Some things just go together. Peanut butter and jelly. Cereal and milk. Lazy Sunday afternoons and bestiality. Stuff like that. Politics and dancing usually go together like shit and pants.
“Neither Washington Nor Moscow” was the Redskins first full length E.P. Now imagine that a socialist reading circle got a hold of a bunch of old Stax albums and instruments and decided to start a band. The Redskins were like that, and against all probability, it was actually pretty good. The songs they did were un-apologetically propagandist, but they had a good beat and you could dance to them, so what the fuck do you want? This should only prove a problem for you if your politics were radically different from theirs. I don’t know about you, but I was never one of them that could buy bonehead records and shrug it off saying “well the music’s good”. So I reckon if you were a big fan of laissez faire economics and paki bashing this band wasn’t for you.
The Redskins have kind of been buried by time. In England they have a small following still and out in America you barely heard of them. I just checked Cdnow.com and you can pick up an import of the “Neither Washington Nor Moscow” disc for 120 bucks, that’s how rare they are. I think I know why. The Redskins popped up at a time when “Skinhead” as a movement was having an identity crisis and outside elements were moving in trying to lay claim. As Skrewdriver and bands like them tried to move in and own Skinhead from the right, The Redskins did the same from the left. There was, from what I have heard, a lot of discussion about the Redskins genuine-ness. Maybe they were just shaving their heads as an angle in on the youth. And the singer, Chris Dean had a worryingly large collection of different color Harrington jackets. It seemed to some they were a little bit of a put-on. It seems like they agit-propped their way into obscurity. I don’t know about all that; I was years later and an ocean removed and, as far as the politics, to my mind “Skinhead” is and was an inherently left-wing identity no matter who wears what or why. The scene politics should be ignored as often as possible.
“Neither Washington Nor Moscow” is by no means a perfect album. The production is way too slick, and it sounds at times comically dated. But that aside, it’s a good hard-soul album that deserves a place in people’s record collections, take it at that and go dance badly, suckas.
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