The Chris Low Obscure Punk Tape Post…

811 comments

1. 

   Jah Pork Pie

   June 4, 2008 at 11:35 pm

   @BaronVonZubb->”Tried peckham.Was more like an american gangsta rap film set.We got lost in the car on the Nth Peck estate .And golly those bloods & their crack whores just didnt look like the right chaps to ask directions of.”

   Reminds me of going to the Thomas A’Becket down the Old Kent Road in the 80s with my brother, my cousin and a bloke I knew. My cousin was working on the door in the pub and my brother was a big boxing fan (hence the Becket). The bloke I knew turned out to be a complete asshole and I was pissed enough to tell him to fuck off and decide to walk 7 miles home to Putney on my own.

   Realised it was a bad mistake when after about an hour of walking I was completely lost in beautiful South-East London. Was walking along the side of a railway line with a big estate on the other side of the road. Block after block of concrete uniformity. Not a clue how far I’d walked or in which direction (I can see Sam’s point about modernist architecture in this context!). Then, in the distance, I see a gang of figures hoodied up with the smell of some strong ganja blowing down the road towards me. As I near them, I can only say that they were skulking in that way so beloved of Daily Mail sub-editorial technique. About 20 really hard looking black dudes with a ghetto blaster on the go in the street at 2 in the morning. They’re eyeing me up like a bunch of rednecks seeing a girl from the next village and thinking “Heeeeeyyyyy, I read something about some dang gene pool thang once”.

   It’s Squeaky Bum Time. Thinking quickly I come up with the plan “hung for a sheep as a lamb”. I brazen it over the road, put on as commandingly deep a South London brogue as my terrified larynx will allow and say “Alright fellas, gotta light?”. One of them produces a Bic from the hoodie pocket. OK so far. “What you doing round our manor then mate?”… Oops. “Just bin down the Becket, thought I’d have a trot back instead of the bus”. “Where ya from”. “Putney. Dunno the quickest way back there do ya?”.

   Whereupon they give me complete directions all the way back to home, naming all the turnings and short cuts. Nice!

   As I turn to go, the hardest looking one says to me loudly “Oi mate…”. Fuck it, thought I’d got away with it. I turn round ready for the kicking. From the wall he’s sitting on he looks up through his eyelids at me and says in a really gentle voice “Take care man , you know, there’s a lot of really bad people about round here. Travel safe”.

   Diamond geezers, one and all!

2. 

   Jah Pork Pie

   June 4, 2008 at 11:41 pm

   @BaronVonZubb-> “Presumuably by the time this glorious thread eventually comes to an end we will be known as the unbilled band at the ‘76 islington(?) punk festy who influenced those weedy immitators, Pistols, Clash etc.”

   I wish I’d had the faith in my musical ability in 1971 to go for it with that band I put together. People would still be talking about the New Pork Dolls 😉

3. 

   Jah Pork Pie

   June 4, 2008 at 11:53 pm

   @BaronVonZubb-> “and the boy looked at jakey”.

   Dunno if you’ve read much of Irvine Welsh’s stuff, but “Jakey” in Edinburgh slang means “a tramp”.

   Serendipitous or what?

4. 

   Kerr Ray Z. Fokker

   June 5, 2008 at 5:20 pm

   Okay, Mr Pork Pie, I’ll play devil’s advocate on the skins thing.

   Most of them were, like us, just unfortunate lumpenproletarian fuckups who got dragged into playing their roles because of the dominant fashion presiding amongst friends on their local council estate. Plus a lot of their older brothers were ’69 originals or miniskins. So when it came back (78-79) it already had a market ready and waiting. Actually a lot of the hardcore skins were punks earlier on, hence some of the newfound contempt. Most of the Poplar lot, for instance, were ex-menace/sham/cock sparrer roadies. One of the most popular bands by far, even amongst the later professed 2 tone nutty boy fraternity was the upstarts. Something that perplexed even Mensi at times. In fact, a lot of the punk gigs that got smashed up were largely the result of bouncer intimidation/confrontation than dislike for the music or subculture. Either that or just a momentary explosion of football-based rivalries. Often between skins too with punks lending a helping hand. Or running for the exits.

   As for the extremist politics which sometimes incorporated dislike of punks. I would still have to class their xenophobic cocktail of irrationalist nonsense and 19th century racism as politically radical, particularly amongst the more unsavoury elements. Wearing a swastika home to show off to your old man who was really just an honest Powellite docker who grew up with John Bull and the blitz was probably a lot more confrontational than wearing an anarchy symbol. A lot of these fellas also did some serious bird for their misguided beliefs so I don’t think it’s just as simple as saying that they were just useful idiots playing at being prison guards. Many of them, probably the majority, no doubt. But some of the more extreme Schicklgruber wankathon enthusiasts were probably even more nihilistic in approach than even us. I mean our icon was a north london smackhead into self-harm, there’s was a mass-murdering lunatic who terror-bombed the very streets we grew up on.(My mum’s childhood friend machine-gunned by a nazi pilot. The memories of WW2 were still fresh…)

   Their addiction to street violence and thuggery was probably a lot more dangerous for the general social cohesion of society and the functioning of public order as well. I guarantee that more coppers were put in hospitals by skins than punks, even if they did, by and large, share the same racist attitudes.

   Undoubtedly most of the more extreme ideological types were just a bunch of frustrated closet poofs with uniform fetishes but that too was more than a little subversive at the time too. (A lot of skins later swapped Bulldog for Tom of Finland comics, Riefenstahl for Kenneth Anger and attempted to join the human race, or at least the old Compton St/Brompton Rd Cemetery version of it.) So I am not completely convinced that you can draw a line between skins and punks, nihilists and neo-conservatives,so easily as if they were some mutually exclusive subspecies. A lot of punks were stupid thuggish provincial wankers too. And racism was endemic back then anyway. But, hey, I had my hair short and wore camouflage pants most of the time so maybe I was always able to blend into the margins somehow. It was a very fucked up time though. No question about that.

   As for teddy boys, they were just utter redneck cunts. Why would you wanna dress like your divviest uncle, the embarrassing one with low IQ who works in the local parks department? Didn’t get that one at all. Was it ‘Tea Tree Teds’ who used to cause all the trouble back then? Fuck ’em. Hated ’em all. Psychobillies too. And what about those mods, eh? Nomads, virgin soldiers, glory boys, fulham wasps etc Actually, didn’t mind the mods either. Definitely took on a lot of punk attitude. Quadrophenia is definitely a punk movie, doesn’t feel remotely like the 60s at all. Too much gen x angst and nihilism for that age of innocence. Anyway, I am drifting hopelessly. “Come in Mr Fokker, your time is up!”

   Later, gents….

5. 

   Jah Pork Pie

   June 5, 2008 at 6:22 pm

   @Kerr Ray Z->

   >> “Most of them were, like us, just unfortunate lumpenproletarian fuckups who got dragged into playing their roles because of the dominant fashion presiding amongst friends on their local council estate.”

   It’s on another thread on here, but I come from an estate in South London and I got into punk through friends who were listening to the music. They were hooligans though, and as I mention on the other thread this almost put me off of punk. I wasn’t playing up to my expected role. It was a choice which way you went.

   >> “A lot of these fellas also did some serious bird for their misguided beliefs so I don’t think it’s just as simple as saying that they were just useful idiots playing at being prison guards.”

   I’d say that made them very much the most useful kind of people of all, to whomever it was that was using them.

   >> “Plus a lot of their older brothers were ‘69 originals”

   The ’69 reggae thing was all about reggae and ska. There may have been some peripheral racism in it but the ’69 skins all emulated Jamaican rude boys in their sartorial and musical tastes.

   >> “Actually a lot of the hardcore skins were punks earlier on, hence some of the newfound contempt.”

   Why contempt then? Why not empathy?

   >> “some of the more extreme Schicklgruber wankathon enthusiasts were probably even more nihilistic in approach than even us.”

   I can’t agree with that. They believed in a New World Order, not in no world order. they were beating us INTO shape, not out of it.

   >> “Actually, didn’t mind the mods either. Definitely took on a lot of punk attitude.”

   I’m gonna presume you’re being ironic here about the implied circularity of mods taking attitude from punks taking attitude from mods. Hearty LOLs all round!

   >> “A lot of punks were stupid thuggish provincial wankers too”

   Yeah, that’s true. But there was very little organised inter-punk violence in my experience. Which makes it all the more strange that the other “cults” DID engage in it with such ferocity and regularity.

   I had a couple of mates round my way who were Teds. Nice enough blokes. I just couldn’t figure out why they wanted to adhere to, and predicate their lives on, something that was 20 years old. I feel the same way about today’s punks.

6. 

   baron von zubb

   June 5, 2008 at 6:34 pm

   The skin thing changed with time for me.As a fresh from home punky they were a serious menace.They tried to mug us a lot.Some times they were lucky.Remember thet time in the tube Pork?
   Twats.
   18 months later I could see them for what they were.
   A few of them were indeed hard and commited racists but most of them were just, not too bright kids.They were boneheads. because punk was over & ‘twotone’ then ‘oi’ was in. Its true some skins had been punks & become disallusioned.
   So what? If they displayed the Nazi colours they were fair game. The tossers deserved everything they got in the Hanborough & elsewhere.They, did some truely fucking horrendous things to punks. Kennington? Camden Town? Unforgivable. Serious fucking stuff.Jesus .
   I once got mugged by that crew of Sammies,never mind,Russ knew them all (why was Russ with us in Baylis Road? I never figured that out)
   Anyway in Paris a couple of years later we (and the missus of the time) met a London bonehead & ended rolling an arab (for my sins) together.
   At that point I didnt look like a punk but as soon as I did the street cred thing he was my mate for ever.He was indeed one of Sammies crew.Denied mugging me that day though.Becuase he could see that we could be of use to him.
   And I could see him how he was.On his own he seemed very vunerable.Street sharp & tough for sure but not bright. Alone in Paris, didnt speak french, in need of £££ & gear.Not yet a junky.He was dossing on some older junkies floor.The bloke was trying hard to get rid of him.
   And seeing him there just confirmed what i’d suspected of the bonheads.They had front. And most of ’em only that.Most of them would run just like we did when the odds were against us.
   Mods & teds? with them it was just another tribal thing, Fair cop guv.
   New Pork Dolls & The H band tour 2010

7. 

   baron von zubb

   June 5, 2008 at 6:48 pm

   Skins were scared of us cos they didnt get it.
   Blokes with make up who might be able to punch them out?
   Girls dressed like tarts who said no?
   A sense of irony ?
   Anarchy as a ‘concept’?
   All way too complicated.
   Skins were to our scene what Bikers were to the festival scene.
   And they got their comupppence in stonehenge ’83 when the convoy put a stop to all their silliness.
   Why you & Sam got number ones I’ll never understand…

8. 

   baron von zubb

   June 6, 2008 at 10:24 am

   Oh and as i remember now , actually all that shit folk had in Archway from the teds that led to the murders was on the bonehead level of brutality, rapes etc.
   So fuck the teds too.
   It was never the blacks who got on our case, as a punk, never.
   Check Bikini Kill ‘white boy’.
   White males, scum of the earth.

9. 

   Chris

   June 6, 2008 at 12:32 pm

   Sincerest apologies for being a total cock and de-railing this thread but what exactly is – and, more to the point, where can I get a copy of –

   “the boot LP of Unknown Pleasures before it was remixed and overdubs/effects added”

   (as mentioned above)

   NB: still a few of those circled ‘H’ symbols around North London. I’d always wondered about that myself. H Block thing hadn’t occurred to me.

10. 

    baron von zubb

    June 6, 2008 at 1:46 pm

    Skinheads;
    just as an afterthought
    I certainly wasnt puttting myself forward as one of those ‘blokes with make up who might be able to punch them out’, not at the H band time anyway, but there were those around possably a year or so b4.
    I dunno maybe they stopped wearing makeup & became boneheads..
    And that Paris escapade, it comes back to me now.
    We used the lady as bait to intice this poor arab guy with promises of sexual pleasure unkown, with the intention of, of course, robbing him.
    Our bonehead mate got a bit carried away & began to rearange his face.
    I pulled him off and in between his boasts of ‘mugging him good’ and heres the point, he actually admited mugging me two years before & obsequeously apologised, blamed it all on ‘Sammie’.[That lot were based in Kings Cross,not a pleasant bunch].
    It was an insight into the bonehead mentallity.(And in retrospect mine I imagine).
    Basically he was a coward.
    That was boneheads for yer as I’d learned by then on anti NF demos etc. They can slap around lady Asian shop assistants well enough and if they got a big crew they liked to steam in but in the heat of the moment they were mostly cowards.
    And that they also learned in the Hanborough Tavern. Ho ho.

11. 

    Mike

    June 6, 2008 at 2:35 pm

    Baron@ You’re spot on: “Cowards”,it was all they were.When,as you say, “They didn’t get it”,they acted the only way they knew how, through violence and intimidation.Jimmy Pursey didn’t help with his ‘Middle Class punks in £30 bondage trousers bought in Oxford St Punk boutiques’ either. What a twat:where exactly WERE those legendary Punk boutiques down Oxford St anyway??!! Again,rich coming from a guy who lived in fucking Surrey,but I can only assume a fair wind took the sound of Bow bells down that way on a good day.There was also a huge difference between boneheads in London and say,Slough,where they mixed perfectly fine with the punks and a large Asian/black community and,as far as I remember, didn’t display any thuggish/racist tendencies.

    Ray Z@ “A lot of punks were stupid thuggish provincial wankers”. A bit strong.I lived 20 minutes train-ride from Paddington,not quite provincial but we certainly fitted the ‘thuggish’ label on occasion, but only in reaction to the shit we got from soul boys,skins,Teds etc.A small town has a different mentality:when 6 morons jumped me outside my mum’s house in 1979 with iron bars it was as much for being the local ‘freak’ as the fact my mum,who worked part-time at the local school, had censured one of them for kicking another boy in the head at dinnertime oh,3 years before.
    Small town etiquette subconsciously dictated that,when we responded in kind,it was that or forever be whipping boys.However,it’s a fine line and you have to be careful not to become as bad as your aggressors (a point made above,in not so many words).After a certain period,it simply reached the point where you wouldn’t take any more shit.As I gleefully told a bunch of those COD/Camden skin wankers on the platform of Kings X,after they’d tried to mug 15 of us and one of them received a stripe from a stanley knife across the back of his head:You bleed too. Fuck ’em, as said above:Camden,Kennington,Kings Cross and innumerable other incidents…these people were cowards and bully boys,simple as that

12. 

    Jah Pork Pie

    June 6, 2008 at 3:17 pm

    @BaronVonZubb-> Which incident on the tube was that? My memory is probably protecting me from something nasty (which it does a lot!).

    I remember Sammie. Nasty little bastard and if anyone ever deserved bad things to happen to them in later life, it was him. The Kings Cross lot were worse than the Ladbroke Grove lot, if anything.

    I do remember one time a black geezer indulged in a bit of punk bashing. Me, Wank, Gerry Thing and others were on a bus up near the Sobell sports centre (coming back from Southgate or somewhere I think) and this black guy (probably in his late 30s/early 40s) just took an instant dislike to Thing. I can’t remember if Thing was just taking loudly or whether he was singing something, but this fella just leaned back and punched him full in the face. Hard. then leaned forward again and we all carried on with the journey! Everyone’s a fucking critic these days, eh? 🙂

    And sad to say because I did like the first Sham album, but Jimmy Pursey was/is a wanker. End of.

13. 

    Mike

    June 6, 2008 at 3:37 pm

    Chris:the unmixed Joy Division LP was a boot called ‘Warsaw’,it had the Unknown Pleasures cover but enlarged so the mountains filled the cover. I saw it on a bootleg stall at a record fair last year,so it’s still about.Great LP.

    Pork:I remember the Ladbroke Grove lot liking my old band,for some strange reason,at the Chippenham in Maida Vale,early ’79.They comprised about 75% of the audience and seemed pretty peaceable at the time.Few black guys w/them so they didn’t have THAT political bent about them at least.I recall little Kenny tagged along but they were keen to point out ‘he isn’t one of us’,postcodes being all I suppose,even back then.Sammie…….As you say yet another nasty little bastard.BTW,I was never a hard nut,but you couldn’t let those types know that,like dogs they smelt fear.Do you remember the albino guy,Donald? Nice bloke,dressed like a bit of a soul boy,seemed to be everywhere you went too,like Zelig or something….not related,but he just sprung to mind,oddly

14. 

    baron von zubb

    June 6, 2008 at 5:50 pm

    Jah pork.
    Again it was Sammy & his crew.
    Wank, Gretch,Thing, you [i thought]erm one other girl but i forget who and me.And maybe one other. They mugged us on the tube, in one of the walkway tunnels leading to a platform
    5 onto 7 inc 2 girls.And i guess looking back now they were probably 1 or 2 years older than us which makes a difference at that age.
    I know me & wank had been poncing and they had the £££.

15. 

    baron von zubb

    June 7, 2008 at 12:14 am

    ‘Borstal breakout’ & ‘USA’ & ‘We gotta fight’. The fantastic ‘I dont wanna’ all punk classics. All those bonehead bands were punk bands. Thats the joke of it.

16. 

    Phil

    June 7, 2008 at 12:52 pm

    Didnt realise till the other day how much Jimmy Pursey reminds me of Iggy Pop in the way he carries himself and some of his posturing

17. 

    Kerr Ray Z. Fokker

    June 7, 2008 at 4:28 pm

    Donald was from summerstown or ‘dummersdown’ as he called it. He was an old hoolie, even knocked about with London utd at one point. Yeah, he was a zelig figure.

    I”ll concede a lot of the london skins were a bit OTT in the ultra-violence dept but I remember crews from stevenage, portsmouth and bedford matching LG or Kings X for brutality and general mayhem. I understand that it was just as bad up north, probably worse considering the shitearse havoc wreaked on the manufacturing industries by the wicked witch and her gaggle of asset-stripper cronies. Yeah, some of them were cowards, some weren’t. Some of them were about as staunch as it got and defo could handle themselves when the numbers went against them. As for hambrough T, the skins got the rap for that one but the reality was it was the OB who had stirred all that shit up in the first place. That riot would have happened regardless of whether a few boneheads held a gig there. The biggest fascist presence that day was, as usual, in uniform.

    I think the skin’s folk devil image was always gonna attract the wolf pack mentality but I it was bad everywhere back then and it certainly wasn’t limited to one youth subculture. UK late 70s was a very tribal and territorial place, probably more so than it is has ever been simply because it was desperately trying to over-compensate for its loss of local community spirit as the country economically ruptured. Hence the explosion in football related violence; your home turf never meant so much as back then, it was probably all you had left after the local factories shut down and the town centre got boarded up. Music too could fulfill that role and cushion the blow by offering the means to articulate anger or just provide a means of escape. But I do remember getting some serious shit outside the big smoke cos the locals didn’t like my accent. And being that I went to a lot of punk gigs, that included a fair bit of trouble from local punks. I was the victim of a good half a dozen unprovoked attacks at either football, music or just visting friends, the worst coming from some bikers who decided to whip me with car aerials for a laugh. (Ouch.) But hey, that’s life. And I think, as the stories above have shown, we were all pretty horrible little cunts back then so I am not one to go in for some big projection thing or even a prolonged internet session of mea culpa. The point is that things were probably even more dismal and gloomy back then than even the punk mythologists have portrayed it or we possibly even imagined it at the time. I can certainly understand why so many people have decided to hide their memoirs as fiction. Because the sad truth is that telling-like-it-is just ends up just being corny and self-serving, no matter how much self-deprecation or matter of factness you throw into the mix. Indeed, that’s what I like about this thread. It’s pretty unapologetic.

    Mr Pork Pie, I was definitely serious about Mods II, and skins II for that matter, being just politically compromised spinoffs of punk. But when did punk itself become a politically compromised spinoff of punk? I laugh when mr lydon accuses all others (even ’76 bands) of this cardinal sin even if it does have a slight whiff of truth in it. After all, I’d probably say the same myself if I was him. But who or what killed the zeitgeist? Or are we all just post-punk punks even if we shop at waitrose, drive a 4×4 and secretly listen to our kid’s gangsta rap albums?

18. 

    Stewart (jellyfishinthebath)

    June 7, 2008 at 4:58 pm

    Can’t afford to shop at Waitrose, wouldn’t drive a 4×4 even if I could afford to, and fucking DESPISE gangsta rap and everything it stands for… And I wasn’t “a horrible little cunt” back then, either!
    But I still enjoy your posts 🙂

19. 

    Penguin • Post Author •

    June 7, 2008 at 6:17 pm

    Donald from Somers Town round the arse end of Kings Cross or somewhere else? Dont know Summerstown…just want to clarify.
    Stevenage and Harlow had some vicious Skinhead gangs.
    Big fishes in small ponds maybe? Dunno if they could hold there own in the smoke.

20. 

    alistairliv

    June 7, 2008 at 7:34 pm

    “UK late 70s was a very tribal and territorial place, probably more so than it is has ever been simply because it was desperately trying to over-compensate for its loss of local community spirit as the country economically ruptured. Hence the explosion in football related violence; your home turf never meant so much as back then, it was probably all you had left after the local factories shut down and the town centre got boarded up.” Kerr Ray Z Fokker

    I reckon it was, as this article I found [ see below] says, more early 80ies than late 70ies. Usually Thatcher’s monetarist policies are blamed, but the article reckons it was the impact of North Sea oil. Which ever, there was a catastrophic collapse in UK manufacturing industry during 1980. It was something I was very aware of – the factory I had worked in 1977/78 was shut down in 1981.

    In 1977, 1978 even most of 1979 the country was not “economically ruptured” – that came 1980/81.

    http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/84/05/Dutch_May1984.pdf

    An important feature of the changing employment levels in Britain has been that job losses occurred almost entirely in the manufacturing sector.

    In 1979, this sector provided about 28 percent of total employment. Between the end of 1978 and the end of 1982, there was a 1.4 million rise in the number of unemployed.

    Over the same period, the number- employed in manufacturing industries fell by 1.5 million

    This job loss can be traced to a substantial and sustained collapse of manufacturing production between late 1979 and the end of 1980.

    The government of Margaret Thatcher has been blamed by its critics for causing a major contraction of activity in Britain by applying monetarist policies.Without quibbling over whether- those policies were indeed monetarist, this article argues that the case for blaming the rise in unemployment and the contraction of manfuacturing on deflationary aggregate demand policies is not a strong one, even if one allows for the impact of the world recession.

    Rather, the production and sale of North Sea oil have had a big negative impact on the British manufacturing sector. The production of oil and the subsequent rise in its price caused an appreciation of sterling and a rise in the relative price of British manufactured goods. As a result, British manufactured goods became uncompetitive and production contracted sharply. Thus, it is impossible to write a balanced history of the British economy over the last few years without reference to North Sea oil production.

21. 

    Rich Kid

    June 7, 2008 at 10:16 pm

    The above is more interesting but Pork or anyone whose bothered,Mr P has put some of mein miesterverk up on another thread.

    https://www.killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news/?p=822

    Yeah most of us were orrible little cunts.
    BTW the OB & the local Sikhs could not have had a riot without the boneheads slapping around the shopkeepers wife.
    That was the cause, no?

22. 

    Jah Pork Pie

    June 9, 2008 at 11:21 am

    @Kerr Ray Z-> Ah, I remember Donald now. Wasn’t he a mixed-race albino who used to wear a British Movement cross badge? I always thought that was either the grossest stupidity or the most delicious and beautifully-constructed irony (though recently I was at a bus stop with a hard-looking black kid in to-to-toe hip-hop garb and his mobile rang, playing “I Wish I Was In Dixie”. Nice: so maybe Donald WAS being ironic. Always one to give the benefit of the doubt, me). Me, Wank and Thing went on the abortive “punk picnic” to Brighton when the OB shut Brighton for the day. Got on the trains at Preston Park and had dogs at Brighton Stn, then made sure we got on the trains and went straight back. We tried to get off at Preston Park but they had that one shut too. Got off at the next station back, Hassocks, and walked back about 10 miles or something. When we got there the only entertainment was “Moorgate and The Tube Disasters” gigging at The Alhambra on the seafront. Got chatting to Donald – I think he was something to do with the band – and he seemed like quite a decent bloke. Didn’t see him again for a long while and then he was with a crew of Nazi boneheads.

23. 

    Jah Pork Pie

    June 9, 2008 at 11:35 am

    @Kerr Ray Z-> “Wearing a swastika home to show off to your old man who was really just an honest Powellite docker who grew up with John Bull and the blitz was probably a lot more confrontational than wearing an anarchy symbol.”

    Strange thing… but I just remembered my Dad coming up to Campbell Buildings (the parents were worried about me and with hindsight rightly so) and asking me if I wanted to go and get something to eat somewhere. I said that there was a cafe round on Lower Marsh and we went round there for a fry-up. Didn’t think any more of it for years and years and I think it may have been the last time I saw my old man before he died but we got talking about it and he said that he was really glad that I had said I wanted to go to the cafe and not to a restaurant because he was ashamed of the way I looked.

    Hearing that cut me to the bone. I’d never dressed up or done anything in order to be confrontational to my family: just to express myself. I was proud of my dad and the way he treated authority: he was the one who’d told me about how bad war was when I played soldiers with my mates when I was little, that it wasn’t worth celebrating or mimicking. As I got older he told me stories about the Second World War, how it was his turn to carry the anti-tank gun when they were in the Middle East and he’d shot at a tank. They had to go and check it out afterwards, opened the top of the tank and it was like a vision of hell: heads, arms and legs torn off inside. That formed his opinion of war and of what working-class people were asked to do to each other in the name of some big picture painted by people who were sat in a comfortable room drinking Brandy and eating well. Then he went to Burma and they were pinned down by a machine-gun. The lieutenant, fresh out of Sandhurst, said to my dad: “Right, S*****, you and I are going to storm that gun and if we don’t make it I’ll make sure you get a medal for this”. My dad turned round and said “not only am I NOT going to storm that gun, but if you walk in front of me for the rest of the war I’ll shoot you in the back!”. He got some jankers for that, and when he got out they made him walk at the front of the platoon for the rest of the war so he couldn’t shoot the officers in the back!

    Hearing that someone who had rebelled in such a concrete way (that’s my kind of war hero) was ashamed of me was a smack in the face. I’d assumed that he would have been proud of me for being different.

24. 

    Jah Pork Pie

    June 9, 2008 at 11:52 am

    @alistairliv-> Which is the variable that cancels out there then? Are we saying that Thatcher’s policies were economically-neutral? That without North Sea oil revenues we would have had a smooth transition to a free-market economy unhindered by massive unemployment and poverty?

    Or is it that without the massive oil revenues we would have had an even more chaotic transition to an Albanian-style free market?

25. 

    Sam

    June 9, 2008 at 2:48 pm

    Glad to see this thread’s still going strong. Just got back from tour last night. We did play with Tommy Ramone’s band which was surreal. He’s in his mid fifties but comes across as a 70 year old and is playing with this weird hippy woman who’s too scared to sing.

    @Rich Kid. I think the number one was a natural progression after the mohawk and the clothes just followed on. But I do love skinhead gear – loafers, suit, Ben Shermans, Fred Perrys, Harringtons, crombies. It’s a classic British look – street mod really. I used to love getting a crop every 2 weeks. The little barbers by W. Hampstead tube did a great razor parting. I think skinheads were mainly comprised of followers but I don’t think they were all cowards. Most punks were complete shitters and there was never any sense of unity. Skinhead pack mentality is no more cowardly than riot pack mentality and the thrill is the same. I was speeding at the Electric Ballroom when I was a skinhead and going around talking to random skins asking them if they were in the BM and saying ‘you’re just doing it because your mates are’ if they answered ‘yes’. Most of them agreed. I was really lucky I didn’t get a serious hiding but confidence is an amazing shield.

26. 

    Mike

    June 9, 2008 at 4:37 pm

    Sam:we’ve all probably been generalising a little,but then I don’t think busting mob-handed into squats,beating the shit out of barb’d-up kids,gang
    -raping little punk girls and sodomising people w/broomsticks was exactly
    ‘brave’ either.There was far more unity amongst punks in 1977.Most punks in London wouldn’t stick up for themselves,on the outskirts it was different: the Whitton Mob,High Wycombe punks (Xtraverts) and further out,Oxford Mental Mob:those guys wouldn’t be fucked with.But Punk always was v.individualistic,it never did suit the pack mentality.Also,up until 1980 at least,it also had high feminine-involvement so being overtly macho in the ‘gang’ sense was never particularly on the agenda.
    One funny thing I do remember,which summed up some of the few skins who actually believed all that BM/NF shit:an old girlfriend’s brother who was always railing at the ‘poofs,coons,pakis,commies and freaks’.One day she pointed out,quite prophetically,that ‘his’ old England was changing beneath his feet and there was nothing he could do about it.The blacks and the Asians would be one day be coppers and politicians,no-one would bother overtly about 2 blokes holding hands,and shopgirls would wear tattoos,nose-rings and spikey dyed hair without anyone batting an eyelid. How right she was,up to a point,nearly 30 years ago.Wonder what he thinks now, wherever he is? ha!

27. 

    Sam

    June 9, 2008 at 4:49 pm

    Understood Mike, I’m not sticking up for the Sammies and Kens of this world. Interestingly, I read at Talkpunk forum that whoever the leader of the Kings Cross skins was (Sammie?) who lead the broomstick rape business, was last seen stumbling around the West End completely insane and homeless. A lost soul. Maybe his conscience caught up with him?

28. 

    Sam

    June 9, 2008 at 4:59 pm

    By the way Jake, I was there when we got mugged by Sammie’s lot in the tube. For the record it was after The Damned at The Rainbow. The weird thing was they ran right past me and Gretchen’s school friend (nice girl – can’t remember her name) and left us untouched. We sidled off stage left, then looked at each other and laughed hysterically. It was like a tornado had gone through and left your house unscathed whilst destroying the rest of the neighbourhood. Down in the tube station at midnight indeed.

29. 

    Mike

    June 9, 2008 at 5:04 pm

    Sam@ isn’t that poetic justice of a kind,if true!! I do agree with you about the classic skin/mod look tho’.Funny thing was going to the Merrymakers in Langley for gigs (just outside Slough) in ’79-80 and some old ex-skins having a go at the new breed saying ‘You look like a bunch of mugs’,’Yer nuffin but bald punks’ etc etc! Funny too how clothes were so important back then, whatever your poison,yet nowadays everyone waddles about in generic trainers/sports casual

30. 

    Sam

    June 9, 2008 at 8:06 pm

    I used to be embarrassed coming home from the States and feeling like I looked like a mess. But last time I came home (2 years ago) I didn’t see one person in 2 weeks who looked like they’d made an effort. This, generic pubs etc…..the youth of today eh?

31. 

    baron von zubb

    June 10, 2008 at 9:10 am

    Mr S,You back? Glad the tour was good.
    Ok it was you there too.I remember so little it seems.It was as you said a Paul Weller moment.
    We’ll have to agree to disagree about the bonehead thing.There are simerlarites in ‘pack’ activity but not all packs are the same.
    Sure a lot of punks were shitters, no doubt me as well at the time.
    But as a cult we didnt go around ramming pieces of wood up girls arses. for fun.That is the finest example of cowardly behavior.But bonheads were not only cowards in that respect.The bully is both obsequious & aggressive.And thats what I mean too.
    Of course we’ll never know but I would imagine that the last 30 years would be a telling example of how cowardly they have been in their lives.
    If its true that Sammie is a destroyed individual I am , unfortunately,very fucking pleased.A lack of compassion on my part is a failing.Im sure he was as much a victim of circumstance as we all are.
    But I’ve seen so many people overcome serious odds in situations we can only imagine.
    Raping girls with broomsticks is a instant pass to hell from me.And if hes in his own hell now than justice has been done.

32. 

    baron von zubb

    June 10, 2008 at 9:23 am

    Anyway, as ive said by the time of the riots they were completley unimportant.I was briefly affiliated to an AFA group & fuck me the few nazi skins that were left after the southall incident were both either shitters or stupid and often both.It was very easy to render them harmless.
    Generaly they lost we won.Tough titties.If we’d been two years older in 78 & 79 the whole skin problem wouldnt have existed.

33. 

    baron von zubb

    June 10, 2008 at 9:25 am

    dunno why the editor function gone bust hence the triple post…