Cockney Rejects

A gang of West Ham football fans who adopted punk rock into their working class lad culture, Cockney Rejects were one of the early Oi! bands and an institution in the East End of London. Whereas the Sex Pistols and The Clash were intertwined with art school fashion, brothers Jeff and Micky Geggus and the rest of the band bounced around to a boisterous form of punk that captured the spirit of the terraces. Signed to EMI in 1979, they went on to reach Number 21 in the UK with The Greatest Cockney Rip Off, a parody single poking fun at Sham 69, before performing their raucous version of I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles on Top of the Pops as a tribute to the 1980 FA Cup winning West Ham team. Their albums The Power And The Glory (1981), The Wild Ones (1982) and Quiet Storm (1984) built a loyal cult following, but their gigs were marred with violence from rival football hooligans and racism that started to infiltrate elements of the skinhead movement throughout the 1980s. Still performing and recording, the band is cited as having a huge influence on American punk acts such as Green Day, Rancid and NOFX.

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