John Loder, the "ninth" member of

Crass
BY ALEC HANLEY BEMIS

MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2008 AT 9 A.M.

In this week's print edition of LA Weekly, I contributed a piece about

Jeffrey Lewis's new album 12 Crass Songs
Songs, and the phenomenon of
young(ish) indie rockers covering 80s era hardcore punk songs. We're
using the blog to post some related materials.

I have my own anecdote from the world of Crass -- about one of the people that helped
make them possible, actually. Five years ago, I found myself in Europe with a semipopular rock band called The National during their rst cross-Atlantic tour, well before
they had gained semi-popularity.
A year earlier, I had started a label with the band to release their rst few records and, by
2002, wed forged a working relationship with Southern Records in London, a longtime
resource for the world's most strident underground bands and labels. The proto-emo band
Fugazi, the uncompromising power trio Shellac, and the cinematic post-rock collective

Godspeed! You Black Emperor all spent their entire active careers in close alliance with
the company. Loder was a hero and mentor to personalities like Ian MacKaye and Steve
Albini who, in turn, would be heroes and mentors to a next generation.
With The National, I traveled to the never fashionable north London district of Wood
Green to visit the home and studio of Southerns founder, John Loder. With most bands,
there are often important personalities who linger in the background (i.e. producer George
Martin, who is often referred to as the fth Beatle). Crass -- as much communards as
bandmates were a slightly more sprawling entity, and so Loder became known as their
ninth member -- a producer when no one else would record them and a business partner
when no one else would touch the results.
After the jump more about Loder, a man of few words, but potent ones.
Crass were Southerns foundation -- not only nancially but ethically. The band's strident
anarchism was a non-starter in the late 70s for the newly ascendant major record labels,
many of which were readying themselves for the glossy, corporate, MTV-directed sheen
that would dominate music culture throughout the 80s.
While today, bad behavior seems like a requirement for stardom in our crowded media
landscape -- viz R. Kelly or Paris Hilton -- at the time musicians were often expected to be
as buttoned down as the companies that would promote them. A band of inveterate
sensationalists like the Sex Pistols could get dropped from their label for nothing more
than "their notorious behaviour in public." Obviously, the extreme political beliefs of a
band like Crass were beyond the pale. With Southern Records, Loder bravely created an
infrastructure to get such beliefs into shops and into public discourse. And his company
would remained committed to the band long after they broke up, even when it meant
spreading news of unglamorous compost toilet building workshops.
The National and I arrived at Loder's home-slash-studio early in the morning. Too early I
guess. After we buzzed up, we waited downstairs for a good half hour before he roused
himself and let us in. Loder was dressed down in utilitarian clothing, a circumspect yet
intense man with a salt and pepper hair, a curt, authoritative manner, and a quiet
intelligence. He was clearly an eccentric whod kept true to a very unforgiving ethic,
despite having grown very successful with that ethic. Over the years Southern had
expanded to own its own distribution company, SRD, and -- it was rumored -- a number of
other ventures. When The National put the nishing touches on their album at the
legendary Abbey Road Studios, I was told in hushed tones by one of Southern's employees
that Loder had a part interest in place.
Perhaps I can best sum up this man's forbidding and inspiring presence by recounting the

one exchange I had with him that I clearly remember. I was in full record plugger douche
bag mode talking about how we weren't all that concerned about manufacturing costs and
things like that, but about image, inspiration, community, blah blah blah.
This was early 2002. The internet bubble had just popped and 9/11 had taken a chunk out
of our nancial expectations, and cultural libido. But you could still get away with a lot of
blowhard, bullshitty talk if you so desired.
Loder gave me a withering look and delivered one terse line.
If you want to maintain, itsimportantthatyoube.
He stopped for a pregnant pause.
Efcient.
Full stop. He didn't talk about "cool," he didn't talk about "edginess," he talked about being
"efcient." It dawned on me that that one word is the term which governed all the ventures
Loder had supported over the years, that it was, in a way, what differentiated his vision of
the counterculture from the ever more indulgent mainstream pop that surrounded him.
Loder's words -- or rather his word -- forever re-shaped my view of rock'n'roll.
The man passed away in 2005 at the age of 59. Before I go, let me point you to a good
Loder obituary written by Crass's Penny Rimbaud for London's Guardian newspaper.
In my article about Jeffrey Lewis and Crass in this week's LA Weekly, I write about how
Crass's vision of punk remains vital because it draws upon elements well beyond punk
rock orthodoxy -- in part, because punk rock orthodoxy didn't yet exist. For evidence of
this, look no further than the opening passage of Rimbaud's remembrance.

I rst met the sound engineer and record producer John Loder in about 1968. He was on
an acid trip and seemed to be talking out of the top of his head. The next time I met him
he was straight and made a lot more sense. We soon found that we shared. a common
interest in Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, John Coltrane, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. When
we got bored with them, we would play birdsong forwards and Bach backwards.

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