Daniel Rachel

A really good and nostalgic view of the 1990s, a decade which has been sadly ignored by many historians. In Britain, they did seem to be a Renaissance of arts, culture, sports, and politics. For a brief and shining moments, there appeared to be a way forward for Britain with us, looking towards the future that had hope and Promise. It wasn’t long before the sheen of this war off, and we quickly became disenchanted with how things ended up for me. This was a particularly nostalgic era as I was at university and was very conscious of the drive in popular culture and the overall zeitgeist, which I think this book really does capture. The use of first person recollections means that this isn’t necessarily the easiest book to read or to get into but it does work. You do recall what it was like. anyone interested in modern British history, the government, popular culture, music, and English football will enjoy this immensely… (meer)

This is, somewhat to my surprise, excellent. I went to quite a few of the early Rock Against Racism / Anti Nazi League gigs and protests, and have never really seen a good analysis of it. Daniel Rachel - perhaps because he's from that part of the world himself - rightly puts Birmingham at the forefront of the movement (those of us from the Midlands get a bit tired of Manchester always being portrayed as being at the centre of everything). The first RAR/ ANL gig I ever went to was in the basement of Digbeth Civic Hall - there was a revivalist church service going on in the main hall whose neatly suited ushers politely directed punks like us to the dingy hole below where we'd be more at home. Playing that day were UB40 - so many of them that they couldn't all fit on the stage - and a band called the Dum Dum Boys featuring a green haired drummer who later become Ranking Roger of The Beat. Later, we all piled on buses to protest a National Front march, and I had to ring my mother later that night to explain why I was in Leicester. Happy Days

I mention this to show that RAR/ ANL was all about earnest protesting there was a lot of hedonism too. And through the simple method of quoting snippets from interviews with bands, organisers, politicians and other interested parties, Rachel presents an absorbing oral history of the movement. The usual suspects come out of it well - Paul Weller, Billy Bragg, Jerry Dammers. But there is a lot of focus on the lesser lights, who were perhaps even more important; Steel Pulse, Misty in Roots, Matumbi, The Ruts, The Au Pairs. Its an excellent account, I only wish Rachel had included the boycott and picketing of Barbarella's nightclub in Birmingham (they were banning Sikhs on the excuse of a "no headgear" rule) but maybe that was ANL rather than RAR

I'd left the UK before the Red Wedge movement, so that's of slightly less interest to me, but it still excellently done, as is the section on Artists against Apartheid. None of the other movements for social change, may, in the end have achieved anything but in the end Nelson Mandela was freed… (meer)