To slave or scratch your arse? Menace’s first vinyl outing

On this day 41 years ago, Menace released their debut single, ‘Screwed Up’ b/w ‘Insane Society’.

Menace had formed at North London’s Hope & Anchor in 1976, emerging from the ashes of a pub rock band with the Spinal Tapesque name Stonehenge. They were a bunch of Irish kids who’d grown up in the seedy area around Kings Cross decades before it became gentrified. Like Sham, Sparrer and to some extent Chelsea, they were one of those transitional punk bands whose grittier ‘street’ stance pointed towards Oi. Continue reading

Advertisement

Skinheads in the Hong Kong Garden

On this day 40 years ago, Siouxsie and the Banshees released their debut single, ‘Hong Kong Garden’. Here’s what Siouxsie said about the song in an interview with Uncut magazine in 2005:

hong kong“I’ll never forget, there was a Chinese restaurant in Chislehurst called the ‘Hong Kong Garden’. Me and my friend were really upset that we used to go there and like, occasionally when the skinheads would turn up it would really turn really ugly. These gits would just go in en masse and just terrorise these Chinese people who were working there. We’d try and say ‘Leave them alone’, you know. It was a kind of tribute”. Continue reading

This ugly old world: a chat with IENA

Remember hearing Rixe for the first time? It felt like a lightning bolt instantly pulverising a world of facile pop-punk ‘Oi’ bands – within seconds, any notion that they had a ‘right’ to exist was put to rest.

The debut EP by IENA hit us in a very similar vein. Although not actually a skinhead band, IENA certainly sound like one. That’s partly down to Marco’s vocal delivery, which one may describe as more domineering than punk singing – more “one step closer and you’re dead” than “fuck you, I won’t do my homework”. Continue reading