Get all 7 Culture Shock [ska-punk UK] releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Starts With A Scene, Mandemic, Everything, Found it in a Skip, The Humanity Show, Attention Span, and Solar Power- Live at Surplus Fest 2015.
1. |
Visibility
03:18
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VISIBILITY
1 2 3 I wanna be free
Every Tom and Harry wants a piece of me
Identity, postcode please
Everything else is up on the screen
Privacy? We're doing that for free
Membership on the world-wide sea
CCTV- it's looking after me
Safe and sound til I'm proven guilty
Watching out for either being watched or noticed
How the stage is set for acting out the new psychosis
1 2 3 nail me to the screen
Look at this face booked into some
Reality- please like me
All these instant friends are somewhere
Inbetween the two realities
Solitude shares in the company
It's not 3D this visibility
It's social mediaocrity
Watching out for either being watched or noticed
How the stage is set for acting out the new psychosis
Info wars- none of you is yours
We're living in a film and it's all recorded
You feel secure when they told you what it's for
Notional security better than before
The internet- and don't forget
The bigger it gets the more we use
The words 'protect' and 'under threat'
It goes too far down you want to reconnect
1 2 3 do you really want to be
Nothing more than humanised machinery?
Let's see if we can't all agree
To somehow take control of our need for
Visibility- I'll see you at the sea
3-dimensional non-pretentional
Unity- I don't want to be
Numb or numbered- 1 2 3
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2. |
Mindwash
04:04
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MINDWASH
Stranger than fiction it's no contradiction
There's nowt so new as an instant view
Day in day out see the heads stretch out
For the headline brand of minimal understanding
Just enough to feed the need
To point and nod it's all agreed
For hunger doesn't shrink away
From all there is to eat today
But lies and twisted gut reactions lay the world to waste
Negativity and cakes just nice enough to hide the taste of
Mindwash- throw out the trash it's
Mindwash- pick the truth to pieces
Feel a bit older look over your shoulder
Keep up with news before it happens to you
Stay in go out see the hands stretch out
For at least some cash for a tabloid wrap to crash in
Not close enough to home to know
The problem's everywhere you go
So best stay in and see the blame
Apportioned to these nameless frames
Homeless jobless hungry foreign bodies in our sights
Our reflection in their eyes dares us to read between the lies of
Minwash- fear of immigration
Mindwash- benefixation
Fear and suspicion creates the decision
To walk out of vision and take a position
In shadows of doubt see the world stretched out
In an atmosphere of of social engineering
If the only way to keep the hordes
Distracted without getting bored
Enough to question what they're told
Is human base response control
Then all it takes to stay awake and rise above the shit
Is to say my base response is this-
Fuck you and your misogynistic
Mindwash- bigoted and racist
Mindwash- war and money worship
Mindwash- tits and bums and dumbing it down
Is your conscience in a coma?
Is the bullshit taking over?
Mindwash- profit and pretension
- constant reinvention
- clarity prevention
- shattering attention
- pure indoctrination
- to prevent co-ordination
- it's the media classes
they're all talking out their asses
Mindwash
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3. |
Doesn't Work For Me
02:25
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DOESN'T WORK FOR ME
Another no-choice interview
That didn't work too well
He wanted to know my political views
And my taste in bed as well
I only came cos the rules got changed
I said, just take me on
Six months of me and for you it's free
And when I'm done- I'm gone
This working doesn't work me for
I'm paying to get off my knees
And then he got spontaneous
My job is yours! he cried
I'm wasting breath and sick to death
Of all these suits and ties
My life is on repeat until
65 and rising
I'm told exactly what to tell
And none of it's surprising
This working doesn't work for me
I'm paying to get off my knees
But where's the choice when the loudest voice
Cries 'Growth at any cost'
The greed machine needs poverty
To show what can be lost
Whoever doesn't want to work
Should work with those who share
The experience of the real expense
Of learning not to care
And there in some forgotten room
That is forever open
The poor and disillusioned
Traded styles of desperation
One will work to stay alive
The other wants but cannot buy
Both will see the positive
In a life they haven't even tried
This working doesn't work for me
I'm paying to get off my knees
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4. |
Uncivilised
02:26
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UNCIVILISED
I've got so much information now
I don't want to know it all
I feel left out if I raise a doubt
It's like talking to the wall
And so the anger rises when it should be gone by now
I've had the class in self-control and tried to settle down
But conformity is never quite enough to get around
The need to shout for more than this but such things aren't aloud
Cos comfort is the latest fix so shut up and tune in
The appliance of compliance to the cogs in the machine
The silent screams of loneliness or anger in the eyes
Are best suppressed don't show the stress- now we're civilised
So much compromise
Now we're civilised
Until there's no surprise
After all that sort of thing is burned into our heads
To be generally avoided cos you are what you just said
So take the time to redefine the resonance of will
That's screaming I just want to tell you how I really feel
And try to stop apologising just to make it less
Go further out that feeling we're alone with all this stress
There's more strength in resistance
When the No becomes a Yes
Go uncivilised
No more compromise
Go on have a surprise
It's what you were when you were born
It's what you are when you wake up
It's how the structures all get torn
Apart before they catch you up
Uncivilised
Is everything available and free
No more social slavery
How much mental baggage do you need?
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5. |
Things To Do
03:04
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THINGS TO DO
Trident? Scrap it's useless crap it
Sits there on the lap expensive
Send or bring the squaddies back
And let them work on flood defences
Dish the dole out to the slaves
Whose wages pay for them to say
You turned up 15 minutes late mate
There's no more benefit today
Here's a few ideas you might want to try
[chorus]
Look the powerful in the eye
You got the power so don't abuse it
Here's a few things to do
Before we die
Have the local vote decide
The pride of place in law and order
Change the name of countries twice a year
And open up the borders
Use machines to do the work
And pay us all a living wage
Close the internet at night
And get outside more during the day
Here's a few ideas you might want to try
[CH]
Check out the Icelandic way
To protest with their pots and pans
Shut down the banks who stole our cash they said
And yes they got shut down
Set the upper limit on
The most that anyone can make
Build the schools and hospitals
With all the income tax that's paid
[CH]
- and when there's no need for it
we'll take the politics out of music
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6. |
Someone Has To Pay
03:25
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SOMEONE HAS TO PAY
Here's a man with a jeer deriding
the sheer contempt of the rich and thriving
Here's a man with a plan surviving
One week at a time spent carefully
Through empty houses built to last
Heard a broken voice through a broken glass
Of a need to sleep off the concrete grass
In a rare spare room for a friend to crash and dream
Not fed on a diet of noise and flash
Attitude adjustment crashing
Waves of fiction dressed as fact
One-way straightline laughter tracked
You're never alone with a home of your own
And the kids are grown and stepping stones
To an extra income source perhaps
Cos the work collapsed and the benefit's capped
The empty room attracts a tax
Yeah cheers for that I'd invite you round
For a cup of tea but the bailiffs found
The kettle and spoon and our one spare room
And anyway
The power's gone now can't afford to pay
The debts and bills- what's that you say?
Here's a helping hand
We hope you understand
Why it has to be this way
Someone has to pay
From security screen to the broken dream
From the world of fun to the actual one
From the media view to the one that's true
From the Mother's Pride to the need to rely on-
Food banks
O nice one thanks that''s problem solved
Seems the political world evolved
To a bunch of jeering cheering sneering rich white men
Where's the helping hand?
Don't you understand
It doesn't work that way
Someone has to pay
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7. |
Private Revolutions
02:43
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PRIVATE REVOLUTIONS
The race it seems is on between
Volume and stupidity
All the private revolutions
Go unheard in this confusion
No peace comes with staying silent
It just keeps it close to home
It's easy to hide in crowded room
And hard to achieve when you're on your own
Spirits bend to keep from breaking
Lean towards the entertaining
Mix and match the overwary
With the empty loud and scary
Social nervous disbelief
Is this all there is? Good grief
Hope repeats its mantric curse
You'll never get it better til you've had a lot worse
Inside outside all the woes
Can paint the world in shades of black
Contact impact on assumptions
Watch them all come bouncing back
All these private revolutions
Waiting for the dam to break
Time to find the small but constant voice
Of common sense, and wake it up
Your anger keeps me thinking
Your hatred makes me sick
Your sadness makes me silent
Your shouting makes me quick
Your smiling makes me equal
Your frowning makes me hide
There's just so many people
With all this stuff inside
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8. |
Start at the Back
02:27
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START AT THE BACK
I'm looking for signs
I'm not out of my mind
And a new way to find the words to sum up this mess we're in
Where to begin?
Let's start at the back and work our way in
Over our heads
Fly the blue and the red
We worship the dead and bury the living
In layers of history
Media fictional
Version of life and the endless winning
As entertainment goes to war to keep us pacified
We all take sides and allocate the blame
What d'you expect?
It's what you get
Living a life on remote control
You can't set the people up
To thinking never got enough
Unless you show them all this stuff and they can't afford it
Generates the greed
Dishonesty and feeds
The notion that we need to fight you for it
Get the money in the bank
And an enemy to thank
It''s working through the ranks of normalisation
Is anyone aware
Of either being scared
Or angry to the point of retaliation?
As culture twists itself to fit the world in broken boxes
Pull the plug before we go insane
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9. |
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WHAT HAVE WE GOT TO HIDE?
'I got a tap on my phone' I said- the reply
Was 'Really? No that's just paranoid'
Read the news it's gone worldwide
And now you've got one too
We got national security ear and eye
On all we say and do- goodbye
To openness- here's your alibi
Stay shut up in your room
What have we got to hide?
Hands in a suit all open wide
'You've got nothing to fear if you've nothing to hide'
But who feels free to speak their mind
When it goes against the grain?
The pattern is set don't go outside
The internet and the TV guide
The social skills are all supplied
Make it easy on your brain
What have we got to hide?
And don't forget we're all at risk
From anyone who doesn't fit
He or she who shouts or spits
Or rips the newspaper to bits
Or has a beard or twisted lips
Or doesn't worship fish and chips
Or just got off a plane or ship
Or lives a life on benefits
- Such a lot of people,,,shit
Let's just assume they're terrorists
Fear will make us stranger to the other one next door
Reading between the lines that weren't even there before
What have we got to hide?
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10. |
Sky High
04:12
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SKY HIGH
Sky high they built the landscape
So they can look down- it's the best way
To get the buzz from being so first rate
In the game of making it pay
Sky high capital investment
In a building keeping it vacant
While the homeless down on the pavement
Used to live here getting in the way
Sky high looking at dreams through
Windows/screens at other people' s nightmares
Short term memory lane closed down
For the pain relief of looking elsewhere
Sky high figures on lists get bigger
The closer you get to the pyramid floor
It's critical mass and poverty's the trigger
People want to keep what they had before
And the bloke who used to live next door
Has just signed up to the new class war
He's heard too much and he's on the streets
Saying 'This no longer has any meaning'
Sky high out of his mind on
What he could find on
Minimum waging war on boredom
What did he find
But similar minds
Set ready to go when called on
The off-chance of a mass connection
So much going in the same direction
Is it sky high dreaming to be free from living
In a rat-race killing off human kindness?
Now it's putting our heads together and
Changing the cultural corporate mindset
Sky high bringing it down to earth
Or winging it bringing it to the ground
Sky high higher they get the further they fall
We'll see you on the way back down
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![Culture Shock [ska-punk UK] image](https://f4.bcbits.com/img/0001491969_10.jpg)
Culture Shock [ska-punk UK] Bath, UK
The original ska-punk-reggae fusioneers, who from 86-89 woke up the alternative scene with their 3 albums and incessantly energetic touring, and are now reformed since 2013, with another 3 albums since then- onwards!
Culture Shock [ska-punk UK] recommends:
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beautiful and energised, songs of hope and resistance to get fired up AND chilled out to!
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Another great release from a long standing band in the UK diy scene. From when I first saw them in Eastbourne in 1990 to this release now I still love this band.
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