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COCKNEY REJECT: |
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But there is also a good chance that a biography or autobiography will inspire further interest in its subject matter. Jim DeRogatis' opus on Lester Bangs ("Let It Blurt") is one. And "Cockney Reject" is, to my boundless joy, another. Even in this anything goes era, the Cockney Rejects stand as a unique band. Their metamorphosis from top-notch punk to top-notch rock was oft duplicated but never surpassed. They helped invent the street rock genre of Oi, then wisely moved on to other things. Always surprising and never taking the easy way out, the Cockneys are what all rock music should be about, as far as I'm concerned. And it's more than pleasing to report that Turner's autobiography follows the same aesthetic the band carved out during their career. It starts with young Jeff Geggus (Turner is his stage name) getting his nose bashed in at the age of seven on East London's mean streets and doesn't let up from there. Only eight years later Jeff is fronting the Cockney Rejects with older brother Mick on guitar. In an amphetamine-paced career, the band went from teenage kicks ("Flares & Slippers") to pure in your face punk ("Bad Man", "War on the Terraces", "Join The Rejects" and so many more). They kicked in a bucket of rock-pop-punk gems on "Power & The Glory". Then it was on to nonsense hard rock (the entire "Wild Ones album and later "Lethal") and bluesy excursions like "Quiet Storm". There was even time for reggae noodlings and pop styling on the vastly underrated "Unheard Rejects". (Incidentally, my favorite record by them, it's a series of studio out takes from their punk era which has stood the test of time even better than some of their more well known tunes). The band was from both a period and a location where you had to walk the walk as much as talk the talk. "Cockney Reject" is an almost unending series of brawls between the band and rivals in the punk scene, rivals from the football scene, political agitators, music press snobs and sometimes even each other. The Rejects were probably the most successful acolytes of the band-as-gang school of rock, as practiced by Thin Lizzy, early Stones, Rose Tattoo and Guns & Roses. There's a fantastic series of anecdotes in the book. The ones that come to mind as I write this are Billy Idol getting a kick in the ass from Mick Geggus, the dubious tutelage the band received from the well meaning but eccentric Jimmy Pursey, and the crashing of Elvis Costello's beer tent. As well as time the band terrorized a stuporous Ozzy Osbourne. What makes the book far and away more than a fun and entertaining read, though, is Turner's take on both himself, the band and the various scrapes and hijinks they get into. There is a bracing objectivity in his reflections that is a rare commodity in any memoir these days. Turner doesn't once try to justify the band's often-obnoxious behavior, sometimes to their own patrons. Football fueled violence tailed the Rejects, their outspoken and unrelenting support of West Ham FC was in it's own way as self-destructive as Johnny Thunders' heroin use. But again, Turner refuses an easy cop out. Of a particularly violent gig in Birmingham he writes: "It was a horrible night…. I don't know if the experience toughened me up or fucked me up. I don't. It was traumatic…[a] fight for survival. It was vicious and nasty and our songs were the main cause of it". This is the sort of thing that I wish that those noxious tough guise that insist on turning every rock show into a pummeling match would read. There's nothing particularly manly or exciting about getting smashed in the head with an ashtray so hard that your scalp hangs off. People who grew up surrounded by this sort of thing--even if some of it is self-inflicted--generally want nothing more than to escape it at some point. It's funny but not really surprising when Jeff and Mick go through a Grateful Dead/Golden Earring/Free stage and toy with the idea of turning the Rejects into a hippie jam band. Another subject Turner takes head on is politics: "We weren't Socialists like the Upstarts or hippie anarchists like Crass. We had nothing but contempt for politicians. We were anti-politics from the start". Now, Turner would probably nut me full on for saying this, especially as I lean towards the hippie anarchist end of the spectrum, but his working class iconoclasm, staunch individualism and rabid hatred of authority constitute a rugged street politics all of their own. There is only one real shortcoming to the book. I would have liked to know more about the milieu that the band came from in terms of family and friends. Of course, you get the big picture, a tough fan base of hard-core supporters, a loving but strict blue collar upbringing, but it's a little on the general side. Perhaps Turner didn't want to get too personal about other family members, which is understandable, but his occasional reminisces about his parents, siblings and the East End constitute some of the most interesting parts of the book. Similarly, you know the type of friends the band had, but it's hard to get a fix on what some of these folk were truly about. (More on other actual band mates would have been nice as well, then again, I guess they could always write their own bios).
Overall though, "Cockney Reject" provides a memorable, riveting read that
doesn't let up in its intensity from page one right through to the end.
It's the perfect literary accompaniment to a formidable recorded and live
legacy. Nice one, Jeff. |
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-Sascha |
I've
found that books about or by my favorite artists can be dangerous
propositions. Quite often I come away with them with more insight but less
enthusiasm for the subject. Tony Fletcher's "Moon" was excellent yet
wildly depressing. "From Grand Funk to Grace; The Authorized Biography of
Mark Farner" was a scattered, evangelical bore.