One dead, six others injured in south Minneapolis shooting
/ CBS MINNESOTA
The gun culture insanity continues in USA this time affecting the DIY Punk scene
MINNEAPOLIS — One person was killed and six others were injured in a shooting in south Minneapolis Friday evening.The victim, who was in their 30s, died at the scene of the 2200 block of 16th Avenue South, Minneapolis Police say. Five others with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds were taken to the hospital, and one other person who was shot took themselves to the hospital.Police say they were all the backyard of the house when the shooting happened around 10:15 p.m. Two suspects walked up the alley and at least one of them started shooting into the backyard, police say. The suspects then ran away through the alley. In all, police say they recovered 10 casings from the scene.MORE: Minneapolis music community mourning after mass shooting that killed 1, injured 6Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said he believed at least one person was targeted.
This video of previous show. DIY punk at the Nudieland club
Five of the people who were injured had graze wounds, O’Hara said at a press conference Saturday afternoon. One person required surgery.No one is in custody, and the investigation is ongoing.Victim identified
Man shot at Minneapolis punk show was talented songwriter, dedicated friend
A friend and bandmate said August Golden died in a shooting Friday at the punk venue Nudieland in south Minneapolis.
Friends identified August Golden, 35, as the person shot and killed at a backyard party Friday night in south Minneapolis’ Phillips neighborhood.
A Friday night house party in south Minneapolis was double cause for a big celebration. A band was playing numbers from its new recording. Another person was having a birthday.
But the good times at the punk venue Nudieland abruptly ended about 10:15 p.m. when gunmen fired into a crowd of people assembled in the backyard of the house on the 2200 block of 16th Avenue S.
Multiple people were injured, police said. One man died. Two suspects seen running away on foot were still at large on Sunday afternoon, police said.
Authorities have not released the name of the man who died in the shooting. But on Sunday, Bryan May said he is still coming to terms that his best friend and bandmate August Golden, 35, was killed.
“He was one of my favorite songwriters,” said May, who played with Golden in the Minneapolis punk band Scrounger. “Talented.”
May met Golden over a decade ago when they both lived in Santa Cruz, Calif. May moved into a house where Golden and 30 other people were living. The two hit it off immediately, May said.
“He was one of the most inviting people,” May said.
What was punk – and why did it scare people so much?
A man in punk dress is apparently admonished by a man in London in the mid-1980s. Punk’s expressive dress and anarchic politics were seen as a general affront to middle English conservatism in the mid-1970s, with the movement continuing as a subculture through the 1980s and beyond.
EVERYONE knows the sound of punk: unfiltered and breathless, an assault of sonic claustrophobia captured unpolished in a studio, or garage, living room, or perhaps an alleyway. Guitar riffs are sharp and unruly, driven by drums clattering around a gritty, decisive bassline. Vocals are unpolished and expressive, yelling lyrics loaded with agenda above the instruments. Aggression, frustration, sneering sarcasm – and all of it loud.
Everyone too knows the look of punk: statement haircuts, ripped clothing, badges, metalwork, makeup and leather. To its makers and its audience, punk was the cultural identity of anger, disenfranchisement, and rebellion.
The surge of – and appetite for – the punk scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s wasn’t limited purely to the music. It became an ideology, spawning literature, poetry, fashion and political defiance. But, as dramatised in new Disney+ biopic Pistol, it was the music that became its gravitation point, giving a beat and an identity to a genre that would explode, implode – and be reinvented over the decades around the world. (The Walt Disney Company is majority owner of National Geographic Partners.)
Defining the undefinable
Punk as a movement – perhaps appropriately – defies definition. Defined by Monika Sklar in her book Punk Style, punk was a ‘vital new way to perform subcultural ideas, that incorporated its own art, music, dress and lifestyles… commonly rooted in those who are somehow disenfranchised from society.”
People in punk dress walk down King’s Road in London in the 1970s.
PHOTOGRAPH BY HOMER SYKES / ALAMY
Exactly when it was appended to music is uncertain, though it’s likely to have been a lot earlier than most realise. A note in the San Francisco Call of 3 October 1899 carried the outraged remarks of one Otto Wise, who reviewed the singing of a companion in a fraternity house as “the most punk song ever heard in a hall.” In this and later tuneful contexts, which were plentiful, the word was used as an adjective to describe any kind of music that was authentically ragtag or unpolished – the implication being that those making it were somewhat rough around the edges as well.
Far from a simple expression of alternative ideas, or music simply of a lowbrow nature, by the time ‘punk rock’ was a thing, it was perceived as being on a mission to deliberately provoke. Miriam-Webster defined the music as “marked by extreme and often deliberately offensive expressions of alienation and social discontent” – though the word wasn’t used widely when the movement was first finding its voice. It was around, though: In the May 1971 edition of edgy music magazine Creem, journalist Dave Marsh, in a retrospective of 1960s US bands ? and The Mysterions, described their output as being a “landmark exposition of punk rock” – one of the first times the term was coined as a genre.
The Sex Pistols in the United States, 1978. Punk rock grew concurrently in the U.S. and the U.K., though the musical movement began in America with bands such as the New York Dolls and The Stooges helping set the scene for what would follow. Stooges songs were part of the repertoire of the Sex Pistols.
PHOTOGRAPH BY PICTORIAL PRESS LTD / ALAMY
American groups such as the New York Dolls and the Ramones (‘New York rock’), The Stooges and the MC5 in Detroit (‘garage rock’) had the swagger and bare-bones musicality vibe nailed. But the general use of a term soassociated with scallywags of one kind or another was frowned upon, and mainly used by journalists to categorise elements of their music. A 1976 article in the UK’s Sounds magazine by John Ingham was entitled ‘Welcome to the (?) Rock Special’ – the question mark a clear statement that nobody quite knew what to call the new movement now emerging in the U.S., Australia and in the U.K. On the eastern side of the Atlantic at least, punk rock didn’t get its enduring identity until there was a band of suitably shameless menace upon which to pin it.
Sara and Linda, Wycombe Punk girls . By Gavin Watson
The Sex Pistols performing in Norway, 1977. The band used European dates to emphasise their ‘banned in the UK’ notoriety, though in truth the band was never banned; merely their songs were excluded from the playlist of conservative broadcasters like the BBC, which it is believed limited their commercial success. Many believe the controversial single ‘God Save the Queen’ reached number 1 in the singles chart but was denied the accolade, losing out to Rod Stewart’s ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
PHOTOGRAPH BY NORWAY NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Against such a scene, by the mid-1970s the emergence of a colourful counter-culture of bands that seemed to articulate the country’s frustrations were a tempting lightning rod for disenfranchised youngsters.
Punk rock’s musicality – or as perceived in some quarters, lack thereof – was itself a reaction. While artistically, the songs sometimes sounded like the band had only a loose acquaintance with their instruments (a 1973 review of The New York Dolls compared the sound of the band to lawnmowers) it was a conscious riposte to grandiose, stadium-filling bands playing rambling prog-rock and employing operatic and indulgent performances.
Punk rock, when it arrived, was edgy, brief and unpolished, with unpredictable and chaotic live performances which sometimes ignited pent up crowds into violence. Out went virtuoso solos and twinkly stagecraft: musicianship came second to attitude, and the feeling of accessibility – that those on stage weren’t couched and pampered rock stars, but just someone with struggles, frustrations and something to say. Lyrics were often politicised or critical of what was increasingly seen as a country run by arcane and regressive institutions.
Such rough but charismatic sound also bred its own recession-proof fashion. The ascetic, unkempt look of American rock bands such as The Ramones and Television and artists such as Lou Reed and Patti Smith – ripped jeans held together with safety pins, recycled thrift store clothes and t-shirts – spread across the Atlantic and became individualistic styles that were by definition a unique statement. While aped – ironically – by fans, the emerging movement provided a platform for self-expression that was authentic, rag-tag, and accessible for anyone.
Some of the boldest statements were crafted by Vivienne Westwood, who at the time was in a relationship with socialite and sometime promoter Malcolm McLaren. After the latter had spent a period in the U.S. managing the New York Dolls, he became interested in managing a local band called The Strand, which he and Westwood used as a kind of musical billboard for their Chelsea fashion boutique. With the rise in popularity of fetish wear, Westwood and McLaren had renamed the boutique from Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die to SEX – and The Strand to the Sex Pistols, with McLaren describing his desired aesthetic for the band as ‘sexy young assassins.’
‘The antithesis of humankind’
It was an uncomfortable contradiction that success and popularity was the inverse to punk’s philosophy, but also the inevitable consequence of connection with large numbers of disenfranchised record buyers. This came to a scandalous head in December 1976 when Thames TV presenter Bill Grundy – who, in a last-minute switch, found himself interviewing The Sex Pistols instead of Queen in a primetime evening broadcast – appeared to challenge the band on its anti-materialistic authenticity given it had accepted £40,000 for a record deal.
Singer John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, mumbled a swearword under his breath which Grundy asked him to repeat in defiance of the channel’s stringent policies. After more goading, guitarist Steve Jones broke into a profanity-loaded rant at the presenter, all of which was broadcast live. Grundy’s career never recovered, and the Sex Pistols were instantly notorious.
Left:
Westwood and McLaren’s shop on The King’s Road in 1976. Initially named Let it Rock, then Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, then SEX – and later The Seditionaries, and finally World’s End, which it remains to this day.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TRINITY MIRROR / MIRRORPIX / ALAMY
Right:
Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood in London, 1977. Westwood wears the original artwork for God Save the Queen on her t-shirst. Westwood’s designs were deliberately intended to shock and provoke, and she and McLaren’s influence over the Sex Pistols made them a leading charge on both the genre’s music and look.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TRINITY MIRROR / MIRRORPIX / ALAMY
Bernard Partridge, a member of the Great London Council, described the band as the ‘antithesis of humankind,’ adding that punk rock in general was “nauseating, disgusting, degrading, ghastly, sleazy, prurient, voyeuristic and generally nauseating… I think most of these groups would be vastly improved by sudden death.”
Anarchy in the UK
The perceived threat that punk rock presented to society was framed neatly by the release of what would become an anti-establishment anthem. For a target, as the head of state presiding over a country enduring austerity, the Queen was apparently as good as any.
The sleeve for the single God Save the Queen (1977.) The song was originally called No Future, and variations of the artwork, designed by artist Jamie Reid, included images of the Queen with a safety pin through her lip and swastikas over her eyes.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT LAZENBY / ALAMY
Lydon – who wrote the lyrics – has held the opinion that the song, which was originally titled No Future, was misunderstood. In Isle of Noises, Lydon told author Daniel Rachel the song captured ”the idea of being angry, of the indifference of the Queen to the population and the aloofness and indifference to us as people.” But writing in The Times in 2022, he stated: “I’ve got no animosity against any one of the royal family. Never did. It’s the institution of it that bothers me and the assumption that I’m to pay for that.”
The inherent provocativeness of punk’s anti-establishment, anti-capitalism and anti-conformist statements inevitably went into darker territory, which deepened the divide between the older, more conservative generation and the punks themselves. As cultural theorist Dick Hebdige wrote in Subculture: The Meaning of Style, “No subculture has sought with more grim determination than the punks to detach itself from the taken-for-granted landscape of normalised forms, nor to bring down upon itself such vehement disapproval.”
Violence was a feature of many punk gigs – both within the crowd, between the crowd and the band, and between the more strait-laced public spoiling for a fight with a subculture seen as a genuine threat to the British way of life. Despite a reputation for unruliness, the punks became targets, too.
“Punk rock is nauseating, disgusting, degrading, ghastly, sleazy, prurient, voyeuristic and generally nauseating… I think most of these groups would be vastly improved by sudden death.”
BERNARD BROOK PARTRIDGE
“Punks’ transgressive, shocking attitudes and stances caused normative culture to react viciously against them,” wrote Andrew H. Carroll in ‘Running Riot’: Violence and British Punk Communities, 1975-1984, “and it further isolated them from normative society; the reactions against them pushed punks deeper into their alternative community.”
Another theory for punk’s perceived aggression was the spiralling divorce rate and the dissolution of what many considered ‘traditional’ family values. As Connell states, “one way young people reacted to this was by constructing a new community, centred on punk music, that used violence to define itself.”
In addition, sinister accessories such as dog chains and knives were adopted as effects. In a further shock attack on older generations swastikas and other Nazi aesthetics were frequently worn as a deliberate provocation to those who had fought in WWII three decades earlier.
The Sex Pistols sign a record deal, 1977. Manager Malcolm McLaren (second from right) orchestrated stunts such as this for maximum publicity and affront to institutions such as the monarchy. It’s no accident the contract was signed in front of Buckingham Palace, nor that the record God Save the Queen was released to coincide with the Queen’s silver jubilee. The band themselves denied the record was timed as such.
Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen in 1978. Both would be dead a year later Spungen supposedly at the hands of Vicious, and Vicious by a drug overdose. As Vicious died whilst awaiting trial, the question over who murdered Spungen – she was found stabbed by Vicious’s knife in late 1978 while the latter was in a drug-induced blackout – remains controversial.
PHOTOGRAPH BY PICTORIAL PRESS LTD / ALAMY
Punk goes mainstream
Vicious’s death was considered one of the death knells for punk itself. Bands that followed The Sex Pistols’ lead included Buzzcocks, The Damned and The Slits, all of whom were influential in developing punk rock as a genre along various political themes, from austerity to equality, with some – including The Clash – becoming highly successful in the process. The latter made racial tension one of its protest flags, after lead singer Joe Strummer witnessed the violence between police and Black revellers at the Notting Hill Carnival in 1976, penning the song White Riot in response.
The Clash, pictured here in 1979, would be one of the British bands that would develop punk rock beyond the 1970s.
PHOTOGRAPH BY PICTORIAL PRESS LTD / ALAMY
As the 1970s became the 1980s, punk became even more resplendent. But as the decade progressed, inflation fell, the economy improved and new, less volatile bands caught the attention of younger generations.
While less menacing and gritty, the bright colours, creative hairstyles and use of makeup and other more tranquil ostentations of the 1980s music fashion appeared a natural development of punk. But stylistically, many of the bands that followed were an exaggerated contrast to their predecessors. Artists influenced by the punk movement such as Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Adam and the Ants earned the early nickname ‘peacock punks.’ The anger quelled, the motivations became less aggressive; guitars were augmented by new technology such as synthesisers that once again gave songs the produced shimmer bands like the Sex Pistols had gleefully binned. Punk, as a subculture, remained – but popular music evolved.
Their philosophy, however, didn’t – and has emerged periodically since, with movements such as gothic rock, grunge and EMO exhibiting many of the anarchic attributes that led to punk. Some of the albums produced in that first wave frequently rank in critics’ lists of the top albums of all time.
One of the bands identified as a kind of spiritual heir to The Sex Pistols emerged from Seattle in 1987. But for the lead singer, it was the philosophy, not the music, that tied the two together. “The only reason I might agree with people calling our band “The Sex Pistols of the 90s” is that, for both bands, the music is a very natural thing, very sincere,” said Kurt Cobain, of Nirvana. “All the hype the Sex Pistols had was totally deserved – they deserved everything they got.”
We are deeply and profoundly saddened to announce the untimely passing of keyboard legend Dave Greenfield on the evening of 3rd May 2020. Following a stay in hospital for heart problems, Dave tested positive for the Covid-19 virus last Sunday but he sadly lost his battle last night. Dave had been an ever present in the band since joining in late 1975 and his keyboard wizardry was world-renowned over his 45 year career in The Stranglers. Dave was a lovable, friendly and eccentric character who always had time to chat.
We have received the following tributes from Dave’s fellow band members JJ, Jet and Baz as well as Sil the band’s manager:
“On the evening of Sunday May 3rd my great friend and longstanding colleague of 45 years, the musical genius that was Dave Greenfield, passed away as one of the victims of the Great Pandemic of 2020. All of us in the worldwide Stranglers’ family grieve and send our sincerest condolences to Pam.” – JJ Burnel
“We have just lost a dear friend and music genius, and so has the whole world. Dave was a complete natural in music. Together, we toured the globe endlessly and it was clear he was adored by millions. A huge talent, a great loss, he is dearly missed.” – Jet Black
“We lost a true innovator, musical legend, and one of my dearest friends today. The word genius is bandied around far too easily in this day and age, but Dave Greenfield certainly was one. We stood together on the same side of the stage for 20 years, laughed, joked and shared our lives in the way that only band mates can. I’ll miss him forever. Our thoughts and hearts are with his wife Pam, and to the millions of fans who worshipped at his altar, he’ll never be equalled.” – Baz Warne
“We are all in shock, Dave was a kind, generous soul who had time for anyone and everyone and it has been my privilege to have known him as both a close friend, his tech and manager for over 40 years. Our thoughts are with Pam at this sad time” – Sil Willcox
He is survived by his wife Pam and we ask you to respect Pam’s privacy at this very sad time.
Fly straight Mr G, fond adieu xx
very sad news, another punk legend gone. Peaches was one of the first 7″ singles i ever owned (nicked off my sister) and one of the very first to have swear words on it. for a 12 year old kid in 1977 oh S**t and Bummer were oh so shocking. Then Duchess still stands as one of my all time favourite punk songs. RIP to a Legend
“More Heroes” is a column dedicated to the discovery of the biggest names that have made the history of punk, many of which are not adequately known as they deserve. Today the spotlight is on Richard Hell & The Voidoids.
The third attempt is the right one
Richard Lester Voices “Hell” Meyers was born in New York in 1976. Although active for a short time, they are one of the most influential groups of the first wave of American punk. Hell (whose pseudonym is inspired by the opera “A Season In Hell” by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud) had previously been bassist and founder of two other big names of those years: Television and Heartbreakers . Both experiences ended due to the constant clashes with those of those bands who will be the leaders, respectively Tom Verlaine and Johnny Thunders.
Finally, the third attempt to start a band proves to be the right one and thus the Richard Hell & The Voidoids are born. Accompanying the bassist are guitarists Robert Quine and Ivan Julian and drummer Marc Bell.
“Blank Generation” and “Destiny Street”
The group signs a contract with the Sire label and in 1977 they debuted with the epochal “Blank Generation” , a milestone of the first American punk which sees in the title track a real generational anthem and of all punk (song already played in the times of Television and Heartbreakers) in which Hell’s poetic vein and literary influences emerge. Noteworthy is also the work of Quine and Julian in which their passion for rock’n’roll and jazz emerges.
Cover of the 1990 reissue of “Blank Generation”. The original featured Hell with a bare chest and “You Make Me ____” written on his chest.
Immediately after the release of the album, the band goes through a difficult period in which they abuse drugs. They participate in a tour of England by shoulder to the Clash which however will leave them dissatisfied with the English punk scene. The internal balance between the various members does not hold and in 1978 Bell left the group to join the Ramones, assuming the pseudonym of Marky Ramone. In 1979, on drums Frank Mauro released the 45 rpm “The Kid With The Replaceable Head” . Shortly thereafter, Julian also leaves, disappearing from the music scene.
We have to wait until 1982 for the second rehearsal of Richard Hell & The Voidoids, who now see Fred Maher on drums and Juan “Naux” Maciel on the second guitar. But ” Destiny Street” , released for the Red Star label, however good a album it becomes, becomes the last piece of the band’s history which effectively ends its adventure in the same year. Some reunions will follow during the 90s, but never with the original lineup. The latter met once in 2000 to record the unreleased track “Oh” which will be included in a compilation.
Subsequent careers
Over the years Hell has ventured as a writer, poet and sometimes actor acting in several films, including “Desperately Seeking Susan” with Madonna. Very few record rehearsals, following his retirement from the world in music.
The poster for the film “Desperately Seeking Susan” by Susan Seidelman.
In 1992 he was in the supergroup named Dim Stars where he found Quine and which included Don Fleming of Gumball and Steve Shelley and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth.
Quine has collaborated with many artists, first of all Lou Reed. He committed suicide in 2004 with an overdose of heroin. The previous year, his wife’s disappearance had led him into severe depression.
Curiosity
Richard Hell is considered by many to be the inventor of the famous punk look made of bristly hair, studs, chains and ragged clothes. Look taken from Malcom McLaren (manager of the Sex Pistols) and his wife, the stylist Vivienne Westwood.
In 1980 the film “Blank Generation” was released starring Hell, the band and a young Carole Bouquet.
“this is England” Year: 1984 City: Sunderland Label: Razor Format: CD, LP Tracks: 13 Time: 34 min. Genre: rock Style: Oi!
RED LONDON is an English punk band formed in Sunderland in 1981, influenced by The Clash, Angelic Upstarts and The Jam. The band named themselves after a Sham 69 song. By 1983 they were signed to Razor Records. Their first release was the “Sten Guns in Sunderland” EP in 1983 followed by the “This is England” LP in 1984. Since then they have recorded for various labels both in the UK and abroad, and toured Europe including Germany, Poland, Belgium, Holland, France, Italy, and Spain as well as playing occasional gigs in England. Nowadays the band play some concerts from time to time. The release we have here was made by the label “Step-1” and include the first EP plus the debut LP. Is probably the best known work of the band, but Red London made more albums very recommended and always combining Oi! music with melodic voices and political lyrics. The four members declared themselves as socialist, libertarian and internationalist, inspired by the british SWP. Record label called “RedStar 73” has made the first re-issue on vinyl format and If somebody wants to buy it can go HERE. Later in 2016 was a new re-issue with remastered sound and some changes in the artwork made through italian label “Radiation Ressiues” just on LP format. Red London disbanded in 2002 and they are come back in 2018, touring in UK and Europe. Discogs , Lastfm , Download , Myspace , Facebook , Wikipedia
‘I just wish that more energy were used to protest the real culprits of misogyny and sexism, rather than punk bands,’ one fan wrote, as if the two are mutually exclusive
The Casualties
When I was a teenager, I often went to see a friend’s punk band play shows at an all-ages basement bar in Guelph.
He was a year younger than me, played bass, and had a bright green mohawk that stood about a foot high. The singer was a bit older and went to a different school; he wore his hair in liberty spikes. Most of the kids who went to these shows had the types of hairstyles that required Elmer’s glue to make stand on end, but not me: I had blonde highlights and a bob.
When you’re a teenager, the way you style yourself assigns you membership into a tribe that usually corresponds with what type of music you like, but at the punk shows I went to, this coding didn’t necessarily apply. As soon as I paid my cover and walked downstairs, I belonged. Punk rock is good like that, or at least it’s supposed to be: as long as you categorize yourself as some type of outsider, you’re part of the scene. Punk rock is always there for you. So it’s not hard to declare an unwavering loyalty to the scene, the fans and — most importantly — the people in the bands that comprise it.
On Thursday, Toronto’s Mod Club announced that it would be cancelling an upcoming show by punk group The Casualties due to allegations of rape against the band’s singer, Jorge Herrera. The cancellations are nothing new. A couple months after The Casualties announced a Canadian tour, 13 dates in total have been scrapped.
Allegations about Herrera have circulated for years, most notably in the form of a blog post on the website Put Your Damn Pants On by a woman named Beth who claims she was raped by Herrera when she was 16 years old, and he was about 26. Since then, a number of websites and blogs have been flooded with the comments and responses of those who claim similar experiences with Herrera; one Tumblr page compiled a list of 28 victims.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
The backlash to these allegations has been toxic. The band’s management has used a particularly heinous line of defence, claiming that it’s NOT VERY PUNK ROCK to believe the women accusing Herrera of rape: “Unfortunately, people have been quick to judge and have not taken the time to think that they are not only slandering a singer from a punk band, but also a father, husband and family man,” a statement on the Casualties’ Facebook page read earlier this week.
“The mob has lit the torches and wants to see blood. Not a thought is wasted that it could hurt an innocent,” the band said in a statement in February. “We will not stand by while an innocent man’s life is being ruined. The only thing Jorge can be found guilty of is playing in a punk band.”
The fans are right there with them, maintaining that there’s a difference between being punk and being capable of rape. “Stay strong and stay f–kin’ punk y’all,” wrote one fan, while another assured the group that “The real punx we gonna stay with you guys!” Worst of all: “I just wish that more energy were used to protest the real culprits of misogyny and sexism, rather than punk bands,” a commenter wrote, as if the two are mutually exclusive.
A similar rationale permeates the discussion surrounding Bill Cosby. In her defense of him, Cosby’s former co-star Phylicia Rashad evoked the comedian’s “legacy” as a champion of diversity. Jill Scott did the same (though she distanced herself from her remarks recently), as did rapper Chuck D just a few weeks ago. Surely, hundreds of thousands of people who grew up with Bill Cosby thought the same: that a childhood hero, a moral arbiter, a beloved comedian with a proud legacy as a Black entertainer could not also be a monster, because if he is, what does that say about all of us who loved him?
When a scheduled NXNE concert by rapper Action Bronson was yanked off a public stage in downtown Toronto due to a petition crying foul over his misogynistic lyrics, the outcry was similar, but more simplistic: if you don’t want to hear it, just stay home. “It does seem like you’re trying to placate a bunch of soccer moms instead of your actual target demographic by booking the cleanest rapper you could think of,” a comment under NXNE’s announcement of Shad as Bronson’s replacement during the fest. “What the hell,” another said. “This is Toronto. It’s music. It’s art. If someone is offended well … f–k em. They don’t have to be there.”
The comments aren’t just an attempt to silence those standing up against misogyny and sexism, but a shaming: how dare you call into question something I believe in? How dare you take this away from me?
I don’t really like The Casualties; my experience with punk rock was always a little wimpy. But growing up, I drifted in and out of the punk scene in my hometown because even if I never felt quite like I was part of it there was no sense that I was unwelcome. Everyone I ran into at shows was a little bit of a weirdo like me, and they were there because it was a supportive environment. And I knew a lot of people who liked The Casualties.
But you can be an outcast — and speak for outcasts — and still do garbage things. Punks aren’t just punks; they’re people. And anyway, it’s not like the punk rock community is immune to the pratfalls that pervade every other community.
It can be difficult to reconcile that our heroes, mentors and idols do terrible things, not least of all because of a sense that their wrongdoings are somehow reflective of ourselves. And so the impulse to doubt or lash out against accusations is sometimes born of an impulse to keep ourselves comfortable. It’s an impulse that is, by definition, harmfully closed-minded. And that’s not very punk rock.
Rebecca Tucker
The Casualties were formed in 1990, with original members Jorge Herrera (vocals), Hank (guitar), Colin Wolf (vocals), Mark Yoshitomi (bass) and Yureesh Hooker (drums). The members aimed to return to what they viewed as the “golden era” of street punk, embodied by bands such as The Exploited and Charged GBH which they believed had disappeared by 1985.[3] During the early years, the lineup was fluid, with several changes.
In early 1991 Hank left the band, to be replaced by Fred Backus on guitar to record Political Sin in March 1991 for the Benefit for Beer compilation.[4] Soon more changes were in the works, with new guitarist Fred heading off to school. C Squat’s Scott temporarily filled Fred’s shoes until he returned a short time later. During this period, guitarist Hank filled in for a couple of shows, and Steve Distraught also played briefly with the group on second guitar. The Casualties stabilized long enough to record the first demo in the fall of 1991 and the 40 oz Casualty EP in the spring of 1992, and was building up a fan base in their hometown of New York City. At the end of 1992, Mark and Fred left the band and were replaced by Mike Roberts on bass and Jake Kolatis on the guitar, followed by the departure of Yureesh and Colin in 1994, to be replaced on drums by Shawn, while the band went down to a single vocalist.[1994 sees the recording of the 4 song EP, Drinking Is Our Way Of Life, however it would not be released. The songs would later appear on the Casualties “early years 1990-1995” CD in 1999. In 1995, the band’s second release, the 4 track A Fuckin’ Way Of Life E.P. was released on Eyeball Records. After recording A Fuckin’ Way of Life, Shawn left the band, and Marc Eggers (nicknamed Meggers) of the Rivits became the regular drummer. The line-up of Jorge, Jake, Mike and Meggers continued until 1997.
In 1996 the Casualties became the first American band to appear at the “Holidays in the Sun” Festival in London. 1997 saw the release of the band’s debut album, For the Punx is released on Tribal War Records, and the band embarks on its first American tour with The Varukers. Mike (the bassist) left the band in 1998, to be replaced with Johnny Rosado, from The Krays. They released their second LP that year, Underground Army, and begin a world tour.
Line-up David Rodriguez – lead vocals (2017–present)Jake Kolatis – guitar (1993–present)Rick Lopez – bass (1998–present)Marc “Meggers” Eggers – drums (1995–present)
Past line-up Jorge Herrera – lead vocals (1990–2017)Colin Wolf – vocals (1990–1994)Hank – guitar (1990–1991)Fred Backus – guitar (1991–1993)Mark Yoshitomi – bass (1990–1993)Mike Roberts – bass (1993–1997)Johnny Rosado – bass (1997–1998)Yureesh Hooker – drums (1990–1994)Shawn – drums (1994–1995)
Friday 17th November 2006, 30 years since Punk detonated, and I had the pleasure of sharing a few drinks with Ron Watts in my home. Ron promoted many of the early bands, and organised the now legendary Punk Festival at the 100 Club on the 20th and 21st September, 1976. Ron’s just published a great book which documents those heady and (for those lucky enough to have been there) exciting times. I switched on the tape recorder, put some wine on the table and off we went, talking about our mutually favourite subject. Music! I hope people will find this interview as interesting as I did, he’s a top bloke with some great memories. Rob Maddison, Tamworth, 19th November 2006. 100 Watts, a life in Music. Written by Ron Watts and forward by Glen Matlock. ISBN 0-9543884-4-5. Available from Heroes Publishing, the Internet (it’s on Amazon) or even a bookshop!
RM) Ron, firstly, why did you write the book? Ron) I was approached by the publishers, who said “would you be interested in writing your life story”. I thought about it, for about two days, and then thought yeah. Yes, I’d do that, you know what I mean.RM) How on earth did you remember everything? Ron) Most of it was in the house, still. I just had to find all the old diaries and booking sheets and things, and it jogged my memory, you know. RM) You kept all that stuff, then Ron? Ron) Well, yes, I suppose you would, really, wouldn’t you. To be honest, I sold some stuff off at auction, about 10 years ago, when I was skint. One thing was the Sex Pistols contract from the Punk Festival, which was handwritten by Malcolm McClaren.RM) Who bought it? Ron) I think it was the Hard Rock Café in Central London, to put up on the wall.RM) When’s your next promotion Ron? Ron) Well, I haven’t been promoting for a while, but it’s in my blood, and people are expressing an interest in me doing something. I’ve got 2 venues lined up for the new year, look here for news, come February. We’ve venues in Oxford Street and High Wycombe, but can’t say too much at this point!! These gigs are to be known as Ron’s part 1 and 2…RM) Who are you promoting? Ron) What I did in 1977. RM) What, new “Punk” bands, such as The View etc? Ron) No. Same bands I did in ’77. Same bands in the same place. Some of them are reforming, I’ve been on the bone mate!!RM) Who are you still in touch with from those days, Ron? Ron) Virtually everybody. People from the Sex Pistols, met some of the Clash quite recently, Damned I’m still in touch with, no end of people. RM) Glen Matlock wrote the forward to the book and is obviously a decent bloke. Ron) Glen is a nice bloke, and definitely part of the Pistols, but is his own man.RM) Did you ban Punk? Ron) No. Punk was banned around me, and while it was banned at one venue, I still considered doing it at another, the Nags Head in High Wycombe. At the first opportunity for it to go back into the 100 Club it went back in. It’s a false supposition to suggest I banned it. It was banned because the police and Oxford Street traders association objected to Punks standing in queues outside their shops waiting to get into the club. At this time Oxford Street was the premier shopping street in Europe. I’d be getting complaints, so would go out into the street and try and get people to move out of shop doorways etc, but as soon as I went back in the club they’d be back in there. And of course there’d been some real bad violence. When a girl loses her eye that’s a pretty serious thing. You have to remember that I didn’t own the club, I just promoted there. Simple as. RM) Did Sid Vicious throw the glass that injured the girl’s eye? Ron) Well, I presume so, the barman saw him do it. He didn’t know Sid from Adam, but he pointed him (Sid) out and told me it was him that threw it. I don’t think Sid meant to hurt anybody, except the Damned! If it had caught Captain Sensible on the head he’d have liked that! Funnily enough I was down at the 100 Club a couple of weeks ago, and Michelle Brigandage, who took some of the photos in the book, was telling me that she was actually sat with the girl who lost her eye. Apparently she was an art student from South London, never wanted any publicity and was broken hearted, as anyone would be who lost an eye, especially at that age. She was only 19 at the time. Michelle was sat with her when it happened, she was her mate, and it’s the first time I’ve had a real chat about it. She said herself that though she accepts that it was Sid who threw the glass, he hadn’t intended to do that. But at the same time, he had thrown the glass with malice, and might’ve done even worse damage to someone else, you never know. So in one sense, he’s exonerated to a degree, and in another sense he’s still a malicious Pratt.
Ron Watts manager signs The Damned. with Stiff Records
RM) Was there any collusion to get Sid off by discrediting the barman’s story? Ron) No, but so many people went down with him, to the police station, and said he didn’t do it that the CPS probably thought 250 against 1 and dropped it.RM) Were you surprised by Sid’s eventual demise? Ron) No. You know, his mother, Ann Beverley moved up to Swadlincote, near here. She got some money from Sid’s estate, and the Pistols gave her some money. She got a cheap house and a few bob in the bank, and when she’d run through that she topped herself. As for Nancy, the police weren’t looking for anybody else, but we don’t know, do we.RM) Ron, how proud are you of your role in Punk, and could it have happened without the 100 Club? Ron) Yeah, it would’ve happened anyway. It might have happened in a different way, but I suppose the traumatic birth it got, and the big hand it got via the Punk festival etc helped, otherwise it might have taken a bit longer. RM) Could it have started in any other city other than London? Ron) I think it needed London. It gave it the credibility. It might have happened somewhere else, and it might have been more interesting if it had happened, say, in Liverpool or Newcastle or somewhere, but it would have taken longer to be accepted, and London would have taken longer to accept it.RM) I suppose the Pistols, who catalyzed the movement were a London band, and people like Paul Weller, Pete Shelley etc always say the seeing that band is what galvanised them. Ron) Yes. They were the catalyst. We needed to have them in the Capital, playing in the middle of the Capital. It was always going to be a shortcut for them, you know. So yes, it would have still happened elsewhere, but in a different way. RM) Whose idea was the 1976 Punk Festival at the 100 Club? Ron) Mine. My idea, yeah. I approached Mclaren, as I knew that I needed the Pistols to headline it. And the Damned, they said that they wanted to do it, and The Clash agreed immediately, then we had to cast around to find some more. The Manchester bands were got down by Malcolm (Mclaren). Siouxsie approached me direct, although it wasn’t much of a band. Then, the Stinky Toys were volunteered by Mclaren, although I’d never heard of ‘em, and hardly anyone’s heard of ‘em since! Never mind, they got on eventually on the second night!RM) I read in the book that the Grande Piano on the stage got used like a climbing frame. Were you actually liable for damages if things got broken? Ron) The piano wasn’t going to get moved off the stage. It always stays there. Thing is, you’ve got to remember that it was a running, 7 nights a week club, for Jazz and Blues mainly, and the piano was a part of all that. The owners of the club left me to it for my nights, very seldom that they were there, even. If the place had been wrecked, it would’ve been down to me, I’d have had to pay for all the damage, you know.RM) Punk 77’s owner wondered if you thought the Banshees sounded as bad as he thought they did?! Ron) Well, in ’76 they weren’t really a band, you can’t comment. What they were doing was performance art, just getting up onto the stage and doing something off the top of their heads. They didn’t know any songs, and it sounded like it. It was weak, it was weedy. Sid just about tapped the drums. Siouxsie was doing the Lords Prayer and stuff like that. You couldn’t say it was a gig, or a rehearsed act, it was just people, getting up and trying to do something. I let them do it, you know, I might have done something like that at their age. I don’t think Siouxsie really lived up to her reputation, if you like. Well, not initially. RM) I didn’t like them, but the Banshees went on to become very skilled, musically. Ron) Yes. By then she’d recruited some good blokes. She’s been living in France for a long time now, I don’t see her.
RM) Were the early Punks, like Siouxsie, middle class students? If so, how did they feel when Punk was taken up by the masses? Ron) No. The early Punks were solidly working class. There was the art college mob, they weren’t numerically very strong, but they were the most vivid people, because of their appearance. They set the standard, the tone, you know? But immediately behind that, by the time of the punk festival of ‘76, the bulk of the audience was being formed by young, working class people and they took it to their hearts at once. RM) Were the movements roots biased towards the fashion element or more towards the music side, or was it one package?Ron) The fashion and art side, you know, was where Siouxsie was coming from. They took it very seriously, it was a new movement and they only had the one band to start with. It was very arty, but it was an art movement that worked. If you’d been there the first night I put the Pistols on, I think it was March 30th 1976, and you saw the Bromley Contingent coming in! They didn’t all come at once, they come in dribs and drabs. Each time, it was breathtaking and jaw dropping just to see them walk through that door.RM) Were contemporary Londoners shocked by the appearance of the early Punks? Ron) Initially, yeah. They’d got used to it by the end of that year. But initially, like in the early months, absolutely.RM) The summer of ’76 is famous for its heat wave. I bet you’ve great memories of it? RW) In that summer, and remember that it was the hottest, the best summer in living memory, it was the summer, people still talking about it now, and nothing was happening, everybody was asleep, you know. Anyway, this New Zealand film crew turned up to capture London. They’d been dispatched from Auckland to film London, in the summer. They were bright enough to cotton on to the movement, and they were haunting me! I mean, they got so many yards, so many miles of film, some of it’s not even been seen yet. All the main punk films, like the Rock ‘n Roll Swindle, The Filth and the Fury, were relying on their footage. They were amazed when they got their first, full on, Bromley Punk. They could not believe it. They said “You guys are 200 years ahead of New Zealand!” RM) Were you interested about the politics in Punk? Ron) I tried to keep it at arms length. I wasn’t interested in sub-divisions.RM) What about The Clash? Ron) Didn’t know that they were! (political). I think they were just trying to make it, I mean, they latched on to it. The Pistols had got a lot of the market wrapped up with their attitudes, so The Clash had to find some attitude, and they probably cooked it up with their manager, I reckon. What attitude can we have? Well, the Pistols have got this, that and the other and they found the one that they could go for. RM) I’ve read that the purists hated them, but I loved The Jam. They flirted with politics early on, and then really got involved, with Paul Weller joining Red Wedge later. Ron) The Jam were some of the biggest winners out of Punk. There was such a lot of talent in that band. That band was so tight.RM) Did you get more involved with them once they’d started to get bigger? Ron) They wanted me to help them with their American tour, by going ahead from city to city publicising it. But this was ’77, and I was amazed that their manager John Weller had asked me, and I would’ve loved to have done it. But, I was at the height of my promoting career, and I realised that. So I said “No, I’ve got to stick with this.” RM) The Jam always felt like a band that, as a fan, you had a stake in. Ron) I tell you what, they did a show for me at the 100 Club, when they’d been doing really huge venues like the Hammersmith Odeon. They’d always said, when we get there, we’ll come back and do one. They ended up doing three for me. One at Wycombe Town Hall, one at the Nags Head, which is a pub, you know! And, the 100 Club. They were really good like that, and I appreciate what they did for me and I love ‘em to bits.RM) It’s weird that there was all that acrimony between those people, and even stranger that Rick, and now Bruce, are playing in a Jam tribute band. (The Gift).Ron) Good drummer. I think, and this is my opinion, as I’ve no proof of it, that the girls all used to go for Bruce Foxton. The band was great, and they knew the band was great and they loved Paul Weller. But, in their hearts they all fancied that they’d get off with Bruce Foxton. When I did the box office at the 100 Club, there’d be all these girls turning up in school uniforms. I’d be saying “How old are you?” and the answer was always “19!” Am I really going to sell these girls tickets?!RM) I read somewhere, years ago, that Sid Vicious and Paul Weller had a fight after arguing about the Holidays in the Sun/ In the City riff. Did you hear that one? Ron) No. I can’t see that. Paul Weller was from a tough, working class background. A fight between him and Sid Vicious would have lasted about 8 seconds. He would have dealt with Sid in no time at all. It didn’t happen. Sid would need to have been tooled up, and I’ve had to fight him 3 times when he was. And I’m still here. Sid came at me with a chain, once. I confiscated it, and wish I still had all these weapons, as I could put them up for sale at Christies, couldn’t I?! And I saw Sid with a knife, threatening Elle, the singer out the Stinky Toys with it. I took that off him and gave it to Malcolm Mclaren. Wish I’d kept it. RM) Ron, did you have much to do with Rock Against Racism (R.A.R)? Ron) Only in as much as I endorsed it. And, I wouldn’t have any racist behaviour, as it says in the book, in any of my venues. I just wouldn’t. No way, I mean my bouncers were black, a lot of my acts were black, and I wasn’t going to have it. There were a few occasions when it surfaced, and I did the natural thing and let the black guys sort it themselves.RM) Empowerment? Ron) Yeah. At Wycombe Town Hall, the British movement guys were having a go at my bouncer, Gerry. One black guy against twenty or thirty of them, so I said to him “I’ll take your position, don’t be long, go down the pubs and get your mates.” And he come back in with a dozen big black lads. I said to them, “Look, you’re here to look after Gerry, not to kill these white guys.” So, Gerry stood in front of them, and there wasn’t a word out of them again! They moved out of the way, and went down the other side of the hall, these bullies. They saw the odds evening up a bit, and given the other 8 or 9 bouncers I had stood in the hall, we would’ve murdered them. RM) Jimmy Pursey went on-stage with The Clash at R.A.R in Victoria Park. Was this damage limitation on Pursey’s behalf? He seemed to get his fingers burned when the Skins affiliated to Sham 69. Ron) Exactly. And I don’t think he liked that one little bit. See, now, Jimmy Pursey is another guy, like Paul Weller and Joe Strummer, probably all of them at that time. Underneath he was a much nicer person than the media, and the world, would realise and portray. He was an alright geezer and he caught the wrong end of the backlash. People were believing what he was portraying and singing about, and that wasn’t necessarily him!RM) Did Sham 69 dance a bit to close the flame? They could be perceived as “rabble rousing”, if you like. Ron) They were looking for something to hang their stick on, if you like. The Pistols found it in one. Joe Strummer looked around with The Clash and thought about it and did it, you know. The Jam done it through their potent mix of soul and punk, and I think Jimmy Pursey thought he’d go with the hard boys in the East End. The skinheads, and the mobsters and the ruffians, you know. RM) Musically, Sham 69 were similar to the Pistols… Ron) Yeah, closer than some. I liked Sham 69, they were alright. I think Pursey is another guy who hung his hat somewhere, and that hat got on the wrong peg.
RM) How fast did Punk spread throughout 1977? Ron) Well, it got going in ’76. The Wycombe Punks, because they had me to promote at the Nags Head, got their first Sex Pistols gig there on September 3rd, which was actually 3 weeks before the 100 Club Festival. They were on the case really early. In ’76, Wycombe and the surrounding towns were full of Punks. By the end of that year, they even had a black Punk in Wycombe, a guy called Marmite. He had black hair, with a silver zigzag stripe in it. By ’77, it was all up and running everywhere. By January or February 1977 almost everyone under the age of 18 or 19 was a Punk.RM) When did the press really get hold of it? Ron) Then. But they were on to it before the Bill Grundy Show, the Punk Festival was before that show and from then it was just….you know. I used to get phone calls, from NBC and CBS in America asking if anything’s going on, or coming off, could you let us know. RM) That’s odd, being as the Americans claim to have invented Punk! Ron) They were a year or two ahead. It’s like most things. It’s like the Blues. We had to take the Blues back to America for White America to know about it. Cream, Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, those sort of people. RM) America’s too big and too diverse. It couldn’t host youth movements like Punk and 2-Tone.Ron) No. It had to come from somewhere else. I mean, in New York it was a club scene, in Britain it was a national scene. RM) What did you think of those American bands?Ron) Some of them were really good. I didn’t think New York Dolls were as good as bands like Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. They were probably the best Punk band I ever saw, actually. RM) And Blondie? Ron) Well, Blondie. The bass player, Nigel was a guy from the Nags Head. Tigger, we used to call him. That was his name round Wycombe. He played at the Nags Head before he was in Blondie. I’ve got to say that Tigger and Blondie didn’t get on. Maybe she fancied him, and he didn’t fancy her!
RM) He would’ve been the only British male in the late ‘70’s who didn’t, then?! Ron) Perhaps he knew something we didn’t!RM) Back to the serious stuff, Ron. The Clash flew to Belfast, had some nice photos taken near some barricades and murals. Then they flew home. No gigs played. What do you think about all that? Ron) Well, it’s up to them. Sometimes, promotional events can take over. You can be wise after the event, it might have sounded like a good thing at the time. Who knows, I mean, it might have been sincere. I didn’t see them as a band who had very political motives outside of the publicity. I’m not saying they didn’t have a heart, but sometimes publicity sows a life of its own, you know.RM) If they’d played, this would never have been an issue with people over the years. Ron) No, but they would do benefits and things, R.A.R, and one just before Joe died, for a fireman’s benefit. RM) It’s ironic. The Pistols and Strummer/Jones last gigs in England were both strike fund benefits. And the Pistols, apparently, never cashed their cheque from that Christmas Day one. Ron) I wasn’t a party to any of that, but yeah, that was a good gesture. A lesson. A guy came down to interview me, and he lived near Joe Strummer. Lived in the same village and he was a long time journalist. He said that he thought that Joe Strummer had a lot of heart, and it was very typical of him that he’d go out and do a benefit as The Clash, but commercially would only do The Mescalero’s.
RM) Back to the Pistols, now Ron. What was their early live sound like? Ron) I’ll tell you something now that I’ve never told anybody before. Musically, when the Pistols started, I thought that they were, or sounded like, a youth club heavy metal band. Not the songs, or the vocals, or even the presentation but the actual sound of the band. It wasn’t a weak sound, but it wasn’t particularly pokey. Within three months, they’d perked it up a lot. RM) How big an influence was Dave Goodman to their sound? Ron) He brought a lot of stuff to them. He gave them a lot of advice. He’d make them sound a lot more pokey, he’d get them to do things. I spent a lot of time with Dave Goodman, as when you’re a promoter, you’re there to open it up. And Dave used to arrive early, you know, he’d arrive at four in the afternoon. I’d give him a hand in with some of the gear, and we’d spend some time together as we’d be the only ones there for a couple of hours. I’d be answering the phone and stuff, doing other things like that, but I got to know that guy. He never actually spoke to me about Punk. He mentioned the Pistols, but he never actually spoke about the Punk movement. I wish I’d recorded all those conversations!RM) Did you always fill the 100 Club? Ron) Well, after the first couple of months, it filled out, yeah. I mean, the Pistols didn’t pull a crowd for about their first six gigs. We’re talking about 50 – 80 people, the Bromley Contingent and a few interested parties!
RM) Some people must’ve come in to watch the Pistols out of curiosity? Maybe just walking by the club, then deciding to see what was going on in there, and finding their lives would never be quite the same again? Ron) Yeah, I think that younger people who come down to see it would change. They’d come down the first night with long hair and flares, and by the third night they’d seen them they’d come down in drainpipes and Punk haircut, you know?
RM) What about the other clubs, Ron, like the Roxy? Ron) Went to the Roxy, yes, many times. It was a bit of a pokey hole actually. The Roxy didn’t last long. The Vortex I went to. The stories I used to hear about that place! It was more of a disco crowd, actually. Rent-a-Punk, you know? It wasn’t for the faint hearted, not very savoury! RM) Did you get to read many of the fanzines? Ron) Yeah, I did. I used to see them all. We had one out in the Home Counties called the Buckshee Press, which is a piss take of the Bucks Free Press, of course there was Sniffin’ Glue, we used to see that at the 100 Club all the time. There were others, too, I came across them all over the place, actually, some of them were just one issue, you know, and just a couple of pages.RM) Did you know Mark Perry and the music hacks the time? Ron) Yeah, I knew Mark. Caroline Coon, too. Caroline has been very kind to me in her books, and things, you know. In fact she blamed me, or congratulated me for the whole of Punk in one of them, special thanks to Ron Watts, and that’s nice! Caroline was the first dedicated journalist who wanted to see Punk happen. And, I’m glad in a way that it happened for her, too, because she put her money on the table, you know? Same as I did. She ran that Release thing, which got all the hippies out of jail for cannabis. She was ahead of her time, I mean seriously, you can’t lock someone up for 6 months for smoking cannabis! RM) Changing tack again, Ron. What did you think of Malcolm Mclaren? Ron) I like Malcolm personally. No doubt, you know, I’m not just saying that. On first impressions he looked like an Edwardian gentleman. He’d got that off to a tee, I’d never seen anyone look like him, actually. I never had any bad dealings with him, and he was always very straightforward.RM) People either loved or loathed Mclaren. John Lydon isn’t a fan. Ron) Yeah, I think it was more of a financial thing, but I mean, John Lydon should also remember that without Mclaren he probably wouldn’t have been in them. Mclaren set the scene going, I was the first to pick it up, from that, before recording deals, but he never stuffed me like he stuffed the record companies. They made a lot of money, initially.RM) Did the record companies drop the band so willingly because it was Jubilee year? Ron) Well, the Pistols were full on and did it. I mean, “God Save The Queen” become one of the biggest selling British hit singles, didn’t it? It’s still selling now! And they wouldn’t let it on the shelves, would they. Bless ‘em! RM) You were on the legendary ’77 boat trip up the Thames, when the Pistols played and Mclaren got arrested. What was that like? Ron) It was lovely! You should’ve been there, honestly. The band were ok, they just did their normal gig. I enjoyed seeing people that you wouldn’t expect, talking to each other. When you’ve got the boss of Virgin, that business empire, talking to Sid Vicious, can you imagine what sort of conversation they had?! I’d loved to have taken a tape recorder in there! RM) Do you think the police raid on the boat was planned? Ron) I tell you what, I was amazed at that. I was actually on deck, and the boat was going downstream, back towards Westminster Pier. The Pistols were playing, and it got a bit jostley. You know, a bit of charging about in a small space ‘cause it wasn’t very big, the boat, really. So, I went out on to the deck by the railings, and a couple of other people come and joined me. There was plenty of food and drink, and I had a beer and a chicken leg or something, you know. And I’m looking and I can see these two police boats, and they were a way off. Downstream, I could see two more police boats, and they were a way off, too. I carried on eating the chicken and drinking the beer, looked round, and they were all there, together, at the same time! I mean, the degree of professionalism was just amazing! And then they were on that boat, in force, like about twelve or fifteen coppers, in moments. The boat was quite high sided, but they were up there. And you know what they were doing, they were up there and on that boat and we were escorted into the Westminster Pier basin.RM) Then Mclaren was nicked. Do you reckon he did just enough to get the publicity of an arrest without being charged with anything serious? Ron) I saw that. He got a lot of press out of it, yeah. He knew. Everybody turned to me, to try and sort it all out. One of them was a Countess! RM) Ron, you mentioned that no other bands were on the boat. Was there a real rivalry between these new bands at the time? Ron) The Jam were the young upstarts according to the Pistols, you know. The Clash were their biggest rivals at the time. The Damned, they had no time for.RM) Why don’t The Damned get their due credit? In my opinion, they should. Ron) I don’t know. A lot of people say they’re just a Punk cocktail act. You don’t see a lot about them, and yet they were the first to get a single out and they could play. Scabies could play. Brian James come up brilliant, but then he’d have done anything, if they’d have asked him to join Led Zeppelin he’d have done that, and Captain (Sensible), well I like Captain.RM) Buzzcocks were, from what I’ve heard on bootlegs, a bit rough to start with. They really hit a rich seam once they got up and running. Ron) If the Buzzcocks could make it, anybody could. I wasn’t impressed, really. But what’s in the future’s in the future, you never know what is at the time. They blossomed.
RM) And Magazine? Did you rate them? Ron) Yeah, I did. Brilliant guitarist, John McGeoch. And Penetration, they were a good band, and X-Ray Spex.
RM) Which bands are you the most pleased to have seen play? Ron) Well, I mean, it’s all of them. But where do you start?! Alright, the Pistols and The Clash, definitely, yeah. The Jam – pleased to see them anywhere, anytime. I did enjoy the Damned at an early stage, but they’re not in the top 5. And Sham 69, and The Heartbreakers.RM) I heard “Pretty Vacant” on the radio in my car earlier today, and I got the old goose bumps. Does any of the music from that time affect you the same? Ron) All the early Pistols stuff, yeah!RM) What’s your view on Punk and Reggae getting married? Ron) Yeah, if people want to get together and cross pollinate ideas, then that’s alright. It was the underbelly, twice. You had the white working class and the black working class responding to each other at last! RM) Some Punk bands who had a go at playing Reggae were better than others. Ruts, SLF and of course The Clash all cracked it in their own styles… Ron) The worst Reggae act I ever saw, were The Slits. Actually, probably just the worst act! RM) Do you think that Punk and Reggae blending in ’77 was the root of Two Tone? Ron) Yes. I’m sure it came out of that. I used to have a lot of Reggae acts on in that club, aside from Punk and the Blues and everything. I’d put on Steele Pulse, or an American Blues artist like Muddy Waters, as long as it was what I liked. RM) Your best front men and women? Ron) I’m thinking about this one…The best oddball front man was Wayne County. Best front woman, from what I saw, Faye Fife.RM) You rate Faye Fife over Poly Styrene?Ron) You’re putting me on the spot there! I’d put them equal for different reasons. Faye used to put on a great act. They were perennially at the club and at the Nags Head. Because I had so many venues, when they were coming down again, I needed to know, because that’s three bookings to give them. It was always like, “get your diary out, mate, when you coming down?” If I gave them three bookings, they’d come down, and they could fill it out with other stuff, do the rounds. X-Ray Spex were good, too. Really good band. The Rezillos are still going, actually. RM) I watched a documentary on TV the other night about that Stiff Records tour. The one where they hired a train from BR. Ron) They did the first night for me, at High Wycombe, yeah. There were some funny people there! Wreckless Eric was at the Punk thing I did in Blackpool this year. It took me about an hour to recognise him. I kept looking and looking and vaguely remembered him. Not a nice bloke. RM) Here’s the last one, Ron. Punk lit a fuse for many people. I’m one (albeit two years late), the other people who contributed questions to this interview are others and there’s millions more. As Ed Armchair puts it, his fuse is still burning to this day, and has affected virtually every aspect of his life since it was lit. Do you have the same feelings about Punk as we do? Ron) Yes. I got going through that and it still survives. My first love in music was, and is, Blues. I see a lot of similarities between Punk and Blues. They both come from the underbelly of a society, and they’ve both triumphed against all the odds. They both spoke for their people of that time and place. They’ll reverberate forever. Punk freshened up a stale music scene and the Blues were the bedrock for twentieth and twenty-first century music.RM) Ron, thanks for your time and best of luck with your new projects.END
SEX PISTOLS WERE FINANCED BY USSR TO ‘DESTABILIZE WESTERN WORLD’, ADMITS EX-KGB AGENT
Alexandrei Varennikovic Voloshin, a retired KGB agent, has admitted this week on National Russian Television (NTV) that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was behind the creation of the 1970s punk scene and financed major punk bands such as the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Ramones.
The USSR government at the time spent “hundreds of millions of rubles” on this covert operation destined to “create utter chaos” and “pervert the Western youth to nihilist, anti-establishment and anti-American ideologies” he explained in an hour-long interview broadcast on national television.
Famous punk songs of the legendary punk band the Sex pistols were even scripted by a team of psychologists and war propagandists of the USSR.
“I am an anarchist”, “God save the Queen the fascist regime”, “No future” and other nihilist and anti-establishment lyrics were intended to unleash a wave of cynicism towards authorities, promote the use of heavy drugs and entice the youth with revolutionary, counter-establishment ideas.
The 1970s punk subculture movement was allegedly financed by the USSR, says ex-KGB agent, Alexandrei Varennikovic Voloshin
The retired KGB agent claims the maneuver was extremely successful.
“We understood at the time that music was a powerful means of propaganda to reach the youth”explained the 77-year old man.
“Our mission was to use teenage angst to our advantage and turn the baby boomer generation of the West into a decadent, pro-drug and anti-establishment culture that would create uprisings and bring Western democracies into utter chaos.
We even infiltrated mainstream radios to promote their music and reach millions of people every day” he admitted, visibly proud of the accomplishment.
“For many of us in the KGB, infiltrating the 1970s punk scene was one of the USSR’s most successful experiments of propaganda to date” he acknowledged during the interview.
Punks burning a U.S. flag in the early 1980s, influenced by the punk music scene which was allegedly financed by the USSR
Some experts openly admit Punk nihilism, which was expressed in the use of harder, more self-destructive drugs like heroin and methamphetamine, pushed United States President Richard Nixon into the War on Drugs, a campaign of prohibition of drugs, military aid, and military intervention, with the stated aim being to define and reduce the illegal drug trade within America and around the world.
Its long been talked about how the Russians and Americans used many tools in the cold war to try to cause destabilisation. In UK extremist groups such as the Irish Republican Army, National Front, Socialist Workers party are all rumoured to have recieved funding from Russia, to create divide and ultimately civil war or revolution.
“What makes Gavin’s photos so special is that when you look at them, there’s clearly trust from the subject towards the photographer so it feels like you’re in the photo rather than just observing’.”
— Shane Meadows
BIOGRAPHY
Gavin Watson was born in London in 1965 and grew up on a council estate in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. He bought a Hanimex camera from Woolworths in his early teens and began to take photographs. Upon leaving school at the age of sixteen, Watson moved back to London and became a darkroom assistant at Camera Press. He continued to hang out and photograph his group of skinhead friends in High Wycombe.
The ‘Wycombe Skins’ were part of the working-class skinhead subculture brought together by a love of ska music and fashion. Although skinhead style had become associated with the right-wing extremism of political groups like the National Front in the 1970s, Watson’s photographs document a time and place where the subculture was racially mixed and inclusive. His photographs were published in the books Skins (1994) and Skins and Punks (2008), and the director Shane Meadows cited them as an inspiration for his film This is England (2006)
From its emergence in the 1970s, punk rock was a movement which concerned itself with the present. Its hallmarks were rock ‘n’ roll, a do-it-yourself attitude and a good sense of humor. As it spread from the U.S. to the U.K., it would also come to include a distinctive political sensibility. Many of the early punks were young people who actively sought to distance themselves from their upbringings, from any kind of ethnic ties, and to form new identities through their art.
Given the punk attitude of leaving the past behind and forging a new way forward, it seems counterintuitive to connect punk rock with Judaism. Yet punk, like many art forms to come out of New York City, has deep roots in Jewish history. From its origins with Jewish musicians in the 1970s to modern-day Jewish punk bands, the histories of Jewish culture and punk rock are deeply intertwined.
Many of the people involved in the original punk scene in 1970s New York were the children of working- and middle-class Jews. Their backgrounds ranged from overtly religious to secular and culturally Jewish, but all of them were formed by their Jewish backgrounds and would in turn bring those influences to their music and performances. These included not just musicians—such as Joey and Tommy Ramone, Chris Stein of Blondie, Lenny Kaye of the Patti Smith Group, Richard Hell, and all of The Dictators—but also managers, photographers, club owners and more. Punk might not exist as we know it without the Jewish club manager Hilly Kristal, founder and owner of CBGB, the club where many New York punks performed for the first time. Nor would it have made it to the U.K. without Jewish manager and Sex Pistols founder Malcolm McLaren. Jewish record company executives like Seymour Stein recorded the music, while Jewish photographers like Bob Gruen documented the scene for posterity.
However, despite the large Jewish presence in early punk, many were reluctant to discuss their Jewish heritage. Like many Jewish entertainers, quite a few punks took on less Jewish-sounding stage names (like Thomas Erdelyi and Jeffrey Hyman, who became Tommy and Joey Ramone, respectively), while others had their names changed by their parents in childhood, in order to better fit into the American middle class (as with punk godfather Lou Reed, whose father changed the family name from Rabinowitz). Some even went as far as denying or refusing to discuss their Jewish heritage. While for some this may have reflected their discomfort with their Jewish identities, many more undoubtedly did it as part of embracing punk’s freedom to recreate oneself. “The tabula rasa aspect of punk is one of the most important things about it,” says Vivien Goldman, who was a music journalist covering punk in the U.K. in the 1970s and is now the author of Revenge of the She-Punks, a book on women and punk. Although Goldman’s Jewish background is certainly important to her—her parents were Holocaust survivors, and she is a first generation British citizen—she believes that “to be a punk was to liberate yourself from what had gone before.”
This seemed to be the predominant belief among punks of the 1970s on both sides of the Atlantic. Jewish culture was rarely at the forefront of punk music, even if its creators were quietly Jewish behind the scenes. Some offhand references to Jewish culture crept into the occasional song, but these were “few and far between and largely subterranean,” says Michael Croland, author of the books Oy Oy Oy Gevalt!: Jews and Punk and Punk Rock Hora: Adventures in Jew-Punk Land. These references were largely secular and easy to miss, such as The Ramones’s reference to “kosher salamis” in the song “Commando.”
Quite a few punks took on less Jewish-sounding stage names—like Thomas Erdelyi and Jeffrey Hyman, who became Tommy and Joey Ramone.
Something that did become part of the imagery for many early punks—Jews and non-Jews alike—was, counterintuitively, Nazi imagery. Young punks were known to wear swastikas and, particularly in the New York scene, collect Nazi memorabilia. The reason for this can seem difficult to grasp. “They weren’t serious [about being Nazis],” says Goldman, however she also adds, “I didn’t like it, and a lot of us didn’t like it.” One reason for the use of the swastika by U.K. punks, as Goldman and others have speculated, is that it was a way to rebel against their parents, the generation that had lived through World War II and had yet to stop talking about it. In America, Steven Lee Beeber speculates in his book The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s: A Secret History of Jewish Punk that the use of Nazi imagery was a means for Jews to take back control of the narrative, to control former Nazi property, to play with it and poke fun at it as they pleased.
Starting in the 1980s, punk underwent a series of musical and cultural changes. By this point, many of the best-known original punk bands had either broken up or evolved their sound to fit punk’s new commercial market. However, their early work had permanently changed the music world, especially for young people, with new punk bands arising and the genre spawning new offshoots such as post-punk and new wave. Punk was disseminated beyond its original scenes, leading the musical style to be adopted for new purposes. This included, for the first time, Jewish punk bands who embraced their Jewish identity in their music, rather than relegating it to the background.
According to Croland, the first such band was Jews from the Valley, which arose from the L.A. punk scene in 1981. At the time, they were still somewhat of an outlier. While new punk bands like Bad Religion and NOFX carried the 1970s torch in having Jewish members while not making most of their music about Judaism, Croland says that Jews from the Valley began when “one guy was screaming along to ‘Hava Nagila’ one day and thought, ‘I should distort that and put that into a song.’” That guy was Mark Hecht, and the song and the band both became known as Jews from the Valley, and thus began the short-lived career of the first Jewish punk band. Their music incorporated well-known Jewish songs such as “Hava Nagila,” original songs with Jewish themes, and a good dose of Jewish/punk humor and offensiveness. The band broke up after just a couple years, and at the time, it seems there were no other bands making punk music explicitly Jewish.
The 1990s saw punk undergo yet more major changes. In the early and mid-90s, punk (or pop punk, depending on who you ask) became radio-friendly, with bands like Green Day and The Offspring mainstreaming the genre. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, many pop punk bands rose to fame. The other major punk revolution of the decade was Riot Grrrl, a movement which combined punk rock style and aesthetics with feminist politics. Though women had been present in punk scenes since the beginning, feminism was now being brought to the forefront of punk politics, and all-female punk bands such as Bikini Kill were rising to prominence. On a somewhat smaller scale, Jewish identity also became a more prominent feature of punk, helped by the fact that Jewishness was becoming a more acceptable topic in popular music at large (a trend which Croland partially credits to Adam Sandler’s “Chanukah Song”). Though there was not—and is not—really a Jewish punk “scene,” the 1990s was the first time that multiple Jewish punk bands came into existence simultaneously.
Probably the most prominent example of such a band was the Australian group Yidcore. Formed in 1998, they put their Jewish identity at the forefront of their music and performances, albeit not in a particularly serious way. “They were all about shtick,” says Croland, “whether that was drinking Manischewitz wine out of a shofar, getting into food fights on stage with hummus or bagels or falafel, or using their songs to try to woo Natalie Portman.” They drew on the traditions of the early punk scene, not just in musical style, but also in their love of humor and irony, while adding an in-your-face Jewish twist which early punk bands lacked. The group stayed together for over a decade, becoming perhaps the best-known Jewish punk band.
In the 21st century, punk has splintered into many styles and subgenres, including the further development of “Jewish punk” and “punk-influenced Jewish music” as genres unto themselves. With punk so well integrated into the musical mainstream, it is hard to point to an insular “punk scene” such as that of 1970s New York, but instead, punk and its offshoots have spread out, both stylistically and geographically.
Moshiach Oi! performing at the book launch for Michael Croland’s Punk Rock Hora in March 2019 (Credit: Shloyo Witriol)
While Jewish punk continues to be a niche genre, several bands have carved out an unabashedly Jewish space in the modern world of punk. Moshiach Oi! is one such band. Formed in 2008 and still active today, the band performs songs with an overtly religious bent, made to showcase its love of Torah. In the realm of cultural Jewishness, The Shondes has become a successful punk band that is open about its Jewish roots. “I came into playing rock music through Riot Grrrl and queercore—radical punk movements that helped shape my aesthetics and politics at a really formative age,” says Louisa Solomon, the band’s singer. The Shondes’ music combines rock and radical politics with references to Jewish proverbs and melodies, a combination which came naturally. “We write as full people informed by all of our experiences,” says violinist Elijah Oberman. “Jewishness is one part of that, just as our experiences as queer or as women or trans/non-binary people are. Jewish stories and ritual are a part of how we’ve come to be who we are, and so are Jewish melodies.”
The Shondes at a seder in their new Passover-themed music video “True North” (Credit: Jeanette Sears)
The Shondes
Similarly, punk—both its aesthetic and its attitude—has permeated more traditional forms of Jewish music, including klezmer and simcha music. Younger musicians like Daniel Kahn grew up with punk as part of their musical taste. Kahn has taken aspects of punk and made them part of his klezmer-based repertoire, creating a self-described “radical Yiddish punkfolk cabaret.” Similarly, bands such as Electric Simcha have adapted aspects of punk to simcha music—traditional Jewish music played at celebrations such as weddings. Just as punk has influenced non-Jewish forms of music, forming such genres as pop punk, so too have there been multiple punk-y variations of Jewish music.
The fact that punk has been and continues to be influenced by Jewishness (and vice versa) speaks to the core concerns at the center of both cultures. In discussing why Jews continue to be drawn to punk, Oberman gets to the heart of one of their most essential similarities: “Jews are taught to wrestle with G-d, and to me that also means wrestling with our texts, our rituals, our traditions. When even the things you hold most sacred are always up for debate, I think that can lead to a level of comfort with deep questioning of how things are or are supposed to be. Pretty punk, yeah?”
Image captionChuck D on The Clash: “They taught us to fight for what really matters”.
When Public Enemy frontman Chuck D was introduced to the righteous punk of The Clash, he didn’t get it.
“I thought they were a bunch of people with brand new music that were whining about their existence,” he tells the BBC.
“I didn’t think their problems were as severe as black people’s problems, but oppression is oppression and abuse is abuse.
“At that age I didn’t know how much their pain was. I do now.”
What the rapper later discovered was a band who were unafraid to take artistic chances, filing front-line reports on the poverty, boredom and lack of opportunity facing the British working class.
Fiery and idealistic, their music nonetheless seemed alien to a hip-hop fan in Long Island… until Chuck D’s friend Bill Stephney told him Public Enemy should be the rap equivalent of The Clash.
“The idea was that we were going to do something that would have a level of intellectual heft,” Stephney later recalled.
“It would have some substance to it, but it had to rock the party.”
The song that first made Chuck D “pay attention” to The Clash was The Magnificent Seven – unsurprising, given that it was itself inspired by the boombox rap of Grandmaster Flash and the Sugarhill Gang.
Built around a loping bass line (played by Norman Watt-Roy of the Blockheads) it saw Joe Strummer pick apart the human cost of capitalism, as he chronicled a day in the life of a minimum wage supermarket employee.
Image captionThe Clash originated from the punk scene but quickly outgrew it
The combination of rap and a social message made a big impression; and Chuck cannily noted that reporters often talked about The Clash’s message as much as their music.
“They talked about important subjects, so therefore journalists printed what they said, which was very pointed,” he told NBC earlier this year.
“We took that from the Clash, because we were very similar in that regard. Public Enemy just did it 10 years later.”
Musically, Public Enemy were just as revolutionary, with cacophonous soundscapes that relied on avant-garde cut and paste techniques, brutal beats and the squeal of police sirens.
But of all the qualities they shared with The Clash – from attitude and lyrical urgency to musical innovation – Chuck says the most important was “fearlessness”.
Both bands fought for social and racial justice, and both faced criticism for their depictions of police brutality: The Clash on Know Your Rights and Public Enemy on Fight The Power.
But they remained staunchly, defiantly independent – even though, in The Clash’s case, they were signed to (and in some cases strait-jacketed by) a major international record label.
Chuck D suggests that most modern acts lack that spirit.
“Bands today want to sell out,” he says. “They’re not pressured to stay broke and unknown and unpopular.
“They want to be popular and known and able to make a living… so it’s hard to tell young people to stand up for something and not worry about being paid.
“And who can blame them? As you grow up, you gotta work. They want to be able to do their music and art and make a living at it and you gotta honour that.”
Image captionChuck D and Public Enemy – the band he once described as an “information portal”
If you think the firebrand rapper sounds like he’s mellowing out, you’d be right.
Whereas once he declared: “Elvis was a hero to most / But he never meant [expletive] to me,” the 58-year-old no longer agrees with The Clash’s 1977 manifesto, “No Elvis, no Beatles or Rolling Stones”.
“Time has erased the golden idols and the only thing that fights against time is the proper curation of their works,” he says, presumably with one eye on his own legacy.
His own contribution to preserving The Clash’s legacy comes in an eight-part podcast, produced by Spotify and BBC Studios, which follows the punk heroes from their origins at the 1976 Notting Hill riots, to their clashes with the National Front, their struggle for creative control and their later experiments in funk, jazz, reggae and dub.
“It’s the story of a band that changed everything,” he says.
“They taught us to fight for what really matters – and to do it as loud as hell.”
Stay Free: The Story of The Clash is available now on Spotify.
Check out Subcultz event, The Great Skinhead Reunion Brighton
John Daly’s Hollywood-like life has been equally exciting and – given his mission to give back to the world while constantly skirting the grim reaper – inspiring.
BY MAXINE LIPTZEN DOROT OCTOBER 15, 2016 02:59
Keeping active, John Daly pedals long distances over difficult European roads to help raise funds for orphans in Nepal. (photo credit: RONY R. BOONEN)
Metro readers first met 43-year-old John Daly in February 2009 in “The Harrowing Life of a Jewish Skinhead.” The article detailed his unbelievable life as a member and eventual leader of the North Florida branch of the Nazi Skinhead American Front.
Growing up in a small town in Florida, John Daly hooked up with a group of nonconformist kids with whom he thought he could fit in – an anti-racist skinhead group named after the county he lived in, Marion County Against Racism (MCAR).
While most people immediately associate the word “skinhead” with “Nazis,” there are different types of skinheads that most people don’t know about: non-racist SHARPs (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice), and those who are black, Jewish and even gay.
As Daly recounts, “In my small high school in Ocala, if you weren’t on a sports team, you were a nobody. I wanted to be accepted so I got involved in an anti-racist group of skinheads, MCAR. We didn’t do much of anything except hang out and talk about what was going on with the racist skins in larger cities, relieved we didn’t have them in our town.
“The guys all knew I was Jewish, but it didn’t bother anyone. It was all cool.”
One night, two of Daly’s friends went to Orlando, where they were approached by local racist skinheads (neo-Nazis) and were ordered, with threats of beatings and intimidation, to give the neo-Nazis the names and addresses of their skinhead friends in Ocala for recruitment in order to build up their dwindling ranks. One of the names was Daly’s.
Several days later, there was a knock on the door of the Daly home. When John opened it, he saw three neo-Nazi skinheads, complete with swastika tattoos. Afraid to let them in his house where they’d see the family’s menorah and other Judaica, he got in their car and drove off with them. He knew that if they had come into his house and saw the “Jewish stuff,” they’d kill him.
In the car, the three Nazi gang members took turns telling him stories about how certain individuals had been mysteriously hurt and hospitalized trying to escape. The driver then turned to Daly, put out his hand and said, “Welcome aboard.” Daly, a nice Jewish kid from a nice Jewish home, was now officially a neo-Nazi skinhead.
He lived in constant fear that his secret would come out. Whenever Jews came up in conversation, he would change the subject, saying, “Well you know there’s no shortage of minorities.”
Most of the time, he and his buddies would hang out, drink and fight “rednecks.” Daly had a sharp tongue and would verbally go after people, scaring them off with threats. This earned him a reputation as a good fighter and kept him from having to use his fists.
Daly miraculously escaped death when his Jewish identity was revealed by a jilted girlfriend of one of the skinheads, and the furious neo-Nazis decided it was time to “kill the Jew.”
He was beaten viciously and then plunged into the Atlantic Ocean to the chants of “Die, Jew boy! Die!” Thinking they had succeeded in drowning him, the would-be murderers fled, but miraculously Daly survived and made his way home.
While in the hospital, he was questioned by police. The skinheads, realizing they were in serious trouble, testified against each other to avoid long prison sentences, all the while planning revenge against “that dirty Jew.”
Upon recovering from his injuries, Daly took up martial arts, knowing he had a target on his back. He eventually earned numerous black belts in three different types of martial arts.
IN SEPTEMBER 1997, as the last of the skinheads were being released from prison, Daly, then 23, made aliya and was sent to Ashkelon because there was an opening in the absorption center there. He learned Hebrew and adjusted to his new life, doing volunteer work wherever he felt there was a need for his help. He has been living in Ashkelon ever since.
In 1999, taking a break from his studies in Ashkelon College, he accepted a job offer to go on a speaking tour around the US. His incredible story was the catalyst for raising awareness of the dangers of the growing threats of racism and the skinhead movement there.
He visited Anti-Defamation League chapters, Jewish and Christian groups, schools and retirement homes to talk about Israel. He was also a motivational speaker for addicts and at-risk youth.
Not being drafted into the IDF – though not for lack of trying and never getting an answer as to why he had been rejected – Daly views his speaking on behalf of Israel wherever he goes as his “personal army service.”
In 2001, he was accepted into an academic program offered by the Jewish Agency. This allowed him to go to college tuition-free in return for volunteering (which he had already been doing). He earned a bachelor’s in sociology and political science from Ashkelon College and Bar-Ilan University, with a minor in Judaic studies. A master’s in public policy and administration followed a few years later.
Since returning from his US speaking tour, Daly has been busy with jobs as a travel agent and teacher, but his passion is still volunteering. For many years he was the Ashkelon volunteer coordinator for Yedid, a nonprofit with one stated aim – to empower people to solve their problems by teaching them to work together to find solutions on a local or national level. In February 2009, Daly ran for the Knesset with the Hayisraelim Party on a platform of electoral change. (The party didn’t win any seats.) He has also been active in the English Speakers of Ashkelon and with a city animal rights group.
DALY WAS leading a healthy, active life, which came to a sudden halt on October 10, 2009.
In a synagogue enjoying Simhat Torah services, he suddenly crashed to the floor – having suffered, for the first time ever, a seizure. He regained consciousness in the ER of Ashkelon’s Barzilai Medical Center, totally oblivious to what had landed him there and to the fact that he had undergone several tests and a CT scan.
Electrodes connected to an EEG help to track seizures caused by a brain tumor that is an inoperable cancer (photo credit: GAL SELA)
He was soon transferred to Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba where, relying on the CT, doctors told him that he had a brain tumor resting on the right frontal lobe (which controls higher mental functions, motor skills, emotional stability and helps with concentration) and there was nothing to do but give him anti-seizure medication.
Three days later, Daly was sent home with a bagful of medication, and returned to college life. He was summoned for an MRI a month later; there, Soroka’s chief of neurosurgery gave him the grim news, “The only person I know who might be able to help is Prof.
Tsvi Ram at Ichilov Hospital [part of Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center]. He’s your one chance. Good luck.”
Daly’s records were sent to Prof. Ram at the end of December 2009. With his mother, Ruth, one of his brothers and his then-girlfriend anxiously waiting, He endured his first “awake” brain surgery, a procedure during which the patient is totally conscious in order to respond to different commands to see how their brain is functioning.Recommended videos
He was given a sedative to relax him and a local anesthesia was injected into his scalp. The anesthesia didn’t take, which according to doctors happens in just 1 percent of patients – and he was one of that group. He remembers intense, agonizing pain, screaming, cursing, yelling, drilling and the sounds of anxious voices all around him trying to calm him down.
Because of the excruciating pain, not only could he not pay attention to what was being asked of him, there was the real possibility of a life-threatening seizure. The anesthesiologist then sedated him completely. One of the results of this surgery was that his left side became partially paralyzed and he still endured massive seizures after the operation. To minimize the episodes, he started on doses of medications but nothing helped; he was time and again experiencing potentially fatal seizures.
His life became a series of doctor visits with regular trips to an epileptologist, a neurosurgeon, a neurologist and a neuro-oncologist. Throughout all this, he still managed to volunteer at Yedid to the best of his abilities. On September 2013, back in the hospital, Daly was taken off all medications for a full week. This was done to induce seizures so a video testing system could track them, allowing the specialists to understand them better. He was a prisoner in his hospital room, attached to electrodes and cables. It was here that he celebrated his 40th birthday, not knowing if he’d reach his 41st.
These procedures led to a second awake brain surgery in February 2014, carried out with the help of Dr. Gal Sela, a neuropsychologist. Ram once again performed the procedure and, thankfully, it went smoothly and without pain. During the operation, a portion of the tumor was successfully excised, but not all of it could be removed. As a result, Daly still has seizures, though they aren’t as aggressive.
Incredibly, after long months of physiotherapy, he was able to return to his life with some physical limitations. He still does volunteer work and lectures in high schools and colleges around the country, never covering the long, bright scar that runs across the top and side of his head. For him, it is a badge of honor.
Daly considers the long scar running across the top and the side of his head a badge of honor (photo credit: RONY R. BOONEN)
IN JULY 2014, Daly was tracked down by a former friend who had been a member of the skinheads but was not in on the attempt to kill him. He wanted to make amends for his youth.
Although there was the chance it was a setup, Daly agreed to meet him, hoping that the friend’s goal was indeed legitimate.
The friend invited him to Prague, and since his seizures were less aggressive and to conquer his fear of traveling and meeting someone from his vicious past, Daly flew to meet him. This meeting resulted in a soon-to-be-released documentary, Escape From Room 18, making the rounds of global film festivals this season.
At an international pro-Israel rally in Jerusalem, Daly met a Belgian woman named Sandy, a staunch supporter of Israel. Intrigued by his life story, she invited him to Europe for the first of several trips speaking with audiences all over the continent.
This connection led him to an orphanage in Nepal founded and privately supported by a group of Belgians. To raise funds, they sponsored a bicycle trip, and Daly – who for years was not allowed to ride a bike or even think of driving a car – got the okay from his doctor and volunteered to join, provided he wore protective gear. he trained hard in preparation for this trip and was proud and elated to be an active part of it.
From this past May through August, under the Daly-designed banner of “Survivors for Survivors,” off he rode through wind, rain and heat on bumpy European roads. Exhilarated and crying with joy as he rode, thinking again and again, “I’m not supposed to able to do this,” he and his team got donations from as far away as Australia and the US. In the end, they raised more than €4,000.
To ensure all the money makes its way to the orphanage, Daly has been asked to go to Nepal for two weeks. He plans to expand the operation of the orphanage and to repair damage caused by the massive 2015 earthquake.
TODAY, DALY is in a watch-and-wait state. His tumor is an inoperable cancer that is constantly growing, albeit very, very slowly. If the tumor gets to the point where it must be treated, Daly will have radiation and chemotherapy treatments, but no one can predict how his tumor will behave.
Meanwhile, he lives an amazingly active life with daily doses of medicines to ward off potentially fatal seizures, which could happen at any time. The average life expectancy for someone with his type of tumor is five years.
Daly is going into his eighth.
Daly and his mother, Ruth, share a light and caring moment at her home in Ashkelon (photo credit: JOHN DALY)
“I’ve been living under a death sentence since I was 17, and now this tumor can go crazy at any time,” he says.
“Just as I refused to let the skinheads win, I won’t let this mass in my brain stop me from fighting for this country with my words, encouraging support of Israel from people abroad and helping people living here.”
Besides the surgical staff who saved his life, there is another hero in this saga: Ruth Daly, his beloved mom.
Having her son lead the dangerous life he did as a teen would be enough to overwhelm any parent, but Ruth, constantly worried for her son’s safety, was always there for him. No matter what, he always knew that he had a loving home to return to along with unconditional love.
Ruth made aliya to Ashkelon in 2009, a year after becoming a widow – Daly’s father, Ken, is buried in the Ashkelon cemetery. Ruth still worries about her son and is frightened for his health, safety and well-being, but one would never know it since she’s always smiling and laughing. When she looks up at her 1.8-meter-tall son, it is with a tremendous amount of love and a bit of awe that he’s still beating the odds.
Daly ended his meeting with Metro on a pensive note.
“When they tried to kill me, they shouted, ‘Die, Jew boy! Die!’ but they failed spectacularly. My revenge is not only living, but living in Israel, sharing my love for my heritage and this country, even if it costs me my life. You know, it’s very simple. They lost. I won.”
Daly’s Hollywood-like life has been equally exciting and – given his mission to give back to the world while constantly skirting the grim reaper – inspiring.
Todd Youth passes away, a huge loss to the Punk Rock community worldwide
NYHC legend Todd Youth, who played in Agnostic Front, Warzone, Murphy’s Law, D Generation, Danzig, and more, and most recently Fireburn, has reportedly passed away. Todd’s Fireburn bandmate Ras Israel Joseph I (also formerly of Bad Brains) posted on Facebook:
On the passing of my friend, and my Brother Todd Youth There are no words to express how sad I am at the passing of my brother Todd Youth. The music he made will forever be remembered, and I’m so thankful that I was able to work with him and that we created Fireburn together. Todd and I were living separate lives doing hardcore and reggae music. We met each other in 1992 and then never spoke again until 2017. We created Fireburn within two weeks of knowing each other and finished writing two of my favorite hardcore records that I ever worked on: “Don’t stop the youth”, and “Shine”. Closed casket records signed the band and we were on our way. We had great shows and lots of people showed up to them. We toured with gbh from England, hung out with the guys from Negative Approach, and got our blessings about our music and our records from the Bad Brains. I know that Todd is now resting in peace and I know that Krishna is taking his soul to a better place. He was a devout Hari Krishna and The Devout human being. Todd wherever you are I hope that we will make music again one day. Life is a circle and I know I’ll meet you again in that circle brother. We will meet again. Rest In Peace, Rest In Power, rest my brother. I am saddened that we cannot make music again together, but I am happy that you are finally going home to be with Krishna that Haile Selassie has finally giving you peace and comfort my brother. one day, I too will lay down and die. This body that I ware is temporary. I will probably be alone. They’re probably be no one around me. However I know that I will join you and all of our other friends in that good place and we’ll all see each other again. I’m sorry you died Todd. I’m sorry I can’t see you again. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you. You are my friend and my brother and I love you. Rest in peace my brother. May your visit to our Heavenly Home be full of peace, and comfort, and closeness to Krishna. Haribo. Haile Selassie I. FIREBURN.
Todd Youth live on stage
NYHC show promoters BlacknBlue Productions also posted, “I can’t ….. A very sad day for NYHC FAMILY . 😞😞😞🙏🏼🙏🏼 Todd Youth . We love you . Condolences to all friends & family . Tell the people you love that you love them any chance you get.”
Todd was always such a positive character and passionate about his music. The scene has lost a great character. On behalf of The British Skinhead and Punk scene I send my most sincere thoughts and love to all his family and friends across the pond
Symond ( subcultz ) England
Hatebreed also posted a tribute:
Rest in peace, Todd. You’ll be missed and your crucial contributions to NYHC and beyond will live on.
Watch the full set video of Todd playing with Warzone for the Raybeez tribute in 2017, stream the latest Fireburn single, and listen to one of the Murphy’s Law classics he recorded with them:
The Specials, Madness and The Selecter: The 1979 2-Tone tour remembered
Stuart Edema and Symond Lawes. Specials Graffiti 1979 by Gavin Watson
Reading this piece online got me thinking about 2tone. what a year that was, i was 14 years old, 3rd year at Hatters Lane secondary modern school High Wycombe. Youth cultures were all the rage as Punk Rock had caused a revolution in 1976 when the Sex Pistols launched an all out assault on the establishment. The British youth were rising, and no longer would be tools for the wealthy.
Micklefield estate covered about a square mile just the other side of the Greenbelt which surrounds London, a border designed to stop the spread of the Metropolis, but in the 1950’s many families were moved out of bomb damaged London to new estates, with gardens and fresh air, my family came out of North London Tottenham area. The fire of a city kid was in my veins, handed down through blood. Punk and the Aggro answered that energy. Also on my estate was a large number of West Indians,who started arriving from around 1964 to work as nurses and bus drivers, mainly from the Caribbean Island of St Vincent, who bought with them Rice and Peas, gambling, Cannabis, Calypso and Reggae music, setting up sound systems in council flats, booming the bass across the yard like a earthquake murmur.
Richard , Felix, Symond 1980, By Gavin Watson
Most families on the estate were a sort of immigrant, like a mini New York, Polish who had stayed after world war two, cut off by Communism, Irish escaping the troubles in Northern Ireland, or just looking for a steady job. Londoners bombed out and finding peace in the suburbs. Many old WW2 soldiers tending perfect gardens, Italians, Indians all in the mix.
But at the same time a real lot of political turbulence, high unemployment, especially for the youth, we saw no future, the National Front were busy recruiting the disenfranchised white working class, blaming immigration for the situation, the Socialist workers party condemning the views of the white working class, blaming them for the situation. Racial tension was at a knife edge. Music was the only thing that really drew people together, The Irish knew this with their rebel songs, The IRA were murdering people, bombing Belfast and mainland Britain. But something happened one Thursday night, which was for us our own revolution…. The Specials Gangsters hit the screen. 2tone changed my life forever.
Like a religion we all would sit indoors for that one hour a week, no kids were out on the street, Top of the Pops would showcase the top bands climbing the charts that week. Often airing acts you had never heard of, The large labels latest signings, as kids we looked for our gernre, the music which appealed to our youth tribe, for me that was Skinhead or Punk bands. whether it was planned by Gerry Dammers, or those bands from London and Coventry. The Specials, Madness, Selector, Bodysnatchers, The Beat, Badmanners, or not, they certainly nailed the energy across our estate, kids that looked and dressed like us. Black and white wearing hand me down clothing with an edge and style, shaved heads and Dr Martens, Reggae and Punk in the same song… My emotions exploded in a musical excitement frenzy. Fuck David Bowie……We were on Top Of The Pops!!!!!
Amazing to think after almost 40 years on Live in brighton 7th September, Neville Staple with his band performing many of those original songs mixed with some throughout his career ever since. Supported by a bran new band to take the music into today generation Dakka Skanks
I was reminiscing with an old friend over the weekend about The Specials, his favourite band. Our chat brought us to the great 1979 2-Tone Tour that featured The Specials, supported by Madness and The Selecter, a snapshot of which now duly follows.
The Specials Live on stage 2Tone Tour 1979
I was reminiscing with an old friend over the weekend about The Specials, his favourite band. Our chat brought us to the great 1979 2-Tone Tour that featured The Specials, supported by Madness and The Selecter, a snapshot of which now duly follows.
__________
October, 1979.
There are 43 alarm calls booked for this morning and – woe, pitiful woe! – they’ve started going off already, one of them heading this way.
The shrill exclamatory shrieks of the alarms is usually followed by weary grumbling moans and the thud of people rolling out of beds in rooms all along this wing of Swindon’s Crest Motel, where the cast of the 2-Tone Tour are beginning now to assemble in the lobby, pale-faced and hungover. The motel staff in startling contrast are, meanwhile, crisp and morning-bright, with gleaming toothpaste smiles and the brisk efficient manner of people with things to do.
Specials’ singer Terry Hall is here to see off his girlfriend, who’s going home to Coventry. And here comes The Specials’ unlikely mastermind, Jerry Dammers, lumbering into view, an awkward shambling figure in a shabby raincoat. He manages a smile, briefly. Woody, the young drummer with Madness, who looks about, I don’t know, 12 or something, lights his first fag of the day and immediately starts coughing like a Kentucky miner, stricken with Black Lung or something similarly serious.
“My body’s had enough of me,” he splutters, doubling up in a fit of coughing and hacking away so violently I wouldn’t be surprised to see his eyebrows fly across the room, followed possibly by his teeth. He finds a chair and collapses into it, his face drained of colour.
We’re only three days into the tour and some of the people in the lobby around me, which has taken on the look of a field hospital in a 19th century war, look like they won’t see the end of it.
Of course, it was all very different just a few short days ago when on a gloriously sunny autumn afternoon I’d arrived at The Roundhouse, up there in Chalk Farm, where The Specials, Madness and The Selecter had spent the previous week rehearsing for the 40 date tour ahead of them. When I get to there, The Roundhouse is as they say buzzing, the place noisy with chat and laughter. The coach that’s been hired to take us all to Brighton for the tour’s opening night is already an hour late, which means before we’ve even started we’re behind schedule. No one seems to care.
The three bands are strung out across the Roundhouse bar. The Selecter and Specials mingle, wander and joke. Madness are quaffing light and bitters, being noisy. They look like a gang of spotty kids waiting to be taken on a day trip to the seaside, yelping and impatient.
The 2tone tour reaches Brighton 1979
A friend of mine named Kellogs who works for Stiff as a tour manger is standing at the bar, watching them. When Stiff signed Madness, they were put in his paternal care. He’s just finished a fortnight on the road with the rascals, and they’ve nearly brought him to his knees.
“They make me feel so old,” he says wearily. “They just don’t stop. Up till four every morning, boozing. Look at them. . .”
We look at them. Down the hatch go another seven pints.
“They’re fucking loving it,” says Kellogs. “They’re on top of the fucking world. A hit single, on the telly, on the road away from mum, drinking, smoking – all yobbos together. They’re having the time of their lives.”
“Annuver 300 pints of light and bitter,” cry Madness in unison as the coach finally pulls up outside The Roundhouse.
There are 40 of us on the bus and Madness inevitably are making most of the noise – shouting, swearing, clambering over the backs of seats, drinking, making ridiculous faces at the crowds on Oxford Street. Woody is especially boisterous, swigging from a half bottle of Scotch, one hefty slug after another, red-faced and increasingly wild-eyed.
Steve English, who’s providing one-man security for the tour, is sitting across the aisle from him. Steve, who’s worked as a bodyguard for, among others, Marvin Gaye, The Sex Pistols, The Clash and boxer John Conteh and is built like a Sherman tank, looks at Woody grappling with the deleterious effects of the whiskey and laughs, the sound he makes like a drain being sucked clear by complicated mechanical equipment.
“Silly little fucker,” he says of Woody. “If he carries on like that for the next six weeks, we’ll have to carry him off this fucking tour in fucking casket.”
The coach is outside Brighton Top rank now, where dozens of skinheads are waiting for Madness, led by Prince Nutty, whose mug beams also from the centre of the inner sleeve of One Step Beyond, Madness’ debut album. Prince Nutty is surrounded by a gang of fearsome-looking cronies.
“Remember me?” one of them asks Suggs. “I danced on stage wiv yer at the Rock Garden. Remember?”
“Yeah, ‘course I remember you,” says Suggs, who clearly doesn’t, pushing his way into the Top Rank, where we find a place to talk and are joined by a rather wobbly Woody. Kellogs had told me earlier that when Madness played Brighton Polytechnic recently on a brief warm-op tour for the current trek, a mob of British Movement supporters had turned up at the gig, threatening trouble.
“They didn’t do nuthin’, though,” Woody says. “They just stood around in the bar talking very loudly about Adolf Hitler.”
In Oldham, Kellogs had also said, a security check on the audience as they arrived at the gig led to the confiscation of a number of weapons – knives, even a home-made mace among them. There’d been a riot in Huddersfield, the group’s van trashed and a film crew terrorised. Suggs is sensitive on the subject of the band’s skinhead fans, but abhors the BM and the idea that Madness are a focal point for their politics.
“There’s no way we’re political,” he argues. “We’re certainly not fucking fascists. If we were fascists, what would we be doing playing ska and bluebeat? If we’d wanted to talk about politics we’d have formed a debating society, not a fucking band.”
The Brighton show is sensational. By the time The Specials play “A Message To You, Rudi”, most of the audience appear to be on stage with them, and those that aren’t are dragging the ones who are back into the crowd so they can take their brief place in the spotlight.
The group fight their way off stage through this demented rabble but find the safe haven of their dressing room picketed by a group of angry feminists who’ve been incensed by some off-colour remarks by Terry Hall and the description of the Melody Maker journalist Vivien Goldman, who’d unenthusiastically reviewed their debut album, as “a stupid cow”.
They now berate the unapologetic Hall at rowdy length. Their ring-leader notices Dammers, standing behind Terry, a bemused witness to the women’s wrath.
“And what have you got to say for yourself?” she loudly demands.
Jerry looks at her, grins gummily.
“Would you like to come to a party with me?” he asks her, ducking the blow he knows is coming.
The first Japanese to adopt elements of the Ivy League Look were a youth tribe called the Miyuki-zoku, who suddenly appeared in the summer of 1964. The group’s name came from their storefront loitering on Miyuki Street in the upscale Ginza shopping neighborhood (the suffix “zoku” means subculture or social group). The Miyuki-zoku were mostly in their late teens, a mix of guys and girls, likely numbering around 700 at the trend’s peak. Since they were students, they would arrive in Ginza wearing school uniforms and have to change in to their trendy duds in cramped café bathrooms.
And what duds they were. The Miyuki-zoku were devotees of classic American collegiate style. The uniform was button-down oxford cloth shirts, madras plaid, high-water trousers in khaki and white, penny loafers, and three-button suit jackets. Everything was extremely slim. The guys wore their hair in an exact seven-three part, which was new for Japan. They were also famous for carrying around their school uniforms inside of rolled-up brown paper grocery bags.
What lead to the sudden arrival of the Miyuki-zoku? Although Japanese teens had been looking to America since 1945 for style inspiration, these particular youth were not copying Princeton or Columbia students directly. In fact, Japanese kids at this time rarely got a chance to see Americans other than the ever-present US soldiers.
The Miyuki-zoku had found the Ivy look through a new magazine called Heibon Punch. The periodical was targeted to Japan’s growing number of wealthy urban youth, and part of its editorial mission was to tell kids how to dress. The editors advocated the Ivy League Look, which at the time was basically only available in the form of domestic brand VAN. Kensuke Ishizu of VAN had discovered the look in the 1950s and pushed it as an alternative to the slightly thuggish big-shouldered, high-waisted, mismatched jacket-and-pants look that dominated Japanese men’s style throughout the 1950s. As an imported look, Ivy League fashion felt cutting-edge and sophisticated to Tokyo teens, and this fit perfectly with Heibon Punch‘s mission of giving Baby Boomers a style of their own.
When the magazine arrived in the spring 1964, readers all went out and became Ivy adherents. Parents and authorities, however, were hardly thrilled with a youth tribe of American style enthusiasts. The first strike against the Miyuki-zoku is that the guys — gasp! — would blow dry their hair. This was seen as a patently feminine thing to do.
More critically, the Miyuki-zoku picked the wrong summer to hang out in Ginza. Japan was preparing for the 1964 Olympics, which would commence in October. Tokyo was in the process of removing every last eyesore — wooden garbage cans, street trolleys, the homeless — anything that would possibly be offending to foreign visitors. The Olympics was not just a sports event, but would be Japan’s return into the global community after its ignoble defeat of World War II, and nothing could go wrong.
So authorities lay awake at night with the fear that foreigners would come to Japan and see kids in tight high-water pants hanging out in front of prestigious Ginza stores. Neighborhood leaders desperately wanted to eradicate the Miyuki-zoku before October, so they went to Ishizu of VAN and asked him to intervene. VAN organized a “Big Ivy Style Meet-up” at Yamaha Hall, and cops helped put 200 posters across Ginza to make sure the Miyuki-zoku showed up. Anyone who came to the event got a free VAN bag — which was the bag for storing your normal clothing during loitering hours. They expected 300 kids, but 2,000 showed up. Ishizu gave the keynote address, where he told everyone to knock it off with the lounging in Ginza. Most acquiesced, but not all.
So on September 19, 1964, a huge police force stormed Ginza and hauled off 200 kids in madras plaid and penny loafers. Eighty-five were processed at nearby Tsukiji jail. The kids got the message and never came back, and that was the end of the Miyuki-zoku.
Starting in 1945, Japanese authorities generally viewed all Western youth fashion as a delinquent subculture. Despite looking relatively conservative in style compared to the other biker gangs and greasy-haired rebels, the Miyuki-zoku were still caught up in this delinquent narrative. In fact, they were actually the first middle-class youth consumers buying things under the direction of the mainstream media. It was Japanese society that was simply not ready for the idea that youth fashion could be part of the marketplace.
After the Miyuki-zoku, however, Ivy became the de facto look for fashionable Japanese men, and the “Ivy Tribe” that followed faced little of the harassment seen by its predecessor. The Miyuki-zoku may have lost the battle of Ginza, but they won the war for Ivy League style. — W. DAVID MARX
As the Ivy League style swept across the globe. The British Modernist ‘Mods’ subculture adopted the clothing, modifying it into a very British subculture, with a new more aggressive edge. The Skinheads
Bracknell Skinheads 1970
W. David Marx is a writer living in Tokyo whose work has appeared in GQ, Brutus, Nylon, and Best Music Writing 2009, among other publications. He is currently Tokyo City Editor of CNNGo and Chief Editor of web journal Néojaponisme.
Proud Chelsea’sSex, Drugstores and Rock & Roll: a History of the King’s Road is a new exhibition of photographs of King’s Road, Chelsea from the early days of the swinging 60s, right up to the end of the 80s. This picture shows a group of punks in the 1970s, when the road became a centre of punk culture.
The punks and skinheads were rounded up at a local concert
Dozens of young men and women have been detained for being “punk” and disturbing the peace in Aceh, Indonesia’s most devoutly Muslim province. They are being held in a remedial school, where they are undergoing “re-education”.
Rights groups have expressed concern after photographs emerged of the young men having their mohawks and funky hairstyles shaved off by Aceh’s police.
They look sullen and frightened as they are forced into a communal bath.
But Aceh’s police say they are not trying to harm the youths, they are trying to protect them.
The 64 punks, many of whom are from as far away as Bali or Jakarta, were picked up on Saturday night during a local concert.Aceh police spokesman Gustav Leo says there have been complaints from residents nearby.The residents did not like the behaviour of the punks and alleged that some of them had approached locals for money.
Mr Leo stressed that no-one had been charged with any crime, and there were no plans to do so.
They have now been taken to a remedial school in the Seulawah Hills, about 60km (37 miles) away from the provincial capital Banda Aceh.
“They will undergo a re-education so their morals will match those of other Acehnese people,” says Mr Leo.
But activists say the manner in which the young people have been treated is humiliating and a violation of human rights.
Aceh Human Rights Coalition chief Evi Narti Zain says the police should not have taken such harsh steps, accusing them of treating children like criminals.
“They are just children, teenagers, expressing themselves,” she says.
“Of course there are Acehnese people who complained about them – but regardless of that, this case shouldn’t have been handled like this. They were doused with cold water, and their heads were shaved – this is a human rights violation. Their dignity was abused.”
But Mr Leo disagrees.It is the second time the police have cracked down on punk culture in Aceh
“We didn’t arrest them, they haven’t committed any criminal offence,” he says.
“They are Aceh’s own children – we are doing this for their own good. Their future could be at risk. We are re-educating them so they don’t shame their parents.”
This is the second time Aceh’s police have clamped down on punks in the province, which is the only province in Indonesia allowed to implement shariah law.
There is a thriving underground punk music scene in Aceh, but many punk-lovers are viewed suspiciously by local residents.
Many of the young teens sport outrageous hairstyles, in keeping with punk culture, but against the norms of the keenly religious in Aceh.
Aceh is one of the most devout Muslim provinces in Indonesia, and observers say it has becoming increasingly more conservative since Islamic law was implemented a few years ago.
Indonesian punks stand in line before prayer. Indonesian punk rock fans, their head shaved clean, stand in line before prayer at the police school in Aceh Besar, Indonesia. Photograph: Heri Juanda/AP Mohawks shaved and noses free of piercings, dozens of youths march in military style for hours beneath Indonesia’s tropical sun – part of efforts by the authorities to restore moral values and bring the “deviants” back into the mainstream. But the young men and women have shown no signs of bending. When commanders turn their backs, the shouts ring out: “Punk will never die!” Fists are thrown in the air and peace signs flashed.
A few have managed briefly to escape, heads held high as they are dragged back. Sixty-five young punk rockers arrived at the police detention centre last week after baton-wielding police raided a concert in Aceh – the only province in the predominantly Muslim nation of 240 million to have imposed Islamic laws.
They will be released on Friday, after completing 10 days of “rehabilitation” – from classes on good behaviour and religion to military-style drills aimed at instilling discipline. Nineteen-year-old Yudi, who goes by only one name, said it was not working. He tried unsuccessfully to shake off police when they took an electric razor to his spiky mohawk. At the sight of his hair scattered in the grass, he recalled, tears rolled down his face. “It was torture to me,” he said. “I can’t wait to get out of here,” he added. “They can’t change me. I love punk. I don’t feel guilty about my lifestyle. Why should I? There’s nothing wrong with it.” His girlfriend, 20-year-old Intan Natalia, agreed. Her bleach-blonde hair has been cut to a bob and dyed black and she has been forced to wear a Muslim headscarf. “They can say what they want, but I like life as a punk,” she said. “It suits me.” Two young men hated it so much at the detention centre, they tried to escape. They pretended they had to go to the bathroom then fled to the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, 30 miles away. Police found them strolling the streets nine hours later and brought them back. It was just after midnight. “They said they missed their parents, but it’s pretty clear they were lying,” said the local police chief, Colonel Armensyah Thay. “They didn’t go home. How could they? They’ve been living on the streets.” The crackdown marked the latest effort by authorities to promote strict moral values in Aceh which, unlike other provinces in the sprawling archipelagic nation, enjoys semi-autonomy from the central government. That was part of a peace deal negotiated after the 2004 tsunami off Aceh convinced separatist rebels and the army to lay down their arms, with both sides saying they did not want to add to people’s suffering. More than 230,000 people were killed in the towering wave, three-quarters of them in Aceh.
Friday 17th November 2006, 30 years since Punk detonated, and I had the pleasure of sharing a few drinks with Ron Watts in my home. Ron promoted many of the early bands, and organised the now legendary Punk Festival at the 100 Club on the 20th and 21st September, 1976. Ron’s just published a great book which documents those heady and (for those lucky enough to have been there) exciting times. I switched on the tape recorder, put some wine on the table and off we went, talking about our mutually favourite subject. Music! I hope people will find this interview as interesting as I did, he’s a top bloke with some great memories. Rob Maddison, Tamworth, 19th November 2006. 100 Watts, a life in Music. Written by Ron Watts and forward by Glen Matlock. ISBN 0-9543884-4-5. Available from Heroes Publishing, the Internet (it’s on Amazon) or even a bookshop!
RM) Ron, firstly, why did you write the book? Ron) I was approached by the publishers, who said “would you be interested in writing your life story”. I thought about it, for about two days, and then thought yeah. Yes, I’d do that, you know what I mean.RM) How on earth did you remember everything? Ron) Most of it was in the house, still. I just had to find all the old diaries and booking sheets and things, and it jogged my memory, you know. RM) You kept all that stuff, then Ron? Ron) Well, yes, I suppose you would, really, wouldn’t you. To be honest, I sold some stuff off at auction, about 10 years ago, when I was skint. One thing was the Sex Pistols contract from the Punk Festival, which was handwritten by Malcolm McClaren.RM) Who bought it? Ron) I think it was the Hard Rock Café in Central London, to put up on the wall.RM) When’s your next promotion Ron? Ron) Well, I haven’t been promoting for a while, but it’s in my blood, and people are expressing an interest in me doing something. I’ve got 2 venues lined up for the new year, look here for news, come February. We’ve venues in Oxford Street and High Wycombe, but can’t say too much at this point!! These gigs are to be known as Ron’s part 1 and 2…RM) Who are you promoting? Ron) What I did in 1977. RM) What, new “Punk” bands, such as The View etc? Ron) No. Same bands I did in ’77. Same bands in the same place. Some of them are reforming, I’ve been on the bone mate!!RM) Who are you still in touch with from those days, Ron? Ron) Virtually everybody. People from the Sex Pistols, met some of the Clash quite recently, Damned I’m still in touch with, no end of people. RM) Glen Matlock wrote the forward to the book and is obviously a decent bloke. Ron) Glen is a nice bloke, and definitely part of the Pistols, but is his own man.RM) Did you ban Punk? Ron) No. Punk was banned around me, and while it was banned at one venue, I still considered doing it at another, the Nags Head in High Wycombe. At the first opportunity for it to go back into the 100 Club it went back in. It’s a false supposition to suggest I banned it. It was banned because the police and Oxford Street traders association objected to Punks standing in queues outside their shops waiting to get into the club. At this time Oxford Street was the premier shopping street in Europe. I’d be getting complaints, so would go out into the street and try and get people to move out of shop doorways etc, but as soon as I went back in the club they’d be back in there. And of course there’d been some real bad violence. When a girl loses her eye that’s a pretty serious thing. You have to remember that I didn’t own the club, I just promoted there. Simple as. RM) Did Sid Vicious throw the glass that injured the girl’s eye? Ron) Well, I presume so, the barman saw him do it. He didn’t know Sid from Adam, but he pointed him (Sid) out and told me it was him that threw it. I don’t think Sid meant to hurt anybody, except the Damned! If it had caught Captain Sensible on the head he’d have liked that! Funnily enough I was down at the 100 Club a couple of weeks ago, and Michelle Brigandage, who took some of the photos in the book, was telling me that she was actually sat with the girl who lost her eye. Apparently she was an art student from South London, never wanted any publicity and was broken hearted, as anyone would be who lost an eye, especially at that age. She was only 19 at the time. Michelle was sat with her when it happened, she was her mate, and it’s the first time I’ve had a real chat about it. She said herself that though she accepts that it was Sid who threw the glass, he hadn’t intended to do that. But at the same time, he had thrown the glass with malice, and might’ve done even worse damage to someone else, you never know. So in one sense, he’s exonerated to a degree, and in another sense he’s still a malicious Pratt. RM) Was there any collusion to get Sid off by discrediting the barman’s story? Ron) No, but so many people went down with him, to the police station, and said he didn’t do it that the CPS probably thought 250 against 1 and dropped it.RM) Were you surprised by Sid’s eventual demise? Ron) No. You know, his mother, Ann Beverley moved up to Swadlincote, near here. She got some money from Sid’s estate, and the Pistols gave her some money. She got a cheap house and a few bob in the bank, and when she’d run through that she topped herself. As for Nancy, the police weren’t looking for anybody else, but we don’t know, do we.RM) Ron, how proud are you of your role in Punk, and could it have happened without the 100 Club? Ron) Yeah, it would’ve happened anyway. It might have happened in a different way, but I suppose the traumatic birth it got, and the big hand it got via the Punk festival etc helped, otherwise it might have taken a bit longer. RM) Could it have started in any other city other than London? Ron) I think it needed London. It gave it the credibility. It might have happened somewhere else, and it might have been more interesting if it had happened, say, in Liverpool or Newcastle or somewhere, but it would have taken longer to be accepted, and London would have taken longer to accept it.RM) I suppose the Pistols, who catalyzed the movement were a London band, and people like Paul Weller, Pete Shelley etc always say the seeing that band is what galvanised them. Ron) Yes. They were the catalyst. We needed to have them in the Capital, playing in the middle of the Capital. It was always going to be a shortcut for them, you know. So yes, it would have still happened elsewhere, but in a different way. RM) Whose idea was the 1976 Punk Festival at the 100 Club? Ron) Mine. My idea, yeah. I approached Mclaren, as I knew that I needed the Pistols to headline it. And the Damned, they said that they wanted to do it, and The Clash agreed immediately, then we had to cast around to find some more. The Manchester bands were got down by Malcolm (Mclaren). Siouxsie approached me direct, although it wasn’t much of a band. Then, the Stinky Toys were volunteered by Mclaren, although I’d never heard of ‘em, and hardly anyone’s heard of ‘em since! Never mind, they got on eventually on the second night!RM) I read in the book that the Grande Piano on the stage got used like a climbing frame. Were you actually liable for damages if things got broken? Ron) The piano wasn’t going to get moved off the stage. It always stays there. Thing is, you’ve got to remember that it was a running, 7 nights a week club, for Jazz and Blues mainly, and the piano was a part of all that. The owners of the club left me to it for my nights, very seldom that they were there, even. If the place had been wrecked, it would’ve been down to me, I’d have had to pay for all the damage, you know.RM) Punk 77’s owner wondered if you thought the Banshees sounded as bad as he thought they did?! Ron) Well, in ’76 they weren’t really a band, you can’t comment. What they were doing was performance art, just getting up onto the stage and doing something off the top of their heads. They didn’t know any songs, and it sounded like it. It was weak, it was weedy. Sid just about tapped the drums. Siouxsie was doing the Lords Prayer and stuff like that. You couldn’t say it was a gig, or a rehearsed act, it was just people, getting up and trying to do something. I let them do it, you know, I might have done something like that at their age. I don’t think Siouxsie really lived up to her reputation, if you like. Well, not initially. RM) I didn’t like them, but the Banshees went on to become very skilled, musically. Ron) Yes. By then she’d recruited some good blokes. She’s been living in France for a long time now, I don’t see her.
RM) Were the early Punks, like Siouxsie, middle class students? If so, how did they feel when Punk was taken up by the masses? Ron) No. The early Punks were solidly working class. There was the art college mob, they weren’t numerically very strong, but they were the most vivid people, because of their appearance. They set the standard, the tone, you know? But immediately behind that, by the time of the punk festival of ‘76, the bulk of the audience was being formed by young, working class people and they took it to their hearts at once. RM) Were the movements roots biased towards the fashion element or more towards the music side, or was it one package?Ron) The fashion and art side, you know, was where Siouxsie was coming from. They took it very seriously, it was a new movement and they only had the one band to start with. It was very arty, but it was an art movement that worked. If you’d been there the first night I put the Pistols on, I think it was March 30th 1976, and you saw the Bromley Contingent coming in! They didn’t all come at once, they come in dribs and drabs. Each time, it was breathtaking and jaw dropping just to see them walk through that door.RM) Were contemporary Londoners shocked by the appearance of the early Punks? Ron) Initially, yeah. They’d got used to it by the end of that year. But initially, like in the early months, absolutely.RM) The summer of ’76 is famous for its heat wave. I bet you’ve great memories of it? RW) In that summer, and remember that it was the hottest, the best summer in living memory, it was the summer, people still talking about it now, and nothing was happening, everybody was asleep, you know. Anyway, this New Zealand film crew turned up to capture London. They’d been dispatched from Auckland to film London, in the summer. They were bright enough to cotton on to the movement, and they were haunting me! I mean, they got so many yards, so many miles of film, some of it’s not even been seen yet. All the main punk films, like the Rock ‘n Roll Swindle, The Filth and the Fury, were relying on their footage. They were amazed when they got their first, full on, Bromley Punk. They could not believe it. They said “You guys are 200 years ahead of New Zealand!” RM) Were you interested about the politics in Punk? Ron) I tried to keep it at arms length. I wasn’t interested in sub-divisions.RM) What about The Clash? Ron) Didn’t know that they were! (political). I think they were just trying to make it, I mean, they latched on to it. The Pistols had got a lot of the market wrapped up with their attitudes, so The Clash had to find some attitude, and they probably cooked it up with their manager, I reckon. What attitude can we have? Well, the Pistols have got this, that and the other and they found the one that they could go for. RM) I’ve read that the purists hated them, but I loved The Jam. They flirted with politics early on, and then really got involved, with Paul Weller joining Red Wedge later. Ron) The Jam were some of the biggest winners out of Punk. There was such a lot of talent in that band. That band was so tight.RM) Did you get more involved with them once they’d started to get bigger? Ron) They wanted me to help them with their American tour, by going ahead from city to city publicising it. But this was ’77, and I was amazed that their manager John Weller had asked me, and I would’ve loved to have done it. But, I was at the height of my promoting career, and I realised that. So I said “No, I’ve got to stick with this.” RM) The Jam always felt like a band that, as a fan, you had a stake in. Ron) I tell you what, they did a show for me at the 100 Club, when they’d been doing really huge venues like the Hammersmith Odeon. They’d always said, when we get there, we’ll come back and do one. They ended up doing three for me. One at Wycombe Town Hall, one at the Nags Head, which is a pub, you know! And, the 100 Club. They were really good like that, and I appreciate what they did for me and I love ‘em to bits.RM) It’s weird that there was all that acrimony between those people, and even stranger that Rick, and now Bruce, are playing in a Jam tribute band. (The Gift).Ron) Good drummer. I think, and this is my opinion, as I’ve no proof of it, that the girls all used to go for Bruce Foxton. The band was great, and they knew the band was great and they loved Paul Weller. But, in their hearts they all fancied that they’d get off with Bruce Foxton. When I did the box office at the 100 Club, there’d be all these girls turning up in school uniforms. I’d be saying “How old are you?” and the answer was always “19!” Am I really going to sell these girls tickets?!RM) I read somewhere, years ago, that Sid Vicious and Paul Weller had a fight after arguing about the Holidays in the Sun/ In the City riff. Did you hear that one? Ron) No. I can’t see that. Paul Weller was from a tough, working class background. A fight between him and Sid Vicious would have lasted about 8 seconds. He would have dealt with Sid in no time at all. It didn’t happen. Sid would need to have been tooled up, and I’ve had to fight him 3 times when he was. And I’m still here. Sid came at me with a chain, once. I confiscated it, and wish I still had all these weapons, as I could put them up for sale at Christies, couldn’t I?! And I saw Sid with a knife, threatening Elle, the singer out the Stinky Toys with it. I took that off him and gave it to Malcolm Mclaren. Wish I’d kept it. RM) Ron, did you have much to do with Rock Against Racism (R.A.R)? Ron) Only in as much as I endorsed it. And, I wouldn’t have any racist behaviour, as it says in the book, in any of my venues. I just wouldn’t. No way, I mean my bouncers were black, a lot of my acts were black, and I wasn’t going to have it. There were a few occasions when it surfaced, and I did the natural thing and let the black guys sort it themselves.RM) Empowerment? Ron) Yeah. At Wycombe Town Hall, the British movement guys were having a go at my bouncer, Gerry. One black guy against twenty or thirty of them, so I said to him “I’ll take your position, don’t be long, go down the pubs and get your mates.” And he come back in with a dozen big black lads. I said to them, “Look, you’re here to look after Gerry, not to kill these white guys.” So, Gerry stood in front of them, and there wasn’t a word out of them again! They moved out of the way, and went down the other side of the hall, these bullies. They saw the odds evening up a bit, and given the other 8 or 9 bouncers I had stood in the hall, we would’ve murdered them. RM) Jimmy Pursey went on-stage with The Clash at R.A.R in Victoria Park. Was this damage limitation on Pursey’s behalf? He seemed to get his fingers burned when the Skins affiliated to Sham 69. Ron) Exactly. And I don’t think he liked that one little bit. See, now, Jimmy Pursey is another guy, like Paul Weller and Joe Strummer, probably all of them at that time. Underneath he was a much nicer person than the media, and the world, would realise and portray. He was an alright geezer and he caught the wrong end of the backlash. People were believing what he was portraying and singing about, and that wasn’t necessarily him!RM) Did Sham 69 dance a bit to close the flame? They could be perceived as “rabble rousing”, if you like. Ron) They were looking for something to hang their stick on, if you like. The Pistols found it in one. Joe Strummer looked around with The Clash and thought about it and did it, you know. The Jam done it through their potent mix of soul and punk, and I think Jimmy Pursey thought he’d go with the hard boys in the East End. The skinheads, and the mobsters and the ruffians, you know. RM) Musically, Sham 69 were similar to the Pistols… Ron) Yeah, closer than some. I liked Sham 69, they were alright. I think Pursey is another guy who hung his hat somewhere, and that hat got on the wrong peg.
RM) How fast did Punk spread throughout 1977? Ron) Well, it got going in ’76. The Wycombe Punks, because they had me to promote at the Nags Head, got their first Sex Pistols gig there on September 3rd, which was actually 3 weeks before the 100 Club Festival. They were on the case really early. In ’76, Wycombe and the surrounding towns were full of Punks. By the end of that year, they even had a black Punk in Wycombe, a guy called Marmite. He had black hair, with a silver zigzag stripe in it. By ’77, it was all up and running everywhere. By January or February 1977 almost everyone under the age of 18 or 19 was a Punk.RM) When did the press really get hold of it? Ron) Then. But they were on to it before the Bill Grundy Show, the Punk Festival was before that show and from then it was just….you know. I used to get phone calls, from NBC and CBS in America asking if anything’s going on, or coming off, could you let us know. RM) That’s odd, being as the Americans claim to have invented Punk! Ron) They were a year or two ahead. It’s like most things. It’s like the Blues. We had to take the Blues back to America for White America to know about it. Cream, Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, those sort of people. RM) America’s too big and too diverse. It couldn’t host youth movements like Punk and 2-Tone.Ron) No. It had to come from somewhere else. I mean, in New York it was a club scene, in Britain it was a national scene. RM) What did you think of those American bands?Ron) Some of them were really good. I didn’t think New York Dolls were as good as bands like Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. They were probably the best Punk band I ever saw, actually. RM) And Blondie? Ron) Well, Blondie. The bass player, Nigel was a guy from the Nags Head. Tigger, we used to call him. That was his name round Wycombe. He played at the Nags Head before he was in Blondie. I’ve got to say that Tigger and Blondie didn’t get on. Maybe she fancied him, and he didn’t fancy her!
RM) He would’ve been the only British male in the late ‘70’s who didn’t, then?! Ron) Perhaps he knew something we didn’t!RM) Back to the serious stuff, Ron. The Clash flew to Belfast, had some nice photos taken near some barricades and murals. Then they flew home. No gigs played. What do you think about all that? Ron) Well, it’s up to them. Sometimes, promotional events can take over. You can be wise after the event, it might have sounded like a good thing at the time. Who knows, I mean, it might have been sincere. I didn’t see them as a band who had very political motives outside of the publicity. I’m not saying they didn’t have a heart, but sometimes publicity sows a life of its own, you know.RM) If they’d played, this would never have been an issue with people over the years. Ron) No, but they would do benefits and things, R.A.R, and one just before Joe died, for a fireman’s benefit. RM) It’s ironic. The Pistols and Strummer/Jones last gigs in England were both strike fund benefits. And the Pistols, apparently, never cashed their cheque from that Christmas Day one. Ron) I wasn’t a party to any of that, but yeah, that was a good gesture. A lesson. A guy came down to interview me, and he lived near Joe Strummer. Lived in the same village and he was a long time journalist. He said that he thought that Joe Strummer had a lot of heart, and it was very typical of him that he’d go out and do a benefit as The Clash, but commercially would only do The Mescalero’s.
RM) Back to the Pistols, now Ron. What was their early live sound like? Ron) I’ll tell you something now that I’ve never told anybody before. Musically, when the Pistols started, I thought that they were, or sounded like, a youth club heavy metal band. Not the songs, or the vocals, or even the presentation but the actual sound of the band. It wasn’t a weak sound, but it wasn’t particularly pokey. Within three months, they’d perked it up a lot. RM) How big an influence was Dave Goodman to their sound? Ron) He brought a lot of stuff to them. He gave them a lot of advice. He’d make them sound a lot more pokey, he’d get them to do things. I spent a lot of time with Dave Goodman, as when you’re a promoter, you’re there to open it up. And Dave used to arrive early, you know, he’d arrive at four in the afternoon. I’d give him a hand in with some of the gear, and we’d spend some time together as we’d be the only ones there for a couple of hours. I’d be answering the phone and stuff, doing other things like that, but I got to know that guy. He never actually spoke to me about Punk. He mentioned the Pistols, but he never actually spoke about the Punk movement. I wish I’d recorded all those conversations!RM) Did you always fill the 100 Club? Ron) Well, after the first couple of months, it filled out, yeah. I mean, the Pistols didn’t pull a crowd for about their first six gigs. We’re talking about 50 – 80 people, the Bromley Contingent and a few interested parties!
RM) Some people must’ve come in to watch the Pistols out of curiosity? Maybe just walking by the club, then deciding to see what was going on in there, and finding their lives would never be quite the same again? Ron) Yeah, I think that younger people who come down to see it would change. They’d come down the first night with long hair and flares, and by the third night they’d seen them they’d come down in drainpipes and Punk haircut, you know?
RM) What about the other clubs, Ron, like the Roxy? Ron) Went to the Roxy, yes, many times. It was a bit of a pokey hole actually. The Roxy didn’t last long. The Vortex I went to. The stories I used to hear about that place! It was more of a disco crowd, actually. Rent-a-Punk, you know? It wasn’t for the faint hearted, not very savoury! RM) Did you get to read many of the fanzines? Ron) Yeah, I did. I used to see them all. We had one out in the Home Counties called the Buckshee Press, which is a piss take of the Bucks Free Press, of course there was Sniffin’ Glue, we used to see that at the 100 Club all the time. There were others, too, I came across them all over the place, actually, some of them were just one issue, you know, and just a couple of pages.RM) Did you know Mark Perry and the music hacks the time? Ron) Yeah, I knew Mark. Caroline Coon, too. Caroline has been very kind to me in her books, and things, you know. In fact she blamed me, or congratulated me for the whole of Punk in one of them, special thanks to Ron Watts, and that’s nice! Caroline was the first dedicated journalist who wanted to see Punk happen. And, I’m glad in a way that it happened for her, too, because she put her money on the table, you know? Same as I did. She ran that Release thing, which got all the hippies out of jail for cannabis. She was ahead of her time, I mean seriously, you can’t lock someone up for 6 months for smoking cannabis! RM) Changing tack again, Ron. What did you think of Malcolm Mclaren? Ron) I like Malcolm personally. No doubt, you know, I’m not just saying that. On first impressions he looked like an Edwardian gentleman. He’d got that off to a tee, I’d never seen anyone look like him, actually. I never had any bad dealings with him, and he was always very straightforward.RM) People either loved or loathed Mclaren. John Lydon isn’t a fan. Ron) Yeah, I think it was more of a financial thing, but I mean, John Lydon should also remember that without Mclaren he probably wouldn’t have been in them. Mclaren set the scene going, I was the first to pick it up, from that, before recording deals, but he never stuffed me like he stuffed the record companies. They made a lot of money, initially.RM) Did the record companies drop the band so willingly because it was Jubilee year? Ron) Well, the Pistols were full on and did it. I mean, “God Save The Queen” become one of the biggest selling British hit singles, didn’t it? It’s still selling now! And they wouldn’t let it on the shelves, would they. Bless ‘em! RM) You were on the legendary ’77 boat trip up the Thames, when the Pistols played and Mclaren got arrested. What was that like? Ron) It was lovely! You should’ve been there, honestly. The band were ok, they just did their normal gig. I enjoyed seeing people that you wouldn’t expect, talking to each other. When you’ve got the boss of Virgin, that business empire, talking to Sid Vicious, can you imagine what sort of conversation they had?! I’d loved to have taken a tape recorder in there! RM) Do you think the police raid on the boat was planned? Ron) I tell you what, I was amazed at that. I was actually on deck, and the boat was going downstream, back towards Westminster Pier. The Pistols were playing, and it got a bit jostley. You know, a bit of charging about in a small space ‘cause it wasn’t very big, the boat, really. So, I went out on to the deck by the railings, and a couple of other people come and joined me. There was plenty of food and drink, and I had a beer and a chicken leg or something, you know. And I’m looking and I can see these two police boats, and they were a way off. Downstream, I could see two more police boats, and they were a way off, too. I carried on eating the chicken and drinking the beer, looked round, and they were all there, together, at the same time! I mean, the degree of professionalism was just amazing! And then they were on that boat, in force, like about twelve or fifteen coppers, in moments. The boat was quite high sided, but they were up there. And you know what they were doing, they were up there and on that boat and we were escorted into the Westminster Pier basin.RM) Then Mclaren was nicked. Do you reckon he did just enough to get the publicity of an arrest without being charged with anything serious? Ron) I saw that. He got a lot of press out of it, yeah. He knew. Everybody turned to me, to try and sort it all out. One of them was a Countess! RM) Ron, you mentioned that no other bands were on the boat. Was there a real rivalry between these new bands at the time? Ron) The Jam were the young upstarts according to the Pistols, you know. The Clash were their biggest rivals at the time. The Damned, they had no time for.RM) Why don’t The Damned get their due credit? In my opinion, they should. Ron) I don’t know. A lot of people say they’re just a Punk cocktail act. You don’t see a lot about them, and yet they were the first to get a single out and they could play. Scabies could play. Brian James come up brilliant, but then he’d have done anything, if they’d have asked him to join Led Zeppelin he’d have done that, and Captain (Sensible), well I like Captain.RM) Buzzcocks were, from what I’ve heard on bootlegs, a bit rough to start with. They really hit a rich seam once they got up and running. Ron) If the Buzzcocks could make it, anybody could. I wasn’t impressed, really. But what’s in the future’s in the future, you never know what is at the time. They blossomed.
RM) And Magazine? Did you rate them? Ron) Yeah, I did. Brilliant guitarist, John McGeoch. And Penetration, they were a good band, and X-Ray Spex.
RM) Which bands are you the most pleased to have seen play? Ron) Well, I mean, it’s all of them. But where do you start?! Alright, the Pistols and The Clash, definitely, yeah. The Jam – pleased to see them anywhere, anytime. I did enjoy the Damned at an early stage, but they’re not in the top 5. And Sham 69, and The Heartbreakers.RM) I heard “Pretty Vacant” on the radio in my car earlier today, and I got the old goose bumps. Does any of the music from that time affect you the same? Ron) All the early Pistols stuff, yeah!RM) What’s your view on Punk and Reggae getting married? Ron) Yeah, if people want to get together and cross pollinate ideas, then that’s alright. It was the underbelly, twice. You had the white working class and the black working class responding to each other at last! RM) Some Punk bands who had a go at playing Reggae were better than others. Ruts, SLF and of course The Clash all cracked it in their own styles… Ron) The worst Reggae act I ever saw, were The Slits. Actually, probably just the worst act! RM) Do you think that Punk and Reggae blending in ’77 was the root of Two Tone? Ron) Yes. I’m sure it came out of that. I used to have a lot of Reggae acts on in that club, aside from Punk and the Blues and everything. I’d put on Steele Pulse, or an American Blues artist like Muddy Waters, as long as it was what I liked. RM) Your best front men and women? Ron) I’m thinking about this one…The best oddball front man was Wayne County. Best front woman, from what I saw, Faye Fife.RM) You rate Faye Fife over Poly Styrene?Ron) You’re putting me on the spot there! I’d put them equal for different reasons. Faye used to put on a great act. They were perennially at the club and at the Nags Head. Because I had so many venues, when they were coming down again, I needed to know, because that’s three bookings to give them. It was always like, “get your diary out, mate, when you coming down?” If I gave them three bookings, they’d come down, and they could fill it out with other stuff, do the rounds. X-Ray Spex were good, too. Really good band. The Rezillos are still going, actually. RM) I watched a documentary on TV the other night about that Stiff Records tour. The one where they hired a train from BR. Ron) They did the first night for me, at High Wycombe, yeah. There were some funny people there! Wreckless Eric was at the Punk thing I did in Blackpool this year. It took me about an hour to recognise him. I kept looking and looking and vaguely remembered him. Not a nice bloke. RM) Here’s the last one, Ron. Punk lit a fuse for many people. I’m one (albeit two years late), the other people who contributed questions to this interview are others and there’s millions more. As Ed Armchair puts it, his fuse is still burning to this day, and has affected virtually every aspect of his life since it was lit. Do you have the same feelings about Punk as we do? Ron) Yes. I got going through that and it still survives. My first love in music was, and is, Blues. I see a lot of similarities between Punk and Blues. They both come from the underbelly of a society, and they’ve both triumphed against all the odds. They both spoke for their people of that time and place. They’ll reverberate forever. Punk freshened up a stale music scene and the Blues were the bedrock for twentieth and twenty-first century music.RM) Ron, thanks for your time and best of luck with your new projects.END
Plan B Photographed In Skrewdriver T Shirt The Quietus , July 22nd, 2012 05:18
Has Ill Manors rapper had an attack of the Morrisseys?
As reported on Brian Whelan’s excellent blog recently, UK rapper/neo-soul star Plan B was photographed last week wearing a T shirt bearing the band name Skrewdriver.
The picture was taken from the front cover of popular free title, Shortlist which has a circulation of over half a million copies a week. The The Defamation Of Strickland Banks star was giving an interview to promote his new album and film (both called Ill Manors). The photoshoot took place immediately on his arrival at the studio, but it isn’t made clear if the clothes belong to the rapper or were given to him by a stylist.
The T shirt appears to bear a picture of Nicky Crane, a violent Nazi skin who provided security for Skrewdriver and served several jail terms for racist assaults. Donaldson and Crane both fell out when the latter came out as gay towards the end of his life. For many, the white power, bonehead band Skrewdriver represented the absolute nadir of popular music’s interaction with the Fascist movement, given that their message was evangelical, unironic, violent, radical and, to a certain degree, popular. That singer Ian Stuart Donaldson died in a car crash in 1992, did nothing to hurt their standing worldwide among neo-Nazis. The band however started as a non-politically aligned punk group in 1976 signed to Chiswick, and this incarnation of the group still has many fans internationally including J Mascis and Pink Eyes from Fucked Up. (Pink Eyes, aka Damian from Fucked Up, delivered a righteous screed on the subject of being a fan of the band’s early recordings on the Guardian which is worth checking out.) The interview with Benjamin Paul Ballance-Drew aka Plan B is still viewable on the Shortlist website where you can clearly see he is wearing the neo-Nazi band top. It seems highly unlikely that Plan B has accidentally revealed himself to be – or indeed is – a Nazi especially given his recent, left leaning and nuanced ‘Ill Manors’ single but it is ironic and doesn’t help him any that during the interview he praises Tim Roth’s acting in Made In Britain, Alan Clarke’s 1982 film about racist skinheads. He was asked: “Do you look at actors such as Winstone, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth and think, ‘I’d like to be at that level in 20 years’?” And replied: “Oh mate, Tim Roth in Made In Britain – f*cking amazing. In 20 years, I’d love to be at the level they’re at, but it depends how I look. Some people don’t age well for films. They lose that spark. Oldman’s still got it, Ray’s still got it. It all depends on what fate’s got in store for me.”Yet another example of a complete lack of knowledge or investigation by the media, but printed as fact.Well here’s the real story of the ‘T shirt’ the facts are Gavin Watson has done a bit of work with Plan B, and he loved Gavins skinhead photographs, he asked Gav could he use some, and Gavin gave him a whole box of images to choose from, which he then printed a few to t shirts, as a way of using genuine British street images, and also supporting Gavins photography.
But the picture in question, printed on the T shirt is one that Gavin Watson took of his younger brother Neville, who at the time was about 14 years old. Taken in the mid 1980’s on a council estate in High Wycombe at the height of the Skinhead Subculture. Posing against a garage, which has the word Skrewdriver graffitied on it. At that time it was very common for punk bands names to be graffitied all over the country.Gavins photographs have been printed worldwide and have come to represent Margaret Thatchers Britain. Gavin was given a camera as a kid and went about photographing his environment, family and friends, in a complete innocent love of photography. It just so happens that the time was when the British youth culture of Skinheads was at its height, of which Gavin was an active part. Films like ‘ This is England’ and many fashion designers and marketting people have used Gavins images as inspiration, but due to 21st Century political correctness, the actual era that the photos represent is something the British establishment would rather bury under a carpet. and even today, 30 years later the media are still spewing out their lies about the time and the young people involved.This obsession withbelittling council estate kids, and anyone that tries to inspire them. i think its extremely brave and sincere of Plan B to take genuine images of real kids from the council estates that he now represents with his music. In the USA people like Biggy Smalls did that, with his own environment, to huge worldwide success. Yesterdays Skinheads who listened to Oi music, are no different than todays youth, listening to Grime . The more young people feel attacked and written off, outcast, the more chance they will take to the streets, as was seen last year in British cities and in 1981, with the previous generation. July 22, 2012 13:34
Plan B responds to NME ‘neo-Nazi’ t-shirt criticism
Rapper apologises, says he was unaware of the existence of Skrewdriver
Plan B has responded to criticism for a photograph which shows him wearing what appears to be a Skrewdriver t-shirt. The most recent issue of Shortlist shows the rapper sporting a top with the band’s name written on it. This prompted some commentators to question his motive. The New Statesman asked why the rapper had worn the T-shirt and quoted journalist Brian Whelan, who wrote on his blog: ” It is very unusual that Plan B would knowingly wear this t-shirt and that Shortlist would stick it on the front of their publication. Make no mistake about it Skrewdriver were a nasty bunch, [founding member] Ian Stuart became a martyr for the far-right when he died in a car crash almost 20 years ago.” The rapper has now released a statement, which has been posted on The Quietus, explaining that the garment was not an official Skrewdriver t-shirt. He also apologised for not knowing who the band were, or what they represented. He said: “I was ignorant to the existence of the band Skrewdriver. I don’t listen to music like that so I wouldn’t know the names of bands that make that music. I was wearing a T-shirt I created using a photograph from the photographer Gavin Watson’s book Skins. “I asked him if I could print shots from his book on to T-shirts. I made a number of these T-shirts. Gavin’s photos are relevant to me because they represent the demonised youth of the past. Just like my generation of young people are demonised in the media to all be hoodie wearing thugs and chavs so were the skinheads in the 80’s.” Speaking about the person on the T-shirt, who some thought to be former Skrewdriver associate Nicky Crane, Plan B explained: “Most of the T-shirts I had made were of his brother. The boy on the image is Neville Watson. Neville is Gavin Watson’s brother. The graffiti behind him is graffiti. Neither Gavin or Neville put it there; it was already there when Gavin took the photo. Gavin did not know I had printed that image on a T-shirt and I was not aware of the significance of it.” He concluded: “The minute I found out what the words on the T-shirt meant I was angry with myself for not questioning them. The T-shirt is not official nor is it on sale anywhere. It was of my own doing and therefore it is my mistake, but that is all it is.” Skrewdriver were a notorious neo-Nazi “white power” group with links to the National Front. Founding member Ian Stuart Donaldson died in a car crash in 1993 and his death is celebrated every year by the far-right movement. Shortlist’s interview with Plan B can still be viewed on their website, where he talks about his favourite actors and movies as well as his own film, and accompanying album, Ill Manors.
From Concrete Jungle Festival to X-ray Spex live at the Roundhouse
Dress rehearsal one week before the gigwhat was I thinking, the day I decided to get involved with punk rock. my youth was way behind me, long gone were the days when I thought we were going to change the world. call it a mid life crisis, or just plain madness., but I would like to think it was more the desire to preserve and celebrate a time in British culture and music.
Poly and Saxby live on the roundhouse stageI had been away, become a father, worked for many years as a television actor, seen the world, discovered foreign cultures and philosophy. I didn’t need a pair of doc martins to define myself.Whether it was because I had often played skinhead roles on television shows, the bond I had with my friends, the memories of punks queuing up outside the town hall when I was a kid to see our local band the Xtraverts. The Clash at Brixton, Madness in Hammersmith Odeon, The fact Gavin Watson had made a living from photographs of my friends and me, or the TV documentaries I took part in on the subject. whatever it was, inside me was a belief which I discovered in my teenage years, which had kept me safe throughout my life. that said whoever you are, from where ever you come, you can get up there and do it. Punk Rock was a lot more than fashion and clothes, records and rock stars. It was a belief system, shared and loved by thousands.
Flash on saxAfter my time working with the Mean Fiddler came to an end, I was at a lose end. throughout my time doing large festivals, such as Leeds and Glastonbury, working behind the scenes, I had witnessed hundreds of bands come and go. The large American corporate labels selling the new generations, their version of Punk Rock, never booking the real thing. I often felt it such a shame that the kids of today or the Bands of real Punk had never had the chance of such exposure to each other, so when I bumped into an old friend, who was guitarist in the biggest band on the punk underground, Cock Sparrer, I agreed to work with him to produce a punk festival. I had experience with production, he was well in with the scene and all the bands, so the agreement was that I would sort the venue out, he would book the acts.
The crowd loving poly
All ages for an icon
Poly styrene
a job well done
Straight from signing the contract with the venue and paying the deposit of £10.000 I was in too deep, and alarm bells started ringing. Bands contacted me to ask who I was and why was I advertising that they were playing at my show. I was just going on what my booker was informing me, but apparently it had been discussions in bar rooms, and not official agreements made. “Oh well that’s how its done in Punk” He told me.Things were quickly ironed out with most bands, but a few had to drop out because of other commitments. The tickets went on sale through a punk website, at first all was OK, but after months of promotion it became apparent that tickets weren’t selling at anywhere near the amount we needed to break even. I then noticed even headline acts hadn’t put on websites etc. that they were even playing. I didn’t have the money or time to go to every small gig in Europe to give out flyers, I was hoping the punk scene would rally behind a great new event. but what I got was the polar opposite.
When I asked a headline band from Scotland called the Exploited, if we could renegotiate their fee, which was four times higher than their usual gig fee, they refused and threatened the website selling tickets, which then panicked and returned everyone’s money that had ordered tickets. The money I had taken directly had all gone to pay the monthly deposits ordered by the venue, which was non refundable. Rumours became loud about cancellation, other punk promoters sent texts out to tell people it was cancelled. Political extremists started to spread personal insults and commit purgery about me. Even one disgruntled ex Punk singer Jimmy Percey, who incidentally was the singer of a song which changed my life called the kids are united, put on his website that the event was some sort of Nazi rally, because his previous band had decided to play without him. Who was this stranger, who had come from nowhere and decided to put on a Punk festival. Is he a Nazi or communist. The truth didn’t seem to matter on the internet world, where the Troll and Internet warrior rules.Concrete Jungle Festival 2007, featured over 60 bandsThen the next head-liner started causing trouble because the logo used mentioned a band he was once a member of, again one of my all time favourite acts from Coventry, and ex members of the Coventry Ska band The Specials accused us of trying to cash in on the name, or give people false hope that it was in fact the original act playing, which was completely untrue, but he also had to pull off of the event.The stress levels were effecting my personal life beyond belief. I had invested my life savings. I naively thought that the scene would get behind a great new event. 60 bands were booked. but sales we lower than band members. with no sleep for three months my mental health was suffering, I had no energy left to fight an internet war, I had no idea about what bands had been involved with in the last 30 years politically, had no idea about how many loyal fans they had, I took the word of people I thought knew. a very bad business decision. as the stress became higher and higher, I cut away from people, found myself lost in the internet world of make believe, just looking for positives. it cost me the relationship with the girl I loved.Two weeks before the event the website/ production manager demanded full payment then ran away, refusing to work any moreMy girlfriend and helper abandoned ship and left the country. taking what she thought should be her wages, but was in fact ticket money to be paid to bands. but worst of all my emotions.An hour away from the show, I knew I was financially ruined, my crew had left, the money gone, I preyed for a walk up which never came. but I had found some friends who had come in to at least help on the day, my kids ran the merchandise stall with my sister, some real angels helped to make the show go on. In terms of entertainment it was highly successful. many people told me later that it was the best punk show they had ever attended, but emotionally. financially and mentally I was broken.One guest came that day, who was to turn the whole tide, and if there is a god on Earth it was her. Poly Styrene is her stage name. to me she is Marianne.She offered me the hand of friendship, showed me a way forward, gave me support and mental help, the courage to go on.She also offered to perform an X-Ray Spex show with me. With my last bit of energy, I agreed and booked the Roundhouse in London, for a show the next year. I was finished financially, so what did I have to lose, it was not like Concrete Jungle festival,this was a standard venue, with a band which were icons of my youth. one of my all time favourite acts, and true punk rock, in attitude and action.The Roundhouse holds 3000 people, and by new years day we had sold enough tickets to break even,but there was a lot of work to be done, find musicians, work on the set, organise all the promotions,the radio, press.Three thousand people came
Poly suffers with serious mental health issues, which had to be considered everyday. until she actually got on the stage we never knew if it would go ahead. we had the usual people trying to sabotage the event, but we also had an army of loyal fans that made X-Ray Spex live at the Roundhouse the best day of my life.
for the year running up to the event, we booked the venue, put our money where our mouth was, poly was constantly worrying about her mortgage payments, she had a little house in st leonards by her mother, any money she had made years before had been taken from her by bad management and sharks. we were in the same boat, it was us against the world. but the word spread, the love which was attracted to poly from across the world was unbelievable, with no big business, no big corporate promotion we did it. people said it wasnt punk rock, because we put the show in a big venue, but the roundhouse is a charity which helps deprived kids, poly and me decided its the only place we could possibly hold it, she didnt like the drinking festivals which most punk gigs were, neither of us liked the corporate events. we wanted to do the show for the real fans, from all walks of life, all ages groups and backgrounds.
the night before the gig my friend fiona was cutting the logo out to stick on a drum kit on her lounge carpet, for the kit we had got from ebay, the drummer didnt have his own kit. pete heywood had his circle of plyboard from his old band pink fraud, to be used for the stage projection.
on the day we didnt have any catering or food for the band, but no one complained, poly got on the stage and took the house down. halway through the gig my son asked me to go upstairs. we looked over the balcony, the place was full from wall to wall, back to front, people of all ages, from many different countries, the atmosphere was beyond words. my son said to me ‘ Dad did you do this’ the pride i felt at that moment will live with me forever.
later i stood on the side of the stage with my nephew alfie, watching the crowd going crazy, poly was alive and so young, her natural charisma shining like a star, my nephew asked me why was a crying. i said well. ‘its the happiest day of my life’Thank you Poly, Saxby, Flash, Paul, Pete Heywood, Oonagh. Luke
My son Jack, Sally, Alfie and Steve Reeve
daryl, ian, daz and guss, Oonagh and LukeAnd everyone that bought a ticket or helped out with promotion and spreading the word
It was a Sunny bank holiday Monday, early 80s , the early birds were gathering on Gt Yarmouth seafront …..we were just having a little wander seeing who was about and looking forward to some beers later and generally making our presence felt all day….so when we came across a small group of Mods I decided to have a go ,unfortunately for HIM I had brogues on which meant each kick would’ve hurt twice as much Bless him I gave him a right kicking and eventually he managed to runaway crying …….. a footnote to this story is that 30 years later I met my partner Drewy and one day quite out of the blue he says …I’ve just remembered a small blonde skinhead girl kicking shit out of a Mod on Britainia pier one bank holiday ….was that you ??? he was such an event he had stored it in his archive
Sindy Aldershot Skingirl
1965 in Aldershot Hampshire Ashill, a rural village in norfolk ..the only skinhead in the village In 1978 seemed to be overlooked as a kid and never got credit for doing well always felt that I didnt belong so became a Skinhead to fit in with the kids Id met in Newmarket when I visited my sister ….they took me in accepted me as one of them …before long was skipping schools to go to Newmarket 38 miles from where I lived …I accepted the rebel role it gave me an identity originally it was two tone and oi ..but progressed to Trojan ….although these days I prefer Northern soul highpoint ?? being part of something finally fitting in. Low point, realising my glue habit had taken over and that I was wasting away.
Here’s a pic of us playing together. Brian is on the left, playing guitar. You can crop him out if you’d like. Whatever you want to do with the photo is fine. This was Last Year’s Youth, taken in 1997 in St. Louis, opening for Red Alert at the S.L.O.P. Fest (St. Louis Oi! & Punk Festival).
9 years ago today, from a tragic accident, many of us in St. Louis and around the world lost a good friend, Brian Pollihan. Brian was like a skinhead little brother to me starting in 1993. Being 5 years my junior, we often joked about being “NAMBLA Skins”, haha! We first met around 1990, I suppose it was, and he was an impressive little upstart! He really had the spirit, he was the real deal. I moved away for a few years, we re-connected after I moved back in ’93 and became fast friends. We flew to the DC Skinhead Weekend thing together in ’94 and started Last Year’s Youth as soon as we returned home. LYY was our band, it was me and him.
Well it’s been 25 years since there last album was released and after listening to this album I can honestly say it was worth the wait. I reviewed a few of the demo tracks a few weeks back and have been patiently waiting for the finished album to arrive through my letter box.This album covers all angles of punk and like I said before it rams home to you the 70s,80s,90s,and 2000s with a fresh old but new sound, no two songs are the same but the album flows brilliantly from one track to the next. I noticed it also caters not only for all the different decades in punk but also to different age groups; when the album arrived my 12 year old daughter was here with me, she likes her punk music and she was happily listening to the album asking me questions about the band and basically saying what a great album she thought it was. In my view this new album is a must for any punk collection and I can honestly say it is the best album I’ve heard this year, no wait on, I’ll re word that, its the best album I’ve heard in the past few years….5 out of 5
The Last Resort are a name synonomous with the Oi! movement both as a shop catering for those of the skinhead persuasion and lifestyle in the ‘80’s. One of the iconic bands of that era, whose reputation far outweighed their recorded output, this has resulted in the band being given legendary status despite only being together originally for little over a year between 1980 and 1982, with their first gig being as support to the Originals, featuring soon-to-be Last Resort bassist Arthur Kay at Acklam Hall in West London on March 4th, 1981.
Following this gig, the band put out the first ever cassette-only release on the Cringe Music label, which was sold over the counter of the aforementioned shop and whose tracks featured heavily in Garry Bushell’s Punk and Oi! Charts through Sounds, the music paper of its day. The band got together originally in 1980 after Roi had seen a band called The Rivals rehearsing, following this, he met up with a guitarist called Charlie Duggan. Graham Saxby was then recruited on vocals, and at a Rivals gig they found a drummer called Andy Benfield.
As stated, the name Last Resort came from a shop owned by Micky French who happily agreed to let the band share the name. Following on from the first gig and cassette release, Saxby left the band in early 1981, with Roi taking over on vocals and Arthur Kay being recruited to take over bass duties. This line-up played on the “Strength Thru Oi!” and “Carry On Oi!” album tracks and recorded the band’s first album, “Way Of Life – Skinhead Anthems”, which was originally released on their own Last Resort records in 1982.
The band then split-up as a result of getting blamed for violence at or near their gigs, which were nothing to do with the band; and were blown-up out of all proportion by the anti-Oi! media feeling at the time. The band along with The Business and the 4-Skins (who Roi later joined as vocalist) were playing at the Hamsborough Tavern in Southall when it was attacked and burnt to the ground by misguided locals.
Following this split, there was a reformation of sorts in 1988 when Arthur and Andy, contacted Roi to reform the band, bringing in Mark Edwards from The Rivals on lead guitar. However when Arthur and Andy dropped out, Roi recruited Dean Wilkinson on drums and Mick Melville on bass to complete the band, which was called The Resort. This line-up released the “1989” album, before splitting-up at Christmas 1990.
The current line-up of the band featuring Chris Jones on drums and former Anti-Nowhere League personnel, John “J.J” Pearce on bass and Keith “Beef” Hillyer on guitar alongside Roi of course, got together in Millennium year, 2000 and immediately recorded an eight track demo, featuring both old and new songs including “Working Class Kids” and “Held Hostage”, originally released on the first cassette!
This line-up was originally going to be called Millwall Roi and they released the first fruits of the line-up via the track “We’re Gonna Get You” on the “Addicted To Oi!” compilation through “Captain Oi! Records”. They also contributed “Wonderful World” and “Chaos” to the 4-Skins release, “Secret Life of the 4-Skins”, again through Captain Oi!, and covers of “Gotta Go” as Millwall Roi and “She’s A Skinhead Girl Warrior”, actually as Last Resort to the “Worldwide Tribute To The Real Oi! – Vol 2” compilation on Triple Crown Records.
It wasn’t until 2002, however, that the band finally began to use the Last Resort moniker as German Festival Organisers M.A.D. assured the band that this name was the one that the fans would more readily identify with. So Last Resort were officially reborn, playing the “Punk and Disorderly Festival” in 2002. Since that gig, the band have also played in France, Belgium, Sweden, Spain and England, playing their first home country gig in 21 Years at the Hounslow Rifleman in 2003.
Other notable appearances since that time, have seen the band play at the “Beer Olympics” in Atlanta USA, without Roi!!!, the “Full Force Festival” in Germany, “Wasted” in England on a number of occasions, “The Fury Fest” in France and “Punk and Disorderly” a further couple of times. The band have also announced their intention to the Punk World by releasing their aptly titled comeback album “Resurrection” through “Captain Oi! Records” in February 2005, which was far more powerful and hard-hitting than their earlier releases, featuring old Resort songs re-worked, prime covers and some great new material.
* The Last Resort is says that the Worldwide Tribute To The Real Oi (vol 1&2) were Triple Crown releases. These actually weren’t. Both these releases are I Scream Records releases which (at the time) were licensed out to Triple Crown for North America.
In 2009 I Scream Records signed The Last Resort and released “You’ll Never Take Us; Skinhead Anthems II”.
Thank you.
* Kindly added by
Laurens Kusters I Scream Records PO Box 310344 Brooklyn, NY 11231 USA
Name: Karen Westbrook Born: Barking Grew up in Hornchurch Became a skinhead in 1979
The photo was Jay featherstone behind me, Karl Hayes is the little one and Dominic Attard is at the front. We were all friends and they all lived in Manor Park. We were all 14 at the time. It was at the back of the Last Resort, which was a clothes shop which sold skinhead, mod and punk clothing, down the East End near Brick Lane market.
The day it was taken was a normal Sunday down the shop, loads of skins, and if i remember rightly Nick was a skinhead too. He just asked people if he could take their pictures for a book he was doing. We did it for a laugh, never thought about it until a neighbour, years later said she had seen the pic of me in it!! Then my son bought it home from school!
I had been browsing through facebook and stumbled on a page, which mentioned a Skinhead Reunion. I had long forgotten my youth, the music and times had been tucked away into the broom cupboard of my mind, the fading photographs in a weathered cardboard box.
But I have always liked Brighton, a bit of 2tone on the radio always brings a smile, as I sit stuck in London traffic, a welcome interlude from the usual Simon Cowell Karaoke imposed on me.
As the train rumbled out of Gatwick on the home run to the south coast, my thoughts were taken by the ‘shish’ of an opened can and the unmistakable Belfast accent of two very smartly dressed skinheads.
I didn’t know tonic suits were still being made, but these guys looked a million dollars, the brogue shoes shined to a mirror. Chattering like a pair of excited school kids they noticed I was wearing a fred perry
with close cropped hair, which was my subtle way of getting involved, I guess the skinhead culture has never really left me, a Ben Sherman or pair of Levis has been a permanent part of my wardrobe since 1978
“Alrite mate Eamon, where you from” the first skinhead said as he stretched out his hand, passing me a fresh can of lager.
Until that point I wasn’t even sure if I would attend the skinhead reunion, I hadn’t been to anything in years, even I had been aware of the media version of skins, and wasn’t sure if that was true or not, I know we were the bad boys in the school playground, and there were a fare few crazies involved back in the day, but these two guys were like stand up comics. I real breath of fresh air. Call it a mid life crisis if you like, but I felt great, I don’t think I have ever been welcomed by two strangers so warmly in my life.
Hitting Brighton we made our way to the seafront, the sun was shining, the gulls screaming. The fresh air of the English channel immediately started to wash the stale polution of London from my lungs.
First stop was to be the Friday afternoon meeting point. The Modern World Gallery on Madeira Drive,the scene from Quadrophenia movie was replaying in my mind as we walked along, the noise of the pier
and streams of tourists soon was replaced by the sounds of Jamaican Ska blasting over the Street. I small crowd of well dressed skinheads were already milling about. As we approached they all turned to see us.
Instead of the old style stand off that skinheads always used in the old days, once again the smiles were immediate. Everyone introducing themselves and eachother, more beer was handed over and the party began.
I was amazed to see several good looking ladies with feathercuts, perfectly styled clothing, dancing in the street, the tourists watching on, unsure of what they were witnessing,
The Modern World Gallery stocks some great art pieces and mod memorabilia, original silver disks hanging on the walls. T shirts, some great Lambretta panel art pieces.
Like any old American city, Philadelphia is full of famous sights and tourist traps, but with a little guidance from a local, you can discover some great underground bars, people, and events.
One place I can often be found is Tattooed Mom on South Street. Although it’s in a very touristy area, this bar is a diamond in the rough – good food with an ample vegan selection, regular cheap beer specials, and a jukebox that’s always rotating great stuff, including Trojan Reggae compilations, Black Flag, and Cock Sparrer!
If you’re looking for a cheap happy hour bar, The Dive on Passyunk Avenue in South Philly is your best bet. The name says it all – this hole in the wall features happy hour specials and free pizza starting at 5pm, every weekday. Lucky 13 at 13th and Passyunk is another cozy spot that has a friendly staff that DJ everything from indie and classic punk to reggae and 2tone.
The biggest night of the month for me, however, is Moonshot!, at the Barbary in Fishtown, which is just north of Center City. This DJ night features a mix of skinhead reggae, ska, rocksteady, and soul — and best of all, it’s free. This is the one night of the month where all our friends meet up and have some fun with affordable drinks and rare vinyl selections. Another free entry night at the Barbary is Rocks Off! every Sunday night, with DJs spinning a mix of classic punk, rock, power pop, and oi.
But there’s more to Philly than just bars and clubs. The Ritz movie theatres, which are located in Old City, offer a great opportunity to see an indie, foreign, or underground film at a reasonable price. The Wednesday night special knocks the admission price down to only $5.50!
If you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, visit the Mutter Museum on 22nd street in Center City. It’s a museum of medical oddities, collected from over the years, and features such strange sights as “The Soap Lady” which was a corpse of a woman that had turned itself into a soapy substance.
If you happen to be a scooterist, make sure to catch the annual Independence Day Rally. Every year, on the weekend of July 4th, the Hostile City scooter club – Philadelphia’s overarching scooter association – hosts the Independence Day rally, which obviously coincides with the celebration of 4th of July. The rally includes bar meet-ups, rides through the city, more bar meet-ups, and of course, watching the fireworks that light up the sky over Philadelphia. For the avid brunch fan, they also plan Sunday brunches in various places throughout the city. It would include meeting at brunch, and after there will be a lengthy but informal group ride in the city.
All in all, Philadelphia has many exciting opportunities to get into, even if it is a small city. We have all the fine accommodations any other place would have along with our famous cheese steaks, the liberty bell, many arts murals, and so much more! If any of the events mentioned in the beginning seems to peak your interest, you should definitely visit us in Philadelphia!
It all started with punk rock fever throughout Los Angeles.
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, and I was influenced at an early age, by the Punk Rock and Oi! Movement. I was introduced to the skinhead scene during the summer before I entered high school, that was my introduction to a brilliant well-respected culture.
The skinhead scene in L..A is large and widely diverse, not all are united, but share the same passion for their culture and music. Before I was introduced by the older skinheads in my city, to the reggae and ska allnighters, I was drawn to the heavy reggae sounds and ska beats. The scene is, and was, very active, everyone dressed in their button-down Ben Sherman shirts and their freshly polished loafers or Doc Martens.
The heavy sounds of Reggae and Ska bursting through the sound system, caused a wave of euphoria through the crowd of sharply dressed youth. There is a variety of styles and cultures at our L.A. Reggae clubs ranging from Mods, to Rudeboys, and on occasions punk rockers. Our monthly clubs range from Reggae, Ska, Northern Soul, Rocksteady, and 60’s sounds. Some of the most popular clubs that have been around for many years are; Hotshot Sound system, Angel City Soul Club, Soulside, Trojan Lounge, The Long beach Sound Society, and Intensified.
We also have our weekly club. The Rocksteady Lounge known for its early Rocksteady beats and its young and well dressed crowd. Soulside hoste the Soul Invasion rally every year. The rally consist of rides , reggae , soul, ska and a friendly atmosphere , making it a place to meet new and old friends and create unforgettable memories. So if you are ever in mycity, come and check out our reggae clubs.
Everyone is welcome, leave your politics at home and bring you dancing shoes! Since the advent of ebay clothing has become a little easier to get hold of, we like to wear the British styles, like Fred Perry, Ben Sherman and take the more traditional look, rather than the American Hardcore version, popular among some USA Skinheads. The only shop we have here selling the stuff off the peg. is a shop called posers, which sponsors some of our events, its been around for over 20 years in name, but has changed hands once or twice in that time. sent in by Mod Moi
The first album by Tear up will be the first official release from Subcultz records. One of the UK best new Oi! bands that have literally been tearing up the British scene over the last year. And now its been recorded. Please support the band and the scene by placing your order now. Official release gig will be part of the Great Skinhead Reunion Brighton weekend, where the band will be performing the album, meeting and greeting. Its your support that keeps the scene alive! ORDER HERE
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