OUR SUBVERSIVE VOICE PRESENTS STEVE IGNORANT’S SLICE OF LIFE
Our Subversive Voice, subtitled the History and Politics of the English Protest Song, is a two-year research project funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council. Based at the UEA and involving academics from the universities of Warwick and Reading, the project is investigating the use of song to register protest from 1600 to 2020. Check out oursubversivevoice.com for more information on this fascinating project.
Tonight’s show opens with a Q&A between Matthew Worley, Professor of Modern History at Reading University and Co-Investigator with OSV, and Steve Ignorant. Anyone with any affiliation to punk, particularly anarchopunk, will be well aware of Ignorant’s output with Crass, Conflict, Schwartzenegger, Stratford Mercenaries, Paranoid Visions and more. This Q&A covered ground dealt with in more depth in Steve’s book The Rest Is Propaganda but Ignorant and Worley brought an interesting and entertaining take on the tales of Ignorant’s upbringing, the horrors of corporal punishment, the original skinhead movement, life in Dagenham, Bowie, the Clash at Colston Hall, Dial House and more.
Those that know me well will know that Crass were, are and will always be totemic to me and, much as he might object to the term, Ignorant is something of a hero. However much Ignorant’s previous work means to me, it is Slice of Life that resonates most strongly these days. With the two Petes on guitar and bass and Carol Hodge (whose solo work is well worth checking out) on keys, Slice of Life a drum-free, acoustic band. The music has varied influences with touches of jazz, folk, roots rock, flamenco, country and even blues. Lyrically are far more personal than may have been the case in Steve’s past, with the fifteen song set taking in the likes of Slaughterhouse, S.A.D, Stretford Blue and Slice of Life before closing with covers of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and Sweet Thing.
Thanks to Steve, the Slices, Matt, Our Subversive Voice and NAC for a thoroughly entertaining evening.
