Filed under: other
OI POLLOI-Resist the atomic menace (Endangered Music EDR 5) 1986 Scotland
The first, absolutely CRUSHING 7″ by these Edinburgh, Scotland anarcho punks. They went on to release a ton of great records and are still around in some form to this day (although w/only a couple orig. members.) For more info check HERE and HERE
Well, we started the band way back in 1981 when we were all still at school and had an average age of about 14 or something. They used to have these charity rock concerts at our school about once a term and we got really fucked off having to listen to these older kids who were wannabe rockstars just playing ROLLING STONES covers and so on all the time when most of us wanted to listen to punk and oi.
We soon realised of course that the only way we were gonna get to hear some good music was if we did it ourselves so we started practising in a garage with one tiny amp, no mike and a drumkit mostly made out of buckets of fertiliser. We were just playing covers at first and so we soon had enough for our first gig at school which was great as we hit the kids with a string of classics by BLITZ, THE 4SKINS, THE STRIKE and the mighty COCKNEY REJECTS. Brilliant as the music was though it wasn’t long before we realised that a lot of the oi lyrics weren’t exactly penned by geniuses and as we started to listen to stuff like CRASS and DISCHARGE we started to think about a bit more than just aggro at football matches and getting pissed. We then tried to combine the more thoughtful lyrics of these kind of bands with the excellent oi type music with the old sing along choruses etc so we have always been a kind of mixture of the two types of stuff really.
We had started really just for fun and did an 8 song practice tape to send to “Sounds” (a music paper who reviewed cassette demos at the time) just so we could get a mention in print to impress our teenage mates but when the review came out we got hundreds of letters from all over the country wanting copies and after that when we discovered all about the whole underground scene of fanzines and distros (through flyers these folk sent us in the mail) we were encouraged to go on - and after a few more gigs it was too much fun to stop! Since then we have done a load of records and toured all over the place.
Excerpt from an interview with Deek, founding OI POLLOI member from “punk and oi in the U.K.” webzine found HERE
The original press of this record came out in 1986 on U.K. label ENDANGERED MUSIC. It was also re-released in, I believe, 1994 by CAMPARY records, and looks identical to the original.
Tracks
Hands off Nicaragua
Scum
They shoot children don't they?
Resist the atomic menace
Reach for the light
Posted by: SurlyOldPunk
the only band which started in oi records and then changed into shitty, too PC and ultra-lefty combo
go to North Corea
It’s Korea with a “K”
6 of Oi Polloi’s 7″s were re-released on a CD called SIX OF THE BEST by Rugger Bugger - http://tribe.imapunk.com/rbseepsd.html#seep032cd
Gotta love Oi Polloi
haven’t heard “hands off nicaragua” for 20 years (on public radio back in ‘86)! what a great song, i recognized it immediately - thanks for the memory! Good rockin tune, which has a similiar feel to it as “nothing” from NA.
This is great! Please post more of their good stuff.
YEAH!!! this & the “Outrage” ep are total CRUSHERS!!! both were also on an LP in the early 1990’s called “Outraged by The Atomic Menace”. i forget the label. the re-issue of this 7″ proper is taken from a totally hammered copy that a band member had, so the sound quality is pretty bad on that one ( i can vouch for that as its the only version i have!! ).
Surly delivers the goods, once again!! YEAH!!