There’s a splendid HISTORICAL archive of stuff on Page3 and the Living Legends on Glenn Evans brilliant website: www.swanseapunk.co.uk
Theres a lot of living legends tracks on soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/user782075167
CLASS WAR CD OUT NOW
About 14 months ago I went into a studio in Hackney and recorded some new stuff with Andy Martin and ‘UNIT’. There’s the new track ‘FUCK OFF GORDON BROWN’ and a 7.5 minute reading of ‘TO TRAMPS’ by Lucy Parsons and Durrutti’s famous ‘ We are not in the least afraid of ruins’ speech plus a reading of the Mansfield miners rally from Bash The Rich. UNIT added another 13 new tracks of their own and we’ve now chucked in the entire LIVING LEGENDS back catalogue ( 21 tracks from Swansea,Cardiff and Bristol) PLUS the CLASS WAR single Better Dead than Wed featuring the dulcet tones of Martin Wright. This makes for a wopping double cd of 42 tracks in all including such faves as TORY FUNERALS and THE POPE IS A DOPE. The cd entitled CLASS WAR featuring UNIT and THE LIVING LEGENDS can be had for a cheapo tenner from Andy Martin at:
UNIT HQ PO BOX 45885 LONDON E11 1uw
ffi unitunited@yahoo.com
‘TRENDY LEFTIE DROP DEAD’ – word and music by DOC WHELAN
Trendy Leftie Drop dead…………..oi oi oi……..Trendy Left drop dead……..oi oi oi
Standing there outside the boozer giving me your propaganda………….I wanna know whats oh so different
Trendy Leftie drop dead…..oi oi oi
Labour party Tory party middle class for middle class
Come on comrade buy my paper come on comrade kiss my arse…….trendy leftie drop dead oi oi oi
I dont wanna go to the claimants union dont wanna go to CND I WANNA NOW WHATS OH SO DIFFERENT Trendy Leftie you’re no good for me
Spectacle is false rebellion anarcho-isms dont mean a thing…….spouting about your revolution…but it dont mean a fucking thing…….I wanna destroy all of your kind……..Trendy Leftie drop dead………..oi oi oi…..
( These are partial lyrics from memory only……..if anyone’s got the rest please put em up here)
RIP Doc Whelan
’11 great artistes in one group’ !!!!!!
JOHN BINDON – SING-A-LONG SHEET
JOHN BINDON
- Five pints of bitter balanced on your prick
Five pints of bitter it must be really thick
Five pints of bitter it makes be feel quite sick
Five pints of bitter balanced on your prick
Chorus:
John Bindon, John Bindon all I’ve heard of you
John Bindon,John Bindon can it be really true
You’re a better man than I John Bindon
A better man than me
I wouldn’t like to stand next to you
When you’re in the lavatory
- Can’t be that thick, cant be that wide, cant be that fucking long
All the reports they can’t be right they must be fucking wrong
I could be corrected but when erected hard enough to bang a gong
Big enough, rough enough, huge enough, tough enough
Could belong to King Kong
- I mean I’d really like to know from this and that report
How the fuck do you keep ‘em up without any real support
How the fuckdo you keep ‘em up was it pints or halves what sort
How the fuck do you keep em up its more than a fucking quart
- What do you do when you go outside
Is it strapped to your kneecap or your side
Where do you put it after a jump
OVER YOUR SHOULDER LIKE A PETROL PUMP
  3″ reunite to sing their song about John Bindon’s party trick……Ian Bone Ray Jones John Bindon The Bank Job Film Class War Roughler
 Ray Jones, Ian Bone and friendssing the Page 3 classic, john Bindon…bindon bone class war
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For the latest on live performances and you tube videos by PAGE 3 in London check out: www.bashtherichfilm.wordpress.com
STOP PRESS: Sad to report death of DOC WHELAN – Doc was a mainstay of the Cardiff Living Legends – singing/writing TRENDY LEFTIE DROP DEAD, MOTHERFUCKERS and GOD SHITS ON YOU.
‘MOTHERFUCKERS’ will be released as part of a Living Legends CD remastered by Andy Martin and some new collaborations by me and UNIT due for release in May 2008. Will include a couple of Page 3 numbers – ‘Bitches on Heat’ and Amanda’s brilliant vocals on TOXIC SHOCK – RESCUED FOM OBLVION thanks to Andy and Fred – plus new song ‘FUCK OFF GORDON BROWN’
Old Living Legends site:
http://www.pg007b2036.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/legends
There’s a full account and pictures of the Living Legends and PAGE3 in my book ‘BASH THE RICH’ .
Any pictures/memories welcome!
Page 3 last ever gig – comments from Andy Green:
‘What was your worst moment?
As student union social secretary I briefly became Wales’s number one reggae promoter and we had some brilliant nights. I once however had the choice of two unknown bands; one was to become the Eurythmics with Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. I chose the Yachts. This was eclipsed when I foolishly put on a punk band called ‘Page Three’ – in what was to be their last-ever gig – whose members were to become the anarchist agitation group Class War.This band included a lady of ill repute involved in the so-called ‘sex for luncheon vouchers scandal’ in the ‘70’s. Their act included doing rude things with jelly babies and feeding them to the front row of the audience. It got worse: the night ended in chaos with police and fire brigade called out, the College Safety Officer beaten up, and my dear mate Bertie Mathews getting thumped.
My abiding memory is when cleaning up the mess at the end of the night. This big Welsh guy stood in the hall with his posture indicating he was going to make some negative pronouncement but declaring, in his broad valley’s accent: “Smutty, but good!” I learnt that you can at least please some of the people some of the time! (The story is further recounted in the excellent ‘Bash the Rich’ by Ian Bone Tangent Books.)’
Hope to have as many of the original Page3 line -up as posible but we’re still missing YOU LOT……Jock McVeigh, Sarah and Amanda Bewara, Johnathan Smyth-Murray, Hughie, Trevor, Ceri, Sherealee, Stan Autonome…………get in touch asap….dame fortune beckons….again!
‘THE LIVING LEGENDS’ were…
Born out of the ashes of Swansea porno-rockers ‘Page 3’ in 1980. The Living Legends have had four lives in Swansea, Cardiff, London and Bristol and ‘God Bless You Queen Mum’ the song that survived the years.
‘The Pope is a Dope’ and ‘Dum Dum Bullets For A Dumb Dumb Dummy’ were recorded in Swansea and released on Upright records in 1982. Otherwise all material is only on tape cassette including a Greatest Hits collection on BBP records in 2000 and ‘Live at the Acton Arms’ released by Mpata in 1996.
The London version of The Legends featured comedian/actor Keith Allen on drums and John Glyn of X-RaySpex on saxophone along with Mario from the Tesco Bombers and sisters Amanda and Sarah Bewara on tracks like ‘Toxic Shock’ and ‘Sexist Twat’ and ‘Bitches on Heat’
‘Island Wars’ was recorded in Cardiff in 1982 where the line up of the band was Ian Bone, Doc Whelan, Roland Cleaver, Gareth Joseph, Dean Poole and Nicky Evans. In Cardiff ‘Tory Funerals’, ‘Trendy Leftie Drop Dead’ and other favourites were recorded.
Island Wars was recorded at the time of the Falklands War and was written and sung by Roland and features Dean Poole’s wall of sound drumming. This version of the Legends played with Conflict at the 101 Club in 1983 but then the group went into cold storage till resurfacing with a different line-up in Bristol in 1996.
The living Legends also provided the core of the people who recorded the Class War single ‘Better Dead Than Wed’ with Conflict and released on Mortarhate in 1986 and re-recorded in 2005 to celebrate Charles and Camillas wedding.
The whole band were closely connected with Class War and much subsequent energy was channelled into that and various other insurrectionary street politics activities.
Legends Live
by John Serpico
Anyone innocently wandering in to this gig could quite well have felt that they were experiencing some strange hallucinatory Evostick flashback… Horny housewives with no knickers on frolicked and gyrated erotically to the music as sex dwarves turned somersaults on the floor. Paris ’68 refugees grinned like idiot angels as Guardian newspaper journalists muttered in to their beer
glasses. Ragged punk rockers with yellow skin and red eyes rubbed shoulders with Class War agitators as care in the community patients masturbated furiously.
This was a Salvador Dali garden party, a scene from a madhouse, a Bosch painting come to life. Never mind Anarchy, this was Surrealism in the UK – for real. It was a pity the Queen Mother and the Pope hadn’t accepted their invitations as their presence would have put a final seal of dementia upon the occasion. As for the band: The Living Legends are a hilarious 16 legged beer beast that peddles “foul mouthed” pub rock shot through with a slight dose of “controversy”. Tory Funerals’ anyone?
They revel in being loud and brash in public, though they’re probably more like the Macc Lads grandparents than the Sex Pistols offspring. This gig being a birthday celebration of the vocalist saw them in all their glory. If you weren’t there then you missed the human equivalent of a fermenting sun turning supernova. The end of something old but the birth of something very new. Crawling, burping, gurgling evidence that life does indeed start at 50. The world will never be the same again.
Tory Funerals
Who’s next?
TORY FUNERALS… To a jaunty beat!
There’s some occasions, some special events
You could say they were heaven sent
They engrave the stones with Roman numerals
My favourite ones… They’re Tory Funerals
Conservative Ministers or Tory MPs
There’s one sure way for them to please
They can call me a bastard, call me a red
In return… Just drop dead
Tory Funerals… Tory Funerals
I want more of Tory Funerals
Tory Funerals… Tory Funerals
I want more of Tory Funerals
ORDER! ORDER!
The Speaker of the House of Commons – for it is he!
“It is my painful duty to have to inform the house that the Rt.Hon member for Finchley Mrs Margaret Thatcher has… dropped dead!”
(Cheers, laughter, party poppers, etc)
I couldn’t care less I couldn’t give a toss
At the sudden death of a factory boss
The ruling class are really hated
All I want… Is them cremated
Dig ‘em out the graves when they’re dead
Corpse don’t care if it’s kicked in the head
Rip ‘em apart, forget former glories
One good thing… More dead Tories
Tory Funerals…
Living Legends Recordings
Greatest Hits available from BBP Records
Island Wars features on Anti-Capitalism: Anarcho-punk compilation vol. 4
from www.overgroundrecords.co.uk
Living Legends interview/photos/history
The day the country died: A history of anarcho-punk by Ian Glasper, Cherry Red Books
Better dead than wed
Download the single here
Old Swansea punk website:
Contains the only existing PAGE3 recordings of: Holiday Homes/Clap Clap/One of the Boys.
Former Page 3 and Venom bass player Glenn Evans is putting together a top archive of stuff from the golden age of Swansea punk 1977-83 including Page 3 vocalist Ray Jones’ former band DYFATTY FLATS singing such classics as ‘Animal Walk’, ‘Trouble on the North Bank’, and ‘Trendy Wendy play a record for me’. Have a listen!
Whens that reunion gig happening then?
Ancient Living Legends website –
http://www.pg007b2036.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/legends/
mention the bindonvideo on this sight Ian. My oldman’s a dustman meets Blade Runner,if piers is tobe believed
Now that ITV are airing a docudrama based on life of Harry Roberts “He kills Coppers” can you publish the lyrics of the soccer chant-based Page 3 classic “Harry Roberts”?
Pingback: Page 3 Legends Living on. « Bash The Rich Film
There’s some occasions, some special events
You could say they were heaven sent
They engrave the stones with Roman numerals
My favourite ones… They’re Tory Funerals —- hey may i know there who played this song ? Thanks
Good to see the memories and the ideals of Doc live on! Wish he could be here to see it. Please keep details updated regarding the film.
Hi. I reading at moment “Bash the rich” and are very impressed and see paralells to the german anarchist movement in the 90ies. Well done Mr. Bone. Im now on page 101. Ok – i didnt understood all of the words, cause im no native-english speaker and have not the background of all this history stuff. But.To get the point. I searched on web for the lyrics of “Trendy leftie drop dead”. But didnt found nowhere…Are they published everywhere on a website? Or can u send me via email? Will be cool to show this fucking middleclass german left scene a cool song!
Best wishes !
I had the Living Legends demo back in 1982, and was a great appreciator…
(Am I right in thinking Dean Poole had a group called The Chromosomes who did a track called ‘Rot All Rulers’?)
Regarding the lyrics to ‘Trendy Lefty Drop Dead’:
one of the verses went
“I know you’re in the Claimants Union,
I know you’re in the CND,
You’ve got the bread to talk revolution,
Fuck off Lefty, you’re nothing to me”…
LETS GET IT TOGETHERE SOON
Yeah, I’ll second that….. c’mon, lets do it
need to get in touch with ian bone. hope the first line up of living legends get a mention [swansea] in the film.i have some photo’s of us . me,whizzy,kev,caroline etc.
Me too Chris 🙂
more pics here
http://www.swanseapunk.co.uk/page3.html
Hi Ian, so when’s the film coming out (if it hasnt already been shelved that is)?
Got anyone famous to play me yet…. 😉
Hope Keith Allen’s free to play Bunner….
All the Best, Trev
That link above to the ancient Living Legends site doesnt work any more
no, CU was never “trendy” – tough slog and great people
Ah no, not youse as well, reliving the olden days, with your punk reunions.
It’s nice to see that you’re still in contact, and collaborating, with Andy Martin.
He’s a great guy and if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.
Lyrics for Island wars please?
yer where the film i want to play myself ,i always played with myself so there be no changed there hehe jock lol xxx
Verse 1:
Our boys are out there fighting
It makes a lovely show
Pride fills our hearts as jingo
spews from the box and radio
The kids were out there fighting
but they turned it to a show
Pride in their hearts they learnt to throw
with a passion that you’ll never know
Chorus:
Island wars
There on the box again
Island Wars
An aesthetic made of pain
Island wars
Ably stop us raising Cain
Island Wars
Waiting for the truth in vain
Verse 2:
The girls are out there fighting
and it turned into a show
Peace in their hearts they dance and sow
but still the diggers grind below
The show’s to stop us fighting
to keep us lying low
Stars in our eyes we’ll not need know
the power behind the status quo
(Chorus repeated)
(Boff’s bass overdrive solo; amp gets a kicking)
Verse 3:
But even as we start to sort
the false out from the true
then power losing trust has sussed
survival means you die or do
The time will come the men in green
will join the boys in blue
and Britain’s sons will train their guns
on the likes of me and you
(Chorus repeated)
Island wars
soon be coming down your way
Island wars
this time the glamour’s stripped away
Island wars
and it won’t be no first of May
Island Wars
We’re all redundant anyway
Lyrics Copyleft 1982 Roland Cleaver
cheers Roland – i’ll be sticking the fantabulous island wars up later ………..boy Dean’s drumming…..move over Moon
Just been clearing stuff out and found our demo tape dated 1993- Normal, Right to Work, Class You fear….brilliant keyboard player
Fucking Hell Roland, the last time I saw you was in the squat on Taff Embankment when me and Doc Whelan had hitched back from London after the Demo/Riot at Red Lion Square. Good to hear you are still alive and well…. Jimmy…
RIP
Scottish/ Cardiff Anarchist Alan Conchar (aka Doctor Conker) Dancer with Cardiff Punk/techno band Sicknote. Passed away on 12/11/2013
Rave on!
(https://www.facebook.com/CardiffAnarchistNetwork/posts/330481263725573)