The Blaggers I.T.A. were a band I saw several times throughout several line up changes. I respected the militant anti fascist sentiments and the fact that the band were close to the Ruts sound wise.

When Anti Social Worker Bilko left towards the end of the 1980's, reformed hooligan Mat Blag was the stand alone vocalist. Blaggers I.T.A were a car crash of further mixed up influences. Alongside Mat Blag's Malcolm Owen style vocals, within the Blaggers I.T.A '90's sound, I could hear Conflict, Chumbawumba, Stiff Little Fingers, and even the Happy Mondays. The lyrics were still concentrating on ultra leftist politics, a fairer society bought on by direct action.
*I am not sure, but I believe Mat Blag was, in an earlier life, a fully paid member of the National Front until he reached a Damascus moment. I might be wrong though, so apologies in advance to anyone that statement might offend.

These two 7" records from the early 1990's are uploaded onto YouTube for personal reasons.

I used to live in Bound Green, north London, with Karen D who released both of these records. We lived just along the road from Southern Studios (Southern Record Distribution) where I was employed from 1989.

Karen was / is a long-time friend and we enjoyed spending time together at many gigs and festivals including Blaggers I.T.A gigs. We were close.

Karen 'took over' King Penguin Distribution when I tired of juggling between the mail order business, and at the same time working at Southern full time. You see, in 1989 I had suffered a brain haemorrhage, so I was still quite weak and on strong barbiturates up to and including 1993.
Karen's mail order was named Aural Response. I wrote 'took over' but that might be a little unfair on Karen. Basically I gave her all my old customer contact details for her to mail out her first catalogue to, when that was eventually printed. I helped and / or gave advice to her about setting up accounts with Southern, Rough Trade, Pinnacle and so forth. I also help advise her in a general way from my three or four years experience of running King Penguin Distribution mail order service (as well as helping out All The Madmen records and distribution from Autumn 1985).

Not long after Aural Response was set up, Karen released the Blaggers I.T.A 's 7" single 'The Way We Operate / Thatcher Chillin' on her own Fluffy Bunny record label using her parents address as the contact. This record sold out. Many sold out of the box at various gigs and through Karen's Aural Response mail order service.

Blaggers I.T.A promptly signed to E.M.I. A strange move for this corporate record label to sign up a band of 'militant trouble makers' so passionate about the subject matter in all of their lyrics. Sadly Blaggers I.T.A lost a little 'credibility' due to the E.M.I contract, which was a little unfair. The lyrics did need to be heard by a wider audience. Chumbawumba suffered a similar problem when contracted to E.M.I!

Karen followed up the 'The Way We Operate / Thatcher Chillin' 7" single with the 'Wildside / 10 Men Dead' tracks that were lurking around on a master reel somewhere on a studio shelf...

Due to Blaggers I.T.A being signed to E.M.I at this time, Karen had to 'bootleg' this new record, so the 7" single needed to be released on a 'new' record label, the rather obvious Bunny Bites Back record label. No contact address or other details were written on the wrap around picture sleeve or either side of the record centre label. Blaggers I.T.A decided to re-name the band's moniker for this release. The band chose the rather obvious Ram Raiders I.T.A.

Brilliant names for both the record label and band, but easy enough to chase the source of the release if anyone at E.M.I could be bothered to investigate.

I do not recall how many were pressed up, probably 500. These were also self distributed at various gigs and through Karen's Aural Response mail order service.

Then some nasty experiences occurred.

The far right Combat 18 group were writing threatening messages to the address on the back of the 'The Way We Operate / Thatcher Chillin' 7" single. The address of her parents home!

Mat Blag came around to our home and was by this point wired out on heroin, or so it seemed to me. We never spoke about it, so... He did seem more volatile than he normally would be. And he was volatile enough when he wasn't on the skag.

Both these experiences affected Karen, specifically the Combat 18 business.

The Fluffy Bunny record label that Karen was involved in went silent, and stayed that way.

Mat Blag died of heroin use at the dawn of 2000.

Karen lives in Bali now, and has lived there and in other parts of Asia for well over a decade.

A photograph at the very end of this Blaggers I.T.A post is of myself sitting down against a car with Karen.

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