The Assimilation Of Spam Javelin

Running Time: 2:42

Released On: "Javelin" - Various Artists (23 tracks)

Label: EFSPACM (Ensemble For Sound Poetry And Contemporary Music)

Release Date: 1st April 2021

Format: Download

Buy Link: Bandcamp

Later included on "Communitas: Volume I" (M&E MB-005, 1st October 2021) ►

Neil Crud, Twizz and meself in Blackpool for the Rebellion festival in 2019

Here's something to bring a smile to your faces; an infamous hardcore punk band named after a slang term for the male member appearing on an arty compilation released by the Ensemble For Sound Poetry And Contemporary Music group! That's Cruddy's street cred out the window. Neil Crud, Sound Poet Laureate Of Rhyl. Love it! Actually, I've loved Cruddy's (*other Spam Javelin band members are available) music since he sent M&E a Sons Of Selina demo cassette early in 1992 and have always wanted to do something with him, but Covid being what it is, this is as close as we're likely to get for the foreseeable future, innit?

I was actually at something of a loss for what to do for EFSPACM's March project to start with. Javelins, that was the theme. Long pointy things that you throw. Skit and I tried chucking darts at each other for inspiration, none came, though we did get through a considerable amount of plasters and paracetamol.

"Nazi Line Dancers Fuck Off!" Skit shouted.

"Where!?" I jumped up, looking around anxiously.

"No, twat," he said with affection, "Spam Javelin song, the Bullet do mash up, yas!"

He may be a spikey-haired man-child, but sometimes he borders on creative genius. A few days earlier, we'd been doing some special intros to go with some airplay on Tim Jones "Down The Rabbit Hole" radioshow, a-la-Borg, not Bjorn the tennis player, the scary cyborg dudes from Star Trek (*other sci fi series are available, but come on, Star Trek's the best), the concepts somehow fitted together beautifully. That was it, don't do a mash up, assimilate them! So Skit and I fired up the cube and flew trans-warp to the Liverpool suburb of North Wales.

"We are the The Magic Bullet."

"Fuck off!"
"You will be assimilated."

"Fuck off!"
"Open your door and surrender your instruments."

"Fuck off!"
"We will add your punk style and musical distinctiveness to our own."

"Fuck off!"

SPAM JAVELIN LINKS:

https://spamjavelin.bandcamp.com

https://www.facebook.com/spamjavelinuk

NEIL CRUD ALSO WRITES:

http://link2wales.co.uk

Spam Javelin threaten U.S. national security with four support slots...

Funny story - in a kind of it was a really awful experience, quite scary and damned nigh bankrupt them kind of way; when that photo (top left) was taken, Cruddy was quite excited coz the band were just about to hit the U.S.A. for a few dates. They'd checked out the time consuming, prohibitively expensive and uncertain process of applying for a work permit there and realised the trip would most likely cost them money, rather than make any, and that was assuming they were allowed to do it in the first place. So they figured the safest and most sensible way forward was to borrow all the gear in situ and just play for beers, a hot meal and the joy of showing off the three chords they knew. Looking forward to offending a new audience, they boarded the flight for Minneapolis, a quiet and uneventful little place on the Mississippi, and proceeded to soar across the Atlantic. What could possibly go wrong?

o

So there they are in the queue for passport control when Homeland Security (sadly not Claire Danes) pulls them out and frog-marches them to an interrogation suite. Okay, it wasn't wet cloths and buckets of water, but it soon became clear that the threat a Welsh punk band posed to the safety of America was already a known factor there. They knew everything; they knew the three of them were a band, they knew where the gigs were happening, they knew what Spam Javelin meant, and they were having none of it. They may have missed a terrorist plot to fly planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and prevent nearly 3,000 deaths, but at least they saved a few hundred club goers from hearing "Crack Whores Of Betws Garmon".

o

The end result? Deportation! 45 minutes later, in just the time it would take a rogue state to deploy their weapons of mass destruction, they were on a plane home. Home? Did I say home? Iceland. Iceland is NOT a suburb of Liverpool. I am, of course, talking about the country, not the freezer shop, they could have got a bus home from there. From Iceland the country, however, it took a flight to Copenhagen first. Copenhagen is also NOT a suburb of Liverpool. To add insult to injury, when they were going through customs in Copenhagen, they asked how long the band had been together! No further U.S. tours are planned at this time...

o

Resistance is futile?

Fuck off!

o

Spam Javelin rock and roll - spot the one that doesn't have a spam javelin

Wow Punk Factz # 62: Mick Magic has a Spam Javelin sticker on his guitar!

THE DUPLET