Oi!
 

"Oi! is working class, and if you're not working class you'll get a kick in the bollocks." Stinky Turner of Cockney Rejects, 1980.

No "Borstal Breakout?"

No, but I could have put it in the comedy punk poll.

Zing!

none of the oi i've ever heard has been any good. or maybe i'm just too middle class to understand.

You're probably not hard enough either.

I get confused by oi! Isn't it just hardcore but not very trendy (and equally as shit)?

No, it's basically working class British skinhead/punk.

"Oi! is also the name given to a sub-genre of punk music that sought to return punk to a working-class "street level" following. It began in the latter part of 1977, fusing the styles of early punk bands such as the Clash and the Ramones with early British rock like the Rolling Stones and The Who, and was seen as promoting unity between punks and skinheads. Originally, the style was called "streetpunk" or "reality-punk"; it wasn't until the early 1980s that music journalist Gary Bushell labeled the movement "Oi!", supposedly derived from the Cockney Rejects song "Oi! Oi! Oi!".

The original Oi! bands included Cock Sparrer, the Cockney Rejects, Angelic Upstarts, Slaughter and the Dogs, Skrewdriver, The Lurkers, and Sham 69. They were followed by The Business, The Last Resort, The 4-Skins, Combat 84, Infa-Riot, and others."

it's worse than hardcore.

Fucking Bushell. "I'm not a racist, I just think that all those rag-heads should fuck off back to where they came from or be shot".

Yes, pretty much all the Oi I have heard has been rubbish....

I used to like Sham 69 a lot as a teen.
Does "Someone's Gonna Die" by Blitz count as Oi? It certainly has a lotta Oi Oi Oi going on. That is a great tune.

It all sounds kinda funny/dated to me now.

Blitz would certainly count as Oi!

I can't stand Oi! punk from what I've heard, except Chaotic Dischord's "Anarchy in Woolworths" and "Who killed ET".

i like sham 69. that's about it.

i also haven't liked any oi i have heard. it all seems to sound pretty similar, so i can't see myself liking anything else?

but sham isn't oi! it's more like proto oi! halfway between the early clash and the exploited.

can't say i like most of that stuff, the only really good britpunk from that era was the crust stuff and mostly it was meh. but it did spawn rudimentary peni and discharge.

Sham 69 were just comedy punk.

there are too many categories of punk for me to keep up with.

Can I just interrupt this thread for a moment?

Oi!

Thanks. I feel better now. As you were, everyone.

it seems like sham were regarded as clowns over in england but elsewhere, they are taken seriously.

what about the dropkick murphies?

i think to be oi! you have to be english.

dropkick murphys are pogues rip offs

and the pogues are irish and therefore not oi!

exactly.

some american stuff have touched on the oi! thing but haven't really gone to the deep end...like there was a period during reunion-era agnostic front where they got pretty chanty and very shitty in the process.

You're going to regret saying that when I send Jimmy Pursey round for a chat.

I'm not sure that Action Pact were Oi, but I did like them very much, and I'm not sure that I'll ever get a chance to mention them on here again so:

Action Pact - They were pretty fabulous.

Is he still a Hersham boy then?

Yeah, Jimmy's still a Hersham Boy.

I kid you not, there were plans to erect a statue of him in Hersham a year or two ago.

The record label of your dreams, Oi fans - CAPTAIN OI!

Oh yes, Action Pact were great, but not Oi!

Then again, I was stretching it a bit with Vice Squad, but Beki Bondage...;)

Oi!

Ian Glasper's book, Burning Britain is a really good read when it comes to a lot of this stuff. I wouldn't say i was ever a fan, although Anti-Nowhere-League's 'So What' (assuming ANL were an Oi band at all) definitely caused some sniggers in the playground when it came out.

'So What'

Well I've been to Hastings
And I've been to Brighton
I've been to Eastbourne too
So what, so what

Well I've been here
And I've been there
And I've been every fucking where
So what, so what

So what, so what you boring little cunt
Well who cares, who cares what you do
Who cares, who cares about you
You, you, you

Well I've sucked sweets
And I've sucked rock
And I've even sucked an old man's cock
So what, so what

Well I've fucked a sheep
And I've fucked a goat
I've had my cock right down its throat
So what, so what
So what, so what you boring little cunt
Well who cares, who cares what you do
Who cares, who cares about you
You, you, you, you

Well I've drunk that
And I've drunk this
And I've spewed up on a pint of piss
So what, so what

And I've had scag
I've had speed
I've jacked up until I bleed
So what, so what
So what, so what you boring little cunt
Well who cares, who cares what you do
Who cares, who cares about you
You, you, you, you

Well I've had crabs
And I've had lice
And I've had the pox and that ain't nice
So what, so what

Well I've fucked this
And I've fucked that
And I've even fucked a schoolgirl's crack
So what, so what
So what, so what you boring little cunt
Who cares, who cares about you
Who cares, who cares about you
You, you, you, you....

I've got Burning Britain but I've never gotten around to actually reading it. I'm disappointed emmah didn't contribute more to this thread.

I like The Expelled , on Captain Oi.
I guess they're an oi band for somebody ( for me they're punk/harcore ).

It's interesting largely because it's an area most people like to ignore. Glasper's ok, but he does have a tendency to shy away from some of the more suspect political aspects of the scene. But even so, it's a good account of a side of UK punk that the likes of Jon Savage would probabaly rather never existed. Saying that, it isn't really as book about Oi, so much as the second wave of Punk. Stuff like Discharge, etc.

I ride a scooter - of course I listen to oi. I need to maintain the stereotype.