Korean punk scene's skinhead history
he Korean skinhead punk band Jiraltan99 performs at Skunk Hell near Hongik University on March 27, 2004. / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
By Jon Dunbar
There are no appropriate polite words for Facebook's botched crackdown on racists. On June 9, the social media platform banned, by one commenter's count, around 200,000 accounts using a far-reaching measure to block skinheads. Calls were growing for Facebook to combat racism, and a move like this would be welcomed ― you'd think.
The purge was reversed shortly after
that one of the people banned was Neville Staple, the Jamaican-born 65-year-old former singer of the mixed-race two-tone ska band the Specials ― literally one of the most vehemently anti-racist bands in history, also popular with skinheads. After news broke, the ban was lifted early morning June 10 Korean time.
reveals a lot about the nature and online structure of the worldwide skinhead community, which represents all races, religions and ideologies. The culture came into being in the late 1960s, as a result of the mixing of Jamaican immigrants and British mods, creating a new youth movement that was multicultural and working class. Reggae was their music, and many of the first skinheads were black Jamaican immigrants. No, Kanye West was not being ironic or eccentric with his 2013 song “Black Skinhead.”
But hate groups like the National Front hijacked skinhead culture in the early 1980s. People bought into this new narrative of skinheads as white supremacists, bolstered by sensationalist films like “American History X,” which was meant to be anti-racist but supported the white power version of skinheads and was an effective recruitment tool for hate groups.
But the original skinheads didn't disappear, coming to use the term “traditional skinheads.” And anti-racist skinheads organized, most famously as Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) formed in 1987. And Facebook purged all of them ― trads, racists, anti-racists, ex-skinheads ― as well as closely affiliated communities such as streetpunks, mods, scooterists and ska ― a genre originated in Jamaica.
The purge hit Japan's large skinhead scene, but it didn't reach Korea, where the skinhead community has always been small ― at its height in the early 2000s, no more than a couple of dozen nationwide. I kept close track because I used to photograph skinheads and make tongue-in-cheek “skinhead collector cards” modeled after baseball cards.
Korea's skinhead scene has included reggae-loving trads, anti-racists and far-right nationalists, Korean, white, black, Jewish, Indonesian and so on. Absolutely none were blocked by Facebook, which is simultaneously a relief and also leaves me asking, why not? Did they forget Korea?
Korea's skinhead scene may be small and young compared to other countries, even around Asia, but almost all Korean skinheads have been musicians making punk music, hardcore, metal, reggae and ska.
The first skinhead band here was probably Mad Cousins' Desire formed in 1995 by “bored skinheads and homeboys” “with lefty political sense.” They appeared on
Korea's first-ever punk compilation
released in 1997, showing skinheads were part of the punk scene right from the start.
About half a dozen more appeared over the next decade.
There was the short-lived Koryo Aggro Boys, fronted by an American, at the end of the 1990s.
“My first Korean band was a project with Won Jong-hui of Rux, and the original bassist and guitarist of The RockTigers,” he told me. “We were called The Koryo Aggro Boys, and only recorded three songs, with the drummer from Jiraltan99 on drums, which wound up as the last tracks on an
. If it sounds like I'm name dropping, it's only to emphasize that in those days (1999-2002) the scene was so small that every band seemed to be comprised of the members of other bands.”
Over the years a fair number of foreign skinheads have passed through and appeared at local shows, mostly from the U.S. and Canada, plus Japan, South Asia and Europe. One of the earliest American punk bands to come here was Reducers SF, who I think came for the 2002 World Cup. In 2004 the Korea-Japan Oi! Festival started, bringing together a ton of bands from both countries in a sort of tour exchange. We've seen some of Japan's best skinhead bands in Hongdae, playing punk, reggae, ska and folk music.
Around 2004 a black skinhead started showing up at Skunk Hell, the main punk venue of the time. He told me he didn't feel welcome at Hongdae hip-hop clubs, but hopefully his memories of Korean punks and skinheads are much warmer. I still remember the night he met the members of Samchung, the main skinhead hardcore band. They showed up wearing suits from a wedding earlier, probably enjoying dressing like gangsters. When I called out to them, one pulled a toy gun on me and Bbang dove behind a parked car. He came out and everyone made friends. His name, Brad, sounded like “bread” to the local skinheads so they nicknamed him “Bbang.”
Samchung was influenced by U.S. bands like Agnostic Front and Japanese “Skinhead Samurai Spirit” bands. Over time they became more metal and let their hair grow. When I asked why the lead singer grew his hair out, I was told it was for work; he worked at a pizza restaurant and needed to grow his hair so he could wear a hairnet. Still not sure if that was a joke.
Captain Bootbois was considered the main skinhead band when I arrived in 2003. Their singer was a kind, humble guy everyone called “Farmer.” They started playing punk anthems in the style called “oi!” which is closely associated with skinheads, working class and violence. While he was in the military, a new singer came in and the band was renamed Blood Pledge. Later, both bands remained active with different lineups.
One of my favorites was Jiraltan99, named after a police gas grenade that bounces unpredictably. Their lead singer was everything you expect from a skinhead: great friend, streetwise, good in a fight, alcoholic.
In the mid-2000s, Cheongju, a university town in North Chungcheong Province, had the biggest punk scene outside Seoul for some reason. Their one skinhead band was Attacking Forces, led by two of the kindest skinheads I've ever met.
“The most important thing in my life is family, and doing what I can do and drinking beer with bandmates and friends on weekends is my own skinhead lifestyle,” Young-soon, vocalist, told me in a 2007 interview. “Being a skinhead is not a belief, not a religion, just a lifestyle.”
“One friend was teasing me asking why I'm always dressed like a coal miner,” added Jong-oh, guitarist. “Some racist skinheads are a problem, but racism has existed for a long time and the mass media is encouraging it. It scares me that even ordinary people have racist ideas in their heads. It feels real to me more than ever that there's nothing that influences judges or police officers more than the color of your skin.”
Jong-oh lived in the U.K. in the early 2000s, where he continued going to punk shows.
“When I was living in East London one day I was passing by Liverpool Street Station and one skinhead saw me and shouted 'Oi! Oi!' We said hi and talked. Although it was a hot day, he was wearing a bomber jacket that smelled like a cocktail of sweat and piss, and he was holding a beer can in one hand, and already sounded really drunk. He asked me to go for a drink but I…didn't feel like I could handle it.”
Probably the most talented Korean skinhead band was Dirty Small Town. They only ever released one mini-album but it was phenomenal. But the band's lead singer died at a tragically young age in 2011.
Oi! Broker was another short-lived band, led by a wiry skinhead named Ji-woong whose catchphrase around me was “I don't speak English.” Once I saw Ji-woong driving a Kyochon Chicken delivery scooter, which seemed to embarrass him. Later he opened his own chicken restaurant named This is Chicken, named after the skinhead movie “
,” the only non-documentary film I know of that depicts non-white skinheads and has reggae and ska on the soundtrack, and the growing conflict with the white power movement.
There was a series of expat bands around the turn of the decade in 2010 that featured John, an American skinhead who had a knack for Irish-American-style punk music in the vein of Dropkick Murphys. I think I'm forgetting a few band names but he had the Tear Jerks, the First Round Heroes and later Chanter's Alley, which actually had bagpipes. They released one great recording before John moved on. Since he's not in Korea, he was caught in the purge, “no explanation at all from the Facebook overwatchers,” he commented.
Members of the U.K. punk band The Business visit Gyeongbok Palace during a tour here in August 2014. / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
Other than John's bands, though, there was a drought of new bands and new skinheads for several years, broken in 2010 when Janghyup shaved in.
He has been in almost every skinhead band of the 2010s, starting with Oi! Resolute. They opened for legendary punk band The Business here in 2014. Jang-hyup told me that oi! music “stands for friendship, drinking, blue collar and conviction of belief.”
Jang-hyup was also the sole skinhead member of the Pegurians. They played skinhead reggae, a retronym referring to the early years of reggae in the late 1960s loved by skinheads. He later joined the Rulerz, a revival ska band influenced by two-tone music such as The Specials.
Meanwhile, Jong-oh formerly of Attacking Forces was in the ska-punk band Skasucks, which covered the Specials version of Simaryp's 1970 song “Skinhead Moonstomp.” Skasucks' vocalist owns a punk venue in Mangwon-dong, named Club SHARP after the anti-racist skinhead movement.
Jang-hyup and Jong-oh got together and formed the Brigade filling the gap in skinhead punk music.
Jang-hyup has since grown his hair out and started a new reggae band,
. They plan to release a digital single at Club SHARP on July 17.
“I still like skinhead culture on the side of my mind,” Janghyup told me. “But one day I was having a hard time with various events and things around me, and I felt that the things I was doing at that time were different from what I thought of as the skinhead attitude. I stopped shaving my head because I couldn't do it myself.”
The only known Korean skinhead remaining here now is Ji-ha. He was cautious about skinhead culture at first, until he learned of SHARP and anarchist skinheads.
“Working hard, making money, drinking with friends, enjoying live music and opposing discrimination is what I consider skinheads to be about,” he told me last year. “When I say I'm a skinhead, the first question I get is, 'Are you racist?' There are even people who ask 'Is it possible for an Asian to be a skinhead?' In fact, I was once hesitant and reluctant to call myself a skinhead because people might think I'm racist. Sadly, I agree that the biggest stereotype against skinheads is that we are all racist, and there are many racists and fascists that reinforce that bias.”
In 2018 when Canadian skinhead acoustic musician Jenny Woo came to Korea, there were no more skinhead bands left in Korea. So with help from Skasucks' lead singer replacing a missing member, the working-class punk band Seoul Dolmangchi reunited. They weren't skinheads but some members' heads were shaved and they were influenced especially by anti-racist skinhead band The Oppressed.
“I am against racism not because I'm a skinhead or despite of the fact that I'm not a skinhead... but just because I am not a horrible person,” Jenny Woo, one of the many skinheads banned by Facebook, told me. “Racism is an effect of ignorance and hatred, and I don't think it should be tolerated either inside or outside of the scene. That being said, I don't think being skinhead is synonymous with a political fight against racism either. Being not a racist should be the norm, not something that we have to adhere to just because we identify with a certain subculture.”
Once I heard of Facebook's skinhead purge, I checked in on all my skinhead friends around the world. Most but not all had vanished temporarily, regardless of race or stance on racism. The move seems to be reversed, but it's long past time to look for a new platform.
It's also time to leave the whole racist skinheads nonsense behind. Today's neo-nazis have moved on to appropriating
(the word originating from a Puerto Rican musical movement in New York in the 1960s) and Hawaiian shirts. Skinheads are a powerful counterculture with a strong tradition based on multiculturalism and respect. Regardless of the problem, if you need help there's no one better to have in your corner. Unless you're looking for hairstyling guidance.