There's nothing here for you, you fools!!! I told you!!! Ahahahahahahahaha. Oh, press the back button on your browser - this'll be up when i'm organised.
Oh, and I was gonna put up a picture but frankly, they're a load of crusties. If anyone can find me one where they aren't, I'll use it.
Ok, I've finally typed the article, 5/02, be GRATEFUL. this was my last day before the new semester and I've spent it typing cos this article's so long (2,332 wortds!) and so difficult to type. I don't agree with most of the opinons in it, but frankly that's Stephen Wells' raison d'etre as it were. The Correct Use of Soap-Dodgers! The Levellers – fiddle-brandishing, soap-dodging anarcho-crusties or community-spirited agitpoppers who walk it like they talk it? A nation decides. Crust brothers: Steven Wells (words) and Stefan De Batselier (photos) All together now! ‘We hate the levellers! No, we really HATE the Levellers!" Not really, obviously. Not the way that you hate Mrs Thatcher so deeply and so passionately that you and your mates have already booked a charabanc to go piss on the bastard’s grave on Day Two of the official mourning period. Let’s get things in proportion here! Vocalist Mark Chadwick, who looks distressingly like the young George Michael, has just finished his second can of extremely strong Belgian lager and is talking bollocks in the sumptuous surroundings of The Levellers’ very own personal pub in Brighton. "I travel the country and I meet working class kids all over the place who are really into us. And what they’re into is us, basically. They like the optimism and I suppose it’s vague enough for anyone to get into it, no matter where they’re coming from…" No matter where? So it’d be cool if young Conservatives were really into The Levellers? "Yeah, why not? Straight up! I don’t give a f---!Why should I care?" Er, dunno. Because young Conservatives are the epitome of scum-of-the-earth evil, maybe? "Yeah, I know they’re utterly evil bastards or whatever, but if they’re listening to our music…" You’re rubbishing your own polemic now and your polemic is crucial to what you do. Without your polemic you’d be utterly indistinguishable – you wouldn’t even be The Levellers. "Uh, yeah. You’re right. OK." So you’re just bullshitting? "No, I just have no idea what you are f---ing talking about. No, I’m just saying if you don’t get out much, like we haven’t in the last 18 months, you just assume that everybody hates you." So what’s the most paranoid you’ve ever been? "Probably about 18 months ago when Britpop was on the crest of it’s f---ing wave and everyone’s going ‘Let’s hope the Levellers’ DIE!’ and the press made a concerted effort to write as much as possible to destroy our career. And it was like ‘F---ing hell! Maybe the world hates us!" Hmm. That must have been quite psychologically damaging… "It is, but we’re all psychologically damaged anyway. When you are just a bunch of f---ing entertainers then basically you want to be loved. By EVERYBODY!" And with that he suddenly bursts into uncontrollable tears. You reach across to comfort but he shrugs your arm off and runs from the room shrieking with grief. No, not really. Actually he just smiles and waves his empty beer can. "So are there any more of these in the fridge or what?" Reasons to hate The Levellers, Part One. They’re shitsniffing hippy Luddites who want to live in caves and let cows, rabbits flies and shit like that rule the world. "That’s bollocks, bollocks! Where did you get that from?" sneers bassist Jeremy Cunningham (who looks like a crusty poodle with a savage head cold). "From THIS!’ you roar triumphantly, whipping out a recent fanzine interview in which The Levellers come across as ning-nang-nong nutters, New Age bollockheads and all round unwashed fox-hugging, human-hating veggie mega-divs (research or WHAT?!). "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" scream Mark and Jez, hiding their faces in shame. "That’s Simon (Friend, guitarist)!’ explains Mark violently ‘And he is a Luddite. He’s an absolute f---ing nutter!" Different tack. The Levellers, the English Civil War Christian sect you take your name from... "What?!’ bellows a disgusted Mark ‘D’you really think we thought about that? D’you really f---ing think that Oasis chose their name because it’s f---ing water in the f---ing desert?" Isn’t a bit hypocritical given that you slag off Christianity so vehemently? "We don’t! Well, no more than any other f---er does!" "Yes you bleeding well do!" (You retort, triumphantly pointing to an underlined passage in the aforementioned fanzine interview. HA!) "Oh don’t throw our own f---ing quotes at us, for God’s sake!" roars Mark in the manner of Falstaff from Shakespeare's Henry IV. 'Who the f--- said that?! It's f---ing Simon again, isn't it? Right! He's not allowed to do any more f---ing interviews!" He also claims that disposable nappies destroy 15 million trees a year. has he ever changed a nappy, do you know? Hmmm? "Oh dear." sighs Mark. Is this fun or what? Reasons to hate the Levellers, Part Two. the Levellers are folkie-wolkie hey-nonny-no finger-in-the-ear-hippies, and as all right-thinking people know, folk music is the musical equivalent of arse cancer and is irrevocably linked to juggling, face painting, wearing patchouli and calling your kid Crispian - all crimes which, in a sane society, would be punishable by DEATH! "That's been the problem since we started," admits Mark "people look at us and say 'Oh, folk music! We can't have that back! That's disgraceful! that's disgusting!' But they forget that, like, the sort of folk music that we try and emulate is the folk music that Led Zeppelin played or the folk music that the Beatles played or the folk music that the Byrds or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young played." "Yeah' agrees Jezzer 'it's not like traditional English/Irish yiddly-dee yardy-dah!" Uh, yes it is "Elements of that, yeah!" admits mark. "It's not something we've thought about, actually, to be honest with you. it's just something that, y'know, when we were put together in the band, that was sort of how it came out and we liked it, basically." But what about the hideous baggage folk music brings with it? The implied ethnic purity, the racism, the sanitising of the past? "But that's being really intellectual about it!" roars and indignant Jez "You can't be that intellectual about it! It's here, it's gone! It's pop music!" "What on earth has that got to do with any of us?" screeches Mark, in the manner of Lady Bracknell screeching "A handbag!" Well it's the same when you see a bunch of Hitler-Youth types on German TV playing 'healthy' Aryan peasant oompah music. it makes you want to vomit... "That's because you've f---ing intellectualised it before you've even f---ing listened to it!" snarls Mark "It's not right wing! It's not f---ing harking back to some bygone era that never f---ing was because I don't give a shit about that and nobody else gives a shit about it! That's not what we're about and it's not anything to do with us! it just happens that we have a violin and occasionally play the mandolin! That's as far as it goes! Guilty, your honour!" Trouble is, of course, that The Levellers really are really brilliant. Just last week, ole Joe Strummer, former singer with 1977's firebrand political punk combo The Clash, was given a guided tour of The Metway - the Lev's HQ-cum-office-cum-recording studio, which is home not only to various anarcho-commie troublemaker outfits but also a totally excellent way to spend your royalty dosh (tons better than sticking it in your arm, up your nose or down your trousers, for instance). Strummer was gobsmacked sideways. "This is what we should have done." he moaned. And that's why The Levs are brilliant. They are the first and only BIG agitpop band to actually walk it like they talk it. The Beatles tried to do it and failed pathetically. The Clash talked about doing it but they didn't. Chumbawumba say they're going to do it but we'll have to wait and see. The Levellers ARE doing it. They are saving trees, subsidising Swampy, supporting the squatters and the dockers and the rights of E'd up rave pixies to jiggle about in fields without being coshed by the plod. Plus a hundred other worthy, and otherwise underfunded good causes, whilst publishing fanzines, books, and angry anarcho-tracts that fly in the self-satisfied face of the dominant ideology. Bit more impressive than taking tea with scabbo Blair and promising to be at the front of the march (if there were any marches to be at the front of, which there aren't, apparently), yeah? You can take the piss all you want but the absolute bottom line is that The Levellers are ok! they put their money where their mouth is! Alright! Wooo! Yeah! Right on! You got that? OK, so back to taking the piss. But watch out, I think Jez has got us sussed. "I know I'm not going to change your opinion because I know at the root of it you don't like our music. that is the bottom line and you can intellectualise it and try and justify it but that is the be-all and end-all and I can't change your mind cos that's the bottom line, innit?" Uh, yeah. How come there's so little overly political ranting on 'Mouth to Mouth', your top-selling album from which the damnably catchy summer hit single 'what a beautiful day' and your new single 'Celebrate' are both taken? "We had nothing left to say on any matter pertaining to anything political." claims Mark "We've said it all really. We're just sort of ranted out and ranting, y'know, doesn't always suit itself to songwriting. And that's ALL we've really cared about . We haven't really changed our line in the last couple of years, all our political lines are still exactly the same. But the politics of the country hasn't changed enough for us to keep singing on about it over and over again. We just don't want to keep repeating ourselves. If certain things changed - like tomorrow there was a huge big riot that leant itself to a good song then we certainly could - but it's never been the be-all and end-all of the band and it's never been our main motivation..." So what motivates you these days? "We're into our own personal happiness. Sitting around worrying about the world all the f---ing time interferes too much." "Our shoulders aren't big enough!" adds Jez. "Our shoulder's aren't big enough," confirms Mark "We have top f---ing parties in here, mad and disgusting and disgraceful, and the next day someone might hand me a leaflet about urgent action required for someone who'd being done for conspiracy for an organisation called justice - they're extremists, they care about the planet enough to dedicate their lives to saving it. We can't personally be arsed!. That's a shame. I was really hoping you'd be really zealous and pious. "No, people like that generally don't like The Levellers because we're not hardcore enough for them. I used to hang around with people who would do extremely dangerous f---ing direct action violent sort of kick-a-copper-in sort of things. People don't do that sort of thing anymore. That's gone. that was the early -80's. That vibe is pretty dissipated now. It hasn't been passed on. We're like it because we've all grown older - we're all 30-something - but what's unfortunate is that feeling hasn't been passed on to the youth! it just isn't there any more. I don't see angry young men anywhere!" The best ever anti-crustie T-shirt was the one with the slogan 'Don't even THINK about juggling near me!" Do you have jugglers at your parties? "No, no, no, no, no!" Do you have jugglers at your gigs? "No!" Do any of you juggle? "NO!" Have any of you ever juggled? (there