This is a guest post from Jason Toon

Socialist skinhead soul outfit The Redskins were so conceptually perfect, that they seemed like something someone made up. And they sort of were. Head ‘skin Chris Dean wasn’t some snaggletoothed bootboy urchin from a cement skyscraper. Dean wrote for the NME, he was a member of the Socialist Workers Party, and he had a head full of ideas about youth culture, Trotskyism, and the power of the proper trousers. It was from those ideas, not from the “streets,” that The Redskins sprang.

But The Redskins were a real band, they did inspire a real (if small) left-wing skinhead movement, and most importantly, they did make real (and really great) records. Their 1982 debut single, “Lev Bronstein” b/w “Peasant Army”, paired a post-punk-soul A-side with a chugging Oi! B-side, all produced by Jon Langford of The Mekons and released on his CNT Records. Intriguing enough, especially considering the strident left-wing poetry of the lyrics, but The Redskins really caught fire with their second single, “Lean On Me,” a hyperfast take on ‘60s soul analogous to what the 2-Tone bands did with ‘60s ska. It hit #3 on the UK indie chart, and made The Redskins an electric presence in the ‘80s left-wing pop ferment. When the miner’s strike heated up in 1984, The Redskins’ socialist stance resonated like a brass section.
 

 
If you found Crass too tuneless, if Billy Bragg was too quiet, if The Style Council was too slick, The Redskins were your band. And Dean wasn’t afraid to call the others out for insufficient ideological rigour: “If there’s a tour organized by the Labour Party, one thing you can be sure of is that it’ll sell out,” he said about Red Wedge, Labour’s attempt to mount a travelling anti-Thatcher pop circus. And Dean called Bragg “Neil Kinnock’s publicity officer.”

Touche! But the people in those acts are still around, still doing something. Where’s Chris Dean now? It didn’t take long for his revolutionary fire to burn itself out. After a stack of classic singles and one great LP (Neither Washington nor Moscow), The Redskins fizzled out by the end of 1986. Dean was great at writing stirring anthems like “Keep On Keepin’ On!” and “It Can Be Done!”, but alas, failed to walk the walk. He reportedly retreated to a reclusive life in Paris, leaving the rest of us with a totally unique example of how to weave a handful of diverse cultural and political threads into a thrilling band. Whatever you think of The Redskins’ Trotskyist politics, music could use this kind of commitment, imagination, and style today.

The Redskins perform “Lean On Me” live:

 
Chris Dean and Martin Hewes talk about the band and show the video for “Keep On Keepin’ On!”:

 
More from The Redskins after the jump…

 
I didn’t know what to expect when I hit play for Flula Borg’s “Slow Mo Beatboxing” video, but it certainly wasn’t a Georgia O’Keeffe/David Cronenberg collaboration that spits out farts!

According to Borg, his luscious lips are “like the vagina of a brontosaurus.”

Can we please have a video of Biz Markie slowmotion beatboxing, next? Seriously. 
 

 
Via Laughing Squid

 
In the puzzling biographical blurb on his website, the artist Diddo claims to have “aroused the curiosity of creators and tastemakers, receiving requests from the likes of Sasha Baron Cohen, Kanye West and Lady Gaga.” It also says that he “was born on the luckiest day since the sixth century (7-7-’77).”

Diddo’s most recent work, “Ecce Animal,” poses provocative questions about the human condition, such as “How much does that fucking thing cost?” It’s a skull measuring roughly 5 x 7 x 8.5 inches—I’m neither a doctor nor a medical examiner, but I’m going to go ahead and call that “life-sized”—and it’s made of “street cocaine.”

In the “Laboratory” section of his website, he drops such risible bon mots as “The analysis started with the preparation of the 100% Cocaine standard and sample solution. An amount of standard was dissolved in a mobile phase followed by a series of trial runs to calibrate and identify the HPLC method that gave adequate separation of the standard. ... The retention time of our sample matched the Cocaine standard, albeit with
 a much smaller peak. This is because the sample is diluted with so-called ‘cutting agents’. The purity of the Cocaine in percentage lies in the range of approximately 15% to 20%.”
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
via designboom

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
I ♥ the cocaine, I ♥ the cocaine
Charlie Chaplin on cocaine

 
The Residents, if you didn’t know, are a long running cross-media band who are pretty much the yardstick by which high quality avant-pop weirdness is measured. Last time DM checked up on them, they were delivering the single most jaw-dropping trove of band merch ever to a superfan in Indiana who had fat cash to burn and priorities with which we cannot argue.

Since then, The Residents have successfully reached the crowd-sourced fundraising goal for the completion of their film The Theory of Obscurity, a history of the band by filmmaker Don Hardy (no relation to the tattoo artist/douchebag t-shirt guy). The latest trailer is the longest, most generous taste yet of the doc’s contents, and features members of Residents-influenced bands like Devo, Primus, Ween and Talking Heads chiming in on the band’s history, innovations, and legacy.
 

 
On Tuesday, the band posted this long lost interview on their Facebook page. In it, Hardy Fox, then and still one of the band’s longtime spokesmen, discusses on a New Zealand TV program the then-recent theft of one of the band’s trademark eyeball masks, their musical influences, and the concepts behind the band’s ongoing commitment to anonymity, and some of anonymity’s consequences. But one of the best moments comes within the first half-second of the thing, when the interviewer’s accent makes Fox’s first name sound like “hottie.” Rrrowwwwrrr.
 

 
The Residents’ latest release is Mush-room, though at the rate they put stuff out, it’s probable that that album will effectively be an oldie within a couple of months.

 
Captain Beefheart aka Don Van Vliet was born on this day in 1941. The Cubist blues howler and great avant garde outsider composer and bandleader retired from his musical career in 1982, to become a widely respected abstract expressionist painter.

If you’ve never seen his paintings (aside from his album covers) why not click over to The Radar Station and have a look. Worth mentioning that most of them are quite big in person, and really impressive. His application of paint is practically as unique as his music is.
 

 

 

 

 
Below, Captain Beefheart & Magic Band performing “Sure ‘nuff ‘n Yes I Do” at the Midem Festival, Cannes, France, January 27, 1968:

 
We have a tendency to perceive long-since-passed pop culture crazes as “tame,” especially in our current, Miley Cyrus-infected times. The Charleston definitely falls victim to that misconception. Beyond the knee-cross, hand-switch move that has become short-hand for old fogies, most people don’t even know what the dance actually looks like. So I insist you watch this Josephine Baker number from the 1927 silent film, La Sirène des Tropiques, which features the dance in an amazing, grandiose routine. It may be her first film appearance (release dates for others are debated), but it is her first acting role.

Though Baker’s talent was never as celebrated in her home country as it was in France, she was beloved for far more than dancing topless in a banana tutu. The consummate entertainer, she could go from glamour-puss to comedienne, from a sweet smile to a smoldering gaze. Her acting was captivating, her singing voice sweet, and she remains, to this day, one of the most bombastic, athletic, and creative dancers ever to grace the stage.

Baker’s title card comes in at 1:50, but it’s worth watching the chorus line number that proceeds her, which provides a dramatic contrast to Baker’s fresh, new moves and unorthodox grace. Don’t get me wrong—I love a chorus line, but the great Josephine Baker blows them right out of the water.
 

 
Ah the 1980s. Things were simpler then—especially video games!

Take for instance this goofy—and impossibly rare—Atari 2600 curiosity, “Red Sea Crossing.” The primitive “run and jump” game—watch out for those snapping clams and snakes—was created by an independent designer named Steve Stack in 1983. Obviously, the Old Testament story of Moses parting the Red Sea served as the basis of the game, which was advertised in religious magazines. It came packaged with an audio tape narrated by—who else—Dale Evans Rogers and a coloring book. (WHO was the target market for this item?)

The game was never sold in stores and was was only available for $34.95 from the manufacturer. As a result, it’s one of the rarest Atari 2600 games, what’s been describe with tongue only partially in cheek as a “holy grail” for collectors. The game wasn’t even known to exist by the collectors market until one cartridge was found at a garage sale in 2007. That cartridge was auctioned off for over $10,000 in 2012.

Below, a look at the gameplay of “Crossing the Read Sea”
 

 
Thank you kindly ifthenwhy!

 
I never really cared much for The Prodigy or their song “Firestarter,” but this tinkered with, musicless video by YouTuber Mario Wienerroither had me in stitches. Totally ridiculous and yet… hypnotic.

I also included another one done by Wienerroither: Queen’s “I Want To Break Free.”

 
Via Boing Boing

 
Two guys discover a skunk spinning around in circles in the middle of a street of with a styrofoam cup on its head. They decide they’re going to help this poor feller out, but since it’s a skunk, a plan of action is required!
 

 
Via reddit

 
Given how he spent the ’80s cashing checks as a bland MOR hit machine, and how he rebranded himself again as a 21st Century autotuned interpreter of pop standards, it’s difficult to think of Rod Stewart as someone who once actually made exciting music—he’s in the shameful company of Eric Clapton, Lionel Richie, and Sting in that regard. I’ll bet that with the tepid, money-grubbing work of his middle age as one’s only context for Stewart’s career, it would be awfully hard to believe that in 1969, when the amazing, expressive, smoke-throated singer Steve Marriott left Small Faces to play with Peter Frampton in Humble Pie, it actually occurred to someone to say “Well, we’ve lost our gifted and distinctive front man—thank God that Rod Stewart is available.” But it happened. Guitarist Ron Wood and singer Stewart were poached from the Jeff Beck Group to replace Marriott in Small Faces, then redubbed The Faces, who had a six-year run of four pretty unfuckwithable albums, a run that ended only when Wood joined the Rolling Stones.

This short TV documentary looks at The Faces in 1970, when they were barely just a year old, and still conjuring up some nice, filthy blues-rock. About five/six minutes in you can start to see how Stewart was fit to replace Marriott—he was doing some fine singing back then.
 

 
The Faces’ final concert was filmed in 1974, and it’s a great look at the band near the end of its evolution. Keith Richards guests on guitar, and you can see Stewart in the full embrace of the glam-dandy persona that he’d ride into the disco era. Sad to watch this set with the knowledge that Stewart was just a few years off from coked-up crap like “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy,” but really, given hindsight, you can kinda see it heading that way. Drummer Kenney Jones stated in this recent interview that the Faces would perform with Stewart again in 2014. (They’ve done some shows lately with Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall singing, and the Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock playing bass in place of the late Ronnie Lane.) I can imagine no rational response to that news but deep, deep skepticism that it could possibly be any good, but who knows? Old farts are still capable of surprises, after all.