Meet Ricky Rebel: Drafts For "Satan Brand Magazine" Cover And Layout

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After I told Ricky Rebel, in 1995, that I would help him make his very own magazine, he immediately got to work producing a torrent of design ideas and layouts. Above is his rough design for the front cover. I ended up designing something quite a bit less cluttered (I'll show you that later). I love his tagline here: If it doesn't say Satan it says nothing at all. I also love the little demon wearing glasses at the bottom of the page.

 

I wonder what "real" Satanists would make of Rick's drawings and his idiosyncratic take on their "faith"? Rick, after all, had no use for actual Satanism: "Anton Lavey is boring," he'd declare (correctly). Mainly, Rick just wanted to anger Christians, his favorite pastime.

UPDATE: This may very well be Rick Rebel on Facebook, though I can't imagine what he's doing in the presence of children. I'm not on Facebook, so I can't contact him through it. Anybody want to give it a go? Be discreet; it may not be him. OMG, I would love to get back in touch with him.

UPDATE: Pony Pal Diane has contacted Mr. Pender via Facebook. We shall see!

Meet Ricky Rebel: Demo Tape Cover Letter, 1995

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One thing I always loved about Rick Rebel was his complete indifference to the concept of duplicating devices.  If he wanted to make fifty flyers for a show, for instance, he would simply sit down and draw fifty flyers for a show. I've mentioned before that when Rick said, "I'll make you a tape," what he meant was that he would press record on his tape deck and sing songs (sometimes about you!) into it until the tape ran out. The idea of having a master tape from which duplicates could be made was something Rick had heard of, but felt no need indulge in. One time, for instance, Rick became obsessed with a cartoonist  I vaguely knew named Wayno, and told me that he had sent him a 60-minute cassette of dozens of songs all about Wayno, whom he had never met and knew next to nothing about (I think he just liked the name "Wayno"). I laughed and said that I wanted to hear it, but Rick had already mailed it. "I'll make you another one," he promised, and sure enough, a couple of days later, he gave me a brand new tape of himself sitting in his hotel room the night before and singing an hour's worth of songs about Wayno. I'd love to compare the two versions! He called it The Wayno White Album.*

So above is Rick Rebel's execution of the idea of a form letter ("DEAR ________") to send to record company executives with his recorded-one-at-a-time "demo" tapes. I hate to imagine the dozens of these that must have been thrown away unexamined. My favorite part is at the bottom, where he writes "PS. I also do art," as if that isn't rendered stunningly redundant by the wonderful drawings which crowd the rest of the letter.

I would have signed him.

*Rick also sent mash notes to cartoonist Ivan Brunetti, along with requests for his dirty underwear. Brunetti politely declined. I remember telling him, "No, no, he's serious."

Meet Ricky Rebel! Again!

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A couple of years ago I presented a lengthy series of posts about my friend Rick Rebel, an over-the-top gay "Satanic" drama queen who produced an endless stream of wonderful and peculiar drawings and music cassettes. To be honest, most PSP readers considered these posts to be baffling and perhaps disturbing, and I have a feeling that many suspected I had simply invented Rick Rebel myself (I didn't).

So let's have some more! Here are some additional examples of Ricky's excellent ball point pen on construction paper drawings, sketches which seem to answer a question nobody ever thought to ask: if John Waters directed a sequel to Rosemary's Baby, what would the graffiti in the 8-year-old Antichrist's textbooks look like?

 

So good. More to come! Click the topic tag below to catch up!

Meet Ricky Rebel: Two More Drawings, 1995

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Meet Ricky Rebel: Interviews, Part Three, 1995

Here's the third section of interviews with Rick Rebel from our 1995 one-off "Satan Brand Magazine." Part one is here and part two is here. Enjoy:

I really wish I had stuck with the plan to interview Rick about his childhood. I'd still like to do so! I've kinda been hoping that publishing all this stuff on PSP would bring Rick back out of the woodwork, but no luck thus far.

This has been the final part of the interviews I conducted with Rick, but there's more to come from Satan Brand Magazine, including a totally fun board game (!), and, of course, more cassettes. Stay tuned!

And also, isn't this ridiculous, cartoony "Satanic" stuff a good antidote to Glenn Beck's sappy Christian thing on the Mall this weekend?

Meet Ricky Rebel: Two More Drawings, 1995

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More Ricky Rebel blogging, yay! Here are two more ballpoint pen on construction paper drawings Rick gave me in 1995. If you're a newcomer to this series of posts, click on the "Ricky Rebel" topic tag below.

Meet Ricky Rebel: "Rock 'n' Roll Is A Drag" 60-Minute Cassette

Is anybody listening to these? Admittedly, the descriptions of the earlier two cassettes I posted don't make them sound too promising. This one is different, however, recorded in Seattle in 1996. "Rock 'n' Roll is a Drag" is much more sophisticated, featuring electric guitar, keyboards, drum machine, and even some double-tracked vocals. Now, when I say this tape is "more sophisticated," don't take that to mean that it is, in fact, sophisticated: technical issues abound, the instruments are overmodulated, etc. Still, it's quite a step up from his San Diego recordings.

And it's a lot of fun! There are 22 songs, and it really rocks. Two songs, "Coma" and "Satan's in My Underwear," are as good as anything produced in the 90s. Other titles include "You Bitch-Slapped Me Real Hard," "Killing the Spirit of Jim Morrison," "I Still Love You, You Fuckin' Jerk," and not one, but two songs about stalking Eddie Van Halen. It starts getting repetitive at the halfway mark, but if you are curious at all about Ricky's music, this is the one to check out. Here's the inside cover:

Here's the front of the song list (click both for bigger):

And the back:

Again, I really recommend this tape! The mp3 files weigh in at 173mb and are zipped up and available for download here.

Meet Ricky Rebel: Two More Drawings, 1995

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Meet Ricky Rebel: "The Nite David Hasselhoff Raped Me" 60-Minute Cassette, 1995

Rick Rebel, probably 1996, probably St. Louis, photographer unknown.

Whoah, OK, this tape is esoteric even by Ricky Rebel standards. It's another 1995 recording featuring Rick in his fleabag hotel room. Unlike the last one, though, this unique tape includes, in addition to him playing his guitar and singing songs about Satan and celebrities, long stretches of flipping though the TV, playing records at the wrong speed, listening to his neighbors argue, and the relentless ticking of a clock. On side two, noise from adjoining rooms gets louder and louder. If you listen to this tape all the way through with your eyes closed, you can experience what it's like to actually be Rick Rebel for an hour. It's unsettling. It's excellent. Here's the unfortunately artwork-free cover (click for larger):

I didn't index the tracks because of the stream-of-consciousness nature of this tape, but just left it at "Side 1" and "Side Two." The 92.6mb mp3 files are zipped and available to download by clicking here.

Click the "Ricky Rebel" topic tag below for more info, artwork, etc.

Meet Ricky Rebel: Two Drawings, 1995

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PSP's retrospective of the work of Rick Rebel continues with two ballpoint pen drawings. One thing I love about Rick's drawings is that he always feels a need to fill up all the available space. In Art History parlance, this is known as horror vacui, and it is often a hallmark of so-called naive or "outsider" artists.

Meet Ricky Rebel: Interviews, Part Two

Originally "published" in Satan Brand Magazine, 1995, San Diego.

More about Rick Rebel! I'll add some explanations between the scans. See here for intro and here for part one of the interviews.

Above: here's a link to Perry Vasquez, another 90s San Diego friend of mine. Below, when Rick Rebel says that "I'm spewing spew blood all over my face," he is referencing his favorite gag prop: foaming blood capsules. He used them all the time. He loved anything that would make him foam at the mouth:

By all means visit Baby Sue. Rick and I included their "Jesus Hates Stupid Homosexuals Like You" pamphlet in Satan Brand Magazine.

Rick did, indeed, later make several "Satan Lite" tapes. They feature him singing hilarious Satanic lyrics while listening to instrumental easy-listening albums of pop hits.

Rick claimed to have had several run-ins with various members of Stone Temple Pilots at the restaurant he worked at. It was always hard to tell if Rick's stories were real or just really good storytelling. I didn't care either way.

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!

Meet Ricky Rebel: Interviews, Part One

Yesterday I introduced you to the work of my 1990s friend Rick Rebel, the self-described "celebrity-obsessed, head-banging, Satan-worshiping, pot-smoking, homosexual waiter from Hell." Tomorrow you'll get to hear his music! Today, though, I thought, "Let's give everybody more info about Rick himself." What's he really like? What does he like in a boy? Is he really Satan's bitch?

One day in 1995, Rick was leafing through a bunch issues of Ben is Dead and Genetic Disorder in my apartment, and he said, casually, "I wish I had my own magazine."  "Well, let's make you one, then," I replied, and we proceeded to do so, eventually producing one issue of Satan Brand Magazine. Rick's tagline was great: Tired of that HEAVY Satan? It was a lot of fun to put together, but we were simply ridiculously poor, so only about twenty copies ever got made, all of which were given away to friends. I'm still proud of it, and have recycled elements from it many times. Here I go again, in fact!

The following is the first of several interviews with Rick from Satan Brand Get to know Rick! And he was like this all the time! Um... I guess at this point it's prudent to say that this content, just like Ricky Rebel himself, isn't for everyone. Kids, if any of these terms confuse you, just ask Mom and Dad! Enjoy:

Tomorrow: the first of several posts featuring Ricky Rebel's custom cassettes!

Meet Ricky Rebel

Ricky Rebel: Untitled, marker and makeup on lined notebook paper, 1996.

OMG, where to start? In the mid to late 90s, I lived in an apartment in downtown San Diego. A block away was a neighborhood hairdresser bar where I would sometimes have a few drinks after work. A couple of times I noticed this one guy who kind of stuck out: younger than me, manic and always bouncing off the walls, he had a proclivity for ridiculous "satanic" metal t-shirts and pentagrams drawn crudely in magic marker on his hands. Despite all these obvious warning signs, I found him to be funny as hell, and decided I had to get to know him. I was in for a wild, fun ride! Meet Ricky Rebel:

Where is Ricky today? I'm not sure. He ended up moving to Seattle a year or so before I moved to Washington, DC. There is evidence of him performing open mike shows in Seattle relatively recently. We fell out of touch when we moved our separate ways, and I regret not keeping in touch with him.

When I first met Ricky, he was working as a waiter at a terrible strip-mall "restaurant." He lived in a horrifying residential hotel downtown, literally filled with drunks, junkies, whores and more cockroaches than I've ever seen in one place. Life was not easy for Ricky Rebel: exiled from a strict, Christian family, barely literate but equipped with a surgically-sharp, brutally direct sense of humor, persistently frantic with a motor-mouth to match, Ricky was an epic drama queen to boot, consistently creating chaos and disorder wherever he appeared. In short, he was a bit much for most people, to put it mildly.

Ricky and I quickly became inseparable (but always platonic) friends. We hit the bars together, hung out and talked for hours, collaborated on art and writing projects. Rick loved that I was into art, and showered me with an endless torrent of drawings like the one seen above. He had this really funny, almost childlike obsession with Satanism, the one constant theme in his work. He was hardly earnest about it, though, and loved pointing out the ridiculously straight-faced "evil" found in the work of oh-so-serious bands like Slayer. Satanism was just something hilarious to Ricky, and he loved using it to rile people up. Here's another drawing of his to give you an idea of his take on the subject:

Being friends with Ricky Rebel meant receiving not only reams of drawings and notes, but also cassettes by the dozen. Ricky loved composing and recording songs in his hotel room. When he'd say "I'll make you a tape," he wouldn't duplicate one for you; no, he'd sit down with his open-tuned guitar, press record on his cheap cassette deck, and sing songs until the tape ran out. Some of the songs would be about the person the tape was for, others would be about Satan, and still others might be homoerotic tributes to his favorite heavy metal stars or violent fantasies about whatever celebrity was currently in the gossip magazines. No two tapes were the same. I've got about twenty of them. He was like a gay, Devil-obsessed Daniel Johnston. Or Jandek. But funnier.

So anyway, like I said, meet Ricky Rebel! I've got shitloads more stuff to scan, and I may even post some of the cassettes, if anybody is interested. Consider this yet another odd, hopefully unpredictable left turn on the Pink Pony. So more to come! Yay!

And obviously, Ricky, if you're out there somewhere, drop me a line!

Note: this is not him, thank goodness.