Category: Music

Classic Albums: ‘This Is England’ by Red London (1984)

Having already done Red Alert’s We’ve Got Power with the late Steve Smith in this series, it seemed entirely natural and would be remiss not to extend the same treatment to Red London’s This Is England. Thankfully bassist (and occasional Angelic Upstart) Gaz Stoker and mainstay frontman Patty Smith were quite game and dusted off 40 years of memories since the release of their still urgent debut. Matt and Andrew Stevens heard all about regicide on Wearside, life inside Durham Prison, urban riots, the Falklands, nightclub brawls and the bomb, so just the usual for an Oi album from 1984 then.

Continue reading →
by Categories: MusicTags: , , , , 1 Comment

In memory of Taï-Luc, by Jean-Eric Perrin

La Souris Déglinguée held a special place in the hearts of the first skinhead generation of Paris, particularly those notorious kids from the Les Halles neighbourhood. They weren’t an Oi band, nor really a punk band either – but they were cut from the same cloth as their audience. La Souris Déglinguée were also a significant force in French rock ‘n’ roll in general. The passing of their vocalist, Taï-Luc, last Friday, with the news only surfacing yesterday, has left a profound void. In tribute to his memory, we present an obituary by Jean-Eric Perrin, a co-author of the band’s 2016 biography, Week-ends sauvages – La Souris déglinguée, 1981-1990.

One of a kind. A true street icon. A genuine rock ‘n’ roll hero. A role model. A poet of the mavericks. A philosopher of outcasts. Taï-Luc, who tragically left us on 1 December 2023, was worthy of such praise, but he was too modest to accept it. The truth is he should be rightfully bestowed the honour as leader of La Souris Déglinguée (“the fucked-up mouse”, aka LSD), the band he led for so many decades.

Continue reading →
by Categories: MusicTags: , , , , , 2 Comments

Stompin’ in Bologna: Rude’s Ghetto 84 Chronicles

The Italian town of Bologna has a population of less than 400,000, but the density of local Oi and punk combos has always been incredibly high. Nabat (arguably continental Europe’s most influential Oi band) hails from the San Donato quarter, while the nearby Bolognina neighbourhood is the historical breeding ground for groups such as Ghetto 84 and Zona Popolare. Ghetto 84 were fronted by Rude, a second-generation Bologna skinhead. He was part of the wave that ruled the latter half of the 80s and established a strong connection between skins and Bologna FC 1909 ultras.

During their initial period, Ghetto 84 recorded the 7-Song tape La Rumba!, released on Nabat’s C.A.S. Records in 1987, and a couple of tracks for the excellent 1991 compilation Oi! Siamo ancora qui!, which was curated by Klasse Kriminale’s Marco Balestrino. An album, A denti stretti, followed in 1996. After that, Ghetto 84 fans had to exercise patience – it took over 20 years for the comeback album, Ultras Rock ‘n’ Roll, to be released.

One joyous afternoon in May 2023, we met with Rude at Hellnation Records in the Bolognina quarter of Bologna. The shop is located on the very street where Rude grew up in the 70s and 80s (and right next to Black Panda Tattoo, where Bologna skins get inked). Today, Rude lives in Dresden, Germany, and he was in town for a visit. We took the opportunity to sit him down in a nearby bar and find out about skins, ultras, punks and mods in 80s Bologna, Rude’s old band Ghetto 84, his subsequent career as a musician and DJ, and his present stint with Zona Popolare.

Interview: Matt Crombieboy
Photos of Rude at Hellnation shop: Francesca Chiari

CLICK PICTURE FOR STOMPING IN BOLOGNA PART 1

CLICK PICTURE FOR STOMPING IN BOLOGNA PART 2

by Categories: Music, Skinhead historyTags: , , , , , 2 Comments

United Skins: My (non-) interview with Tony of Control Zone

Control Zone’s ‘Bloody Bouncers’ is certainly one of the best tracks off the Last Resort shop’s notorious United Skins compliation of 1982. The band hailed from Omagh, a northern Irish town of some 20,000 souls, and had originally mailed a four-song demo to the Last Resort shop’s Micky French. French sent the band an advance payment to cut a few tracks for United Skins.

But then, things didn’t quite go as expected: ‘Left-Right March’, which Control Zone had written about the H-Block campaign of Irish Republican prisoners, was left off the album, and they weren’t too happy with the artwork either. Next up, French offered them to tour the UK alongside other featured artists such as Skrewdriver, who in the same month as United Skins was released played their infamous ‘coming out’ gig at the 100 Club. Control Zone declined the offer… Although they marched on with a different vocalist and in a new musical direction (a kind of pop/rock with keyboards and a brass section) for another year, the vinyl world never heard from Control Zone again.

Continue reading →
by Categories: MusicTags: , , , , , , 6 Comments

Squelette, Lenders, Ultra Razzia and others: Record Reviews

Italy, where half of us are now based, is a country where everything closes down for August. The cities are deserted as sub-tropical temperatures take their toll and everyone’s off to the beaches: the most popular holiday destination for Italians is Italy. We indulged as well, spending a fair few afernoons sizzling in the sand and cooling down in the waves. Apart from gaining new insights into crab migration – we encountered king-sized ‘blue crabs’ from Asia that have recently hit our shores – we delighted fellow beach bums with our portable record player and a selection of Oi vinyl. Finally we had a bit of time to review a bunch of records passed on to us! So here’s some thoughts on fairly recent (and some not-so-recent) releases, handed to us largely by the good people from Hellnation and Primator Crew.

Continue reading →
by Categories: MusicTags: , , , , , , 4 Comments

Meet the Miners: drilling into Italy’s Oi scene

Confront your average ‘progressive’ with the term “traditional values” and they’ll shudder. But in truth, “traditional values” mean different things depending where in the world you are and who you ask. For Miners, an Oi band from the town of Bergamo in north Italy’s Lombardy region, these values are “sharing, solidarity, a sense of belonging, dignity, fun and a sense of humour” – the traditional values of the Italian working class back when it was among the strongest in Europe. Today, after three decades of Italy’s complete political liberalisation, these values have all but evaporated, they say, replaced by self-seeking individualism and resentment.

Miners were formed about a decade ago and are a powerful live proposition, but they only have two releases under their belt. Valentina Infrangibile asked them why that was, also probing on topics such as Italian vs English lyrics, clobber and being an outsider. Miners are: Albe (vocals), Fil (guitar), Tiziano (bass), Beppe (drums).

Continue reading →
by Categories: MusicTags: , , , , Leave a comment

Dalton, proletarian subculture and rock & roll

I was tempted to let Papillon by Dalton enter our Classic Albums series, but it isn’t what you’d call a classic like Red Alert’s We’ve Got the Power or Voice of a Generation by Blitz just yet. For one, it only came out three years ago – and few people outside of Italy will have heard it.

For the Italian skinhead and ultras scene, though, the album was a game-changer and a towering achievement. Dalton, a Roman group formed by former members of Oi bands Pinta Facile and Duap, debuted in 2015 with Come stai?, an album with packed with melodic but robust bovver rock hits. As I have written here before, they’re “very Italian, musically too … their music is pub-rock and glam-rock based, but it has the atmosphere of Italian working-class bars. They sound authentically like where they’re from, mixed with what they’re into”.

Continue reading →
by Categories: MusicTags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

Let’s talk about war: Güerra album review and interview

Güerra: Quanta fame hai? LP
(Hellnation/Radio Punk)

Photo: Gabriele Nastro

The first time I heard about the band Güerra (the Italian word for war, but with an extra Motörhead umlaut) was when my tattooist was inking something that contained the word ‘war’ into my skin. This prompted him to tell me about a “great band from Romagna called Güerra that sounds like Blitz”. I downloaded their first, pre-pandemic album off Bandcamp, but was only partially convinced. While it contained a few catchy tunes, many songs were sung in English and the vocalist’s accent was so strong as to be grating. I also had the impression that perhaps the band had rushed into the studio too early, i.e. before it had enough songs from which to compile a truly strong and consistent album.

Continue reading →
by Categories: Music Leave a comment

Blank Generation: The Untold Story of a High Wycombe Oi band

Though not often brought up today, there was something of an Oi revival happening in the early 90s. In England, some of the foremost acts were Boisterous, Another Man’s Poison, Braindance and Argy Bargy, and the must-have compilations of the hour were Oi! The New Breed and British Oi! – Working Class Anthems. The latter album also comprised a band of youngsters from High Wycombe, a market town some 30 miles west of central London. Named Blank Generation – though not after the Richard Hell song, as we shall see – the group managed to record a demo, a single and the album Out Of My Head during its four-year existence.

The core of the band were the industrious brothers Benny and Chez on vocals and bass respectively (alongside Kneill on guitar and soon joined by Don on drums). Today they’re both based in London, and if you live north of the river you’re likely to bump particularly into Benny – for, no matter how much he insists that he’s through with the skinhead world, he’s magnetically drawn back to it time and again. Recently it struck me that the story of Blank Generation has never been told, but probably should be, as it offers a glimpse of the British Oi scene at a particular moment in time. So I decided it was time for a historical interview with Benny and Chez.

Continue reading →
by Categories: Music, Skinhead historyTags: , , , , 4 Comments

Where Have All the Boot Boys Gone? Stewart Home reviews a Cherry Red compilation

It’s not unusual to see someone described as an original skin, but for now original bootboy seems less of a thing. Although I caught the end of the skinhead reggae boom via the tunes that made the UK charts off the back of that scene in the early seventies, I was too young to embrace its fashions. When I started secondary school in 1973 bootboy gear was all the rage but the look was more associated with football than music. What did we listen to? Some of the bands on Mark Brennan’s Where Have All The Boot Boys Gone? (Cherry Red) compilation – like Mott The Hoople, Sweet and Slade.[1] But there’s also stuff here I didn’t hear at the time and other tracks that belong to a later era.

Continue reading →
by Categories: MusicTags: , , , , , Leave a comment