Martin Popoff’s latest book titled “Rebel Rouser : A Sweet User Manual” is just out and promises to be a fascinating read on one of the UK’s greatest and most under-appreciated rock bands. As a fan, especially of the band’s mid ’70s hard rock phase – I am really looking forward to this!
Martin – “Glad to see this one finally out. Amazed at how little there has been on this band over the years. They’ve sold millions of records, but weird amongst bands, most of them were singles! And bloody all over the world. Plus those singles get unfairly maligned. They’re pretty cool, the mellow ones and the heavy ones alike, but of course it’s the metal they forged that me and my readers dig the most. Yeah, basically Sweet Fanny Adams, Give Us a Wink and Off the Record are the trilogy of a reason why I wanted to do this. And I guess one other reason, man, Andy is the last man standing and I wanted to show him that someone cares enough to do this, although he knows the guys are well-regarded, if getting a little forgotten.”
From Martin’s own details and ordering info – The book is 286 pages rendered in my usual format, namely every song discussed, one chapter per album, with dual tipped-in sections of colour photography, but also with black-and-white imagery lovingly marbled throughout. You’ve all been very kind in making my recent books like this on Angel, Mercyful Fate, Maiden and Priest sell good, so this one is very much a style match to those, with lots of detail and trivia nugget-mining not found amongst the almost non-existent material out there on Sweet. As the back cover sez…“Everybody wants a piece of the action!” They were the heaviest of the gender-bending glam bands in Britain in the ‘70s, with smash hit after smash hit and a stronghold in Germany of all places. Soon Sweet—Brian Connolly, Andy Scott, Steve Priest and Mick Tucker—would extricate themselves from their producer puppeteers and make a clutch of classic heavy metal albums still revered today. Desolation Boulevard, Sweet Fanny Adams, Give Us a Wink and Off the Record… these records formed the core before disaster struck, with lead singer Connolly falling prey to the demon drink and dying from it slowly over the following 20 years. Mick and Steve are now gone too, with Andy Scott being the last man standing from the UK institution that brought us “Ballroom Blitz,” “Action” and “Fox on the Run.” Come hear the band’s singular and bizarre start as pop tarts, their middle with one of rock’s most revered drummers in Mick, and how it all went wrong in a blizzard of booze, cocaine and busted relationships. But also, in the spirit of the book’s User Manual subtitle, come explore the band’s plethora of singles, non-LP B-sides, hard rock album classics and otherwise weirdly released songs as Martin plays DJ for you, taking you to every corner of the band’s crunchy catalogue blessed by the most angelic harmonies ever committed to virgin vinyl.
Ordering – Price including shipping: US orders: $39.00 US funds, Int’l orders (all books go air): $48.00 US funds Canadian orders: $42.00 Cdn. funds. Again, ask me if you’d like a PayPal invoice (please indicate what country you are in) or just do yer usual and direct funds to martinp@inforamp.net *Sweet postage savings to be had for multiple orders (or two of pretty much anything—long story, ask me!), for both US and Canadian orders.
Outsider Rock 