The soundtrack of my youth was Punk, Oi and Hardcore. By the time I was 15, the Punk scene had gone global. It was my existence. I grew up in the suburbs outside Washington DC. I was a kid of the '80s. I hated Reagan and loved Punk and Oi. Hardcore was a close third. Although there were many inspiring bands coming out of DC and across the States at that time, what really captured my imagination was what I saw happening in England.

My father was born in Gravesend, Kent, in the south of England. Every other summer since I was about 6 months old, my family would go visit my grandparents there. They lived in a small row house perched atop a steep hill that overlooked the Thames river. You could actually stand at their front gate and see the large tankers coming into port. They had a bomb shelter in their back garden from World War II and heated their house with coal. It was like going back in time.

Gravesend was and is a fiercely Working Class town, especially along the coast. My grandfather worked in a cement factory in his youth and then as a maintenance worker in a Paper Mill, built on an abandoned chalk pit beside the Thames. During our visits I would often see young skinheads and punks making their way across town. Clean shaven heads, big shiny boots, bleached jeans with jean jackets, Mohicans with spiked leather and ripped t-shirts. It's a sight you don't soon forget when you're just coming of age.

In the early '80s, on a trip to London to see the sights (and to hit HMV and the Virgin Megastore, the two largest record outlets in London at the time), I would see throngs of skinheads and punks stopping traffic in Piccadilly Circus. I remember thinking to myself "There's nothing like this back home, not on this scale." It was an exciting time and I quickly got caught up in the music, lifestyle and DIY spirit.

Back home, while in High School, I started my own fanzine called DEMISE OF POWER. It was filled with A-political diatribes, drawings, punk bands and record reviews. I even interviewed David Grohl (Nirvana/ Foo Fighters) when he was only a lad with his first band, Mission Impossible. That experience laid the foundation for contributing to other, larger fanzines, including Maximum Rock 'n' Roll, The Pit, Jersey Beat and Propaganda. But it wasn't until I was out of High School that I landed my best writing gig, as an East Coast correspondent for FLIPSIDE out of Los Angeles.

In my opinion, Flipside was the best of all fanzines. It wasn't biased and closed-minded like MRR and covered a wide array of alternative music. It was also one of the best distributed fanzines in the world in the late '80s. For two years I interviewed bands on the cutting edge: AGNOSTIC FRONT, KILLING TIME (RAW DEAL), ANTI-HEROS, THE BOSSTONES, NO FOR AN ANSWER, 24-7 SPYZ, DAVE SMALLEY (DYS, DAG NASTY, ALL), VISION, WRECKING CREW, SHEER TERROR and many others. In its pages I always supported Oi bands in the U.S. and abroad with positive record reviews and interviews, despite the overwhelming crush of negative media at the time. Afterall, it was 1989, and the shit had hit the fan.

By the '90s, Grunge had made its ugly entrance, and I abruptly bailed out of the scene to pursue other interests. One being video editing. It was the decade of ROMPER STOMPER and AMERICAN HISTORY X, two films I absolutely loathed for their ineptitude. Skinhead was being raked over the coals by Hollywood after the news media had already chewed it up and spat it out. They got it wrong, but it didn't matter. On the other end of the spectrum, Punk had gone pop with Green Day, The Offspring and a slew of lesser post-punk wannabes. Good Charlotte?? Good Lord! God awful shite!! I wanted to have nothing to do with it. In the late '90s, I produced an independent cable program on nightclubs, exploring the rise of Trance and other electronic music forms (Progressive House, Electro, Jungle/Drum and Bass, etc). I couldn't help but notice the parallels between underground dance music and the subcultures they inspired (much like Skinhead Reggae/Ska).

Now in the new millennium and nearing my 40th birthday, I decided I would fulfill a long held goal of making a movie. After a wave of nostalgia got me in contact with Sab Grey of IRON CROSS via My Space, which subsequently started SKINFLINT PRESS between us, a movie idea organically came into view. I was also inspired at the time by two new films, THIS IS ENGLAND and PUNK'S NOT DEAD.

The original concept was a documentary about Iron Cross and a series of books Sab was penning about his misspent youth as a Skinhead in DC. Hence the play on words, SKINHEAD "CROSS" CULTURE, which eluded to the intersection of cultures that created Skinhead as well as an obvious reference to Iron Cross. It was actually Sab who broadened the scope of the documentary by suggesting the inclusion of other bands like THE TEMPLARS, PATRIOT, MURPHY'S LAW, DEAD END BOYS and KEYSIDE STRIKE. While lining up these bands, THE AGGROLITES, BLUEKILLA, HUB CITY STOMPERS, PERKELE, DARKBUSTER, SKINFLICKS and AML were brought into the fold… making the documentary more significant and encompassing the subculture as a whole.

Shooting began in the fall of 2007 and concluded about a year later with long breaks in between. Editing wrapped in the first quarter of 2009 and the documentary was released that summer on DVD. Unified Pride Video LLC was established to release the DVD independently (as no one else would touch it). So far, it has been well received and has since been licensed to Sunny Bastards Films in Germany for Europe (German version with new extras to be released in 2010).

I'm very proud of this documentary and thankful to all the bands and contributors who made it possible. I hope it inspires other DIY filmmakers to put out their own documentaries and tell their stories. Now I'll just have to wait and see where this project takes me…

Stay true. ~Bryan

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