Sign o' the Times

Time was everything in the eighties.
Time was money.

But the times, like the decade, were a changing.
Time was running out.
No longer on our side.

Time for change.

Time was up for Culture Shock, too.
Time to call it a day.

But still time enough to end with a flourish.
Time enough to go out with a bang.

(Dick never whimpered.)

But time is an endless song.
Time is the muse; and the muse is always the times.

Time, gentlemen, please!

Time's up.
Time to go.

Culture Shock - All the Time (1989)

Countdown
Twenty Questions
Upside Down
The Time it Takes
Four Minutes
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland Dub
Onwards

Excellent vinyl rip @320kbs
Travel through time here

Time.
One of the most commonly used nouns in the English language.

Shockadelica

Culture Shock's only full length album from 1988.

It does contain more songs and less dub than appear on their shorter e.p. releases, but it does allow ex-Subhuman Dick Lucas to really show off his lyrical prowess; and boy, did Dick have a lot to say.

Despite the band's Marxist/Anarcho bent, their bass-heavy take on ska has an uplifting feel to it; and on close examination Dick's lyrics readily sway towards positivity; he may have been critical of the society of the nineteen-eighties, but he often offered solutions: radical, yes; but solutions none the less.

Occasionally his songs are more personal than political; and what can seem a typical polemic against the state actually turns out to be an angsty rumination about the state of the relationship he has with his girlfriend.

There is also frustration expressed about the elitism and segregation associated with counter cultural groups and tribes.
'He didn't come here to feel like this' from the track 'United' captures that attitude very well, and Lucas was brave enough to have provoked his own audience into thinking about the uniforms they were wearing; the rules and conventions that determined their sense of belonging;
and exclusion.

This album also includes 'Civilization Street', one of Culture Shock's greatest tunes; a track that takes me right back; I just want to get out and put on my old NATO boots and have a good old stomp about....

Culture Shock - Onwards and Upwards (1988)

Pressure
Colour TV
Fast Forward
You Are Not Alone
Joyless
If You Don't Like It
Civilization Street
United
Catching Flies
When the Fighting's Over
Open Mind Surgery
Don't Worry About It
I.S.D.

Decent Cassette rip @320kbs
Grab yourself some cultural heritage here

Dancing in Circles Makes your Head Spin Round

They had a wonderful exuberance did Culture Shock.

Emitting a joyful and celebratory sound that insisted you let your dreadlocks down and have a good jump about to.

It's only when you stop for breath that you realise the lyrics are savage, yet spot-on, polemics against society, ideology, alienation, superficiality and all things superstructural.

Dick Lucas's words were sharp as knives; he was no ranter, and fortunately, the juxtaposition of his lyrics with top-heavy, jingly-jangly ska made sure he was never preachy.

Dick really began his vocal career with the hardcore band the Subhumans (recently reformed) back in 1980, but as punk hastened towards moribundity Lucas began Culture Shock, and a new sound was quickly established: all skank and no mosh.

This mini-album, Go Wild, released in 1986, was their first; and their best in my opinion.

Dick's lyrics are hard-hitting but not yet as spiteful as they would become (not so much with Culture Shock, but with his next band, Citizen Fish, Lucas's lyrics became pretty difficult to listen to, and he could make an audience feel pretty uncomfortable; both in terms of being lectured to, and in a socialist paternal fashion, feeling like you're being told off!), and there is an element of snide-humour and satire here that he also failed to reatin (he was always pretty angry; but sometimes that anger could get a little misdirected - I noticed at gigs [I saw Dick Lucas perform at least a dozen times] that he would often be on his own; big black book under his arm, or often he'd be writing in it, sat up at the bar, with the occassional upward glance [I wonder what he was writing in there?]).

But as I said, on this release, there is a greater enthusiasm; and their music, despite its inspiration from Jamaica, is terribly English.

There's also something of the pastoral about them; their hailing from Wiltshire comes as no real surprise; and seeing them in somewhere like the Sir George Robey totally reinforced the concept of urban-folk music.

But it was out in the sticks somewhere or other that Culture Shock really shined; and the free-festival atmosphere always suited their music the best.

The final two tracks on this album are both dub numbers, and for me they are the most evocative of that time.

Very much the sound one would encounter on one of those spaced-out quixotic meanderings one goes off on at festivals.

Kind of Narnia-like, you enter a magical world merely by pushing back a fold of canvas; and there you are, confronted with wonderful ska music and the best damn party on the planet.

I can smell the wood smoke, the incense, the pot, the diesel fumes, the donuts; I get that taste in my mouth of not sleeping properly, the illusion my mouth and teeth are under that I haven't eaten anything other than Rennies for the last forty-eight hours, that crippling sense of paranoia that kicks in when you can't find the fucking tent after searching for the last hour or so ('well, it looked like that field...'),

the bad back...

O yeah. That's why I don't go to festivals anymore.

Culture Shock - Go Wild (1986)

Punks on Postcards

Go Wild

Messed Up

Six Foot Rooms

Ten Per Cent Off

Circles

Mother's on the Phone

All (Messed Up) Together

Quality vinyl rip @320kbs.

Get yourself cultured here