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:: The Revelators - Serve The Man (Original 7" Version) ::

:: The Revelators - Crawdad ::

There was a time during the 90's where a ton of dirty, filthy garage rock spewed up from under the broken sidewalks of American music. A lot of it was sloppy, but the energy and raw soul in much of the music made it rock harder than the tighter "guitar bands" that ruled those times. It was a great time to buy vinyl, because most of these bands put their stuff out on vinyl. I think I was in between record players at the time, but I had a friend in Reno who would send me cassettes of sparse, noisy garage rock from his collection. I wasn't always able to find the cool stuff myself, but I did stumble across Crypt Records samplers. I have two of them, and with as much as they packed on there, and the ferocity of most of the songs, they're some of the best bargains I've ever come across.

The first band that really caught my ear was The Revelators. The song that did it was "Serve The Man," with a guitar sound like spinning wheels kicking out gravel and the drums being played with murderous intensity. It's pure American moonshine, a hybrid of punk and backwoods howl. I bought their album, We Told You Not To Cross Us , and was treated with more of the same. But I never did find anything else by them, and learned they'd broken up without ever releasing their 2nd album. When I came across this 7" the other week, I picked it up thinking it would be cool to have one of my favorite songs on a 45, especially a song so deserving of crackles and pops. When I put it on, I was happy to find out it's a different version, and the b-side isn't on the CD I have.

When I was trying to get a little more info on them for this piece, I ran across a post about them on the fantastic Something I Learned Today blog. There you can find the album version of "Serve The Man" and a few other treats, plus a little more info. I also found out there are at least 2 other bands, both with websites and both apparently active, called The Revelators. Don't be fooled, they can't touch this one.


Tony

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