Cockney Reject

Inspired by the Cockney Rejects being scheduled to play at the 2012 Punk Rock Bowling Festival that I am attending in Las Vegas during Memorial Day weekend, I decided to buy this book from Amazon.  It arrived earlier this week, and I read the whole thing yesterday.

95% of the book covers the life of the Cockney Rejects lead singer, Stinky Turner, from his age of 15-19.  If you do not like reading about violence, I would not recommend it.  Most of the stories are about the Cockney Rejects feeling disrespected by someone and then some sort of fight ensuing.  I found it an intersting, quick read, and I am glad I purchased the book to read.

Their is a very interesting story about a last minute trip to California that turned into them being held at gun point by a band member of the Circle Jerks.  This at a time when the Rejects were trying to be heavy metal rock stars with a sound closer to UFO than the Oi! sound that they helped to define across England.  In fact, they had a new drummer and bass player and they only knew how to play 3 songs from their earlier (best) period of their career.

It was quite an interesting 4 year period to go from being on Top of the Pops three times to being without any money.  This would be an incredible story for someone at any age let alone during the years of 15 to 19 years old.

I hope the unreleased tracks by the Postmen and the Cockney Rejects that are mentioned in the book see the light of day.  I would surely buy them to complete my Cockney Rejects discography.

Like a lot of punk bands from the 1970s-80's, they have had more financial success playing current music festivals throughout Europe and the USA.  It was interesting reading how blind they were to their popularity throughout the world outside of England.