Larry Cassidy/Section 25 RIP

Larry Cassidy/Section 25 RIP

In another tragic twist in the Factory records story, that has seen so many of its prime movers meet relatively youthful demises, it was sad to hear of the passing of Larry Cassidy- the frontman of Section 25.

I had known Larry on and off for 32 years since the days when we were fumbling around in the Blackpool punk and post punk scenes and Section 25 (named after the late Fes Parker- another Blackpool legend- when Fes had been sectioned because of mental illness) were the key band in town. They were organised and had invented their own sound- a deceptively doomy, powerful, stripped down, bass driven, dissonant, post punk that combined the nihilism of the times with Larry’s art school cool.

Section 25 were leagues ahead of everyone else in Blackpool (and an unacknowledged frontrunner in post punk) when the energy of punk was being channelled into new musical forms. Not only could they play but they had somehow invented their own sound- that strident bass driven, dramatic, moodiness that was perfectly captured on their Martin Hannet produced debut LP for Factory records ‘Always Now’. The band’s sound perfectly suited the Hannett sense of space and they were one of his favourite bands. It also came packaged in a brilliant sleeve from Peter Saville- arguably one of his best from the period- a stark black and yellow affair with a psychedelic interior which somehow mirrored the music with its stark exterior – a fold-out cover that resembled a match-book. and tripped out marble interior. It was rumoured to be the most expensive sleeve of the times.

The melancholic, powerful sound was too easily mixed up with Joy Division and whilst Ian Curtis was a big fan of the band and co –produced their first single “Girls Don’t Count”, in  1980 at Rochdale’s legendary Suite 16/Cargo studios Section 25 very much had their own sound. That was the problem with being on Factory- on one hand they got some sort of cult recognition on the other they were swamped by the success the JD’s which may have contributed to their first split in the early eighties after the release of their second album, ‘the Key Of Dreams’.

Formed in November 1977 by the two Cassidy brothers when Larry retuned from art school in London with his head fired by the possibilities of the early punk scene, their early gigs round Blackpool were stunning in their intensity. Larry and his brother Vin were a perfect rhythm section- Vin laying down the disco punk beats and Larry with those deceptively simple bass line and howling yelping vocals whilst Paul Wiggin layered up a wall of sound on his guitar- they were one of the best post punk bands but were sneered at by the press for some reason but the people who understood the post punk period knew that this was a great band.

I always remember Larry’s red and black striped bass and his charismatic stage presence- looking like a freaky art school teacher with issues- he was a good few years older than us and must have rightly thought we were all annoying scampering brats but he always shared his rehearsal space and would moodily pass on tips on how to be in band properly to us naïve waifs.

The Membranes eventually moved into Section 25’s Singleton Street rehearsal space- a huge echoey room that created the huge sound that we would utilise in our ‘Spike Milligan’s Tape recorder’ period.

In the eighties they reinvented themselves as moody techno with their song ‘Looking from A Hilltop’, produced by Barney from New Order being one of the best unrecognised songs from the era. It’s a fantastic song- a dark lament that you could dance to, sung by Larry’s late wife Jenny- it’s better than anything New Order ever did- and that’s saying something and was great precursor to their third album, ‘From the Hip’.

In 1984. The group fell apart leaving Larry and Jenny to compete their fourth album in 1988- ‘Love And Hate’ before they knocked it on the head for a couple of years a planned reunion was ended by the death of Jenny in 2004 before the band emerged again for gigs in 2007.

New Order’s Hooky himself (and also the great Jon Savage) recognised the genius of Section 25 and was always quick to big them up in interviews and always claimed they were one of the few bands to make money for Factory. He liked them so much that he even played bass for them on tour last year- I saw the show in Rochdale when we were putting the blue plaque up for Suite 16 studios- it was a great gig with Larry singing the words off a music stand- as eccentric and charismatic as ever and looking wizened but with a far more jolly demeanour than thirty years ago. We hung out and laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. I had bumped into him on a regular basis in the last few years- sometimes at sad occasions like Fes Parker’s funeral, sometimes at some Factory related shindig in Manchester- the last time I saw him was at a gallery launch in Manchester a few weeks ago where he looked perky and mischievous. It was always great to see him and I will miss his occasional presence.

Section 25’s records stand the test of time and they deserve to be re-appraised- please don’t put them down as JD copyists because they were anything but. They captured the darkness of the period and were psychedelic renegades with freaky music that they somehow shoe horned into a tough disco punk of their own- they were making this sound before Joy Division appeared and I know that because they were doing it on our local Blackpool circuit.

Another great lost genius- maybe Larry Cassidy’s sad death will wake everyone up to how great his band was.

Larry RIP.

Steve Albini interview 1988

Steve Albini interviewed in Sounds 1988…this was just as he was getting Rapeman together. I had met Steve when Big Black had played Manchester in 1986/87 and had heard he had liked what I was doing with the Membranes. We got him to record our third album, ‘Kiss Ass Godhead’ just as he was starting out as a sound recordist. This interview was done just as he was about to take off in the studio with the Pixies album about to come out and the Slint record recorded but still unknown and putting his new band, the controversially titled Rapeman together after Big Black had imploded……

WHEN NOISE terror gods Big Black finally imploded last year, it was the inevitable culmination of several years of a blistering, snowballing intense noise assault. The unbelievable hype generated by the band and their gradual rise to flavour of the month left a bad taste in the operatives’ mouths. Big Black were one of the key bands in America in the post hardcore period. They took music to a logical extreme and created a small visceral catalogue of powerful music that was on the verge of breaking big but in punk rock style they backed away from the success.

With perfect timing the three-piece split. Leaving guitar-abuser and “singer” Steve Albini free to roam the planet producing a ragbag collection of combos while simultaneously welding together a new upgraded model together- a new upgraded model of his fearsome machine with ex-Scratch Acid rhythm section David Sims on bass and Rey Washem on drums. The group then carelessly saddled themselves with the monicker Rapeman.

Albini is a hyperactive cranefly from hell, spit-buzzin’ with an internal energy that keeps him locked in the studios for days on end without sleep. At the time of interview he was putting together parts of the upcoming Rapeman LP in his cellar studio and at other locations in Chicago. Two tracks culled from these sessions have already been released into America’s Midwest heartland as an almost anonymous 7-inch single. I had just been to the studios in the cellar recording the membranes ‘Kiss Ass Godhead’ album. It was set in the suburbs in one of those typical American wooden bungelows ina sleepy street. Quite how he managed to record such a  fearsome racket down there and not get lynched was amazing. Sharing the house was Nate from Urge Overkill who was away on tour giving us more space to sleep. Steve showed me copies of my fanzine, ‘Rox’ which he had picked up in Rough Trade and we started working on the album using the Big Black drum machine because Coofy Sid, the membranes drummer, had been refused a visa.

the band kicked up a storm in the cellar whilst Albini mixed on the 8 track in his back room- it sounded amazing.

He also talked about his new band, Rapeman and how to to get back into being in a band with punk rock dignity.

“We wanted to sneak out a low key single and try to deflate this pompous idea of being in a supergroup. I wanted people to buy the record on its own merits – the only problem is that collector scum have got hold of it and are charging ridiculous prices.”

The single, a two-track advert for band, grinds away in a Big Black style but there is a greater emphasis on the rhythmic melodic undercurrents than ever before.

This is no surprise as Rey Washem is using the biggest sticks since Zep’s Bonzo took his hammer to the gods, pumping the snare with a pair of regular oak trees that rip the skins apart every few songs. Yet this brute force does not impede the man’s skill and dexterity. He’s reaching out for a new distinctive style of rock drumming and he’s bang on course for smashing his way in there.

His partner in Scratch Acid and Rapeman, David Sims, is a musically fluent and gifted bass player, and the pair are well versed in musicology, as Albini proudly points out.

“Rey can watch a cartoon on TV, write down the backing music and score it for a string section. Rey and David got into the punk rock thing first and then started learning about musical theory afterwards, whereas I was excited about the about thing, but don’t really give a shit about music.”
THE TWO-track single is a fine introduction to the band, one of the two oddly-named songs being ‘Hated Chinese’

‘It’s is an abstraction on the life of a Chinese immigrant worker pre-1940 slaving on railway construction. They were not treated like human beings. The immigrant laws prevented their women from joining them, so all they had to do was to get stoned and masturbate a lot. At the time the idea was that you could kill a Chinaman but not a human being,” Albini chillingly adds, a stark reminder of how close the US moved towards an embarrassing South African-style apartheid situation.

‘Marmoset’ concerns a certain member of the band’s failed attempt at oral sex in the Nocturnal Animals section of Chicago Zoo, a cavernous place, dimly-lit with deserted winding corridors and tiny cages where the animals shuffle around. Needless to say the escapade was an alcohol-induced failure.

Does this band member know what you have been writing about him?

“Yes, I know,” chuckles Albini, adding, “and I certainly have not been back in that capacity since.”

Albini enjoys employing his dark sense of humour, combined with his acid and opinionated tongue it’s got him into a lot of trouble over the years, it’s the kind of trouble that he enjoys. ruffling feathers, grossing out and bad taste are part of the assault. This jolt to the system sense of humour was very much part and parcel of punk rock and it’s one that Steve attempts to try and keep in control.

Noticing that this human stick insect rarely imbibes alcohol, I ask if this is because the demon drink dries up the creative juices that race through his bloodstream.

“I found that when I got drunk I was being totally obnoxious and going up to people and telling them exactly what I thought of them. This caused problems – most people drink so that they become less self-conscious, but as I am not self-conscious to start with then the alcohol tends to have a different and more exaggerated effect.”

Listening to tracks from the forthcoming Rapeman Budd EP you can’t help but notice that whereas Big Black’s brutal treatment of guitar, bass and drum machine took rock to a new violent frontier, Rapeman tend to stand back a little, utilising the sound for whatever they want to say. Only Albini’s guitar sound links the formidable trios.

“That’s because I am a bit of a guitar cripple. I’m limited to making noises, I get no joy from playing a lot of little notes. It’s more satisfying to all of us to have the guitar jumping off in all directions, sounding like a blender, making cool little exploding sounds. It certainly keeps my interest up more.”

This new found overall subtlety is best explored in the lead track, ‘Budd’, a slow, live eight-minute crawl that reeks of sadness and compassion: a brilliant staccato snare drum punctuates the pain-ridden guitar riff which perfectly complements Albini’s tense, hoarse, half-spoken, half-whispered vocal.

“‘Budd’ is a song about two people, one of whom was Budd Dwyer, the treasurer in Philadelphia who blew his brains out on live TV after he had been caught embezzling state funds.” explains Steve showing the video of the precise moment when the gun went off which was live on the local news., where the soon-to-be retired Dwyer calmly reads out a press statement absolving himself from all responsibility.

The tension mounts as he reaches inside a brown paper bag as if rooting for his sandwiches or groping around for cold metal. Producing a gun, he places it into his mouth and, despite horrified screams from the onlooking press, he blows his brains out, slumping to the floor with a torrent of blood running from his nose. A disgusting and depressing piece of video to watch over and over.

“By blowing his brains out he still got a state funeral and pension as well as several other benefits that he would have lost had he been busted. He also got to be shown on nationwide TV reading out a little defence that he had written for himself.”

Beats getting a lawyer, cheaper too!

“I tied this together in a song with another Budd, a Budd that used to live in this house before I bought it. When I first moved in here there was a period when I felt very bad about living here, I felt like some sort of intruder and it was this that I tried to document.

“Budd had lived here for years. It was kinda sad the way he had lived out his life, his home was his own little piece of America. He had his own collection of personalized can-openers and comedy coffee cups. He brought his children up here, they left him and then his wife died, leaving him alone.

“The first time I moved in here I felt like a complete squirt, a 25-year-old kid with poop in his diapers who turned the place into a gross punk rock dungeon, which is how my neighbours envisage it.”

You can imagine the neighbours’ drop jawed expressions as they survey the front room, littered with sleeping musician bodies, as likely as not belonging to the freaked-out muthas in the Butthole Surfers or some tawdry English punk rock outfit. They all snooze away beneath the “Elvis In Vegas” tea towels that adorn the walls, oblivious to the huge stuffed cat that snarls from the top of the TV set, the gynecologist’s kit that spills out from beneath the settee, maybe its the half read book of botched operations or sexual diseases lying open on the table or the porn movies which include the classic Santa Claus indulging in fellatio with his favourite dwarf assistant. Steve, though, still feels bad about the previous tennent.

“Specific things made me feel really awful, like just after we moved in a bunch of friends came round and we were rummaging through Budd’s stuff laughing at it, a bunch of little squirts poking away through this man’s life and laughing at it…”
WHILE ALBINI’s sentimental raw nerve is exposed in this grinding avalanche of sound, the other tracks on the EP are in a more traditional Big Black mould. The remaining up tempo spurts of violence muscling their way around the grooves include the demon seed of ‘Super Pussy’, again a live cut, where the band’s fascination with comic book personae takes on a three dimensional role.

“If superheroes really existed smashing their way through windows and zapping things up with laser beams, then there would have to be pretty broad spectrum of characters to balance things out, so we thought this drug addict, cannibal, lesbian character with a lustful kick ass attitude would be interesting.

“I have a really good friend who is a hell-raising, beer-drinking lesbian. We go out and get lustful at the same type of women, she has the same sort of character as ‘Super Pussy’.”

Another live track is ‘Log Bass’, which definitely benefits from the crackle of performance being one of the live tracks on the EP.

“There’s no balls to the stuff in the studio. I like the live material better. It’s played faster when the band’s jumping up and down getting off on the song. ‘Log Bass’ is about a small town mayor in Indiana who was interviewed onThe David Letterman Show. Apparently, the mayor was also an Elvis Presley impersonator who would drive to gigs in his pick up truck dressed in a cheapo homemade Elvis costume.

“One night, on the way to a gig, he was called out (on one of his civic duties!) to unblock drains. This he did dressed in his Elvis get up, pulling out from the drains what he termed a log bass, ‘Bass’ as in the fish and ‘Log’ as in poop. From this stupid story we added a few of our own, like the Aztec birth ritual where the father takes his newly arrived offspring and holds it up to the sun, just like the Elvis mayor holding up his log bass.”

The only studio track is ‘Dutch Courage’, which seems to be about Albini’s roommate’s alcohol-induced trouble making lust for life more than anything else.
*

THE MOST contentious thing about Rapeman is obviously the clumsy moniker. The name was picked up from an obscure sicko Japanese comics mag, where the hero rapes women who have misbehaved. This seems to be one of those lurid Japanese comics that mix rock’n’roll, porn and gory violence in a perverse quest for visual kicks.

Although Rapeman’s nom de plume remains acceptable to the USA, the more politically-charged UK atmosphere is already buzzing with a static anger. people are not happy with the name. Out of context you can see why.

“I was asked by Paul Smith (the band’s UK label manager) to prepare a statement explaining the motives behind the naming of the group. It was for record pressures and people at the company who felt uncomfortable handling the name of the band, and although I was loathe to do it, I sent one off anyway, and of course it made no difference. In the UK we seem to be having some difficulties with getting the records pressed and distributed.

“It’s only the people in the company that seem to be annoyed. Her Majesty’s Government have had no difficulties in issuing work permits to a group of this name. Anyone who does not want to be involved with the record, I have no gripe with, and anyone who wants to object, then go ahead, make a stink.”

Is the group name not in some sense trivialising rape by reducing it to a crass showbiz level?

“That’s obviously stupid. I mean, were Joy Division glorifying Nazism with their name, or are Napalm Death, who by the way are excellent, an endorsement of the use of Napalm upon people? Rape is a feminist issue, it’s an offensive crime, and no one except for a total dork is pro-rape.”

Now that the Rapeman machine is finally out and running. Albini’s production work is going to have to rest for a few months, and in some cases this is a great relief to the man. the pixies album has made him better known as a recorder of sound.

“I liked working with Pixies and I admit that the record is OK. But the problem is that there are now bands who try to imitate them and want me to produce them, total morons, gushing on about how good Pixies are. I get no satisfaction from ‘pussy’ bands.”

Albini’s recent production work includes some devilish stuff with New York art garage renegades Pussy Galore and the grooves kicked together in these sessions already sound like some of the Galore’s best spuzz yet.

Another band that has seen the Albini touch is an oddball act called Slint, who sound like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon put through a liquidizer. Marvellous stuff, almost as entertaining as shoving the Floyd’s fat butts through the self same liquidizer. Steve plays back the Slint album and they sound amazing, hopefully they will get heard.

Rapeman are to tour Europe in October and will also, by then, be ready to unleash their debut LP.

“The LP will either be called ZZ Top’s First Album or Tres Motherf***ers“, avers Albini. “It’s an obscure Texan joke hatched by David and Rey and I very much doubt whether anyone else could understand it. It relates to ZZ Top’s best album, Tres Hombres, which features a gatefold sleeve showing a spread of Mexican food.

“We may go for the gatefold as well with a photo of a barbecue in my back garden,” he explains, being a battle-hardened veteran of this cooking feat that aroused the wrath of his neighbours and sent bemused policeman round to scold the dressing-gowned gourmet.

So the spirit of Big Black is back, agitating, irritating and thankfully kicking some ass.

And beneath the wire-rimmed frames that cling to Albini’s scalpel thin face beats a punk rock brain.

“I hope people react to my music in the way that I reacted to my favourite records, getting excited and jumping up and down. It’s all very big-eyed and punk-rock-inspired. I like playing a guitar, I like being in a band and like exploring specific types of sound.

“The other guys in the band have a different approach, though, in that they are trying to create something totally powerful and new within the punk rock framework.”

Rapeman have already shown that they’re twitching with potential, and when their UK tour and LP explode into action this Autumn, go grab yerself a slice of the action.

Bow Wow Wow

Bow Wow Wow were the amazing creation of a reeling post Pistols Malcolm Maclaren at his most Machiavellian and manipulative. But if it took these kind of shenanigans to create pop music this good then maybe it was worth the effort.

Asked in by Adam Ant to try and take the Ants from cult level to the mainstream Maclaren stole Adam’s band and recruited Annabella Lwin- a 14 year old Burmese girl from a laundrette to be the singer. The bruised Adam got his revenge though, by phoning up the genius Marco and making his own version of the tribal pop that Maclaren had already gifted him in a listening list that he gave the charismatic frontman. The Ants went on to record ‘Kings Of the Wild frontier’ one of THE great pop albums and cavorted their way to superstardom.

Meanwhile Maclaren moulded Bow Wow Wow from Adam’s band- utilising the stunning drumming skills of Dave Barbarossa- he created the Burundi backbeat by speeding up the Burundi drumming that they were nicking of Malcolm’s dusty old vinyl collection, add to this Leigh Gorman’s mentally good bass and Mathew Ashman’s stunning guitar playing and you have a pop music that is adrenalised, thrilling and sexy, and the sex angle was one that Maclaren was working to the hilt- riding roughshod over public morality he got his young singer to yelp and coo the sexbeat lyrics that would cause major problems today as well as causing controversy the following year by posing Annabella nude for the cover of the band’s debut album See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over! Go Ape Crazy.

The band’s first release was the cassette single ‘c30 c60 c90 go’ that celebrated the rise of home taping and was aimed at pissing off the music industry- if only they had understood this then they could have utilised the MP3 revolution  couple of decades later…

Maclaren was always looking for trouble and sometimes the trouble clouded the issue and muddied the waters, the debate raged about the young singer’s overt sexuality and like the Pistols made people overlook just how great the music was. A combination of the tribal drums, bossa nova, latino rhythms, punk rock attitude and rock n roll Bow Wow Wow could turn their hand to anything.

Swerving the morality Bow Wow Wow were an amazing band, their colourful adrenalised pop burst were stunningly original and dressed in Vivienne Westwood’s first post punk collection of glam pirate threads they had the look, complete with the Mohawks that look great decades later. Ashman had the swagger and rock star arrogance and had that beautiful white Gretsch Falcon guitar which I once played on years later- it was somehow hanging up on the wall of Southern Studios- a little bruised and battered but looking all the better for it- the guitar is the reason that John Frusciante in the Chili peppers uses one- he’s a major fan of Ashman.

I saw Bow Wow Wow at one of their first ever gigs at Keele University, it was a crazy all night student do, people in the crowd were walking round with live animals and I was holding a furry tarantula spider as the band came on stage. Ashman had already been punched down some stairs by a student minder which added to the edginess of the show. The band were amazing- tight as fuck and with a clear vision, they also had Boy George as a dancer- he was called Lieutenant Lush at the time and was a skinny rake. They had the arrogance and could back it up with their music, it was a perfect pop moment.

I guess Malcolm was hoping for a Pistols style blitz and he was still toying with many of the ideas that were around the Pistols but the band broke free from his grip and went on to have bigger hits in their career and were pretty big in the USA with their biggest smash ‘I Want Candy’ which even slightly stripped down of the tribal flux that made their music so interesting was  a great piece of rock n roll- Ashman’s slashing guitar on this sounds ace on this.

Constant touring tore them apart and they fell apart leaving Annabella for a stumbling solo career and her droogs to play in Chiefs of Relief with Paul Cook.

Ashman sadly died in the mid nineties and if anything I dedicate this blog to him- a fucking great guitar player.

Bow Wow Wow have occasionally reformed and play the occasional tour- there is a rumour that they may be playing a major punk festival in 2010 and I’m curious to see them again.

Massive Attack

Massive Attack

‘Splitting The Atom EP’

Music you can get lost in, Massive Attack’s stop gap EP (whilst we wait for their new album, ‘LP5’ to come out- mooted for next spring) ‘Splitting The Atom’ is one of the best releases of the year. Dark, phantom funk that sounds like nothing else on the planet this is one of Massive Attack’s greatest moments.

The title track is one of the best things the Bristol based collective have ever done- a dark, melancholic workout that retains the funk but creates a space for you to get lost in. In the last couple of years many bands have been acclaimed as the true representatives of whatever spirit there was of post punk but this is the purest expression of whatever was going around in that period. Massive Attack are the true descendants of that musical deconstruction- in their music you can can still feel the reverberations of Pil’s mighty ‘Metal Box, fellow Bristolians love of funk the Pop Group, the sombre dark melancholia of Joy Division, the Specials and  the love of dub and reggae that came part and parcel of the punk rock experience.

They have melded these influences and carried on moving- mashing in funk, rap, underground rock with a punk spirit and made a music that is so utterly unique that you can’t place it. A very British experience- the sound of all those cool areas of cities were all the culture gets mixed up like nowhere else in the world Massive Attack are the perfect soundtrack.

They don’t even have their own definitive sound- they shape shift- utlilising whatever sounds good and create this massive rumbling atmosphere. ‘Splitting The Atom’ is a work of pure genius from the growling vocals on the verse to Horace Andy’s ever sweet crooning on the chorus. It deserves to be up there in the canyon of great pop records that switch your mood and take you to another place like ‘Strawberry Fields’ but will probably get nowhere near the cowardly playlists of mainstream grinning buffoon radio. I’ve played it five times in a row and I’m still finding parts of the song to get lost in.

Post Punk

Last week I was doing a talk at a conference at Leeds University about Post Punk.

It was an interesting event and made more interesting by the fact that post punk has become a thing, a scene, and a definable set of rules to be picked over years later by academics.

I guess it was Simon Reynolds excellent book that started this. It was great that he pushed the spotlight onto the insane activity that poured out of the breach created by punk rock- the DIY labels, fanzines and bands that were re-writing music on their own terms.

The only problem is that it has made a scene that had no rules and no boundaries become very linear. Post punk has become fashionable in the past few years but it has become narrowed down to the Gang Of Four and The Fall and maybe A Certain Ratio when someone feels a little but funky. I don’t remember it that way. I remember a blurring of boundaries after punk with a simultaneous leap into the future and a re-affirmation of the past as the shackles of the punk rock Year Zero were thrown away. And whilst the aforementioned bands were key bands of the period there was also great music getting made by Killing Joke and Bauhaus and other bands who have been lumped in with the Goth scene.

It may not fit into the newly neat narrative but the so called Goth scene was equally innovative with both Killing Joke and Bauhaus incorporating dub into glam and tribal musics and creating whole new soundscapes.

The early Adam And the Ants were also making some strange and unsettling music and I’ve often wondered if these bands were a bit too strange and in some cases a bit too pretty with a touch or eye liner (or in the case of Killing Joke – dark and ugly with manic face paint) to be taken seriously by the lumpy academic brigade.

It’s a curious fact of rock history that the journalists will always put the bands that look like them on the pedestal and write the other ones out of history. At the time most people I knew seemed to be thrilled by both types of bands and few saw it as separate scenes- the battle lines were drawn up later and the so called Goth bands were annoyingly written out of history even though their influence has been far bigger.

Personally I don’t care that much I have all the records but I often wonder when I look out at the students learning about this fantastic musical time when there were no rules and hope that they are not being short changed by the revised histories of those times.