Customer Reviews

Day the Earth Met

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At last the "lost" tapes of the Rocket from the Tombs (RFTT) are available. The source band for Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys is awesomely brought back from the dead with this compilation. Both successor bands are good, but with all of the links in place as RFTT, they are fantastic.

These aren't studio-quality tapes, so there is fuzz and pinning on them -- they ride in the red a lot. But it is well worth it. RFTT combine the lyrical weirdness and noise rock of Pere Ubu with the power-chording intensity of the Dead Boys in one killer package. If only they'd stayed together long enough to do an album!

Still, at 74 minutes, this more than satisfies, and puts RFTT in their rightful place in the punk rock pantheon. The Stooges' covers ("Raw Power" and "Search & Destroy") are great, but they pale before the AWESOME power of "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" which is blistering and dwarfs the cleaner, more sterile Ubu version, with cascading, shrieking feedback and insane intensity.

The RFTT "Sonic Reducer" swings in a way that the Dead Boys' version doesn't, and it makes it far better.

Other Ubu-associated tracks like "Life Stinks" and "Final Solution" get a total makeover; the former incorporating a psychotic 60s-style keyboard assault, while the latter becomes this apocalyptic masterpiece with a pounding, relentless rhythm attack. Songs like "Muckraker", the slow, sad "Amphetamine", and the peppy, exuberant "Foggy Notion" add depth to the overall collection. "Ain't It Fun" is positively haunting in this clearer rendering. "Read It & Weep" calls to mind 70s-era Rolling Stone riffs to my ear, but it's cool and expressive.

The audio quality varies depending on the session. Tracks 1-9 are the rawest and most powerful, while tracks 17-19 are the weakest, in terms of raw power, with 10-16 somewhere in the middle -- clean, but powerful. If you're a stickler for clean audio, avoid this; but if you like intensity, go for it. It is here.

What a cool band, and anybody wanting something awesome should get this, if only for "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" -- that alone is worth it. You'll never listen to Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys the same way again, or ANY music (esp. punk), for that matter. This compilation matters, and if you love music, you should get it.

Rocket from the Tombs belongs in that glittering group of aurally-challenging pre-punk bands that continues to attract the listener who refuses to believe that music equals sedation (Velvets, Stooges, MC5 - countless messed-up garage bands like The Misunderstood - I'm sure you have your own list). I'm not plugging the same ticket as those middle-aged punks who suffocate this music in the deathly embrace of a new canon. I'm not bothered about the rankings - all I care about is: does this music sound good now?

Well, there are no doubts with this disc. Listening to Rocket from the Tombs makes you feel alive in - and outside - your own skin. The music is loose, lived-in, deranged and dynamic - utterly compulsive.

Rock music may have mostly descended into a deoxygenated puddle of not-very-compelling simulations, but there's plenty of music that hasn't exhausted itself over time, that sounds like it speaks from someone's life to yours and that can still make your hair stand on end. This disc has some of that music and no doubt someone somewhere is about to do something just as good. Good luck people, wherever you are.

Did the Ramones invent punk rock? No, they just prompted some critics to give the scene a name, and they really brought all the influences together. However, the aesthetics and concept of punk rock were around long before. Simple chords, shocking stage shows, nothing but pure and fast rock 'n' roll that would rather sound like "Nuggets" than "Sgt. Peppers". Iggy & the Stooges, the MC5, the Velvet Underground, the Dictators, New York Dolls, heck even the Seeds or the Sonics had the punk rock thing down long before the Sex Pistols or the Clash had ever picked up a guitar (nothing makes me angrier than when someone tries to tell me that the British invented punk - probably some moronic Crass fan). However the two pre-Ramones bands that sound the most blatantly punk are the Electric Eels and Rocket From the Tombs, both hailing from Cleavland. Rocket From the Tombs played the most nihilistic rock 'n' roll anyone could imagine at the time. Of course they had absolutely no chance of hitting the mainstream - they were too good for it. I mean would a song like "Ain't It Fun" ever be played alongside crap like the Eagles or James Taylor? The answer is NO. No one sounded like this in 1974. When the band broke up, members formed two of the greatest punk bands ever, the Dead Boys and Pere Ubu. If you like this album, be sure to pick up an Electric Eels disc. This is essential, and should be heard by anyone interested in proto-punk (hell, punk all together).

These recordings have apparently been floating around on bootleg cassettes since 1975. For the last ten years or so, I had been intrigued by comments from various critics and scraps of trivia on this mysterious band that never "officially" recorded anything and lasted only eight months. Here was a band made up of future members of Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys, bands that seemed to have no similarity other than coming from Cleveland: one being quirky avante-garde experimentalists, the other basic heavy metal guitar garage punk. Critic Chuck Eddy called RFTT, "...one of the noisiest combos to come out of any heartland... it must have sounded like Martian music at the time." Other critics pointed out that much of the best stuff from the Dead Boys had originally come from Rocket From The Tombs. Velvet Underground obsessed Peter Laughner was said to be the chief instigator in getting this disparate group together, and I always liked his influence on early Pere Ubu. Twenty-seven years after the fact, these recordings get an official and well put together release from Smog Veil Records. The music has been remastered, smartly compiled, and superbly packaged. There are numerous photos, extensive liner notes, and the B-movie 50s sci-fi cover with the pie-pan flying saucer is a hoot. The first set was recorded live in a rehearsal loft followed by cuts from some shows at local venues. The recording quality is "good bootleg" and the intensity of the performances (particularly the loft session) more than make up for any recording deficiency. Main vocalist, David Thomas, was wilder than he would ever be later. Instead of his hyper histrionic sound with Pere Ubu, his vocals fall somewhere between growling and howling, usually at high speed. Guitarist O'Connor comments that Thomas made the young Stiv Bators (Dead Boy's notorious vocalist) look meek in comparison. There were two musical directions at odds with each other: O'Connor and Johnny "Madman" Madansky wanted standard early seventies heavy metal, while Laughner and Thomas were into more unusual sonic experimentation. While this created some disagreements and personality conflicts it made for one heck of a blitzkrieg. Laughner's guitar playing is a killer complement to O'Connor's more conventional but powerful glam/metal power chord playing. Like Lou Reed at his best, Laughner's playing can jump between simple melodic lyricism to jagged, atonal, chaotic lines that would make Derek Bailey proud. "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo", later recorded by Pere Ubu, is played here with two noisy guitars, instead of guitar and synthesizer, and the "instrumental break" is even more dissonant and chaotic. The pounding twin guitar opening and refrain of "Transfusion" would probably have sent Black Sabbath running in terror. A song called "Seventeen" sounds like one of the most ferocious Who songs that never was. And what about a song called "Life Stinks"? Well, it just kinda' goes insane. Laughner's infamous offensively nihilistic elegy, "Ain't It Fun", is here in all its original sick glory (later covered by The Dead Boys and Guns and Roses), which he sadly decided to live out (becoming another winner of the "pathetic loss of a life and talent" award). There are songs (e.g. "So Cold", "Transfusion") that complain, or scream rather, about society/culture being a soulless and dead wasteland before it became fashionable to do so in London two years later. I suppose this music is "Punk", that's what it says on the cover anyway. Not that it matters. I would like to have written, "A mutant metal monster in search of a name", but some other review I read beat me to it. Play loud.

Great if you are either a Dead Boys or Ubu fan. Better recording quality than Ubu stuff from the same time. Two very diferent roads taken from the Rocket begining.

Listen well brothers and sisters, if this album rocked any harder it would not only blow your head too pieces but make any woman in a twelve mile radius give birth prematurely to any children that she might be carrying at the time. So use with extreme caution and respect for it will treat you with the same.

Ok.. maybe that heading was a tad overblown and cheesy.. but if you are a a big fan of the Stooges, MC5, Velvet Underground, or just a Pere Ubu completest, then by all means get this cd!! Those of you who have held onto [bad] sounding WMMS loft tape broadcast bootlegs for years will be delighted. The liner notes are especially insightful for a band that never released a record and is hardly heard of! The originals here are are stupendous slabs of mid- 70's underground Cleveland punk, a few thought to be writtin by the Dead Boys, but in fact were Rocket originals. (2 Dead boys started out in the Rockets, Cheetah and Johnny) For those familiar, the songs from the piccadilly show come from a previously uncirculated tape, opening for Television. Oddly, Dave is'nt featured on the Piccadilly songs; Peter, Cheetah, and Craig are heard singing a tad more melodically, but it still rocks! Here's to hoping there might be Rocket From The Tombs tapes laying around for a future release!! Early punk rock fans- BUY THIS CD!

These 1974-75 recordings by Cleveland`s Rocket From The Tombs are their collected works and quite simply the most scathing and searing punk music ever put to wax. Never mind the sonic overload and questionable sound quality of the source tapes and hear RFTT rip through "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" in a way not even Père Ubu could repeat, or shudder at the emotional intensity of wunder-guitarist Peter Laughner`s paean to a young life gone horribly wrong in "Ain`t It Fun". The classic "Sonic Reducer", later appropriated by The Dead Boys and issued in a version that pales (!) before RFTT`s assault and "Down In Flames" are amongst the other blistering punk performances.

This music bears no comparison: Ferocity to the point of self-annihilation, painfully raw playing fused with great instrumental prowess (Laughner) and David Thomas` nihilistic howl combine to make this the best rock release of 2002.

Incidentally, this tells us a lot about the state of rock music in these mediocre times, but hey, let`s not bicker: If you love Rocket From The Tombs from the get-go as much as I did, then make sure you also check out Cleveland`s other great (pre-)punk band THE MIRRORS and their archival collection "Hands In My Pockets". Another "lost gem if ever there was one"...

I read about This Group in the Essential Book: From The Velvets To The Voidoids. In All Their Ragged Glory, when This CD\LP came Out & I Was Simply BLOWN Away!

This Is My All Time Favorite "Lost Album" that Was Never Recorded! An Essential Purchase!

This Group Were a product of the Great & Tiny Scene that Was Cleveland Ohio. What Can emerge from a Desolate Industrial Wasteland & A LOVE for Real Rock'n'Roll? The Originals are Almost Each One A classic! Also Their live Cover of Foggy Notion Is My All Time Favorite Velvets Cover!

If you Get The Chance to See This Recently Reunited SuperGroup in Concert, Jump at The Chance> Dave Thomas is an Electro-fying Presence in Concert. Richard Lloyd (from Television) is a Wonderful Addition for the The Missing Peter Laughner.

No Foolin' around!

Oh, my. I lived in Akron for three years and gradually learned about the musical history of northeast Ohio via a friend of mine who could never stop singing the praises of Pere Ubu in particular (his affection for Devo was something I could never entirely understand). I listened to "The Modern Dance" and was hooked. As a result, the appearance of this album drove me into fits of anticipation, but I was only able to buy it over a year later. I bought it at exactly the right time and place.

The very first second of this CD will dissipate most bouts of depression and melancholy. David Thomas is a genius, but, as most devotees would probably maintain, he wouldn't have had the impact he had without the influence of the ill-fated Peter Laughner, the other main figure of Rocket From The Tombs. If you enjoy the music of Pere Ubu, you might be a little disconcerted on hearing this album. All live performances from February to July 1975 (all in Cleveland), the sets have much in common but also many differences. Past reviewers have commented on the lack of recording quality and raw nature of the tracks. Well...what did people expect? The fact that this collection of magnificent live performances wasn't recorded by John Cale or somebody similar takes nothing away from its effect. On the contrary, I would suggest that the collection is greatly enhanced by the production quality.

The vast majority of songs are original material. Covers of other bands such as the Stooges and Velvet Underground ("Raw Power" and "Foggy Notion") are present, but get blown away by original material such as "What Love Is," "Life Stinks, "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," "Sonic Reducer" (wow!), and "Never Gonna Kill Myself Again." Laughner's mournful, contemplative contributions pleasantly offset the thrashing rage of many of the other, Thomas-dominated songs ("Life Stinks" sounds even weirder than it does on "The Modern Dance"--if that were even possible--and "Amphetamine" is eerily lovely). I thought this collection would be good. I didn't know it would be completely friggin' awesome.

This collection recommends itself to many kinds of music lovers. Music wonks interested in exploring the prehistory of punk will find plenty of source material in these wonderful songs. Cleveland natives (and those from Northeast Ohio, a region for which I still feel an inexplicable affection) will swell with hometown pride. Those who love great rock music will find themselves caught by a stray beat and end up thrashing down silent midnight streets on their way home from work. Anyway one looks at it, this CD is a ridiculous bargain.