This Saturday night Ben Wallers returns to Memphis as the Rebel, alongside tour mates Spray Paint and local openers Hash Redactor. Wallers has been making controversial racket since he formed the highly influential yet highly offensive garage band the Country Teasers in 1993. The Country Teasers specialized in making audiences uncomfortable with deconstructed garage-rock songs chock full of historical commentary that was equally as offensive as it was socially relevant. The band had a successful run of over 20 years, releasing records on A-list garage-rock labels like Crypt, In the Red, Guided Missile, and Fat Possum.
The Rebel
If it was possible for Wallers to get weirder with age, the British songwriter certainly achieved it with the Rebel, the project he’s been performing under for nearly two decades. Early recorded output from the Rebel doesn’t stray too far from the oddball country songs that Wallers cooked up with the Country Teasers, but, just as the Teasers got weirder toward the end of their discography (see the band’s cover of the Ice Cube classic “We Had to Tear This Motherfucker Up”), the Rebel has also been known to go off the deep end.
Also on the bill are Texas noise rockers Spray Paint, a band we’ve covered in this section before. Spray Paint recently released their debut album, Feel the Clamps, for Goner Records, and they are currently on tour with the Rebel, a trip they’ve opted to do before. Locals Hash Redactor open the show. Advance tickets are available at the Goner Records storefront.