White Riot (Rock Against Racism doc)

[Sweet FA]

Heads up this is on Freeview (Sky Arts) this Friday @ 10. Not seen it but it's supposed to be great. No doubt a few urbs have memories of Victoria Park.

White Riot — Modern Films

White Riot (dir. Rubika Shah) | Rubika Shah’s award-winning and energising film charts a vital national protest movement. Rock Against Racism (RAR) was formed in 1976, prompted by ‘music’s biggest colonialist’ Eric Clapton and his support of racist MP Enoch Powell.

www.modernfilms.com

Rubika Shah’s award-winning and energising film charts a vital national protest movement. Rock Against Racism (RAR) was formed in 1976, prompted by ‘music’s biggest colonialist’ Eric Clapton and his support of racist MP Enoch Powell.

White Riot blends fresh interviews with queasy archive footage to recreate a hostile environment of anti-immigrant hysteria and National Front marches. As neo-Nazis recruited the nation’s youth, RAR’s multicultural punk and reggae gigs provided rallying points for resistance. As co-founder Red Saunders explains: ‘We peeled away the Union Jack to reveal the swastika’.

The campaign grew from Hoxton fanzine roots to 1978’s huge antifascist carnival in Victoria Park, featuring X-Ray Spex, Steel Pulse and of course The Clash, whose rock star charisma and gale-force conviction took RAR’s message to the masses.




It's followed by Don Letts: Dread Meets Punk Rockers

 

[Nanker Phelge]

I will have my notebook and pen out. This is a subject close to heart.

Memories of RAR

&

Walls Come Tumbling Down

Are good reads and told by all the major players from RAR to the Anti NAZI league.

Hardly a motley crew of punks. Bunch of lefty artist show offs, but good on 'em.

The Clash were hardly the white knights of RAR. First gigs were a mix of folk and funk and jazz, but then they hooked on to the punk & Reggae link which aligned better politically and was more fun I bet.

The poster offends me. May as well be a poster for Rude Boy.

Misty in Roots, Steel Pulse, The Ruts, Tom Robinson and SLF were the really committed acts who stuck it out after the first few gigs with folk, funk, soul stuff. The Clash just turned up and their people were knobs. Big mention for Jimmy Pursey who despite attracting the boneheads(and being no tough guy) did front them out and do his best. Bless him.

I was little, but lucky to have bigger kids around me who dug this shit and I was sold. When Red Wedge arrived I was ready to go. Wasn't long before I was in the streets fighting fascists.

 

[Nanker Phelge]

or being beaten up by them.....ha ha

 

[tony.c]

Thanks Sweet FA ! I'll set my box to record. I was up all night before this gig guarding the stage in Victoria Park. On the day I was a steward behind the barrier in front of the stage. We had to wear black bin liners, not because we were punks, but for protection from the rain of spit coming down from the first few rows of the audience.

 

[Nanker Phelge]

I love that you camped out to protect the stage. Respect.

 

[tony.c]

I love that you camped out to protect the stage.

We sat on the stage through the night and patrolled the park. There was a concern that fascists might try to destroy it to stop the gig.
They would have needed tools to do that as the base was made of scaffolding.

 

[Nanker Phelge]

We sat on the stage through the night and patrolled the park. There was a concern that fascists might try to destroy it to stop the gig.
They would have needed tools to do that as the base was made of scaffolding.

Good soldiering (not soldering)

 

[peterkro]

Thanks for heads up, I now know how to set Virgin box to record things at a future date ( never had the need before).Was at Brockwell one but was a little hazy even on the day.
Fucking hell Virgin is also telling me it's rebroadcast at 02.30 21/10 .

 

[Ms Ordinary]

I will have my notebook and pen out. This is a subject close to heart.

Memories of RAR

&

Walls Come Tumbling Down

Are good reads and told by all the major players from RAR to the Anti NAZI league.

Hardly a motley crew of punks. Bunch of lefty artist show offs, but good on 'em.

The Clash were hardly the white knights of RAR. First gigs were a mix of folk and funk and jazz, but then they hooked on to the punk & Reggae link which aligned better politically and was more fun I bet.

The poster offends me. May as well be a poster for Rude Boy.

Misty in Roots, Steel Pulse, The Ruts, Tom Robinson and SLF were the really committed acts who stuck it out after the first few gigs with folk, funk, soul stuff. The Clash just turned up and their people were knobs. Big mention for Jimmy Pursey who despite attracting the boneheads(and being no tough guy) did front them out and do his best. Bless him.

I was little, but lucky to have bigger kids around me who dug this shit and I was sold. When Red Wedge arrived I was ready to go. Wasn't long before I was in the streets fighting fascists.

I saw it at the Ritzy a couple of days before it closed (also too young to remember any of it) and that seems a pretty good summary.
Definitely worth a watch.
Jimmy Pursey (and his rabbits ) came across really well, not someone I know much about - did he just disappear after that?

Hardly a motley crew of punks. Bunch of lefty artist show offs, but good on 'em.

... is exactly as depicted!

Also a fair bit from / about Pauline Black & PolyStyrene...

 

[Argonia]

Didn't fascists create a response called Rock Against Communism featuring the likes of Skrewdriver?

 

[Sweet FA]

Jimmy Pursey (and his rabbits ) came across really well, not someone I know much about - did he just disappear after that?

Nope, he very much kept going

 

[Ms Ordinary]

Yeah I guess that answers that