One of my collection of surreal pop moments would be turning on breakfast television one morning to find, in the 7.55 “pop” slot just before the wacky weather forecast and the 30 seconds of new at 8.00, The Redskins' video for “Keep On Keepin’ On.” Suitably ready to smash the system I then went off to my work experience placement at Barclays Bank and put checks through a franking machine!
For one brief moment in the mid eighties the Redskins brand of Motown meets punk meets The Jam and political manifestos made perfect sense. Thatcher was bringing the UK to its knees and removing the last remnants of trade union power and music in the UK had embraced politics to such an extent that the likes of Wham! and Spandau Ballet were even writing social commentary. So when The Redskins appeared on the scene with NME writer and main Redskin Chris Moore declaring he wanted the band to sing like the Supremes and walk like The Clash we all pretended to know exactly what he meant. The band released a series of great singles and they were all featured on their only album “Neither Washington…Nor Moscow”
A history of the band can be found here
Buy the album here
4 comments:
I don't remember the Redskins being on breakfast TV, but GMTV (or Good Morning Britain) did definitely feature "They'll need a crane" by They Might be Giants. The slot was swiftly forgotten about, though, after they showed "Body's in trouble" by Mary Margaret O'Hara, much to Richard Keays' confusion.
i cant play any of these files - after i unzip them i just get a txt file and that's it....what am i doing wrong?
Thanks for the Redskins--I used to have them on a mix-tape many many moons ago, and had forgotten them since.
There's a Redskins tribute album due out in a few weeks called Reds Stike The Blues. The album features bands from America, England, Italy & the Basque Country. You can find out more information about the album at the Red Star website - http://www.redstar-recordings.com
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