The Anti-Nowhere League
 In good punk tradition, the Anti-Nowhere League formed in Kent,
England, in 1980 out of boredom. The band members were old
friends, congenital troublemakers and occasional bikers who
discovered the joy of ineptly played guitars. While any
self-respecting punk band had to be called 'Anti' something,
they became The Anti-Nowhere League .
Their
first gig saw them playing uninvited during a local fair at
Tunbridge Wells (which for the ignorant, is a very genteel town in
the south of England), where, if nothing else, they proved they
could get arrested by . . . getting
arrested.
By the autumn of 1981 the boys had
secured a deal with WXYZ Records and were touring as support to
The Damned. Their first single, released in January 1982, was a
cover of buskers' fave, Streets Of London,
recorded, the band said, because they "wanted to fuck up
something nice"'.
The accompanying
video portrayed the League doing their utmost to look menacing,
while Animal, clad in leather, chains, studs and wraparound
shades, swung an axe around for no apparent reason. However, it
was the single's B-side, So What, that
gained the band notoriety, as Animal detailed graphic experiences
with sex, drugs, alcohol, bestiality, paedophilia and
VD.
Animal's philosophical musings were
lost on the Obscene Publications Squad, who, as the record
appeared in the lower reaches of the chart, raided WXYZ's
offices, seized all the copies they could find and destroyed them.
The record was promptly banned, greatly enhancing the League's
following amongst the hardcore punk fraternity. So
What was eventually covered by Metallica.
Over
the next year another three singles - I
Hate...People, Woman and For You - were unleashed. The latter was
supposedly an attempt at commerciality and, ironically, the only
one not to chart. There was an album, too, We Are ...
The League (1982), which contained all the singles bar For You and
So
What.
The band went quiet after
that, as the punk scene lost momentum. The dreadful Live
In Yugoslavia (1983), featuring a truly painful cover
of The Rolling Stones' Paint It Black, and a
version of So What with the lyrics buried
deep in the mix, did little to demand
attention.
Then in 1985, the boys re-emerged
as an 'epic-rock' band, renamed The League. They had, it seemed,
grown up, and wanted to be taken seriously. To this end, P. J. was
replaced on drums by Michael Bettell, and the band set off on
tour, even supporting Big Country at one point. This would have
been very embarrassing for their original audience but few people
seemed to notice, and a single, Out On The
Wasteland, and album, The Perfect
Crime (1987), slipped into the
void.
The band reverted to their original
name, and persist today on the punk cabaret circuit, having long
ago fallen into the rut they always professed to
despise.
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