Mindless Version or how we became an Oi band without wanting to.

Trying to get hold of Nick, my mastering engineer, who fell ill on Friday, to see if he has recovered at all. No answer on any of the numbers I have for him. Meanwhile my songs remain in an audio twilight zone and time ticks away because…

18 days 20 hours and 51 minutes to go…


At this point I just want to sidetrack a moment to mention...

Andy is a Corporatist. (Mindless Version)

This is a piece of ranting poetry by Attila the Stockbroker and this is how it came to be joined at the hip with the music of Mindless Violence.

Attila was at the time fending off criticism that regardless of the socialist content of his material, it was ineffectual because he preached to the converted. Whether he was or not is not the point here but this sort of situation is obviously best avoided.

As Andy is a Corporatist is an anti-fascist rant, Attila felt that the best place for it to get exposure was within the Oi subculture, who due to their apolitical stance still seemed vulnerable to the influence of right wing and fascist organisations.
So when he and the Neurotics were offered a chance to have a track on an Oi compilation he was thrilled we were not.
Obviously this gave Attila the chance to prove he was not ‘preaching to the choir’ But the Neurotics were not happy to have a track on this compilation because we wanted nothing to do with Oi.

Nonetheless, having suggested that Andy is a Corporatist be laid over a ‘dub like’ version of ‘Mindless Violence’ I went to work on the backing track with Nick Robbins at Elephant Studio and then when that was finished, Attila ranted over the top. 

The end result was amazing and we all agreed that the best place for it to be heard, would be on this upcoming Son of Oi album.
However, the Neurotics turned down the offer to have their own track on it and stipulated that Andy is a Corporatist should be billed as Attila the Stockbroker only.

When the compilation came out, not only was it billed as Attila the Stockbroker and the Newtown Neurotics, but they used our name in the advertising for the album, as if we had a track of our own on there.

This lumbered us from that moment on, as many fans around the world assumed we were an Oi band. To this day I still get Facebooked by people asking me how I think Oi has evolved.
To this day I still don’t know what Oi is, I don’t understand the criteria and whatever it might be, I’m sure we don’ t fit.

Anyway, who am I to talk, a few years ago I received an offer of releasing a CD of our singles and first album on the Captin Oi label, the Punk Collection it would be called. After a lot of handwringing, I agreed to it because the label also put a lot of stuff by established punk bands. I am very glad I did too, because my relationship with the Captain Oi label is a very good one.

So I am just as much to blame.

Anyway, I consider Andy is a Corporatist as one of the greatest and mightiest combinations of spoken word and music ever to be released and it puts a tingle down my spine every time I listen to it.

It is a warning that is timeless and I just wish there was a version with Arabic backing backing music to confront Islamic fascism like Isis.