I've just listened to "If the Kids are United" by Sham 69 five times in a row.....

'Everyfing I done, I done for YOOOOOOUUUUUUU"

(Yesterday I saw a teenage Dutch punk with an 'Oi!' patch on his jacket. Baffled.)

ALEX!! You do own a Business singles comp, don't you!!?? "Harry May" & "Loud,Proud,& Punk" are two of the most gloriously addictive stompalongs known to man. They would both make my list of top punk singles easy. If I had a top punk singles list.

The Business? Yeah, they were alright, but couldn't touch Sham. For some reason, I also lump the Stiff Little Fingers in with Sham 69 (despite them being entirely Irish and very anti-Skinhead). A couple of years ago, I went to England with my wife -- who is British -- and we visited the area she grew up in (Waybridge -sp?- in Surrey), and I was quite shocked to find that Hersham is only a town or two away....which seemed rather incongruous, given that Waybridge was quite pretty and the Sham boys were very decidedly not.

I am, confidently expecting their / Jimmy Pursey's performance to be every bit as appallingly embarrassing - and their fans' behaviour to be every bit as appalling - as they were the last time I saw them, at some punk all dayer in Bath in 1995.

I must have seen Sham at least a dozen times now (the first time being Reading Festival in 1978 IIRC, at which time they were still reasonably tolerable) - which is a hell of a lot of times to have seen a band you despise.

Is it sold out yet, do you know?

It's partly the lyrics, partly the band - the drummer has a great glam heavy stompy bounce - and the grey, murderously ragged, compressed production. They were happy songs though, weren't they. Oi! with joy. But they were sorta fake. Never mind, they still sounded great. I was oddly reminded of both Gary Glitter and Killing Joke.

Actually, I had a Sham-related experience recently that I've wanted to share, but it seemed to fleeting to mention on ILX or even on my otherwise idiocy-choked weblog.

So, I'm walking up Broadway recently with the sproglette in her stroller, and right across the street from Grace Church, I see this lithe, Asian fashionista model type strutting downtown. From the waist down, she's in implausibly form-fitting jeans that cling to her underfed limbs. From the waist up, she appears to be wearing a green, one-piece bathing suit that ties up around her neck. Scralwed across her torso & bust, however, is the legend: "THERE'S GONNA BE A BORSTAL BREAKOUT!"

On the one hand, I'm tempted to stop her and quiz her about her top and whether or not she maintains an affinity for Sham 69, but it strikes me that if she doesn't, I'll come across like some leery stalker (despite the fact that I'm pushing a baby-stroller), so I say nothing. But, I mean....how bizarre. An anthem for beery, unshaven youths with missing front teeth, prone to wearing big steel-toed boots and shaviing their scalps suddenly appropriated to adorn sleek swimwear? Someone help me out here.

The world has gone mad. Surely you'd noticed?

I have just experienced the joy of hearing what Simple Minds sounded like in their punk days - they were called Johnny and the Self Abusers, and you have to hear "Saints & Sinners" or "Dead Vandals" before we begin to talk. PUNK ROCK FOLKS THAT IS PUNK ROCK.

I don't know why this is true, I really don't.

"All we want is some liberty..."

19 Sham 69 Angels With Dirty Faces May 1978
9 Sham 69 If The Kids Are United Jul 1978
10 Sham 69 Hurry Up Harry Oct 1978
18 Sham 69 Questions And Answers Mar 1979
6 Sham 69 Hersham Boys Aug 1979

Hard to imagine anything like that charting now.

If the average Sham fan had caught you singing anything with "gay" anything you'd almost certainly have ended on the receiving end of a steel toe-capped Doc Marten (the average Sham fan was all in favour of "the kids" being united, as long as "the kids" in question were exclusively white, British, working class and heterosexual...)

I've got that at home somewhere; but every time I try to replay it in my memory it seems to somehow morph into "Flares & Slippers" by the Cockney Rejects halfway through the chorus.

"Saints and Sinners, Saints and Slippers
Flares and Slippers are on your feet...."