The Last Of The Hippies - An Hysterical Romance - Penny Rimbaud

 THE LAST OF THE HIPPIES - PENNY RIMBAUD

Originally published as part of a 28-page booklet entitled A Series Of Shock Slogans And Mindless Token Tantrums that came enclosed with the 1982 Crass album 'Christ - The Album', The Last Of The Hippies - An Hysterical Romance is the tale of Phil Russell, alias Wally Hope, personal friend of Penny Rimbaud and founder of the Stonehenge Free Festival whose arrest for possession of drugs propelled him into the depths of a State-sanctioned nightmare leading directly to his death.

Phil Russell was an enthusiastic, shamanistic, hippy visionary keenly exploring the counterculture world of the late Sixties/early Seventies. Inspired by free festivals such as the Windsor Free and Phun City, it was Phil's idea to reclaim Stonehenge and organise a free festival there. Enlisting the aid of Rimbaud and his fellow housemates of that time, the idea was put into action and the first Stonehenge Free Festival took place in the summer of 1974. It was whilst working and preparing for the second festival the following year that Phil was arrested for possession of some tabs of LSD.

From the start, Phil was refused bail and put into prison on remand where through being denied the use of a phone or even pen and paper was isolated from any contact with the outside world. Following an altercation regarding the wearing of prison uniform, Phil was sent to the prison doctor who diagnosed him as being schizophrenic. The drug Largactil (more commonly referred to in those days as 'liquid cosh') was prescribed to him, rendering Phil incapable of dealing with much of anything at all, least of all a defence in a court case.

At court, Phil was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and committed to a mental hospital where the drug Modecate was administered to him. By the time of his release a month later (and coincidentally just after the second Stonehenge festival had taken place), Phil had been reduced (in the words of Rimbaud) to 'an incurable cabbage', unable to even walk properly. After an examination by a private doctor, his condition was diagnosed as 'chronic dyskinesia', a disease caused by overdosing on Modecate and other related drugs.

A few weeks later, Phil overdosed on sleeping pills and choked to death on his own vomit.

By anyone's standards this is a woefully tragic tale open to a variety of interpretations, one being - and the one favoured by Rimbaud - that Phil Russell was murdered. Murdered not by the wilful action of any one individual but by the wilful actions and collusion of a number of individuals collectively representing 'the system'. According to Rimbaud, Phil Russell was murdered by the State.

Following an inquest into Phil's death a verdict of suicide was passed with no real reference to the treatment meted out to him by the police, the prison and the hospital authorities - the treatment that had directly led to his suicide. Being rightfully appalled by the outcome of the coroner's court, Rimbaud launched his own investigation into what had happened from the time of Phil's initial arrest through to his incarceration, his sudden release and up to his untimely death.

Though not one usually given to seeking out conspiracy theories, a conspiracy was indeed what Rimbaud found along with endless lies, deceit, corruption, fear and tales of cruelty. Perhaps what shattered Rimbaud the most, however, was the conspiracy of silence and the refusal of those in a position of being able to help and advise to do anything but. According to Rimbaud, this silence was the voice of fascism: 'The voices of silence, at times, made my investigations almost impossible. The respectable majority were too concerned about their own security to want to risk upsetting the authorities by telling me what they knew. They did know and I knew that they knew, but it made no difference - they remained silent.'

Unwittingly he had come face to face with what he termed the silent, violent majority: 'Against all the evidence, against all that they know, they remain silent because convention decrees that they should. Silence, security, compliance and convention - the roots of fascism. Their passive silence is their active part in the violence. A huge and powerful, silent voice of approval - the voice of fascism.'

For some years previously, Rimbaud had been running his rented home in the Essex countryside as a commune, or 'open house'. A place where people could not so much 'drop out' but 'drop in' to; where 'given their own time and space they could create their own purposes and reasons and, most importantly, their own lives.' A place where 'people could get together to work and live in a creative atmosphere rather than the stifling, inward looking family environments in which we had all been brought up.'

Though blatantly already living the hippy dream, the arrival of Phil Russell at the house introduced Rimbaud fully to 'real' hippy culture and the concept of free festivals. Phil's arrival was to set him on a course of no return: 'Wally had come along at a time when I was beginning to question the value of what I was doing. Was it enough? My experience both before and after his death showed me that it wasn't.'

Phil Russell's instigation of the Stonehenge free festival was a stroke of genius, lighting up a bright, burning beacon of hope that would forever be visible to anyone caring to look as a signpost to a brilliant future and a way to how life could be. Rimbaud's participation in making that dream come true (though he would probably refute the idea) is something to always be proud of. Phil's suicide/murder, however, was the counter-balance to it, casting a shadow over Rimbaud's personal life that he would never be able to cast off. Though even from this tragedy, hope/Hope would be born. Or re-born: 'Desire for change had to be coupled with the desire to work for it. If it was worth opposing the system, it was worth opposing it totally. It was no longer good enough to take what we wanted and to reject the rest, it was time to get back into the streets and attack, to get back and share our experiences and learn from the experiences of others.'

With the release of the Sex Pistols' Anarchy In The UK the transmogrification of the zeitgeist was set fully in motion, the harsh radiance of it touching and penetrating all corners of society from council estates, suburbs, inner cities and even hippy communes tucked away in the Essex countryside: 'A year after Wally's death, the Sex Pistols released Anarchy In The UK. Maybe they didn't really mean it ma'am, but to me it was a battle cry. When Rotten proclaimed that there was 'no future', I saw it as a challenge to my creativity. I knew that there was a future if I were prepared to work for it. It is our world, it is ours and it has been stolen from us. I set out to demand it back, only this time round they didn't call me a dirty hippie, they called me a filthy punk.'

So this was where Crass were from? An explanation of sorts as to their origin? From experimenting with communal living, the arrival of Phil Russell/Wally Hope and his subsequent death, hippy culture, Stonehenge, mental health, silence as consent, and 'the system'. All formulative experiences paving the way to what would be one of the most important bands ever.

Critics have always chided Crass for being hippies (in Punk clothing) and here Penny Rimbaud is putting his hands up and saying 'Yes', some of them were from that era and 'Yes', some had once believed in the hippy dream. The difference between Crass and most other groups, however, was in the fact that Rimbaud et al were coming from hippydom via an ideological perspective rather than a musical one.

In an effort to wipe out the past with Punk Year Zero revisionism it was actually far easier to hide record collections and old photographs than to hide ethics. As Joe Strummer pointed out: "The day I joined The Clash it was very much back to square one, back to Year Zero. We were almost Stalinist in our approach, all in a frenzied attempt to create something new - which isn't easy at the best of times." One of the memories Joe was shedding was his appearance with his pre-Clash, R&B squat band, The 101'ers at the 1975 Stonehenge festival...

In one of the Sex Pistols' first interviews, Johnny Rotten declared: "I hate hippies and all they stand for." though a year later he was playing some of his favourite records on Capital Radio, which included Neil Young, Peter Hamill and Captain Beefheart - hippy stalwarts all...

Music journalist and first division Punk inner circle member Caroline Coon rebuked Rotten for the tabloid journalism manner in which he was denigrating hippy idealism and warned him that "the gutter press did to hippies what they're going to do to you." She was right. And so too was Penny Rimbaud: "This time round they didn't call us 'hippies', they called us 'Punks'."

Like all other Punk groups, from the start Crass were readily rejecting the now redundant and useless aspects of hippy culture but unlike so many others they weren't denying it as their heritage. Woven into the story of Phil Russell in The Last Of The Hippies a direct lineage between different generations and events through the decades is plotted out; from the dawn of consumerism after the Second World War to the birth of CND, rock'n'roll, hippy and Punk. Taking in along the way acid guru Timothy Leary, psycho warlord Charles Manson, Yippy leader Jerry Rubin, the Kent State University shootings, 1960s protest movements, free festivals, anarchism, pacifism, Marxism, Sid Vicious, Garry Bushell, and even Adam Ant.

The implication is clear: Everything is connected and nothing stands alone unto itself. Lines in the sand can be drawn and anything presented in a new light but at the end of the day everything is but a continuation of something else.

All of this contained within The Last Of The Hippies, however, is really but a vehicle to relay the thoughts and ideas of Crass, particularly concerning the problems of the world and their perceived solutions to those problems. Those solutions being anarchism and pacifism. In all but name, The Last Of The Hippies is as close to a manifesto that Crass would ever get:

'We are born free, but almost immediately we are subjected to conditioning in preparation for a life of slavery within the system. We are moulded by our parents, teachers, bosses, etc to conform to what 'they' want from us rather than to our own natural and unique desires. Anarchists believe that those natural desires for peaceful and cooperative lives are denied us because they do not serve the requirements of the ruling classes. Life could and should be a wonderful and exciting experience. Despite what the politicians say, the world is big enough for us all if we could only learn to share it and to respect each other within it. Millions of people are governed by very few; millions of lives of grey slavery simply so those few can enjoy the privileges that are the birthright of us all. Surely, by sheer weight of numbers, we have the strength to take back what is rightfully ours? '

Armed revolution and violence, particularly as advocated by the extreme Left, are condemned as nothing more than acts of destructive revenge serving only to strengthen the vicious circle of violence that rolls endlessly on. Right-wing violence is claimed to be generally non-political and a reaction against inhuman conditions, whilst Left-wing violence is cited as often being organised and calculated, led usually by educated and privileged people. All States, however, both Left and Right are said to use violence to maintain power.

Pacifism was the rejection of all violence, and anarchy was rejection of State control. Pacifism and anarchism went hand in hand, for if anarchists believed they had the right to live their own life then violence shouldn't be used to to deny others theirs. Being pacifist didn't mean being passive. Violence could be opposed. Being pacifist didn't mean being unwilling to defend oneself or others from attack although when this happened it shouldn't be done from a sense of aggression or revenge but from a sense of love. Love being the natural instinct of all people, it was only the circle of violence that distorted and perverted people's basic kindness and goodness. By refusing to be used as tools to other people's desires, strength of love could be demonstrated and the oppression and violence of everyday life be overcome. Although unwilling to exactly advocate direct action as a form of protest, the need for it is suggested though only when success is certain and only by those who feel ready and confident.

'We must learn to live with our own weakness, hatred, prejudice, and to reject theirs. We must learn to live with our own fears, doubts, inadequacies, and to reject theirs. We must learn to live with our own love, passion, desire, and to reject theirs. We must learn to live with our own conscience, awareness, certainty, and to reject theirs. We must learn to live with our own moralities, values and standards, and to reject theirs. We must learn to live with our own principles, ethics, philosophies, and to reject theirs.

Above all we must learn to live with our own strength and learn how to use it against them, as they have used it against us. Throughout history, it is our strength that they have used against us to maintain their privileged positions. It is up to me alone, and you alone, to bite the hand that bleeds us. THERE IS NO FUTURE BUT OUR OWN. YOU AND I, WHO LOVE THIS PLANET EARTH, ARE ITS RIGHTFUL INHERITORS. THERE IS NO AUTHORITY BUT OUR OWN. IT IS TIME TO STAKE OUR CLAIM.'

The Last Of The Hippies is an excellently written and extremely well-composed piece of polemic. In hindsight, of course, and with the benefit of age and experience there are aspects of it, however, that are - if not politically conservative - very liberal, ill-advised and wishy-washy. But that's okay and it doesn't take away none from it's importance in opening up the mere question of the possibility that the world is not alright and that it can be changed for the better.

During their time, Crass successfully circumnavigated the entire music business; from the music press, the promoters, and the major record companies and without any hype or big sell successfully carved out their own space. As an example of what can be achieved with a bit of determination, integrity and mutual support, within the world of music culture there is probably none better. It's unclear what purpose The Last Of The Hippies serves nowadays but at the time of when it was first published it was an important stepping stone and even gateway drug to much wider possibilities and if for no other reason than this it's probably a good thing that's it's still available in book form.

John Serpico