punk skin movement Written by Joe Kidd Msia
If youre a teenage punk rocker back in the late 70s and early 80s (as I was!), one of the main sources for punk rock news were the UK weekly music tabloids, namely New Musical Express (which was the best music magazine ever those days), Melody Maker and Sounds. By the time the second wave of punk rock happened, NME which was more middle-class, arty, thoughtful and progressive, concentrated more on the post-punk and the early US hardcore scenes, while Sounds was the main paper for the more "working class" forms such as Oi! and Street Punk or "Skunk" (SkinsnPunks). ... As for the "myths and misleading concepts" about the skinhead movement, this is very true from what ive been reading since those days. ... As usual, the news media always highlight the worse in a "trend" or a "movement", thus the overblown bad publicity on the skinhead culture. ... Anyway, Im here to say that bands like The Oppressed, The Redskins, Angelic Upstarts, Sham 69, Red Alert, Red London, Atilla the Stockbroker, Blaggers ITA and a lot more were never about fascist ideologies, in fact they were actively going against the right-wing movement.