Sham 69Borstal Breakout/Hey Little Rich Boy
Released 1978 on Polydor
Reviewed by Dave Furgess, 28/03/2002ce
This 45 is their classic, "Borstal Breakout" with Jimmy Pursey at his chest-beating best, slashing chords, terrace shout backing vocals and pounding drums round the thing out nicely. If the Bowery Boys of East Side Comedy fame were playing in a rock group this is how they would have sounded.
The flip is even better, "Hey Little Rich Boy, Take A Good Look At Me" is a powerful punk ballad which contains hearfelt lyrics from Pursey highlighted by a nifty guitar solo by Dave "Vicar" Parsons (who is clearly one of the most underrated UK guitarists ever.) I used to be friends with a rich kid and everytime I made tapes for him I would put "Hey Little Rich Boy" at the end of the cassette and not label it, until one day he got the message and got all pissed off at me (I was just trying to wind him up a bit, no harm no foul.)
This review is a total mess but that Spiritualized album pissed me off so much that my next step might be digging out all my old Eater records (Dee Generate where are you now when we truly need you!!!!)