ABSTRACT
The Militants, a Trotskyist section of the Labour Party, had taken over Liverpool City Council in 1983, and Liverpool became the focus of government efforts to control regional insurgency and dismantle and disempower local and regional authorities. Consequently, the leaders of the city council entered into a direct confrontation with the government and threatened to make the city bankrupt unless they received more funding, which resulted in their expulsion from office in 1986. The musicians involved listened to, and were influenced by, rock music from many different places, and they produced many different musical styles and sounds. There were bands that were described as 'alternative' or 'indie rock', and those described as more 'mainstream' or pop-influenced. The story of China Crisis, as told by the band members themselves, helps to illustrate these conventional rock journeys and clichés or myths, and connect them to the notion of a local rock sound.
