Punching Nazis

From their shaved heads to their Doc Martens boots, their entire look was stolen from one of the first truly multiracial, multicultural youth movements in England. The original skinheads were a small number of reggae- and soul-loving Jamaican immigrants and a larger number of white English kids who hung out with Jamaican immigrants and dug their music and clothes. And yes, when I say Jamaican immigrants, I mean black people! From Jamaica!

Years later, the National Front, a British fascist political party, courted the working-class skinheads, and the oxymoron that is the white-power skinhead was born. The boots, the jeans, the braces, the shaved heads: racist skinheads didn’t come up with anything on their own. What’s next, white-power rap? Oh damn, just Googled it, and it’s a thing.

When the racist skinheads realized they looked ridiculous skanking to black music, they tried to take over the working-class Oi genre. The great Oi punk band Sham 69 broke up because Nazi skins wanted to be their fans. It seems the love was unrequited. Their favorite band at the time said, “No thanks,” and quit playing rather than accept such a shit audience.

So should you be in a position where a racist skinhead is intimidating you, standing there in their tough uniform, just remember that they’re espousing white nationalism while dressed like a 1960s reggae enthusiast from London. They may as well be inviting you to enjoy some white-power yoga. Downward facing dog to upright goose step, breathe deep, and Sieg Heil the rising sun.

This proves to be hugely confusing to anyone outside of the punk scene and/or under the age of thirty, but there are still non-racist skinheads, as there have been from the beginning. SHARPS (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice), Trojan Skinheads, Trads, and others continue to enjoy reggae, soul, ska, Oi, and punk rock, skanking in their Doc Martens and braces and embracing diversity in all its danceable glory.

While researching the roots of skinhead culture, I stumbled across a gem, the 1969 song “Skinhead Moonstomp” by the band Symarip, an all-black reggae band who also recorded “Skinhead Girl,” “Skinhead Jamboree,” and a rockin’ version of “These Boots Were Made for Walking,” with “walking” replaced by “stomping.” They were, it turns out, the first group to record and release tunes specifically geared toward the skinhead movement. I looked up band members online and in short order found myself on the phone with keyboardist and songwriter Monty Neysmith.

“Irie,” he answered the phone, in a heavy Caribbean accent. Neysmith coached me on spelling his band’s name and provided a list of other monikers they performed under, as they often changed their name to get out of contracts. “Symarip” came from their earlier name, The Pyramids, spelled backward and altered slightly.

Monty then told me the story of how Symarip came to be the first skinhead band. The band was touring Europe as Prince Buster’s backing band, as their single “Train Tour to Rainbow City” was making a mark on the charts.

Then Graeme Goodall from Doctor Bird (a reggae record label) came to the band with a track by another reggae artist, Derrick Morgan. “Graeme says, ‘This is a good riddim, why don’t you guys write a song to it?’” Another member of the band, observing that skinheads had been coming out to their shows in increasing numbers, suggested they write a song for them.

The response was immediate, to say the least. “We recorded the song on Monday. And Friday, the same week. We recorded and then released it in two days.” They didn’t think much of it, and they made their way to a gig, stopping at a favorite record shop in Shepherd’s Bush (West London). As they approached the store, they noticed a long line running out the store and down the sidewalk. “We didn’t know at the time what they were buying but when we passed by the kids everybody started shouting, ‘Skinhead Moon Stomp.’ We thought, ‘How could these people know that song already, we just recorded it?’”

Capitalizing on the success of this first single, the album Skinhead Moonstomp soon followed with additional tracks ripe for skanking. Monty loved the skinheads they’d now secured as a loyal and passionate fan base: “It was a great movement, because it was all mostly working-class people. Weekends, putting on their braces and their boots or the other half putting on their suits, and looking slick and going out and having fun and, most importantly of all, they loved Jamaican music, so we couldn’t help but loving them.”

While most people, including myself, picture a club full of skinheads and imagine a rough night ahead, it wasn’t the case for Symarip in the late sixties and early seventies. “Whenever we went to a place, I would look in the audience from backstage. And the saying is, if you saw one skinhead in the audience it was gonna be a great night. That’s how we felt about the skinheads.”

Growing up around violent racist skins, and other skins who were far preferable to the Nazi variety but who also seemed mostly defined by violence, this was hard to imagine. To Monty’s recollections, around 5 percent of the skinheads at that time were black. He said, “Not many,” but this seems like a lot to me compared to the skinhead scene in the states, where I think I’ve witnessed three black skinheads in person, ever. I asked if there were many women. And while he remembered the men outnumbering the women in the scene, there were still plenty of skinhead girls to be found.

“Well, there was one I saw, I fell in love with her and that’s why I wrote that song.” I’m delighted to hear that “Skinhead Girl” was about a specific skinhead girl. “She became my girlfriend after a while.” Monty laughs. “She couldn’t help it, writing a song for her.”

Monty described a vibrant scene and told me it was not a particularly tough one plagued by fighting. He doesn’t recall a single show where violence was an issue.

And were there overtly racist skinheads at the time, in the early seventies? If there were, Monty didn’t come across them, but he managed never to experience them later in the eighties’ two-tone scene either and in fact somehow hasn’t been bothered by them to this day.

“Never had run-ins with the racist ones and none of them came to our show that I know of. If they came they were quiet in a corner or something. We never had any confrontations with them.”

Monty Neysmith continues to tour and to play reggae music today, touring out from his home base in Atlanta, Georgia. He left Symarip when they got too comfortable for his liking, playing the hits to vacationers at ski lodges. His heart is with reggae, and his heart is still with skinheads. Hearing him speak of their scene with such affection, I wonder what it felt like to hear that racists had somehow managed to make “skinhead” synonymous with racism and nationalism.

Monty has to explain the real roots of skinhead culture constantly, a lifelong ambassador for the scene. “In America, they think all skinheads are racists and nationalists and horrible people, you know, and I try to explain to them that these people stole the culture from the real skinheads what formed in England. I been trying to educate people on that and explain to them that real skinheads love Jamaica, love Jamaican food, love Jamaican music, love the way we talk. They love everything about Jamaica. And they come out and they support Jamaican music, don’t care where it is. They’re the ones that keep Jamaican music alive through all these bad times.”

Is a Monty Neysmith show likely to be attended by skinheads today? Absolutely. “I just did a tour in America here, and we have skinheads show up all over. We did a show in Detroit and skinheads came over from Canada, across the border. They love it, I can tell you that.”

And he still treats them to “Skinhead Moonstomp” at every show he plays, bringing the skinhead men up on stage to dance during the song, and then having the women take their place for “Skinhead Girl.”

After talking to me about the white nationalists making so much noise in America and around the world today, Monty reminded me that it’s nothing new. He told of a delightful response by Symarip and reggae star Millie Small (“My Boy Lollipop”) in the seventies when racist politician Enoch Powell warned of the dangers of allowing brown-skinned immigrants into England. They recorded a song titled “Enoch Powell.” The song is a rocker, describing proud, hardworking, brown-skinned English men and women working all week, and dedicating their weekends to dancing to reggae music. She doesn’t attack Powell directly, or even mention him beyond singing his name repeatedly in the chorus. What a great image, immigrants from the West Indies, and skinheads, skanking together in sweaty dance halls to the name of this hateful, silly man who would be so confused by it all.

I arrived from Kingston Town

And now live at the bullring

Got to go to Wolverhampton

Help my brothers do a thing

They work all week

To keep the British country running

Weekend it’s reggae time

And the neighbours find it funny

So we all sing

Enoch, Enoch, Enoch Powell, Lord, Lord

Enoch, Enoch, Enoch Powell

Enoch, Enoch, Enoch Powell, Lord, Lord

Enoch, Enoch, Enoch Powell

The kids all stomp their boots so much

The dance floor’s really shaking

They’re having fun then going Dutch

I feel my poor heart aching, so we all sing

Enoch, Enoch, Enoch Powell, Lord, Lord

Enoch, Enoch, Enoch Powell

Enoch, Enoch, Enoch Powell, Lord, Lord

Enoch, Enoch, Enoch Powell

One day there’ll come a time

When all men will be brothers

They’ll talk as well as dance

And live and love with each other

And they’ll all sing

Enoch, Enoch, Enoch Powell, Lord, Lord

Enoch, Enoch, Enoch Powell

“If you are really concerned about Nazis’ safety think about it like this—if more of them had been punched in the thirties maybe we wouldn’t have had to kill so many of them in the forties.”

—Chris Cubas, Comedian