Heavy Rebel Thunder

Last Saturday found me armpit deep in work undone; nevertheless, I felt I owed myself a holiday. Plus, my pal Chip pitched an offer I couldn't refuse. He was headed to Winston-Salem to check out the middle day of the 8th annual Heavy Rebel Weekender and offered me a free ride. I couldn't say no.

I'm a fan of much of the music that was offered at Heavy Rebel: punk, rockabilly, old school honky tonk, Western swing, cow punk, (insert your own made-up genre here).

I'm not one to judge those who live a throwback rockabilly lifestyle 24/7, complete with expensive vintage Levi's and expensive vintage muscle cars. To each his own. But the whole thing was quite a spectacle. In a good way.

Generally, the hillbilly, white-trash, tattoos-and-PBR scene is a tongue-in-cheek salute to the early days of rock n' roll, when it was still a very rebellious thing to be into. For all of the bad-boy and bad-girl posturing, the folks at Heavy Rebel seemed like a very gentle, tame bunch. You'd probably see more fights at a boy-band concert.

Thanks to Chip, we heard some good music, saw some sweet old cars, talked to nice people, ate a decent plate of fried chicken and mac n' cheese, and washed it all down with a few PBRs. A lot of the bands we wanted to see played Friday, namely Jimmy and the Teasers, SouthPaw, and Dexter Romweber and the New Romans, but we could only make Saturday, so you do what you can.

The co-ed mud wrestling to a backdrop of psychobilly surf guitar wasn't bad either.