He’s a real tasty geezer
I’m not sure who or what this Johnny Reggae bloke was supposed to be, with the lines about how he’s “grown his hair a bit but it’s smooth, not too long” and his “two-tone tonic strides” I’ve always pictured him as a Suedehead, but they didn’t wear “big white basketball boots” far as know, so maybe this is some other offshoot of Mod that I’m unaware of. But English youth cults can be hard to pin down sometimes, especially the whole Mod-Skinhead-Suedehead continuum where the differences between them can be measured in the width of a Ben Sherman shirt collar.
Download: Johnny Reggae – The Piglets (mp3)
For those that don’t know this was a famous one-hit wonder from 1971 and “he’s a real tasty geezer” became a popular phrase for years, at least round my way.
part of the original skinhead dress that alot of people have forgot about was the grandad shirts army greens and white converse allstar baseball boots . this could be seen all around london and the counties . it came about during the transition between skinhead and suedhead . like every thing else with clothing then the make and type was very important.having said that i dont think i remember anyone wearing allstars and tonics at the same time.
“He’s as real tasty geezer” was a popular description of skinheads and other hardnuts before the song by Jonathan King (aka The Piglets). Jonathan King simply took an expression from a cult of the time and used it in his song. King had many hits before and after Johnny Reggae but his alter ego(s), The Piglets, only had the one. The rest of his description was pretty much unrecognisable to me but he may either have been using poetic licence or that might be what King could see from the distance he kept from “real tasty geezers”.
I remember reading Charlie Kray’s book, Me and me brothers and he said that tough men, among gangsters, were called “tasty” so it was definitely a common term before King used it to take the piss out of skinheads.
Thanks for the memory though even it did take me over two years for me to find it.
Mark