A Benefit For The “Vancouver Five” with Sonic Youth, Nihilistics, Rat At Rat R, False Prophet, Adrenalin O.D., and Misguided

[New York]: Charas New Assembly Hall, [1983]. Offset. 11 x 8 1/2 in. Very good; bumping to bottom left corner. Item #8030

Flyer promoting a benefit concert for the Vancouver Five featuring Sonic Youth, Nihilistics, Rat At Rat R, False Prophets, Adrenalin O.D., and Misguided at the Charas New Assembly Hall in the Alphabet City, New York.

The Vancouver “Squamish Five” were a group of urban guerillas who called themselves “Direct Action,” responsible for three high-profile acts of bombing and property destruction.

Led by anarcho-feminist Ann Hansen, Direct Action was made up of four other members including Gerry Hannah of the hardcore band the Subhumans. Through Hannah, Direct Action made connections with hardcore and underground scenes throughout North America. Their résumé of property destruction is short and explosive like a hardcore song: first, they vandalized the offices of the British Columbia Ministry of Environment; a month later they stole a large cache of dynamite belonging to Department of Highways and used it to blow up an electric hydro station in Vancouver; their next action involved another stolen truck full of dynamite, which they placed outside a factory of American weapons manufacturer Litton Industries. The factory blew up into tar, dust, and smoke, and a national police search began. Before they were caught, the Five incorporated themselves into the larger group, the Wimmin’s Fire Brigade, and managed to fire bomb three franchises of Red Hot Video, a video porn store that had gained notoriety in feminist activism for allegedly distributing child, rape, and snuff porn. When they were finally caught nearly a year after they began their activist campaign, they were handed lengthy prison sentences in a highly publicized trial.

A document of the politics of the No Wave and NYHC scene.

Price: $125.00