Skinheads 1970

Feature from Jeremy, a gay magazine, 1970.

Hull Gigs 1984

Punk, Oi, skinhead, and some benefit gigs in the mid 80s.

Fuck ‘Em

Punk noise from one of the best on the manor at the the moment: The Chisel.
Strong Trades Hall energy!

Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting

Punk rock from the Chisel… get a little action in.

Razors In The Night

The Redskins’ Chris Moore reviews Blitz, NME, 6 March, 1982.
Blitz weren’t from Manchester, Islington’s not East End, but Skunx was a toilet.

Blitz
Skunx
A night to stare at the band onstage and get stared at in the bar. A night of cramped floorspace/cramped mentality in Skunx, ther new nightspot, Oi! the Club, situated at the Blue Coat Boy, by the Angel tube, Islington. ‘Zwept, all this talk of London nightclubs, all this talk of Blitz … yeah, well this is what I saw:
A night for the boize to throw themselves about in while Blitz slammed around, attacked and fed-back on the beer-crate-of-a-stage hiding in the corner behind the lurching frames of the lumpen hordes.
A night when the meatheads were considerate enough to keep all the fuss and straight arm waving down to the bare minimum necessary to sour the atmosphere – Blitz were careful not to annoy and played safe with friendly overtures to London Town so this time Carl, one of the lads, didn’t make the mistake of singing songs from the Stretford End. Last time he was carried from the stage on a stretcher but tonight …
A night when Manchester’s latest won London’s Sta-Prest clientele with a wall of noise.
A night out with the lads, pissed and smug, throwing the right poses, and Blitz coming it with the Rejects impersonations (throwing the right poses) and looking suitably braincelled.Course, they’re better than the Rejects (not exactly hard) but then the luvable wooden tops were never more than a youth club aggro-Sham, which brings us back to aggro-Blitz – the only thing soft about these lads is their polotics. So listen, if all these bands are so working class, John, how come they’re such wally liberals? Sure, the Throbbing Gristle noise-assault may be catchy but the dance – soundtrack’s unimportant – one nightclub’s as good as another – it’s the attitudes there that matter and the ones here stink.
That’s East Endertainment.

X. Moore

Our Jimmy

Punk poem from Sounds, 25 November, 1978.

A Punk Prayer

Our Jimmy,
Who art in Hersham,
Hollowed out be thy name,
Thy punks have come,
Thy skins are done,
Leave earth and go to heaven,
You’ve had your day,
And got your bread,
So fulfil our wishes,
As you shammed and forgot all about us.
Feed us not your damnation
We’ve had a bleedin’gutful.
You’ve had your kingdom,
The power,
And the glory,
SOD OFF! – Nun the Better,
Bilton, Rugby, Warwickshire.

Tim Wells Interview

Tim Wells talks poetry, writing, skinhead, zines, and plenty of other things, with Oi! the Raoul Galloway’s Spinners of Yarns, summer 2023. Saffiyah Khan chips in too.

Bovver Of The Worst Sort

Poem from the 1972 collection of children’s poetry, Fire Words, compiled by Chris Searle. The kids were aged between 8 and 18.

Dave – the boy who liked to aggravate

Dave walked towards the boy, looking fierce and lean
With eyes looking very mean,
His hair was neatly combed and his trousers were short,
He was ready for bovver of the worst sort.
Dave’s eyes were now going thin
And that’s when he started to put the boot in.
Dave kicked him very hard and good,
Sometimes he even done it as hard as he could –
Dave left him there covered in blood
He looked very awkward in the mud,
Then after, he went home , cleaned up and picked up a bird
And then told her the best story she had ever heard.
But that boy’s friends waited outside
And when he came out they chased him and he had nowhere to hide.
They beat Dave very hard and long
And he was taught to do right, not wrong,
But Dave was already dead
When they laid him on the hospital bed.
So you see it is dangerous to aggravate
Especially if you haven’t very tough mates.

Lloyd Doswell, 13
Harlesden, London

Sussed Seventies

An original skinhead writes to Sounds, 29 September, 1979.

True Modernism

Congratulations to Mr G Bushell on some fine reporting of the new ‘Mod’ scene, bands and live album. However, I would be extremely interested where I fit in to all this. Having been a skinhead in the early ’70s I’ve kept my love for ska, Trojan and soul (not disco) music, I still enjoy early Pistols and Clash music and I wouldn’t miss a Damned or UK Subs gig for nothing. I’ve liked the Jam for as long as they’ve been, even when (as in early 1978) it was extremely un-hip to utter a good word for them.
Since early ’78 I’ve been wearing sta-prest, loafers, two-tones etc. But now I find myself being called a Mod, but as I understand it, Mods dressed nothing like that. However, these are clothes I like and when the Mod thing has come and gone I’ll still be wearing them.
I also like good music, Ian Dury, Kwesi Johnson, Dr Feelgood and most of the new bands now doing the circuit in London are excellent – Madness, Merton Parkas, Specials, Squire, Back To Zero etc, etc. What I’d like to say to everybody who’s reading this is, don’t play at being a Mod or a punk unless you really believe in it. I’ve seen scooter boys from East and South London, Mods who look like Mods, camel hair suits, Harry Fenton jackets. I wouldn’t insult them by trying to call myself a Mod.
And now I’ve got something to say to ALL you skins who come to Mod gigs and shout ‘Sieg Heil’. If only you knew how stupid you looked, you only come to the gigs that are badly attended cause if you tried that in a bar full of Mods you’d be slaughtered.
Lastly, to everyone who’s enjoying all the Secret Affairs and Speedballs of late, stand up for yourselves, all the ‘Sieg Heil’ skins are true cowards at heart, when the football season’s back they’ll all clear off anyway. March on Teenbeats, Purple Hearts, In The Shade, Mods etc. For all true skins, Mods, punks and music lovers. – Anonymous, Angry Coward (just like the skins), London.

4 Skins – Leeds

The 4 Skins live in Leeds reviewed in Sounds, 19 December, 1981, by Ian Marsh.

4-Skins
Leeds
After the chaos at Southall and the line-up changes. the 4-Skins eventually got round to playing again. Leeds’ Brannigans was the venue. There were nearly 200 there, mostly skins and punks with a few futurists and a few people who had come along to see another riot. They were disappointed, as there was only one small scuffle and the band quickly calmed it down with no help from the bouncers. As for all the racist allegations, I didn’t hear one sieg heil all night. There were black bouncers and three or four black skinheads as well as one Pakistani bloke trying to hold the crowd back from the stage. Doubtless Fleet Street wull be very upset to hear about this!
The 4-Skins rolled on at 12 o’clock, but they were disappointing to say the least. New singer Panther was the only one to put any effort in, but no matter how hard he might try he comes nowhere near matching the blistering vocals of Gary Hodges. Tom McCourt just seemed bored.
They played the tracks off the Oi albums ‘Wonderful World’ (twice), ‘Chaos’ (twice), ‘1984’, ‘Sorry’ and ‘Evil’ as well as a couple of new numbers, ‘Plastic Gangster’ dedicated to some unnamed music writer and a reggae number whose name slips my mind but didn’t deserve remembering anyway. And for some unkown reason they refused to play their excellent single ‘One Law For Them’.
All is not lost though as I think with a lot more effort and a few more gigs they could carry on where they left off – but it won’t happen unless they work at it.