ROCKET REDUX – Rocket From the Tombs (Smog
Veil)
Treat this as a preview of the studio album that you won’t see in the
shops until the first quarter of 2004. The reason? Unless you were at the recent
run of shows RFTT did across the US of A, you won’t have been able to procure
a copy (I wasn’t but thanks go to Russell Beynon from the Please Kill Me
mailing 
list/Texas
Terri fan site for doing the business on behalf of the Bar). We indeed count
ourselves lucky and here’s why, straight after some scene-setting for the
uninitiated…
RFTT were a precursor of both the Dead Boys and Pere Ubu, containing principal
members of both seminal Cleveland bands. They only existed for about a year,
spawned some great bootlegs (compiled and officially released on Smog Veil)
and fell apart, influencing myriad bands that followed. RFTT hadn’t played
in nearly three decades when they reconvened for a one-off show in L.A., following
that with a short run of dates and the aforementioned lengthier tour in ’03.
Richard Lloyd replaces the late Peter Laughner on guitar (irony, considering
Laughner allegedly replaced an out-of-sorts Lloyd for a brief time in Television
– a claim, subsequently denied, it must be added). Cheetah Chrome handles
the other guitar role, Craig Bell contributes bass, singer David Thomas brings
his Pere Ubu drummer Steve Mehlman to the party and that’s the line-up.
One thing needs to be said straight up. It’s pointless arguing about the
legitimacy of this collection of personnel going out under the RFTT name. Laughner’s
deceased This is about as close as you’re going to get to the original
band. Having heard a handful of live tapes of recent shows it sounds fine too
– so get over it.
“Redux” gives you a run through the live set. Richard Lloyd’s
production is basic and unadorned (the drums are a little boxy) but grew on
me eventually.It lays a nicely transparent bedrock for some fine soloing and
vocalising. On that latter score, although Pere Ubu are a taste that I’ve
never fully acquired, Thomas’ quavering vox actually add to the sense of
neurosis and edginess expected from this band. And, of course, he sang most
of the original RFTT tunes anyway. Not sure who plays which guitar parts –
the CD slick is short on detail, which may be fixed when the disc goes to retail
- but Cheetah and Lloyd pull out some sterling leads (“Life Stinks”
being a case in point). Turn it up loud.
Although RFTT is reclaiming what was originally theirs, a few of these tunes
will be more familiar in other bands’ hands (“What Love Is”,
“Down in Flames” and “Ain’t It Fun”, for example, were
a good chunk of the Dead Boys’ recorded output). “Final Solution RFTT”
doesn’t quite rise to the level of the Ubu version but “30 Seconds
Over Tokyo” is ace. Never heard a dud take on “Sonic Reducer”
with Mr Chrome in the driving seat and “So Cold” unwinds with a degree
of bile that’s hard to beat. The life affirming (not!) “Ain’t
It Fun” leaves the Dead Boys’ version in the shade and unfolds in
all its uncensored glory, unlike the WFMU ’03 broadcast version doing the
rounds.
Still sweating, maybe in vain, for a full studio album of new tunes. You never
know your luck but, meantime, this disc will receive plenty of CD player time.
Nice companion to the archival "The Day The Earth Met Rocket From the Tombs"
on the same label which gives the full picture. If there are doubters , this
should shut them up. – The Barman
1/2
THE DAY THE EARTH MET THE ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS: LIVE FROM PUNK ROCK GROUND
ZERO, CLEVELAND 1975 - Rocket From the Tombs (Hearthan/Smog
Veil)
The
liners call this "a tantalizing glimpse at one of the greatest albums NEVER
recorded," and for once, the hyperbole is justified.
A lotta people don't remember how bad "mainstream" rock usedta blow
in the mid-'70s, and how big a deal it was when bands like the New York Dolls,
the Modern Lovers, Dictators, et. al. came around. Calcifying dinosaurs, "prog,"
and the earliest inroads of the Thud of Corporate Rock ruled the charts and
the airwaves, while crappy cover bands dominated the clubs (where there was
even live music; in much of Clubland; deejays and disco ruled).
Things hit a nadir around '76, which was around the time I forsook rock'n'roll
for wrestling and a coupla yrs of jazz snobbery. I always maintained that my
cohort and I shoulda been punks; we definitely had the attitood (sitting outside
the deli having spitting and farting contests and wondering why the Really Neat
Girls wouldn't go out with us), but in our little backwater burg on Long Island,
the City where the whole CBGBs scene was taking shape was just about an hour
and a world away. Which makes this set of music by a band who never made a "real"
record, but contributed members to a coupla obscure cult bands, seem ultra-important.
In late '74 and early '75, when I was attending the State University of New
York at Albany, ostensibly studying sociology but actually screwing around,
taking too many drugs and playing in stoopid blues-rock bands, this bunch of
inspired madmen a coupla states away were making music with the Correct Spirit...not
that anybody noticed or cared at the time. At the epicenter of a Cleveland underground
scene that also included the artier Mirrors and insane Electric Eels, these
guys were staking out turf that the New York bands wouldn't begin to for another
year (actually I got the same feeling recently listening to some "fan club-only"
recordings from '75 by Dallas' Nervebreakers; there were little pockets all
over the place, but it'd take the media buzz over the Ramones and especially
the Sex Pistols to make it all coalesce into a "movement").
I'll admit to not being a great fan of either of the bands that arose from the
ashes of Rocket from the Tombs - art creeps Pere Ubu and caricature punk rockers
the Dead Boys (although lotsa people whose opinions I respect swear by the latter's
"Younger, Louder and Snottier"). A lot of the material collected here
wound up in the repertoires of those bands, but I like these versions better
than any of the "official" released ones. The tension between the
aesthetes (that'd be David Thomas, Peter Laughner, and Craig Bell) and the punks
(that'd be Gene "Cheetah Chrome" O'Connor and Johnny "Blitz"
Madansky) in RFTT made them more volatile and interesting than either of their
successors. Creem scribe, Television wannabe, prodigous substance abuser and
archetypal Tortured, Doomed Artist, Peter Laughner has become a figure of legendary
proportions, largely on the basis of the obituary Lester Bangs wrote for him
which was anthologized in "Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung."
There's also an interesting and memorable character study of Laughner (as "Billy")
in former Ubu keyboardist Allen Ravenstine's short story "Music Lessons,"
which was included in "The Penguin [later Da Capo] Book of Rock and Roll
Writing." Besides the RFTT recordings released here, the only other Laughner
music available is on the TK Records CD "Take the Guitar Player for a Ride"
and "The Shape of Things," a '76 Ubu live set released by David Thomas
on his Hearpen label.
About these recordings: yes, they're lo-fi, but all the instruments are audible
and the sound is a hell of a lot better than the cassette I got from Black To
Comm editor and Cle rock scholar Chris Stigliano four years ago, and it contains
five songs which weren't on that one to boot (omitting duplicate versions of
as many other songs). Included here are the complete 2/15/75 rehearsal loft
sessions and three other songs from the 5/5/75 Agora show that were broadcast
on WMMS and have been extensively bootlegged, along with a further seven tunes
from a 7/24/75 show at the Piccadilly Inn that have never been released anywhere.
Sure, the playing is rough, but so fucking what? It ROCKS, and isn't that the
point? I've given up crabbing about the shitty audio quality of archival recordings...dunno
'bout you, but I WANT to hear every note ever recorded by the James Williamson
Stooges, no matter how lousy the audience cassette recording. I'll admit it:
I LIKE out-of-tune rehearsal and live recordings. They sound REAL to me. If
the energy and spirit are there, you make ALLOWANCES for some technical shortcomings.
(Either that or go listen to, uh, Steely Dan or something.)
Forget about bullshit-ass technical considerations and just let the glorious
noise wash over ya. Starting out with a perfunctory run-through of "Raw
Power" sans vocals (and missing the J.C. Crawford/"Kick Out the Jams"-aping
vocal intro from the original tape), the boys rip into "So Cold" (which
Cheetah, the real-life punk Frankenstein monster, claims was the first song
he and Blitz played with RFTT because it sounded like Alice Cooper's "I'm
Eighteen" and Thomas/Laughner wanted them to "feel at home"),
followed by "What Love Is" (later to appear on the first Dead Boys
album) with its whiplash Chrome riff. These guys wear their influences on their
sleeves with their covers (Stooges, Velvets - and hey, what's that sound like
a cello on their version of "Foggy Notion?" - plus a snippet of Stones
"Satisfaction," which fellow Ohioans Devo would later deconstruct),
but the real story here is the originals, which uniformly kill. With four very
diverse writers and singers in the lineup (Thomas, Laughner, O'Connor, and Bell,
not to mention two lead-capable axe stranglers in Laughner and O'Connor), these
Rockets moved from strength to strength. On the basis of his toons here, Laughner
stakes his claim as one of the greats, right up there with his idols Lou and
Iggy. Among the Laughner classics in this set: the brooding, blasted "Ain't
It Fun" (which appeared on the second Dead Boys album "We Have Come
for Your Children" and was later the subject of an inferior cover by, uh,
Guns'n'Roses), "Transfusion" (a rumination on the topic "You
didn't bleed"), and the Beefheartian "Life Stinks." You also
get to hear embryonic versions of the Ubu psychodramas "Thirty Seconds
Over Tokyo" and "Final Solution," along with the later Dead Boys
staples "Sonic Reducer," "Never Gonna Kill Myself Again,"
and "Down In Flames.." Only non-snazz track here: the version of Laughner's
"Amphetamine" (the "Take the guitar player for a ride" portion
of which was appropriated by Wilco on "Being There") where Madansky
plays some masterfully inappropriate Keith Moon-style fills. Hear the version
on the TK Laughner CD instead.
Essential for all Rock Action aficionados. - Ken
Shimamoto