“Cockney Reject - The Jeff Turner Story” is just recently published. It’s the biograghy of Cockney Rejects vocalist Jeff 'Stinky' Turner. With, the sales blurb announces, a foreword by Morrissey.
The launch with the band was in Purfleet on 2nd September, and while there is an introduction to the book on the band’s website, it’s hardly Morrissey’s contribution. So it’d be great if anyone could put their hands on the book and report back on what the forward says.
Garry Bushell co-wrote the book. He pens columns for ‘The People’ and has produced a comprehensive history of the English ‘oi’ punk movement that Cockney Rejects represent, a movement maligned and misunderstood, with some parallels to Morrissey's story. A little summary goes like this: “Oi’s self-definition of ‘having a laugh and having a say’ got it right on the button. The laughs were ten a penny for Jack the Lads knocking back pints and pills and pulling at the pubs, rampaging at the football grounds and revelling in rebel rock’n’roll at the gigs. Oi reflected that, but it also cried out against the injustices weighed up against the young working class. In that sense Oi was a real voice from the backstreets, a megaphone for dead-end yobs. At its best it went beyond protest, and dreamed of a better life: social change; the kids united.”
The rest is at this link.
· band’s website
· this link
· More News/Media stories
· More Index stories
· Also by davidt
No!!!! (Score:0)
Correction (Score:0)
Who is proof reading this site?
South East London says (Score:0)
Oi Oi! The Rejects were Great (Score:0)
EAST END!
Re:Oi Oi! The Rejects were Great (Score:2, Interesting)
yes yes i see the moz thing about the dying english working class etc but that's just nostalgia. the real face of this now is the BNP. or euphemisms for it
on his political website he includes managing 'the blood' in his cv. another sad euphemism: they used to be called coming blood (great name)
(User #12826 Info)
Parent
Re:Oi Oi! The Rejects were Great (Score:2, Informative)
People like Mensi didn't do too much good for the movement's reputation either. While the Upstarts stuff was pretty anti racist/ anti fascist as well, he made some very offensive, insensitive comments in an interview way back when, that will probably stay with him for a long time. I don't know too much about Gary "Gal Gonad" Bushell's recent politics, but he never was the sharpest tool in the shed. He has been a part of some great music. The Cockneys were a top band, as well as the likes of Cock Sparrer, Sham 69, Infa-Riot, Menace, Last Resort, The Business, Slaughter And The Dogs, etc. It's just too bad that many of them will always be associated with a small brigade nationalist thugs.
(User #762 Info)
Parent
Oi Polloi (Score:2, Insightful)
In defence of Bushell, which is no easy task, as much as he championed Oi in Sounds, he was one of the first journalists to turn on the far right when they attempted to take over the scene. I think Morrissey's interest in street punk was tied up with perhaps his best work (as I remember he had skins running amok in the Our Frank period)and that empathy he has always shown to marginalised cultures, whether it is Irish Blood or the Last Truly British People. I am just waiting now for a cover version on his next 'balls-to-the-wall-rocking-out' album, of The Business's Sabotage The Hunt.
(User #14426 Info)
Re:Oi Polloi (Score:2, Funny)
(User #14426 Info)
Parent
Bushell the bastard (Score:0)
The man is a piece of low life filth.
Bushell is human sewage (Score:0)