Oi

[evillin-bo]

Nick, what do you think of Oi Polloi?

[metallideth]

I think the idea behind Oi Polloi originally was to merge straight-up punk and oi with the sound and ethos of hardcore, and so politicise what was becoming an increasingly apolitical, apathetic punk scene. Of course this isn't an aesthetic they've adhered to strictly (if at all) over the years, not least considering they formed when they were all about 15 and have gone through about 100 members since their inception, so I'd be loathe to associate them with oi save from a passing interest they had in their youth.

They're still doing well these days though, played with them about a month ago at the Subway in Edinburgh and Deek was on fine form as usual. It's nice to see one band from the "old days" that isn't embarassing themselves and reducing their set to stale nostalgia.

[Nick UF]

Oi Polloi are a great band. We played with them down in London couple of weeks back at the IWCA benefit and just had time to say hello, but I last had a proper talk with Deek in Paris in June when Oi Polloi and The Oppressed were playing at the RASH PARIS festival (Red and Anarchist Skinheads) - the Glasgow contingent ended up sitting backstage most of the night cos we dont speak french! Had a good discussion with him about the Scottish and Edinburgh skinhead 'scene', some interesting stories there...

Incidentally the Paris scene is very divided with a pretty major split between SHARP and RASH skins - the RASH skinheads often fight with the SHARPs because they are not left-wing enough, even though they are both anti-racist. And then of course on the other side you have other non-political ones, patriotic ones, then nazi ones. It all gets very violent from what they were saying, in the 80s it was basically heavy gang warfare every weekend. But apparantly Paris including the suburbs has about 6million people - fucking big place so not suprised theres all these factions! Me and my mate were accused of being 'nationalistes' by one of the RASH skins for wearing a scotland flag badge and me a 'V for VE day' charity badge! we were like... erm.. no... we're just from Scotland

I would say that Oi Polloi have anarchopunk politics but musically they are closer to Oi!/streetpunk - If metallideth means they are a merger of american hardcore then I dont see it - if you mean hardcore UK bands like discharge and varukers then I don't see that either..! They were on Roddy Moreno's Oi! Records label and appeared on the label sampler 'This is Oi! - A Streetpunk Compilation' in '86 alongside The Oppressed, Vicious Rumours, Society's Rejects, Condemned 84, Section 5, etc etc... Definitely a good example of the 80s Oi sound if you ask me.

They are a great band though, when I first saw them I expected them to be crust type noise but was very pleasantly suprised.

They could still use a bath and a haircut though

[metallideth]

RE: Oi Polloi, I do feel they've got a hardcore (and anarcho-punk) influence on their sound that's become more distinct as time's went on. Obviously the early stuff is pretty big on the Oi!/street punk sound, but a lot of the material from In Defence of Our Earth and Fuiam Catha is reminiscent of bands like A.O.A and Icons of Filth, the latter especially so. At least we can agree that they're a good band!

[evillin-bo]

cool, thanks for that. I saw them in Stirling recently and couldn't figure out where they were coming from. I thought they were great, liked the things they sung about and their sense of fun that came across- but couldn't quite see the oi-ness of it all. Apart from the singalong choruses maybe.

Maybe our goth metallers should give them a listen lol

[Charlie Parker]

Skinheads fighting each other because one side is not left wing enough for the other?! The punk world surely is a bizzare one.

[Nick UF]

I see where your coming from metallideth, thats a fair point. I was expecting them to be in the Conflict/Varukers mold when I first saw 'em, but they're definitely a lot slower and as evillin says, sing-a-long choruses which make them more oi-like in my mind. But hey, good band enough said.

Its just labels really, and when you look at Oi bands like Cock Sparrer & The Business especially, the range of different styles they have is quite big, The Business verge on hardcore Exploited-like tunes and also melodic slow stuff on their Suburban Rebels album then ended up sounding a bit like Iron Maiden with some of their hit & miss late 80s stuff. Though I'm sure Quorthorn would have loved it .

[Tomm]

this NSBM shit

NS Black Metal is good. I'm also against racism and all your other standard tr00, grym, kvlt stereotypes.

I'm, without a doubt, the biggest fan of black metal here. Don't go swinging about your silly stereotypes till you know what's going on.

[sinister]

would you wear an Agnostic Front patch/badge on your bomber jacket? or would you worry that ignorant fools like me would think you were a nazi skin?

Comedy gold.

You'd have loved their show in Liverpool on Tuesday, there were two fuckin' idiot kids, ("boots 'n' braces" skins from Eastern europe), giving them nazi salutes and shouting "seig heil" as they went off stage at the end of the gig... I thought of you. Haha.

[Nick UF]

Oi grymm, first of all what the fuck is tr00 grym kvlt

secondly i dont care if your the biggest fan of black metal on the planet. This only proves the point of what I said earlier that it is a scene that puts up no resistance to racist/fascist elements within it. Can you name me any 'anti-racist' black metal bands, ie ones that would stand up and say 'these NSBM bands are scum.'

If you do think NSBM is 'good' (and I presume you mean in a purely musical sense) then I hope you dont pay for the music - the fascist/race hate movement worldwide thrives on merchandise operations. Resistance records in Canada for instance is one of the largest dealers of WP music in the world, and has sections of white power music from every available genre - country and western, metal, oi, folk, hardcore ... probably hip hop some day cos the worlds a fucked up place...

The point being, the money from this just goes to finance political organisations - books, leaflets, mags, a lot of whom target young people with the aim of getting them active, and fighting the 'racial holy war'... (I am struck at how similar the indoctrination of young fundamentalist muslims in britain seems to be to the white power stuff - two sides of the same racist coin.)

Now if you care about your scene, and if you are anti-racist as you say, then i would be concerned about black metal being used as a political tool... just like the NF targeted skinhead in the 70s/80s as predominately white working class youth, it only took a few years for the scene to be split right down the middle, and the right-wing getting more and more extreme. The difference is that in skinhead there was always an anti-fascist side as well which was prepared to fight fire with fire.

Now Black Metal as a scene seems pretty mental already with the whole church-burning, bandmate murdering thing (and this was about 10 years ago when i last took any notice), so i wouldnt be suprised if there was already a healthy cross over between the Scandinavian scene and organised political activity. Is there any opposition within the scene?

In the 80s and 90s skinhead and fascist/antifascist politics became a battle ground between left and right with many folk ending up dead or in jail as it escalated. (See the main photo of AFA vs Blood & Honour http://redaction.org/anti-fascism/contents.html) Now the nazi skin scene has pretty much died out, from outside attacks (Anti Fascist Action) and internal conflict (blood & honour vs C18) but the hardcore fascists will just have ditched the image and be looking for any available opportunity to get back into business - black metal to them will be just another opportunity to exploit.

[evillin-bo]

'You'd have loved their show in Liverpool on Tuesday, there were two fuckin' idiot kids, ("boots 'n' braces" skins from Eastern europe), giving them nazi salutes and shouting "seig heil" as they went off stage at the end of the gig... I thought of you. Haha'

glad I'm not the only one who's confused.
I also get confused when someone like Nick, who is obviously a well-spoken, intelligent young anti fascist, covers a Combat 84 song with his band. Not that 'poser' is a nazi song, but the singer of Combat 84 is a well known nazi and member of Combat 18.
On File, likewise, cover Screwdriver's 'back with a bang', not a fascist song, but by famous nazis.

To me everyone, NSBM, AF, Skinheads and gays dressed up as skinheads, are flirting with fascist imagery or sentiments because it makes them look hard or something. But always with a backdoor open so that they can't be accused of actually being nazis.

[evillin-bo]

...cat...pigeons...hehe

[Nick UF]

haha ooh you certainly have... miaow!

Firstly Chubby Chris from Combat 84 is not a member of C18, is not a 'well known nazi' as he hasn't lived in the UK for over a decade - he lives in Thailand, married to a thai woman and owns a bar in Phuket called 'the dogs bollocks'. I will grant you that in his youth he probably had some degree of contact with the NF, but if you watch the BBC documentary 'Skinheads' which is basically a doc about Combat 84's members, he doesn't come across as any more racist than your average ned. Its good he grew up anyway cos he does come across as a bit of a twat, the worst he comes out with is the sort of alf garnett view that immigrants are getting all the good jobs at the expense of whites, and this is discriminatory. Overall the documentary brought home the reality of 80s britain, grey, misarable and poverty stricken - the huge queues for the dole office and the form filling going on when there arent any jobs around explains peoples resentment, and shows the sort of latent racism that thrives on conditions like that. Also they were little more than kids just out of school in the documentary, and the violence at the gig at the end ensured they'd get no gigs in the UK ever again so the band split soon after.

The reason we covered the song is cos in 'Skinheads' the bass player comes out with a lot of anti-racist arguments, ie 'we are actually closer than people think to the blacks, people look down on us because of our appearance, we're scapegoated and we get all the worst jobs, but we choose to look like this. They don't have that choice.' Definitely not a nazi band.

On File shouldnt be covering songs like that in my opinion. Some bands think its legit to cover old skrewdriver stuff but i dont.

My question is, when did skinhead change from being a multi-racial look (ie '69 when it started) to being 'fascist imagery'? If you choose a point in time (1983 say) then presumably everyone is flirting with fascist imagery, even the older skins who'd been about since 1969?

Doesnt add up to me...

Oh yeah, just outta interest how did you know we played that, have you seen us live?

[sinister]

To me everyone, NSBM, AF, Skinheads and gays dressed up as skinheads, are flirting with fascist imagery or sentiments because it makes them look hard or something.

More comedy gold. Do you have any pics of "gays dressed up as skinheads", I'd love to see that?

I found this pic of an old flyer, obviously another example of "flirting with fascist imagery or sentiments because it makes them look hard".

[Nick UF]

ha ha 'gays dressed up as skinheads'

well theres gonna be a page in my fanzine called 'Gay Or Nazi' with pictures of both and you have to guess which is which! - this is cos both gay fetish 'skins' and nazis go for EXACTLY the same look - i.e. completely shaved head (bic'ed with a razor), cavalier use of facial hair, bomber jacket/bleached jeans, DMs with over 20 holes... you can spot em a mile off! I think all nazi skins are closet cases anyway.

Now before you send me to the back of the class, some of my best mates are skinheads who happen to be gay, its just that I do object to our look being turned into a gay fashion with no relevance to history, music, politics etc. Although i hear the in thing now is 'trackie lads' so look out for last weeks skinheads dressing like neds to get their rocks off and dancing to the same handbag-house they did when 'dressed up as a skinhead'.

Theres an abundance of photos of gay skinheads on the internet, though why your searching for it might be of concern to other people who use the computer!
Have a chuckle at http://www.skinmarvin.com/
My personal favourite - http://www.geocities.com/queerskins2...ins_45/20.html

Also my girlfriend points out that another way to spot gay fetish skins is cos they are way too healthy looking, with built gym-toned physiques that any girl would drool over - most straight skins have beer bellies and pasty skin from sitting in the pub all day...

NAE JOY GIRLS!