HARD SKIN "We're the fucking George" tape, 2011

2025 has been a pretty grim year on a global scale, I suppose it's hardly a scoop. However, truthfully, on a personal level 2025 has been quite generous to me what with the new extension to my manor I had build to store my Agathocles discography and the acquisition of a second yacht. A man has to live, innit? Who would have thought a position as Head of the Crust Studies Department and my bestseller book The Rise of Crust Pants: Crust Attires as Radical Deconstruction and Transversal Challenge to the Oppressive Normative Hygiene Basics in the Fragmented Context of Postindustrial Capitalist Society would finally earn me that much money? Take that dad.

In order to fight the overwhelming bleakness, it makes sense to write about punk's best comedy band (ever?): the mighty Hard Skin from Gipsy Hill, sarf London. Humour is difficult to pull out in punk and God knows we have had our fair share of dreadful "joke bands" in France failing miserably at being funny or witty, usually flavoured with distasteful sexist buffoonery, childish puns and just plain anti-PC obnoxiousness (but then it can be said about French humour as a whole so it is unsurprising). I'm sure every country has its own breed of stupid or silly bands, some possibly much better than others but you obviously have to understand the lingo and the cultural references to really grasp a comedy band so that it is hard to be a global expert. England sucks on a lot of levels, like food or penalties, but one thing they excel at beside crumpets is humour. I have always loved their approach to comedy and it stands, by far, as my favourite. Hard Skin mainly rely on that typical British humour, walking the thin line between gross and awkward and witty, they are self-aware as they play with the codes and conventions of a subgroup - in this case oi-loving skinheads - to create a parodic tribute that is both entertainingly silly and somewhat spirited at the same time. Their cartoonish caricature engages the listener in form thanks to its many singalongs (the easiest way to have people join in, "you know it, sing it!") and its specific cultural references about not only the oi but working-class life as whole. When you really get them, Hard Skin could be said to be the best band in the world. I mean, like they say so, right?

I distinctly remember when I first heard them sometime in 2000. We would often go, a mate and I, to a now sadly closed record store in Paris called Sonic Machine. It was located in Montmartre quite far from our sleepy suburban town and it took us about an hour and a half to get there so that the trip to the big city had a pilgrimage quality to it. It felt very much like a small adventure. We would spend hours there in this shop that looked like a punk version of Ali Baba's cave and where you could smoke and drink your beers (which we did copiously of course). We did not know much at that time - it's an understatement - but craved to listen to everything, mostly so-called streetpunk and oi records (my friend was in his short-lived skinhead phase then) because these were the most accessible contemporary styles for us. We did not really go to punk gigs at that point so that going to Sonic Machine was where we'd meet other people and stare in awe at older and much cooler punks. It was during one of those afternoons that I first heard UK Subs, Infa-Riot, The Unseen or Dick Spikies, influential stuff for me then. We had little money so buying a record was the result of a careful and sometimes painfully long process as we wanted to spend our 5O francs on the right record. It was on such a day that my friend grabbed the first Hard Skin cd Hard Nuts and Hard Cunts and asked the friendly, understanding, advisory, passionate and above all patient guy behind the counter to play the thing. It was love at first listen. I was already an absolute sucker for massive singalongs and terrace style chorus and this album is replete with them - little did I know that this use was in fact ironical. My mate bought the cd (he was the skin of the two so it made sense, I think I bought Oxymoron's The Pack is Back).

There was a good reason for Hard Skin's first oeuvre to be so easily available in a French punk store then. The English label that originally released it back in 1996, namely Helen of Oi! Records, had sold its whole catalogue to Noco in 2000, a label based around Paris that mostly released ska but also some oi (the boss was a skinhead and the singer of Skarface). I think Dick Spikie's Let's Start from In Complate was the first release under the new ownership. Not only did a vast amount of original Helen of Oi! records landed in Paris but a couple of represses (of Braindance or Vanilla Muffins) were also done at that time, among which Hard Skin's glorious first album. Funnily enough, the guy running the label had no idea Hard Skin were a comedy band satirising the genre and I distinctly remember the leaflet slipped in all Helen of Oi! release advertising Hard Skin as having members of the shitty Close Shave, probably because the band had "the new wave of the close shave" on the cover of the first Lp. Yes, French people are terrible at foreign languages and everyone at that time (or almost everyone) must have thought they were for real although even I found that there were an awful lot of "oi! oi! oi!" in their songs. Of course, it's much different these days, and a quick glance at Discogs will teach you that Fat Bob played in Wat Tyler (an equally humourous band albeit nowhere as catchy) and ran Rugger Bugger Records and Johnny Takeaway in Thatcher On Acid, two bands connected to the anarchopunk scene. I have always wondered whether the original boss of Helen of Oi! knew they were a joke or not, but he must have and would have seen them as a cheeky tribute band done well and therefore appealing to the gritty oi crowd. The catalogue was very serious and skinhead-oriented and some of the bands included could be said to be rather dodgy - but then it also released the first Bug Central album, a genuine anarchopunk band so who knows. A surprising choice in retrospect but one that reinforced the parody and kinda blurred the lines for us. I mean, they were label mates with On File so they must be for real, yeah?

A friend of mine could burn cd's at home (cdr's seemed to be insanely high tech for me at the time) and he made a copy for me which I played to death. My mate and I even got to see Hard Skin live, in January, 2002, along with some other local oi bands (among which Les Teckels that had Frustration's singer). The crowd confirmed to me that they were real skinheads as no one was really laughing and everyone looked hard, bald and rather unfriendly and I don't think I ever went back to a proper oi gig after that. As I improved my English significantly, I realized that Hard Skin were indeed a comedy band - I feel the second Lp is even more parodic - and that made them even better in my eyes and I'd play them whenever I feel blue and just want to listen to good punk, warm tunes that you remember instantly and have a good laugh. I suppose they are better live because you have all the stage banter accompanying the hits and that makes the experience unforgettable and the perfect place for a romantic first date.

But Hard Skin are not just about the jokes and swear words, they can actually write songs with catchy hooks and tunes, infectious choruses and great punk energy and that's why they can also seduce people not necessarily knowledgeable in the things of oi. Obviously, oi fans (and ex oi fans like myself) will enjoy them far more and will delight in spotting the ripoffs of Cockney Rejects, Cock Sparrer, Sham 69 or Blitz (are they the equivalent of a bingoi night?) and giggle at the clichés about British working-class life. Shoegaze fans won't probably get it though, because they suck. But what about this tape then? We're the Fucking George was released in 2011 in vinyl on their own JT Classics and on tape on Germany's Cut the Cord That... Record, responsible for records from much more businesslike bands like Catholic Guilt, Neon Piss or Generacion Suicida. I think the title of the tape refers to the term used to call generous tippers during casino sessions which would make Hard Skin's music priceless gold charitably offered I guess. The tape includes the band's singles (beside 2008's Cocks and Cunts which may have been a wise decision) and compilation tracks released between 1996 and 2010 - by which I mean between 1978 and 1981 as the band claims. Until recently, I never considered Hard Skin to be a "singles band" as I only owned the albums and never really saw the Ep's in distros. This release is therefore a convenient one to own if you do not have the originals because you are poor or if you are a lazy twat and can't be arsed to listen to Ep's because you have to turn them over quickly. There are a lot of classics here like "We are the wankers", "Make my tea", "First day angry song" or a live version of "Beer and fags" (but there is a mistake in the tracklist as it indicates "Sausage man" while the song is actually "Two bob cunt"). Elite UK oi indeed that have never tired of listening for 25 years. Pretty neat and educational if you want to warn your kids about how shit Romford is or teach them Santa is a skinhead or that darts are a real men's occupation.

Sadly - and I mean that - Hard Skin are no more as they played their last gigs in December and I was lucky enough to be at the London one on the 12th with The Restarts and Passion Killers. The show was brilliant as usual and Fat Bob's banter as funny as ever (I think Chumbawamba's ears are still red). It was a little emotional for me, after all these years of being a fan and if I had kids I would have them recite the lyrics before going to bed every night.

Oi not jobs!    

They're the fucking George