ALBUM REVIEW: Redskins – These Furious Flames! Redskins Live! 1985/86 (London Records)
Redskins were a three-piece soul-punk-funk band from York who, in the mid-80s, were one of the most important left-wing bands in Britain.
They wore skinhead-style clothing, but couldn’t have been more different to the by-now-withering oi! scene, where some of the politics were – let’s be honest – the polar opposite.
Vocalist/guitarist Chris Dean and bassist Martin Hewes were members of the Socialist Workers Party, and the band were active supporters of the Anti-Nazi League, and vociferous critics of Margaret Thatcher’s increasingly-despised Tory government.
Kick Over Apartheid!
Most of this album was recorded live in 1985 at the Polytechnic of Central London as the Redskins‘ Kick Over Apartheid! tour reached its climax.
Previously released by Dojo in 1994 as the unimaginatively-titled 15-track Live, it’s been restored to completeness by the inclusion of the show’s three encores.
It adds seven tracks recorded by the BBC at the Town & Country Club in London in 1986, which help to reinforce the energy and commitment of the Redskins as a campaigning band staunch in their support of causes like the Miners’ Strike and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.
Redskins are on scintillating form as they kick off with Lean On Me!, one of half a dozen coruscating singles they released in their short but impressive lifespan, which lasted just five years.
The others – include Keep On Keeping On!, Bring It Down (This Insane Thing) and the excellent Kick Over The Statues – are present and correct, alongside most of their one and only studio album, 1986’s Neither Washington Nor Moscow, and a handful of B-sides.
Funk not punk
Although influenced by the music of the ’70s, the Redskins’ sound was more funk than punk, takings its energy not from riffing guitars, but the propulsive drums of Paul Hookham and Hewes’s basslines.
Dean proves to be an impassioned vocalist, who shows he can sing a bit as well on the more soulful numbers, and highlights like penultimate single It Can Be Done and album track Turnin’ Loose show Paul Weller’s The Style Council weren’t the only lefties with a killer horn section.
For me the standout moment isn’t one of the 7ins, but A Plateful Of Hateful, full of Dean’s sublime ‘wacca wacca’ guitar, and dedicated to “all those bastards – like the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles, Lady Diana, Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew – all those bastards that are unemployed all their lives and get more dole than me or you ever can, or ever will.”
As we get to the encore a couple of special guests, Billy Bragg and Jerry Dammers, join Redskins in a mash-up of The Miracles’ Tracks Of My Tears and The Impressions’ People Get Ready, which was the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement.
Skinhead Moonstomp
The Bard of Barking and The Specials/Red Wedge mastermind remain on stage for a spirited if slightly ragged take on the Beatles’ Back In The USSR, before things are brought to a close with a triumphant version of Symarip’s skinhead reggae classic Skinhead Moonstomp.
By the end of the year in which the BBC-broadcast tracks which complete the album were recorded, Redskins were no more.
They had burned brightly, raged hard against the system, delivered their messages of hope and indignation, and then broke up, leaving just one album and a handful of excellent singles in their wake.
I never saw them live, but I wish I had. This album serves as a document of just how good they were – and how sad it is that some of their messages remain just as relevant today, almost 40 years on. 8/10.
