NICK LOWLES

BRITAIN’S MOST prominent nazi music promoter is putting on a two-day gig in Blackpool in August, HOPE not hate can exclusively reveal.

Dubbed “The Real Rebellion”, the event will be held over the weekend of 2-3 August and will include bands from the US, Germany, Spain, Canada and of course the UK.

The event is being put on by Chad Charles, a veteran British nazi, under the name of Street Sounds Promotions, and tickets are selling for £40 for the weekend or £25 for a day ticket.

Among the bands playing will be the Canadian band Battlefront, which describes itself as “Nationalist skinhead”, which of course means it is a nazi band. Its album, In The Storm, has a German soldier throwing a hand grenade on the cover and includes songs such as “Aryan Soldiers”, “Pride is our Will” and “String ‘em Up”.

Another nazi band playing is Combat BC, from Germany, who have played in the UK on several occasions. They are likely to be accompanied to Blackpool by a sizable contingent of German nazi skinheads.

Other bands playing are Wellington Arms, from the US, and Thumbscrew, a white-power band from Spain.

Wellington Arms is another white-power band. Formed in 2008, its frontman is Eric Scott, a veteran nazi skinhead, who had previously ran a band called Violent Retaliation. Interviewed in a Czech nazi skinhead magazine many years later, Scott describes dropping out of the music scene for a number of years.

“I was much too busy getting crunked and tooled up with the mob to care about music,” he said. “Picking up a guitar wasn’t as nearly as fun as cracking somebody in the jaw with some steel and I don’t need a rock ‘n’ roll life to hook up with the birds so it was whatever.” he said.

The British bands playing in Blackpool are no less extreme. The lead singer of London Breed is Brad Hollamby, formerly of the infamous nazi band Squadron. The drummer of the band is Lemmy, another veteran nazi.

Code One is not an openly nazi band, but several members have long histories in the Blood & Honour scene.

REBELLION FESTIVAL

The Real Rebellion is set to coincide with Rebellion, a four-day punk festival being held at the Winter Garden from 1 to 4 August. More than 300 bands will perform on six stages, and there will also be a literary festival and a punk art exhibition.

This long-standing punk festival has no political agenda and actually includes several well-known anti-racist performers, such as the Tom Robinson Band.

Chad Charles will no doubt attempt to claim that The Real Rebellion is merely a non-political Oi/punk add-on to the larger festival, though he might have a hard time convincing people.

In addition to the bands, a significant proportion of the several hundred attending will be nazi skinheads who would more commonly be involved in the now- declining Blood and Honour music scene.

Charles is himself an unabashed nazi, having been involved in the scene for almost 40 years. Before setting up Street Sounds Promotions, Charles put on gigs through Punishment Block, which he ran with veteran C18 nazi Al Mounsey. The two men eventually fell out, with Mounsey increasingly frustrated at Charles for organising events without informing him.

Mounsey died of cancer last year, but not before he began to question the politics he had supported for over 40 years.

Despite being on benefits, Charles runs a high profile nazi mail order business – Streetwear Productions, which recently morphed into Street Sounds Productions (SSP).

The Facebook site for SSP leaves little to the imagination. One T-shirt design carries a large picture of the nazi “Totenkopf” (death’s head), while others carry the fascist sunwheel and the alphanumeric code “28”, which refers to Blood and Honour.

One of his latest designs carry the numbers 1, 4, 8, 8. The 1 and 4 refer to the 14 words, a popular white supremacist slogan: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The 8 and 8 is a commonly used slogan for Heil Hitler.

Charles makes these T-shirts himself and prints them on a machine he has at home.

Quite how he can get away with running a business whilst he and his wife claim benefits is unclear. He was investigated by HMRC early last year and appears to have convinced them that his operation was more of a hobby than a normal business.

While the potential income for Street Sounds Promotions should make it clear this is not a hobby, he is clearly attempting to navigate benefit rules by hiding the amount of money he is making. The Blackpool gig alone should bring in anywhere between £8,000 and £12,000, based on a possible 200-300 attending. On top of that there will be all the merchandise sold.

Charles is organising another gig in May, which he is billing as a birthday bash and selling tickets at £20 each.

To avoid further interest from HMRC, Charles has not registered Street Sounds Promotions as a company with Companies House, and asks people buying tickets to give money to friends and family. In the past he used a PayPal account set up by his wife. Now, people buying tickets for Blackpool are asked to send it to the PayPal account of Jason Boyce, lead singer of Code One.

COMEDIAN

In one further embarrassment to Charles, his son, the comedian and TV presenter Dan Charles, appears to be politically on the left. He has reposted Jeremy Corbyn’s call for a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict, as well as political satire aimed at Suella Braverman, and even posts made by HOPE not hate.

There is no suggestion that Chad Charles’ son agrees with his father’s politics.