So, you’ve found yourself with over four hours of free time, and not a single idea on how to cure your boredom. Well, you’re in luck, because Eonian Records are about to unleash an album that’s got enough music to last you the day, the week and the year (you get the idea). Rock ‘n’ Roll Rebels & The Sunset Strip sets out to do exactly what it says on the tin; celebrate the history of California’s renowned Sunset Strip glam metal history in the form of 36 bands and 72 tracks. Yes, 72. Rare ones at that.
From the outset of Disc One, you’re transported back to the 1980’s and 90’s where the music of Mötley Crüe and Van Halen to name but a few went hand-in-hand with vodka shots and smoking a cigarette or two. But this album aims to go beyond the bombastic stereotypes of the strip culture. Instead of a self-indulgence in the mainstream womanising bands, it brings to life the bands who went under the radar as music began to change after the 00s hit.
From Rattlesnake Shake’s (not the Fleetwood Mac track, sorry guys) hard-rock harmony delight ‘Shootin’ Daggers’, to the rapidly addictive riffs of Lypswitch’s ‘She’s So Psychedelic’, that could be mistaken for a Lars Ulrich kick-drum party mixed with a Vince Neil vocal showdown, it has it all.
It boasts what today’s music culture is all about. It thrives and grows from the unsigned bands who dig their way out of the ashes onto the stages outside of the toilet circuit. This is an album that pays tribute to those acts who didn’t make it into the mainstream, but who would have been the soundtrack to the infamous Roxy and all things rebellious. The rarities that shook culture for its debauchery and naughty behaviour. As Eonian Records say: “Great music never dies.” .
