Forgotten Rebels still wild, still kicking
Forgotten Rebels frontman Mickey DeSadist used to be a news junkie.
“I don’t pay attention to the news anymore,” says DeSadist merrily. “I pay more attention to gardening and mountain biking.”
DeSadist likes watching funny animal videos and reality shows like “FailArmy.” “Absurdities,” he muses. One day DeSadist was driving and happened to notice a huge corner sign that said Looney Land. He stopped to take a picture of it.
“They forgot to take the sign down before they set up the next business. Below that sign it said Legal Service,” he says. So it’s the “Looney Land Legal Service” he adds.
“It lists the serious crimes that they help people out with, like assaults, accidents, drunk-driving, and drug arrests. That’s the kind of stuff I think is funny,” says DeSadist, bursting into laughter.
DeSadist also loves “animal absurdities” and has witnessed many firsthand while mountain biking. He often does 24 km a day through the scenic trails of Dundas Valley which he compares to Kitchener’s Hydro Cut by Tim Hortons which he has also biked on.
“Sometimes I observe things and sometimes I have a camera. It is funny. I am in the woods and I am trying to take a picture of this big buck. This deer has a huge set of antlers on it. I am holding the camera up. He is staring at me, sort of waving his head and I am thinking, hey, my handlebars look like a set of antlers,” he notes, laughing again. “So I put the camera back in my pocket and I ride away as fast as I can,” he adds.
DeSadist says he’s never been a dangerous situation but he has spotted vultures’ nests and other birds around the Hamilton area.
“One day I am just flying down a hill,” he recalls. “There are fair-sized rocks and I am bouncing along rather quickly and out of the blue, a turkey jumps in front of me! And I started to laugh and I almost wiped out again,” notes DeSadist, referring to a serious mountain-biking spill a while back where he broke his arm and injured his heel.
“I did not want to hit the turkey!”
The Hamilton-based wildlife enthusiast/punk iconoclast recently celebrated 41 years in the music business.
In 1977, hi-octane singer-songwriter Mike Grelecki, a.k.a. Mickey DeSadist (weaned on Iggy and The Stooges, MC5, and Mott the Hoople), took his band of brothers, The Forgotten Rebels, raging into Canadian punk history, “taking the mick out” of everything in sight.
No one was spared — rednecks, drug addicts, warmongers, Nazis, necrophiliacs, corrupt politicians, Elvis, The Beatles, the Me Generation, strippers, hookers, punk dolls, new wave girls ... even themselves!
They also “punkified” music chart classics including The Drifters, Barry McGuire, The Who, Status Quo, David Bowie and punk comrades The Vibrators. All Rebels tunes were set to glorious kick-ass riffs and thrashing drums in the best punk tradition.
Their iconic music catalogue includes 1979’s EP, “Tomorrow Belongs to Us,” reissued in 1998 and now worth $150 to $200.
The band released their groundbreaking album debut “In Love With The System” in 1980 followed by “This Ain’t Hollywood” in 1982. Most recently came DIY live recording, “Last One Standing,” in 2011.
“We have a bunch of new material,” hints DeSadist. “We have not recorded anything yet but we will probably record some of it. We have nine new songs but we only play about four of them live. I wrote a few songs the other day and presented them to the guys to see what they think. They take the basic parts, fix them up and make them Rebels songs,” says DeSadist.
The Rebels’ roll call features DeSadist, guitar/vocals; Jeffrey Campbell, guitar; Shawn Maher, bass; and Dan Casale on drums.
DeSadist says he prefers the “simple guitar/bass” thing, and will likely put the next release out on CD and vinyl.
“I really don’t think that vinyl is going to go away and I don’t think the CDs are going to go away,” he states.
“What we are into now is that we are going to lose a whole lot of interesting data over the years.
“People are not making hard copies... We are going to lose a lot of good stuff and then years and years later, people are going to find one of these and go, oh, I found a lost Jackson Pollock.
“Then again, I once worked at a camera store and I was sick of everyone’s horrible holiday slides. Do you think I really want to look at their holiday slides?”
“You don’t need thousands of pictures,” he notes. “There are an awful lot of them that are not worth taking. Back then when they would take our band photo, the guy would bring five rolls of film ... five times 36 is what, 180. He would take 180 pictures and give you five that you like,” he states. “Now they take 1,000 pics and give you five that you like!”