The Offical Cockney Rejects New Website

 

The Cockney Rejects were formed in 1978 in London’s East End by Jeff Turner and Micky Geggus. Fueled by their love of old-school punk and seventies rock, they recruited then brother-in-law Chris Murrell on bass and Paul Harvey on drums.

Their first demo, ‘Flares n’ slippers’ caught the attention of small wonder records supremo Pete Stennett who put them into the studio with producer Bob Sergeant to record the song as a single with ‘I wanna be a star’ on the b-side.

The single was a huge success which sold out its’ initial pressing and went on to figure prominently in the indie charts for months.

Realising that the original line up was only ever going to be temporary, they recruited 21 year old Vince Riordan on bass, who in turn brought in drummer Andy Scott from fellow East End band The Tickets, and the ‘classic’ line up debuted at their regular haunt the Bridge house in Canning Town in June ’79 supporting the Little Roosters and life was never the same after that!

As the press went potty and so did the punters, so the record deal offers came flooding in and in September ’79 the band signed with EMI after which the classic ‘Greatest hits Vol.1’ was released in Febuary 1980.

Not a band to rest on its’ laurels, in between touring the U.K the band found time to record ‘Greatest hits Vol. 2’ which was released in October of that year, and had two hit singles with ‘The greatest Cockney Ripoff’ and ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles’ which celebrated the fact that their beloved West Ham United had reached the F.A cup final that year.

Unfortunately at that time the band were beginning to be associated with the burgeoning football hooligan movement that had arisen in Britain at that time, and because of their unabashed association with West Ham united, battles with rival factions at gigs effectively ended the band as a touring unit, and when then GLC supremo Ken Livingstone slapped a totally uncalled for London- wide ban on them (there was never any trouble in London!) the band seemed doomed. . <<<READ MORE>>>