Rubber City Rebels

Akron, OH's Rubber City Rebels were yet another hot, terrific punk-era rock & roll band circa 1977 that suffered from the total lack of independent labels back then. Lacking a strong connection to New York, they never got a Sire, Warner Brothers or Mercury deal like a few other great Ohio contemporaries (Dead Boys, Devo, and Pere Ubu, respectively) until they moved to L.A. and scored a deal with Capitol so much later, in 1980, when this sound was no longer au courant. But they were surely those bands' equal, very comparable to their friends the Dead Boys, who shared their Stooges/MC5 fixation. As well, singer Rod Firestone booked dozens of such bands into their home Akron club, the Crypt, that they somehow ended up owning and managing after setting the attendance record there one night. Their sound was nails-tough garage punk, part New York Dolls, part Dead Boys, and most of all part 1973 Stooges. And they've got that fantastic dirty sound with absolute rock & roll ethos that makes so many still obsess about them and the other bands of 1977. Re-Tired collects the closest thing they came to an actual LP of this original lineup/time. The five tracks from 1977's From Akron were actually their side of a split LP on fly-by-night Clone Records with the Bizarros, the Rebels' debut. Instead of including the two singles and much different, if also great, Capitol LP to ensure the continuity of the earlier sound and style, White Noise unearths a fine vault tape of eight songs from 1977 Crypt appearances. Part of this is three previously unknown originals (yeah!), the EP songs, and tough covers of the Chantays' surf hit "Pipeline" and Paul Revere & the Raiders' Kinks-like hit, "Just Like Me." ~ Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover, All Music Guide