Oi-o-Oi

Early on January 10, 25-year-old Christopher Hawthorne of Santee was shot and killed near O’Connell’s bar in Bay Park. Police reports say Hawthorne got into a fight outside the club, then was chased by a man who shot him a block away.

Sulo King, a talent buyer at nearby Brick by Brick, says, “There were a lot of skinheads [in the audience] that night.… Everyone knows Oxblood is one of the original oi bands.”

Based in New York City, Oxblood was founded in 1992. Paul, the band’s bassist, said the following in a 1999 interview with punkoiuk.co.uk: “The main themes in our lyrics are a reflection of our everyday skinhead life in New York City. We sing about things we go through, like violence, being locked up, the New York Police Department, working, etc. Unlike other bands, we don’t just sing about it, we live it.”

Oxblood lyrics from the song “Our Colors” include “Running around with our crew/ Better watch out, our eyes are on you/ What the fuck are you looking at/ About face before we strike/…My veins are on a mission to let out aggression/ To seek and destroy is our intention.”

O’Connell’s owner Rick LaLama says he knew Oxblood to be “…a hard-rock band. We book hard-rock bands all the time. The band [members were] not the ones who started the stuff that went on. I didn’t see the band start anything.”

Regarding the charge that his bar was filled with “Nazi skinheads” (according to one person who was there), LaLama says, “I don’t know that every well-built tattooed white male you see is a skinhead. I don’t even know what that is.”

When asked if he was the one who booked the bands for that night or if an outside promoter scheduled the lineup, LaLama says, “I don’t have a lot more to say.”

Last Thursday, a suspected gunman of Latino descent — a teenager — was arrested in Los Angeles. After Hawthorne’s death, the established roadside memorial included a sign that read, “Hail Our Fallen Comrade! 88!” The double 8s refer to the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, reputedly a reference to the phrase “heil Hitler.”

— Ken Leighton