Recent Salinas’ arrivals Rum and Rebellion set local politics to cowpunk music.

Just looking at a flier promoting their upcoming shows, it is obvious that the Salinas country punk trio Rum and Rebellion is doing something different than most local bands. A handout announcing three shows—including Saturday’s performance at the Cherry Bean Coffeehouse—shows a photocopied picture of what appears to be a homeless man sleeping on some steps near a small fire. Above the disconcerting image, white letters announce: “No libraries. No social security. The future’s looking bright…there’ll be no lullabies tonight.”

It becomes apparent only a few seconds into a show at Rollick’s Internet Café in Salinas that this band is not afraid to be political. Set up inside the coffee shop just feet from Salinas’ Main Street, singer/guitarist George Sanchez tells the small crowd that the first song of the evening will be a zydeco song he wrote during the presidential election. Though the song titled “How Will You Choose?” does seem to be political—Sanchez mentions the Black Panthers in the first few lines—it sounds more like a rambling Violent Femmes song then something from a band like Buckwheat Zydeco.

It’s a mellow coffee shop setting and the band’s set-up is acoustic, but Sanchez, who is clad in a maroon Ramones T-shirt, yells some of the song’s lyrics into the microphone while stomping his feet on the hardwood floors. Meanwhile, bassist Joe Hunt, and Scott McDonald, who stands while playing a snare drum, help bring the song to a rollicking close.

On the next number, titled “Where We’re At,” Sanchez sings about local phenomena like Salinas native John Steinbeck and local farm workers over a ferocious strum of his acoustic guitar. Even though the band threatens to fall apart several times throughout the song, they make up for their lack of tight playing with raw emotion.

After the song crashes to a halt, Sanchez announces that the next song is “about places we’ve seen since we moved to town.” Later, at his house a few blocks away, Sanchez and his bandmates tell me that the song titled “Oscar” is about the youngest kid killed during a rash of Salinas homicides in the middle of January. Sanchez says he was able to provide the song’s vivid details, because he covered the story for the Salinas newspaper The Californian.

Over a Scotch on the rocks, Sanchez explains why he refers to himself and his bandmates as transplants throughout the show. Despite their love of their new hometown, he and his bandmates all moved to Salinas over the last few years.

The nascent group, which has only been around for a little less than a year,  has performed at Monterey’s Lava Lounge and Salinas venues including Rollick’s and the Cherry Bean Coffeehouse. The band plans to record its first full-length CD this April.

At Rollicks, Rum and Rebellion decide to try to change the evening’s atmosphere after “Oscar” with a catchy, comical number titled “All the Pretty Songs.” With lyrics like: “You left your Bible next to your whip,” the tune is reportedly about one of Sanchez’s old girlfriends.

Following Rum and Rebellion’s best material, including catchy numbers like “Whore’s Blues” and “Hey Armando,” the group yields some of its allotted time to some other Salinas artists and musicians.

The first up is slam poet Marc Cabrera, a.k.a. Lost Boy, who performs a handful of moving poems with a very animated delivery. He confronts his own mortality, the government and hip-hop culture with nuggets like: “my culture can’t be summed up with one dope ass Sprite commercial.”

Following Cabrera, John Brandow of the Salinas band Achievement of Flight plays a handful of well-crafted acoustic songs and a cover of the Operation Ivy gem “Knowledge.” During his few songs, Brandow waxes about subjects like the effectiveness of democracy and the lack of a venue for Salinas musicians and artists.

When Rum and Rebellion return to their microphones, Sanchez continues talking about the dire need for Salinas musicians to be able to perform in their own town. He says with so much artistic passion in Salinas there needs to be a venue for creative artists.

After a night of politically-fueled entertainment at Rollick’s, I would have to agree.

Rum and Rebellion perform with Ron Bertran, Lance Weisser, Bert and the Temperate at the Cherry Bean Coffeehouse, 332 Main Street in Salinas, Saturday at 7pm. Free. 424-1989.