Article published in Sounds, 20th November, 1982
Cock Sparrer | Strictly For The Birds | COCK SPARRER’S come-back couldn’t have been better timed. Just as the street rock scene was getting staler than a Marie Celeste bread roll, the original East End ‘ooligan punksters have blasted back with the immensely moving diamond hard tribute to our native land, ‘England Belongs To Me’.
Released by Carrere records last Friday, this punky slice of patriotic populism enriched with a strong terrace chant chorus is poppy enough to set the charts ablaze.
And this is not mere rhetoric, me hearties, intensive market research by your humble narrator around the Lewisham area has established that 99 per cent of all known neighbours and relatives consider this nifty little number either ‘a blinder’, ‘a corker’ or ‘a stormer, though I must admit that one tone deaf per cent reckoned Elgar did it better.
Indeed the only thing standing in the song’s way is a possible blank from the radio stations along the (wet liberal propagated) lines that anything remotely patriotic must by definition be at best right-wing and at worst Nazi.
Cock Sparrer | Strictly For The Birds
Gathered in a discreet Kidbrooke boozer the scotch-handed Sparrer are quick to deny such crass stupidity.
“It’s nothing like that at all,” bassist Steve Burgess points out. “The song’s about positive patriotism, it’s for everyone, it’s our country.”
It really winds me up the way the Union Jack is associated with the NF, especially when they’re more concerned with another country’s cataclysmic cock-ups, and in particular the poisonous philosophies of a certain Adolf Schicklegrubber whose sole contribution to British culture was to flatten half of London (hence inspiring a whole generation of town planners to follow in his size 8’s).
“Well, we’re doing something about that,” drummer Steve ‘Spider’ Bruce continues. “We’re taking our flag back and proving you don’t have to be a fascist to wave the Union Jack. It’s our flag, not the NF’s. The song’s about pride . . . “
“Not that we’re Tories,” Steve Burgess adds, “I agree with you about how bad unemployment is.”
Land Of Hope And Glory
It’s a shame the song’s original B-side had to be scrapped (for similar copyright reasons to the ones that prevented a rock interpretation of ‘Land Of Hope And Glory’ punctuating the A-side); because this gave just the right tongue-in-cheek counterpoint to the A-side’s seriousness with lyrics like:
‘There’ll always be an England/And England will be free/Remember that when you’re inside/Care of the SPG’ and ‘You know it’s England when/You go out for an evening’s drink/And they close at half past ten!’
“We wanted the A-side to be serious though,” Steve says, “because that’s the way we feel. Everyone was proud of the Falklands . . . “
“Yeah, but make it clear we ain’t trying to cash in on that,” singer Colin McFaull is eager to establish. “That’s what bothers me, people’ll either think were cashing in or that were political . . . I wish it had come out five years ago when there wasn’t none of this sieg-heiling shit. What’s that got to do with England?”
Cock Sparrer | Strictly For The Birds
THE SPARRER story started longer than five years ago, when our three heroes and awol guitarist Micky Beaufoy formed a knockabout band in their East Ham school.
By ’76 they were gigging locally, sprinkling their lunatic rock with choice covers from the Small Faces, Humble Pie and T. Rex song-books, and generally kicking mike stands all over the stage.
Natch, they related to similar tales about the Sex Pistols, and contacted a certain Talcy Maley . . .
“He came down to our rehearsal rooms with this geezer wearing spurs . . . ” Col laughs. “And Y’know, that just ain’t the done thing in East Ham . . . but we thought the geezer owns a shop, he’s gotta a few bob, we’ll fleece him all night. But he wouldn’t even get a round in so we kicked him out.”
Cock Sparrer | Strictly For The Birds
“He wanted us to support the Sex Pistols,” Steve continues, “and we said, ‘We ain’t supporting nobody’.”
Spider: “It was the biggest mistake of our lives . . . “
Sparrer revived Doc Martens and Sta-Prest years before they were fashionable and built up a massive East End following, particularly in Poplar. They got an undeserved reputation — if there was any trouble the Poplar Boys always stopped it.
Spider “Sham gigs were getting wrecked, but no one ever got hurt at one of our gigs.”
In a rare moment of insight Jimmy Pursey once remarked that Sparrer were “too good” to be a punk band, which gives you an idea of both Pursey’s limited vision of punk and of how exemplary a raw rock band the Sparrer were.
If in doubt, check out their two ’77 Decca releases ‘Running Riot’ and ‘We Luv You’ (apart from their ‘from beyond the grave’ donations to the first Oi albums these were their only vinyl appearances).
Indeed, one of the things that always puzzled me was why they ever broke up way back in April ’78. Garrie Lammin, who’d joined in ’77 and who doesn’t appear in this re-incarnated line-up, used to mutter darkly about gangster involvement, but then he always was prone to, um, poetic license.
Dodgy contracts
“Really it was all down to signing a load of dodgy contracts,” Steve explains. “We were young and we didn’t know what we were doing really. The main reason we’ve reformed now is cos the contracts have run out.
“We went over to the States to try and so something, but in 1978 no one wanted to know about punk. Then Decca offered us a two grand advance for a five year deal which worked out about thru’pence a day . . . we just fizzled out really.”
Don’t you ever wish you’d hung on a bit longer? It must have been frustrating to see Sparrer support bands like the Subs do so well.
Spider: “Not really, I think with Garrie in the band we’d have just got Stonesy . . . “
Cock Sparrer | Strictly For The Birds
What about the Rejects, who were pretty close to you in image etc. did you resent their success?
Colin: “Not at all, good luck to ’em, they’re all really nice guys.”
Spider: “They did what we were doing but they did it properly, they had good ideas, good management. They did well.”
THE INTERMEDIATE years were spent variously in the Litte Roosters, promoting the Notre Dame Hall gigs, working in a bottle factory, running cafes, and watching punk steadily go downhill . . .
Steve: “Punk was great in ’76/’77 but it’s nothing now. No one’s doing nothing like the Pistols or the Clash . . . “
Colin: “Think how good stuff like ‘Career Opportunities’ and ‘Babylon’s Burning’ were. Now . . . “
Spider: “It’s all just tuneless thrash . . . I reckon the Oi bands became the true underground. Go down the East End and there’s still loads of people buying Oi, still places like the Ancient Briton playing it.”
Which brings us neatly to a certain Mr Terry Adams and his fine Sunday night Ancient Brit punk/Oi disco. A lot of people think your new B-side ‘Argy Bargy’ (which tells the tale of a punk radio DJ called Ferry) is about him. He’d certainly be my choice for a punk DJ if we ever got a programme. Everyone laughs.
“Indirectly it is . . . ” Colin admits.
Future plans
Steve: “We wanted to do something to support the punk radio campaign, but we wanted to make it a story rather than a slogan.”
Colin: “But you can’t write deliberately about Terry or he’d never stop playing it.”
Future plans are hazy. There could be an album in the new year depending on how well the single does. And there could be gigs.
“We wanna do a charity gig to start with,” Steve reveals, “maybe for the South Atlantic Fund, or the Anti-Fascist Fund . . . I dunno.”
Are you worried about gig trouble and the sieg-heiling mugs?
Steve: They don’t spoil it for us, they spoil it for ’emselves. But we don’t want those sort of people anyway. We’ve always wanted people like ourselves who go out for a good time and to get pissed . . . a Slade type audience. Normal working geezers.”
“Herberts,” Steve elucidates. “And girls with big tits.” (Garry Bushell)
Cock Sparrer: ‘England Belongs To Me’ (Carrere)
Good thudola Glitter Bandesque stuff from the reformed and thankfully Lammin-less Sparrer. A fine brash revival in many respects, a pounding, persistent patriotic proclamation with no sinister overtones.
It’s a shame that the tanked-up terraces will probably take the line “Fighting all the way for the red, white and blue” literally, however. (Sounds, 20/11/82)
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