Sham 69 – The A Files – Review

Sham 69

The A Files (Scratch)
by Jon Sarre

Ya knew it had to happen sooner or later. Who’d be surprised that James Pursey’s decided to dive back into the pit with his creaky (and anonymous, to boot) Sham 69 in tow? C’mon, don’t get all dewy-eyed on me like that! Chin up, everyone knows all the “kids” he’s inspired with “I Don’t Wanna” and “If the Kids Are United” can’t be havin’ all the fun these days. There, there, lads, Dave Parsons is helpin’ out too. He’s uh… well, it’s kinda ambiguous what a “musical arranger” does. I guess Dave provides the stolen Ramones riffs for Jimmy so he can call people “loudmouths” (don’t forget what they say about people who live in glass houses, James). The A Files is Sham 69 like Sham always was: three chord punk (and a little reggae) and the dumbest lyrics this side of Jon Spencer (‘cept Jimmy’s been doin’ this stuff longer, so you’da thought he’d a bought a thesaurus or somethin’ by now). The activist political bent is still present on anti-modernist tirades like “Sloanbag” and the sorta stupid anti-police-brutality “Geoffrey Thomas” which recalls the “Free George Ince” campaign of the ’70s (look it up, I don’t have the space). As a songwriter, Jimmy’s no better or worse than before (although he gets real tedious on the obviously topical “Trainspotter”), but he seems to have lost the sense of urgency that made “Ulster Kid” listenable. His simplistic slogans were exactly that, ‘cept he sung ’em with a very real passion. Pursey meant that stuff, even if he couldn’t articulate or elaborate beyond the football terrace chant. When he tackles the truly mundane, as he does quite often on The A Files, when he sings about bein’ in a car and needin’ to take a piss (“Windowstare”) or trying to pick up a young girl (“Roxy Was a Tourist”), he becomes a parody of his past one-dimensional self. A song about the Blackpool “Twentieth Anniversary of Punk” Fest (“Blackpool”) turns him into a relic and Sham into a nostalgia act. Cleopatra Records bills this record as “Back to the Punk Roots,” but that doesn’t exist any more. Sham’s roots have been plowed up. For better or worse, others have set down new ones. I think Pursey’s time is past, know what I mean?