Iron Cross correspondence
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Content Description
36 pieces of correspondence sent to Sab Grey and Mark Haggerty of the skinhead band Iron Cross, comprised of inquiries from fans on album release plans and tour dates, expressions of admiration, and solicitations of photographs, flyers, records, scene reports, gossip, and music to review in a zine or include in a compilation. Many correspondents seek information about the DC Hardcore scene and sharing information about their local scene, or lack thereof. Correspondents include Jeff Clayton, editor of the punk zine New Breed, named after the Iron Cross song of the same name. Clayton would later go on to form the band Antiseen, a hardcore band with an anti-social/apolitical tendency that would become famous for recording GG Allin’s Murder Junkies and performing as his backing band. Some letters exhibit early political anxieties about the Oi! and Skinhead movement’s growing association with Nazis and fascists, with correspondents making exonerations of Iron Cross’ record Skinhead Glory.
Dates
- Early 1980s
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is closed until processed.
Biographical / Historical
Perhaps the first U.S. band to adopt the skinhead look, Iron Cross imported the British punk genre Oi! into the D.C. hardcore scene. Singer Sab Grey was briefly one of the many residents at the Dischord House in Arlington, VA, and, like his roommates, part of the conscientious wing of the hardcore movement. The band’s thoughtful articulation of its aesthetics did not stop the wider DCHC community from associating their name and skinhead appearance with Nazis and fascists. Their name comes from the iron cross insignia of the German military that had formerly borne a swastika, thus at shows the band members would constantly decry that they were not Nazi; that in fact they hated Nazis. So beleaguered, the band referred to the incessant accusations of violence and fascism in the unsubtly titled song Crucified, in which front man Sab Grey denounced the intolerance he faced in D.C. for being white. The song eventually became an anthem for skinheads generally, both fascist and not.
Extent
.1 cubic feet.
Language of Materials
English
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections Repository
2B Carl A. Kroch Library
Cornell University
Ithaca NY 14853
607-255-3530
607-255-9524 (Fax)
rareref@cornell.edu