Logo! #99 1983

Cover of Logo! Headline "Provocative Slogan"

Logo! was a one-off produced by two members of the "structureless tyrants" who put together the Xtra! newspaper.

It includes some humourous reflections on Xtra! and the wider UK anarchist movement at the time.

Author
Submitted by Fozzie on May 24, 2022

PDF from the comrades at Sparrows Nest Archive, Nottingham.

Attachments

xtra99-logo.pdf (7.37 MB)

Comments

Steven.

2 years 7 months ago

Submitted by Steven. on May 24, 2022

This is really interesting, thanks. I see it mentions a couple of other publications I haven't heard of, and which I don't think we have in the library: Outta Control and Insurrection. The name Black Star rings a bell, but I don't think I have ever seen a real copy. Anyone know more about any of these?

Fozzie

2 years 7 months ago

Submitted by Fozzie on May 24, 2022

There was a specific thread for this sort of thing, back in the day ;-)

Steven.

2 years 7 months ago

Submitted by Steven. on May 24, 2022

This is great, thanks. The graphic design in Insurrection is brilliant!

R Totale

2 years 7 months ago

Submitted by R Totale on May 24, 2022

Yeah, I think Insurrection seems like it's historically notable for being the main(?) publication to introduce Bonnano and that to the English-speaking world (for better or worse), so I think there'd be solid grounds for including it, but then again I'm still nowhere near finishing my aim of archiving either the WSM or Love & Rage stuff, so not likely to take on anything else in the near future.

Steven.

2 years 7 months ago

Submitted by Steven. on May 24, 2022

Yeah totally understandable. I added Outta Control, because it was all helpfully in one PDF so nice and easy

Fozzie

2 years 7 months ago

Submitted by Fozzie on May 25, 2022

A bit more background on Logo! from Albert Meltzer's autobiography:

"Some of the early elements in Class War tarred anarchists with the Freedom Press brush assuming they were the same. One group* made a song about me “Hello Albert” — denouncing my “obsession with the past and the Spanish war which was long since over”, not realising or perhaps caring that my obsession (if it was that) was with the Resistance, then for the first time extending through Europe, of which they were quite unaware.

This was picked up from pseudo-situationists, who ran special one-off papers to denounce any and every resistance, one of which, Logo, edited by a Richard Parry and Mark Page, managed to disgust the Anarchy group when with others they were nearly fooled into a collective handling of an issue fingering people whom Parry & Co considered activists and therefore named “jokingly”, or hopefully, as prison fodder. Phil Ruff dumped the entire issue in a handy trash bin, somewhat to the dismay of those who felt he was failing to observe a proper adoration of the plaster saint Freedom of Speech whose cult lay an obligation on us to distribute for free a hostile paper."

*Anarchopunk band The Apostles who were indeed Class War adjacent in the early days. The song was actually called "Hello, Black Flag!".

Steven.

2 years 7 months ago

Submitted by Steven. on May 25, 2022

Ah so Parry was involved with this. Haven't heard of Page