The Crack


The Crack is The Ruts first album, released in 1979 and containing the UK hit singles: "Babylon's Burning" and "Something That I Said". The white-reggae "Jah War", which was written in the aftermath of the Southall unrest and the over-use of force by the Metropolitan Police Service's Special Patrol Group in 1979, was also released as a single but didn't make the UK chart.
The cover picture by artist John H. Howard shows the members of the group seated on a large sofa, around them are some of their contemporaries such as Rat Scabies and Captain Sensible of The Damned, Jimmy Pursey of Sham 69, while Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are standing behind Malcolm, John Peel appears to be doing something to a schoolgirl with a bar of chocolate on the left hand side, Jimi Hendrix looks on from the right, the wives and girlfriends of the band members appear in various poses, as does the band's roadie Mannah who assisted in writing the song "S.U.S" which deals with the vagrancy act, widely used by London's Metropolitan Police Service in the late 1970s. The astronomer Patrick Moore looks on somewhat disapprovingly from the left.
The album sleeve contains a dedication to Jimmy O'Neal, one of the organizers of the Deeply Vale Free Festival, where the band had their beginnings.
The original painting is now in the possession of punk icon, Henry Rollins, who had gone on a search for the painting with the band's blessing. Rollins proudly displayed the painting in a video promoting the 2019 remastered vinyl edition of The Crack.

Track listing

Personnel

;The Ruts
with:
;Technical