Here on the East Coast of America, there has of late been a resurgence of “Oi Bands,” rather traditional punk bands that utilize a lot of call-and-return and general crowd participation. Patriot is a notable example. They’re a lot of fun to see, and are quite welcome at most venues.
It is always worth noting that Skinheads were Skins long before the f–ing Nazis had anything to do with it. Many, if not most, Skinheads are still not white supremacists. Our nation’s capital boasts a long, unbroken tradition of skinhead youth who, while not always being the most savory folk, perform the valuable task of keeping the damned Nazis out of my town. Gotta like that.
I know that not all skinheads and “Oi”-ites are neo-Nazis. What I said was that they included neo-Nazis. That’s not the same thing as saying they were all that way. I supported the “Nazi punks fuck off” movement from the beginning. Sorry I got under your thin skin.
Maybe a little… it was just a suggestion Hotmail spat out at me when the name I wanted was taken. The numeric association with skins and Sham made it pretty easy to swallow so I started using it with any account where the name I wanted was gone.
Hmmmm… I think I’ll go throw on Hersham Boys now and have a little nostalgia wallow. sigh
“Oi!” seems to have been around for quite some time in British parlance and my WAG is that it’s related to “Oyez,” a word now only heard in courtrooms, but which still has the same meaning of “Hey you!” or “Listen up!” or, as they used to put it, “Hear ye!”
British Punks used it because the Ramones did - the Ramones used it because…?
a) they were trying to sound British (think “Blitzkrieg Bop”).
b) it was “Yo!” backwards, and a joke on all the Sylvester Stallone types. (The '70s - “Saturday Night Fever” and “Rocky” were big.)
c) it’s fun to shout “Oi!”.
d) they thought it might get girls to sleep with them.
Hehe, I’ve been in that debate before. I was referring to the Punk movement rather than the popular bands of the time. The USA had some good bands (including some of the earliest ones like the Stooges), but I will never be able to think of “Punk” as anything else than a dominantly British phenomenon.
But let’s end this hijack and save it for a more relevant thread.
