Garry Bushell - Hoolies. True Stories of Britains Biggest Street Battles

by Garry Johnson

N ineteen seventy-six was the year the British rock scene was reborn. For a brief time all the old certainties went out the window. Chaos reigned. Anything seemed possible. New bands, new ideas and new voices vied for the attention. And in this gloriously fertile maelstrom, Englands great gift to the world, the youth cults were reinvigorated.

The years 1976 to 1985 witnessed a heady parade of punks, rude boys, skinheads, new mods, rockers, bikers, casuals, soullies, boneheads, New Romantics, crusties and goths. It was, as Garry Bushell wrote back then, a wonderful time to be young.

Bushell was uniquely well placed to observe this exciting period in pop history. He was a punk and a fanzine writer who landed a staff job on Sounds at a time when NME had declared punk dead. He wrote with humour and affection about bands that proved them wrong, bands like the Ruts, the Skids and the UK Subs. But he also found time for the kids in the audience. He interviewed the mods and skins and punks on the street, finding their voices just as fascinating as, and often more interesting than, the false messiahs on our stages. And, in return, the kids, these tough young peacocks, took him into their confidence. Its hard to think of any other rock writer who would have been trusted by the ICF (the West Ham Inter City Firm) or the Glory Boys as Garry was. Punks chanted his name on street demos.

Bushell was the first to enthuse about 2-Tone, catching The Specials at their first ever show and documenting the new bluebeat bonanza in the magazine Dance Craze. A huge lover of Ska, he defended the new bands against reggae purists and racist numbskulls alike.

Groups as diverse as Crass, U2, The Chords, The Selecter, Cockney Rejects, The Exploited, and Twisted fuggen Sister had their original reviews from Garry Bushell. He was not like most music-press writers. He didnt hide behind language youd need a degree to understand, and neither did he stick to safe venues in the West End or lavish music-biz junkets.

He was biased for sure, biased against pseuds and phoneys and in favour of the young working class.

The beat of the street floated Bushells boat.

A former suede-head from south London, Garry interviewed the new skinheads to find out what made them tick. When the mods ran amok in Southend he was there. When the Angelic Upstarts played a shock gig inside a prison in the Northeast he was there too.

But he also covered the right-to-work marchers in Sounds and stuck his politics on the line, urging readers to vote Labour in 1979 and in 1983, when he interviewed a grateful Neil Kinnock for what was then Britains bestselling rock weekly.

Garry had cut his journalistic teeth on the Socialist Worker with Paul Foot. Hed written for Rebel and for Temporary Hoarding. He didnt believe rock could be anything but against racism.

He had grown up on Marxism and Motown, Ska, glam rock and Black Sabbath. But he didnt preach. He listened to what people said and reproduced it faithfully. The pieces he wrote on new mod and Oi! in particular reflect that honesty and openness.

His reviews were different, of course, often savage and witty. On Sounds, Garry developed his lifelong love of feuds, falling out spectacularly with everyone from Crass to Boy George via the National Front, who denounced him as a race traitor and published his home address.

Garry Bushell was committed to telling it like it was, no matter what.

Hell go to his grave with the label the Godfather of Oi!, which is fair enough. He came up with the term, compiled the albums and managed some of the bands, getting beaten up by neo-Nazis for his trouble.

But history will also record that the legacy of the Oi! bands is todays hugely popular worldwide street-punk phenomenon, which is as non-racist as it is working-class.

The Daily Mail proved to be as wrong about Oi! as it is about everything else.

Garry Johnson, punk poet (retired)