Cocksparrer

Sparrer United were formed at East Ham Gramar School in 71/72 with the aim of ‘pulling crumpet and getting up the teachers’ noses’, under a number of guises as Kracken, Stallion and Janus. The nucleus of the teas was STEVE BURGESS (bass), STEVE BRUCE (drums), MICK BEAUFOY (lead guitar) and COLIN McFAULL (vocals). Decca Press Release, 1977

The future for the Cocksparrer boys could have been all so different. Intrigued by an advert from Malcolm McLaren in Melody Maker in the mid seventies they approached him with a demo. Differing tales tell of them turning him down because he refused to get a round in, or because as he outlined his vision he demanded they get their hair cut. Either way they didn’t hook up and the rest is history. Yet there’s similarities in attitude and sound (riffs & boogie guitars) to the early Pistols, but missing of course the galvanising, centrifugal and focusing presence of Mr Rotten and those basic tunes of Glen Matlock that separated the average from the great. 

Band formed at school many many years ago. We were drinking, going to football and generally having a go before the terms streetpunk was ever used. It was just a way of life for us.

Punk came along and it seemed that there was finally hundreds like minded people with the same attitude. We never really fitted in though, we’ve always done things the way we wanted to and even punk ended up with its own set  of rules – we just didn’t buy it. Punk& Oi

Indeed having found a new type of music sweeping the nation, signing to a major label Decca(via manager Cliff Cooper who also managed John Miles!) and being support on a nationwide tour with the Small Faces, the boys then started mid paced writing r&b tunes like ‘I Need A Witness’ courtesy of guitarist Gary Lammin.

What was it with Decca and boot boys? First Slaughter & The Dogs, then Cock Sparrer. Come to think of it what was Decca’s idea of punk? Their next release was Adam & The Ants ‘Young Parisians’!  As like all Decca releases Cock Sparrer’s sank like stones (sic). 

Click for larger image

Their advertising featured them as hooligans – ‘We are not Punks -we’re football hooligans’ and later songs extolled the virtues of ‘Trouble On the Terraces’. Advertising and PR was also focussed around that be it, the advertising on the electronic hoarding for ‘We Love You’ at half time in an England international to the urging of clubs by Decca to play ‘We Love You’ before matches to calm hooligans down (!) and appearing in Hammers (West Ham United) colours on stage.

Garry Lammin We were always more interested in football than fashion. We wanted to be in a band that could reach other people like us, other football supporters, ordinary kids who couldn’t afford to get into all that Kings Road shit. NME, 4.2.78

Decca was a mistake, but the band wasn’t to know, and at least they got their music out. Then Decca went bust and in 1978 Cock Sparrer split. In their career, they supported bands like The Small Faces & Motorhead and played Soho’s infamous punk Roxy Club. Their aggressive Poplar Boys following got them banned from venues such as The Vortex and Nashville and unfortunately, everyone seemed to spell their name wrong from Cock Sparrow to Cock Sparra!

A live review from 15.4.78 in Sounds sums them up perfectly.

Musically and visually, the Cock Sparrer crew are just about as motley and uncouth as its possible for a band to project. Imagine five collectively imageless Cockneys with hair length varying from skinhead to Woody Roller, wearing clothes they look they pool from from jumble sales, and singing about how East End life is tough but fun…(they)…create a good time sound that occasionally approximates to the original…spirit of Slade.

In the end Cock Sparrer in the late seventies were a pub style hybrid of punk & pub rock. (their lead guitarist left to form The Little Roosters – a pub rock style band) They certainly weren’t the Pistols. Check out any greatest hits by them and compare their snarling version of ‘We Love You’ against ‘Sunday Stripper’ or ‘I Need A Witness.’ It’s painful but you can’t deny they had some fine raucous tunes. We love ’em!

With the emergence of punk, Sparrer naively believed their music had found a natural home. Not so. Their aggressive anthems born out of a dangerous mixture of East End life and football matches were not welcomed by the West London art school dropouts who dominated the British music press. These critics were desperately trying to turn punk into ‘new wave’ in order to give it a respectability that would justify their interest. ‘Serious’ punk musicians quickly emerged. The Pistols disintegrated and so, with somewhat less fuss, did Sparrer. Garrie left to become an actor and the others booked themselves on a Freddie Laker flight to America, paid for by selling off their P.A. (which wasn’t actually theirs to sell).

They didn’t split up. They just didn’t play for a while.

Though our history ends here, the band has continued on and off recording and gigging and are still going today. Their instep/out a step love affair with music hit paydirt with the burgeoning Oi/streetpunk scene in the early eighties which took Cock Sparrers hooligan, everyday trials and tribulations lyrics, attitude and look as a template and gave the band a new lease of life.

If you want the whole story, check out their autobiography by drummer Steve Bruce ‘The Best Seat in the House.’

Signed in Spring 1977 to Decca the band released just two singles before being dropped. With their amalgamation of influences from the Small Faces, Rolling Stones, Wishbone Ash, Led Zep and even the Pink Fairies, their harder abrasive sound collided with Punk rock and was happily subsumed by it.

However Cock Sparrer’s running riot wasn’t so much Anarchy or Situationism but the more harder street punk realism of football violence and tribalism. So their first single’s cover showed a pitch invasion of West Ham and Manchester United fans. Another shot from the same match would also be used for their ‘Running Riot in ’84’ album. While none of the singles fared particularly well, they are both crackers and served to underpin Cocksparrer’s credentials in the later OI/Streetpunk movement of the early Eighties.

Cock Sparrer – Runnin’ Riot / Sister Suzie (Decca 31.5.77)

And so it was welcome to Decca for our lovable hooligans with this little paean to running amok and, if you were lucky, featuring a very scarce picture sleeve of a pitch invasion by football fans.  Extremely catchy as is the b-side ‘Sister Suzie’. Punk or souped up Slade? Who cares! Interesting lyrics tho not quite ‘Anarchy In The UK.’… Yes indeedy!

Cock Sparrer – We Love You/Chip On Me Shoulder
( Decca 4.11.77)

Politely rocking power chords and a thick cockney brogue on the old Stones psychedelic turkey by a bunch of skinheads, do not a worthwhile 12 inches make. Nor probably seven inches. Paul Rambali, NME, 12.11.77

I gotta admit that only one other Stones cover I ever heard surpassed Cocksparrer’s evil celebration and that was Iggy doing ‘Satisfaction’… Tony Parsons, NME, 8.10.77

I’ve just listened to it and I think it’s crap. It goes nowhere, has no hooks, and had nothing to do with us. We should have made ‘Chip On Your Shoulder’ the A-side. Steve Bruce, Best Seat In The House

Rambali was being a bit unfair on the boys there. Both are sides are rollicking good punky Slade style sing a long a yob. Why did Decca release this as a 12″? Classic video for the song below produced by Mike Mansfield who had completed a music series called ‘Supersonic’ at the time and which was featured on the anarchic kids show ‘Tiswas.’ In pre MTV times this was a rarity and a luxury but a great snapshot of the boys.

Cock Sparrer – Live Reviews

Roxy Club October 1977

15.4.78 NME

The following article was taken from a 1977 issue of the Exeter fanzine ‘Spit In The Sky’ and is included here as originally printed (complete with incorrect references to the bands original name Cocksparrow) It’s an interesting look at both the band and the friction that could occur at the time between punks and non punks. Unfortunately the author of this article is unknown…Edx 2001.

Saw a poster in Pitts advertising Cock Sparrow-looked vaguely interesting so me and a few mates decided to check it out. We popped in the Mount Radford’s first for a pint and were greeted by about a million hairy, muscle-bound macho presumably student teachers from Lukes singing lustily, glasses aloft in true Viking fashion. “Will we fit in?” we thought, draping our puny bodies over a few chairs and trying to look harmless.

 We wandered up to the College and forked out our ninety pees. A band with a couple of girls shaking tambourines and things were on so we went to the bar. Instant heavy scene. “God! Look at that shirt! My Grand dad wears one like that!” People kept sort of ‘accidentally’ walking into us and things. Then this guy comes up and tells us what a bunch of wankers we are. Fair enough but he’s waving an empty glass at us so John asks him politely to put it down. “Ooo the fuck are you  to tell me to put me glass down!” he screams, and tries to smash it on the table. It doesn’t break, which looks kind of silly, so he wanders off.

Ann (Radio 1 cop-out) Nightingale meanwhile plays Mink De Ville’s ‘Spanish Stroll’ and asks “Why aren’t you pogo-ing?” At last Cock Sparrer come on and they’re great. We don’t know what to expect but they’re like mechanics at a football match-loud, aggressive, high-energy. But more trouble. The dozen or so punks at the front are being jostled, spat on and given beer shampoos. The impression is that we’re not liked. The band likewise is getting shit from the hecklers. The more the minority of trouble makers try to wreck things the more the other minority who are enjoying themselves are getting into it. And that goes for the band too. Charlie is really whacking into his drum kit and Colin is falling over a lot. Colin invites the hecklers to come and have their say into the mike. I think one of them said “You’re wankers”. Well, who isn’t?

The band come back on to do an encore for the enthusiastic bunch at the front-not all punks by the way. The majority of the audience are just standing. They only dance to disco music I guess. Afterwards we retire to the dressing room. A guy from ‘Worthless Words’ tells me he already has an hour long interview with the band. Shit! Scooped again. Anyway, here are bits and pieces from the chat we had: Cocksparrow are: Gary-rhythm and vocals, Colin-vocals, Steve-bass, Charlie-drums, Mick-lead guitar. They’ve played together for about two years, have a single ‘Running Riot’ out on the Decca label and a new single out soon featuring a revamped Stones oldie.

They love heavy metal kids but hate most new wave apart from Clash, Pistols because the others don’t mean it (m-aaan). Reggae is just ripped off rock and roll according to Steve, and whites play it better anyway. Cocksparrow are loved by greasers, punks and skinheads, and Cocksparrow love anyone who loves them. That doesn’t go for Teds because they left their heads in the fifties and Steve reckons there’s no hope for them. Steve got his jacket from Bernie Rhodes-name dropper (By the way Steve, hope you got in there. Classy bit of stuff eh?) They’ve played the Roxy but the Vortex won’t have them because they’re to violent (!!) Cocksparrow are not punks. They’re football hooligans. They’re all on the dole (Credibility points: 10) Gary says to tell you all that the Poplar Boys are up on the Finchley mob any day of the week. O.K?

I also had a few words with one of the students. Up till now I had got the impression that the people who are going to be teaching our kids are a bunch of mindless, violent cretins, but he insisted that the majority of students enjoyed the concert and are just a bit to old and mature to express themselves as freely as the bunch of punks at the front. He seemed like a nice guy, so I’ll take his word for it. And if anyone who didn’t like the band or us would like to discuss it sensibly, or put something in the next issue, they can contact me at the address in the front okay?