Hook or Crook Records!!!

Hook or Crook records is proud to release the debut solo full length CD from The Rebel aka Ben Wallers.

Known to too few as the primary force behind the Country Teasers, KIT finds Ben going places we haven't quite heard from him before.

Also, please visit Junior Aspirin and pick up The Rebel's brilliant "Prawns" LP.

"THE REBEL"comes from the Tony Hancock film of the same name wherein a pathetic miser goes to Paris and ends up inheriting his flatmate's paintings, which he passes off as his own work, becoming the darling of the Paris scene. Finally he runs out of these inherited works and has to produce his own, with hilarious results. The Paris scene of course love these monstrosities equally. (Subtext : they look to the layman like Cubistic Picassos). This is my approach to making art, and indeed being alive in general. I don't want people to get the idea i'm Without A Cause or rebelling against Whatever You've Got." --"THE REBEL"

“ I still think the Country Teasers are the greatest band in the world. No-ones touched them… They're fantastic, Ben's never written a bad song in his life. He's never written anything less than an absolutely amazing song. I think they're like the biggest secret in the world. They should be absolutely gigantic… I'd say that they should've changed music, but didn't cause not enough people heard them.” --John McKeown, The Yummy Fur, October 5 th , 2002.*

The Rebel, Ben Wallers, as core component of The Country Teasers, has been releasing albums for more then a decade now, and for that, we should all be thankful. Wallers has been producing at a prolific pace, releasing records on a list of the three best record labels of the 90's, Crypt, Fat Possum, and In The Red.

Wallers's music is filled with complex contradictions that form a miraculous, seamless whole. Modernistic sounds peacefully share sonic space with rootsy Americana. By turns both approaching avante garde (without any of the pretention that implies) and openly accessible, Wallers's music can aurally mesh the most bombastic and overtly aggressive alongside nakedly sentimental, beautiful ballads. Lyrically it can go from offensive parodies of the worst quality of American white male to sincere sentiment, in the space of a few notes. It's quintessentially American, as interpreted by a native English child prodigy who can speak six languages.

Nowhere are the disparate elements more apparent than Ben's solo project, very aptly named The Rebel. The Country Teaser's swagger is toned down, into something quieter and far more unsettling. It's personal, unique, and idiosyncratic. It's mysterious in a way music rarely is.

Ask Blur. Ask Pavement. Ask The A-Frames. Ask Franz Ferdinand. Ask Greg Cartwright. Ask Mick Collins. Trust the words of John McKeown, they will all tell you: Ben Wallers is a true original, and The Rebel is Ben's music at its most pure.

*This was not in response to a question asked about The Country Teasers, or Ben Wallers, but something Mr. McKeown felt compelled to share with the world. --Monty Buckles, The Lamps