The Arrest

On a typical day, I’m too lazy to pull out the vinyl. Flipping records every 15 minutes or so is a pain when I’m trying to write. Breaks the concentration and all. CDs are better, especially those that collect the entire recorded output of a particular punk band, like Angry Samoans’ “Unboxed Set.” Still and all, there are a lot of records in my collection that either aren’t on CD or I haven’t repurchased in that format. Lately, I’ve been delving into my back catalog and spinning up more vinyl. I was in the mood for the Pagans today, for instance, so I fired up “Buried Alive”. Great stuff. “What’s This Shit Called Love” indeed.

The other day I had a hankerin’ to hear some Conflict. Classic British anarcho-punk. I was really into Conflict when I was in high school. Their smash-the-system rhetoric certainly struck a chord with me, especially their anthem “From Protest to Resistance”. So I put on “the Ungovernable Force”, which is the album of theirs on which the message eclipsed the making of good music (or so it seemed to me). One of the songs is called “The Arrest.” Its lyrics consist of advice on what to do if you get arrested. I’ve had them running through my head for the last two days. While I suppose it’s nice to know that I should “Never let them take your photograph, this is only compulsory after you have received a prison sentence, so don’t let them tell you different”, I don’t so much need that rattling in my skull first thing in the morning. And of course, Conflict is an English band, and the chances of me getting arrested there are pretty slim I think (look out, Nottingham!). Perhaps an American band needs to write a similar song about the cops or the Patriot Act. If I still lived in NYC, the only real advice I could give is “prepare for the broom handle” though.

Tomorrow I’ll have to return to my collection and see if I can knock Conflict out of my brain.

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