Last night I went to a gig. Not your normal gig, properly organised etc, no; this one was in the basement of a bookshop that sells (I think) anti-fascist literature for people without a job and a need to blame it on someone – and people who generally have opinions that, far from being radical and revolutionary – are just a bit wrong. For a sub-section of society that claim to battle back against segregation and wrong-doing, they sure are a secretive bunch. Me being me, with my ‘job’ and ‘education’, I sadly stuck out like a sore thumb. Most other people in the room embraced it half-arsedly and shouted yelps of solidarity at the appropriate moments.

The organisers were keen to point out that the place didn’t have an alcohol license (so it was a bring-your-own-booze kind of affair), nor an entertainment license, making the whole thing a little bit shifty. Which is fine, except one band (whom I’ll be focussing my rage on in a second) decided that these little warnings, asking people not to loiter outside in fear of attracting police attention, meant that there were Nazi’s outside, all waiting to get us. Nazis everywhere. Couldn’t move for all the Nazis.

This band were called The Wasters, a small collection of kids with more opinions than braincells. I get that punk music is usually politically-fuelled and there’s nothing wrong with that until you start to talk absolute shit. “We don’t want a job” they sang (I’m paraphrasing but that was the message), which is just laziness disguised as revolutionary. They probably wouldn’t get a job anyway – you need qualifications for that, not just hollowed-out opinions that you read on a pamphlet taped to the wall in a communist bookshop. (One particularly good poster, last time we were there, announced a meeting of ‘Angry Liverpool Feminists’ – the invite asked you to bring a cake). Their ethos seemed to be “I don’t want to better myself, because that’s what THEY expect me to do. So I’ll just stay at home borrowing £20 off my dad for hair dye”. Every other word was ‘Fucking’, because swearing helps you to sound like you’re really serious about what you have to say. So many good political arguments have been based on the “Yeah…fucking…them bastards innit…ruining…fucking…everything like. Government” method.

In-between songs they insisted on screaming about how “We’re not violent, that’s not what we’re about” then launching straight into songs like ‘Drunken Riots’, unsurprisingly about being drunk and in a riot. This wasn’t even the biggest ‘What The Fuck?’ moment of the night though. That goes to the speech about how cosmetic make-up is evil, and anyone who wears it was a fucking idiot. Not only was most of the female population in the room wearing some form of make-up, the little scrotum who shouted about it had a dyed-blonde mohican. So make-up is Nazi/Fascist scumshite but ‘Brightest Blonde’ by L’Oreal and a tub of Fructis gel is fine? He might want to shove that little brain-fart back in for another few hours – it isn’t quite ready for public consumption yet. They bemoaned the corporate society, but neglected to mention the event was advertised by a Facebook group, and the alcohol being consumed was largely supplied by the Tesco over the road.

The Wasters were also very concerned about the presence of ‘Neo-Nazis upstairs’, though what they meant by that, no one was exactly sure – it still got a big crowd cheer from the drunken mass though. Were the Nazis upstairs? All sat around drinking Nazi-tea? Did they have their own gig going on, with some Rammstein cover band bitching about the ‘Faggy Hippies’ downstairs?

My best guess is ‘Nazis’ was a catch-all term for ‘anyone else who doesn’t agree with me’. So I’m a Nazi. Great. Thanks. You thick cunts.

And their music was shit. They were followed by a band called Chief who were far better but didn’t say anything particularly stupid, so I won’t bother writing much about them.

There was also a mid-band announcement by one of the organisers, asking people to donate money on their way out to the Liverpool Anti-Fascist organisation. I wonder what this organisation would think of all the Tesco bags that littered the floor? I’d have happily given £10 to the cause if I could find 5 people in the room who could give me an accurate summary of ‘Fascist’ and what it actually meant.

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