Red Running
Red Running
1990 (no label)
Salem, Massachusetts, USA
Emily Smith – Lead Vocals
Don Gibbs – Electric guitars, acoustic guitars
Mark Retallack – Keyboards
Christian Smith – Bass, 12-string, backing vocals, drum programming
Russell Lane – Drums on tracks 1, 2, 4, and 5
Side 1:
- What a Century
- Can You Heal?
- Spirit of the Age
- Hold to Me
Side 2:
- Like a River
- Heart of Darkness
- Coming Home Tonight
Something about bands that take band photos in black and white while standing in some barren rock strewn wasteland. It’s like a bat signal for those that are looking for good 80s moody alternative rock. I have never heard of this band, but obviously I grabbed it out of the stacks based on the cover. The keyboards are a bit more prominent here than what is typical for this kind of music, but it still works. Since they are a female fronted alt rock band, comparisons to Lone Justice would be the lazy way to look at their music. But there is more there than that. I also love the way the male background vocals play with the lead vocals and driving bass guitar in “Hold to Me.” Not sure if this their only demo or if they went on to other things, but I hope there is more out there somewhere (Update: there was one demo after this one called Hope in 1991.).
Christian Tape Underground 
This is Don Gibbs – guitar player in Red Running. Thank you for posting this – what a kick!! The tape you have is our first and even I do not have a good copy of it.
There is one more tape that we made the year after that one in your post. If you would like a copy – I will gladly send the tape to you. I have a lot of them left in my closet – Emily an Chris stopped playing due to having a family so we never really distributed it. Just let me have an address and I will gladly send it off.
Again – thanks for the post!!
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Don, it’s Neal Armstrong, the drummer for Red Running for a regrettably short, but “glorious” period of time which included the recording of the Hope tape! I found this site on a Google search after something on YouTube triggered me to see if I could find find any references to Red Running (I wasn’t expecting to find anything!) I hope everything is going well for you. I have very fond memories of my time in the band.
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