Coming straight out of Dirty Jersey and weighing a grand total of 1500lbs are the lords of street ska, the Hub City Stompers. They might hail from the wrong side of the pond – through no fault of their own, we hasten to add – yet these hard hitting live action lunatics will make you dance violently until your bones break. Girth conducted an interview with vocalist Travis Nelson. Enjoi! Continue reading
Hailing from the glorious streets of Cork (via Southampton – yuck!) come these streetwise bucks, The Jollars. They play beautiful melodic Oi in the vain of Vanilla Muffins, Guttersnipe and Runnin’ Riot.
Their new album Half Cut features brilliantly apt observational tunes, some spot-on rants against racist dildos, and songs about drinking. Continue reading
Keeping his ear close to the street, our incorruptible Abdul Bleach Boy is back to guide you through the latest batch of crophead-related releases. So put on your boots, splash on your Brut, and start stompin’. Continue reading
As we enter the Plough and Harrow, a Leytonstone pub that still feels a bit like the old East London, we are greeted by Graham Saxby. An old-school skinhead through and through, the man sports a sleeveless argyle jumper, off-white Sta Prest and highly polished burgundy DMs. Later that night, he will be on stage performing with The Warriors alongside The Angry Agenda, Top Dog and north London’s own Kilburn Bomb Squad. Continue reading
Trev HAGL, to anyone outside of the world of Oi and North East punx, the name needs no introduction. For the rest of you however, Trev has valiantly kept the fires burning for Oi through thick and thin since the 80s, even when others packed up and went home.
Editor of innumerable zines over the years, most notably HAGL (‘Have A Good Laugh’), which spoke truth to power during the fag-end of Thatcher and the dark days of Major, ‘stalwart’ doesn’t really do justice for a man who lives it as he sees it and generally spends his time in pursuit of well-crafted tunes, cheap beer and a good laugh (or ‘savage amusement’, another zine title). Continue reading
With so many releases coming out every month, it’s important to separate the wheat from the chaff. We pride ourselves on being independent and incorruptible. Therefore, dear music industry, keep your filthy money, your freebies and your cocaine – we’ll write nothing but our honest opinions on your output (though if you offered a million, we could talk about it I guess). Continue reading
I’ll be honest: there’s one aspect of skinhead culture I never liked: subcultural self-pity. OK, Mick Furbank’s famous ‘crucified skinhead’ design looks cool and always will. But the whole “misunderstood & blamed for everything” victim complex does get on my tits. How many more documentaries and Vice articles where we whine about being misrepresented as racist thugs? Come on. No black person ever gave a shit what I wear. Only white liberals eye you with suspicion. And so they should – because that’s what keeps them from co-opting our culture wholesale. After all, would you want skinhead to become as acceptable as punk is today? Continue reading
Scientists agree that some of the best Oi and punk music is coming from France nowadays, and that’s increasingly becomibrng common knowledge on our shores too: just ask any man, woman or child on a London bus. If you follow the French scene closely, Syndrome 81 will not have escaped you. Hailing from the chilly and wet seaside town of Brest, the band’s first outing was their self-titled demo of 2013, followed by the monumental Désert Urbain EP, a split-EP, and a 7’ single. Continue reading
“I’ve been attacked for political reasons – by West Indians who, like everyone else, have been mugged into thinking that all geezers with long hair are commies and all skinheads are fascists. In fact, we’ve got a lot in common with blacks. We both get police pressure, we both get spat on, we can’t get jobs, and we get kicked out of places. Except they have a colour they can never change, and we’ve got an appearance that we can change. The strongest thing to be is male, white, middle class and normal looking, isn’t it? Cause you’ve got it all then.” – ‘Deptford’ John Armitage, 1982
Once upon a time, the mainstream media demonised The Last Resort as the ultimate violent hooligan outfit, and their live shows were depicted as cesspits of mindless thuggery. In hindsight, you were probably just as likely to encounter tribal aggro and booze-fuelled scuffles, say, at a Crass or Discharge gig. At a time when Thatcher’s policies relegated hundreds of thousands to the scrapheap, working class youths had to assert themselves somehow.
Of course, that’s not what you expect to see at an average Oi gig today. Continue reading
Creases Like Knives 