Mod to Suedehead

Originally Posted by Man-of-Mystery

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Dunno... maybe whenever Chris Welch had a bad hangover, I guess. I do remember I was going to try to interview him (on behalf of "Yell") about his anti-skinhead stance, but he wouldn't agree to it. I just went looking for some on-line pages from the hippie paper "International Times" from '69 (when I conned them into letting me run "Yell" on their back page), but even these seem to have disappeared from the internet and I stupidly didn't save the pages to my hard drive. When MM do digitise their archive let me know!
Bringing this up again, apparently there was a Skinhead article in Melody Maker, April 69. It was still called "It's a Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod world"? Remember that one?

Originally Posted by Get Smart

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^^ yea I f'ing love Evil Conduct. they just came out with a new record last week called "Rule OK"
If you ever visit the Netherlands you should visit their nighter Live Injection in Roermond (I think it's run by them, at the very least their roadie Jean-Luc), also a dozen so Belgians and a lot of Germans visit it since it's right at the crossing point of Netherlands, belgium and germany.

Originally Posted by loempiavreter

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If you ever visit the Netherlands you should visit their nighter Live Injection in Roermond (I think it's run by them, at the very least their roadie Jean-Luc), also a dozen so Belgians and a lot of Germans visit it since it's right at the crossing point of Netherlands, belgium and germany.


cool, sounds like a future plan. Is the De Kastelein bar worth a visit? seems to be the "famous" skinhead bar in that part of Europe

Originally Posted by Get Smart

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^^ yea I f'ing love Evil Conduct. they just came out with a new record last week called "Rule OK"

Just wondering. Do you think any of these Oi bands will actually get airtime in mainstream radios and billed as a skinhead band in the US? Alot of these bands are effin good and so much better than the crap being played on the radio. Sure there are bands like Drop Kick Murphys with obvious influences from Oi bands but can't really be labeled as a skinhead "Oi" band per-se for the obvious stigma that has been attached to that term. And even Dropkick Murphys are rarely played on the radio atleast where I am.
But then again its probably a blessing in disguise why skinhead music traditional or otherwise has remained largely underground known only to the initiated (90s ska-punk fusion revival notwithstanding) which turned into a college douchebag fratboy party music. I'd sure hate for modern Oi bands like Evil Conduct, Templars, Stomper 98 etc to go the same route. Having gotten into the skinhead scene in 1989 after being introduced to bands like The Business, 4 Skins, Last Resort, it became disheartening to all of a sudden see doc martens and other skin gear attire become a common sight during the short-lived ska-punk era of the 90s. I lost touch with the scene after joining the military meeting only a handful of trad and Oi skin types in the Marines. But its good to get reconnected again with the music and the style.

Anyway just my two cents.

Originally Posted by Darksideoftheforce

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Just wondering. Do you think any of these Oi bands will actually get airtime in mainstream radios and billed as a skinhead band in the US? Alot of these bands are effin good and so much better than the crap being played on the radio. Sure there are bands like Drop Kick Murphys with obvious influences from Oi bands but can't really be labeled as a skinhead "Oi" band per-se for the obvious stigma that has been attached to that term. And even Dropkick Murphys are rarely played on the radio atleast where I am.
But then again its probably a blessing in disguise why skinhead music traditional or otherwise has remained largely underground known only to the initiated (90s ska-punk fusion revival notwithstanding) which turned into a college douchebag fratboy party music. I'd sure hate for modern Oi bands like Evil Conduct, Templars, Stomper 98 etc to go the same route. Having gotten into the skinhead scene in 1989 after being introduced to bands like The Business, 4 Skins, Last Resort, it became disheartening to all of a sudden see doc martens and other skin gear attire become a common sight during the short-lived ska-punk era of the 90s. I lost touch with the scene after joining the military meeting only a handful of trad and Oi skin types in the Marines. But its good to get reconnected again with the music and the style.

Anyway just my two cents.


There isn't a chance of a skin Oi band getting radio play, unless there was some college station having a punk program. Also, XM might have a punk station that might play some Oi, but it would almost never be described as such.

The skinhead stigma runs so deep in this country, there's really no way around it, making the music virtually unprofitable (read un-airable on commercial radio stations). That said, it really is probably for the better. The second wave of punk (hardcore in the US and Oi in England) was never really meant to be viable commercially. That has probably allowed the scenes to thrive unnoticed and practically unaltered. Ska is much more appealing in the sense that it is much more melodic and easily corruptible. That's why you will see sudden thrushes of popularity. It will bubble underground for a short time and then explode on the music scene and die away, not to be heard from again for another 10-15 years.

Also, I wouldn't necessarily consider Dropkick an Oi band, but skinhead influenced hardcore, similar to Blood for Blood or Agnostic Front. But I guess at that point, it's really just semantics.

funny cuz a station like Jack FM (plays a bit of everything, 80s, 90s etc), in a way, plays a lot of "skinhead music" every day at work I'll hear The Specials, Madness, The Jam....all mainstream stuff that has deep roots in skinhead and related subculture. but Oi music, of course not! as far as DKM, when I saw them in the mid 90s they were 100% oi band. They would play covers of Condemned 84's "skinhead" and the crowd was like 75% skins. After Mike left and Al joined was the decline of that band imo, when they started playing up their "irish punk" gimmick. But they def dont consider themselves a skinhead band anymore so it's a moot point

Definitely a huge difference with DKM Mike/Al. Street Dogs have sort of picked up the torch, but not quite in the same way.

Now, to see a Blood for Blood rebirth...playing out again seems to be the MO of old hardcore recently.

Originally Posted by Get Smart

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^^ yea I f'ing love Evil Conduct. they just came out with a new record last week called "Rule OK"

Indeed. Can't wait for my copy to arrive!

And, coincidentally, there is a 35% off code for the DM at the moment.

DMFF3510 I think it works off the DM website, and looks to include MIE boots.

Originally Posted by stilts121

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Indeed. Can't wait for my copy to arrive!

I already received one. It's very good, I would just expect that the booklet will have more photos or something more than only a few pages with lyrics.

another great band that has the traditional look and sound are The Cliches from Sweden they have 2 full lengths, both essential. Here is the most current release, there is another one called No Justice Just Us....might be out of print but you can download here I think (havent tried as I already have it) actually that site is pretty awesome, has a lot of good stuff you can download

Originally Posted by Get Smart

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Is the De Kastelein bar worth a visit? seems to be the "famous" skinhead bar in that part of Europe
Isn't that called the Moloko Bar nowadays? I don't know, never visited it, some of my friends did in their beginning days. Wasn't it connected to blood & honour, run by someone from Les Villains? Think their was a black guy kicked into coma somewhere near, in which the Kill Baby kill frontman was involved with, which eventually led to his suicide? To be honest didn't care enough about that place to remember the comments about it

Originally Posted by loempiavreter

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Isn't that called the Moloko Bar nowadays? I don't know, never visited it, some of my friends did in their beginning days. Wasn't it a blood & honour breeding nest run by someone from Les Villains?

Think their was a black guy kicked into coma somewhere near, in which the Kill Baby kill frontman was involved with, which eventually led to his suicide?

I think Les Villains were in some way involved with the bar, not sure about it being a breeding ground for B&H tho. I know bands like The Veros, Evil Conduct etc have played there as well. It's def an "oi" bar, not a traditional styled hangout like the Elephant's Head

Ok that's possible.

Sham 69 was about as commercially popular as Oi! got in the UK but suppose they'd be classed as trad punk though weren't they kinda godfathers of OI? Oh yeah, Cockney Rejects 'blowing bubbles' on Top of the Pops!

As an aside when I lived in Greenwich (S. London) in 2005 Garry Bushell ran for election as a Member of Parliament! He didn't win...

These are some cool clippings that a guy posted elsewhere, would give him credit but dont know who he is other than Mr BadManners