Entertainment For Lively Minds
Jimmy Pursey: icon or oddball? Either way, is it time for a reappraisal?
I mentioned elsewhere that I had some friends round a couple of nights back and we spent a fair amount of time, somehow, discussing Sham 69. One of the friends popped round again today and, sure enough, after a couple of beers and a bit of chat about other stuff, we came back to The Enigma That Is Jimmy Pursey.
I really only have a casual fascination with the fellow - as I do with, say, Rob Halford or Ginger Baker - but I thought it was about time I sought some informed opinion. Is he a chancer, a phony, a sell-out, an unfairly spat-out spokeman of a generation, a street-level philosopher, a working class hero, a rabble-rouser, a neglected musical genius? Or just some geezer who attracted the wrong crowd and barked out nursery-level ditties about going down the pub?
Personally, I've really no idea. He does seem to inspire very different views to judge from youtube comments - he certainly has lots of loyal believers for all the nay-sayers. And, as I posted a couple of months back, there does seem something almost heroic about the four 1978 members reuniting again for a Brixton Academy show (in Sept or Oct 2011) after the previous last-gasp version of the band, featuring only one original, fell out and split only 6 months previous.
And yet, on the other side of that coin, do Sham 69 have ANYTHING to offer anyone bar those fiercely loyal, middle-aged bovver-boys who packed out the Academy anyway? Is there great music there - or even great potential for new music there - that one might be missing?
In short: it's time we talked about Jimmy.
Here's a good starting point: a short LWT doc from 1979, featuring clips from their 'final' gig (ahem...) and lots of Pursey talking.
"I don't want to be a leader," he says, "just a spokesman..." Er...?
Elsewhere he says something about 'If...', 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'O, Lucky Man' which I didn't understand and... well, in truth, I don't quite understand a lot of what he's saying - and yet he's clearly eloquent and intelligent. I just don't grasp what he's talking about!
Still, here it is (in two parts):
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What is there to say?
Couple of quite catchy tunes, currently cranking them out on the Punk-in-a-basket circuit. It's only Sham 69 innit?
Not sure anything they've done is worthy of much in depth discussion. If you want some music of that era that stands up to some scrutiny have a listen to some Swell Maps, Wire, Slits, The Fall, This Heat, The Raincoats...I could go on. Plenty of more interesting stuff than Sham 69 to get teeth into. Mind you..like Jimmy, at least two of these bands have also had dabblings with "Contemporary Darnce"...anyone care to guess which ones for a bonus point.
The Fall are one, I Am Kurious as to the identity of the other.
Do I get half a point?
Wire
was the other. Both bands worked with the Michael Clark Dance Company
if you are looking for hidden depth in Sham 69
really, don't waste your time. Sham and their audience were made for each other. Mindless music for mindless people.
Saw Sham
When at Uni in the 70's......probably the only gig I ever went to and felt physically unsafe act, and that includes the Buzzcocks gig shut down by the poilce because someone got stabbed.
Buzzcocks
- Bradford, St Georges Hall? I was there too. My first punk gig.
When in doubt, get Duvet about!
...One of my guests the other night said something similar: 'It was garbage then, it's garbage now'.
If I read between the lines of your densely caveated nuances and carefully argued views, Nick, you seem to be saying the same thing...
Suddenly life seems a lot simpler: if there really ISN'T something I'm missing about the Sage of Hersham, and there really isn't any great music in there struggling to get out then I don't need to start catching up on any of it...
Phew!
Unless, of course, Nick is wrong...
sorry Colin
I'd love to be able to discuss the nuances of 'Borstal Breakout', but my feeling has always been that Pursey was a poser. I saw Sham supporting the Clash at the Rainbow and I thought Joe and the boys were the real deal (regardless of their background). They meant it maaan and there was a genuine sense of new and youthful rebellion involved.
I suspect there's much more of a discussion to be had...
...on Joe and his boys. It's often touched upon around here, isn't it? I must say, I remain to be persuaded that The Cl*** were anything other than all about themselves, really. People are complex - full of paradoxes and flaws/good bits - but there's something about the posthumous sanctification of the man who called himself 'Joe Strummer' that I find baffling. It seems to me The Cl*** just fitted the Thin Lizzy-type mould of 'rock band as gang' - they were all image and cartoony aspiration to a load of kids. Having said all that, I did buy one of their singles at the time. Just because I liked the tune and the spirit of it, I suppose.
exactly, the spirit of it
Punk was about that moment in time and in 1977 the Clash were way ahead of bands like Sham. It was the spirit of the times that they, more than any other band I think, managed to capture.
Joe Strummer
I still want to be Joe when I grow up. I'm 43 next birthday.
Forget them, they are really not worth it.
I saw Sham twice, including "Sham's Last Stand" at the Rainbow. The Rainbow gig was a nightmare, 70% of the audience ended the show by marching round the ground floor of the Rainbow Sieg Heiling. The rest of stood in the middle, waiting for them to turn on us. It was not a lot of fun. There was no way of getting out. You either joined the NF supporters or waited. Sham had been "coined" off after a couple of numbers and then came back for a few more, before giving up, if I remember correctly.
It finally ended when the police (boys in blue not Sting etc)showed up. I think they came into the venue. I remember there were a lot of snarling dogs and shouting cops with truncheons drawn.
Many punk gigs at the time had right wing skinheads turn up but the bands made sure they knew they were not welcome and so did the audiences. I remember skinheads fighting with in the crowd at the RAR gig in Victoria Park in 1978. They were left alone until trouble started but were then quickly chased away.
So Sham 69? A punk footnote, nothing more.
Yep
"Hurry up Harry come on we're going dahn the pub"
That was your catchphrase.
Sorry Colin but they were loutish ignorant chancers with a very nasty following - nigh on Skrewdriver territory. As a southern middle class ponce I felt a lot safer going to gigs after that particular fashion had ebbed - though the scariest gig I ever went to was early Killing Joke.
You couldn't make it up
In 1969 I witnessed a bunch of skinheads standing outside the Sheffield City Hall chanting "kill the hippies" as the audience exited a - wait for it - Incredible String Band concert.
Friends, let me tell you I was one of those hippies and while the thought of a peace offering in the shape of The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter did cross my mind, discretion prevailed and I decided to leg it instead.
Others were not so lucky and many concert goers were chased through the city centre and received a beating at the hands of the skins.
Blimey!
Seems extraordinary that people would get battered for liking The String Band.
Manchester's university has 3 venues in one building on different floors and on some nights you can have a Metal band on one floor, the latest Indie band on another, and maybe a 'heritage' act in the basement. We all file into the foyer at the end, you'd often be hard pressed to tell who had been to what gig so you'd never get rival fans having a scrap.
I don't recall ever being scared at a gig. Reading yours, and other posts on this thread I'm glad the whole tribalism/hooliganism aspect of music pretty much died out in the 70s (or did it?)
I suppose
a couple of factors come into play here. 1969 was very early days for the skinhead movement and although the drift toward racism was yet to happen with any significance, the intolerance and aggression was always there.
And this was Sheffield 40 years ago, remember. At that time it was a very provincial Northern city (and still is, to some degree) and the skins would have been drawn from the ranks of the no-nonsense working class factory workers or similar. To walk around Sheffield with long hair in the mid-60s was to take your life in your hands (if you were a chap, that is).
To the skins back then, a long-haired ISB audience would have represented the height of Namby Pamby decadence and a freedom of expression they didn't enjoy.
Ooh
tell me more!
Dr V - Kiling Joke query - Very menacing
It was somewhere like the Electric Ballroom in 1980 or 81 - and something like a couple of hundred people, lots of leather jackets and eyes on stalks from speed and mushrooms - and KJ were brutal and very very loud and I think they had two or three support acts out of the same box. By the time they got on people were frothing at the mouth.
I had the Fear well before all this started and you must remember that it was ALWAYS kicking off at gigs.
I'm a tall bloke and although I am soft as shite I didn't use to look it - I got sort of cornered by some blokes one of whom started tapping a bottle of cider on the wall by my head. Discretion being the better part of valour I ducked out somehow and legged it with my friends down to Mornington Crescent tube. This isn't a joke (Killing or otherwise).
I still like KJ and I do sort of miss the tribalism but it was a frightening time in London. The police didn't bother with me because I was a self evidently middle class git but listen to SUS by the Ruts - the police wouldn't necessarily protect you if you were in the wrong place looking for help.
Sham '69 were the Blur to the Cockney Rejects' Oasis
Sham flirted with the skinhead image and street yoof bovver boy parlance and had to deal with the consequence of the audience this attracted. They were not the "real deal" though as say, the Cockney Rejects were. The sound of Bow Bells cannot travel easily to the leafy realms of Hersham in Surrey, even on a windy day. It was just an image and an act, which is fair enough as they were in the entertainment industry after all. Pretty much like Blur when they took on a similar bootboy image and faux-cockney twang verus the "authentic" hooligans of Oasis. We get the scenario that seems to wind people up so much - the real working class versus the toffs who are just playing at it...This is usually the time when someone says "ah, that Joe Strummer went to a boarding school y'know..."
The case for the prosecution, your honor
This off Sham's concept album That's Life - which they pushed as a punk Tommy:
The prosecution rests, your honor.
Radio Luxembourg
interviewed JP when this album was released and he discussed the tracks. It was both hilarious and embarrassing. He explained what each of the tracks played was about. Even one of their skinhead followers might have been able to work out that Hurry Up Harry was about waiting for his friend Harry to get ready and go to the pub. If not then they would have ben enlightened. Unsurprisingly the lyrics had no hidden meanings or interesting insights so he may as well just have read them out.
That said I used to enjoy seeing them on TOTP and he was quite entertaining on Juke Box Jury. I totally agree with the others who saw him live - it was a very scary experience.
Fascinating stuff, chaps...
...I think Retro has summed up my gut feeling on Sham 69 exactly, and BigJim has provided compelling and incontrovertible evidence for the prosecution indeed...
But... is this clip (Jimmy's post-Sham 'contemporary dance' phase) evidence for prosecution or defence? Is Jimmy proving he's a bluffer or is he smashing stereotypes and taking major artistic leaps forward?
I think he was very brave...
He wanted to get rid of the NF Nazi skinhead audience, and boy, did that work a treat..!!
What is he doing? Making it up as he goes along?
.
I remember ...
... that dance thing when it happened.
He was always pretty much irrelevant, but wanted to be relevant.
This is quite fun though (sorry about the "video")
James T. Pursey:
I'm sorry, and I know it's pathetically superficial, but I have a knee-jerk adverse reaction to anyone starting off with one public name and then switching to their "Sunday name" (cf Peter "Pete" Murphy * ).
Changing your name completely is usually a bit pretentious but sometimes justifiable, whereas switching from the colloquial to the formal just seems like being a ponce.
And I saw that Riverside performance and thought it, er, ... very *courageous*.
* My favourite record review was Sounds' summary of Mr Murphy's first solo single: in its entirety it went something like "Oh, so it's *Peter* Murphy is it now, Mr La-de-da Gunner Graham?".
It's becoming increasingly clear that...
...the idea that there must be more to Pursey than meets the eye/ear is, in fact, a hollow one.
Here they are at Reading 1978. 'Kids like you and me / running and fighting up the street...' Yes, it really *is* baffling how they ended up attracting yobbos to their gigs, isn't it?
Then again, compared to this man...
...Jimmy is Oscar Wilde.
It's the bloke from the Exploited, interviewed on Finnish Tv while some celebrity fan (whom he's never heard of) keeps trying to interrupt for an autograph. It's strangely compelling...
He used to be in the Army
y'know...
Actually...
after watching that, I'd like to see him as a pundit on Match Of The Day.
While we are at it
the UK Subs were cut from the same mold:
If you really want to you can still catch them live. Remember seeing them in '77 or something thinking Charlie Harper was ancient - he was about 30 at the time....oh dear
Nah, I won't have anything bad said about Charlie...
He's a gent, OK a gent of slightly advanced years (he's 67...) but he is beyond reproach! He's still rocking with the UK Subs, and I mean really rocking, they are on fine form. They've never split up and are now on album "W", Work In Progress - they started with album A with Another Kind of Blues and look set to reach the magic Z! He's just a musician, loves playing, and will play anywhere and everywhere to their still very large world-wide fan-base. I've met musicians from many different countries, some rather successful, who all have many kind words for the UK Subs. It just seems in the U.K. itself there is a bit of snobbery about them, mainly because Charlie was "a bit old" and they just got on and played music. They are often airbrushed out of a lot of the trendy Punk Rock retrospectives, and I think rather unfairly. They played the Roxy and are still playing...!
Oh, if you're curious to see what Gaye Advert, Charlie and Knox from the Vibtarors look like now then take a peek at this...
http://retroman65.blogspot.com/2011/12/charlie-harper-knox-live-at-signa...
That's certainly a very impressive site you have there, Retro...
...I really admire your enthusiasm - fantastic!
I'm sure Charlie's a nice bloke, as you say, but even though the song on the TOTP clip is only 1:50 long, I got bored with the repetition about halfway through. Unless his music's evolved since then, I don't think it's for me.
But then neither is this - another slogan stretched to 1:50 (Exploited 'Dead Cities' on TOTP):
The simple dynamics of punk
All the interesting punk-era artists quickly moved on, leaving the "glue-bag and special brew" ramalama genre going around in diminishing circles. Even Sham were Johnny-come-lately's, really (and where IS the footage of them jamming with Steve Hillage at Reading 78?). Punk audiences also moved on, leaving the thugs to their violence, glass-throwing and gobbing, whilst the arty types became better at playing their instruments, took different drugs, and got fed up at being spat at, glassed, and having no aspirations. That said, I went to a 'punks not dead' gig 5 years ago (a pal was playing), and apart from a tragic Pistols tribute act, everyone (The Beat, The Rezillos, The Damned) was having fun and stretching their oeuvre as much as they could. The audience were a magnificent collection of portly, shaven-headed middle-aged men in undersized band t-shirts, the occasional wife looking like Mollie Sugden dressed as a punk for a party, and some real "bored teenagers".
I have a lot of time for these guys:
Duraglit
.
Courtesy of Retro Man's blog...
...(which I do recommend for a visit - fascinating stuff!) here's the new single (yes, NEW SINGLE) from a band that clearly show the way that Sham 69 could have/should have gone - making punchy, non-earnest, non-rabble-rousing songs with a bit of fun involved. It's the Rezillos:
Ah, thanks Colin!
.
You're welcome...
...Retro!