*Please note that the book part of this edition is available in Italian language only.* "I first listened to Crass in the late summer of 1979: a friend, just back from a trip to London, had brought me a newly released record, "Stations of the Crass", as a present. I had already read about them somewhere, perhaps because of a censorship issue they were involved in, but I had never really heard of them. That was their second album, and it ended up substituting for a long time, to the indignation of my cat who invariably left the room, the albums by Joni Mitchell, Robert Wyatt, Henry Cow, Area and Fabrizio de André that alternated until then on my record player, enlivening my student afternoons. Lyrics with little or no understanding shouted at the top of their lungs and without following any melodic line. People spitting on those playing to express approval and solidarity, and then razor blades, blood, shoving, vomiting... The ‘punk phenomenon’ was being flattened to the spectacular dimension only: it seemed that the various groups were gaining space in the newspapers not so much because there were new or important things to say, but rather through an overall visual and sonic message considered obscene, unacceptable according to the common sense of decency.

Many sixty-somethings today will certainly remember with tenderness the first images of Siouxsie Sioux with a swastika on her arm and those of the early Clash wearing a T-shirt with the star of the Red Brigades. The rare interviews reported in the music papers of the time were bad translations of provocative statements: we kids were bewildered and generally didn't understand shit, accustomed as we were to measuring the ‘message’ with the red yardstick in use in the previous decade. At first I didn't really understand what was going on either. My attention had lingered on the sonic impact of ‘Stations’: Crass was a sonic war machine, a disorienting experience, a creative slap in the face where the Sex Pistols in my opinion had been just a teenage tease. But what broke through in my heart was the album cover: it seemed to make so much noise, so heavy, dense, soaked in words, lyrics, explanations. A huge amount of messages and stimuli and provocations that went far beyond the three minutes of each song. It was a challenge. Armed with a vocabulary, I set out to read: I wanted to understand. Or at least, I wanted to try. Then we wrote, met, got to know each other. They disbanded for forty years ago, but I can still track everyone down.

In this book, using clippings, notes, memories, experiences and personal contacts, I have tried to tell their story by offering my own point of view. Enclosed with the book is a CD with the recording of their concert at the Marcus Garvey Centre in Nottingham on 2 May 1984, I was allowed to plug my recorder into the mixer. In the book I have also translated the lyrics of the songs sung that night. There are also some photos - I took them, jostling in the front rows and happy indeed out of my mind because a dream was coming true."