British anarcho-punk legends Subhumans headline Great American Music Hall
SAN FRANCISCO -- Veteran British punk band Subhumans bring their politically charged anthems to the Great American Music Hall Friday night.
Formed in 1980 in the small town of Warminster in southwest England, the band coalesced around singer Dick Lucas (formerly of the group the Mental) and members of local punks the Stupid Humans. Splitting the difference between the tuneful political salvos of the Clash and the more extreme anarchist punk experimentation of Crass, the band would rise to become one of the more incisive British acts of the era.
The quartet's first demo in 1981 impressed contemporaries outfit Flux of Pink Indians enough that they offered to release Subhumans music through their new Spiderleg Records imprint. The band's debut EP Demolition War came out late that year and established the group's furious sound and incendiary message. They followed suit with two more EPs -- Reasons for Existence and Religious Wars -- and a song on the split EP Wessex '82 (issued on their own Blurrg Records label) before finally releasing the band's first proper album in 1983.
Drawing inspiration from George Orwell's novel 1984, the record's dystopian themes and fervent call to change modern civilization's self-destructive bent made it a prescient classic of early '80s punk rock. The prolific crew would release two more EPs -- Evolution and the live/studio Time Flies...But Aeroplanes Crash in addition to numerous live cassettes -- and their second full-length From the Cradle to the Grave before 1983 was over. That album showed off the Subhumans' increasingly progressive and experimental approach with their first dabbling in reggae grooves and the nearly 17-minute-long title track taking up the entire second side of the record.
Despite the band's popularity in the punk underground, creative differences would lead Subhumans to split up by the end of 1985, though they would issue a pair of posthumous releases in the album Worlds Apart and the EP 29:29 Split Vision. Lucas would move on to front politically minded ska-punk group Culture Shock for several of years, in 1990 founding the band Citizen Fish with latter-era Culture Shock bassist Jasper Pattison and former Subhumans members Phil Bryant on guitar and Phil Trotsky on drums. While Subhumans would stage a brief reunion in 1991 for a few gigs and again in 1998, the band would reunite permanently in 2004 and has remained an active performing unit ever since.
The reunited band -- which includes original members Lucas, Bruce Treasure on guitar and Trotsky on drums along with Bryant on bass, who joined in 1983 -- has also issued a pair of new live albums along with two studio efforts, including 2019's caustic and timely as ever record Crisis Point on Bay Area-based Pirates Press Records. The label recently released a comprehensive vinyl box set compiling all of the band's classic 1980s recordings. For this show at the Great American Music Hall Friday, they will be joined by their current tourmates, acclaimed Chicana punk band Fea from San Antonio, TX. Oakland garage/pub-punk band Smokers -- which features members of Drunk Horse, Nuisance, Black Fork and the Pattern -- opens the show.
Subhumans with Fea and Smokers
Friday, Oct. 20, 7 p.m. $20
Great American Music Hall
