Rebel Rousers (The Best Of Rebels – Volume One) – album review

Raving Pop Blast gives us the first of it’s Rebel Rousers compilations, the cover bills it as ‘The finest garage rocking – pop – psych – indie – scuzz – surf – punk – rhythm & blues – freak – beatin’ – primitive racketeers’ and promises a ‘vicious racket with it’s arms around you!’ Any profits from it’s sale go to CLIC Sargent-Young Lives VS Cancer. We gave it to Fighting Boredom’s resident delinquent, Quentin Nicotine to listen to, this is what we got back.

Amphetamines, check. Whiskey, check, switchblade, check. Shit, where’s my comb. Got to be razor sharp and poised for this one. Leather jacket creaking and satisfyingly snug, roll up on my Levis perfect and no one has pointier winkle pickers than me. There’s skull and crossbones flying around my head banging into eight balls and broken hearts.

Dude at the record store gave me this long player to listen to, had a devil and cool chick on the cover thought it looked like something a quiffed up delinquent like me would appreciate, or so he said. Got it home, cracked open a foaming bottle and took out this bright lime green glowing radioactive slab of vinyl goodness. Green? I shook my head and put it on the music maker, swapping the needle for the scuzzy stainless steel one with the leather inlay I play my good stuff with. Put the record onto the player and flip the switch.

What the actual? That harp is crystal man, those cats can play, my brain is satisfyingly freaked the flip out. The music is rocking man, it’s all beats and guitars and grooves. It’s all over the shop, moving into all the avenues of Rock and roll that I can imagine. Where’s the cats from that made this? Raving Pop Blast?? What is this thing doing to my head man? My sweet kitten is digging this too, shaking her hips and pony tail as she puts on that red red lipstick. We’re both doing the dead man’s jive around the room now, can’t seem to stop, stuff flying all over the place. 

The first side ends with a razor sharp slice of cool and we pause, hardly able to breath to flip it, turn it over and slap that needle back on. 

We’re strutting around the room, cigarette ash everywhere, hitting the walls and spinning across the ceiling, the lights are flickering and there’s fire outside the windows, this music man, this music. The groove turns bad man, deep down into the fear, and we can’t stop. Can’t stop. The whiskey is pouring itself, the lighters flicking without any fingers, it’s dragging us on and on.

The record finishes but the needle clicks on, the sweat is pouring off us as we collapse onto the pock marked scarred carpet, chests heaving and heads spinning and I swear that as my eyes close I can hear distant diabolical laughter.

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Raving Pop Blast have a Bandcamp page and are on Facebook.

The Young Lives Vs Cancer Clic Sargent webpage is here.