This is a charming story of when hippie punks Nik Turner’s “Inner City Unit” toured as support to bonehead favourites Sham 69 in 1979. Hilarity ensues. Goes nicely with the clip on YouTube of Steve Hillage jamming with Sham at Reading festival in 1978. Glamourous, this tour was not.
When Sham 69 were supported by Inner City Unit
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I saw Sham 69 with Steve Hillage at Reading. Dp Gumby with Neil the hippy on guitar, nightmarishly awful in every respect. And that’s not taking into account the marauding gangs of skinheads.
That was very entertaining – the tour diary I mean, though the reminder of Sham 69 and Steve Hillage (I was also at that Reading Festival) was also good (not sure if that’s exactly le bon mot) to see.
Thanks.
Forgot to say – I was also in a band with Nik Turner! Very briefly, and a very long time ago – we did one gig, so I doubt he’d even remember me. We were called Chaos Factory (with good reason!) and Captain Sensible was on guitar. I can’t remember who else was involved…
@matthew-best
More of this please!
I’m afraid there isn’t any more, really. I had to go and look in my diary to remind myself and it turns out the band lasted about a week – which explains why I can’t remember much about it, I guess.
It was 1981 and my diary shows that we (that’s Captain Sensible, Nik Turner, me plus “Bob” and “Trevor” – and I’m afraid I don’t remember anything more about them!) had our first rehearsal on 1st June, then a second rehearsal/warm-up gig on the 3rd at a cafe called the Just In Time in Peckham, then our one and only gig two days later at Cecil Sharpe House – we were supporting Inner City Unit, which makes sense: how else would we have got a gig?
And I don’t think we ever did anything ever again.
@matthew-best
That’s still a great story in my book! Did I ever mention the time I played snooker at the snooker hall owned by the bass player from Splodgenessabounds when I should have been at school…sniiiiiiip!
I once played snooker against Aled Jones on a mid-80s holiday. This was after Walking In The Air (his voice had broken) but before Song of Praise/Radio 2.
He absolutely thrashed me, several 100+ breaks. I don’t think there was much to do for a 15-year-old millionaire in Porthmadog, apart from playing snooker all day.
Welsh people are good at snooker
A cousin of my ex once played pool with Robert De Niro. Not sure who won
I didn’t know that about Weish people.
But did Mike Rutherford ever sit in with Petesy Burn’s ARSE?
….and if so, did he ask his permission?
I suppose it’s possible he was playing behind the amps in this clip…
Bass pedals probably.
Opinion on THE ARSE is split down the middle.
Will there we go. I can claim to be at both gigs. The only two times I ever saw Sham 69. Reading 1978 – Friday afternoon – blistering line up, Radio Stars, Penetration, Sham, the Pirate, Ultravox and the Jam. Up to this point I had seen maybe 10 gigs. My league rating would be
1 Pirates 2 Penetration 3 Sham 69 4 Jam -(Only because I found them a bit disapointing, lost on a big stage and lacking the energy of when I saw them in a small club, summer of 77. If I hadn’t seen that gig and I had come to them blind they would probably have been number 1) 5 Radio Starts 6. Ultravox. I suspect the low placing of Ultravox and Jam is that they came at the end of a very long day – my sister and I hitched to Reading and then followed the road signs to get to the venue – this bypassed the town centre so we ended up walking for two hours what should have been a twenty minute walk.
When I say I can ‘claim’ to have seen both bands its because I previously had no memory of Inner City Unit supporting Sham at Swindon Oasis and, now that I am aware they were the tour support, I have a vague memory bubbling up or is this auto-suggestion. However, I do remember seeing them two months later in a tent at Bristol Ashton Court festival playing to their audience – ie 10 hippies, two dogs and some kids asleep in pushchairs and they were blistering – Hawkwind’s space rock has rather passed me by -but the combining of this with punk speed and new wavey poppy songs – worked wonders on me that night. Must check out the Maximum Effect album on youtube to see if they’re any good or not, or it was just that night.
Anyone got any news on the state/health of Nik Turner. He was playing until quite regularly, turning up every year at the Green Gathering in various incarnations but the last time I went 2019 I believe he was there but too poorly to play