27-409: Strength Thru Oi! is a 1981 Oi! compilation album, featuring various artists and released by Decca Records , released in collaboration with Sounds magazine. The album was the sequel to Oi! The Album (1980), and itself was followed by Carry On Oi! ( Oi 3! , 1981) and Oi! Oi! That's Yer Lot! ( Oi/4 , 1982). When Strength Thru Oi! was released, it was controversial because its title
54-583: A far-right activist by a newspaper that "had once supported Oswald Mosley 's Blackshirts , Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia , and appeasement with Hitler right up to the outbreak of World War Two." After the Oi! movement lost momentum in the United Kingdom, Oi! scenes formed in continental Europe, North America, and Asia. Soon, especially in the United States, the Oi! phenomenon mirrored the hardcore punk scene of
81-731: A recognised genre in the latter part of the 1970s, emerging after the perceived commercialisation of punk rock , and before the soon-to-dominate hardcore punk sound. It fused the sounds of early punk bands such as the Sex Pistols , the Ramones , the Clash , and the Jam with influences from 1960s British rock bands such as the Small Faces and the Who , football chants , pub rock bands such as Dr. Feelgood , Eddie and
108-616: The National Front (NF) and the British Movement (BM), leading some critics to dismiss the Oi! subgenre as racist . Other Oi! bands, such as Angelic Upstarts , The Business , The Burial and The Oppressed were associated with left wing politics and anti-racism , and others were non-political. Rock Against Communism (RAC) was a partial development from white power / white supremacist movements, which had musical and aesthetic similarities to Oi! Although due to Cold War fears
135-569: The far right after revealing he was gay). Bushell, who compiled the album, stated its title was a pun on the Skids ' album Strength Through Joy , and that he had been unaware of the Nazi connotations. He also denied knowing the identity of the skinhead on the album's cover until it was exposed by the Daily Mail two months after the release. Bushell, a socialist at the time, noted the irony of being branded
162-576: The 101ers were good. In fact, as far as sound and excitement went we were much better than Eddie and the Hot Rods . The other guys in the group were twenty-five and twenty-six and they played good because they'd spent a few years getting that far. But they were just too old. What I really wanted was to get in with some young yobbo's who I was more in tune with. The 101ers' recorded output was initially limited to one single . However, by 1981, interest in The Clash
189-580: The Hot Rods and The 101ers , and glam rock bands such as T.Rex , Slade and Sweet . Although Oi! has come to be considered mainly a skinhead-oriented genre, the first few Oi! bands were composed mostly of punk rockers and people who fitted neither the skinhead nor punk label. First-generation Oi! bands such as Sham 69 and Cock Sparrer were around for years before the word Oi! was used retroactively to describe their style of music. In 1980, writing in Sounds magazine, rock journalist Garry Bushell labelled
216-522: The Nazi connotations. He also denied knowing the identity of the skinhead on the album's cover until it was exposed by the Daily Mail two months later. The intended cover model was bodybuilder Carlton Leach but the pictures, taken at the Bridge House pub in Canning Town, East London, weren't good enough. A cover drawn up by the record label showing a young skinhead from above with the title on his head
243-645: The US. In the 2000s, many of the original UK Oi! bands reunited to perform and/or record. The 101ers The 101ers were a pub rock band from the 1970s playing mostly in a rockabilly style, notable as being the band that Joe Strummer left to join The Clash . Formed in London in May 1974, the 101ers made their performing debut on 7 September at the Telegraph pub in Brixton , under
270-449: The United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The music and its associated subculture had the goal of bringing together punks , skinheads , and other disaffected working-class youth. The movement was partly a response to the perception that many participants in the early punk rock scene were, in the words of The Business guitarist Steve Kent, "trendy university people using long words, trying to be artistic... and losing touch." Oi! became
297-507: The West Indian immigrant presence and little obvious connection with black musical roots—Oi! provided a musical focus for new visions of skinhead identity [and] a point of entry for a new brand of right-wing rock music. Garry Bushell, the journalist who promoted the Oi! genre, argued that the white power music scene was "totally distinct from us. We had no overlap other than a mutual dislike". The mainstream media increased its claims that Oi!
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#1732897819161324-830: The World on the end of the 101ers by saying "5 seconds into their (the Pistols') first song, I knew we were like yesterday's paper, we were over." By the time their debut single, "Keys to Your Heart", was released, Joe Strummer had joined The Clash and the 101ers were no more. Clive Timperley later joined The Passions , Dan Kelleher went to Martian Schoolgirls and The Derelicts . Richard Dudanski went on to work with The Raincoats , Basement 5 and Public Image Ltd . Tymon Dogg worked with Strummer briefly in The Clash , playing fiddle and singing his original song, "Lose This Skin", on Sandinista! , and later in The Mescaleros . I know
351-510: The aftermath of that riot, many Oi! bands condemned racism and fascism . These denials, however, were met with cynicism from some quarters because of the Strength Thru Oi! compilation album, released in May 1981. Not only was its title a play on a Nazi slogan " Strength Through Joy ", but the cover featured Nicky Crane , a skinhead BM activist who was serving a four-year sentence for racist violence (Crane later disavowed his alignment with
378-638: The band ever recorded. The project was completed with the help of Strummer's widow Lucinda Tait and former drummer Richard Dudanski, and released in May 2005 as Elgin Avenue Breakdown Revisited via Astralwerks in the US and EMI in Europe. The last track on the 2005 re-issue was an 8-minute version of " Gloria " recorded on 22 May 1976 at the Cellar Club in Bracknell. This was recorded two weeks before
405-399: The genre had appeal to some punk rock bands distinct from original Oi! in that they opposed all totalitarianism , but was not connected to the Oi! scene. Timothy S. Brown writes: [Oi!] played an important symbolic role in the politicization of the skinhead subculture. By providing, for the first time, a musical focus for skinhead identity that was "white"—that is, that had nothing to do with
432-696: The infamous torture room in George Orwell 's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four . The band's early gigs included several at the Windsor Castle and a residency at the Elgin . They were supported by the Sex Pistols at the Nashville Room on 3 April 1976. Strummer claims that this is when he saw the light and got involved in the punk scene. Joe Strummer commented on this event in the Don Letts documentary Westway to
459-556: The late 1970s, with American Oi!-originating bands such as the Radicals, U.S. Chaos , Iron Cross , Agnostic Front , and Anti Heros. Later American punk bands such as Rancid and Dropkick Murphys have credited Oi! as a source of inspiration. In the mid-1990s, there was a revival of interest in Oi! music, leading to older Oi! bands receiving more recognition in the UK and bands such as The Business being discovered by young, multiracial skinheads in
486-541: The movement Oi! , taking the name from the garbled " Oi !" that Stinky Turner of Cockney Rejects used to introduce the band's songs. The word is a British expression meaning hey . In addition to Cockney Rejects, other bands to be explicitly labeled Oi! in the early days of the genre included Angelic Upstarts , the 4-Skins , the Business , Anti-Establishment , Blitz , the Blood and Combat 84 . The prevalent ideology of
513-501: The name 'El Huaso and the 101 All Stars'. The name would later be shortened to the '101 All Stars' and finally just the '101ers'. The group played at free festivals such as Stonehenge , and established themselves on the London pub rock circuit prior to the advent of punk . The group was named after the squat where they lived together: 101 Walterton Road, Maida Vale , although it was for a time rumoured that they were named for " Room 101 ",
540-449: The original Oi! movement was a rough brand of working-class rebellion. Lyrical topics included unemployment, workers' rights, harassment by police and other authorities, and oppression by the government. Oi! songs also covered less-political topics such as street violence, football, sex, and alcohol. Some Oi! bands―such as Sam McCrory and Johnny Adair 's Offensive Weapon ―and fans were involved in white nationalist organisations such as
567-488: The prowl.... Getting nicked for wearing steel caps, a flick blade flashing in the moonlight." However, otherwise suggested that this was meant to reflect the reality of the lives of the British working class, as opposed to glorifying the violence faced by them. This 1980s punk rock album–related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Oi! Oi! is a subgenre of punk rock that originated in
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#1732897819161594-456: The tattoos out. There were two mistakes there, both mine. Hands up." The album was "hastily withdrawn" by Decca Records when Crane's identity and previous convictions were made public, and has since become very collectable. It was not so easy to deny the album cover's glorification of violence and the sinister tone of its sleeve notes: "A mass of boots, straights, and combat jackets, skins and boot boys, grins and hoots and oy-oy's, young blood on
621-476: The tavern, mistakenly believing that the concert—featuring the Business, the 4-Skins and the Last Resort—was a neo-Nazi event. Although some of the concert-goers were National Front or British Movement supporters, none of the performers were white power music bands, and the audience of approximately 500 people included skinheads, black skinheads, punk rockers, rockabillies , and non-affiliated youths. In
648-409: Was alleged to be a play on a Nazi slogan (" Strength Through Joy "), and the cover featured Nicky Crane , a British Movement activist who was serving a four-year sentence for racist violence. Rock critic Garry Bushell , who was responsible for compiling the album, said its title was a pun on The Skids ' EP Strength Through Joy and that, as an active anti-fascist in the 1970s, he had been unaware of
675-502: Was at its height and a second single and a compilation album Elgin Avenue Breakdown was released. Several of the tracks on the latter album were live recordings, and there is no evidence that the band ever conceived of these recordings as a full-length album. Until his death in 2002, Joe Strummer had been planning to re-release Elgin Avenue Breakdown , complete with previously unreleased tracks that would encompass everything
702-528: Was linked to far-right racist politics after an Oi! concert at the Hambrough Tavern in Southall on 4 July 1981 ended with five hours of rioting, 120 people being injured and the tavern being burnt down. Before the concert, some audience members had written NF slogans around the area and bullied Asian residents of the neighbourhood. In response, local Asian youths threw Molotov cocktails and other objects at
729-604: Was rejected. The Crane image was taken from a Christmas card pinned to a wall in the Sounds office. Bushell later said: "I had a Christmas card on the wall, it had that image that was on the cover of Strength Thru Oi! , but washed out. I honestly, hand on my heart, thought it was a still from The Wanderers . It was only when the album came through for me to approve the artwork that I saw his tattoos. Of course, if I hadn't been impatient, I would have said, right, fucking scrap this, let's shoot something else entirely. Instead, we airbrushed
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