U.S. Westcoast late 1980's Skinhead sound - L.A. Bootbois 1987

Hey folks,

back on track again after tasting the sweetness of summer and watching the current soccer world championship I finally decided that it's about time to get things going on here again. Just to let you know, the first new interviews were send out to the bands, to SUCKERED IN (greetings to Chowder, keep it going) and FIGHTING 84 (all hail to Brandon), and I'll keep you informed when I've got something new and fresh to tell ya. But this isn't an 'News-Entry', now you get the next station in the American Oi! History Series here on http://manslaughterthuglife.blogspot.com/, so here we go!!!

After the last entries the East Coast was very well represented and so I thought it was about time to put also the West Coast finally a little bit more into the focus of this series here, 'cause if you've got the impression that only on the East Coast things were getting started up, nah, then you're wrong, 'cause also on the West Coast the sight of shaven heads and the noise of the beat of big steelcapped boots was all too well known. There will be more West Coast bands becoming featured in this series, be sure about it. The first West Coast band is now also the next band here in this series, and it will be the mighty aggro HEADSTRONG from the city of Los Angeles.

They are also fitting all too well in the row of the last strongly by Hardcore influenced American Oi! bands from the 1980's that were introduced here, so that's also a nice thing.

HEADSTRONG were formed by Martin Ruane and Mike Aiden, that came to know each other at the Skinhead Riots in Downtown L.A. at the beginning of the 1980's. They couldn't really play at first and hardly got a set of THE 4 SKINS cover songs together after some time. At first they carried the name of AMERICAN PRIDE, and Martin Doubling joined them and filled their ranks. The first concerts they used to play were just at private parties and on some dirty rotten stages build up in some backyards of the neighborhood, if you know what I mean. After some time they decided to change their name into BOYS CLUB (don't ask me who the hell came up with that and why the hell they choose this name, and no, a dancing pop boy group they had never been, nah, ya can be sure about that, but don't ask me anything more about it 'cause me, myself and I even can't understand it...) and with their on growing abilities to play their instruments and to write songs they also earned more and more reputation by their live concerts, and finally Baron Bodner made the band roster totally complete. At that time they somehow realized that the name BOYS CLUB was nothing but crap (oh, suprise, suprise...) and again they changed it, and that was the birth of HEADSTRONG. Under that name then they recorded their demo "THE SPIRIT OF '69". Things were getting more and more fired up for them, but they also got a more and more bad reputation because of the excessive violence that always used to break out at their live concerts. But that very high level of harsh violence wasn't just a problem or an trademark or an issue to deal with of HEADSTRONG, no, it was from all what and that I know a problem and trademark of the whole Skinhead and Oi! scene in L.A. of that time. So nothing special at all, haha;-). But it should finally lead to more and more tensions in the band and between the bandmembers, so that HEADSTRONG should finally break up. But before that they went again to the studio and recorded two new songs, the both tracks "POLICE" and "ALCOHOL". It was planned to record a full length record and not just two songs, and the label of THE OPPRESSED's mastermind Roddy Moreno "Oi!/SKA RECORDS" was about to release their record, but- too sad- the band decided to call it a day before things came to happen. It's also bigger crap, because we could have been expecting much more of them. If you need a proof for this, then just check out the great anthology CD that "DISCONNECTED RECORDS" had been put out some years ago called "L.A. BOOTBOYS '87". HEADSTRONG used to play a very hard and aggressive, mostly very fast paced and heavy stomping, strongly Hardcore influenced American Oi! sound (to be honest, some songs are more Hardcore than Oi!, and don't expect any kind of SKA influences because of the track "THE SPIRIT OF '69", they couldn't been more far away from SKA like they had been), that also today knows how to stand it's ground and if you like Old School American Oi! and also Old School American Hardcore, then damn, just get that fuckin' CD, 'cause it's a great piece of American Oi! history!!! Great band!!! And also a very important band for the Westcoast Oi!, Hardcore, and Punkrock scene that you simply should not miss, a band that you have to know, point and fact!!!

Check them out at their MySpace profile site (http://www.myspace.com/99950941) and now here do comes a video of them (okay, okay, it's not a real video, but simply the cover picture of their above alrady mentioned anthology CD and the song is playing), it's their (very, very good over) of the THE 4 SKINS classic "CHAOS", and now comes the video and more will be coming soon here on this blog. Check it and enjoy it!!! Cheers & Oi!

HEADSTRONG - "CHAOS" (THE 4 SKINS - cover)