While scouring through YouTube this past weekend I came across this interesting New York news piece on Skinheads. Not only is it interesting because it's on Skinheads, but the fact that it has quality news shot footage of No For An Answer playing at CB's makes it a must see in my book. Other highlights include an interview with S.H.A.R.P. skin Marcus who sports his awesome Shotsie done Straight Edge tattoo and some quick footage of Trenton's own, City Gardens.
Seeing this video really brings me back to some of the things that I definitely do not miss about 1988 and the late 80's hardcore scene in general. White power Nazi skins ran rampant throughout the scene back then. For a 14 year old relatively sheltered, suburban kid like myself, seeing these huge, flight jacket, doc marten, braces wearing, tattooed, shaved up Nazi's, was pretty damn intimidating. I remember many 87-88 era City Gardens shows where I feared for my life. Never was I actually ever fucked with, but I do recall one specific show where I was standing around out front before the show started. I was wearing a Princeton hooded sweatshirt, some tight rolled jeans, a pair of Adidas high tops and had a flat top. In other words, I looked like every other straight edge kid in 1988. A group of about 5 Nazi skins came up to me and started talking shit, making fun of me and calling me something along the lines of a generic, posi core clone. I stood there shaking in my Adidas, trying to mind my own business and praying for these lunatics to keep on moving. Thankfully they got their laughs and did in fact move on, but damn... that was a scary few minutes I assure you.
So, check out the video, enjoy the quick clips of No For Answer and be thankful the Nazi skinhead craze died down within the hardcore scene. - Tim DCXX
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Skinheads 1988
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great find.
ReplyDeletei'm a couple of years older than you tim, but i too can remember being terrified for my life at late 80's shows. it's amazing to think about how big these guys seemed when i was a 16 year old kid, and they were really only a few years older than me.
now it seems amazing that you could have had a youth of today show over run by skinheads... but they came out then. i'm glad that whole thing ended relatively quickly.
any body wanna give odds on whether that straight edge guy in the video still is?
I think this was from 1989 Tim. I'm pretty sure that was the Hawker show. I remember watching this on the ABC news with my Mother and praying I didn't show up in the crowd shots at CB's, since I wasn't supposed to be there. NY Skinhead "Troy" once punched me on the top of my head causing me to nearly bite my tongue off.
ReplyDeletei remember being at the NFAA show at CBGB's with a bunch of friends from CT, in particular my friend Brian Roberts who was also on the wrestling team with me. we had skipped a wrestling meet that Saturday to go into NYC and when he found out that the NFAA show was being shown on TV he was terrified that our coach would see him. Of course he gets shown prominantly in the the footage, but our coach back in CT never watched NYC news stations!
ReplyDeletebrian btw is in the red shirt standing in front of the stage in the NFAA footage.
ReplyDeletecity gardens "skins" were the worst...
ReplyDeleteabsolutely hated going there. way too many idiots. my usual exit was stage diving & then being escorted out the side door.
-jeff
Do you people really think that even if you were on stage singing along to every second of all the footage that any "adult" would have know that is was taped the Sunday you said you were supoosed to be somewhere? You think Coach Johnson would be like "I saw that NFAA footage from CBs and I know that NFAA played there on Sept 12th and they're from Cali, so they don't play CBs a lot, so I know that was you there on that date and not at our swim meet!" C'mon now! To normal people that footage does not matter and could be from any time and they only know it's CBs if they pay attention to the reported in front of it.
ReplyDeleteThe first skinhead interviewed may not look familiar to all of you, but many of you know or know of his brother. Peter K (the guy who is afraid of losing his job on Long Island) is the older brother of Archie S.I.B., the leader of the Strong Island Boys, who died apparently of a drug overdose. Peter recently wrote a book in which he claims his brother was murdered by the system:
ReplyDelete"Murder is not only the unlawful killing of one human being by another; it is also a conscious system or policies that contribute to purposeful deaths. My brother and I grew up ignorant in a rigged and manipulated system. Our choices and decisions at every step were from implanted subconscious responses from this rigged system. There are clear manipulators and people who understand the inner workings of this system and are therefore equipped with the knowledge to make better decisions, so the actions of the mindless drones (self included) that stem from this system are their ultimate responsibility. You cannot fault a person that has existed in ignorance, sometimes through generations, for not being able to choose through this rigged system. It is like telling a monkey to work out a mathematical equation. Unlike the animal, a human has the potential to break out of his ignorance."
The number of people who won't take responsibility or accept responsibility never ceases to amaze me.
This was from October of '88. That was not the Hawker show.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you're right.
ReplyDeletethere's two bits of footage of some of the Suburban Uprise/The Uprise guys in this thing.
ReplyDeletei hate the 'investigative reporters'
ReplyDeleteHey Tim, I had a similar experience around '88 too. Some boneheads try to scare me when I was skating down to the shops. Like what happened to you, they made light of my dress sense and haircut, which was that Tony Hawk kinda image. I was also relieved to get away unscathed from those gnarly looking thugs.
ReplyDeleteAbout year later I decided I wanted to become a "ska skin". I got my head shaved, bought some DM boots and a flyer jacket etc... Just like that kid from "This Is England". That fad lasted about a year. I just couldn't stand drawing negative attention to myself.
Man, am I thankful I discovered hardcore.
Cheers,
Al from Melbourne, Australia
fuck all that skin head shit, fuck Youth Defense League and all the skins in the world
ReplyDeletefuck all that skinhead shit,Youth Defense League sucks and agnostic front sucks too
ReplyDelete