Head to squarespace.com/jimmythegiant to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code JIMMYTHEGIANT 📢 Join the discord! discord.gg/b3b26Kaf
I have to deal with the American skin head culture here. Just a bunch of Racist people who like to shave their heads, I think one of the worst experiences I had with 1 was when they sent their German Shepherd dog after me, That was not a good day.
One thing most people get wrong about the hippies, is that many of them could scrap and were up for a scrap...The 'Peace and love' was a big element to hippies(the televised element to them), but not the only element. American hippies were widely known be good for a punch-up if it came to it.
Jimmy...., how can you see swastika fans in Poland where Germans under swastika destroyed whole Poland ? its Like England Hate Queen Elizabeth yet stamp her portrait everywhere . contact me for more info
I remember in the early 80's hearing about skinheads and they would hang out at the video arcade in my city that had the best variety of games but I was too intimidated to go in because of what I heard about skinheads. Eventually, one of my non-skinhead friends decided to "take one for the team" and go down to the arcade and face them but to his surprise, they just looked him up and down and then went back to their business. Eventually we all went down to the arcade and the same thing happened. They just looked at us and went about their business. Eventually, after 2 months of going down there they became friendly with us & we ended up sharing the same taste in music (some of it being dub reggae & they introduced us to the Clash) so the media hype surrounding skinheads was just a hoax.
Yep the version known today was actually caused by that very same media hype. Now think about what that same media is causing right now… today. In our current lives.
@@cedrickillory1590 I too am curious to know what errors. I'm English, was born in the '60s, in to 2-Tone, later punk, & was involved in running street battles with racists & racist skins a few times in the '80s & early '90s. The video seems pretty much spot on. Oh yes, & I laughed like a drain when that piece of dirt from Skrewdriver (Donaldson maybe?) got his.
back in the 90s I went to see a Two-tone band called Bad Manners. I was a preteen when Bad Manners were popular so I didn't realise that Bad Manners was a skinhead band. There I was, one black man surrounded by 500 skins. They were fine. No one threatened me with a stanley knife so that was a result.
Skinhead love affair, skinhead girl version, all the other references in their lyrics buster himself being a skin, the logo, the album covers, how come they wanted to shake it off¿ yes, they were bigger than “skinhead” but come on…@@the_grand_tourer
I first met Buster blood vessel on Isle of wight scooter run in 93 . One of my workmates said buster was his neighbour he was saying how he used to piss some of the neighbours off with things he used to do Malcom said he was ok a good laugh. They were the good old days.
As a skinhead from 79 to 84 ,it was a turbulent time. Im definitely not racist but loved “uniform” and the energy of Oi music and still do. My exceptionally shiny boots and cropped hair actually got me my first job and career. Though I can’t remember his name now, the area manager of Windshields Ltd , (now Autoglass) was in the shop when I turned up for a YOP placement,a work experience program. He told the manager to take me on as my appearance was immaculate. This was 1982 high unemployment, recession etc. I ended up staying for 11 years before moving to America and Safelite an international part of Autoglass. I guess what I’m saying is never judge a book by its cover.(you’re not). Great video. Thank you.
@@KasumiRINA not really good at explaining myself mate. Sorry. Had had a beer before writing. You are right. But most people thought skinheads as all bad, they weren’t. Media liked to make it bigger than it was. I am forever grateful to that manager for the positive attitude he had for me
@@KasumiRINAgo watch the old geraldo Rivera show when skinheads came on and that brawl happened when he got his nose broken you'll understand what he means
As a Skinhead I can honestly say we're not all the same. Some Skinheads are a part of a group called S.H.A.R.P which is 'Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice', we aren't racist in any way. Skinheads formed from Jamaican immigration after World War 2 when people around the globe come to rebuild the country. It's honestly infuriating when everyone puts Skinheads and Neo-Nazis in the same category. Nowadays there are upcoming skinhead cultures which don't have anything to do with any racism but join the culture for the music.
Back when, a SHARP friend explained to me that they are Traditional Skin Heads and and racist skinheads are more or less pretenders. Reading comments and watching video, it seems more correct to say that both groups developed in parallel from an original subculture that had nothing to do with social / political beliefs.
It's liberating. During lockdown, when all the barbers were closed, I buzzed my hair off with a beard trimmer and it felt so great. If/when I go bald, I'll know that living a combover life is an act of insecurity. Better to just shave it all off and be free.
There's a lot of nuance missing in this analysis. I feel the entire skinhead era would make for a fascinating historical explanation, but no one wants to go beyond the sanitized story that has been repeated a million times before.
I see all types of videos like this on RUclips talking about subcultures and they end up leaving out a lot of important stuff that leaves people making assumptions
Yeah here's the deal, I'm pretty pro for the old school skinhead shit. Always look at it as just a working class movement. If there's shit being left out I'd love to see a deeper analysis of the whole history
Enoch Powell's speech wasn't actually contreversial about 80% of British public supported it. It was unpopular among the managerial class, labour party, and the tory establishment. Powell knew there was a lot more wrong with UK than just immigration.
@@paulanderson3709 Yes, the reality is that the Left was not honest about the migration problems, preferring their own sinister agenda, which persists to this day.
I was a skinhead at school in 1966 at 14 years old we were a crossover from the Mods who did wear parkas when riding their scooters. We lasted about 8-10 years and wore made to measure tonic suits to go out to clubs at night ( I left school at 15 and got an apprenticeship) and wore jeans and Dr, martens to football. We all sort of grew out of it as we grew older, it was a teenage and early 20's thing for us. we lived just outside South West London my mum and dad were South Londoners like a lot of my mates parents. Happy days going to Football on a saturday and Petticoat Lane and Brick Lane on a Sunday (my dad and his mate had a stall occasionally in Petticoat Lane when I was a kid) we and the Girls of the day were very smart and like the mods did dress up to go out we shared a love of reggae, Ska, bluebeat etc.and soul music with the West Indian boys there were skirmishes but not really to much about the racial aspects just different areas and young blokes getting into fights.
Wow still bright as ever in your 70s! Keep going grandpa and it’s great to see a first hand experience, I always get weary about that period of time, but thanks for educating me‼️
I have a shaved head, Dr Martin boots, a Harrington jacket, and a love of 60s Jamaican music. This video is mostly right, but the non-racist Skinhead movement was and still is a bigger deal than portrayed here.
Also, the Oi! thing isn’t associated with far-right or racist politics. Boneheads have their own music they call RAC or Rock Against Communism. It’s not liked by Oi! music aficionados or traditional skins.
It's such a shame that the 'bad elements' keep being overly highlighted and not the culture as a whole. Though I don't experience any issues. People are always positive about me being a Skinhead and I end up in conversations with many people when I am outside. I have yet to meet someone who avoids me like the plague for who I am
@@TobiasC-mg4zk yes like the oppressed played with condemned 84, vicious rumours and the business played with the die hards, and lets not forget the boomtown rats played with skrewdriver
ok , So ... Skinhead myself and you have the very bare bones . It started out as mixing together in various factories and places of work and the white working class began to integrate with the people who had arrived on the Windrush . We all went to work wearing work boots and most wore braces to hold up our trousers . Everyone started to meet up at the Jamaican house parties . They dropped their braces and rolled up their jeans to dance , this is where the fashion began . They swapped music and over time it merged . side note .. The only place you would see a mod on a Vespa is in Quadraphenia 😅 .. The mods were also never wealthy 😂 , they were blue coller workers who scrimpt , saved and paid as they went for suits and shoes etc.. The whole idea was to be the peacock and have the latest , best or most flamboyant . They had nothing and wanted to feel like someone.
This was actually very eye opening, and a fantastic upload. I have always been curious - because when I was growing up our local skinheads were just punk and hardcore music fans that were anti racists - SHARPs. 10/10 upload Jimmy, truly riveting
Did you ever happen to pass through Lansing, MI around 2011/2012? Your pfp looks a lot like my ex's (RIP) friend and you even share the same name/spelling. The skins I've met in PDX are mostly SHARPS... until you peep the Skrewdriver patch
the "this is England" series (there's several) is such an undervalued body of work that still gives me goosebumps & tears to my eyes when I think back on it and I'm not even from Britain! It really moved me at the time I first saw it on the sundance channel or something like that...
I was Skinhead growing up in London and I’m still Skinhead at heart today. Long live the spirit of 69. I’m half Scottish and half Jamaican and raised in London.
I loved my skinhead husband. He died less than a year ago at the end of 2023. When we would go to Oktoberfest every year guys who thought they were tuff took one look at my husband and were intimidated and hung their heads. 😊 He was racist growing up in Northern Cali but as he moved to Socal and was in contact with other races and cultures he left that scene. He married me, a native American women in 2017 we were both in our late 40,s grew up loving punk rock and scooters. He was my best friend and the love of my life ❤️. Thanks for your video.
I'm really glad you did this. In America it's always ridiculous trying to explain skinhead origins and no one has ever believed me even though it's common knowledge to Brits.
@@mrnordyk1125 oh yeah, I mean there's definitely American skinheads. Still. Up here in Portland (in every major city im sure) they're full on organized and it confuses the hell out of anyone not familiar with the scene. But never was as widespread a phenomenon as it was in the UK.
I literally tried to explain this to an ignorant coworker and they didn’t care to listen they basically said well here in America blah blah blah it’s like everything revolves around what America thinks no matter the history. I was so annoyed because it has such a rich history and isn’t racist like everyone thinks
@@JimmyTheGiant there's a channel dedicated to Club Kinetic at the Pleasure Dome in Stoke On Trent, with lots of old footage if it comes in useful for your research. We used to pile into a minibus and travel up from Brum a couple of times a month. 😂
I was a kid during the 2 tone era, had the black Harrington, grey sta press, Fred Perry, white socks and maroon tassel loafers. It was such a contrast to the mutton chops and brown flares we saw literally all around us. The multicultural aspect was key, it meant you were as likely to be listening to Demond Dekker or Burning Spear as you were The Jam or The Beat. But just as the suedehead and rude boy aesthetic got appropriated and the very distinct division got deliberately blurred by a media that has never kept pace with the speed of change in youth movements, so we too got lumped in with football casual terrace hooliganism and all the race hatred that was going on there at the time. I think that whole style is timelessly cool and I know many youngsters today agree, but it does come with a lot of potential social baggage that it has never deserved.
Yes, I was probably one of those mutton chopped long haired men around you at the time which by your letter, I'm assuming you were a Skinhead in the 1980's😮 I was One of the Original Skinheads from 1969/70 but remember by 1971/2 it was over and Glam rock had come in although I Never had mutton chops, I had long hair then.. We went from Skinheads/Boot boys to suedeheads then onto Glam rock from 1972 until 1975 when it more or less ended when the Anti-music of the Sex pistols came in 😮 But I loved it when the Skinheads re-emerged in the 1980's because I really hated the punks who were trying to say they were Anarchists, but we're nothing of the sort...Skinheads embodied the real Anarchy not punks 😮
I was 2nd year at high school when black sta press and black Doc shoes was the style to wear to school, a couple of years later flight jackets were also popular, I had all 3 by '84. There were alot of Mods and Ska fans going about and I was starting to get into metal.
I was adopted by my grandad who was unapologetically a skinhead. I really wish I got to experience the skin heads mods and 2-tone era. This is honestly my favourite era of England before my time 🏴
I was a 1979/1980 Mod Revival mod, thoroughly into not only The Who & The Jam etc, but also Two-Tone and Ska. I still have my old parka! Incidentally, a lot of info on this video is rubbish.
@@Cameraman61 Thank you! I’m amazed by all these people who have apparently no clue that a retro “revival” of a thing is not the thing. Revivals are interesting in their own right - but to see the Specials - Coventry teenagers of the late 70s/early 80s - depicted as if they were part of the ska scene in 1950s Jamaica is just…illiterate.
@@bebopdedop8776 The video smooshes together things from 1950s and early 60s Jamaica, like ska and twotone and conflates it with a “revival” by English teenagers of the late 1970s and 1980s. A “revival” is LARPing, basically. It’s kids growing up in a very different world, imaginatively re-enacting what their friends’ cooler parents, an earlier generation, looked and sounded like. I went to Specials concerts - they were very good - but nobody imagined Terry & Neville penned “A Message To You Rudy”, or that Madness or Bad Manners were referencing 1940s schooldays in the West Indies. The next week, we would be in the same place with the Stranglers, Souixie and the Banshees, or The Tourists.
its still very much alive and kicking ,the thing about this type of culture is it never leaves your soul once you are hooked,theres at least 2 or three pubs by me who regularly have ska/skinhead nights , as well as local singers doing the rounds in the pubs performing cover versions of 70"s reggae classics,i got hooked in 1979 and even now when i hear a blast from my past my heart still skips a beat with exitement ,what a time and what fantastic music
Knew a kid who was a hold-out classic skinhead in the 21st century, always with the shaved head rocking them red martens and suspenders all the time. Not racist at all. Still, always super uncomfortable to be out in public hanging out as 100% of everyone you'd walk passed obv thought you where out fraternizing with your like-minded national socialist buddy. Cept when we where fortunate enough to have one of our black friends along and you'd just see that hourglass icon spin above their heads in the looks they'd passed us.
Just discovered this channel. Your level of research and breadth of archive material is outstanding. Love it. Going to devour all of your videos like a Pret Meatball Wrap.
Your analysis of subcultures dynamics really makes me see the world differently. Would happily listen to a full sociology course made by you - thank you!
My dad was born in the 60s and was a proper skinhead and he always talked to me about scar, rocksteady, bob marley and many other reggae artists. Even till this day he is super passionate about it and has pretty much the same hairstyle....but thats also mainly because he had a receding hairline from young also. Even all his mates i've met are either super skinheads or jamaican whenever dad takes me to the pub from young to nowadays. All lovely and down to earth. SHARPS also made up a huge amount of skinhead and anti racist culture in the uk also and mixed with the reggae OG skinheads perfectly also. Both anti racist. The only difference is that the SHARPS skinheads loved punk and harcore music more.
It's so sad how worried we (brown Asians) were about skinheads. It's awfully inconvenient that the nicest antiracist lot looked the same as the neo nazi ones that would harass us. The scumbags set fire to my grandparents home with gasoline through the mailbox :(
Skinheads did not come from the Jamaican rude boy culture (although it certainly had it's influence around the south of England , mainly London from working class men & youth who flocked down south when work dried up in the north - bringing that look with them). Skinheads have been around a lot longer than the 1960's , the look came from shipping dock workers, factory workers, mine workers etc. from the north of the UK and Northern Ireland, they can be dated back to the 1940's and mostly the 1950's perhaps even much earlier. In those days whilst working in those environments heads were shaved to prevent lice (common back then) and the boots with turn - up trousers was done as not to get the bottom of the trousers soiled from the elements. Braces were worn as belts weren't common back then too. The term "skinhead" was not coined then but I'm certain some were called that for obvious reasons. Most were into all different kinds of music , in the 50's a lot were teddyboys who sure didn't like to have their heads shaved so the work uniform became a fashion statement on the streets & pubs to show people what they did for a living & were proud of it (or not proud of it for that matter) . Only much later on in the late 60's of the south of England the term "skinhead" was used for the obvious reasons & other fashions (like the rude boys) got mixed with it with the white younger generation who mingled with the Jamaican immigrants & liked their music - It was the media who exploited it. If you do a search , you will find very old photographs (mostly from the late 1950's and early 60's) of what later became known as skinheads. The subculture part of skinheads was fascinating as they were one of the only subcultures who didn't have their own music , only music from other subcultures in later years ( teddyboys, mods , rockers , punks etc etc). In places like Australia & New Zealand they had a similar subculture in the early 70's called Sharpies who mostly derived from UK immigrants but had their own music akin to punk rock but was a little earlier and the music had influences by bands like Slade & blues rock but grittier and nastier . The look was a mix of skinhead, bootboys & glam. Everthing has its origins & everything is connected. Oi music is often misunderstood as the music created by skinheads but that is not true either, Oi is just punk rock that got called that by a certain music journalist (whom I won't mention that worked for Sounds music magazine) who copped the term from various punk bands like Sham 69 and Cockney Rejects in particular who did a song called Oi Oi Oi (plus a lot of other bands of that era that I grew up with proudly indeed). As said, everything has it's origins & everything is connected.
First adopted music of skinheads being skinhead reggae/Jamaican rock steady or well known as Trojan Reggae, Oi got mixed up during the 2nd wave years later along with 2 tone, most of the uniform coming from mod ivy league, anything before that wasn't anything to do with the subculture other than the hard mods whom created it.
This used to be common knowledge until they started that narrative of jamaicans in the mod subculture had the look and early skins were part of that scene and later estranged from the mods and jamaicans. Mods were mostly snobs, but the scene was also a major point in the birth of youth subcultures. Not saying that there weren't any before it, most significant were the rockabilly scene that birthed the rockers/uk sleazers who were in to the hell's angels motorcycle stuff. The mod skins despised them (and mods generally) and at the end of the day the later skins of oi/hardcore weren't all too different from them. Many skins secretly liked The Stray Cats f.e
It makes life easier. You don't worry about how your hair is looking, easier/quicker to wash and dry. No money spent on following the latest hair trends. Its great, if people want to label you for how your hair or lack of it looks then i honestly dont have time for them.
I was a Skinhead in the Early 1970's and although violence was a part of the movement it was mainly about the music 🎵 and the fashion then, I believe people misunderstand Skinheads as brainless thugs but we certainly weren't as the original Skinheads were not about that, it only got worse when the 1980's Skinheads came out but I feel that was a reaction to the punks as one little Skinhead said, 'this is real Anarchy Johnny', refering to Johnny rotten and the Sex pistols...😅 That's my theory anyway, I later became a boot boy and then suedehead...then Glam rock came in and we became Glam rockers...to me the Original skinheads were the best😊
the blurring of the swastika had me dying, I'm assuming it was for algorithm purposes but still I was imagining jimmy like "they'll never know what it is thank god I protected them"
@@peterbrittain1963Is it also illegal to do research? As a kid we're taught evil blue eyed supermen wanted to take over the world but if you actually dig a little deeper you find like all wars it was a BANKERS WAR!!! I wish they had let us read the "25 point plan of the NSDAP" in school. It's like a 5min read but is life changing imo. Very telling!!!
I dressed as a girl skinhead in the early 70's in South London a place called Clapham close to Brixton. It was all about bluebeat, reggae then ska music. Growing out of that fashion for obvious reasons a lot of Skins started wearing Sta--press Levis and Ben Sherman shirts with Crombie overcoats and brogues. That was the Ska era. A lot of fun and music and I had many Jamaican friends. It's all changed and I'm glad I no longer live in England. Sad.
I grew up in 90s Bulgaria and I think that's when the skinhead culture was at its strongest here. They were full blown neo-nazis, and their favourite passtime was beating up gypsies, metalheads, hippies, and LGBTQ people, and adorning the cities with nazi swasticas and white power bs. I don't think music was ever as important to them as the their nazi nonsence, even though there were a few local ska-punk bands that were popular with them. A lot of this culture morphed into the football hooligans culture of today, but a lot of the more promintent skinhead neonazis grew up and started working in politics. So when I think of a skinhead, I always think of the violence and racism that surrounded them. Funnily, I've lived in the UK for some time and when I think about a British skinhead, I'm actually thinking about the skinhead part of the British LGBTQ culture. Dudes in Doc Martens, suspenders and shaved heads that you expect to be into some sort of kink but are generally super sweet and nice, and the complete oposite of the skinheads from back home.
Yeah it’s funny cos I grew up in the north of the uk after the skinhead scene had kinda died down (2000’s specifically). I always associated them with neo-nazism/fascism. Actually learning about the subculture and where it comes from is really interesting. It’s a shame it got associated with such vile groups considering it’s origins
The truth is. The original skinheads. In the UK were just teenagers. Rebelling and doing what teenagers do. Listening to the music they liked. Hanging out with their mates. It was a phase to most of them. And most of them grew out of it. It largely no longer exists. And any versions that do. Are either media stereotypes. People who have fetishsized it. Or original skins who celebrate the original version and have tried to reclaim the image. And present it the way it was. To set the record straight. They have had a lot of success doing that. Never in the history of teenage fashion. Have so much distortion taken place. It was never about politics. But the media created a frankensteins monster with that one.
Was born and bred there and was probably the only actual skinhead from about 1989. Prior to that the "gang" name originated in the early 70s through the to the early 80s and still continues to this day. No actual skinheads though
One thing that got missed in this is the working class kids in the 60's sported boots and short hard etc. because of military service. The look grew out of a reaction to hippies, hanging on to military style, as well as taking some mod clothing choices.
What's kind of funny is if you describe the classic skinhead look (short hair/shaved head, doc marten boots, jeans) you're basically describing modern lesbian fashion lol. Also I think the bit about the mods is a bit understated, the reason why mods got into a lot of fights is because they had a rival subculture, the rockers. Gangs of mods and rockers would get into huge clashes in the 60s, and it actually predates modern football hooliganism (modern as in starting around the 70s). What's interesting is the rockers actually calmed down and became the first hippy groups in the UK, so the two have always sort of stayed as the opposite side of the other, the more aggressive the mod/skinhead side got, the more chill the rocker/hippy side became, but also became more disorganised.
There was the "Mods and Rockers" thing going on. But that's not the only reason Mods got into fights. Mods would fight other Mods as well. Essentially, working class British youths have always fought each other as a past time, predating the emergence of youth subcultures. It's just having two rival subcultures was an extra excuse to do so.
There was a period of time where there was a lot of gay skinheads, after the appropriation by the far right there was a part of the gay community that decided to reappropriate the style in their own way. An interesting part of the subcutures history that gets ignored; Nicky Craine (THE national front poster boy) ended up coming out before passing. There is a lot of the skinhead style that have found their way in todays subculture. Skinhead changed the way subculture looks in the UK in my opinion
The 2nd skinhead wave that came from oi!/punk (79/80) had more in common with rockers than mods. Punks hated mods anyway, even had songs about them. Also early 80's psychobilly started as a mix of punk/skin/rock-a-billy.
The so-called clashes between Mods and Rockers was grossly exaggerated. The Media hyped it as usual, looking for sensational headlines for their Rags. Fact is there was mostly friendly rivalry between Mods and Rockers. England/ Britain at that time was fairly law abiding and peacefull. I was born in 1960. My two teenages sisters were Mods. Drugs were unknown, and fights in Night clubs and pubs were not that common. Yes there were a few clashes at sea side resorts on bank holidays between Mods and Rockers, but it was hyped off the scale by reporters. There was even evidence that journalists gave money to young dudes to get them to start violence. So journalists could get the pictures they wanted. It was hyped! Around 1968-69 Football hooliganism was getting more prevelent, the emerging Skinhead scene fitting right into it. Thats when violence stsrted to esculate in England. Specially at football games. Im English iv studied the social history of Britain. Know it chapter and verse. Ps, I've been a Cool dapper Skinhead since 1978.
@@Occident. Fascinating. With your in-depth knowledge of British social history could you furnish us with statistics or evidence to back up your assertion that violence was rare before the seventies, it's for a project I'm doing
It’s a common misconception that we asked people from the colonies to come to Britain. The Empire Windrush simply wanted to maximise profits and so offered cheap passage to Britain from the Caribbean.
Got the post war immigration completely wrong. The Citizenship act that allowed commonwealth immigration happened in 1948, when the worst of the war damage was already sorted and the rest well underway. But the government never invited people to come from the commonwealth to rebuild. This is total nonsense, never happened. Even the Empire Windrush ship carrying those first Caribbean immigrants, that happened because the ship owner wanted to make more money on his return voyage from taking cargo to the caribbean. When it arrived the government and local government scrambled trying to calm people down and work out what to do with the people who had arrived. They actually paid for a bunch of them to go straight back! As I said they weren't invited to rebuild, this is nonsense.
He seems to be simply regurgitating the mainstream media's account of the 60s and 70s. He clearly wasn't around back then, you can tell because just about everything he says sounds stupid to those of us who were around back then.
In 1948 the British Nationality Act gave people from colonies the right to live and work in Britain. The government needed workers to help fill post-War labour shortages and rebuild the economy. Caribbean countries were also struggling economically and job vacancies in the UK offered an opportunity. Many of those who came became manual workers, drivers, cleaners, and nurses in the newly-established NHS. Source: The BBC
@@KillerstingrayK-cm4pi BBC wishful thinking, there were not labour shortages in Britain at that time. Which is why the government was subsidising the passage of British people to move to Australia at this time. There had been a brief post war labour shortage in 45-46, in the immediate struggle. This was solved by the demobbing of soldiers from Britain's wartime army, and helped to some extent by the placing of war time displaced people (basically Poles and some Baltic people who had served against Hitler with the Allies so had to flee here because Stalin would kill them). The majority of Windrush migrants arrived during the 60s and 70s. The labour fill scheme was actually established by the government of the Bahamas, then cooperated with by other Caribean governments because of their unemployment, and worries this would cause unrest. The London transport authority agreed to involvement in it because they were keen to get un unionised workers who would work for less. Read this for some actual facts about what happened, including the government being panicked by the arrival of the Windrush. This article looks at actual facts and sources rather than BBC wishful thinking. www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-windrush-myth/
Been there, done that. As a "real" skinhead who listened to SKA, I got into a lot of fights. Neo-Nazis, Marxists, Teddies, Home Boye's, Rockers and Migrants all wanted a piece of the pie and I was more than willing to give. Those were wild times and almost every weekend I was in the hospital getting myself or one of my colleagues patched up.
@@azteka6103 I became a christian and husband of a loving wife and a father of two wonderful children. My old path would have gotten me killed sooner or later or jail time. I sometimes still struggle with anger, but its getting better.
Ironic considering that long hair was seen as disrespectful and against the rules in 1960's Ireland where short hair was the rule in school and long hair was not allowed. Later on short hair was seen as subversive and against the rules and frowned upon. You just can't win.
When i was little i was first exposed to skinheads because of films like American history x. And i always thought skinheads were just synonymous with far right extreme politics. And then when i saw this is england i found out that skinheads didn't start in America. And that the original skinheads weren't racist to begin with. Its a shame now it will probably will never shake that association
If you think the original skins weren't 'racist', I'd suggest looking into how many of them felt about the Pakistani population of Britain. Things aren't black and white like we all like to believe.
Not only that - but even kids of Windrush parents took part in 'Paki-Bashing' (and the smashing of Asian corner shops' windows) to impress some of their bald 'mates' who liked a bit of The Upsetters, Skatalites and other stormers of the late 60's early 70's. Singh's on Great Western Street, Moss Side was a target.
It is such a shame. There's so much good music. I started listening to punk and a lot of oi skinhead bands around the 80s. None of the oi skin bands were racist. They're actually more left wing. It-s only a small % that were. BUT I did grow up fighting in the middle of the most violent punk/nazi skinhead scene in Dallas. Listed as the most violent skinhead group the Confederate Hammerskins formed in Dallas late 80s. But years before that it was 2 different nazi skins gangs, then and sometimes anti-racist skins would come from other towns. It was a warzone. Probably the most violent punk scene worldwide. Bands stopped playing Dallas for a bit until eventually we kept em away.
*YES! You showed still shot from ‘ROMPER STOMPER’* @12:04 - probably my favorite skinhead movie after ‘American History X’. For those who haven’t seen it, it stars a very young Russell Crowe and is a low-budget gem
21:14 the soldiers is from Northern Ireland and they are doing the Red Hand salute which dates back to the original UVF formed to fight against the 3rd home rule bill in 1912 which is over 15-20 years before the nazis was a thing
Joke for you ! Why Were There No Mods In Northern Ireland In The 1980's ?? Would You Walk Round With A Target On Yer Back Lol No Offence i Understand All About NI And Its Troubles, and Yes it is the Red Hand salute, "No Surrender"
Greetings from Germany. About 4 years ago me and my best friend were waiting at a tram station for another friend and we sat down on the bench that was there, roght beside a odd looking man. Me and my friend were talking about my shoes and how to fix them cuz they were kinda ripped open due to a condition called 'no-fricking-idea-why'. And then the man started to give us advice on how to repair them. We started to talk and he told us he that he is a Skinhead, showed us his Baton and Brass Knuckles and assured us that he uses it only if he is threatened. Me and my friend got curious because meeting and casually talking to a Skinhead in Germany is a pretty rare occassion.😅 So he explained to us that they are neither fascist nor nazistic, they were just your standart middle class worker. He said that there are some radical creeps but they are like their own like sectist like groups. Then the tram came, he wished us best of luck in life and went home. We were baffled, as we expected to get some racial comments from him against Arabs, Africans or even Slavics. But nothing from that came. He said that they appreciated everybody that lives their live well. Since then my view of them changed, you just have to meet people and talk to them. Then decide what you think. 😁🤝
yeah even most "racist" people are really only against the criminal elements, and might connect cultural shortcomings that leads to more elements coming from a certain group or race, if you take the time to talk to them. not like this totally shallow documentation
@@davidelvion1331I won't get into details but I'm a skin 59 years old this year. I've met many different people over my years. Lots of people are racists, and lots of people aren't . Just like skinheads. I don't mind if someone's a racist, there's usually a reason behind it. I do mind an outright Nazi, or commie for that matter. I'm very much a live and let live kind of guy. Just don't push me.
Im 57 and i remember if you were a skinhead, rude boy , mod , new wave , 2Tone , Rockabillies , we all loved the music , the parties , our Saturdays was meet up at the barbers 12 ish , go to Luscombs shoe shop for D.M boots , Pie and Mash after , then to Woolworths to buy Madness The Specials The Beat The Jam Northern Soul and loads of other great records , the markets for clothes Petticoat Lane for Sheepskin coats and gold , i still see all my old friends from back then ,some sadly not with us , we all hold each other with the same respect as we did 45years ago , we were too young to be political , the older right wing extremists were a minority
@@mariegilmartin8827 I was an Oi! Punk in the 80s (and in the USA to boot), I just didn't want those boys to be forgotten; they had STYLE... cardigans, wifebeaters, pegged Levis, boxing boots and watch caps... walking yard sales as you say. Cheers.
i was a Goth/Hippy in late 80s, walking with another Goth/Hippy dude we see 4 or 5 skinheads coming down the street, about 9pm, the smallest skinhead says to the leader "what about them?" hoping to get his violence fix for the evening.... the leader said "No, leave them, they look mellow"🤣i guess they wanted a fight that lasted longer than 20 seconds...
There's always nutters about, but generally if you go about fighting as a pastime it's a lot easier to fight people who also want to fight as they tend not to report you to the police as much. 😆
G'day to you! I was a Skinhead in the early 70s here in Perth West Australia, not once did I see any Racism, 50 years later I still love Ska and Reggae! PS I still have my 1/4 inch white Braces!
I have a memory of a cultural moment that doesn't seem to have been caught on film. Literally thousands of skinheads at the old Shed End at Stamford Bridge singing ' Knees up Mother Brown ' .. incredible sight . ✌️🇬🇧.
it actually dawned upon me that i haven't heard the term "skinhead" since i was a child; around the early to mid 90's. there was a lot of propganda around that "the skinheads were going to take over". im across the globe in the PNW and always wore my hair low down to 1 but i definitely remember getting some comments that "i looked like a skinhead" back then. i had no idea they started out the complete opposite of what they eventually became synonymous with. crazy.
My dad was in a punk band in the 70's, who'd actually been a support act for the Ramones. He has an old electric guitar to this day which he claims may have *killed a skinhead* at one show. A whole crowd of skinheads rushed the stage while they were playing, and my dad clocked one guy in the head with his guitar. The skinhead dropped to the ground off the edge of the stage, and the band all made a run for it. He grew up in a council estate in chelmsford and was very involved in punk, and has lots of crazy stories about life back then.
As a young 20 something skinhead from the US. I honestly love seeing people talk about the roots of the subculture I love so much. Thanks for teaching the world. I wish I could have been there for the early days of the skinhead subculture, but I am still trying to represent the roots and teach people. Love your content, man. Keep up the good work.
the british origin story isnt the American origin story.... and sharps in America were mostly Cowards, even the vaunted Minneapolis scene was weak.... they Ran / cried like little girls the summer the Hammers rode through town. a real disappointment, we were ready to rumble. they werent.
SHARPs... lol, weak. weaker still that an adult would admit being one. i guess thats just how weak you young kids are. 55 y.o Hammer here. still laughing at you wannabes playing at being a foreign skin. @@NonnaPossum1312
That's the thing. There's a fairly recent British fim about these guys. It's more or less about the current movement. Can't remember the name of the film now. Essentially, in the film some white skinheads turned on their Black friend, over a White girl, and the beat the Black guy to death🌝
@@ReshonBryant I was just telling you the name of the movie. It's meant to tell the story of the skinhead movement and how it was corrupted by white nationalism. You described its plot to a tee.
@@scottyovgy2 Right wing governments use immigration as a double edged tool, to pretend to be against it to secure votes from racists and to use it to keep wages low during Labour shortages to keep the corporations happy. Even Hitler flooded Germany with migrant workers during the war. Hope you're enjoying your Brexit paradise, all your new neighbours and being manipulated by right wing charlatans
@@s6748-z5j How plain can I make this, the right is not interested in lowering immigration, it is interested in keeping wages low by bringing in immigrants. It lies and tells you it is anti-immigrant but history shows that the right will bring in migrants when the economy needs it. See 1950's Britain, 2022 Britain, Nazi Germany and its millions of migrant workers. What happened to Trump's wall ???
I was born and raised in the North of the UK, and I remember being a small lad when various skinheads at school would make sure I wasn't bullied or anything because we shared the same form. Big up, Rob, Mike and Luke. I hope you lads managed to get out of the shithole we grew up in.
There’s a famous slogan that also floats around. Not just in this movement but other countries have made it their own rallying cry “Enoch Powell was right.” Funny, because it’s easy, very easy, to look at whites lower class whites in the late 60s and criticize them for this belief as racist when many of those who would make these criticisms would be supportive of the pan-Africanist sentiments and movements sweeping Africa at this same time period, the 1960s. All across the world, countries were declaring independence from their colonial masters and, in some cases, banishing Europeans and Asians form their countries. Not always, but this de-colonialism is seen as a good thing. Was it? That’s another conversation. My point is you cannot celebrate people on one continent for having those views while condemning British working class for having them.
Protip: Bowie didn't like HItler. He was quoted and photographed out of context. This is common knowledge nowadays, but I thought I'd mention it seeing as Jimmy obvs didn't dig beyond a random Rolling Stone shock article.
Bowie actually made a lot of comments in the mid to late 70s suggesting admiration for Hitler or approval of the idea of a fascist dictator. Why? Hard to know for sure, some have suggested that he was out of his head on coke but Simon Reynolds in his book on glam Shock And Awe suggests that he made these comments too consistently for that. He thinks Bowie had got carried away method acting his Thin White Duke character. Bowie obviously regretted this later and was keen to establish that he wasn't racist. In fact I used to talk online to someone who had been involved in the relaunch of the Anti Nazi League , and he said one day they receive a cheque in teh post fro a substantial amount of money from Bowie with a note just saying "I'm sorry"!
In Canada back around 1980-87, if you went downtown wearing Doc Martens you had to be prepared to fight to keep them (or run really, really fast), because gangs of skinheads would try to ‘roll’ you for them. That is, if you didn’t hand the boots over, they’d do their best to put you in the hospital, then take them off you. It was a very polarised scene. There were the stylish and trad, mod-leaning skins that were not racist and not out looking to start fights for no reason. You had the SHARPS out there actively opposing the ultraviolent Nazi skins. Then you had fringe groups like the satanic skins, who were almost a skinhead/metal cross, and surprisingly nice dudes. Aside from the Nazi skins, all of those groups embraced people of every colour - especially black, out of respect forJamaica’s essential contribution to the scene. The 70s and 80s were a wild, dynamic, intensely creative time. New musical genres, social scenes, and styles were constantly being invented. Sadly, that has now almost ground to a halt. With the internet making everything accessible to everyone immediately, the exclusivity and isolation needed for subcultures no longer exists. I think that’s why we don’t see nearly as much creativity today. Very little in the way of new musical genres, scenes, or styles. It’s mostly just rehashed old stuff. Kids today haven’t lost that urge to create. It’s just that the internet has destroyed the environment needed to foster that life, and the world is the poorer for it. It’s likely that AI will only make things worse. Maybe the shittyness it brings will force the next social revolution. We’re definitely overdue for one.
You lost me at "kids today". I was born in 1997 and have seen various music genres be born in the UK- Grime/Drum & Bass/Bassline/Drill/Dubstep to mention a few. I love the whole boomer attitude, its so close-minded and "back in my day, we created everything. Kids today do nothing because of the internet" Just say you don't know what a .pdf is and that you dont understand modern music. Its a lot more understandable and less belittling
I don't agree that there are no new subcultures anymore. In my oppinion, the internet actually kind of helps some of these subcultures. I mean, back in the days you had to find your style in your area, so you didn't have that much to chose from. Today, you can literally get your style from all over the world. That can lead to some very interesting things, like three hijab-wearing indonesian young women playing at Wacken (the band's name is Voice of Baceprot, if you want to check them out). Or scottish pirate metal. Or whatever Alien Weaponry is. Even back in the day a lot of people weren't part of any subculture, they listened to disco or whatever music was hot at the moment and were totally happy with that.
It’s crazy to think haircuts were such a big thing in subcultures back in the day. I went to high school in the US in the mid to late 2000s, and wore a buzz cut, and skated and played in hardcore and metal bands. Nobody really cared how you wore your hair. My guess was the whole metalcore thing really blurred the lines between genres/subcultures which still goes on to this day. I find it crazy to hear how opposed to each other the metalheads and punks/skaters/hardcore kids were in the 80s.
Interesting in the news report, that they talk about "extreme right and left wing political organisation". To day it would most definetly be reported either right or left being the "bad group", rather than talking about how extreme idiology right or left is a negative.
My Dad was a mod & my grandparent's neighbours were some of the first Jamaicans to move here. I still listen to SKA & Soul to this very day. Reminds me of my childhood. Fond memories. Thank you for sharing this
American History X did a really great job at showing how the racist skinheads of that era really were aligned with and exploited by far right political groups. That was such an excellent movie. As a first generation Jamaican American, I’m terribly conflicted by the extreme sexual attraction I feel for Edward Norton’s character. Good gravy, that man was _foine._ 🥵
They’re not Islamic marches the people there are protesting for a ceasefire and to stop the germicide I’m Palestine and if you where to do your research you don’t have to be Muslim to know that what’s going on is not okay
it has, Save Europe people adopted that style and are called boneheads, we are sometimes fachists, some are just nzis(thats bad) but most of us are just nationalists
I think his daddy or grandaddy was a skinhead and he's trying to paint them as al lovable group of rogues who just liked to "wear clothes and dance to music." What a joke!
Sham 69 were unjustly labelled as a National Front band because of recruitment at their gigs which they had no control over. They were about unity not racism.
I'm glad you made a clear distinction between Original Skins who where all about Ska and the racist nazi types that came later, there are some still around around and have been joined by some younger people who also like Ska, Reggae and Dub.
if you were "treating them well" (you can't treat your colony right otherwise it would not be a colony) Jamaica wouldn't be independent but a part of Great Britain/England
"We" didn't ask immigrants to come in to rebuild the country, they were offered cheap passage to the UK by the shipping companies who, after dropping cargo, didn't want to travel back with an empty vessel. They advertised cheap tickets and thousands took them up, moving to the UK.
Bud, as a South African who is (half) of British immigrant ancestry, kindly zip it. Some immigrants contribute, some don't. Some locals contribute, some don't. But 100% percent of those who don't contribute - whine.
The rise of the rave scene also killed it along with football violence at that time. Different drugs working class people from different cultures raving together
My grandad was a s.h.a.r.p skin, and I was in the subculture during my early years. And even though I left, if it wasn’t for skinhead oil! I would have never became a punk. Nice to see the subculture get some appreciation. And I thank oi! For getting me into punk. (Also would love to see one of these mini docs on punk)
Head to squarespace.com/jimmythegiant to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code JIMMYTHEGIANT
📢 Join the discord! discord.gg/b3b26Kaf
I have to deal with the American skin head culture here. Just a bunch of Racist people who like to shave their heads, I think one of the worst experiences I had with 1 was when they sent their German Shepherd dog after me, That was not a good day.
Enjoy the vid
Thanks for making it
Yeah good vid mate
- a skinhead
One thing most people get wrong about the hippies, is that many of them could scrap and were up for a scrap...The 'Peace and love' was a big element to hippies(the televised element to them), but not the only element. American hippies were widely known be good for a punch-up if it came to it.
Jimmy...., how can you see swastika fans in Poland where Germans under swastika destroyed whole Poland ? its Like England Hate Queen Elizabeth yet stamp her portrait everywhere . contact me for more info
Government sees working class black and white people getting along….
“We need to do something about this”
You nailed it.
Same in the USA.
As soon as black activist leaders start to form alliances with poor whites and other kinds of people, they seem to get shot.
Divide & conquer
In America too.
Totally! You can’t control happy people. How can you divide them?
I remember in the early 80's hearing about skinheads and they would hang out
at the video arcade in my city that had the best variety of games but I was too
intimidated to go in because of what I heard about skinheads.
Eventually, one of my non-skinhead friends decided to "take one for the team"
and go down to the arcade and face them but to his surprise, they just looked
him up and down and then went back to their business.
Eventually we all went down to the arcade and the same thing happened. They
just looked at us and went about their business.
Eventually, after 2 months of going down there they became friendly with us &
we ended up sharing the same taste in music (some of it being dub reggae &
they introduced us to the Clash) so the media hype surrounding skinheads was
just a hoax.
shocking, i wonder what other major narratives that are unquestionable in our society are also hoaxes.
plot twist you became a skinhead
Some skinheads were liberal hare krisnas. Others were haters of those skinheads and of minorities of all descriptions.
Yep the version known today was actually caused by that very same media hype.
Now think about what that same media is causing right now… today. In our current lives.
i was there... it was a weird time
As a non-british (normal) person, I appreciate Britain's ability to create endless subcultures every couple of years.
Was the (normal) really necessary 😂
@@yemarli11 there needs to be clear divide between the homo britoni and the more common homo sapiens like between other similar species
not anymore.
@@therealgeneralMacArthurwe are the superior race, I don’t mind separating us from the mutts 🗿
@@therealgeneralMacArthur yeh, the more repression in a group is the more they going to change
I'm an old man in New Mexico. Thank you for telling me what half the songs on my Specials and Madness albums were about.
Way too many errors and bullshits into this video, he don't know what he is talking about. Instead listen to Travelers All Stars.
what do you mean
@@cedrickillory1590 I too am curious to know what errors. I'm English, was born in the '60s, in to 2-Tone, later punk, & was involved in running street battles with racists & racist skins a few times in the '80s & early '90s. The video seems pretty much spot on. Oh yes, & I laughed like a drain when that piece of dirt from Skrewdriver (Donaldson maybe?) got his.
@cedrickillory1590 the guy is a propagandist soy boy who knows nothing about it .. ..
You didn’t know?
back in the 90s I went to see a Two-tone band called Bad Manners. I was a preteen when Bad Manners were popular so I didn't realise that Bad Manners was a skinhead band. There I was, one black man surrounded by 500 skins. They were fine. No one threatened me with a stanley knife so that was a result.
Singing a love song to a can of super strength lager, CLASSIC!
That’s because the majority of the skins in the world aren’t racist
research..research chemicals 😂😂❤
Skinhead love affair, skinhead girl version, all the other references in their lyrics buster himself being a skin, the logo, the album covers, how come they wanted to shake it off¿ yes, they were bigger than “skinhead” but come on…@@the_grand_tourer
I first met Buster blood vessel on Isle of wight scooter run in 93 . One of my workmates said buster was his neighbour he was saying how he used to piss some of the neighbours off with things he used to do Malcom said he was ok a good laugh. They were the good old days.
As a skinhead from 79 to 84 ,it was a turbulent time. Im definitely not racist but loved “uniform” and the energy of Oi music and still do.
My exceptionally shiny boots and cropped hair actually got me my first job and career. Though I can’t remember his name now, the area manager of Windshields Ltd , (now Autoglass) was in the shop when I turned up for a YOP placement,a work experience program. He told the manager to take me on as my appearance was immaculate. This was 1982 high unemployment, recession etc. I ended up staying for 11 years before moving to America and Safelite an international part of Autoglass.
I guess what I’m saying is never judge a book by its cover.(you’re not). Great video. Thank you.
In 69 most skinheads were aggressive wankers.
But you literally described a story where you WERE judged by how you looked and got a job for it.
@@KasumiRINA not really good at explaining myself mate. Sorry. Had had a beer before writing. You are right.
But most people thought skinheads as all bad, they weren’t. Media liked to make it bigger than it was. I am forever grateful to that manager for the positive attitude he had for me
@@KasumiRINAgo watch the old geraldo Rivera show when skinheads came on and that brawl happened when he got his nose broken you'll understand what he means
@@gaillaffer7579 not all, but it was a crude mentality of always looking for victims to bash
Youve gone from little parkour videos to these in depth, long videos. They're great, amazing work mate
Eyo I like those Parkour videos, they’re great.
The TikTok generation coming to show when they think 20mins is a long video
The editing is on point
Nah they aren't in depth. There are numerous mistake in his videos.
care to elaborate?@@hoti47
As a Skinhead I can honestly say we're not all the same. Some Skinheads are a part of a group called S.H.A.R.P which is 'Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice', we aren't racist in any way. Skinheads formed from Jamaican immigration after World War 2 when people around the globe come to rebuild the country. It's honestly infuriating when everyone puts Skinheads and Neo-Nazis in the same category. Nowadays there are upcoming skinhead cultures which don't have anything to do with any racism but join the culture for the music.
Oi fuck rasism Classic Oi is about bringing people together.
Back when, a SHARP friend explained to me that they are Traditional Skin Heads and and racist skinheads are more or less pretenders. Reading comments and watching video, it seems more correct to say that both groups developed in parallel from an original subculture that had nothing to do with social / political beliefs.
Now I'm 54 and balding, I have to embrace the skinhead haircut I hated as a child. 😂
Same here
I may not be white but in a few years count me in 😅
Snap
It's liberating. During lockdown, when all the barbers were closed, I buzzed my hair off with a beard trimmer and it felt so great. If/when I go bald, I'll know that living a combover life is an act of insecurity. Better to just shave it all off and be free.
what you put on your feet matter now
There's a lot of nuance missing in this analysis. I feel the entire skinhead era would make for a fascinating historical explanation, but no one wants to go beyond the sanitized story that has been repeated a million times before.
A group of neo-nazi racists. What else is there to know.
Truer words have never been spoken, this is as vanilla as it gets
Yea the guy just seems to be your avg 20 year old western dumbass
I see all types of videos like this on RUclips talking about subcultures and they end up leaving out a lot of important stuff that leaves people making assumptions
Yeah here's the deal, I'm pretty pro for the old school skinhead shit. Always look at it as just a working class movement. If there's shit being left out I'd love to see a deeper analysis of the whole history
As a Jamaican, I did NOT expect this educational moment on the background of my country! Always interesting seeing takes from different perspectives
It's more the Jamaican diaspora in the UK. Although a lot of the music influences were Jamaican.
Enoch Powell's speech wasn't actually contreversial about 80% of British public supported it. It was unpopular among the managerial class, labour party, and the tory establishment. Powell knew there was a lot more wrong with UK than just immigration.
Drinking water can be 100% safe to drink but if you drop a tiny bit of feces in it, well it then poisons the whole well.
The man spoke the truth.
The best Prime Minister we never had.
Why would the managerial class hate it?😂 Enoch blamed the poor immigrants and not the capitalists and big business.
@@paulanderson3709 Yes, the reality is that the Left was not honest about the migration problems, preferring their own sinister agenda, which persists to this day.
People always think of skin heads be racists but not all skin head gangs are neo Nazis
All the rest are secretly gay😆😁
Or anarcho commie reds
No Real Skinhead is Racist Ever..your thinking of Boneheads = fake Skinheads
@@СлаваССС-м4с😂😂 No such thing as Anarcho commies & Real Skinheads are Left Wing 100% not communists two totally different things Are you from usa
@@woody5831communists are left wings.
I was a skinhead at school in 1966 at 14 years old we were a crossover from the Mods who did wear parkas when riding their scooters.
We lasted about 8-10 years and wore made to measure tonic suits to go out to clubs at night ( I left school at 15 and got an apprenticeship) and wore jeans and Dr, martens to football. We all sort of grew out of it as we grew older, it was a teenage and early 20's thing for us. we lived just outside South West London my mum and dad were South Londoners like a lot of my mates parents.
Happy days going to Football on a saturday and Petticoat Lane and Brick Lane on a Sunday (my dad and his mate had a stall occasionally in Petticoat Lane when I was a kid) we and the Girls of the day were very smart and like the mods did dress up to go out we shared a love of reggae, Ska, bluebeat etc.and soul music with the West Indian boys there were skirmishes but not really to much about the racial aspects just different areas and young blokes getting into fights.
Sounds like real good fun!
American antiracist skinhead from the late 90s here - I would love to share a pint and some stories some time, mate.
@@NonnaPossum1312 Gayyyyy
Wow still bright as ever in your 70s! Keep going grandpa and it’s great to see a first hand experience, I always get weary about that period of time, but thanks for educating me‼️
A right of passage was going to Blacks to get your first pair of DMs
I have a shaved head, Dr Martin boots, a Harrington jacket, and a love of 60s Jamaican music. This video is mostly right, but the non-racist Skinhead movement was and still is a bigger deal than portrayed here.
Also, the Oi! thing isn’t associated with far-right or racist politics. Boneheads have their own music they call RAC or Rock Against Communism. It’s not liked by Oi! music aficionados or traditional skins.
I agree
It's such a shame that the 'bad elements' keep being overly highlighted and not the culture as a whole.
Though I don't experience any issues. People are always positive about me being a Skinhead and I end up in conversations with many people when I am outside. I have yet to meet someone who avoids me like the plague for who I am
Lmao a sharp comment with 88 likes is hilarious
@@TobiasC-mg4zk yes like the oppressed played with condemned 84, vicious rumours and the business played with the die hards, and lets not forget the boomtown rats played with skrewdriver
ok , So ... Skinhead myself and you have the very bare bones . It started out as mixing together in various factories and places of work and the white working class began to integrate with the people who had arrived on the Windrush . We all went to work wearing work boots and most wore braces to hold up our trousers . Everyone started to meet up at the Jamaican house parties . They dropped their braces and rolled up their jeans to dance , this is where the fashion began . They swapped music and over time it merged . side note .. The only place you would see a mod on a Vespa is in Quadraphenia 😅 .. The mods were also never wealthy 😂 , they were blue coller workers who scrimpt , saved and paid as they went for suits and shoes etc.. The whole idea was to be the peacock and have the latest , best or most flamboyant . They had nothing and wanted to feel like someone.
This was actually very eye opening, and a fantastic upload. I have always been curious - because when I was growing up our local skinheads were just punk and hardcore music fans that were anti racists - SHARPs.
10/10 upload Jimmy, truly riveting
still alive today!! SHARPs make up the majority of skins i’ve met
@@buck333you mean blood traitors?
You from PDX?
@@buck333 oh you mean blood traitors?
Did you ever happen to pass through Lansing, MI around 2011/2012? Your pfp looks a lot like my ex's (RIP) friend and you even share the same name/spelling. The skins I've met in PDX are mostly SHARPS... until you peep the Skrewdriver patch
the "this is England" series (there's several) is such an undervalued body of work that still gives me goosebumps & tears to my eyes when I think back on it and I'm not even from Britain! It really moved me at the time I first saw it on the sundance channel or something like that...
its just political bullshit
yeah, def. not 'glorifying' it...
TIE 1990 is sad af.
The original film is the best
GREAT movie, but the series is so gripping and sad, i still can't finish it. it's too depressing
The movie is good but then he just kept going and going
I was Skinhead growing up in London and I’m still Skinhead at heart today. Long live the spirit of 69. I’m half Scottish and half Jamaican and raised in London.
The spirit of 69 will be best honored when we're back on the moon.
You sir, are a toff, and that’s no mistake guvnor.
Top man
@@Makaneek5060 We never went !!! ...
@@paulbrinsley We went but the Soviets beat us there and that would be bad press so Armstrong's landing was fake.
I loved my skinhead husband. He died less than a year ago at the end of 2023. When we would go to Oktoberfest every year guys who thought they were tuff took one look at my husband and were intimidated and hung their heads. 😊 He was racist growing up in Northern Cali but as he moved to Socal and was in contact with other races and cultures he left that scene. He married me, a native American women in 2017 we were both in our late 40,s grew up loving punk rock and scooters. He was my best friend and the love of my life ❤️. Thanks for your video.
I'm really glad you did this. In America it's always ridiculous trying to explain skinhead origins and no one has ever believed me even though it's common knowledge to Brits.
Yeah it seems most people here heard about them because of movies like American history x
Seriously it gets old after a while lol. Like bro we side with s.h.a.r.p. 's not boneheads . Sit down and listen for a history lesson or look into it.
According to Lars Frederiksen from Rancid, US Skinhead had home in early days in Hardcore Punk scene. Here good example is NYHC scene.
@@mrnordyk1125 oh yeah, I mean there's definitely American skinheads. Still. Up here in Portland (in every major city im sure) they're full on organized and it confuses the hell out of anyone not familiar with the scene. But never was as widespread a phenomenon as it was in the UK.
I literally tried to explain this to an ignorant coworker and they didn’t care to listen they basically said well here in America blah blah blah it’s like everything revolves around what America thinks no matter the history. I was so annoyed because it has such a rich history and isn’t racist like everyone thinks
As a former raver I'm really looking forward to your next video telling me what we did back then.
Genuinely can't remember 😂
Sounds like you did it correctly then 😂
@@JimmyTheGiant indeed 😂
try and squeeze in a sample of DJ Vibez, Motorway Madness if you can please 🙏... Good times
@@JimmyTheGiant there's a channel dedicated to Club Kinetic at the Pleasure Dome in Stoke On Trent, with lots of old footage if it comes in useful for your research.
We used to pile into a minibus and travel up from Brum a couple of times a month. 😂
My main recollection is that it all felt VERY, VERY nice.🙂
🤣😱😃😁🙄😭😁🤣😭
I was a kid during the 2 tone era, had the black Harrington, grey sta press, Fred Perry, white socks and maroon tassel loafers. It was such a contrast to the mutton chops and brown flares we saw literally all around us. The multicultural aspect was key, it meant you were as likely to be listening to Demond Dekker or Burning Spear as you were The Jam or The Beat. But just as the suedehead and rude boy aesthetic got appropriated and the very distinct division got deliberately blurred by a media that has never kept pace with the speed of change in youth movements, so we too got lumped in with football casual terrace hooliganism and all the race hatred that was going on there at the time. I think that whole style is timelessly cool and I know many youngsters today agree, but it does come with a lot of potential social baggage that it has never deserved.
Yes, I was probably one of those mutton chopped long haired men around you at the time which by your letter, I'm assuming you were a Skinhead in the 1980's😮
I was One of the Original Skinheads from 1969/70 but remember by 1971/2 it was over and Glam rock had come in although I Never had mutton chops, I had long hair then..
We went from Skinheads/Boot boys to suedeheads then onto Glam rock from 1972 until 1975 when it more or less ended when the Anti-music of the Sex pistols came in 😮
But I loved it when the Skinheads re-emerged in the 1980's because I really hated the punks who were trying to say they were Anarchists, but we're nothing of the sort...Skinheads embodied the real Anarchy not punks 😮
@@johnsalvidge4131Suedeheads and then Smoothies. Longer hair.
I was 2nd year at high school when black sta press and black Doc shoes was the style to wear to school, a couple of years later flight jackets were also popular, I had all 3 by '84. There were alot of Mods and Ska fans going about and I was starting to get into metal.
Reading these comments is making me smile 😊😊
I thought you guys just drink tea
lol that’s what joins us all together, a lot of Britain are working class ans kind of like this , but we all drink tea ☕️
@@Kubaszakwillow I don’t, I fucking hate tea.
I was adopted by my grandad who was unapologetically a skinhead. I really wish I got to experience the skin heads mods and 2-tone era. This is honestly my favourite era of England before my time 🏴
I was a 1979/1980 Mod Revival mod, thoroughly into not only The Who & The Jam etc, but also Two-Tone and Ska. I still have my old parka! Incidentally, a lot of info on this video is rubbish.
@@Cameraman61 Please do enlighten us I actually want to know
For one, there was no invitation to the colonies to come to Britain
@@Cameraman61 Thank you! I’m amazed by all these people who have apparently no clue that a retro “revival” of a thing is not the thing. Revivals are interesting in their own right - but to see the Specials - Coventry teenagers of the late 70s/early 80s - depicted as if they were part of the ska scene in 1950s Jamaica is just…illiterate.
@@bebopdedop8776 The video smooshes together things from 1950s and early 60s Jamaica, like ska and twotone and conflates it with a “revival” by English teenagers of the late 1970s and 1980s. A “revival” is LARPing, basically. It’s kids growing up in a very different world, imaginatively re-enacting what their friends’ cooler parents, an earlier generation, looked and sounded like.
I went to Specials concerts - they were very good - but nobody imagined Terry & Neville penned “A Message To You Rudy”, or that Madness or Bad Manners were referencing 1940s schooldays in the West Indies.
The next week, we would be in the same place with the Stranglers, Souixie and the Banshees, or The Tourists.
its still very much alive and kicking ,the thing about this type of culture is it never leaves your soul once you are hooked,theres at least 2 or three pubs by me who regularly have ska/skinhead nights , as well as local singers doing the rounds in the pubs performing cover versions of 70"s reggae classics,i got hooked in 1979 and even now when i hear a blast from my past my heart still skips a beat with exitement ,what a time and what fantastic music
today it's mostley the boneheads
Knew a kid who was a hold-out classic skinhead in the 21st century, always with the shaved head rocking them red martens and suspenders all the time. Not racist at all. Still, always super uncomfortable to be out in public hanging out as 100% of everyone you'd walk passed obv thought you where out fraternizing with your like-minded national socialist buddy.
Cept when we where fortunate enough to have one of our black friends along and you'd just see that hourglass icon spin above their heads in the looks they'd passed us.
Just discovered this channel. Your level of research and breadth of archive material is outstanding. Love it. Going to devour all of your videos like a Pret Meatball Wrap.
Your analysis of subcultures dynamics really makes me see the world differently. Would happily listen to a full sociology course made by you - thank you!
You sound every bit as clueless about this topic as he does🙈ffs!
Good god it’s the blind leading the blind.
@spencerdodds2207
Definitely looks that way' and you can be sure neither were skins😂
Excellent for the algo. They wanna play games out here. So....
@@daveglynn748 why don’t people elaborate when they say these things.
My dad was born in the 60s and was a proper skinhead and he always talked to me about scar, rocksteady, bob marley and many other reggae artists. Even till this day he is super passionate about it and has pretty much the same hairstyle....but thats also mainly because he had a receding hairline from young also. Even all his mates i've met are either super skinheads or jamaican whenever dad takes me to the pub from young to nowadays. All lovely and down to earth. SHARPS also made up a huge amount of skinhead and anti racist culture in the uk also and mixed with the reggae OG skinheads perfectly also. Both anti racist. The only difference is that the SHARPS skinheads loved punk and harcore music more.
Old American SHARP here, your dad sounds rad as fuck
It's so sad how worried we (brown Asians) were about skinheads. It's awfully inconvenient that the nicest antiracist lot looked the same as the neo nazi ones that would harass us. The scumbags set fire to my grandparents home with gasoline through the mailbox :(
It's SKA mate not scar!
@@forty-two7298Yeah that. I've misremembered bits and pieces my dad has told me.
Skinheads did not come from the Jamaican rude boy culture (although it certainly had it's influence around the south of England , mainly London from working class men & youth who flocked down south when work dried up in the north - bringing that look with them). Skinheads have been around a lot longer than the 1960's , the look came from shipping dock workers, factory workers, mine workers etc. from the north of the UK and Northern Ireland, they can be dated back to the 1940's and mostly the 1950's perhaps even much earlier. In those days whilst working in those environments heads were shaved to prevent lice (common back then) and the boots with turn - up trousers was done as not to get the bottom of the trousers soiled from the elements. Braces were worn as belts weren't common back then too. The term "skinhead" was not coined then but I'm certain some were called that for obvious reasons. Most were into all different kinds of music , in the 50's a lot were teddyboys who sure didn't like to have their heads shaved so the work uniform became a fashion statement on the streets & pubs to show people what they did for a living & were proud of it (or not proud of it for that matter) . Only much later on in the late 60's of the south of England the term "skinhead" was used for the obvious reasons & other fashions (like the rude boys) got mixed with it with the white younger generation who mingled with the Jamaican immigrants & liked their music - It was the media who exploited it. If you do a search , you will find very old photographs (mostly from the late 1950's and early 60's) of what later became known as skinheads. The subculture part of skinheads was fascinating as they were one of the only subcultures who didn't have their own music , only music from other subcultures in later years ( teddyboys, mods , rockers , punks etc etc). In places like Australia & New Zealand they had a similar subculture in the early 70's called Sharpies who mostly derived from UK immigrants but had their own music akin to punk rock but was a little earlier and the music had influences by bands like Slade & blues rock but grittier and nastier . The look was a mix of skinhead, bootboys & glam. Everthing has its origins & everything is connected. Oi music is often misunderstood as the music created by skinheads but that is not true either, Oi is just punk rock that got called that by a certain music journalist (whom I won't mention that worked for Sounds music magazine) who copped the term from various punk bands like Sham 69 and Cockney Rejects in particular who did a song called Oi Oi Oi (plus a lot of other bands of that era that I grew up with proudly indeed). As said, everything has it's origins & everything is connected.
Yeah, the guy is clueless. I'm under 5 mins in and the amount of inaccuracies is laughable
First adopted music of skinheads being skinhead reggae/Jamaican rock steady or well known as Trojan Reggae, Oi got mixed up during the 2nd wave years later along with 2 tone, most of the uniform coming from mod ivy league, anything before that wasn't anything to do with the subculture other than the hard mods whom created it.
Yep. You definitely have a way more accurate history than this video…. Thank you for setting the record straight.
I would have read more than the first few sentences if you'd only used paragraphs instead of a wall of text. Yeesh, man.
This used to be common knowledge until they started that narrative of jamaicans in the mod subculture had the look and early skins were part of that scene and later estranged from the mods and jamaicans. Mods were mostly snobs, but the scene was also a major point in the birth of youth subcultures. Not saying that there weren't any before it, most significant were the rockabilly scene that birthed the rockers/uk sleazers who were in to the hell's angels motorcycle stuff. The mod skins despised them (and mods generally) and at the end of the day the later skins of oi/hardcore weren't all too different from them. Many skins secretly liked The Stray Cats f.e
Thank you for being educated and telling the true story about Jamaican immigrants
I love my skin head, no worrying about hair styles and my beanie hat sticks like velcro 😂
It makes life easier. You don't worry about how your hair is looking, easier/quicker to wash and dry. No money spent on following the latest hair trends. Its great, if people want to label you for how your hair or lack of it looks then i honestly dont have time for them.
That's called being poor
@@Chernochegger what is?
@sambranton3346 not caring about your appearance, since in thwir social stratum it doesn't matter
I know plenty of rich people who dress like slobs Skins poor or not dress well
I was a Skinhead in the Early 1970's and although violence was a part of the movement it was mainly about the music 🎵 and the fashion then, I believe people misunderstand Skinheads as brainless thugs but we certainly weren't as the original Skinheads were not about that, it only got worse when the 1980's Skinheads
came out but I feel that was a reaction to the punks as one little Skinhead said, 'this is real Anarchy Johnny', refering to Johnny rotten and the Sex pistols...😅
That's my theory anyway, I later became a boot boy and then suedehead...then Glam rock came in and we became Glam rockers...to me the Original skinheads were the best😊
the blurring of the swastika had me dying, I'm assuming it was for algorithm purposes but still I was imagining jimmy like "they'll never know what it is thank god I protected them"
Probably not, swastika is a forbidden symbol in europe, we're not allowed to show it, and we all know why.
its now illegal to show it in australia... we have some real sooks in government ..
@@peterbrittain1963Is it also illegal to do research? As a kid we're taught evil blue eyed supermen wanted to take over the world but if you actually dig a little deeper you find like all wars it was a BANKERS WAR!!! I wish they had let us read the "25 point plan of the NSDAP" in school. It's like a 5min read but is life changing imo. Very telling!!!
I dressed as a girl skinhead in the early 70's in South London a place called Clapham close to Brixton. It was all about bluebeat, reggae then ska music. Growing out of that fashion for obvious reasons a lot of Skins started wearing Sta--press Levis and Ben Sherman shirts with Crombie overcoats and brogues. That was the Ska era. A lot of fun and music and I had many Jamaican friends. It's all changed and I'm glad I no longer live in England. Sad.
Your video on casual hooligans led me down a rabbit hole now I spend my weekends at soccer games yelling like a wild man
I grew up in 90s Bulgaria and I think that's when the skinhead culture was at its strongest here. They were full blown neo-nazis, and their favourite passtime was beating up gypsies, metalheads, hippies, and LGBTQ people, and adorning the cities with nazi swasticas and white power bs. I don't think music was ever as important to them as the their nazi nonsence, even though there were a few local ska-punk bands that were popular with them. A lot of this culture morphed into the football hooligans culture of today, but a lot of the more promintent skinhead neonazis grew up and started working in politics. So when I think of a skinhead, I always think of the violence and racism that surrounded them.
Funnily, I've lived in the UK for some time and when I think about a British skinhead, I'm actually thinking about the skinhead part of the British LGBTQ culture. Dudes in Doc Martens, suspenders and shaved heads that you expect to be into some sort of kink but are generally super sweet and nice, and the complete oposite of the skinheads from back home.
This is the skinhead I remember as 35 Jamaican born in UK London
Yeah it’s funny cos I grew up in the north of the uk after the skinhead scene had kinda died down (2000’s specifically). I always associated them with neo-nazism/fascism. Actually learning about the subculture and where it comes from is really interesting. It’s a shame it got associated with such vile groups considering it’s origins
@@shaesmith2831you'd have to be a bumbling, ignorant idiot to think someone is racist for having a certain hairstyle..
The truth is. The original skinheads. In the UK were just teenagers. Rebelling and doing what teenagers do. Listening to the music they liked. Hanging out with their mates. It was a phase to most of them. And most of them grew out of it. It largely no longer exists. And any versions that do. Are either media stereotypes. People who have fetishsized it. Or original skins who celebrate the original version and have tried to reclaim the image. And present it the way it was. To set the record straight. They have had a lot of success doing that. Never in the history of teenage fashion. Have so much distortion taken place. It was never about politics. But the media created a frankensteins monster with that one.
cska sofia skins allways out to get the cygan stealing
“On the Streets” is a great song by the 4sKins. So good in fact Nirvana copied the entire song structure for a song on the album Nevermind.
And UK Subs covered Stay Away on Smells Like Bleach: A Punk Tribute To Nirvana
They did good job
And the album is 🤘
I still can't take that name seriously 🤣
@@HadeTheReal 4 band members, all skins, what's funny about that 🤔
@@terryyakamoto3488 if you know you know
@@terryyakamoto3488foreskins. Actually a lot of people didn't get the joke for decades. Imagine being this stupid 🧐
The skin head of 1967 was not the kinda people you would like to meet in a dark ally.
There is an area next to where I live in the East End of Glasgow which get's called "Skinheads" still to this day
Was born and bred there and was probably the only actual skinhead from about 1989. Prior to that the "gang" name originated in the early 70s through the to the early 80s and still continues to this day. No actual skinheads though
@@jjc828 couple of baldy people left but not through choice 😂
Home of the Spykids.
Home of the Spykids.
One thing that got missed in this is the working class kids in the 60's sported boots and short hard etc. because of military service. The look grew out of a reaction to hippies, hanging on to military style, as well as taking some mod clothing choices.
What's kind of funny is if you describe the classic skinhead look (short hair/shaved head, doc marten boots, jeans) you're basically describing modern lesbian fashion lol. Also I think the bit about the mods is a bit understated, the reason why mods got into a lot of fights is because they had a rival subculture, the rockers. Gangs of mods and rockers would get into huge clashes in the 60s, and it actually predates modern football hooliganism (modern as in starting around the 70s). What's interesting is the rockers actually calmed down and became the first hippy groups in the UK, so the two have always sort of stayed as the opposite side of the other, the more aggressive the mod/skinhead side got, the more chill the rocker/hippy side became, but also became more disorganised.
There was the "Mods and Rockers" thing going on. But that's not the only reason Mods got into fights. Mods would fight other Mods as well. Essentially, working class British youths have always fought each other as a past time, predating the emergence of youth subcultures. It's just having two rival subcultures was an extra excuse to do so.
There was a period of time where there was a lot of gay skinheads, after the appropriation by the far right there was a part of the gay community that decided to reappropriate the style in their own way. An interesting part of the subcutures history that gets ignored; Nicky Craine (THE national front poster boy) ended up coming out before passing. There is a lot of the skinhead style that have found their way in todays subculture. Skinhead changed the way subculture looks in the UK in my opinion
The 2nd skinhead wave that came from oi!/punk (79/80) had more in common with rockers than mods. Punks hated mods anyway, even had songs about them.
Also early 80's psychobilly started as a mix of punk/skin/rock-a-billy.
The so-called clashes between Mods and Rockers was grossly exaggerated. The Media hyped it as usual, looking for sensational headlines for their Rags. Fact is there was mostly friendly rivalry between Mods and Rockers. England/ Britain at that time was fairly law abiding and peacefull. I was born in 1960. My two teenages sisters were Mods. Drugs were unknown, and fights in Night clubs and pubs were not that common. Yes there were a few clashes at sea side resorts on bank holidays between Mods and Rockers, but it was hyped off the scale by reporters. There was even evidence that journalists gave money to young dudes to get them to start violence. So journalists could get the pictures they wanted. It was hyped! Around 1968-69 Football hooliganism was getting more prevelent, the emerging Skinhead scene fitting right into it. Thats when violence stsrted to esculate in England. Specially at football games. Im English iv studied the social history of Britain. Know it chapter and verse. Ps, I've been a Cool dapper Skinhead since 1978.
@@Occident. Fascinating. With your in-depth knowledge of British social history could you furnish us with statistics or evidence to back up your assertion that violence was rare before the seventies, it's for a project I'm doing
It’s a common misconception that we asked people from the colonies to come to Britain. The Empire Windrush simply wanted to maximise profits and so offered cheap passage to Britain from the Caribbean.
I'm from Spain, here the peak was late 80's early 90's, I was a SHARP at this time.
Were you guys into NYHC, crossover, or thrash at the time?
eras un traidor y lo sigues siendo
Thank you!
cringe. People who SHARPs before are now the ones who support the unfettered invasion by third worlders.
race traitor
Gary Bushell is the guy who coined the term “Oi” for that genre of music. He did that when he was writing for Sounds magazine.
The voice of Oi is calling you , with a message that is true
Got the post war immigration completely wrong. The Citizenship act that allowed commonwealth immigration happened in 1948, when the worst of the war damage was already sorted and the rest well underway. But the government never invited people to come from the commonwealth to rebuild. This is total nonsense, never happened.
Even the Empire Windrush ship carrying those first Caribbean immigrants, that happened because the ship owner wanted to make more money on his return voyage from taking cargo to the caribbean. When it arrived the government and local government scrambled trying to calm people down and work out what to do with the people who had arrived. They actually paid for a bunch of them to go straight back! As I said they weren't invited to rebuild, this is nonsense.
He seems to be simply regurgitating the mainstream media's account of the 60s and 70s. He clearly wasn't around back then, you can tell because just about everything he says sounds stupid to those of us who were around back then.
In 1948 the British Nationality Act gave people from colonies the right to live and work in Britain.
The government needed workers to help fill post-War labour shortages and rebuild the economy.
Caribbean countries were also struggling economically and job vacancies in the UK offered an opportunity.
Many of those who came became manual workers, drivers, cleaners, and nurses in the newly-established NHS.
Source: The BBC
@@KillerstingrayK-cm4pi the BBC is a Leftist toll. Never trust them.
@@KillerstingrayK-cm4pi BBC wishful thinking, there were not labour shortages in Britain at that time. Which is why the government was subsidising the passage of British people to move to Australia at this time.
There had been a brief post war labour shortage in 45-46, in the immediate struggle. This was solved by the demobbing of soldiers from Britain's wartime army, and helped to some extent by the placing of war time displaced people (basically Poles and some Baltic people who had served against Hitler with the Allies so had to flee here because Stalin would kill them).
The majority of Windrush migrants arrived during the 60s and 70s.
The labour fill scheme was actually established by the government of the Bahamas, then cooperated with by other Caribean governments because of their unemployment, and worries this would cause unrest. The London transport authority agreed to involvement in it because they were keen to get un unionised workers who would work for less.
Read this for some actual facts about what happened, including the government being panicked by the arrival of the Windrush. This article looks at actual facts and sources rather than BBC wishful thinking. www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-windrush-myth/
lol, bet you got your degree on the streets
I love how good the British are at creating and categorizing subcultures. Tons of beautiful cultures over there and I enjoy learning about them.
Been there, done that. As a "real" skinhead who listened to SKA, I got into a lot of fights. Neo-Nazis, Marxists, Teddies, Home Boye's, Rockers and Migrants all wanted a piece of the pie and I was more than willing to give.
Those were wild times and almost every weekend I was in the hospital getting myself or one of my colleagues patched up.
how did you ended up now?
@@azteka6103 I became a christian and husband of a loving wife and a father of two wonderful children. My old path would have gotten me killed sooner or later or jail time. I sometimes still struggle with anger, but its getting better.
Trojan Records real skinhead music 69
In 1981 I got a crew cut and when I came back home from the barber shop my mum opened the door and then slammed it in my face.
Ha! Same thing happened to my little brother, she then paid a visit to the barber - you could hear the screeching from a block away 😅
I was same but then i continued till this day lol
Yes parents rarely understand the younger generation, but Skinheads are generally misunderstood 😮
Ironic considering that long hair was seen as disrespectful and against the rules in 1960's Ireland where short hair was the rule in school and long hair was not allowed. Later on short hair was seen as subversive and against the rules and frowned upon. You just can't win.
When i was little i was first exposed to skinheads because of films like American history x. And i always thought skinheads were just synonymous with far right extreme politics. And then when i saw this is england i found out that skinheads didn't start in America. And that the original skinheads weren't racist to begin with. Its a shame now it will probably will never shake that association
If you think the original skins weren't 'racist', I'd suggest looking into how many of them felt about the Pakistani population of Britain. Things aren't black and white like we all like to believe.
Not only that - but even kids of Windrush parents took part in 'Paki-Bashing' (and the smashing of Asian corner shops' windows) to impress some of their bald 'mates' who liked a bit of The Upsetters, Skatalites and other stormers of the late 60's early 70's. Singh's on Great Western Street, Moss Side was a target.
Like the left,if you think the progressive left are liberal and not fascist then you are blind @@wiggawithattitude
Still a skin and the racist tag is gone. I get questions about it as people are now more educated about the culture.
It is such a shame. There's so much good music. I started listening to punk and a lot of oi skinhead bands around the 80s. None of the oi skin bands were racist. They're actually more left wing. It-s only a small % that were. BUT I did grow up fighting in the middle of the most violent punk/nazi skinhead scene in Dallas. Listed as the most violent skinhead group the Confederate Hammerskins formed in Dallas late 80s. But years before that it was 2 different nazi skins gangs, then and sometimes anti-racist skins would come from other towns. It was a warzone. Probably the most violent punk scene worldwide. Bands stopped playing Dallas for a bit until eventually we kept em away.
My uncle was an OG skin in the late 60’s, so you can imagine his horror when my cousin became the wrong type of skin in the 80’s
Was a Skinhead and proud to still be one. Close to 45 years of Dr. Martin's and Fred Perry's .
What's your number? 😁
@@dalethomas360 54 - 46 Was My Number 🙂😁😁😁
@@trojanska4538
Right now, someone else has that number 😁👍
Dr. Martin's and Fred Perry's , Dont forget the boot boys too,
*YES! You showed still shot from ‘ROMPER STOMPER’* @12:04 - probably my favorite skinhead movie after ‘American History X’. For those who haven’t seen it, it stars a very young Russell Crowe and is a low-budget gem
Brilliant Film time to pull on the boots!
ruclips.net/video/wZ3RfQYn1VA/видео.html
"We came to wreck everything and ruin your life. God sent us."
Watch ID. Disturbingly brilliant.
Hondo....
Poor Davey.. hahaha...
It's on VHS copy here in this room..
21:14 the soldiers is from Northern Ireland and they are doing the Red Hand salute which dates back to the original UVF formed to fight against the 3rd home rule bill in 1912 which is over 15-20 years before the nazis was a thing
Joke for you !
Why Were There No Mods In Northern Ireland In The 1980's ??
Would You Walk Round With A Target On Yer Back Lol
No Offence i Understand All About NI And Its Troubles, and Yes it is the Red Hand salute,
"No Surrender"
Jimmy I really like your work, as a Brazilian living in Uk it is so incredible to be able to understand so much of the British culture!
They're not the culture Western natives should have a problem with.
Europeans saying the British did something the Europeans did.
Yeah this s***'s just about sewing division.
Enlighten us Heir Flich...
@@Jimmy_CreamThat would be the desert religion of peace...
Greetings from Germany. About 4 years ago me and my best friend were waiting at a tram station for another friend and we sat down on the bench that was there, roght beside a odd looking man. Me and my friend were talking about my shoes and how to fix them cuz they were kinda ripped open due to a condition called 'no-fricking-idea-why'. And then the man started to give us advice on how to repair them. We started to talk and he told us he that he is a Skinhead, showed us his Baton and Brass Knuckles and assured us that he uses it only if he is threatened. Me and my friend got curious because meeting and casually talking to a Skinhead in Germany is a pretty rare occassion.😅
So he explained to us that they are neither fascist nor nazistic, they were just your standart middle class worker. He said that there are some radical creeps but they are like their own like sectist like groups. Then the tram came, he wished us best of luck in life and went home. We were baffled, as we expected to get some racial comments from him against Arabs, Africans or even Slavics. But nothing from that came. He said that they appreciated everybody that lives their live well. Since then my view of them changed, you just have to meet people and talk to them. Then decide what you think. 😁🤝
yeah even most "racist" people are really only against the criminal elements, and might connect cultural shortcomings that leads to more elements coming from a certain group or race, if you take the time to talk to them. not like this totally shallow documentation
@@davidelvion1331I won't get into details but I'm a skin 59 years old this year. I've met many different people over my years. Lots of people are racists, and lots of people aren't . Just like skinheads. I don't mind if someone's a racist, there's usually a reason behind it. I do mind an outright Nazi, or commie for that matter. I'm very much a live and let live kind of guy. Just don't push me.
Im 57 and i remember if you were a skinhead, rude boy , mod , new wave , 2Tone , Rockabillies , we all loved the music , the parties , our Saturdays was meet up at the barbers 12 ish , go to Luscombs shoe shop for D.M boots , Pie and Mash after , then to Woolworths to buy Madness The Specials The Beat The Jam Northern Soul and loads of other great records , the markets for clothes Petticoat Lane for Sheepskin coats and gold , i still see all my old friends from back then ,some sadly not with us , we all hold each other with the same respect as we did 45years ago , we were too young to be political , the older right wing extremists were a minority
Forgot soul boys
@@Canuckhardtail That if I remember took off BIG in 1982 , That year was musically like the 1970s a bit of everything in the charts
You forgot SOULBOYS mate ;)
@@mariegilmartin8827 I was an Oi! Punk in the 80s (and in the USA to boot), I just didn't want those boys to be forgotten; they had STYLE... cardigans, wifebeaters, pegged Levis, boxing boots and watch caps... walking yard sales as you say. Cheers.
i was a Goth/Hippy in late 80s, walking with another Goth/Hippy dude we see 4 or 5 skinheads coming down the street, about 9pm, the smallest skinhead says to the leader "what about them?" hoping to get his violence fix for the evening.... the leader said "No, leave them, they look mellow"🤣i guess they wanted a fight that lasted longer than 20 seconds...
There's always nutters about, but generally if you go about fighting as a pastime it's a lot easier to fight people who also want to fight as they tend not to report you to the police as much. 😆
I had a psychobilly friend and 30 skins came after us. We had to hang in a record shop for 20mins before they got bored and left
@@Arrwmkr Right of passage
I always went for the goth chicks. They dressed hot.
"Goth hippie" 😂😂
What a mix!
Discord Mods, Reddit Mods yall not ready for English Mods
Underrated comment there, but I bet most people wouldnt have a clue.
Hippies are now the guys throwing paint at old paintings sitting in front of ambulances.
skins are now the new hippies according to all these bs docos and woke pc skins online
Those are not hippies. I don't like hippies, but they had way more class than those morons.
Leftists
They aren't hippies at all.
And Antifa were always the guys consigning people to Gulags in Siberia.
G'day to you! I was a Skinhead in the early 70s here in Perth West Australia, not once did I see any Racism, 50 years later I still love Ska and Reggae! PS I still have my 1/4 inch white Braces!
Another video where you talk crap. This is why books and documentaries that were made at the time are important.
sucks when history is distorted right? reap and sow
Lots of out of date videos, for the time he was talking about.
The Spirit of '69,, aka the skinhead Bible by George Marshall is what I read when I was introduced to boots and braces.
Your so right this is just BS
I have a memory of a cultural moment that doesn't seem to have been caught on film.
Literally thousands of skinheads at the old Shed End at Stamford Bridge singing ' Knees up Mother Brown ' .. incredible sight . ✌️🇬🇧.
It’s not dead. They’re still plenty of them out there and there is probably going to be a resurgence considering today’s society.
it actually dawned upon me that i haven't heard the term "skinhead" since i was a child; around the early to mid 90's. there was a lot of propganda around that "the skinheads were going to take over". im across the globe in the PNW and always wore my hair low down to 1 but i definitely remember getting some comments that "i looked like a skinhead" back then. i had no idea they started out the complete opposite of what they eventually became synonymous with. crazy.
I like that you're giving American audiences a look at the "channel 5" style of documentary presentation 👌🏼 😂
My dad was in a punk band in the 70's, who'd actually been a support act for the Ramones. He has an old electric guitar to this day which he claims may have *killed a skinhead* at one show. A whole crowd of skinheads rushed the stage while they were playing, and my dad clocked one guy in the head with his guitar. The skinhead dropped to the ground off the edge of the stage, and the band all made a run for it. He grew up in a council estate in chelmsford and was very involved in punk, and has lots of crazy stories about life back then.
Wow your dad murdered a teenage skinhead and got away wit it...bet your so proud of your da 🤔
@@KramerMC5 love the surprisingly wholesome bromance in your story mate
Plz bring em back 🙏 uk needs em badly !
They’re coming.. just you watch.
This is a lie the west Indians were never invited . Windrush was a returning ship offering cheep tickets to the UK so immigrants came.
so immigrants can come to rebuild the UK the government literally asked them too 😭
Your 100% correct.
@@ogoosmNo they never.
@@ogoosm no.
The empire's goal was always the world government, read Huxley, the last psychologists
My dad was a skinhead. He was in one of the first skinhead bands in the United States.
What band was he in?
what band??
Probably Iron Cross, Cro Mags, Agnostic Front is my guess, who knows though.
As a young 20 something skinhead from the US. I honestly love seeing people talk about the roots of the subculture I love so much. Thanks for teaching the world. I wish I could have been there for the early days of the skinhead subculture, but I am still trying to represent the roots and teach people. Love your content, man. Keep up the good work.
40yo SHARP here. Glad to see the youth still taking up the culture and fighting for what it stands for. Good on ya!
the british origin story isnt the American origin story....
and sharps in America were mostly Cowards, even the vaunted Minneapolis scene was weak....
they Ran / cried like little girls the summer the Hammers rode through town. a real disappointment,
we were ready to rumble. they werent.
SHARPs... lol, weak. weaker still that an adult would admit being one. i guess thats just how weak you young kids are.
55 y.o Hammer here. still laughing at you wannabes playing at being a foreign skin. @@NonnaPossum1312
@@h.s.lafever3277Not interested in bonehead campfire tales, see yourself out
Oi Oi!
45yr old UK Bristolian SHARP here. alive, well and still re-educating violent racists ;)
I love this guy's style of narrative, I've subbed!😊
I would instantly take these guys back as opposed to who’s there now.
That's the thing. There's a fairly recent British fim about these guys. It's more or less about the current movement. Can't remember the name of the film now. Essentially, in the film some white skinheads turned on their Black friend, over a White girl, and the beat the Black guy to death🌝
- @@ReshonBryant- sounds like "this is England". Set in the 80s/90s.
@@ReshonBryantThat's This Is England. Dude used scenes and the title card in this video.
@@olliegoria I'm a German bro. Not sure why you would differentiate English skinheads when this issue is white males.
@@ReshonBryant I was just telling you the name of the movie. It's meant to tell the story of the skinhead movement and how it was corrupted by white nationalism. You described its plot to a tee.
Not quite how it worked my friend, no one knew about the windrush boat arrived, the big club sold the dream
...sold out our Land from under our feet .....
We were never asked..
@@alanhargreaves-thevoiceofr2361I don't think there was much left of your land.
@@scottyovgy2and if you was asked?
@@scottyovgy2 Right wing governments use immigration as a double edged tool, to pretend to be against it to secure votes from racists and to use it to keep wages low during Labour shortages to keep the corporations happy. Even Hitler flooded Germany with migrant workers during the war. Hope you're enjoying your Brexit paradise, all your new neighbours and being manipulated by right wing charlatans
In 2024, I reckon that 'Little Billy' has developed strong feelings towards the current immigration situation. 😂
yep right from the get go i noticed this guys extreme leftist
@@s6748-z5j How plain can I make this, the right is not interested in lowering immigration, it is interested in keeping wages low by bringing in immigrants. It lies and tells you it is anti-immigrant but history shows that the right will bring in migrants when the economy needs it. See 1950's Britain, 2022 Britain, Nazi Germany and its millions of migrant workers. What happened to Trump's wall ???
@@s6748-z5jim not british but it’s crazy to think that there are people that still don’t see anything wrong with the situation going there
i agree brother, and im not british either. @@Hoodpartisan
🎯
I was born and raised in the North of the UK, and I remember being a small lad when various skinheads at school would make sure I wasn't bullied or anything because we shared the same form. Big up, Rob, Mike and Luke. I hope you lads managed to get out of the shithole we grew up in.
North of the UK? You mean Scotland?
@@fyrdman2185 England 🏴
In Thailand when I go to a barber and ask for a skinhead cut, they know exactly what it is
There’s a famous slogan that also floats around. Not just in this movement but other countries have made it their own rallying cry “Enoch Powell was right.”
Funny, because it’s easy, very easy, to look at whites lower class whites in the late 60s and criticize them for this belief as racist when many of those who would make these criticisms would be supportive of the pan-Africanist sentiments and movements sweeping Africa at this same time period, the 1960s.
All across the world, countries were declaring independence from their colonial masters and, in some cases, banishing Europeans and Asians form their countries.
Not always, but this de-colonialism is seen as a good thing. Was it? That’s another conversation. My point is you cannot celebrate people on one continent for having those views while condemning British working class for having them.
Protip: Bowie didn't like HItler. He was quoted and photographed out of context. This is common knowledge nowadays, but I thought I'd mention it seeing as Jimmy obvs didn't dig beyond a random Rolling Stone shock article.
Yeah, but Eric Clapton was actually a full blown racist supporter of Enoch Powell...
Yeah it didn't seem right for Bowie to earnestly say such a thing, given he advocated for more coverage of black artists by music stations
@@aaronhurst4379Kanye says similar stuff about Hitler and he obviously doesn't hate black people so it's not mutually exclusive
Bowie actually made a lot of comments in the mid to late 70s suggesting admiration for Hitler or approval of the idea of a fascist dictator. Why? Hard to know for sure, some have suggested that he was out of his head on coke but Simon Reynolds in his book on glam Shock And Awe suggests that he made these comments too consistently for that. He thinks Bowie had got carried away method acting his Thin White Duke character.
Bowie obviously regretted this later and was keen to establish that he wasn't racist. In fact I used to talk online to someone who had been involved in the relaunch of the Anti Nazi League , and he said one day they receive a cheque in teh post fro a substantial amount of money from Bowie with a note just saying "I'm sorry"!
I was a skinhead, it was all about the clothes and reggae, it was multi cultural.
In Canada back around 1980-87, if you went downtown wearing Doc Martens you had to be prepared to fight to keep them (or run really, really fast), because gangs of skinheads would try to ‘roll’ you for them. That is, if you didn’t hand the boots over, they’d do their best to put you in the hospital, then take them off you.
It was a very polarised scene. There were the stylish and trad, mod-leaning skins that were not racist and not out looking to start fights for no reason. You had the SHARPS out there actively opposing the ultraviolent Nazi skins. Then you had fringe groups like the satanic skins, who were almost a skinhead/metal cross, and surprisingly nice dudes. Aside from the Nazi skins, all of those groups embraced people of every colour - especially black, out of respect forJamaica’s essential contribution to the scene.
The 70s and 80s were a wild, dynamic, intensely creative time. New musical genres, social scenes, and styles were constantly being invented. Sadly, that has now almost ground to a halt.
With the internet making everything accessible to everyone immediately, the exclusivity and isolation needed for subcultures no longer exists. I think that’s why we don’t see nearly as much creativity today. Very little in the way of new musical genres, scenes, or styles. It’s mostly just rehashed old stuff.
Kids today haven’t lost that urge to create. It’s just that the internet has destroyed the environment needed to foster that life, and the world is the poorer for it. It’s likely that AI will only make things worse. Maybe the shittyness it brings will force the next social revolution. We’re definitely overdue for one.
You lost me at "kids today". I was born in 1997 and have seen various music genres be born in the UK- Grime/Drum & Bass/Bassline/Drill/Dubstep to mention a few.
I love the whole boomer attitude, its so close-minded and "back in my day, we created everything. Kids today do nothing because of the internet"
Just say you don't know what a .pdf is and that you dont understand modern music. Its a lot more understandable and less belittling
I don't agree that there are no new subcultures anymore. In my oppinion, the internet actually kind of helps some of these subcultures. I mean, back in the days you had to find your style in your area, so you didn't have that much to chose from. Today, you can literally get your style from all over the world. That can lead to some very interesting things, like three hijab-wearing indonesian young women playing at Wacken (the band's name is Voice of Baceprot, if you want to check them out). Or scottish pirate metal. Or whatever Alien Weaponry is.
Even back in the day a lot of people weren't part of any subculture, they listened to disco or whatever music was hot at the moment and were totally happy with that.
I was a skateboarder in Toronto during that time. Skinheads were the arch enemy of a skater. I remember well people getting "rolled" for their Docs.
For the best of my knowledge, don't the earliest metal skinheads come from Canada? Blasphemy being a good example? Although it's not exactly a scene.
It’s crazy to think haircuts were such a big thing in subcultures back in the day. I went to high school in the US in the mid to late 2000s, and wore a buzz cut, and skated and played in hardcore and metal bands. Nobody really cared how you wore your hair. My guess was the whole metalcore thing really blurred the lines between genres/subcultures which still goes on to this day. I find it crazy to hear how opposed to each other the metalheads and punks/skaters/hardcore kids were in the 80s.
Interesting in the news report, that they talk about "extreme right and left wing political organisation". To day it would most definetly be reported either right or left being the "bad group", rather than talking about how extreme idiology right or left is a negative.
16:30
"I reject your reality and substitute my own"
truly a thinking man 🤣
My Dad was a mod & my grandparent's neighbours were some of the first Jamaicans to move here. I still listen to SKA & Soul to this very day. Reminds me of my childhood. Fond memories. Thank you for sharing this
American History X did a really great job at showing how the racist skinheads of that era really were aligned with and exploited by far right political groups. That was such an excellent movie.
As a first generation Jamaican American, I’m terribly conflicted by the extreme sexual attraction I feel for Edward Norton’s character. Good gravy, that man was _foine._ 🥵
I am supprised that its not had a massive come back with the current islamic marches going on every weekend
They’re not Islamic marches the people there are protesting for a ceasefire and to stop the germicide I’m Palestine and if you where to do your research you don’t have to be Muslim to know that what’s going on is not okay
it has, Save Europe people adopted that style and are called boneheads, we are sometimes fachists, some are just nzis(thats bad) but most of us are just nationalists
i think the penalties are pretty extreme for even touching them
@@DesetiTravnja True, european governments privilege the safety of non euroepans than their own people
Free Palestine shitwhiskers ✌🏻
How to say you know nothing about skinheads without saying you know nothing about skinheads
how
@@samthomson3394 by making a video like that
Bang on mate, the geezer virtually showed where he got is information from, Wikipedia and the guardian, it's laughable
I think his daddy or grandaddy was a skinhead and he's trying to paint them as al lovable group of rogues who just liked to
"wear clothes and dance to music." What a joke!
Glad I found your channel. Well presented mate. Cheers.
Sham 69 were unjustly labelled as a National Front band because of recruitment at their gigs which they had no control over. They were about unity not racism.
Totally..glad they're back..
I'm glad you made a clear distinction between Original Skins who where all about Ska and the racist nazi types that came later, there are some still around around and have been joined by some younger people who also like Ska, Reggae and Dub.
Skinheads vs boneheads
Originals were all about Skinhead Reggae not Ska
Yeah pretty nice documentary. It was a crazy time back then i enjoyed it alot even though my life is totaly diferent now thank god 😂
No one tell this guy how the early skins felt about the Pakistanis...
"Had a history of not treating very well " how do you know this ? where you around, where did you go, have you assumed this or have you made it up ?
I suppose the slavery stuff
@@JimmyTheGiantConquerors don’t have to apologize
if you were "treating them well" (you can't treat your colony right otherwise it would not be a colony) Jamaica wouldn't be independent but a part of Great Britain/England
either part of the country or a colony, you can't have both my guy
I feel like you're the one assuming things if you're trying to imply that the British empire did nothing wrong
You're a hell of a good anthropologist on this stuff! I am always deeply impressed by your videos on these topics.
"Skinhead, remember the spirit 69...." oi..oi...oi
..WE ARE SKINHEADS N WE'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!!!!!!😡
yeah!yeah!yeah!yeah!YEAH!yeah!yeah!yeah!
Go back on the streets and save UK from these so called asylum seekers !
"We" didn't ask immigrants to come in to rebuild the country, they were offered cheap passage to the UK by the shipping companies who, after dropping cargo, didn't want to travel back with an empty vessel. They advertised cheap tickets and thousands took them up, moving to the UK.
Bud, as a South African who is (half) of British immigrant ancestry, kindly zip it. Some immigrants contribute, some don't. Some locals contribute, some don't. But 100% percent of those who don't contribute - whine.
The rise of the rave scene also killed it along with football violence at that time. Different drugs working class people from different cultures raving together
My grandad was a s.h.a.r.p skin, and I was in the subculture during my early years. And even though I left, if it wasn’t for skinhead oil! I would have never became a punk. Nice to see the subculture get some appreciation. And I thank oi! For getting me into punk. (Also would love to see one of these mini docs on punk)