Patrick Emery, beat.com.au
The practice of rock’n’roll is replete with style. Leather jackets, stovepipe denim jeans, gym boots and a pirate’s hat worth of garish tattoos. A sneering anti-establishment attitude and the abrasive discourse of rebellion. Nobody ever conquered rock’n’roll with complicity and acquiescence. Profanities and substance abuse, behavioural excess and public offence. Buy the manual, learn the script, take the classes.
Loud Mag, Brian Giffin, 1st November, 2012
Years ago, Sebastian Chase made a promise to his lifelong friend Ian Rilen that he would release three of his albums. Now that the time is right, six years after Rilen’s death, for the last of those to appear, Chase has resurrected the famous Phantom Records to honour that commitment. Rilen didn’t stand for fame or fortune, which is why you probably know his bands – Rose Tattoo, X, Hell to Pay – but not him. Ian Rilen stood for rock n roll, and rock n roll is all over this album, lovingly packaged inside a hardback cover with an 80-page book of photos, art and dedications from those who knew and loved him best.
“Ian is pure heart, pure soul, pure music” – Paul Kelly
“Ian was a national treasure” Don Walker
“The man was a damn good kisser” Tex Perkins
“It’s got a massive thumping heart and a twinkling eye and a hand up yer back – the real deal” Tim Rogers
FORGET what you think about posthumous albums. Ian Rilen and the Love Addicts’ Family From Cuba is bursting with life.
Recorded in July 2006 just months before his passing, it’s an album that demonstrates how powerful and inspired Ian Rilen was right until the end. (more…)
The Age, Martin Boulton, 26th October, 2012
Family from Cuba
Ian Rilen & the Love Addicts
(Phantom)
FORGET the star rating when it comes to the final album from one of this country’s most passionate, rebellious and loved musicians – Ian Rilen was quite simply a star.
The original Bad Boy for Love – he wrote and played on Rose Tattoo’s most well-known song – Rilen was a brilliant, cheeky and eternally romantic star to the many fans he made over nearly four decades, to his family and his many, many friends. He died, aged 59, in 2006 after battling cancer, but not before making one more helluva rockin’ album…
Read the full article at The Age.
Houseboy, Faster Louder, 27th April, 2005
If Gene Vincent were alive today, and not at the birth of rock ‘n roll as we know it, he’d arguably be recording songs like Booze to Blame. Read the full article on Faster Louder.