk back to the people.

Crass founder member Penny Rimbaud expands; “Back in the day, the late seventies and early eighties, when Crass ruled the waves, or is that ‘waived the rules’, hundreds if not thousands of inspired individuals and groups set about ‘doing it their way’, setting the new rule that there were no rules. Ears ever to the ground, Crass got to hear about these ‘new pretenders’ and they liked what they heard. Sending out

a call to arms, they began to receive cassettes by the bag-load; good, bad, sad and sensational, conclusively proving, despite Crass’ own ‘Punk is Dead’ mantra, that punk was very much alive. I have always felt that Bullshit Detector was the most honest statement ever made on the true nature of punk as it really was and still can be. Not the ruination of pop pretensions, but very real statements of how it could and should be; a better world for all of us, rather than a crippling strangulation for all but an elitist few. Yup, we did it our way and, in truth, that’s the only way it CAN be done. Here’s to ‘More Bullshit’.”

The full tracklistings for each volume of Bullshit Detector are as follows :-

Volume 1

1. Andy T – Jazz on a Summers Day

2. Counter Attack – Don’t Wanna Fight For You

3. The Alternative – Change It

4. Clockwork Criminals – We Are You

5. Reputations in Jeopardy – Girls Love Popstars

6. Crass – Do They Owe Us a Living? (Drums and vocals only)

7. Amebix – University Challenged

8. The Pranx - 2 Years 2 Late

9. The Sinyx – Mark of the Beast

10. Frenzy Battalion – Thalidomide

11. Icon – Cancer

12. The Speakers – Why

13. A.P.F. Brigade – Anarchist Attack

14. Fuck The C.I.A. – Right or Wrong

15. Caine Mutiny and the Kallisti Apples of Nonsense – Morning Star

16. The Sucks – Three

17. Porno Squad – Khaki Doesn’t Go with My Eyes

18. S.P.G. Murders – Soldiers

19. The Eratics – National Service

20. Red Alert – Who Needs Society?

21. The Snipers – War Song

22. Armchair Power – Power

23. Disrupters – Napalm

24. Andy T. – Nagasaki Mon Amour

25. Action Frogs – Drumming Up Hope (Ferret Skank)

Volume 2

1. Waiting For Bardot – Voice of U.K.

2. Omega Tribe – Nature Wonder

3. The Suspects – Random Relations

4. Your Funeral – Think About It

5. Kronstadt Uprising – Receiver Deceiver

6. Deformed – Freedom

7. No Label – Let’s Get It Right

8. The Rejected – Same Old Songs

9. Boffo – Garageland

10. XS – Fuck the System

11. Polemic Attack – Manipulated Youth

12. Gardener – A. Gardener’s Song

13. Toxic – Tradition of Slaughter

14. 1984 – Break Up

15. Insert

16. Toxik Ephex – Police Brutality

17. Sic – Low

18. Molitov Cocktail – Ain’t Got a Clue

19. Naked – Mid 1930s (Pre-War Germany)

1. Capital Punishment – We’ve Realised the Truth Now

2. Anthrax – All the Wars

3. Endangered Species – Slaughter of the Innocent (Curiosity Kills)

4. Pseudo Sadists – War Games

5. Total Chaos – Psycho Analysis

6. Dougie – War Without Winners

7. St. Vitus Dancers – The Survivor

8. Stegz – Christus Erection

9. Metro Youth – Brutalised

10. Normality Complex – Black Market Shadow

11. Youth in Asia – Power & the Glory

12. Riot Squad – Security System

13. Destructors – Agent Orange

14. The Pits – U.K. in Dreamland

15. The Bored – Riot Style

16. Toby Kettle – Theatre Comment

17. Chumbawamba – Three Years Later

18. Passion Killers – Start Again

19. Amerikan Arsenal – Get Off Yr Ass

Volume 3

1. Avert Aversion – Oh What a Nice Day

2. Awake Mankind – Once Upon a Time

3. A Nul Noise – Hibakusha

4. Animus – Nuclear Piss

5. Peroxide – Ministry of Death (M.O.D.)

6. Untitled – We Are Taught How to Kill

7. Xtract – (Waiting For The) Genocide

8. Verbal Assault – Not Yet Ron

9. Fifth Column – Counterfeit Culture

10. Potential Victim – People

11. 7th Plague – Rubber Bullets

12. Rebel – Genesis to Genocide

13. Alienated – Living in Fear

14. Barbed Wire – Weapons of War

15. Rob Williams – Lies

16. Reality Control – The War is Over

17. Youthanasia PX – Power

18. Sammy Rubette + Safety Match – The Ballad of Maggie the Maggot

19. Politicide – 51st State

20. Markus Abused – The Killing Machine

1. One Man’s Meat – Your Country Misleads You

2. Direct Action – Death Without a Thought

3. Crag – Voice Your Protest

4. Attrition – In Your Hand

5. Napalm Death – The Crucifixion of Possessions

6. The Impalers – Sun, Sun, Sun

7. Health Hazard – Picture Show

8. Phil Hedgehog – Radio Times

9. Malice – Faceless

10. Michael Kingzett Taylor – Paranoia

11. Brainwashed Pupils – The Demonstration

12. No Defences – Work to Consume

13. A.N.E.E.B. – Berlin Wall

14. Carnage – Carnage

15. Warning – Beasts of Fiction

16. State of Shock – Excess Youth

17. Neale Harmer – Hard Nut

18. Dead to the World – Action Man

19. Dandruff – Life in a Whiskey Bottle

20. Richard III – Will You Care?

21. Funky Rayguns – The Hare and the Tortoise

For more information on Crass visit the following…

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