Let your self-determination over-ride indoctrination: Dick Lucas, culture shock and the anarcho of the everyday

‘To be honest’, notes Dick Lucas (singer, writer, poet and activist), ‘I was always fairly uncomfortable being lumped in with the whole anarcho thing at all’. He continues, ‘I was still living at home back then, and when I got a car I was obviously buying petrol that was polluting the earth…I was still eating meat until 1983. I didn’t think I was "anarcho" because I wasn’t “100% anarcho”…whatever that is’. This paper will raise questions surrounding the relationship between the individual and the notion of political association within a politically-charged subculture such as anarcho-punk: in particular, looking at the way in which ideas such as ‘freedom’, ‘identity’ and ‘anarchism’ are unpacked within a musical and subcultural context. As such, this chapter will draw upon a number of key debates, including those concerning authenticity, political association and individual freedom of expression: ‘there was a fine line between suggesting an alternative lifestyle and being dictatorial’, continues Lucas, ‘so anyone who didn’t like anarcho-punk could always accuse the anarcho-bands of being the latter.’ Using Ian Glasper’s discussion of The Subhumans in his The Day the Country Died (2006) as an initial starting point, much of the analysis will be provided from the repertoire of Lucas’ next band, Culture Shock. For, through lyrical insight, individual reflection and musical enquiry, Lucas himself deals with many of the quandaries outlined in brief above.