what Frank is listening to #12 – JIMMY PURSEY – Imagination Camouflage – (Polydor) – 1980
It may surprise some but I was a bit of a Sham 69 fan back in the early to mid 80s. They were one of my favourite British punk bands*…"Angels with Dirty Faces" and the punk ballad "Poor Cow" being a couple of the best British punk tracks ever . No one, not even Johnny R could spit venom like Jimmy Pursey. I was never totally impressed by their albums but there were always a fistful of tracks which had me punching the air (in a punk fashion not a metal fashion) and there is something endearing about a bunch of guys that sound like they are a drunken chorus on their way to a football (soccer) match even though they owe as much to the New York Dolls and the Heartbreakers as they do to punk proper (and importantly, as far as I know, they never felt compelled to incorporate any reggae into their sound … thank God)
I don't think I have listened to any Sham 69 after "The Game" (1980 – though I was listening to it in 1984) (in fact I am not even sure I still have the LP) … still when I found this Jimmy Pursey LP I was quite excited … (it still sat in the corner for a year though)
As can be expected, Pursey, again, "spits" his way through 11 tracks … half of it is like a Sham 69 LP with maybe less chorus chants, whilst the rest of the album has some interesting touches including more keyboards (though Sham 69 were also incorporating more keyboards around this time). There's also sax, slide guitar and some synth, as well as a crazy pseudo jazz instrumental track.
best tracks:
- Freak Show
- Situations Vacant
- You're a Lucky man
- White Trash
- Your Mother Should Have Told You
I have no idea, maybe it was accidental but at times Pursey's delivery sounds much like the singer of Australian band "Nunbait" … is this a co-incidence?
Still, the album isn't bad … its a keeper.
sounds:
couldn't find any tracks off this LP, so there is a attached track
Though this may as well be a solo Jimmy track .. (I used to love this track )…
…from the doco " Rough Cut & Ready Dubbed" which I remember seeing at the Edward Street cinema (Brisbane) in 1984 …. (the film also had some great live footage of Stiff Little Fingers).
Sham 69
Unfortunately I also remember the skins adopting Sham 69 as their Oi band. I vividly recall one occasion them thumping the crap (or threatening to) out of every non-skin downstairs at Macs 401 Club in George St … if I recollect it was a La Fettes gig ( who pretty much were Brisbane's Sham 69 … and who were equally not thrilled about the skin following … they were trying to appeal to the "left wing skins" – yeah, whatever)
Other:
*admittedly it's not a big list – the other British punk bands I rate … Stiff Little Fingers ( well Irish), The Damned, The Soft Boys, Wire, The Subhumans, The Sex Pistols, The Buzzcocks, some Generation X, some early Adam and the Ants ( if you want to count them as punk) and some Killing Joke. I used to have a great comp for years called "Burning Ambitions: A History Of Punk" which was mainly British stuff ….(it belonged to Phil the Punk so I had to give it back … though I'm pretty sure he knocked it off from Rocking Horse anyway … and I cant remember how many of my records he lost … it was around then I put an end to the record lending policy …)
(originally posted: 21/04/2009)
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