Oi! Street Punk, Cock Sparrer — Photo by Francesco Casalino on Unsplash

October 7, 2022

I Need A Witness

I guess I was more into 'Metal/Punk' and 'Goth' type sounds back in the early part of the 80's, so perhaps missed this and maybe some of the Oi! sub-genre of the time, but hey! hindsight it's a wonderful thing and (for me) is worth revisiting...

The track was actually produced by....Joe Strummer for a strange fee! As per the link to dangerousminds.net...

"Instead of being paid cash for his production services, the Roosters’ manager arranged for Strummer to receive extensive dental work".

It was released on the small 'AMI' Record Label (short for Audio Musical Industries) in 1980.

Little Roosters Formation & Line Up

The Little Roosters had a fantastic line up including:

- Garrie J. Lammin (guitar, vocals)
- Gary Eve (keyboards)
- Graeme Potter (drums, 1978-80)
- John Hunt (bass, 1978-79)
- Steve Burgess (bass, 1980-82)
- Steve Bruce (drums, 1980-82)
- Alison Moyet (vocals, 1980-82)
- Barrie Mizen (guitar, 1981-83)

The band were formed in 1978 as an R&B outfit. Graeme Potter was originally with Power Pop/Punk band The Barracudas whilst Alison Moyet was originally with Basildon based Punk outfit The Vandals and more obviously Yazoo and Solo. Lammin, Burgess and Bruce were a different kettle of fish...

Cock Sparrer

Secondary, 3 of 13 — Picture Source: Discogs

Garrie Lammin, Steve Burgess and Steve Bruce were originally in Street Punk Oi! band Cock Sparrer. The band were formed in 1972 in London's East End, the name 'Cock Sparrer' is an old phrase used in the East End often as a form of greeting e.g. 'Alright, my old Cock Sparrow or 'Sparra', it also tends to get even more shortened down to 'Me Old Cocker'.

Take 'Em All

The band were evidently a source of interest to Malcolm McLaren who was considering managing them alongside The Sex Pistols, I guess it didn't work out though and they didn't receive the commercial success they could have and if you catch the song 'Take 'Em All' you get the full sense that these boys were seriously p***ed of with Record Companies. The lyrics, "Take 'em all, take 'em all, put 'em up against a wall and shoot 'em" I think might scratch the surface of their anger! They did however lead the way for many of the Oi! and Street Punk bands of the 1980's. Have a catch of Cockney Rejects with their track 'Flares & Slippers' at the link.

Here are Cock Sparrer from 1977 on the Decca Records Label with 'Chip On My Shoulder' with the very sneery Johnny Rotten-esque vocals, the song was the flip side of an old Rolling Stones cover of 'We Love You' originally released by them back in 1967. Video complete with that whole 'boot boy' and A Clockwork Orange 'droog' look. And also some cheekily woven in football footage, think the boys may just have been fans of a certain East London Football Team?😉

Band Line Up

The original Cock Sparrer band line up:

Colin McFaull – vocals (1972–present)
Mick Beaufoy – lead guitar and backing vocals (1972–present)
Garrie Lammin – rhythm guitar (1976–1978)
Steve Burgess – bass guitar and backing vocals (1972–present)
Steve Bruce – drums (1972–present)

These boys had known each other from an early age and had been playing the whole pub scene for many years, they were inspired by pub/glam rock and 60's sounds by bands from around the same area such as The Small Faces. They did quite a mean version of 'Whatcha Gonna Do About it', the original is at the link, and Cock Sparrer's version here. The band slogged hard playing the whole pub and club circuit and were eventually signed to 'Decca Records' and released their first single in '77 called 'Running Riot', it appears that this and the above track 'We Love You' didn't do so well and sadly Decca dumped them a year later, I can see why the band got so angry about record companies and being let down by them!

So, here's the thing, I kind of side stepped the whole Oi! thing back in the day, the music was brilliant in terms of being 'punk' and at street level, I just didn't like the whole 'right wing' and 'racist' elements of some of the people who followed it.

I remember in the latter part of the '70's as I lived near a sea-side town British Rail running 'football specials' i.e. all the hooligan elements heading to the coast for either football or a bunch of 'aggro' down at the seafront were all shoved on one train, keeping the general public a bit safer.

There were plenty of bands from the Oi! genre of the day, notably bands such as Sham 69 whom I remember vividly in the UK Charts and TOTP back in the day performing tracks such as 'Hersham Boys' and you can catch their defining chant raddled 'If The Kids Are United' a song used on many football terraces by working class kids in the late 70's onwards below:

...In all it's 3:48 seconds of foot stomping positive excellence, what a song! what a wonderful positive message, what a thing to bring all 'kid's' together with a voice, or was it?

Unfortunately that period of football history to which that particular song was used by football fans was overshadowed by 'hooliganism' and 'racism' many right wing groups infiltrated youths on the terraces to spread their bile and cause bucket loads of trouble, this trouble also spilled into music and Sham 69 had to cancel many gigs due to crowd disorder caused by right wing skinheads, it didn't help the name and music of Oi! and Street Punk bands of the day. Sham 69 and many other bands denounced the right wing fans and played at the Rock Against Racism gig in 1978.

The music was brilliant, but the memory of racism was not welcome and overshadowed a great sound many of the bands had, also my heart goes out to all those smaller bands like Cock Sparrer who were so good but 'let down' so badly by fickle record companies who saw profit above raw talent "Take 'Em All... !"