[lbo-talk] Bob Again (Was National Review's Top 50 )

[Wendy Lyon]

I have similar memories from the DC punk scene.  There were a LOT of
skinheads there (curiously including two black women) and myself and
friends were singled out by them on account of being "Crassholes"
(i.e. fans of Crass and similar anarcho-left bands).  I managed to
escape any ass-kicking thanks to avoiding certain parts of town and,
in one case, sneaking out the one door of a venue which the skin girls
hadn't blocked, but some of my friends weren't so lucky.  This was in
the 1980s.

I was too young in the 1970s to listen to punk, but I know from
reading about it that some of the early British bands did flirt with
Naziism, although this was more as a (dumb, naive) statement of
rebellion than an actual political philosophy.  Siouxsie and the
Banshees for one wore Swastikas and sang a song with a lyric "Too many
Jews for my liking".

On 5/28/06, jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net <jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:


> I would wager than 85% of the time I went to see a punk band play some
> Nazi-wanna-be's and/or skinheads would try (and sometimes succeed) to kick my ass. Many of the fucking
> suburban white kids who came to the concerts did so with violence in mind. I never went in alone, it was too
> dangerous. Trips to the emergency room were almost as much a part of the scene as anything else. The
> fights were usually after the gig was over but I remember a Black Flag concert in Tulsa that was stopped
> because of such fighting. The white boys from the suburbs were even more mad about this so it was hell
> getting out of there. New York was the exception, for me anyway. Chicago, Dallas, St. Louis, Minneapolis
> even San Francisco (which surprised us for some reason) were all scenes of after concert fights with these
> assholes. Native American punks were few and faw between and not exactly made welcome by a small but
> vocal part of the scene. Even Adam Ant looking like some da-nu-wa--ag-i-la didn't help!