Rudimentary Peni are a British
anarcho-punk
Anarcho-punk (also known as anarchist punk or peace punk) is an ideological subgenre of punk rock that promotes anarchism. Some use the term broadly to refer to any punk music with anarchist lyrical content, which may figure in crust punk, ha ...
band formed in 1980, emerging from the
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
anarcho-punk scene. Lead singer/guitarist
Nick Blinko is notorious for his witty, macabre lyrics and dark pen-and-ink artwork, prominently featured on all of Rudimentary Peni's albums. Bassist Grant Matthews has also written several songs for the band, though his lyrics primarily focus on sociopolitical themes. Very few photos exist of the band, as their albums feature Blinko's drawings instead, but
Pushead
Brian Schroeder, better known as Pushead, is an American graphic artist. He is best known for his album covers and other merchandise for bands in the hardcore punk and heavy metal genres.
Career
Originally from Boise, Idaho, Schroeder forme ...
published a few in an early edition of his magazine.
History
Rudimentary Peni were formed in June 1980 in
Abbots Langley,
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...
, by Blinko (vocals, guitar), Greville (drums) and Matthews (bass).
Blinko and Greville had met years prior in Langleybury Comprehensive secondary school. Greville had been playing drums since he was young, beginning lessons at the age of 10, and slowly became interested in
punk rock
Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced sh ...
around the time ''
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols
''Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols'' (often shortened to ''Never Mind the Bollocks'') is the only studio album by English punk rock band the Sex Pistols, released on 28 October 1977 through Virgin Records in the UK and on 11 Novem ...
'' by the
Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols are an English punk rock band formed in London in 1975. Although their initial career lasted just two and a half years, they became culturally influential in popular music. The band initiated the punk movement in the United Ki ...
was released
After meeting Blinko through a mutual friend, the pair began the experimental electronic duo the Magits, formed in 1977 and dissolved around 1980. The Magits released their first and only EP, ''Fully Coherent'', in 1979 as the first record on Blinko's newly formed Outer Himalayan Records. In his 2006 book ''The Day the Country Died: A History of Anarcho Punk 1980–1984'', punk historian Ian Glasper referred to the sound of the Magits' EP as a "meandering collection of keyboard torture".
Blinko, Greville, and Matthews subsequently formed Rudimentary Peni. In ''
Maximum RocknRoll'' issue No. 237 (February 2003), Matthews explained how he came up with the name of the band: "When I was at school studying biology, we were told that in the fetal stage the clitoris is a rudimentary penis". By 1981, the band had played their first show, along with the S-Haters and Soft Drinks in
Watford
Watford () is a town and non-metropolitan district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of Central London, on the banks of the River Colne, Hertfordshire, River Colne.
Initially a smal ...
, Hertfortshire. Greville later characterized the first show, as well as the ones following it, as fairly disappointing, setting a precedent for the band's distaste for playing live. While they were inspired by punk rock, the band did not adopt the look of the day, as Greville noted: "The majority of people
ere
Ere or ERE may refer to:
* ''Environmental and Resource Economics'', a peer-reviewed academic journal
* ERE Informatique, one of the first French video game companies
* Ere language, an Austronesian language
* Ebi Ere (born 1981), American-Nigeria ...
clearly disappointed that we didn't have green mohicans and multiple piercings... if you were the sort of person to be put off by what we looked like, you were never going to understand or appreciate the songs anyway".
They recorded their first EP, an eponymous 12-song 7-inch, in 1981 at Street Level Studios in London and released it on Outer Himalayan. It was fast, loud, and often described as "demented" due to the sound, as well as Blinko's lyrics and artwork, which adorned the cover and inner sleeves. After the release of the EP, the band played their first London show on 18 September 1981 along with anarcho-punk bands
Flux of Pink Indians and
the Subhumans.
Early on, Rudimentary Peni had connections with fellow anarcho-punks
Crass
Crass was an English art collective and punk rock band formed in Epping, Essex in 1977 who promoted anarchism as a political ideology, a lifestyle, and a resistance movement. Crass popularized the anarcho-punk movement of the punk subculture, ...
, and their second 7-inch EP, ''Farce'', was issued by
Crass Records
Crass Records was an independent record label that was set up by the anarchist Punk rock, punk band Crass.
Overview and history
Prior to the formation of Crass, Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher had published their creative works via their own D ...
. Up through the band's first studio album, ''
Death Church'' (1983), their records were packaged in fold-out paper sleeves full of artwork, lyrics and poster graphics characteristic of Crass and many other bands in the anarcho-punk scene.
In 1987, the band's first two EPs were collected by
Corpus Christi Records
Corpus Christi Records is a British independent record label started by some of the members of Crass and their recording engineer and business partner John Loder, to release records by artists who did not perhaps fit in with some of the stric ...
as ''
The EPs of RP''.
Rudimentary Peni stopped performing in the mid-1980s after bassist Matthews was diagnosed with cancer. After a four-year hiatus, they recorded ''
Cacophony
Phonaesthetics (also spelled phonesthetics in North America) is the study of the beauty and pleasantness associated with the sounds of certain words or parts of words. The term was first used in this sense, perhaps by during the mid-20th century ...
'' (1988), a sonic tribute to seminal
New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
horror author
H. P. Lovecraft. Mark Ferelli, a fellow musician, introduced Blinko to Lovecraft; the pair also pushed each other's pen-and-ink artwork forward via friendly competition.
The band continued to record and release material into the 21st century, including the album ''Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric'' (1995) and the EPs ''Echoes of Anguish'' (1998), ''The Underclass'' (2000), ''Archaic'' (2004) and ''No More Pain'' (2008), and have maintained a diverse cult following in the United States punk scene. Most reissues of their 1980s albums are now out of print.
Blinko authored a semi-autobiographical novel called ''The Primal Screamer'', published in 1995 by Spare Change Books (his bandmates and Ferelli appear under false names), as well as the more recent ''The Haunted Head'' (2009,
Coptic Cat) and ''Visions of Pope Adrian 37th'' (2011, Coptic Cat). Blinko has also become increasingly popular in the
outsider art
Outsider art is Fine art, art made by Autodidacticism, self-taught individuals who are untrained and untutored in the traditional arts with typically little or no contact with the Convention (norm), conventions of the art worlds.
The term ''ou ...
scene.
Musical style and influence
In an interview with ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' in 2016, the band was citied along with a number of other British anarcho-punk bands of the early 80s as being an influence to the American
avant-garde metal
Avant-garde metal (also known as avant-metal, experimental metal, art metal and experimetal) is a subgenre of heavy metal music loosely defined by use of experimentation and innovative, avant-garde music, avant-garde elements, including non-stan ...
group
Neurosis
Neurosis (: neuroses) is a term mainly used today by followers of Freudian thinking to describe mental disorders caused by past anxiety, often that has been repressed. In recent history, the term has been used to refer to anxiety-related con ...
.
A 2018 article in the US magazine ''
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating handgun with at least one barrel and a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers (each holding a single cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold six cartridges before needing to be reloaded, ...
'' stated that the band merges "eighties
anarcho-punk
Anarcho-punk (also known as anarchist punk or peace punk) is an ideological subgenre of punk rock that promotes anarchism. Some use the term broadly to refer to any punk music with anarchist lyrical content, which may figure in crust punk, ha ...
into seething
death rock
Deathrock (or death rock) is a rock music
Rock is a Music genre, genre of popular music that originated in the United States as "rock and roll" in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of styles from the mid-1960s, prima ...
via the nightmarish poetry of certifiably schizoid frontman Nick Blinko".
Members
*
Nick Blinko – guitar, vocals, artwork, lyrics
*Grant Matthews – bass, lyrics
*Jon Greville – drums
Discography
Chart placings shown are from the UK Indie Chart
The UK Independent Singles Chart and UK Independent Albums Chart are charts of the best-selling independent singles and albums, respectively, in the United Kingdom. Originally published in January 1980, and widely known as the indie chart, the ...
.
Studio albums
*''
Death Church'' LP (
Corpus Christi Records
Corpus Christi Records is a British independent record label started by some of the members of Crass and their recording engineer and business partner John Loder, to release records by artists who did not perhaps fit in with some of the stric ...
, 1983)
(No. 3)
*''
Cacophony
Phonaesthetics (also spelled phonesthetics in North America) is the study of the beauty and pleasantness associated with the sounds of certain words or parts of words. The term was first used in this sense, perhaps by during the mid-20th century ...
'' LP (Outer Himalayan, 1988)
(No. 7)
*''
Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric'' CD (Outer Himalayan, 1995)
*''The Great War'' (2021, Sealed Records)
EPs
*''Rudimentary Peni'' 7-inch EP (1981, Outer Himalayan)
*''Farce'' 7-inch EP (1982,
Crass Records
Crass Records was an independent record label that was set up by the anarchist Punk rock, punk band Crass.
Overview and history
Prior to the formation of Crass, Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher had published their creative works via their own D ...
) (#7)
*''Echoes of Anguish'' 12-inch EP/CD EP (1998, Outer Himalayan)
*''The Underclass'' 7-inch EP/CD EP (2000, Outer Himalayan)
*''Archaic'' 10-inch EP/CD EP (2004, Outer Himalayan)
*''No More Pain'' 12-inch EP/CD EP (2008,
Southern Records)
Singles
*''Wilfred Owen the Chance'' CD (2009, Coptic Cat/Outer Himalayan)
Live albums
*''Derby 1993'' (2015, Sheffield Tape Archive)
Compilation albums
*''
The EPs of RP'' LP (1987, Corpus Christi Records)
References
External links
Rudimentary Peni on FacebookRudimentary Peni on DiscogsRudimentary Peni 1988 interview on Troubled Times Radio
{{Authority control
Anarcho-punk groups
English punk rock groups
English hardcore punk groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Underground punk scene in the United Kingdom