Early bands and getting into Punk

Dave Parsons The first band I ever saw was T.Rex at Wembley Empire pool. I had no idea what I was gonna see as some friends had arranged it - but the whole thing just blew my mind. I must have been about 13. The first band I was in was while I was still at school - I answered a local ad and got in, the rest of the band were about 10 years older than me and because of that I got turned onto a lot of music I'd never have otherwise heard ! A lot of blues, Irish folk and the Stones/Kinks, Small Faces etc etc. This really paved the way for the next band I was in. I formed a local band Bobalouis, mainly from school friends, really a sort of mod band before mod became fashionable again. We were playing a couple of my songs and Stones/Kinks/Credence Clearwater Revival/Beatles songs and stuff like that.

Punk happened as I was leaving school at 16, and needless to say it was just what I'd been waiting for - as a teenager the whole two fingers up at at the rest of society - the idea that you could get up on a stage and say what / how you felt - that it was anti fashion (you got your clothes from army surplus or the Oxfam) was just perfect timing! I liked loads of the bands around at that time - Sex Pistols, Clash (before they went American) X Ray Spex, Eater, early Generation X etc etc.

For Jimmy Pursey early life was working at the local greyhound track, before he ran away from home and worked on the barrows at East London's Roman Road market for a year. Returning back to Hersham he did a number of dead end jobs, the last of which was washer up in the local Wimpy.

Around this time the first incarnation of Sham 69 (named after graffiti on wall spelling Hersham 69 had lost the 'Her' from the front came into being. Mentioned in the NME of 12.10.76 by Julie Burchill as 'potentially great.' Allegedly before turning punk Sham were a Bay City Roller cover version band called Jimmy & The Ferrets consisting of Jimmy Pursey on vocals, Billy Bostik on Drums, Johnny Goodfornothing on Guitar and Albie on Bass. They used to play at the Walton Hop miming to Gary Glitter and Rolling Stones songs!!

Originally, when I, Jimmy Pursey, in 1975, formed the band, with a friend of mine called Albie Maskill, who like me as another farm boy, wanted to escape the 'groundhogged day', greyness of our world. None of us were musicians just kids looking for an answer, as in here's one chord, here's another now form a band, to us THIS was PUNK! As far as music was concerned there was only one blueprint "The Ramones" PunkNews.org

Jimmy Pursey I'll tell you how it all started for me; I used to go to this disco in my home town Walton on Thames and get up on stage and mime to the records, Gary Glitter and things, in front of about 500 people...it gave me confidence.  NME 12.11.77

In March 1977 they supported Generation X at London's infamous Roxy Club. Arcane Vendetta was on hand at the gig and reviewed it in his fanzine 'These Things.'

Arcane Vendetta ('These Things' fanzine) Sham weren’t so bad really, a bit of a ‘Rotten’ take-off on the singer’s part, but they did some nifty little numbers, such as ‘Rich Boy’, ‘Get Out’ and the magnificent ‘Borstal Break Out’.

All was not right in the Sham 69 camp though and in June 1977 virtually the whole band was changed.

Dave Parsons My band Excalibur was playing around the local working mans clubs and the local (Walton) Hop and so was Jimmy's band. One night we both happened to be on the same bill and because he loved my band and I loved the attitude of his we decided to form a new band. The only member of jimmy's band we kept was Albert Maskel on bass. Mark Cain we found at the Walton Hop. All the songs were written from that moment on - the only thing kept from Jimmy's old band were his lyrics to 'Borstal Breakout' which I wrote new music to!

 And the songs came quick and fast.

Dave Parsons It wasn't conscious; we'd just sit down with a guitar and blast out what ever came into our heads. It was all very quick and spontaneous and once it had been written there was no mucking about with it, that was it. That was the whole point; we weren't going to do a Pink Floyd on it and spend half a year working on one track. Ten minutes and it was done!

In fact the story from here on is a rollercoaster for the band as they develop the songs and become tighter.

Dave Parsons Once we formed, things moved really quickly - we just hung out all the time together, rehearsing in Albert's pig barn, playing any gig we could get and before long we were playing gigs down the Roxy. Playing all those clubs in the early days was just such a buzz - being in London at that time was just like being in a big family - you'd walk down Oxford street and constantly be bumping in other band members all getting their shit together. There was no star shit or one up man ship. The gigs were always a mad frenzied rush from start to finish, usually in appalling conditions, but it was just the best rush you could imagine. We always seemed to go down a storm; some nights the audience doing more vocalising than the band!

The Roxy was typical of the gigs Sham played and Jimmy tells a great tale about the perks of being top of the bill at the Roxy.

Jimmy Pursey We were top of the bill one night with four bands underneath us and Kevin said to me ‘look, if you sweep the floor I’ll give you enough money to go and buy some food up the road.’ I said ‘O.K.’ So I’m sweeping the cans up and all the shit and crap from the night before and this band came down the stairs. They had the right clothes on, leather jacket, leather trousers, and new guitars and one of them said to me ’Oi mate what times the main band getting here’ and I went ‘they’re fucking here mate’ and carried on sweeping the floor. I have never seen anyone’s face drop in my life like that! 

One of the reasons for Sham's rise was the fact that they attracted fair size crowds which promoters like Kevin St John at the Roxy loved. These crowds were predominantly skinheads, a youth cult on the wane, but which would re-emerge both attracted to bands like Sham and Skrewdriver and punks and at war with punks until the emergence of the more hybrid OI music.

Jimmy Pursey (Sham 69) Let’s really get to the truth of this other business of skinheads.  What happened there was this, somebody in the audience shouted out at one of the gigs at the Roxy ‘Skinheads are back’, to which me, being a little skinhead from 1967 where it lasted for about six months, and if you didn’t go to fuckin’ school with a shaven head you would get the crap kicked out of you and which 90% of kids at that particular time in 1967 had, you would then understand that someone shouting that out in 1977 would bring a sarcastic reaction from me, as normally things like that do. As ‘yeah mate, yeah your O.K. sure they are...blah, blah, blah’, to which someone took it upon them to say that I was saying ‘Yeah, they are back aren’t they.’ 

Dave Parsons (Sham 69) What actually happened was, at an early gig when we were drawing a crowd of about five, an old friend of Jimmys who had been an original Skinhead the first time around was in the crowd - Jimmy spotted him and said (tongue in cheek) “Skinheads are back.” The next time we played, the place was packed with people queuing to get in, all with freshly cropped heads.

Gary Bushell Why did experience such a meteoric rise? Sham are a working class and fitting in neatly with working class teenage gang mentality. Skinheads were a working class phenomenon, encompassing tow main types of kids. The ex-Punk disillusioned with the middle class element of punk and the rip off fashion scene side, and kids who at other times might have stayed happy with football and gang fights. Sounds 28.10.78

There was also an air of violence that often became real.

Paul Weinling (Roxygoer) Sham 69 was playing the Roxy and there was about fifteen to twenty Skinheads in the place. I’m standing there watching the band and two of them start giving me a bit of grief and we had words. It turned into a bit of a ruckus and before I knew it I had the whole bleeding lot of them onto me. I managed to grab one of them, pull him down on top of me and roll under one of the banquettes around the side. They were trying to get to me but couldn’t and eventually a couple of doormen came down and broke it up. But what really pissed me off was that not one other Punk did anything to help me out. I thought thanks a lot. This is supposed to be our club and they basically were doing what they liked in it.

For many mid to late 1977 was the golden period for Sham. That time when a band has a charismatic lead singer, that certain something, is writing cracking songs and doing the business live. In contrast to their first appearance at the Roxy they were now packing the place out. Rita Burgess from Liverpool came to the club and commented in an article in 'Summer Salt' fanzine

Sham 69 were heading the bill. Jimmy Pursey their singer looks really mean. From the moment they leapt onto the stage and announced their first number ‘I Wanna Fight’ the atmosphere was truly electric. They play fast and violent songs. I was pogoing myself in between snapping shots of the band in action. The audience were really getting frantic, hurling themselves against the stage so violently that the bouncers had to rush onstage and force them back. The band didn't like this. One guitarist took of his guitar executed a perfect head butt to an over violent bouncer. The less brave members of the audience stampeded to the safety of upstairs. The violence subsided once the bouncers left the stage. Sham 69 were even better after the outbreak. The crowd were behind them all the way. One scene I'll never forget was Jimmy Pursey pogoing with a fan who had been upstage fighting for him. The band came back to do two encores, they could have played all night and still kept the same force.

This is partly due to the incredible Jimmy Pursey. He has charisma onstage, and is a vocalist. It was an experience watching him sing. He is so dedicated and into the music. No superficial bandwagon jumper, could sing with such conviction. I hope Sham 69 come to Liverpool soon. They're too good for London to keep exclusively.

Add to that some fantastic press from strangely enough Tony Parsons in an NME review.

Reaction! Not that you’d know it twenty four hours later, as a docile Thursday night Roxy crowd look up from their cans of lager to clock the bottom of the bill band and stir from their apathy in response to the lanky, crop haired, big mouth yob howling in the face of Kings Road chic…Sham 69 are ex-skinheads who don’t have the cash or the inclination to dazzle you with the mandatory sartorial elegance of corporate sponsored urban guerrillas. They’re content to use their performance to provoke REACTION. I shouted at them with the sense of self -righteous omnipotence of a Stretford Ender on crusade; Mark P grinned, nodded, said he loved Sham 69; some people laughed nervously; Punks danced like frenetic dervishes…God I wish you could have been there. Sham 69 are a band who do everything except lie. NME 20.8.77

  Of course having motormouth Jimmy also helped when it came to getting gigs and being noticed!

Dave Parsons Jimmy walked into Miles Copeland's office (He had his own label "Step forward Records at that time ) told him we were the best Punk band he was ever gonna see and he should give us a gig, which amazingly he did supporting Chelsea, the Cortinas and the Lurkers at the Acklam Hall in Notting Hill. When we went on stage no one was in the audience, they were all in the bar - so Jimmy got on the mike and basically ordered them out onto the floor before we would play. Miles had bought along  John Cale, ex Velvet Underground musician, who loved us and told Miles he wanted to produce us. On the strength of that Miles signed us to a one off singles deal.

And that single was 'I Don't Wanna'. It was following the recording that the band realised another reshuffle was necessary.

Dave Parsons Albie was, and still is one of the loveliest people your ever likely to meet; he was perfect for the band in every way but it wasn't until we finally got into a multi track studio (all be it 8 tracks) at Pathway with John Cale to record our first single that I could actually hear what he was playing. Sadly the guy had absolutely no timing so Jimmy had the unfortunate job of telling him he had to go (that must have been difficult for Jimmy as they had been life long friends). Instead Albie became our road manager and stayed within the band.

Before he left some more welcome publicity came with the records release and a gig on top of the newly opened Vortex record shop in Hanway Street.

Dave Parsons By that time we had got to know Brian Adams, the guy  who was running the Vortex. He was opening a small cafe just off Oxford Street and had asked us if we would play a gig on the roof to open it and we of course said yes. It was a long way up to the roof and by the time we had got there it wasn't clear which part of the roof was the right part. Anyway we ended up playing on the wrong roof, whence the owner called the police and all hell broke lose. It certainly wasn't set up because we had a gig in Bristol that night and after being arrested Jimmy only just made it to the gig with 10 minutes to spare.

The Sham 69 single was perfectly timed establishing them as pure punk rock 1) On the small Step Forward label 2)  Classic punk them and us picture cover (policemen arresting a protestor) and 3) An authentic punk howl with classic 3 chord buzzsaw riff and rabble rousing lyrics of resistance - 'No I Don't Wanna'

His replacement was Dave Treganna in October 1977 friend of and so began arguably the classic Sham 69 line up.