Heard “ Ca Plane Pour Moi” by Plastic Bertrand yet?ĭavid W.

Whatta we do now, mates?Īnd keep your eye on those 45s. It begins with a snatch of argument between a nagging working-class mother and her dole-queue son (Get a job!), declines into more slogans, skips across what sounds like Ian Hunter undergoing self-analysis in front of a mirror, and ends with what can only be called punk psychedelia–that, or simple desperation. Sham 69 will shout that “George Davis Is Innocent” (Davis, convicted on circumstantial evidence of killing a cop, has long been a cause célèbre among the British left), but they won’t make you care either way. Fora few cuts, the record is exhilarating. Side one of Tell Us the Truth was cut live, and the spirit of the gig is somewhere between that of a pep rally and a protest march you can’t tell if the backing vocals on “Ulster” or “Borstal Breakout” are coming from the band or the crowd. Singer Jimmy (Sham) Pursey apes the vocal style of Joe Strummer of the Clash, but where Strummer often affects dumbness in order to make it clear that even those who sound dumb have ideas in their heads, Pursey’s railing implies that as long as one is on the right (that is, left) side, one doesn’t need ideas. Album Tell Us the Truth / That’s Life Sham 69 Released 1989 Tell Us the Truth / That’s Life Tracklist 1 Leave Me Alone Lyrics 2 Who Gives A Damn Lyrics 4 That's Life Lyrics 5 Win Or Lose Lyrics 6. There’s a fuzzy, automatic quality to the music and the slogans that are substituted for lyrics what Sham 69 offers is a punk version of Sixties political folk music. Sham 69 is explicitly political–everything the Clash has done, they do worse. What you hear on Tell Unite Truth is a failure of imagination. It is the grandads of Oi knocking out proper, decent hard working street punk. These lads even made top of the pops for a memorable performance. Like other bands, Sham 69 (who first recorded for the radical Step-Forward label) is running up against the obvious, which isn’t to say necessary, limits of their buzz-saw musical form, and smothering in the small-mindedness of their concept. Wednesday, 17 June 2009 Sham 69 - Tell us the Truth Bought this back, back, back in the past when I was at school. The last few months are proving that only a handful of the British punks will be able to make the shift from singles to albums. As in the Fifties, the result wasn’t often artful, but the intensity was undeniable. Listening, you felt bands were putting all they had into their two minutes it was as if they knew two minutes was all the time they’d ever get. Independent labels, often one-shots, carried the news. With a little nerve and something resembling a song–an attitude might do–any group had a chance to make a mark. In 1977 the focus of the British punk scene was strictly on 45s. Tell Us the Truth sounds passionate, belligerent, and kinda dumb, but thats an improvement over Sham 69s later work, where the band sounds overblown.

Tell us the truth sham 69