I discovered the Crabs a few months back while perusing the offerings at GetMusic.FM, and I was immediately struck by their raw energy and unadulterated punk attitude. The music, in fact, brought me back to my college days when I loved to watch punk bands tear it up at local clubs. Of course, that makes sense, as the album I was listening to–LIVE AT THE ECCLESALL NON POLITICAL CLUB – Sheffield 13/06/91–was recorded at about the same time I was graduating from high school (eleven days after graduation, to be exact!). Curious to learn more, I sent a few questions off the UK where they were thoughtfully answered by the leader of the band himself, Commander Crab…

I’ve been following the Crabs ever since I discovered LIVE AT THE ECCLESALL NON POLITICAL CLUB – Sheffield 13 / 06 / 91 on GetMusic a few months ago. Of course, you’ve been around for much longer than that, and I love the phrase you use in your bio—digitally re-animated—to describe your return. What made this the right time for that re-animation?

My kids are older now, so I have a bit more free time, but technology was the real impetus.  I’ve always been completely DIY in terms of my music & before I started my family, I had actually had a couple of false starts over the years, where I had put together some compilation CDs of our old tracks along with some new demos and tried to sell them at solo gigs, but it proved difficult to break out of the “local” bubble gig-wise, & setting up a website & marketing them proved too onerous for me back then – especially as I’m dyslexic.

When I first learned about Bandcamp I realised that I could put all our recordings out there to a global audience quite easily, and even though the band ended over 30 years ago there may be like-minded people out there who would enjoy what we did, and to whom these songs would be brand new. So my mindset changed from me thinking that I was sitting on a load of old recordings collecting dust, to realising that I was actually the custodian of some really great tracks that deserved to be heard, and could be put “out there’ for very little expense. These days, you can buy a laptop bundled with a whole recording studios worth of technology for what is used to cost for a few days in a studio session.

So I began to release the recordings in their original raw state, with just a few EQ & mastering tweaks. I also had a few old cassettes & CDs leftover from The Crabs days, which I had started to give away over the years, but to my amazement they started to sell, so much so that I had to make more. Our base is small, but growing, but that’s OK – it means I can still be truly independent D.I.Y. and manage everything myself. Limited Edition sets of merch as is what supporters seem to want most at the moment. 

It surprised me, as I expected to sell far more downloads than physical merch, due to their relative cheapness and convenience, but I guess the ecosystem on Bandcamp favours collectors who want physical items. Any profits go straight back into funding the next part of The Crabs project.

Halfway through releasing the original recordings I became aware of the AI technology available online that can strip stereo recorded tracks into their component STEM Tracks – Drums, Bass, Guitar & Vocals. That was another pivotal moment, when I realised that I could actually strip my live tracks into their component parts and completely remix them, opening whole new possibilities. Most of our live tracks were recorded in a very primitive manner, either from the audience on a Walkman type device or lifted from the audio track of a hefty 90’s video camera, or a consumer tape recorder with twin built-in mics placed in the middle of our rehearsal room. As a result there are many audio issues with these tracks, but now I have a chance to reclaim, repair, remix & remaster them to a higher level, hopefully without loosing any of their charm and rawness. So this is Phase 2 of The Crabs project – which started properly with the recent release of  the (I wanna Be A) Poll Tax Bailiff (live) 2024 Election Remix.

One of the reasons I love that phrase–digitally reanimated–is its sci-fi overtones. I know the Crabs are influenced by sci-fi and horror as well. Are there any particular touchstones you look to? How do they figure into your music?

I grew up with a love of American so-called “trash culture” – it seemed so wild & exotic and out there to me growing up in Britain. Basically anything with “Monsters” or “Aliens” in it – I think I related to the Monsters & Aliens better than I did to people! Even if they were evil or malevolent, their intentions were always a lot clearer to me than that of humans (not sure what that says about me!). I devoured everything from Marvel Comics, Saturday SciFi TV shows & B – movies to (later) Troma movies & “Video Nasties”. I also love late 70’s / early 80’s pulp horror novels. That’s what inspired the bands name – The Crabs are giant, mutated beasts that attack the coastal areas of the U.K. in the most popular series of books by Guy N Smith. So a lot of my music is an outlet for all that stuff, It’s probably my most core self that I have to keep repressed most of the time in polite society. I also love the more mainstream SciFi & Horror films as well as the Punk Rock scene from both sides of the Atlantic from that period. There’s a humorous absurdity to it all, while at the same time fulfilling base, primal needs. That’s kinda what I aim for with my songs – I hope when people hear my music, that it’s like a book or a movie opening up in their heads, and no matter how bad their day has been, they can be comforted that its not been as bad as the characters in the songs.

As an aside, do you recall the cameo appearance of the Macra in the 2007 Doctor Who episode Gridlock? As a Crab yourself, were you excited to finally get some representation on that show? 

HaHa! That’s my favourite show – I’ve been watching it since I was five! The original Marca Terror episodes were too early for me, and now they’re all lost. So yeah, I was chuffed when they came back. Personally I find crabs terrifying – their dead eyes and the mechanical way that they move, with armour on the outside & claws as weapons. They’re like giant spiders with their own personal robo-suit. Not us, of course, we’re much more sophisticated Alien Space Crabs capable of shape shifting – hence our human appearance on this planet, haha!

One thing I love about your recordings is that most of them are live. They really capture the DIY punk spirit of the early ‘nineties. What was it like for you to be playing back then? What was your motivation, and what kept you going?

Basically it was wrong place, wrong time for us. Not many people at that time were interested in what we were doing – You could say we were swimming against the tide! 

It was the time of Rave Culture in the U.K. and there was not much cultural space for a relatively new punk band like us – especially in Sheffield, which was sinking ever deeper into the thrall of electronic music. Contemporary artists now seamlessly blend electronic sounds with other instruments in pop & rock genres. But in those days there seemed to be a very definite divide between electronic artists and bands that used more traditional instruments. There was a snobbery between the two where the artists tended to look down on each other. Early UK electronic bands like The Human League & Soft Cell played songs with a traditional format, with verses, choruses and instrumental breaks. But rave was a whole new thing & seemed to burst open everywhere, literally overnight. Venues for traditional bands were disappearing at an alarming rate. I remember going to a great alternative club in Manchester one weekend and the following weekend it was a rave club. That was it – game over!

 It was different in the U.S. of course – Punk had broken big there with Nirvana & though Grunge wasn’t “my” style of punk (I prefer late 70’s / early 80’s punk) bands like The Cramps and the Ramones were having a resurgence. But we had no means to get there, with members either trapped in low-wage jobs or higher education in order to claim grants. Higher education was one of the few ways out, there were no jobs. Sheffield was steel city with no steel –  all the industry had closed down. Eventually, inevitably, band members left – some to go to University & some because they were weary of banging their heads against a brick wall and getting nowhere.

In some ways, it was a good time to be a punk band – there was plenty to rebel against. I think we were a refuge for the relatively few people still into punk & rock. We had a small but grateful audience & the gigs generally had that sweaty small venue atmosphere that I love. I’m a massive Cramps fan, and back in the early 80’s I’d obsessed over the numerous bootleg live albums that were released whilst they were having their battles with the IRS label. They were wild, mysterious and exotic & it felt like you were really there in the club with them. That was the feeling I was trying to create with our live albums. I guess that, at the time, we felt that we were keeping Punk Rock alive – dissatisfied organic torch bearers of trash, outrage & human individuality in this tidal wave of mechanical, loved up, chemically conformative rave culture. But now, in a great irony, new advancements in electronic technology has enabled The Crabs back catalogue, in all its gory glory, to be available for everyone to enjoy!

I’m struck by the fact that you were playing in the Ecclesall Non Political Club, yet your songs have a political edge, particularly “(I Wanna Be A) Poll Tax Bailiff.” Was that a problem? 

What a great question! (I Wanna Be A) Poll Tax Bailiff is the most overtly political song we did, but actually it was no problem at all. The name of the club just reflected that it wasn’t affiliated to a particular political party unlike a lot of U.K. WMCs (Working Mens Clubs) – especially in the past. Sheffield is situated in the county of South Yorkshire, which is humorously referred to by the locals as “The Socialist Republic Of South Yorkshire” for its proud left- leaning political history. For those who don’t know, The Poll Tax was introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the late 80’s & was massively unpopular throughout the U.K. as it was blatantly unfair and targeted the less well off. Over 18 million people refused to pay, before the policy was finally dropped. But it was particularly unpopular in the Northern working class areas & industrial heartlands that we were from. It’s an anti-establishment song, but as Punk proved, a lot of people were anti-establishment in those days. Bonding with our audiences on that particular song hopefully enabled some of our less “mainstream” messages to get through.

Politics is important, and at its best makes for healthy, equitable, harmonious & sustainable living, but so is entertainment, in what ever form it takes, be it high art or trash culture, that is what makes life rich and WORTH living. Generally I like entertainment to remove me from reality and present ideas in a different, more interesting way, using imagination, spectacle & humour, with any political elements slipping in under the radar. I think that’s often more effective than constantly preaching to the converted.

In addition to your live output, the Crabs also put out music on cassette, and the tracks are now available on your album Legacy. As with the live tracks, the studio tracks have a raw energy to them that I love. How did you record the studio tracks? What was your setup like back then? 

And CD – don’t forget the CD’s! I think CD is my favourite format, it’s great quality, doesn’t degrade when you play it, and is easy to produce at home. It seems to be out of favour at the moment with some people, but it’s great for DIY bands & people who want to own physical items at reasonable prices, that don’t take up too much space. Cassettes have the same retro feel about them as vinyl but can still be reproduced at home, if not as easily. Vinyl is great as a statement piece if you can afford it (I also own a lot of vinyl) and obviously we would like to be in a position to do a short run at some point. But you have to  get outside agencies involved in order to produce them, which I’m not ready to do at this stage.

I like the idea that the title Legacy has both a pompous, overblown grandiosity to it but is also a very cheesy pun, The Crabs Leg – acy. Although we take what we do seriously, I believe a level of humour is important, for me it’s what lifts bands like the Dead Kennedy’s and the others I’ve already mentioned above the rest.

The concept behind the Legacy album is that it’s basically a “Greatest Hits” compilation of all our best recordings to round off Phase 1 of The Crabs project. Even so, many of the tracks have a definite raw rehearsal room feel to them. That’s because they were recorded on a 4 track, cassette based TASCAM Porta-One Mini Studio. It was only capable of recording two tracks simultaneously, so we would literally record the drums at our rehearsal studios with 4 mics onto 2 tracks (we didn’t have a mixing desk). We’d close mic the kit – one mic in the kick bin, one placed strategically between the snare and the HiHat one over the kit, between the High & Mid Toms and finally one over the floor Tom. I love the sound of Tom drums & their mic positioning also allowed us to pick up pretty good cymbals signals too.The band would then play the song through with the drum kit at one end of the room and everybody else at the other, playing as  quietly as possible noise bleed (we didn’t have much shielding either.) 

The rest was done back home in my bedroom – I was still living with my parents at the time! We had to be creative and juggle the 4 tracks around. The drum tracks would be bounced down to either a stereo drum track with two tracks spare, or a mono track with 3 spare tracks. The spare tracks were then used for bass, guitar & vocals. If the song demanded other, overlapping parts – maybe 2 guitars or backing vocals we had to bounce the bass part onto the drum track! I spent many hours riding the faders of those 4 tracks to manually fade out the bleed noise on quiet parts of each track & get instrument levels right, in what was essentially a “live’ mix. I also had an old 70’s PA with a built-in spring reverb that I used on some of the vocals, though sometimes I would just run the vocals through my Boss guitar reverb effects pedal. And that was how we “produced & mixed”  the original Cassette release! 

For the second cassette I invested in a rudimentary Compressor/Noise gate unit & later got an Alexis 3 reverb unit but otherwise that was done pretty much the same way. A few tracks were recorded with a Yamaha MU15 drum machine, between line-up changes just for convenience. 

We also had 2 studio sessions, one in 1990, before we’d ever played a gig, and one in 1993 just before we split up. We recorded & mixed 5 tracks over 2 or 3 days in the first session, but I wasn’t too happy with the result on some of the tracks. We had saved up £500 and it was the first time in the studio for any of us. I guess we were too inexperienced, and we had a guitarist with an overly metal (for my taste) guitar sound, he left a few months after the session. The only tracks that made it onto the first cassette were Sell My Soul, The Aliens Are Coming & (I Wanna Be A) Poll Tax Bailiff – which was replaced by a superior live version on Legacy. The second studio session produced Bittersweet & Big Momma Stroppenthwack which were much better, but still had some room for improvement I felt. That’s why I’m keen to remix many of the old tracks, the way I think they should be.

Both cassettes have now completely sold out, however, most of the tracks from them are still currently available on our Limited Edition 30th Anniversary Demos CD & cassette (just 5 copies of each.) Meanwhile, remixed versions appear on Legacy which is a slightly less Limited Edition release of 50 copies in varying formats. Like all of the Phase 1 recordings, they are intended for the dedicated collector and/or completist weirdos & maniacs. Most of these songs are destined to be remixed – for popular consumption haha! So get them while you can, because once they’re gone, they’re gone! 

One of the things I always loved about punk music was its transgressive attitude, but I feel like so many of the perceived transgressions of the time have been co-opted—and sanitized—by mainstream consumer culture. What does punk attitude mean to you now? 

Yeah – Punk seems to be regarded more as an attitude rather than a musical genre nowadays, with all sorts of artists, clothing chains, cars & computers claiming to be Punk. When I think about Punk I’m thinking pretty much specifically to the 70s/80’s movement in the U.S. & U.K. Although it was a broad church, it still had it’s roots vey much in Rock n Roll despite protestations to the contrary. love the original ’50’s Rock n Roll, it was basically the Blues on amphetamines & teen hormones, whereas Punk was Rock n Roll on even more drugs & social security. Both brought disenfranchised people together in tough times. I think the fact that it was viewed as transgressive at the time says more about the repressiveness of those times. 

I suppose that the generation from those days have grown up and generally have more disposable income these days, so Punk is often used as a way to market products at them. The fact that those people are now part of the mainstream by virtue of the fact that they survived and so were in some way successful is OK. I guess it’s inevitable that some things get watered down for the masses, which is also OK as long as the true believers aren’t prohibited from the strong stuff. The problem comes when people can only achieve success/survival by going into the closet and suppressing their original outlook & feelings, rather than finding outlets acceptable to themselves. I believe that Western Society has become more progressive over the last 30-40 years, though unfortunately that progress is now in danger.

I would say Punk attitude to me now is what it has always been, it’s about being dissatisfied with the status quo & asking the right questions – Why? Who? How? When? At What Cost? Etc. to demand something better. I just happen to prefer it in Rock n Roll packaging. There’s that quote, “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable” – I think that says it all.

How do you think the massive changes in the music industry over the past thirty years or so have changed the way people make and share music? 

I’ve already touched on how modern technology has had both positive and negative consequences. I do think the ability to make & share music much more easily has democratised the process, but I worry that it may have devalued it as a consequence in some peoples eyes. There are what I would call “The General Public” who have never really been “into” music. Yeah – they may listen to it on the radio, or stream it for free, but they have never really been prepared to invest long term in music in an emotionally deep or financial way. These people tend to see music as disposable, being into this band one year and that band the next. That’s fine, and those people, en masse, can make artists very rich & successful for a brief period. But it’s the serious fans & obsessives that make tie’s to an artist and want to be part of that artists journey that enable them to continue making music. That’s always been the case, to some degree, but now more so than ever.

These days a band doesn’t need a million fans in order to make a decent living, because they don’t need this big music industry machine taking its cut – they can do it all themselves. They just need maybe a few thousand dedicated supporters who are interested enough in what the band is doing to keep buying their output & support them. 

That’s why sites like Bandcamp & Get Music.FM are so great, they are organised in a way that makes it easier for smaller bands to find their audience. The downside to that of course is that there is now much more competition!

Streaming is also an issue for musicians, because you have to invest hard cash just to get on those services. They won’t accept you if you don’t hire a distributor, who charge for their services. It also costs to even register a song to receive royalties. Then there’s the issue of how to get noticed, because no one will play you if they don’t know you’re there. Often it’s a big outlay for small bands which you may not recoup if you don’t get enough streams. On top of that there’s the recent change to Spotify where only tracks that get at least 1000 streams (that’s per track – they won’t aggregate 1000 tracks that get 1 play each) in a year generate a payout. We’re just not at that level yet. The only way we get paid is if fans buy our stuff from Bandcamp.

Getting noticed seems to have become easier yet more difficult at the same time. There’s a tendency these days to pare everything down into very tight sub categories to aid online searches. Which is fine if there are 10,000 hardcore Psychobilly_Metal _Synthwave_Goth_Jazz fans that buy everything in that genre AND that happens to be your style. But for everyone else it’s a balancing act between being a big enough fish in you’re particular pond to get noticed, and getting stuck in a sub-sub-genre ghetto with 12 fans.

I miss the days in the UK when everyone sat down together to listen to the Top 40, or watch Top Of The Pops. In those days everyone was exposed to everything available, which was healthy (if not always desirable). And because we’re a relatively small island, if an alternative band made it onto TOTP they had a real chance of making an impact.

What do you think of contemporary music — punk or otherwise? 

I always get nervous when I get asked these types of questions. I’m quite particular, & artists that I really love don’t come around very often. I do listen to new music, but probably not as much as I should. Having reached a certain age, and having collected music all my life, there’s a temptation to use my collection like a library. There’s something for every occasion – and I like it all! So I have to make a bit of an effort to listen to new music, which I’m trying to do more and more. I do listen to Spotify occasionally, but I find that best for researching already established artists that I’m aware of, but maybe haven’t got much of their stuff. Then If I like what I hear, I’ll buy it. I recently used it to explore the Johny Thunders back catalogue because, although I knew of him from The New York Dolls & some of the Heartbreakers material, I knew very little of his solo stuff. Though often, there’s not a comprehensive track listing on there by fringe artists – even for someone of his stature.

If I’m on a quest to discover something new, I’ll use Bandcamp. For me that’s the best place to discover new artists. One great band I’ve discovered on there is The Courettes. They’re a 2-piece (Drums & Guitar/Vocals) from Denmark and have a great ‘60s garage rock sound. They do songs that sound familiar, like the best bits from all the bands I heard in my childhood, but are completely original, all topped off with female vocals that range from sweet to raw. I’ve also started listening to your Tweetcore Radio Hour show recently, I discovered it when you played our track and there’s some great, fun stuff on there. It’s probably a bit too early for me to name favourites yet though!

Any possibility of a Crabs reunion? 

If you’re talking about original members, the short answer is possible, but unlikely. Live, there were two main Crabs line-ups, me & 3 other people. After the first lineup stopped gigging, the 3 other people changed. So that’s 6 other past members. I know the whereabouts of 3 of them – 2 bass players & a drummer! However, Mystery Man was actually a guitarist who switched to bass for us, so he could easily change back. He’s the only one I’m still in regular contact with. He moved to New Zealand with his family over 20 years ago & I lost contact with him. But he came back to the UK last year to see his parents & popped over to see us. It was great catching up and talking about the adventures we had in The Crabs. So, if we were offered a £10K gig with all expenses paid we could probably make it happen, but that seems unlikely, haha!

There’s that quote from Mark E Smith from The Fall “ If it was me & your granny on bongos, it would still be The Fall”. I guess that’s true of The Crabs – it was always my band and my concept, so theoretically I could put a different live band together & gig again. At the moment though I’m considering a new solo project after I finish with The Crabs archive. It would be me with collaborating with various other musicians, but the themes would be similar, maybe with a more contemporary edge in production values. I suppose it depends if I can connect with enough supporters out there that like what I do, to keep going. At the moment I’m happy to hone my production skills with the new tech on the The Crabs releases, I estimate that there’s around 5 more years work to do on the back catalogue yet!

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions! 

Thanks for the opportunity Marc. It’s great to be able to tell our story & be one of your Abominations!