RED ALERT- "They Came In Force" LP (Preorder)

Live and Loud…The album emerged from what was thought to be a long lost cassette from a live gig in Darlington in 1982 which was recorded directly through the mixing desk. “The lyrics are a brief tale of a gig we did in a north-eastern town called Darlington, down the road from Sunderland, about an hour in that old van of ours. The week before the incident, we broke down on the way to Darlington to do the gig, we got to a phone and explained things, but the bloke on the phone was far from happy even though it was no one’s fault. So we agreed to play the following week. At that time we had a good following that travelled with us to gigs, a bunch of lads called the Station Skins from Sunderland. So off we went in a hired Luton van full of band, equipment, a good number of skinheads. Soon as we arrived, a punk outside told us to watch our backs as they were still angry that we didn’t play the week before. We just laughed it off – we weren’t the toughest lads in the world, but we weren’t frightened of shit like that either. So the gig played out, the hostile locals standing round watching and our travelling mates having their usual boisterous piss up and dancing and singing along. Sure enough, it kicked off at the end. It started with football chanting, it became a Sunderland/Newcastle thing for some reason and up it went, big time. Lot of glass broken, people hurt, and eventually the police came. They took us down to load the van, which by then had a beer keg on the front seat having been thrown through the windscreen. They escorted us most of the way back to Sunderland and a few lads were left behind as the fight had spilled into the streets. Next day we met up in the Market Square as usual n’ just laughed it off, some battered n’ bruised but nothing major. It was just one of those things – not cool, but it happened. I’ve actually got a cassette of the whole show, fight included, crazy." -Steve ‘Cast Iron’ Smith. Limited to 250 Red Vinyl. UK Import from Serial Bowl Records. **PREORDER: SHIPPING IN OCTOBER**