WELL, WHEN DID EVERYTHING START AND WHAT HAVE YOU RELEASED SO FAR?
I will unashamedly plagiarise past interviews with TTT for this answer!!
The idea for Time To Think arose in the latter half of 1990 on my first visit with Andy Martin whom I had been in contact with since 1987 when he was still in The Apostles. We wanted to play some hardcore/punk songs and decided to create a cassette of music dedicated to this genre.
We have released three projects inclusive of this first one. They are:
Be Yourself - 25 track cassette with colour cover and lyrics
On Second Thoughts... - 32 track cassette with colour cover and lyrics
Where The Hell Is Andrew? - 9 track 7" e.p. with foldout cover, lyrics, essays and A3 art sheet.
Since then I have joined Academy 23 which is seen as the main project, where Time To Think is the side project.
Due to lack of practice/recording space (we used a room at Andy’s old house to record the above (and many more) projects before being evicted), we have not released anything since 1992. However, this seems irrelevant as there are always people who are new to our recordings. With any luck, I hope to be able to record another cassette by the end of this year - but lack of time is our greatest barrier at present.
YOU ARE A LITTLE DIFFERENT FROM OTHER U.K. BANDS, YOU NOT ONLY PLAY STRAIGHT FORWARD PUNK NOISE BUT ARE ALSO MAKING SOME MORE EXPERIMENTAL/FOLK STUFF. HOW COMES?
I feel that the variety of the different styles of music on our cassettes means that each track will complement each other. The quietness and melody of one (e.g. folk) track can enhance the anger/energy of a following hardcore punk track. Alternatively, the simplicity of some hardcore punk track can enhance the complexity of a following experimental piece.
Now, if every track following was different from the previous track, there would be constant variety and an angry 1 minute song would be between melodic, say, 6 minute songs, and the anger may seem to be over too soon. Instead we like to form the tracks into blocks so that the songs all complement each other without one style of music being over too quickly without making an impression on the listener.
Also, if every track was hardcore punk, then there would be 60 minutes of this ‘in your face’ anger and after a while the tracks would start sounding tame. Interspersing different styles will help to retain the anger for each hardcore track.
However, for our 7", I decided to have constant hardcore punk for the full duration of both sides, coming to a total of about 10 minutes. I think it works.
But, at the risk of contradicting myself, I feel that if a band like Discharge put in quiet pieces on their early records, it wouldn’t have worked. Discharge (and others) were definitely "constant anger".... and I love it!! (Yep! We are all in love for old Discharge insanity!! - editor)
YOUR LYRICS ARE QUITE SOCIALLY/POLITICALLY CRITICAL. ARE YOU POLITICALLY ACTIVE BESIDES YOUR BAND? IN WHAT WAYS?
I shall speak only for myself on this point as it would be unfair and incorrect to answer for everyone involved with the group. To be honest, I am not politically active as I would like to be. I have been present on demonstrations in the past, some of which have led to full scale riots. I must admit that I am a little frightened of taking part in direct actions these days as the chances of being caught have dramatically escalated since, for example, many tows are putting up spy cameras meaning any action is made difficult. I would like to stress the point to other people also, if you feel that you might get caught on an action DO NOT DO IT. The fact is that you feeling this way will damage your confidence and may lead to mistakes which may end up with you in prison, which is not a good prospect. An interesting project is sitting in a library and looking up the names of prominent people in the country, and seeing how they link together e.g., government people and company directors. I have assisted in such things and have had some findings published in a widely distributed magazine in this country. There is corruption everywhere! Find it and expose it!!
I also like to keep small scale battles going too, i.e. being vegetarian, abstaining from cigarettes/drink/drugs and boycotting as many multinational products as possible.
Full time participation in groups such as Class War have had to be toned down since I am at university studying full-time which makes things difficult.
HAVE YOU PLAYED ANY LIVE SHOWS AND WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE ARE INTERESTED IN YOUR BAND?
Throughout our 6 year history, Time To Think have played no live shows. The honest reason for this is due to the fact that do not contain enough personnel to perform live, and for 5 years we lived over 100 miles (160 km) from each other.
Whether I would now play live is a dilemma. I would like to do so as I would like to convey some of the energy of Time To Think across to the ‘audience’ (I use quotes as I hate the band/audience idea) and it would definitely help to bring the group over to new people who may then be interested in our ideas. Also new friendships can be struck up this way which is a good thing. However, the idea that Time To Think have never, and may never in the future, play any gigs is very appealing. The idea of a band not playing gigs is not ‘normal’ - and who wants to be normal!! So, even if we do or do not play gigs I will still be content.
The people who have shown the most enthusiasm in our group seem to be those from eastern Europe from where I get many letters and places I never considered we would get support e.g. Mexico and Cuba. I suppose a lot of the people are interested in punk since that is the group of people with whom I write the most - which is fine because everyone I write to is socially/politically aware which is really good. I wouldn’t waste my time writing to apathetic idiots just in it for the music. I expect we would be too complicated for such people who should stick with listening to moronic bands - I shall mention no names but many of you will understand what I mean.
Since myself and Andy have a very outspoken love of science and mathematics, we get people who are interested in not only these topics, but education in general e.g. history and literature. This doesn’t necessarily mean academic education, but also self education. Indeed libraries are there to be used and we encourage any attempt to better oneself educationally, mentally, physically, etc......
THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT OLD BRITISH ANARCHIST BANDS STILL ALIVE, LIKE CONFLICT, CHUMBAWAMBA, OI POLLOI, ETC... ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THEM AND WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT TODAYS U.K. D.I.Y. PUNK/HC/ANARCHIST SCENE?
Yes, I am familiar with the bands mentioned above. I shall not comment on any of them, because I do not know the people involved and it would be unfair to do so.
All I do know is that today’s U.K. d.i.y. scene has radically reduced in size from, say, 5-6 years ago. There used to be lots of events/gigs happening in fairly large venues - but events are now sparse and the venues are normally pubs with capacities of about 50 people. Please let me stress that this is my view of what I know - it may be just that I have lost contact with the scene and that things may be happening elsewhere in this country.
There was a week long anarchist festival at the end of May this year - but although I intended to be part of it, I was faced with an extreme personal crisis at that time so could not attend any of the events. I have not as yet been able to gain any news about the festival.
One thing I would like to say about the U.K. d.i.y. scene is that there is still a lot of childish backbiting occurring into which we have been dragged by other people a couple of times. This is so fucking stupid as people should know better - that we are all in this struggle together and the people they should be attacking are those in control, not those on the same side!!
WHAT IS YOU OPINION ABOUT THE "ANARCHY IN THE U.K." FESTIVAL?
Again I’m probably going to disappoint you as I had only properly found out about the events after they had finished! I did attend - well try - the Conflict gig in London, but the venue was too full and many people were not allowed in. The police had told Conflict that the band would be personally responsible for events before/during/after the gig in the surrounding area of the original venue - i.e. central London. In other words they were told not to play there. Conflict have received a lot of hassle from the police since the riot after the gig in Brixton in 1987, they obviously didn’t want any more problems so they decided to change the venue at short notice. This infuriated a lot of people, but I understand Conflict’s position.
Apparently, other events in the festival, other people tell me, were fairly disorganised with security cameras on doors to events, security guards and people being checked/searched on their way in to events.
I’m sorry that I can’t tell you any more.
ANY FUTURE PLANS FOR TIME TO THINK?
Yes, basically to continue to try and reach new people, all done by flyers and ‘word of mouth’ due to the absence of gigs. It has been effective so far thanks to the many collaborators who have generously helped us to whom I a extremely grateful.
I will continue to strive to play some gigs but as I said I am not too worried if this does not happen.
Also as I think I said before, I hope we can record a new cassette by the end of the year.
My current, ongoing project is bringing Time To Think totally to the modern ages by trying to create some pages for the World Wide Web / Internet. This is all in ‘early-days’ construction at the moment, but I hope to put something together before the end of the summer (when I return to university). I will notify people of the WWW address via mail/flyers. This still seems new technology in Europe, but since I have the advantage of using it, I will most certainly do so!
PUNK IS VERY POPULAR AGAIN, BUT ALSO WITH ACTIVITIES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU OR ME IT’S ALSO STILL DEEP UNDERGROUND. BUT DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEAS HOW TO GET OUT OF THE GHETTO AND STILL NOT LOSE THE REBELLIOUS SPIRIT?
An idea that I think may be interesting is to indeed take punk music/ideas out of it’s ghetto and bring it over to the wider audience. The people would then get involved and find the politically active underground which we must not blatantly expose since the authorities will take advantage of this.
In the U.S.A. bands like Green Day and Rancid seem to have brought punk out of its ghetto a little bit but unfortunately it does seem that the rebellion is rather diluted and repackaged as safe M.T.V. type shit. Why these bands and their labels could not use their advantageous position to help other punk bands and use the money for decent causes really annoys me. It seems like 1977 all over again. Obviously, wankers such as these are not genuine. Bands like Crass and Dead Kennedys were good examples of how to use their position wisely.
However, we should be able to use this new punk rock popularity to our advantage. Trying to let fans of, say, Green Day know that there is a decent punk scene with lots of bands is one way to possibly get more people involved. If I can make it to venues where these shows happen, I will in future either take things to sell or give out lots of leaflets to try and get people to take an interest in the aware punk scene.
Other than these two points, I’m not too sure. Indeed, it was a question I posed in an essay I wrote a year ago.
Unfortunately I have received no answers. If anyone reading this has ideas, then let everyone know about it, including me! (Right. Fecal Forces will be very interested to publish the same!!! - Editor)
ANYTHING FOR THE END?
Thank you ever so much for the interview. I am very appreciative especially since we had no contact beforehand. I am delighted that you decided to write on the strength of what you heard/read. May I also make a public apology for my delay in writing this interview, I have been quite busy with my college course so, unfortunately, my mail began to pile up!
If anybody would like to write to us, the address is given at the end. All correspondence is welcome, and although I may take a while to write back, I always answer my mail.
If any distributors are interested in handling TTT stuff write to me.
If anybody wants to get TTT stuff, either write to me, or people can get the cassettes cheaper (although with black and white covers) from our eastern European contacts. If you do use these people and you don’t get lyrics (even though they will probably copy them), write to me.
Our eastern European contacts (cassettes only):
DARIUS RADZEVICIUS, a.d. 751, 2050 VILNIUS, LITHUANIA.
MISO LICHY, OSUSKEHO 6, 85103 BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA.
Both these people are really decent and involved with bands and worth getting in touch with anyway.
I sincerely hope that life is now more tolerable than the nightmares you all have had to live through over the past few years.
Continue striving for a better life!!
c/o: Peter Williams/TIME TO THINK, P.O. BOX 138, BRIDGWATER, SOMERSET, TA6 7RZ. U.K.
