Victoria, British Columbia rarely springs to mind when people think of Oi! and skinhead culture. Tourists come for the harbour and the gardens. Yet for years the local four-piece No Heart have quietly flown the flag for working-class street punk, delivering the classic sound with a distinctly Canadian edge.
In the opening stretch of the interview, the members of Victoria’s No Heart look back at the moments that first pulled them into punk, skinhead culture, and Oi. Four different paths, four different decades, one shared soundtrack.
The longest-serving member traces it to the 1980s and a single chance encounter at university. He was walking around with a blue mohawk and matching blue Doc Martens when a mutual friend spotted him, said hello, and handed him his first proper introduction to Oi! music. That was it. He’s been in ever since.
Another member describes a more gradual immersion through the classic UK records that were circulating in Canadian towns at the time. Cock Sparrer, The Business, The Upstarts, The Blood, Last Resort, Blitz — the usual suspects. Those albums didn’t just supply the soundtrack; they helped him make the jump from regular punk into the skinhead side of the scene.
A third member arrived a decade later. Growing up in Calgary, he found the real entry point in Edmonton in the 1990s through the local Oi and Vulture Rock Records scene. The bands and the people there made the difference. By 2000 he had moved to Vancouver and was already plugged into the contemporary West Coast outfits and the rest of the local circuit.
The fourth story is the most workplace-specific. Early in his restaurant career, a chef started spinning Oxblood and Templars in the kitchen and pressing homemade cassette mixes into his hands. The rest of the staff hated it. He didn’t. That daily soundtrack, plus early exposure to American bands like The Bruisers, locked him in for good.
Four different starting points — a blue mohawk at university, a stack of UK Oi records, the Edmonton scene of the ’90s, and a chef’s cassette collection — all leading to the same place. For No Heart, the path into Oi was never a single story. It was four personal ones that eventually collided in Victoria.
Ask about the current Canadian landscape and the answers are practical. Victoria itself has no active skinhead bands. Vancouver does: First Attack, the Buzzers, Toy Tiger. Further east the list grows—Big Boss and Street Code among the standouts. “Canada is massive,” they point out. “It’s like asking what’s it like in Europe.” Every city is different.
The live circuit reflects the distances. Western Canada leans toward weekend packages: a DJ night on Friday, an Oi! show on Saturday. Montreal Oi Fest remains a highlight. Paris, though, left the deepest impression. The French crowds are younger, the energy higher, and the sense of a living scene stronger than anything the band experiences at home. “You don’t really meet people under the age of about thirty-five in the scene [in Canada], whereas France is full of young people.”
Outside their own group, the members stay busy supporting the wider scene. Hard Evidence’s return to the stage in Vancouver next month is already a point of anticipation—a band they have worked with and still hold in high regard. “I’m so happy they’re gonna come out of hibernation,” comes the reply, quickly tempered with the diplomatic note that every project feels like a favourite child.
New music is on the way. A four-band compilation is due later this year on Insurgence Records: No Heart (Victoria), Weekend Kids (Portland), Street Code (Toronto) and Big Boss (Montreal), three songs each. Winnipeg artist Paul Stafford is handling the artwork—the same artist who designed the North American cover of an earlier split. Live dates are limited but solid: the Longshore Weekend in Vancouver, and a few more conversations still in progress for the new year.
When the classic “top Oi! albums” question arrives, the answers are pure and unpretentious. The Blood’s False Gestures for a Devious Public, Cock Sparrer’s Shock Troops, The Business’s Welcome to the Real World, and The Crack’s self-titled debut all make the cut. The latter is singled out as “timeless… you never bore of it,” a record that even outsiders recognise as good. “It’s like if Slade were actually skinheads,” someone adds, and the table erupts in agreement.
No Heart are keeping it alive in a country where the distances are huge, the crowds are older, and the next generation is still finding its way. The boots keep moving. The records keep coming. And every so often a Paris crowd reminds them why the whole thing still matters.
Reactie plaatsen
Reacties