When the Tom Robinson Band stormed the barricades of the pop charts in 1978 with their hit single, 2, 4, 6, 8 Motorway, British society seemed on the verge of breakdown. As TRB became figureheads of Rock Against Racism, the organisation founded after Eric Clapton’s racist outburst during a 1976 Concert, rabble-rousing anthems such as Up Against the Wall and Glad to be Gay captured the uneasy spirit of the age. The title track of TRB’s debut album, Power in the Darkness, a call to arms punctuated by a monologue in the hysterical voice of a rabid right-winger, showed what punky youth were up against. Almost half a century on, and with the UK in a similar state of collapse, TRB’s songs might just have found their time again.
‘The two TRB albums came out of a time of uncertainty,’ says Robinson, who brings a new TRB line up to Scotland for three dates. ‘There was mass unemployment among the youth for the first time, and nobody really knew where the country was going. We didn't know what was going to happen with the next election, or what was going to happen in America. We didn't know Reaganomics was going to come in. We had no clue of what Thatcherism was going to mean. And there were all these far right groups seemingly polling really high, and there seemed like something really ugly could come down the turnpike.
‘It's been hard in the intervening years to explain to people why the songs are so paranoid, but now we find ourselves in times of similar uncertainty, so I've revisited those songs, which were songs to uplift during those times, and it seems like that's what we need again now.’
Robinson formed TRB after his first band, Café Society, imploded around the time he saw the Sex Pistols. Gigging at grassroots level, TRB handed out newsletters that contained contacts for Gay Switchboard, Spare Rib and Rock Against Racism, as well as details of who to contact if you were arrested. As with the songs, this was a form of community agit-prop.
TRB fell apart around the time of the 1979 Tory landslide. Robinson spent the next ten years in therapy, decamping to Germany and scoring a 1984 solo hit with War Baby before moving into broadcasting, becoming the familiar voice on BBC6Music he is today.
In terms of today’s equivalents of TRB, Robinson cites Kae Tempest, Stormzy, Akala, Fontaines DC and idles.
‘But forty years later, this needs to be black led,’ Robinson implores. ‘We don't need well meaning white liberals to be putting together something called Rock Against Racism. We need to be supporting the black artists that we have and who aren't getting a fair crack of the whip in the media. I'd love to see veteran artists as well like Roots Manuva, who should be so much more famous than he is. The wonderful Dennis Bovell is still beavering away making great records, but they don't get the same prominence. The media is still far too male, white, middle class dominated. But the beauty of the internet is that people can go straight to the source and find their own tribe musically.’
Robinson has put his money where his mouth is on this issue by way of the appearance of Rob Green opening for TRB throughout the entire tour.
‘Rob Green is a young, black, gay songwriter, and he's just the most charismatic, brilliant stage performer,’ Robinson says. ‘It's good to be able to introduce the audience to something they haven't heard of before and that they might like. Rob is going to be our secret weapon.’
Tom Robinson Band play King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow, 3rdOctober; The Tunnels, Aberdeen, 4thOctober; The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 5thOctober
The List, October 2024
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