The Rezillos

Though injected with the same DIY spirit and energy as their punk peers, The Rezillos were a more goofy, oddball explosion of girl group pop, B-movie trash and plastic jumpsuits that came bouncing out of Scotland in the late-1970s. Formed by singers Fay Fife and Eugene Reynolds and guitarist Jo Callis while at Edinburgh Art College, they were fans of glam rock flamboyance, Americana, Motown hooks and Ramones riffs, taking their name from a café featured in the DC Comic 'The Shadow'. Describing themselves as a 'new wave beat group' with a mission to make noisy, fast pop music, they wrote about sci-fi fantasies and teenage daydreams and made their name with the single 'Top of the Pops' which, despite sneering at the record industry, reached number 17 in the UK charts in 1978 and saw them perform on the iconic BBC show of the same name. Another famous television appearance was on the 'Old Grey Whistle Test' performing 'Destination Venus' and 'Get Me Down'. Shortly after, the album 'Can't Stand the Rezillos' on Sire Records became a cult classic filled with camp, cartoonish garage-rock and rowdy covers of Dave Clark Five, Fleetwood Mac and Gerry and the Pacemakers songs. The band split at the end of 1978, but Fife and Reynolds continued on as The Revillos and found a big audience in Japan, and Callis joined Boots for Dancing and later Human League. The band's classic line-up reformed in 2001 for a Hogmanay show and toured North America after their track 'Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked in Tonight' was used in 'Jackass: The Movie', but it wasn't until 2015 that they released their fourth album 'Zero' and recaptured the wild, gonzo giddiness of their youth.

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