Interview with a skinhead

"Skinhead" is a term used to indentify members of the skinhead subculture which became prevalent in the 1960s after originating in London. They were originally concerned with working-class ideals, and are believed to be an offshoot of the earlier mod subculture. They are characterised by their extremely closely cropped hair, from where the term skinhead is derived.


I spoke to Geoff, who identified himself as a member of this subculture during the mid 1970s.

Did you belong to any one particular group?

Yes, I was a skinhead.

What year did you become involved with this group?

Roughly I would have been 16, so around 1975.

How did you become aware of this group?

There were some groups into it, such a Slade, the music started it off for me. Some of my friends were into it, including some guys around 17 and 18 who were doing it, so we followed on from them, we had an influence from the older generation.

Did you know many people, or did you have many friends that also subscribed to this group?

Yes, quite a few, not all of my friends, but I would say around half of my friends did, it was fairly popular.

What was the primary ethos or mission of your group?

To me, it was the fashion, it was the fact you looked hard. “Don’t mess with me” was the message. We didn’t have an underlying cause, I think it was just about wanting to be in trouble. I got in trouble, we all did. Mainly fighting, all the time. I was fighting my shadow.

Was there a particular fashion associated with it? Can you describe it?

Doc Martin boots, oxblood, yellow laces, they were a must, the higher the length of boots the better. You’d turn up your jeans, drainpipes or levis or whatever. Ben Sherman shirt, that was the main one, and braces in a cross at the back, and they had to be narrow, they couldn’t be like your grandad’s braces. Everybody had a completely shaven head, or as close to it as you could get.

Did you or anyone you know ever buy clothes/accessories/makeup for the sole purpose of fitting in with the group?

You bought the associated gear, there was a sort of stipulated uniform for it, it was quite strict, had to be a checked Ben Sherman shirt, stay pressed trousers when you were going to a dance, turned up to suit the boots.

What kind of rituals would members of the group perform? (hair dying, piercings)

A lot of people had skinhead burns as they were called, they rubbed the backs of their hands until they burned. I think that was just a silly craze.

Were there any shops that catered to the kind of fashion your group had?

Most shops did, it was fashion, it was what they sold, levis were popular anyway, stay pressed came in different colours, the shops were aware of the trend and they took advantage, one shop in particular opened as a result of the skinhead trend, they totally catered, they opened the shop and filled it full of stuff for skinheads, on the basis of what was selling at the time. He did his research.

Was there any particular kind of music your group listened to?

To be honest, all kinds. At the time it was all discos and what was in the charts, it was nearing the point of glam rock, I got on the bandwagon late. In London they were more into ska reggae, that sort of thing.

Did you attend any events associated with your group?

Not really, we had discos, we met up in the high street, out and about, you were never in your house. We spent most of our time in the street. We drank underage, down the river, down the beach, before we went to the discos.

Were there any activities or behaviours associated with your group? Did you agree with them?

We fought a lot, it was a territorial thing, there were a lot of travellers that came and we fought them. Gangs, people from Forres or Elgin, they were more organized than we were, they fought for leadership and all this kind of thing.

How much money (roughly) do you think you spent?

Well, boots were £20, trousers about £15, then the shirts, roughly £15-£20, they bumped up the price of doc martins because of it. They were aware the trend had caught onto them.

Did you feel as if you belonged, or that your group was a family in any way?

Kind of, we were all different. I would say only 4 of us were proper skinheads, I was probably more insular with those 4. I think some of them were posers.

Was there any signalling?

Other than my clothes and the shaved head, not really, but that was all we needed.

What made you leave the group?

I think we all just left in the end. The older kids drifted into something different, and we followed them. Glam rock kind of came in, and it took over, it wasn’t strict a dress code for one thing.

Was there any point you felt the group was becoming too “corporate?” or commercial?

I never thought about it, it was commercial to begin with, you had to buy a certain kind of clothes.

Do you think your group kept it’s ethos toward the end?

To me, it was just a fashion trend, what I wanted to be was to be hard, to have an attitude, to cast an aura around me that said “don’t come near me, I’ll beat the shit out of you,” it was kind of a shallow interest I had, it was in it’s dying days when I got into it, it only lasted a year or so. We got into the clockwork orange side of things, we ended up dressing like them after a while, we had the checked trousers and Crombie coat, eventually the shops came out with checked stay pressed to meet THAT trend. We went into glam rock from there.

Like Denise, Geoff's experiences with his subculture seem to be somewhat muted as opposed to the experiences of someone living in one of the larger cities. Geoff was involved in the scene as it was beginning to diversify and be overshadowed by other trends. Nevertheless, his experience is interesting because it shows not only how the rural areas of Scotland dealt with subcultures from the south and how they were adapted for the area, but how local retailers began to specialise in fashions that were integral to the scene, and the costs involved in making oneself appropriate in terms of "uniform." 

Interview with a punk

The punk subculture was a music and fashion scene most prevalent around the mid-1970s and early 80s. Members of the movement subscribed to several ideologies, including anti-establishment and anarchist ideals.

I interviewed Denise, a woman who in the late 70's belonged to the punk scene in Nairn, Scotland. My questions were mainly aimed towards how the subculture changed while she was a part of it, and whether or not this effected her opinion of it.

Did you belong to any one particular group?

The punk rockers.

What year did you become involved with this group?

I would have been 14, 78’… 77’ …  around 1977.

How did you become aware of this group?

Well the music was in the charts, Johnny Rotten, The Skids were in, and then of course, the TV, Top Of The Pops, the news was covering it, my friends at school… when I went to the youth club, that was the music they were playing, it was inescapable, you had to conform really, we were pretty impressionable.

Did you know many people, or did you have many friends that also subscribed to this group?

Yes, friends at school, well, I think at that age I’d have been 14, and as you know at that age you tend to be a bit rebellious. So, it kind of fitted in with that time in my life, of course I wanted to rebel, so here comes this punk rock, like the Sex Pistols, who were rebelling against everything.  It was like the perfect storm, it just came at the right time for my age.

What was the primary ethos or mission of your group?

To rebel. To shock, to piss the older generation off. I suppose anarchy came into it as well. There was this group called the Sex Pistols... I’m sure Johnny Rotten was the first one, and they replaced him with Sid Vicious, their behaviour was terrible, they were doing things on the TV, in the media, they were SWEARING! And spitting! Up until that point nobody swore on television. So, anybody took them on a TV show at that time, their behaviour was awful, so that was a big attraction.

Was there a particular fashion associated with it? Can you describe it?

Oh aye, all black, ripped t-shirts, safety pins, the more the better. Black boots, black eyeliner, spiked hair, a lot of the boys had mohicans. They would shave the sides of their hair off then dye it a color. The makeup had to be over the top. The anti-nuclear slogans painted on the back of the boy’s jackets, they were popular, “fuck the pope!” anything that was shocking.

Did you or anyone you know ever buy clothes/accessories/makeup for the sole purpose of fitting in with the group?

Yes. I ripped my t-shirts that my mother had bought me, I put safety pins through my ears. The music was anti establishment, it was anti political, so that rubbed off on us, and at that age we were rebellious anyway. We used to put badges over our jackets, anti-nuclear, anti-war, anything that was “anti” something.

What kind of rituals would members of the group perform? (hair dying, piercings)

Safety pins through my ears, make necklaces out of safety pins, The make up, obviously, dying our hair, especially blue or pink, some of the boys used to put love and hate on their knuckles.

Were there any shops that catered to the kind of fashion your group had?

Maybe in the cities, not in Nairn, we had to make a lot of our own. It was an unkempt kind of look, I never wore dirty clothes, but it was that kind of look, it was to shock. The trousers, the jeans all became drainpipe-y in the shops where they had been flares, so that kind of changed. And the boots, we started to see doc martins in the shop a lot more, the girls would wear them. I was aware there were things we weren’t getting, from people off the TV… that was where we got our ideas from.

Was there any particular kind of music your group listened to?

Sex Pistols was the favourite. There were loads that came off the back of them, I can’t remember their names, one band would appear after another and it was hard to keep track.

Did that kind of music become more or less popular?

Oh for young people it became very popular, much to my parents disdain. There were new bands springing up all the time, it just became this follow-on sort of thing in the charts, loads of new groups copying the formula popped up, and they were after money.

Did you attend any events associated with your group?

Oh aye, we had discos in our day, but we had a youth club and stuff like that, we’d all dress up… we lived in Nairn, so the culture was kind of muted as a result of the location. There wasn’t any live music or concerts up here, but we just got on with it.

Were there any activities or behaviours associated with your group? Did you agree with them?

Smoking, that’s how I became a smoker, even to this day, but we didn’t drink, and we didn’t take drugs… if we were in the city, that might have been different.

We were very anti-social to the older generation. There was no violence that came out of it in Nairn, but in the cities there were. We had quite an attitude, dancing was a big thing too. We kind of just jumped up and down a lot and banged our heads.

How much money (roughly) do you think you spent?

I bought the records and knackered my clothes, make-up… I just spent what money I had. I worked as a waitress, I would spend my wages on it, I earned about £10 a week to give you an idea.

Did you feel as if you belonged, or that your group was a family in any way?

I felt I belonged, the fact they were like minded people.

Was there any signalling?

I advertised the fact I was a punk through dress. A lot of the boys would paint crosses or swastikas on the back of their jackets.

What made you leave the group?

I just grew up. I think we all did, we grew out of it, I had a boyfriend who wasn’t a punk, school I suppose, we had responsibilities ahead, we left school at 16, we were gonna have to do exams, then get a job, music changed, the new romantics came in after that and we were seeing, gone from all the original message of the anarchy and anti establishment to glam rock, weird 80’s stuff… it wasn’t angry anymore, it was all wrong.

Was there any point you remember the group changing in a way you didn’t like?

It became intimidating for the older generation. If there was a group of you together, old people didn’t like it, they felt intimidated, I din’t like that. I woke up to it, I realized it was wrong.

Was there any point you felt the group was becoming too “corporate?” or commercial?

No. I wouldn’t have been aware of it if it was.

Do you think your group kept it’s ethos toward the end?

Yeah… but I think living in Nairn we were presented with a homogenized version of it to start with, I don’t think we ever got the full picture. We saw stuff on the TV, from the cities, doing all these things, squatting, sit-ins… that was the start of having a “right to something,” so they’d all be in squats and protests… can you imagine that in a city, to a small town? We thought we were punks, but we weren’t getting the real version, we never did. The beare bones of the message was always the same, but it got diluted on the way up to Scotland.

What I have learned from this account is that one representation of the punk movement can be vastly different to another. The "version" of punk that Denise was a part of was a much more muted one than that experienced by young people in say, London or Manchester. The underlying spirit or message of the movement remained the same, but it presented itself differently among the young people of Nairn, and it is easy to overlook how cultural and environmental factors effect a subculture. It is possible for a subculture to evolve in an entirely different way depending on it's location.

Carnaby Street Undressed

http://www.identity-films.com/films_carnaby.html

Here is the documentary I based my last two posts on. It is sometimes shown on Yesterday channel, but can be obtained through the internet, I suggest you watch it if you found Carnaby interesting.

Revolution on Carnaby Street (part 2)

In 1967 the hippie youth movement, with it's ethos based on love, tolerance, a connection with nature and an affinity for psychedelic drugs, spread around the world. Hippie has it's roots in the Bohemian culture, much like the "swinging London"archetype. In many ways similar, but fundamentally different, the hippie movement proved to be the death knell for Carnaby Street.

The "Human Be-In" was a social event that occurred in San Francisco and New York City in January of 1967. Many consider this to be the event that popularized the hippie movement, as it was the prelude to the famous "Summer of love,"bringing the counterculture to public awareness and introducing many young people to drugs such as LSD and Cannabis. This sparked a massive political and cultural shift that had a huge effect in Britain as well as America.

As I discussed in my previous post, the Carnaby Street "scene" was heavily based on music and bands that were popular at the time. The bands has a symbiotic relationship with the shops - when the Beatles wore garments bought from Lord Kitchener's Valet or Merc, they fueled the public's interest in fashion, drawing them to the scene and to spend money, and in return the scene was what promoted the music. When the ideals and intentions of the music changed, so did the entire scene. With the summer of love in full swing and social taboos becoming more acceptable, (free love, casual drug use,) the scene in London changed.

The boutiques of Carnaby embraced the shifting trends. Bands such as the Beatles were experimenting with a new psychedelic sound, and had confided in their guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Interest in the middle east had increased, "Everyone was chanting Hare Krishna," recalls Henry Moss. It made good business sense to capitalize on the new wave. Soon "swinging London" was out and hippie was in. Overnight fashions changed, as the shops of Carnaby placed orders for Afghan coats, kaftans and beads.

Things couldn't have been better for business. With new stores opening in New York and Carnaby more popular than ever, the proprietors rested on their laurels. "It was a non-stop party," says Robert Orbach, owner of "I was Lord Kitchener's Valet," "Everybody was walking around going 'Peace man!' Even my bank manager would have a joint with us, and the next morning I'd go in and ask him for money."

Drugs crept into the scene. In 1967 nobody knew how dangerous drugs such as LSD could be, and nobody thought they might be addictive. The summer of love and the festivals that took place were full of drug use that spilled over to the trendy spots in London such as the Marquee, arguably Carnaby's life blood. "When the festivals ended and it started getting to Christmas, it was beginning to get pretty dark," remarks Tommy Calder, founder of Immediate Records, "by the start of 68', we weren't having fun anymore, we were a business. We became the corporations. And we were doing so many drugs, we had to be serious about it."

It wasn't long before mainstream society began reacting against the hippie movement, and all that it was associated with. Artists such as Donovan and The Rolling Stones were targeted in a new anti-drugs policy, and were busted for smoking cannabis. On top of this, the Vietnam war was having a effect on the younger generation. A lot of American teenagers were being drafted, and essentially going off to die. This was at a time when political unrest was high. The people who were originally part of Carnaby were starting to get a little older, and the scene began to run out of steam. People began dying of drug overdoses, the Beatles had broken up, and the novelty had gone. Lost in the hysteria of business, the shop owners of Carnaby found themselves at a loss; in order to maximize profit they had created inferior merchandise, and many corporate backed "copy cat" businesses offering mass produced replications of iconic Carnaby fashions had sprung up. The public were disillusioned and disenfranchised. "If you eat too much candy, you're gonna get sick," remarks Garry Leeds, drummer for The Walker Brothers, "that will bring everything to a halt."

In October 1972 Carnaby street was pedestrianised, prohibiting all traffic. By this time, almost all of the original stores had closed or changed hands. There was a lot of inferior imported merchandise available, nobody made their own garments for sale anymore, and the whole ethos had evaporated. "The bubble had burst," recalls Tom Salter, proprietor of Gear. "It was like getting a boil lanced. It was very different."

Now if you visit Carnaby street you will find it to be quite different. It's been 42 years since the street's hayday, and although it is still lined with clothes shops, they are mostly all corporate-run international businesses that you can find in any city, such as Ben Sherman and Hugo Boss. While the spirit of the street may be gone, a grim lesson is to be taken from the events that took place. In any subculture or counterculture, it is important to cherish your ideals any not allow your movement to become too big or too popular, and not to rely on it for a source of income. If you see your ideologies as a way of profiting from those who think like you, and if you are successful, there will inevitably be more like you who will attempt the same thing. It is possible for something to become so big it collapses in on itself, and while Carnaby and the swinging 60's movement is a good example of how a few elements can create a subculture and how it can be marketed and refined, it is also an example of how too much formalization can be the death of a movement.

Revolution on Carnaby Street

"You'll pay for the gear on display to appear on the scene... It's no good being mean... They'll have your every bean." - Smashing Time, "Carnaby Street"


The 40's was a pretty grim time for Britain. With the war coming to an end, people found that the standards they had once known had been torn down. Rationing continued into the 50's. The public soldiered on, rebuilding the damage the war had brought. Everything was destroyed, and anything was possible. 


The post-war baby boom gave birth to a new generation of young people. When rationing did eventually end in 1954, the market became bountiful again with imported clothes from America. During this time, the rock and roll wave had already hit, welcoming Elvis Presley, Bill Haley & His Comets, and Jerry Lee Lewis to the British soundwaves. It was strange to the young people at the time to experience clothes that fitted properly and didn't itch, and they welcomed the new music.


The fashion at that time for young people was much like that of their parents. While women enjoyed some freedom in their colour palette, men almost always wore a black or gray suit, white shirt and dark shoes. Even a small deviation from this was unacceptable - a black shirt meant you were a ne'er do well, a pink shirt meant you were a homosexual. The attitudes at the time were still as monotone as the uniform.


Britian would have to find it's own image. In 1956, a British skiffle and rock n' roll group called "The Quarrymen" were formed, which in 1960 would eventually evolve into the Beatles. They did not identify at first as a pop group, but as "bohemian," a style that was complemented by art schools, coffee houses and jazz clubs. A small subset developed within this "scene," and new, slightly more casual fashions began to emerge. An underground movement had already set something in motion, a "peacock generation" was beginning to emerge as trends could deviate from the norm more and more.


As the modernist subculture was becoming more prevalent, young people became increasingly interested in fashion. Italian suits and R&B bands such as The Rolling Stones and The Kinks seemed to go well together. It wasn't long until this idea was sold to the masses, as new boutiques where you could buy clothes off the shelf emerged on a small street in the soho district - Carnaby street. Many young people saw this as "giving two fingers to the establishment." They were selling an image, and a revolution was set in motion.


The Marquee club in London was the epicentre for this evolution. Liberation came in waves, the pill became available for women, meaning increased independence, and the twist became a popular dance craze. It became more acceptable to go out dancing and showing off, for men and women, and clothes were increasingly important. The song "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" by the Kinks was all about the modernist subculture and the change in attitude in young people towards clothes.


Carnaby street became truly popular when musicians began going there for their clothes, after Time magazine coined the term "swinging London" in 1966. People would flock to this small street, not just to shop, but for an experience. It became a past time simply to absorb the atmosphere, crowds would arrive just to catch a glimpse of bands such as "The Walker Brothers" outfitting themselves in the latest trends from shops such as "Lord John" and "Lady Jane," who manufactured every garment themselves to supply demand. The fashion followed the music trends and the whims of the musicians, and it wasn't unusual for a trend to only last around 2 weeks at a time, but this hardly mattered, since this generation of teens and young adults were the most affluent for many years. Robert Orbach, owner of one of the most successful Carnaby street boutiques, "I was Lord Kichner's Valet," described it as "Turning on a tap, but instead of water it was money."


What the Beatles were wearing, the people wanted. When they got out of their suits the flower power movement truly started. Fashions became wilder and wilder, long red jackets based on military uniform, complete with medals and good metrit stripes began to be manufactured and sold. In one of Jimi Hendrix's most famous portraits he is seen wearing one bought from Carnaby Street. The scene was insatiable, and there seemed to be no glass ceiling. TV, magazines and the press all perpetuated the image of swinging London, and it seemed less like a subculture and more like mainstream culture at times. 


Meanwhile, Carnaby street became more and more outrageous. Money was pouring in, and shops would attempt more and more shocking publicity stunts to excite the crowds outside, and hopefully encourage them to spend even more. Nearly nude models danced and changed in the windows, bands would play in the streets, to the point that traffic couldn't move up and down smoothly because of the sheer volume of people. 
It wasn't long before Carnaby, bursting at the seams with enterprise, moved to America, as the proprietors of the most affluent shops in London attempted to replicate the phenomenon in New York, exporting the fashions that Britian was going crazy for. This was the height of Carnaby streets popularity, and the many subcultures that were born here were contending for what would be popular, and what would the public be buying next.


"What goes up must come down," laments Henry Moss, owner of "Pussy Galore" and "Lady Jane" in the documentary "Carnaby Street Undressed," which chronicles the rise and fall of the titular street, it's subcultures, fashions and music. It is certainly possible for something to become "too big," and collapse under it's own weight. I will be discussing what ended Carnaby street's reign as the most fashionable place in Britian in my next post.

Argot and Signalling

I want to talk about a phenomenon within subculture that I find interesting, the idea of "argot;" what it is and why it exists, and the use of fashions of mannerisms to signal other members.

When I talk about the formalisation of subculture, I am referring to the process by which unique mannerisms within a community become standardized for use by the whole. This concept, is explored in depth in Dick Hebdige's book "Subculture: The Meaning of Style."

A subculture is a group of people that is distinct from mainstream culture. The members of these subcultures come together because of a common interest, motive or ideal. As a subculture grows in size and evolves beyond it's original, undeveloped state, certain distinctive traits will begin to become apparent that makes that culture unique and recognisable. That is how signalling is allowed to happen.

Members of subcultures often state that they feel as if they "belong," and identify with the culture on a very personal, even spiritual level. I have heard some subculture members say that they regard their group as a "family." It is only natural, humans being the social creatures that we are, that we would attempt to locate those of our own kind. The beauty of a subculture is that you can be sure any other members that you meet will, to at least some degree, share your ideals, opinions and tastes.

"Argot" can be defined as a jargon or slang associated with a subculture, a "sub language." As a subculture develops and gains it's own identity, various events that happen around the time, artifacts associated with the culture or phenomina observed within the population can become so common that a word is invented for it. This new word is added to the subculture's universal "lexicon" and becomes that culture's argot. A good example of this within the Punk movement is the word "pogo," which may seem innocuous to you and me, but is in fact part of the movement's diverse and insular language. Pogo refers to "a dance from the 1970s that consisted of jumping up and down in place."

"Signalling" is another interesting phenomenon. In the days before the internet was widely available, it was possible to set up meetings with fellow subculture members through analogue methods such as low-budget magazines called "zines," and at events such as concerts, but the problem of how to recognise someone in the fold on the street was a difficult one. For punks, this dilemma was solved by their unique fashion style, but there are some subcultures which do not have a uniform to rely on.

The furry fandom is a subculture that first developed in 1980, born from the science fiction fandom. It's members are deeply interested in anthropomorphic (human like) animals. They attend conventions and more casual "furmeets" organised using the web in order to meet. While there is a developed argot for the fandom, there is no fashion or uniform associated with them, which makes signalling almost impossible.

The "phipaw" is a symbol that was introduced to the fandom in 2007. It's intention was that it could be worn on a tshirt, as a badge or car bumper sticker in order to allow one fandom member to recognise another. Simply put, the fandom was aware that it had no method of signalling and created one to be rolled out across the whole community, which is an excellent example of a subculture becoming more formal in it's activities.

The phipaw symbol did not take off as well as it was hoped, even after being backed by some of the most influential members of the community. While it is still occasionally seen, it did not become the standard "symbol" of the fandom.

While it is possible for a culture to become more formal in it's practice, it isn't always easy, or particularly wise, to encourage it. Next post I will be discussing how a subculture becoming formalised can transform it completely - and not always in a good way.


(1) Punks: A Guide to American Subculture/Sharon M Hannon
(2) Subculture: The Meaning of Style/Dick Hebdige