The Anti-Nowhere League

Anti-Nowhere League
Anti-Nowhere League playing at Augustibuller 2007
Background information
Origin	Royal Tunbridge Wells, England
Genres	Hardcore punk, punk rock, street punk
Years active	1980–1989, 1992–present
Labels	Impact, Captain Oi!, Nowhere Records, Cleopatra Records.
Members	Animal Tommy H Carnage Shady

Anti-Nowhere League are an English hardcore punk band, formed in 1980 by lead singer Animal (Nick Culmer), guitarist Magoo (Chris Exall), P.J. (Persian John) on drums and Clive Blake on bass.

Their first gig was as a three piece at the 1980 Chaos Show at St Mark's Hall, Royal Tunbridge Wells on 31 March 1980. This was a six band extravaganza of local punk credible bands including Le Nouveau Riche, The Vital Third, The Elite and The Audience. Chris Exall sang as well as played guitar, Tony Shaw (Bones) played drums and Chris Elvey was on bass a very short while until a longtime friend and fellow biker Clive Blake AKA Winston joined to play bass. In 1981, Gooky (who left the same year), Hopper joined on drums, although Hopper was quickly replaced with PJ ('Persian John') (real name Djahanshah Aghssa). They managed to get a slot in Discharge and The Exploited's Apocalypse tour, along with Chron Gen and Anti-Pasti. This led to them signing to John Curd's record label WXYZ Records, with Curd and Chris Gabrin co-managing the band.

Later that year, after reportedly bribing drummer Rat Scabies in the toilet of an East End pub, they also opened for The Damned on a short tour round the north of England and Scotland plus a hastily arranged one-off gig at the Lyceum Ballroom where The Damned stepped in for Stiff Little Fingers.

November 1981 saw the release of their first single, a cover version of Ralph McTell's "Streets of London". The single peaked at No. 48 in the UK Singles Chart and spent five weeks in the listings. The profanity-laden B-side of the single, "So What" later became the group's anthem. Copies of this single were seized from indie distributor Pinnacle by the Metropolitan Police's Obscene Publication Squad shortly after release. "So What?" was covered by Metallica, being released as a B-side to the "Sad But True" single, and later included on the Garage Inc. album; "So What?" would go on to become an in-concert standard for Metallica.