Mutoid Waste Co. rose to infamy in the late 80's, when they exploded in an anarchic riot of colour onto the grey landscape of Thatcherite London.

As a young Punk squatter living in the legendary Apocalypse Hotel on the Latimer Road and later travelling with the Peace Convoy to Stone Henge, Joe started to develop his style and returned to London with a vision of taking his art on the road as a travelling show. At this time he met and joined forces with Robin Cooke, a mechanic of artistic bent. Together they began their sculptural experiments, merging comic book sci-fi with machines and robotics, as well as developing the philosophy behind what they dubbed: 'Mutation": taking a found object and turning it into a sculpture, a derelict space into a party or an old boot into a hat.

Taking squatting to a new level, the Mutoids took over an increasingly daring series of properties in which they constructed out-of-this-world apocalyptic/industrial sculptural environments. During this time they created havoc on the streets, staging a series of guerrilla 'hits' on the capitol in an ever-expanding fleet of chopped-up mutant cruise vehicles.

As the originators of the first ever large-scale warehouse parties in London and creators of the legendary 'Car Henge' at Glastonbury Festival, word about the Mutoids spread like wildfire. Attracting attention, gaining followers up and down the country and inspiring innumerable groups to start their own splinter projects, Mutoid Waste Co. soon took on the status of a cult 'movement'.

In 1989 the Mutoids decided to bring their message of 'Mutate Or Die' to the rest of the world, packed up their trucks and headed to Europe where they were to spend the next ten years on the road.

During this time their escapades made their way into the pages of counter-culture folklore after they 'liberated' two MIG 21 fighter jets and several tanks from the Russian Army on the wastelands of Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They later joining forces with notorious techno party/sound system collective Spiral Tribe, with whom they dragged the MIG fighters to the Czech Republic to put on the first free parties ever to happen behind the Iron Curtain.

They later went on to travel throughout Western and Eastern Europe putting on massive-scale outdoor parties, spectaculars and events along the way, perpetuating their legend as one of the most extraordinary art movements/alternative culture stories of the 20th century.

Today Mutoid Waste Co. are still going strong with different factions operating in places as far-flung as the Australian Outback, Southern Italy and Japan.

"Mutate Or Die"


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