The boogie-intensive 'One of the Boys' recalls George Thorogood at his baddest, while 'The Butcher and Fast Eddy' - a gritty shuffle about dueling gangs of outlaws - offers a Down Under adaptation of the classic Stagger Lee urban fable. First song, 'Rock 'N' Roll Outlaw,' draws the line in the sand, challenging all comers to cross at the peril of a split lip then 'Nice Boys (Don't Play Rock 'N' Roll)' (if you thought Guns n' Roses version was bad-ass, think again) delivers an uppercut to the jaw that'll set you reeling. Released in 1978, their eponymous debut (issued in Europe as Rock 'N' Roll Outlaw almost two years later) is a dangerous, unpredictable, monster of a record whose power has hardly diminished an ounce in the decades since. Led by impetuous, diminutive frontman Angry Anderson (the Ronnie James Dio of punk?) and the brilliant slide-guitar work of Peter Wells, Rose Tattoo were a mean and not-so-lean gang of tattooed misfits, all of them veterans of the hard as nails Aussie pub rock scene - in short, the kind of guys you'd cross the street to avoid. If AC/DC are the greatest blue-collar hard rock band of all time, then Rose Tattoo (also Australian, also managed by the Vanda and Young team) just may qualify as the world's greatest blue-collar punk rock band.

Rose tattoo discography rar