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Amebix , formed in England in 1978 as "The Band with No Name", were a band that many consider to have started the sub genre crust punk .
Their music blended anarcho-punk and heavy metal . Such notable bands as Sepultura , Neurosis , Napalm Death , Deviated Instinct , and Gallhammer have paid homage to the band.
I was there from the beginning to the end, along with my brother Stig, a period of adventure, fun, and extremes of hardship that spanned nearly ten years, that took us around most of Europe, made us good friends and firm enemies and produced a small number of records to leave behind us.
We started whilst I was at school in Devon. A fellow friend Andy Billy Jug played drums and Clive the bass, we practised in old village halls, never learning to tune the instruments and calling ourselves the BAND WITH NO NAME. Stig had been working in Jersey and returned with a guitar to start the ball rolling. We played every little hall in the Tauestock area, delighting in the thrown cans of beer and insults, 1978, and anyone could play in a band!
We released a 6-track tape recorded in my bedroom and sold 4 copies, all to friends from school. I had a part time job as a columnist in a local paper and wrote a review of any bands that played the area. This led to us giving a tape to CRASS when they played in Plymouth, one of the tracks University Challenged subsequently appearing on the first Bullshit Detector LP and launching us into the heady world of local stardom, albeit unearned.
The dark side of the band did not appear until we met Martin, a 6 foot 5 Sid Vicious look alike whose parents had a manor house on the edge of Dartmoor. They were away in London and had no idea that the family home had been overtaken by spiky undesirables. We played music all night and slept during the days, living a weird twilight existence that began to inform the lyrics and style of music. Martin became the new drummer, I played the bass and sang, and the band was called AMEBIX.
Martin was taken away to London upon his parents return, he suffered a breakdown that has had him diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic and on heavy medication to this very day. I have seen him several times in the preceding years, a gentle soul in a giant¹s body who was punished for his sensitivity.
After Martin we acquired Norman as a synth player and moved en masse to Bristol in the hope of furthering ourselves, only to fall into abject poverty fairly quickly. The first squat we moved to had sold all the doors to buy glue. We lived with and close to DISORDER at this time, and for another four years moved from one ruin to another, no sanitation, little electricity, and skip raids for food.
Friends were lost to heroin and drink, we excelled in drug abuse, a way to numb the hard life on the streets. Guitars were never sold, we borrowed Virus, DISORDER'S drummer, who became a solid part of the band for the recording of our first two singles Who's the Enemy, Winter, and the 12" EP No Sanctuary. These were all recorded for Spiderleg Records, run by A Flux of Pink Indians. We met Jello Biafra during the recording of No Sanctuary at Southern Studios in London. He liked what we were doing, gave us a copy of Generic Flipper, and suggested we get in touch in the future.
AMEBIX became the first UK signing for Alternative Tentacles with our debut album Arise. I remember some reluctance to release the LP, mainly because of the style. There was simply no one else at that time playing heavy music with a punk attitude. We were steeped in BLACK SABBATH despite our musical illiteracy, waking up to MOTORHEAD and bass power chord riffing. Gigs were amazing, people didn't know quite what the fuck was going on, we were intense, heavy as hell, and loud!
It's funny to look back and see the stock that was spawned from those tunes and a legacy that still carries on, a lot of it of a very dubious and nefarious nature, but to have been at the crucible was a privilege none of us will forget. We played hard, practiced hard, and lived the life.
We didnt release another LP until 1987 Monolith the last AMEBIX release, the last tour ending in Sarajevo before the brutal war there tore Yugoslavia apart. AMEBIX made one demo tape after that, unreleased until now. When we split it was because we had run our course, played every variation of 'E' and 'A' that we could, and basically finished what we came to do. We never had any intention of reforming that was simply antithetical to all that we were about. AMEBIX stands by its own merit, dated and primitive in some respects but a great and important rite of passage for us all.
- Rob The Baron
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