Rock Against Racism - A Music Video Playlist

Punk rock had very close ties with reggae. Groups like the Clash had grown up in multi-racial communities and been heavily influenced by reggae music and culture. Reggae DJs played the music before the live bands in punk clubs. Both were music of protest and in the late 1970s there was plenty in Britain to protest about. Another protest group were the far-right political party (and in true Nazi tradition street fighting thugs) The National Front. With the state of the UK economy they were beginning to make some political headway with the usual dreary simplistic argument of immigrants taking British jobs. Music turned its force on them partly due to a spark from their own industry. Eric Clapton, who seemingly was oblivious of the Afro-American blues roots of his own music, made some inflammatory anti-immigrant and racist statements from the stage during one of his gigs. David Bowie's iconography of the character of the Thin White Duke was also unfortunately timed, as he rode around in a limousine like a 1930s Fascist dictator from Mitteleuropa.

There's a very good retrospective here containing some wonderful photos, so I'm just going to present videos of some of the bands who were involved, many like Ruts and Misty in Roots who went up and down the country touring with Rock Against Racism. It's impossible to measure what effect the campaign had, but it was most definitely a battle for the hearts and minds of British youth, to stop them being won over to the National Front's cause. When the whole country swung to the right with Mrs Thatcher, the National front beset by splits and personality clashes faded away. But they were replaced by other fascist and far-right groups and of course the anti-immigrant argument is being loudly trumpeted today by mainstream politicians. Time for another Rock Against Racism? I can't quite see any of the Simon Cowell created bands carrying it off.

How many of the below bands do I possess albums of? All of them excepting Sham 69...


1) The Clash - "White Man In Hammersmith Palais"
Of all punk bands, the Clash were most heavily influenced by reggae, producing their own reggae originals and covering reggae classics. Their song "White Riot" was influenced by the 1977 Notting Hill riots when the Caribbean carnival erupted in violence at police treatment of the community.




2) Misty In Roots - "How Long Jah"
It's ironic but Misty in Roots played more RAR gigs than anybody else, yet initially they were never part of the main stage, but a sort of side act on a flat bed truck at the head of the anti-racist marches preceding the gigs. Seems just a little bit like segregation to me. But they more than most had direct experience of racial violence when their manager was beaten into a coma by the police at an anti-racist march in their home town of Southall, West London.




3) The Ruts - "Staring At The Rude Boys"
The Ruts came from Southall as well and were close band mates with Misty. Their sound was heavily influenced by reggae and like Misty they were solid supporters of the RAR campaign playing up and down the country.



4) Steel Pulse - " Handsworth Revolution"
This song preceded the Handsworth (Birmingham) riot of 1985. People could see what was happening and tried to alert us to the situation, but seems no one in authority was listening. With songs like "Klu Klux Klan" and "Drug Squad" they painted the experience of the Afro-Caribbean community in the late 1970s better than anybody.



5) Tom Robinson Band - "Winter of '79"
Tom Robinson Band were perhaps the most overtly political band that emerged from 1970s punk, fronted by a gay guitarist-singer, they sung songs for all oppressed and minority groups.



6) Sham 69 - "If The Kids Are United"
Sham 69 were a working class band who sung about beer and fighting and attracted a far-right skinhead following. It took a lot of too-ing and fro-ing to get lead singer Jimmy Pursey to agree to play a RAR gig, as he himself had received death threats. It was crucial when the band did eventually play, as it forced their fans to confront the message of the concerts and see the multi-cultural nature of the bands.



7) Aswad - "Drum And Bass Line"
Aswad were from West London and when they weren't away touring they would go to the local playing fields and play football every Sunday, the same pitches my team played at & occasionally we saw them down there.



8) Stiff Little Fingers - "Doesn't Make It All Right"
Hailing from sectarian Ulster, SLF lived in the middle of another low rent form of apartheid that separated two communities there. This is a cover of a Specials' song, one of the best anti-racist songs ever written. Check out the original version if you get the chance.



9) Elvis Costello & The Attraction - "Two Little Hitlers"
Yep Elvis played an early RAR gig, before jetting off to the US and making strange Country & Western hybrid music.



10) Au Pairs - "Steppin Out Of Line"
Another new wave band that fused rock with reggae and dub. Singer Lesley Woods gave up the music business to become a lawyer. oh well.



11) Specials - "Racist Friend"
The Specials were a living, breathing embodiment of anti-racism. A multi-ethnic band playing Caribbean influenced Ska but with lyrics pertinent to the situation out on the streets of the UK. They became best known for their excoriating comment on post 80's riot-torn Britain "Ghost Town" and "Free Nelson Mandela"

Review Of "The Sweeney" film

I loved the original "Sweeney" TV series which ran in the mid-1970s just as I was entering teenagehood. Hard living, hard loving, hard punching Detectives with prodigious sideburns and kipper ties, drinking with criminals, paying 'snouts' (informers) and ready to dish out a bit of strong-arming on their suspects. With the added unalloyed pleasure of viewing parts of London I'd never seen, since it was largely shot on location.

So it was with trepidation that I saw a new film version was coming out this year. There had been two spin off films from the original TV series with the same cast back in the 70s. But this was an updating with Ray Winstone playing Jack Regan and Ben Drew (Plan B) as George Carter. And the names are about the only nod to the original. In fact there's more of a nod to the film "Scum" in which Ray Winstone launched his acting career, while incarcerated in a Youth Offenders Centre he loads a sock with pool balls for an assault; in "The Sweeney", DI Regan finds himself in prison and loads a sock with batteries from a radio... Winstone has been interviewed saying that "The Sweeney" film closes the circle for him, since as a young actor he had a minor role as a tearaway in an episode of the original TV series.

This film has almost nothing to do with the original. It doesn't even bear the same theme tune, but then I guess police sirens too have changed in the last 35 years. The guns are not signed in and out but seem a de rigeur part of the Flying Squad's everyday uniform. Their office in New Scotland Yard is very high tech with panoramic views over London and no manilla files anywhere, as everything is neatly arranged on computers and the wall display only seems to have mounted the case in question during the film. Regan's immediate boss Frank Haskins, played by Damian Lewis, has none of the fragility and dignity exhibited by Garfield Morgan in the original; a man torn between his politicking superiors and his action men detectives out in the field, both of whom look down and despise him for being in the camp of the other, knowing full well he was equally despised within that very camp. In one TV episode, Haskins was suspended pending a corruption inquiry, while Regan had to locate Haskins' mentally unravelling wife. Damian Lewis is afforded no such depth to play here.

Times have changed, no longer can the detectives socialise with villains in dodgy boozers, slipping their 'snouts' a twenty (the one in the film accepts Krugerands!) And no longer can they beat up suspects since we no longer do that in these times of the Court of Human Rights. So when Regan 2.0 brings in a suspect and ensures to bang him to every wall and projecting glass surface on the way into the interview room, it just comes over as totally unacceptable to the modern viewer's eyes. The film seems to want to suggest that  though Regan is a dinosaur, he gets results (Think Gene Hunt in "Life On Mars"). But the high tech & design office works against the notion of him and his team being from another era. Jack Regan in the 70s hated to lose a single innocent life in the crossfire. Winstone's Regan barely bats an eye at the fatalities in the very public firefight in Trafalgar Square.

I tried to weigh up whether I would have enjoyed this film on its own merits, if I disassociated it from my love of the original. The following plot loopholes informed me that no, "The Sweeney" really isn't that good a film at all. There is one very realistic firefight scene in Trafalgar Square in which hundreds of rounds are fired on the run without a single one finding its intended target. But that's about the sole redeeming feature throughout. I didn't want to see the London I live in now, with it's towers devoted to Finance. I yearned for the look of the London of my teens, the crappy box cars and spit and sawdust pubs. Oh well.


Warning: Contains Spoilers.

1) The plot concerns a criminal with a grudge against Regan. It's unclear if he means to humiliate him by pulling off a huge bank robbery under Regan's nose, or whether he aims to kill him. If the latter, there is a scene where Regan is trapped in a wrecked car, his female partner (in both senses of the word) Nancy Lewis lying unconscious on the concrete in front of him. One of the bad guys deliberately kills the helpless Nancy, but doesn't take up the chance to finish off Regan who is out of ammo and a sitting duck. Is it done to hurt him even more, killing his lover? Unlikely that the crims would know of their relationship, since even Carter remarks later that he didn't know.

2) So this ex-Serbian paramilitary who has hooked up with the criminal with a grudge, has a proclivity for not leaving any witnesses alive. A man being very careful to cover up his tracks. And yet he allows himself to be photographed with a woman he executes in the film's first armed robbery that straight away leads the police on to his trail. Also it was clear to my eyes that it was an execution style slaying, yet took Regan a third of the film and some antsy post-sex meditation on the problem to come to come to the same conclusion. A film is usually lost when the audience are ahead of the characters.

3) During the firefight, a male Flying Squad officer is shot from close range, but saved by his body armour. And yet Nancy Lewis during the same pursuit isn't wearing any? Also, the paramilitary executed the women in the back of the head during the first robbery. Wouldn't he have also opted for a head shot with his prey backed into a corner here?

4) Now Internal Affairs (or whatever it's called in The Metropolitan Police) want to investigate the Flying Squad over its darker practises. Such as paying your informer out of the gold and Krugerands they prevented from being stolen in the film's opening. An investigation seems reasonable enough to me, it's theft and handling stolen property. The head of Internal Affairs just happens to be married to Nancy Lewis who is a member of Regan's Flying Squad and is of course cuckholding him with the very same Jack Regan. So the investigation gets personal when Regan's gung ho pursuit in Trafalgar Square get Nancy killed.  Hardly credible, even if most affairs are with a work colleague. Regan is banged up in jail, but his trusty sidekick Carter manages to find the evidence to get him released and they go on to catch the criminals and leave the widowed IA officer glowering at how Jack has outsmarted him. It's just preposterous plotting to be honest. I immediately was put in mind of Scooby Doo cartoon endings, 'why if it weren't for that pesky George Carter kid, I would have got away with nailing Regan' or some such.

5) So as said, Carter goes in pursuit of the one criminal wounded in the Trafalgar Square shootout, knowing he must be laid up somewhere after being operated on. He finds him, establishes that there are 4 guards on him, yet he doesn't call for back up and manages to pacify all 4 guards single handedly; this after we've had a massive firefight where not one intentional target got hit in Trafalgar Square; or, if he's just put them out of action, none come back at him for the duration of his interrogation of the wounded man. What are they doing, filing their nails? And while we're on the subject of crackshots, the final bullet that kills the criminal bisects him in the middle of his forehead, which again makes a mockery of the inaccuracies demonstrated in the Trafalgar Square shootout.

So let's count the cliches. 1) Maverick Cop 2) Maverick Cop loses his gun and Badge 3) Internal Affairs are doing an investigation 4) Criminal has a grudge and makes it personal on our Hero 5) From what I took to be a realistic portrayal of a shoot out in a very public space, we lapse into impossible shots and defeating overhwelming odds and firepower. 6) Car chases, but that's okay, we can allow car chases... Even if they're not terribly interesting