“These Furious Flames! Redskins Live! 1985/86” Double Album Announced

London Records have announced that These Furious Flames! Redskins Live! 1985/86, the definitive live compilation of the incendiary political band, will be released on the 8th December on double CD and Vinyl. The trio Redskins may have taken the look of the early-’80s skinhead movement, but politically they were firmly on the left. Forged amid the streetwise intellectual post-punk frenzy of early-’80s Yorkshire, named after cadres of left-wing skinheads in Sheffield, the Redskins were members of the Anti-Nazi League and the Socialist Workers Party and married Marxist discipline with revolutionary populism. “Like The Fall meets The Four Tops!” they declared. The Redskins’ mix of punk and soul saw them uniting the youth, alongside the likes of Billy Bragg, while fighting for Socialist ideals in Thatcher’s increasingly conservative Britain of the 1980s.

“As a band, Redskins always used studio sessions to develop material, be experimental and try new ideas. The Miners’ Strike changed this because the band had to focus on fundamentals… supporting striking workers. This meant gigging and the reality was that it enabled the band to put forward the ideas that countered the compromises of Kinnock and the Labour right wing to an active, willing, politicised audience. Records just can’t do this! It is important to recognise that those audiences of committed activists inspired the band’s performances and taught Redskins how to inspire others through live music. This was a reciprocal arrangement. Both sides gave their energy and commitment to generate solidarity and support those at the sharp end.” (Martin Hewes)

These Furious Flames! is a 25-track documentation of the energy, commitment and drive of the Redskins as that campaigning live act. Issued in 2xCD capacity wallet, double vinyl and digital editions, each format couples together a recording of the full set of the finale concert of their 1985 Kick Over Apartheid! tour, including guest appearances from Jerry Dammers (The Specials) and Billy Bragg, with the BBC broadcast tracks from their 1986 concert at the Town And Country Club. Redskins as political activists, delivered their electrifying and radical Socialist Workers Party missives and broadsides through the ministry of their music – a unique post-punk rock & soul hybrid that gained their lead singer, Chris Dean, the sobriquet Tamla Motormouth. The Redskins were taking a stand for the working man and by standing up, they stood out, and never so forcefully as in the live arena. With their stellar musicianship and crack brass section honed through a never-ending whorl of “fighting fund’” benefit gigs, they were the furious flames that kept the anti-Thatcher fires of dissent burning throughout those challenging years marked by her seeming unassailability.

The band released just one album, 1986’s Neither Washington Nor Moscow, at the end of that year the Redskins didn’t so much split up as disperse: no long obituaries were written, and no monuments were erected. Its three members exited the field quietly, never to return. Those who had been there, who’d seen and heard and raised their hands remember, and this live compilation is an attempt to document that energy and commitment. 

The double CD edition comes with a 40-page booklet that compiles new commentary from Martin Hewes, with historic quotes from Chris Dean, Paul Hookham and Kevin Robertson, as well as thoughts by an array of associates and celebrity fans including poet Atilla The Stockbroker, Billy Bragg, Colin Revolting, their studio album producers Pat Foley & Chris Silagyi and DJ Gary Crowley. The booklet also contains gig reviews, photographs and a condensed digest of media quotes about the band. The double vinyl LP format has printed inner bags replete with evocative archive photographs and a written introduction by Redskins founding member Martin Hewes, with whose co-operation and input this celebratory release has been curated.