"Oi! A View from the Dead-End Of the Street", by Garry Johnson, (1981) Babylon Books.
OI! THE INTRODUCTION
This is th story of Oi! – the movement; perhaps the most hated, abused and misunderstood youth movement of our time. After the disaster of Southall the musical and political establishment who had always ignored Oi! Are now trying to bury it. Every gig is banned and as we write, the 4 Skins single looks like having to come out on mail order. Whether this is the end or the beginning only time will tell.
When it comes to it Oi!was/is just too real for them. It scares them because they can’t take it over and make it Sunday supplement throw-away garbage. Punk was supposed to be street music but it was full of ponces, plastic, pseuds and pretenders, commercialised by the industry and exploited and betrayed by the ‘pioneers’. In contrast, Oi! Was always working class thru and thru.
Oi! Arose out of punk and out of skinhead. It was a movement of punks, skins, tearaways and rebels, kids who didn’t conform. Flee Street try and paint it as “just skinhead” and of course in their eyes “all skins are nazis”. In truth most skin hate all politicians with an equal cynical vengence. Everyone on the skin scene knows that compared to Sham days nazi activity at Oi! Gigs was non-existent.
Certainly neither Babylon Books nor I want anything to do with fascism. Neither d the bands or the vast mjority of the fans. In theory Labour would be our party, except Labour ain’t working class anymore. In practice they let us down worst cos they promise us most.
We talk about Southall later on, but the funny thing is, after it we copped stick from all sides. The Communists called us Nazis, The black, jewish, pakistani and left-wing kids into Oi! laughed at them. And yet the Nazis called us Commmunist when in practisce a Communist regime would crush Oi!’s Spirit of rebellion and populism as much as a Nazi one would. The real problem of the movement was rival football fans, but it was a problem we were fighting nd winning.
Nah, fuck all the politics and in fighting. Oi! was/is about street kids, urban rebels, having a laugh and having a say. Like I say later, “Street level points of view, songs written in the dole queue”. And the music is/was like the kids, firts raucous and untamed. The most exciting music on offer, the most real. The first true street movement since 1969 skinhead. Long Live Oi!
The Oi! movement has been attacked by the left, right and center of public opinion, rightly, wrongly and sometimes for the sake of it, by those who are realy genuinely interested and trying to help and understand it, by those who should and do know better, and by those who should and don’t know better. Why? Well, you tell me. I reckon it’s ‘cos people are scared of it and most people are scared of something new and of what they don’t understand, or in some cases don’t want to understand. Also a lot of anger and hatred felt towards the Oi! movement based on lies and rumours that are out about by various people and organisations for their own ends, the don’t care about spoiling it for the kids, or the music or the bands, so don’t you care about them, ignore their propaganada and their politics and they’ll go away, ‘cos Oi! ain’t about politics of any party, it’s ntipolitics, it’s the beat of the streets, it’s about having a laugh despite the fact that Maggie Thatcher and the tory government re trying their hardest to stop you from enjoying life. Of course the songs are violent and angry at times (So was punk), the music is hard, fast and agressive (so was punk) Oi! is anti-establishment, it’s also for and against exactly the same things that punk was, Oi! is new punk whether they like it or not, Oi! is here to stay and to grow given the change, into what punk first time round was meant to be, working class music, played by working class bands, for working class kids, and believe me if it changes or loses its way I’ll be the first to have nothing else to do with the Oi! movement, so remember what the voice of ’76 said. Follow No Leaders.
NO LAND OF .... ... HOPE & GLORY
The land of hope and glory, that’s a pretty sick joke, eh, cos this aint no green and pleasant land, eh, not where we live, not in thatcher’s britain 1981, not in the grey and concrete jungle or the new town wastelands with nearly 3 million on the dole, there ‘s still them and us, ‘land fit for heroes’ our parents and grandparents wew promised after the last war, well where is it eh? We still a divived nation, the have and the have nots.
The “long hot summer” of 1981 eh, the tory government talk of introducing national service, and the inner city councils have been taken over by Tony Benn clones in plimsoles and anoraks, the middle class social workers from the green belt who tell us how bad things are, and how we must stick together, and then they go home to Mummy and Daddy and spent the weekend in the country, tea with the vicar, foxhunting and croquet an the lawn, you know the sort who go on TV and claim to talk for you and me, the self-appointed voice of the working class, every time there’s a demo or a race riot, they preach to me and you in their toned down posh plum voices phoney working class accent, these are the enemy, the people who run and ruin our lives, the middel class liberals with right wing tory backgrounds, and right wing tory bank accounts.
All the politicians local and the national, the middel class trendies, the S.D.P., most of them own a couple of houses and send their kids to public schools, and call themselves the working class, and me and you went and go to overcrowed schools, that are short of teachers and when we leave school we can’t get a job, and then they have the nerve to say they understand and cry their crocodile tears on TV, but they don’t care, the don’t give a damn, they ain’t skint, they don’t live in the tower blocks, the town plannerss built them. They live in suburbia, the green belt, live round here, they wouldn’t dare, yeah this is a right bleeding land of hope and glory ain’t it, and it’s always been the same, the Labour party wants your vote, the working class cast of millions but it don’t want the cast of millions to have a say or to speak for itself eh, when did you last see a politician on TV from any party who used to work on a building site, drive a bus, or lives in a council house, or has got kids of his or her own on the dole or in a deadend factory job, never I bet, eh, and remember the labour party is the voice of the working class eh, what a laugh, a right bleeding con, there aint no party that talk for us, they’re all traitors.
And oh yeah, you got the tory party they don’t even think we exist, well not in peace time eh, the only wanna know us when they want us to fight and die in their wars, you konw put a gun in his hands and promise him the earth and all that kind of stuff, well I don’t reckon we’d fll for that next time, eh, we aint as stupid as they think we are, remember Thatcher and her mob wanna bring back National Service and if you get done for nicking a car or something she wants you to get 3 months hard labour in Detention centre, yeah, we got the tories card marked, eh, nothing out of ten.
Yeah, we’re just pawns, stuck in the middle of their power games, we’re the ones who get all the blame, we live in the real world not the Sunday colour supplement world of S.D.P. and the liberal party but the real life ‘drama’ of dole queues, street violence and they speak about it as if theu’re experts on everything, things like teenage crime and race riots, well, the last few riots, Brixton, Liverpool, weren’t race riots they was black and white working class side by side, against the police, the government, and the establishment, and that’s what scares them, the powers that be, ‘cos all over the country in the big cities black and white kids are realising they got more in common with each other, than they got against each other. “White working class got more in common with Black working class, than they have with rich middle class”. And this scares rhe rich and powerful.
And they talk about crime, the jobless, the ghetto, from the comfort of a TV studio, and then after a few gin’n’tonics they’re chaffeur driven home to the safety of the suburbs. And we always hear about the poor blacks from the middle class reds, but what about the poor whites, they aint got nothing either, they try to keep a wedge between us, it’s divide’n’ conquer that’s the order from the powers thet be, but two tone music and two tone bands are doing better job for black ‘n’ white unity than the race relations board will ever do.
Also we got Oi! music on the scene, working music for working class kids, at the moment it’s at the same stage as when punk first exploded on the scene, it’s fresh angry and full of street beat energy, and new bans are forming all over the place and if it don’t get fucked up by the middle class trendies and Suburban Rebels who jumped on the punk bandwagon ond destroyed it, you know the trendy posers and bands like Tom Robinson’s and Jimmy Pursey clones, the likes of Peter Hain and middle class mummy boys, you would-be urban terrorists. Yeah, if Oi! can keep well clear of these type of people it will take off but still keep the spirit of the street ‘cos Oi! ain’t about star trips, it’s about the bands having a drink and a chat with the fans, ‘cos you know without the fans the bands are fuck all, and without the bands the fans ain’t got nothing, so they need each other all for one and one for all.
Yeah we gotta keep the spirit of the blitz, the comradship, and let no outsiders spoil it for us, we ain’t got a land of hope and glory but we’ve got this scene to get us off the street and take our minds off the dole queue reality of Thatcher’s britain, yeah, this is ours. So remember Oi! is about having a few drinks, a laugh, a dance, a good time, and with ra rock’n’roll music fast and loud, with songs that deal with street level points of view, yeah, it’s ours, don’t spoil ot, it’s a way of life, ain’t it. Oi! Oi!
SKA TO OI!
From what I’ve been told by those who were real skins the first time round, the music they danced and listened to was ska/reggae, and the best can still be found on early Tighte Up albums that were released on the Trojan label, that are still around now and still very popular with the new wave of skins, but hard to get hold of.
Favourites of the time were names like Judge Dread, Desmond Dekker, Prince Buster, Pioneers, Upsetters and Dave & Ansell Collins, who had hits like Israelites, Double Barrell, Long Shot Kick the Bucket, plus club favourites like Al Capone, Skinhead Moonstomp, Barbwire, 54-56 Was My Number, Reggae In My Jeggae. The places that played this type of music for skins in their evening attire of tonic suits, brogues and Ben Sherman wew the Mecca dance halls, Tifanys and fo the younger skins the local youth club. Nearly all the music then was played by black musicians, except for novetly songs like Johnny Reggae and Judge Dread, a big white ex- soho bouncer, then along came a band who looked and dressed like skins, they were a young band called “Slade” they were the first skinhead group, and are still going strng, under a very different image, after being teenybop stars for quite a while.
But the group that relly sparked off the skin revival were Sham 69, who picked up a large football following and were led by one Jimmy Pursey. Also high in the ranking must be the Upstarts and the Rejects, who for a while had a skinhead following as well as laying the foundations for Oi! by attracting real punks and herberts. But then skinheads were on the way out, when along come two tone bands like Madness and The Specials.
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