Bloodclot Faggots and Bald-Headed Women

by Pug-In-Boots


(pic taken from Spirit of 69)

During the skinhead revival of the eighties, it wasn't unusual for skinhead girls to crop or shave their heads. It was more common in the American hardcore scene, leading the Rastafarian Bad Brains singer, H.R, to wail at the gay frontman of Big Boys "We're in Babylon! This is holy Hell! San Francisco is Babylon! All these faggots and these bald-headed women running around!"

On the dvd Bad Brains Live at CBGB 1982 female skins with shaved heads can be seen in the audience.

[H.R] cursed them [Big Boys] and called Jah down to have their heads for being 'bloodclot faggots.' The next day, in the front yard of the house where we were staying, Darryl got into it with the female skinhead roadie of MDC, Tammy, saying her 'womb was barren,' that the Bible said she wasn't supposed to shave her head. (From American Hardcore: A Tribal History by Steven Blush.)

Bloodclot is a Jamaican swear-word. Jamaican culture is notoriously homophobic - at the time the members of Bad Brains believed that to be proper Rastas they had to be homophobic. They have since apologised for and renounced their infamous homophobia of the early eighties.

Skinhead girls unfortunately (or fortunately) no longer shave their heads. If anyone has any photos of skinbyrds with shaved or cropped hair, please email them to me and I'll stick them on the blog. Today they usually stick to cropped short with fringe and bangs, or just neck or shoulder-length hair.

Bloodclot Faggots is also the name of an Adelaide hardcore band.

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The Currency

by Pug-In-Boots


The Currency are a folk-punk band from Melbourne that formed three years ago but have just released their first album. I saw them live a couple of weeks ago, and it was the best show I've seen in months. They're typical folk-punk - catchy, sing-a-long songs that are great to dance or mosh to.

Greg Stainsby from Mutiny plays the instruments he played with his old band - mandolin and electric guitar.

Most of the band were wearing Ben Shermans and Fred Perrys, and one of them is bald, giving them a quasi-skinhead look. They even have a song about an ex-skin, 'Victoria Rose':

Well guess who's out of the nick? / And he's asking of you and Vic / Talking over a game / Just like back in the old days / Of the bomber jacket and black boots parade / And he's laughing at the new skins / Wearing thier pressed denims / Ours were always filthy / Like the lives we lived in them


Filthy jeans and a bomber jacket? Never!

The Currency were so entertaining live I bought a copy of their self-titled album, but it was dissapointing. On cd they sound a bit bland and cliche. They sound similiar to Mutiny but without the humour or strong aussie vibe that makes Mutiny so fun. It's still a solid collection of good tunes.

The title of their first single '888' is a reference to the struggle for the eight hour work day. Eight hours work, eight hours play, eight hours rest. The video has old footage from rallies donated by the MUA, CFMEU and ACTU. The song itself is completely apolitical - the reference to 888 just shows how folky and working class the band supposedly are - which is a shame as many people today do not have an eight hour day.




They are great live so check out their myspace page for tour dates.

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