There Are No Spectators

"you participate whether you like it or not"

To start things off, here's the track, There Are No Spectators off of "For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?" Here are the lyrics so you can sing along, karaoke style.

The Pop Group were well-read young men. And very political. Especially Mark, the singer and lyricist. (Singer-songwriter? I guess.) This line from the lyrics,

To wash your hands of the conflict
between the powerful and the powerless
means you are taking sides with the oppressors

sounds as if Mark had been reading Paulo Freire, educator (1921-1997), who wrote, "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."



This one's for Rupert. Here's Crazy Dreams and High Ideals, by The New Age Steppers, with Mark Stewart singing. When I started doing The Pop Group site all those many years ago (May of 1997), I hadn't heard of The New Age Steppers -- funny name... they're not New Age. Then, again, The Pop Group weren't Pop -- but Eric Suitcase, a Pop Group fan from Atlanta, I think, told me to check 'em out. The CD wasn't out at the time, so he made a tape for me. Thanks, Eric! The Steppers featured a whole lot of folks, as is usual with Adrian Sherwood's On-U productions, but of interest to this site were the former members of The Pop Group and The Slits, Mark, Bruce, John, Ari, and Viv. On-U's first release was a split single with NAS on one side and London Underground on the other. As far as I know, NAS were the first post-Pop Group 'group' (On-U groups are never really groups). Rip Rig and Panic probably formed (as a real group) around the same time. The liner notes on the CD state, "The eponymous album debut of the New Age Steppers (NAS) was On U Sound's first long player release in January of 1981."