‘People call us “skinheads”, we don’t call ourselves anything. This is our page and we can do what we like with it’. Thus went Paul Thompson’s introduction in Yell, the weekly skinhead page he edited for the International Times between November 1969 and February 1970. The page was intended as a springboard for Thompson to launch his own skinhead magazine, but the project appears to have generated little interest. Contributors drifted away, Thompson’s motivation waned, and the venture folded after just seven instalments. We’re pleased to present the complete seven-issue run of Yell, [available here as a single PDF], alongside Matt Crombieboy’s interview with Paul Thompson below..
Followers of Creases Like Knives will have come across Paul’s name many times. For the uninitiated: originally a mod from Blackpool, he moved to South-East London with his parents in 1968 and landed squarely in a scene that was just beginning to harden into something that became known as ‘skinhead’. Like most of his peers, he began moving away from that look sometime in 1970, though he still enjoys playing soul records and dressing sharp today.
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Creases Like Knives 