Oi!

A vital size 10 steelie to the soft bollocks of the academically-dominated, NME-reading, herbal tea-quaffing hippified social workers and thought police of the booge-wah, traces of which can be observed right through to Grime

OR

A load of old shit knocked out by ugly nationalistic insecure young boys who'd read too much Steven Berkoff and had nothing better to sing about than punching anyone with hair longer than an inch, vomiting in the kebab shop and catching the clap from their gluesniffing mate's old slapper of a mum?

john eden said:

Any recommendations, Martin -

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To be honest, I find a lot of it quite funny, especially the more over the top stuff. It was also a great contrast to the self-pity and lethargy of the grunge scene, back in the day. I can't be arsed with it now (though it is good during rush hour) But these ones are OK

1) V/A - United Skins ('81 Rock A Rama, reissued on CD by Pure Impact)
There's a great band on this called TDA, who do a BLISTERING noisy yob-punk self-titled track about pulling a bird in a stolen motor and crashing into everything that moves. "TDA! TDA! / STANDS FOR TAKIN AND DRIVIN AWAY / I SAID TDA! TDA! / FUCKALLELSE TO DO ANYWAY!". There's also two Skrewdriver tracks which don't feature racist lyrics (for some reason on the repress the band name's replaced by "Freedom of Speech?" so it was probably put together by some paranoid right-winger who thinks the Zionists are out to get him). There's a band called Sedated who sing "Smash your tables, break your chairs / Kick your furniture down the stairs" and the obligatory "my best mate got banged up by the filth" song, "Take Him Away". There's also a hilarious poem about football violence by some Scouse bloke which was probably intended to be well 'street', but actually comes across like a homo-erotic Pam Ayres, with some ludicrous pseudo-religious bits at the end.

2) LAST RESORT / COMBAT 84 - Death or Glory

Last Resort = sounds like it was recorded on half-track, but probably the most stereotypical example of what an Oi! band was meant to be. Puerile as fuck, but check out the lyrics - "Wake up in the morning / Have me Ready Brek / drink me cup of Bovril / Wring me mother's neck / Go out into town / beat a soul boy black and blue / Put fruit gum in the meter / Cos there's fuckallelse to do" (recurring theme here) and "Smashing everything up in sight / Making old ladies die with fright". Combat 84's "Right to Choose" is an enjoyable enough anti-CND song, with the killer line, "Bigger and better bombs!" In a sort of Exploited vein, but pro-Tory and even more stupid.

3) MENACE - GLC RIP
I don't know whether this'd be considered more 'punk', but apparently the first Oi! band. "GLC" is brilliant, like more hard-edged '77 style stuff.

4) JAPANESE OI!
Weird hybrid, a million miles from Garry Bushell's vision of Oi! As most Japanese people don't go in for punching each others' lights out at second division (sorry, League 2) football matches, their Oi! is a lot more like distorted pop punk but with "Oi!" shouted as many times as possible. Bands to check - Ghoul, Laughin' Nose, Cobra, Angry Ducks, Sa.

5) SOCCER HOOLIES - We are the Soccer Hoolies

Tape-only release that came out in the early 90s. Sick bastards really - I've lost my copy, but they did a cover of Bananarama's "Robert de Niro..." re-titled "Liverpool Fans in Belgium Killing Italians"

6) THE OPPRESSED - Oi! Oi! Music

Maybe Johnny come latelys, but still a top record. Especially like the contrast between Welsh bloke trying to sound Cockney / brickwall rough guitar / Miami Sound Machine drum loops

john eden said:

Nice one. Maybe we should do an Oi vs Apostles swap or something?

Do you think we're on our own on this thread then?

I'll start the Sham 69 one sometime next week...

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Yeah, definitely! Really enjoyed the Apostles post today, esp. as there's not much info about them on the Net. The 'United Skins' one really is a hoot.

john eden said:

Do you think we're on our own on this thread then?

.

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Woebot, what's your take on this?

I don't know that much about the origins of Oi! - I was only 5 in '81 and far more interested in Adam & the Ants and Bow Wow Wow at the time. It's right wing elements were more a reaction to trendy lefty teachers or corrupt London councillors who came from very rich families but ponsed about in CND badges and dressed like tramps - but I guess some of them really dug the eagle and swastika patches and went on to join the NF. There's no real Oi! scene in England anymore, most skins you'll see are on their way to G-A-Y at the Astoria. HArd to say the best bands, as I only really went for the completely mindless stuff like Last Resort, the 4-Skins, and even some of the nazi ones like Skrewdriver, The Dentists, etc. But that was mostly because they wound up SWP students no end at the time

Mind you, when I was in Genova 4 years ago, all I saw was skin and mod graffitti, everywhere. There's a small CD shop on Piazza Fontaine Marose (sp?) that sells Oi! and 2-Tone, and there was a really foxy Italian scootergirl who worked there and supported Sampdoria. She likes Klasse Kriminale and will probably be impressed if you namedrop someone really obscure like Skin Deep (assuming she still works there).

john eden said:

Stewart Home (in his book "Cranked Up Really High") reckons this was actually a break with Oi - that the bonehead bands were actually a different genre - he cites the fact that many of them went on to make dire heavy metal stuff as a symptom of this.

Many of the bands remained "non-political" (which confusingly could just mean that they were actually nazis but didn't have the courage to come out with it openly - or just were too business-savvy) or explicitly socialist / anti- racist. There was all sorts of dodgy 'turf war' stuff going on when the money started rolling in.

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Paul Burnley from No Remorse turned on both Oi! and skinhead culture, claiming that "Oi's for Reds" and bemoaning the amount of 'queers' and old school skins 'listening to nigger music'. In Joe Pearce's sad Skrewdriver biog, he claims that Ian Stuart was frustrated at being ranked alongside the likes of Blitz and Infa Riot, and saw himself as a professional musician who had more in common with Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.

Skrewdriver records were such an ideological mess, it's hard to understand what the hell was going through Stuart's head. Track 1 - song about how violence and fighting is great and how all white people should be warriors. Track 2 - our OAPs can't walk the streets because of violent gangs. Track 3 - remember those who died fighting for Britain in WW2. Track 4 - Bring back the glory, oh Deutschland (ad nauseam)

We can all laugh about it, but at the end of the day these groups are all about harrassment and rightly should be smashed. I can't think of many left-wing Oi! groups except The Oppressed, who used the slogan "This one's for all the skins with the bottle to speak up against the fascist scum - nice one lads", or Oi Polloi (who quickly mutated into an anarcho-thrash band). Bands like Close Shave and Condemned 84 claimed to be apolitical, but the amount of shit they spouted about homosexuals and commie scum seems to point to one conclusion. Their records are pants.

I've just discovered - there's a band in the US called Jewdriver, who do Skrewdriver cover versions but with lyrics about bar mitzvahs and bagels! £5 to the first person to track down a CD-R!

I'll give it a listen later - don't think it'll go down too well here at work. Incidentally, I'm forming a maritime Whitehouse tribute band. We'll be called Lighthouse, and we'll be doing covers like "Shipfun", "My Loch's on Fire" and "I'm Coming Up Your Aft" (Ok, I'm fucking off now)