Thursday, August 05, 2010

Meet Ricky Rebel: Dance Party!

Cassette artwork, recto, click for bigger!

PSP continues our retrospective of the words, artwork, and now the music of the fabulous Rick Rebel. Please read this post if you're confused.

Like I said, when Ricky made a tape for you, he didn't simply dupe a copy; he sat down with his guitar and recorded a dozen or so songs especially for you. Sometimes the songs would be about you! One time Rick accompanied me to Comic Con (ugh), and after meeting my friend Wayno, he became so inspired by Wayno's name that he rushed home and recorded an entire 60 minute tape about him (without knowing anything about him), titled it "The Wayno White Album" and promptly mailed it to the startled cartoonist. 

The present tape featured here today, "Beer, Blood and Guitar Pics," is one of Rick's classic minimalist tapes, circa 1996, and is simply Rick strumming his guitar and singing about Satan. I mentioned in the last post that Rick's music is like  Satanic Daniel Johnston or Jandek, but it's not nearly as sophisticated as those artists. Maybe he's more like a demonic Shaggs? It takes a bit to get rolling, and I can't honestly recommend the Billy Joel, Jackson Brown and Queen covers at the beginning (songs 3, 4 and 5), but it eventually gets really good on side two (tracks 7 and onward). Here's the cover artwork (an 8.5 x 11 piece of construction paper) verso:


Songs include the poignant "Walking with Satan, "Satan's to Blame," "No Protection from Satan," and "When it's Late," in which Rick expresses his desire to kidnap and sexually assault Eddie Van Halen. This tape is heavy on the Satan and light on the violent celebrity fantasies which pepper Rick's other recordings.

The mp3 files are 67mb, about 40 minutes, zipped up and may be downloaded by clicking here. Note: songs 6 ends abruptly when the tape runs out.

Really, give this one a chance, because it's fun stuff. Enjoy!

4 comments:

Diane Griffin said...

downloading now. So excited! :D

Kristy said...

Haven't listened to his music yet but I really love Rebel's cassette artwork and the detail it has, reminds me a little of that Tom Tom Club album cover years back, but more interesting with all the great Satan imagery. I love the mouse feet, pentagram "halo's" over each head and color combination. I'm so glad you saved this and that your sharing, thanks.

Oh, and keep posting those bus photos, I'm looking forward to a retrospective at MOMA someday. Really, though, I love them!

Peteykins said...

Thanks, Kristy. I have to admit that Rick's visual art is my favorite thing of his. I'll be posting more.

Also, there are more interviews, and those are just totally hilarious.

Fran said...

Oh this is like a treasure found... thank you, thank you. It is just so goddam interesting. Love it!