4-Skins and Infa-Riot

Both the 4-Skins and Infa-Riot were emphatic about the need to learn from the Rejects’ mistakes and get away from football trouble. The 4-Skins favoured no one team (Hodges was West Ham, Hoxton, Spurs, Steve, Arsenal and Jacobs, Millwall) and no one political preference (Hoxton was a liberal; Steve left Labour; Jacobs apolitical; and Hodges was a reformed right-winger very pro anti-unemployment campaigns). Infa-Riot were the same, professing no football affiliations. Mensi wrote their first Sounds review and he and Jock McDonald got them their first London gigs. Musically, they were a lot like a lither, wilder Upstarts. Like most Upstarts-influenced groups Infa-Riot played gigs for Rock Against Racism (an apparently noble campaign that was actually a front for the extreme Left SWP). Criminal Class played RAR gigs too, and a benefit for the highly suspect Troops Out Of Ireland movement.