Opportunity stopped knocking for the Rousers, although to be fair, it never really pounded on the door that loudly. Receiving passing interest from major labels, the most encouraging attention paid to them by Warner Bros. and RCA, the revved-up punkabilly blasters initially rolled out of Connecticut like a street gang of old-school greasers and headed for New York City, hopped up on the back-to-basics, rock ‘n roll fury of The Heartbreakers and The Ramones and obsessed with Duane Eddy’s ‘50s-style twang.
Crashing the party at NYC’s CBGBs and Max’s, they also went cruising across the East Coast punk/new wave club circuit, building a strong following the old-fashioned way. Madonna opened for them, as crazy as that sounds. They had a signature cocktail at Max’s and shared stages and gutters with punk-rock alley cats like the Dead Boys, David Johansen, The Cramps, and Mink Deville, just to name a few. All of that, and more, is lovingly recounted in the revelatory liner notes – penned by enthusiastic punk chronicler Tim “Napalm” Stegall – that accompany 1979 Sire Session, a thrilling throwback to the Rousers’ salad days, when their sublime talent predicted a bright future. An explanation for the almost criminal lack of recorded material from the Rousers is provided, which doesn’t make it any less disappointing that there isn‘t a mountain of it out there.
The label that came closest to signing the Rousers was Seymour Stein’s Sire, which opened its Upper West Side basement studio to a swinging riot, overseen by Ed Stasium. Salvaged by James Reynolds’ Left for Dead Records, these lively demos from that smash-and-grab session crackle with life, the full-throttle energy of the original lineup exploding out of the speakers in the short instrumental blaze “Ram Rod,” where the double-barreled guitars of Bill Dickson and Tom Milmore let out a mighty, muscle-car roar, and the punchy rave-up “Product of the USA,” running clean and hot with tight, cocksure hooks. Their sweaty love for Eddy’s trademark sound bleeds from a rambunctious “Twanged If I Do, Twanged If I Don’t,” just as it pervades the surfy rockabilly blowout “Movin’ N Groovin’” – full of confident swagger and electrifying, raw horsepower. They had that in spades.
At the same time, the Rousers could tenderly articulate matters of the heart, like in the soulful ballad “Smother” and a pleading remake of Wilson Pickett’s “If You Need Me.” Kicking out the jams was their calling card, though, and they injected some real venom into the riffs of the roots-rock strut of “Be My Girl” and an excitable “Party Boy,” which shakes its hips like Elvis. With “Lonely Summer,” the Rousers married garage-rock and surf, which isn’t anything new, but the track has a pop sparkle to it that’s impossible to ignore. So is the low, wild rumble that is “Bumblebee Rock,” which ends 1979 Sire Session in boisterous, gnarly fashion. 1979 was a good, maybe even great, vintage.
