Post by roddy on Nov 20, 2004 14:09:10 GMT -5
SKINHEAD EVOLUTION (Birth of a Hooligan)
The story begins in the mid sixties with the Mods.
Mods had two distinct styles.There was your immaculately dressed mods (soft mods) with their Italian suits and hand made shoes,and then their was your working class mods (hard mods) with their Parkers,Levis and suede boots.Naturally styles crossed over and the hard mods would smarten up for clubbing while the self proclaimed elite would dress down for confrontatians with the ‘grease’,biker gangs in leathers.
The music they listened to included Soul music and Ska.They also listened to bands like The Who,The Small Faces and The Kinks but it was the sounds coming from the black ghettos of Jamaica and the USA that really set the scene.Along with the music came the clothes,Levi Sta Prest pants,Ben Sherman shirts,white socks,and Pork Pie hats,from the USA via Jamaica and brought to the UK by Jamaica migrants coming to work here.
As the sixties wore on the mods split into two distinct factions.
The peacock fashion ‘soft’ mods were slowly evolving into hippies with long hair,floral shirts and flaired pants,peacing out on The Whos Magic Bus and tripping out on acid. As a reaction against all this hippy shit the hard mods got even harder and evolved into Skinheads.
By the end of 1968 Skinhead had exploded all over the country
and working class kids everywhere were cropping their hair and puting on their boots ‘n’ bracers.For these kids off the council estates ‘hate and war’ sounded better then ‘peace and love’.
By 1969 The hard mods that gave birth to skinhead were growing up and moving on leaving the field clear for young Skinheads to run amok.Aggro at the football became a weekly ritual and the ‘Bootboys’ were at the forefront.It wasn’t all just Aggro though.Come the night and it was Sta Prest,broughes and a Crombie coat,a few flaggons of Cider,then up to the youth club to try and pull a bird.Birds,Bovver and Booze,what more could a young hooligan want. The Jamaican music the Mods had listened to carried through and the Skinheads took it as their own.It’s easy to see why with songs about Rude Boys and Gangsters,along with Rude Reggae like Prince Busters ‘Big 5’ and Max Romeo’s ‘Wet Dream’.It was also a million miles away from the acid induced ‘freak’ music the hippys were into.In response to the Skinheads love of Reggae Jamaican artists recorded music especially for them, Symarips ‘Skinhead Moonstomp’ being the most widely recognised,and the term Skinhead Reggae was born.
Politics and patriotism meant nothing and the few black Skinheads around mixed freely with white mates.Yes there was the odd incident of "Paki and Queer bashing",usually by wankers,but this would be blown up by the media to give a false impression.Most Skinheads would rather fight with other gangs,I mean there's nothing hard about slapping someone who don't wanna know.
Anyway, that's how for me and my mates.In 1969 I was a 12 year old kid living in Cardiff and thinking I was invincible,now I'm 48 and proud to say I'm still a skinhead.Like young Watford John once said,"For some of us it really is a way of life".
Roddy Moreno 2004.
The story begins in the mid sixties with the Mods.
Mods had two distinct styles.There was your immaculately dressed mods (soft mods) with their Italian suits and hand made shoes,and then their was your working class mods (hard mods) with their Parkers,Levis and suede boots.Naturally styles crossed over and the hard mods would smarten up for clubbing while the self proclaimed elite would dress down for confrontatians with the ‘grease’,biker gangs in leathers.
The music they listened to included Soul music and Ska.They also listened to bands like The Who,The Small Faces and The Kinks but it was the sounds coming from the black ghettos of Jamaica and the USA that really set the scene.Along with the music came the clothes,Levi Sta Prest pants,Ben Sherman shirts,white socks,and Pork Pie hats,from the USA via Jamaica and brought to the UK by Jamaica migrants coming to work here.
As the sixties wore on the mods split into two distinct factions.
The peacock fashion ‘soft’ mods were slowly evolving into hippies with long hair,floral shirts and flaired pants,peacing out on The Whos Magic Bus and tripping out on acid. As a reaction against all this hippy shit the hard mods got even harder and evolved into Skinheads.
By the end of 1968 Skinhead had exploded all over the country
and working class kids everywhere were cropping their hair and puting on their boots ‘n’ bracers.For these kids off the council estates ‘hate and war’ sounded better then ‘peace and love’.
By 1969 The hard mods that gave birth to skinhead were growing up and moving on leaving the field clear for young Skinheads to run amok.Aggro at the football became a weekly ritual and the ‘Bootboys’ were at the forefront.It wasn’t all just Aggro though.Come the night and it was Sta Prest,broughes and a Crombie coat,a few flaggons of Cider,then up to the youth club to try and pull a bird.Birds,Bovver and Booze,what more could a young hooligan want. The Jamaican music the Mods had listened to carried through and the Skinheads took it as their own.It’s easy to see why with songs about Rude Boys and Gangsters,along with Rude Reggae like Prince Busters ‘Big 5’ and Max Romeo’s ‘Wet Dream’.It was also a million miles away from the acid induced ‘freak’ music the hippys were into.In response to the Skinheads love of Reggae Jamaican artists recorded music especially for them, Symarips ‘Skinhead Moonstomp’ being the most widely recognised,and the term Skinhead Reggae was born.
Politics and patriotism meant nothing and the few black Skinheads around mixed freely with white mates.Yes there was the odd incident of "Paki and Queer bashing",usually by wankers,but this would be blown up by the media to give a false impression.Most Skinheads would rather fight with other gangs,I mean there's nothing hard about slapping someone who don't wanna know.
Anyway, that's how for me and my mates.In 1969 I was a 12 year old kid living in Cardiff and thinking I was invincible,now I'm 48 and proud to say I'm still a skinhead.Like young Watford John once said,"For some of us it really is a way of life".
Roddy Moreno 2004.
