>>102951
Rock Against Communism, or RAC, refers to an umbrella for any far-right, Third Position or Nationalist Skinhead music. The moniker arose as a response to the Rock Against Racism campaign spearheaded by left-wing activists in the late '70s after some controversial comments issued by Eric Clapton. Worried that Punk Rock would be co-opted by leftists, Young National Front activist Eddy Morrison formed Punk Front to give Nationalist rockers a voice. The front-runners for Punk Front were The Dentists, White Boss, Homicide, The Ventz (later Tragic Minds) and The Raw Boys, playing the first Rock Against Communism shows the National Front organized. None of these bands ever recorded any music and later died in obscurity, but an important event was only a few years away.
As left-wingers gradually pushed right-wingers out of Punk subculture, the National Front canvassed skinhead subculture to carry the torch of the far-right's counterculture. Although never affiliated with right-wing organizations, bands like Combat 84 laid the groundwork with lyrics advocating capital punishment and opposing nuclear disarmament.
The watershed moment was an incident at a concert for The 4-Skins, The Business and The Last Resort in Southall during July of 1981. Two years earlier, police killed Anti-Nazi League activist Blair Peach in a riot instigated by the demonstrators, so racial tensions at a fever pitch. Accounts conflict as to who instigated it. The bands conceded the skinheads and South Asians weren't getting along, but maintain the the response was greatly out of proportion with the trouble the skinheads were causing them. On the other side, the South Asian locals claimed some of the skinheads assaulted women and elderly people, engaged in property destruction / vandalism and daubed National Front slogans on shop windows. The locals protested the gig on wrongful suspicion the bands were far-right and subsequently rioted, burning down the venue in the process. Following that incident, The 4-Skins recorded a song "One Law for Them"
By 1982, the National Front successfully recruited even more followers than before and organized their first concert in Stratford, East London. This would be where Rock Against Communism truly started.
RAC has undergone several stages of development, but initially, the style was a mix of Hard Rock and Oi!. Older bands tend to be Hard Rock or Oi!/Punk whereas newer bands tend to be more oriented towards Hardcore or Metal. The music tends to be upbeat, anthemic rock with a hard edge - there are usually gruff vocals mixed with chanted/sung choruses. There are often prominent melodies which can be folky and/or triumphant. The songs generally have a focus on a triumphant sound, manifested through ballads, chanted choruses, and the folky melodies. It's a scene that is very introverted and feeds off itself and a very, very narrow scope of influences, which is why it is pretty distinct.