The
Rezillos
This article originally appeared in NFH #15 in
the winter of 1989.
Hey!
Let's have a Rezillos revival!
What? You never heard
of them? That's hardly a suitable excuse. It might be getting hard to find their stuff
now, but if you don't have a Rezillos record in your collection, well, you don't have a
collection. These guys were one of the classic cartoon punk bands of the late 1970's, and
although the press didn't seem to be able to decide whether they were supposed to like
them or not, the records they left behind leave no question what the choice should have
been.
The Rezillos blasted
off from Edinburgh, Scotland in late 1976 playing gigs in the Town Hall in front of people
who hadn't yet had a taste of any of the punk bands from down London way. The lineup at
the time consisted of Fay Fife and Eugene Reynolds (who also played drums for a while) as
lead vocalists, Hi-fi Harris and Jo Callis on guitar (Jo used to be tagged as "Luke
Warm"), D.K. Smythe on bass, Angel Patterson on drums, William Mysterious on sax, and
Gale Warning as backup singer/go-go dancer. The songs zoomed along at a pace that hadn't
been felt in Scotland in years, with great slabs of guitar, racy bass lines, and pounding
drumwork, covered with the tag-team singing duo of Reynolds and Fife, whose vocal approach
was inspired by some of the best pop bands of the 60s. The lyrics were lunatic stuff about
flying saucers attacking, or spaceship rides to Venus, or girls with good taste in
sculpture. In an age of bands trying to change the world, the Rezillos were totally
undiluted fun.
The independent
record scene was just beginning back then, and in Edinburgh a fellow named Lennie Love had
been thinking about starting his own label, and with the Rezillos right in his backyard as
the obvious first signee, he was all set to launch his "Sensible Records" label,
which occurred with the August 1977 release of the single "I Can't Stand My Baby/I
Wanna Be Your Man", the latter track being a Beatles cover. The single shows the band
trying to figure out what it takes in the studio to get the sound they want, and doesn't
really have the kick of their subsequent releases, which explains why the Sire reissue of
this single is pretty easy to come by even now. As a strange aside, some 400 copies of the
Sensible release were pressed with a demo version of "My Baby Does Good
Sculptures" on the flip, even though the sleeve still claims the flip is "Your
Man".
Lineup shuffling
quickly set in, with Gale, Harris and Smythe leaving. Mysterious moved to bass for a
while, but soon he left and the band added Simon Templar on bass. But label interest in
the Rezillos was building (everybody was falling over each other to sign up "new
wave" bands at that point), and the band made their big move to Sire in late 1977, a
seemingly logical pairing given the spiritual relationship the Rezillos shared with the
Ramones, but one that they were to complain bitterly about later. By December 1977, the
band had a new single "Flying Saucer Attack/(My Baby Does) Good Sculptures".
This one also suffers from polite production that squashes out most of its energy, but
both songs are great, as would be revealed shortly.
In early 1978, Sire
brought the band to New York to record their first lp Can’t Stand The Rezillos,
with Tony Bongiovi (who also co-produced the Ramones Leave Home and Rocket To
Russia) handling production. These sessions finally brought out the right sound; good
fat guitars and lots of craziness, as you'd have to expect from the titles. The
"Flying Saucer" 45 was re-recorded (both sides) with lots of punch, and there's
other great loony songs like "Cold Wars", "Top Of The Pops" and
"Bad Guy Reaction". "Cold Wars" was allegedly released in the UK as a
single with "William Mysterious Overture" as the flip, but I've never seen this
in years of looking (anybody know anything about it?).
The band, which was
always into tacky looking 60s-type clothing, apparently were in heaven during their New
York stay. "Great plastic here", Mysterious was quoted as saying in an
interview. "Canal Street is right oot o' my fantasy world". They played at a
show at CBGB's (natch) and though the fans applauded wildly and cheered, the band weren't
happy with the reception, expecting the sort of pogoing they'd get back home. The band got
rave reviews for both their music and for being incredibly visual, with Eugene (dressed as
a comic book super-hero) and Jo Callis flying around the stage and Fay dancing wildly in
her mini-skirts and go-go boots. Sadly, it was to be their only American performance ever.
The lp consisted
mostly of songs written by Callis, but also had a good share of covers; Dave Clark Five's
"Glad All Over", Jeremy Spencer's "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked
In" (THE authoritative version of it to my way of thinking), and another one called
"I Like It" all fit seamlessly into the lp track listing, redone in suitably
rampaging style.
In August 1978 Can’t
Stand The Rezillos was followed up with the 45 "Top Of The Pops" including
the non-lp flip "20,000 Rezillos Under The Sea", which is actually a rave-up of
the theme from "The Lone Ranger", performed with saxophone and kazoo. In
November the band hit again with the super "Destination Venus/Mystery Action",
but they were already starting down the path to what would be a very acrimonious breakup
in a few months. The band situation was made awkward by the fact that Jo Callis wrote
virtually all of the material, yet Fife and Reynolds, as the visual focus of the band,
were perceived to be the leaders.
Commencing a 40 gig
blitzkrieg tour in December 1978 was probably not a great idea given all this, and as it
proved it was catastrophic. Fay's voice gave out with the result that half the shows were
canceled. This in turn resulted in the bankruptcy of the group as there were promoters,
rental companies and roadies to be paid whether the shows went on or not. The band
essentially ripped in two at this point, with Reynolds and Fife forming the Revillos and
Callis, Patterson and Templar creating Shake.
In a bitter interview
in New York Rocker in 1979, Reynolds and Fife summarized what they thought were the causes
of the band's split: "They wanted to be competent musicians first and
foremost, and we wanted to be adventurous...they're not - they're still playing old
Rezillos numbers, for Chrissakes. Secondly...there was a great deal of disrespect from the
other three towards us because we were singers - not really musicians. Third was
attitudes towards the music business. They were satisfied with Sire, prepared to take any
shit given them, whereas we have always wanted total control of everything...who wants to
get into the top 20 with a record that's not your own work? "Top Of The Pops"
was recorded by some guy in a 24 track studio who we didn't want in the first place, and
the artwork was awful."
Their opinions are
colored in my mind by comparing Rezillos records to the Revillos. The Revillos totally
lost the guitar edge and the great songs that Callis gave them, and the result is pretty
uninspiring. Besides, who can blame Callis for continuing to do Rezillos songs in Shake;
hell, they were his songs! And I always felt that the "TOTP" single
(along with the subsequent live single of "Cold Wars") have some of the more
classic pic sleeve artwork I've seen. Callis and Patterson gave their side in the same
article: "The name Rezillos described what the five of us did together...and they're
cashing in on it now. Because we wouldn't let them keep the name Rezillos, they changed it
to the Revillos, which we couldn't do anything about. They knew people would associate the
Revillos with their old favorites the Rezillos."
But in general Callis
seemed a lot less bitter about the situation than Fife and Reynolds, and he did express a
good deal of dissatisfaction with Sire, with whom his new band, Shake was now signed. They
cut an ep in March 1979, and it didn't get released until July. Released as a 10",
it's actually much better than any Revillos records, though it misses the crazed vocals of
Fife and Reynolds. They released one more single (the great "Invasion Of The Gamma
Men"), and then called it quits.
To pay off debts,
Sire released a second Rezillos album called Mission Accomplished...But The Beat Goes
On in the spring of 1979. A live lp recorded in Glasgow just before Christmas in 1978,
this record got panned universally for having muddy sound, but personally, I can't see it.
If anything, I think the live lp is even better than Can’t Stand The Rezillos.
The performances smolder and the guitar is mixed real loud and hot. Half the songs appear
on earlier recordings, but almost all are improved by the feeling of spontaneity they get
from being played live. Best are "Cold Wars", the new "Culture Shock"
(later on the Shake ep), and a totally out of control take of the Sweet's "Ballroom
Blitz" that blows away every version of this often covered song I've ever heard.
I've pretty well lost
track of the wreckage of the band in the intervening years. The Revillos carried on for
quite awhile and had several 45s and a couple lps, none of which approached the punch of
the weakest Rezillos record. Shake had their one ep and a seven inch single, and Callis
subsequently turned up in the Human League for a while; a depressing end for one of the
better slash guitar players that punk ever produced. But the title of the live lp serves
as a fitting epitaph; I'm not sure that the band wouldn't have become stale on their own
if they hadn't broken up, but the pile of vinyl they left behind is certainly magical
stuff.
Closing note from
1997: In 1993 Sire/Warner Bros released a re-issue CD with all of the first Rezillos lp
and all but one track ("Destination Venus" - unfortunately one of the best) from
the live album, along with great liner notes from former Trouser Press writer Ira Robbins.
Almost everything the band ever did on one CD - essential!
