(TV) RFTT review Rolling Stone

["stephen wilson" <stephen_nehpets@hotmail.com>]

(hope this doesn't get text-ed mangled...)

Rocket From the Tombs Refuel

Seventies cult band makes its New York debut

The closest I ever got to seeing Rocket From the Tombs in their original 
Cleveland lifetime -- June, 1974 to August, 1975 -- was a year-and-change 
after the band had been torn asunder by, and into, its split personalities: 
the gutter-Stones hell ride of the Dead Boys, founded by Rocket guitarist 
Gene O'Connor a.k.a. Cheetah Chrome, late-arriving singer Steven "Stiv" 
Bators and drummer Johnny Madansky (later Johnny Blitz); and the thundering 
garage dada of Pere Ubu, the invention of Rocket's original titanic vocalist 
David Thomas and guitarist Peter Laughner.
When I caught Ubu in a tiny basement club in Cleveland in May, 1976, they 
were only two indie singles old, but in full ferocious possession of the 
heavy-art chunk of Rocket's songbook: the atom-age epic "30 Seconds Over 
Tokyo," the teenage vengeance of "Final Solution." A year after that, I 
heard the fire-glam portion of Rocket's future-hit parade -- "Down in 
Flames," "What Love Is," "Sonic Reducer" -- whipped bloody by the Dead Boys 
at a bar in Delaware. Without realizing it at the time, I experienced in 
those two shows more firsthand Rocket -- the songs, violence and invention 
-- than most people in Cleveland ever had.

Last Friday, I finally saw the halves made whole, in Rocket From the Tombs' 
long-delayed New York debut at the Village Underground. The show was part of 
a reunion tour -- featuring Thomas, O'Connor and bassist Craig Bell from the 
original lineup -- inspired by last year's release of The Day the Earth Met 
Rocket From the Tombs, a compilation of loft demos and live tapes and the 
group's first-ever official album. Like those recordings, the band was rough 
but revelatory: rusted spikes of guitar jutting at harsh angles through the 
terrorist-Stones chord changes of "Muckraker"; the strange goosestepping 
beat and blackened-Alice Cooper apocalypse of "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," 
suddenly breaking into breakneck chaos, the Velvet Underground's "Sister 
Ray" via "Starship" by the MC5; a double-whammy medley of "Down in Flames" 
and "Final Solution." No one else in American rock, underground or over, in 
1974 and '75, was writing and playing songs this hard and graphic about 
being fucked over and fighting mad. No one else is doing it now.

There was a strong air of memorial about this show. My night with Ubu in '76 
turned out to be Laughner's last performance with the band; he died a year 
later of alcohol and drug abuse. At the Village Underground, O'Connor -- 
bald and a fearsome double for Jesse Ventura -- sang Laughner's "Ain't It 
Fun" and "Amphetamine" in a rough croak, with a direct sorrow that was, in 
that room, more moving than the acidic desperation of Laughner's original 
performances. And Laughner would have approved of the guitarist who played 
his share of the leads: Television's Richard Lloyd. Laughner actually booked 
Television's first show in Cleveland, in July of '75 (Rocket opened), and 
for a time played with them as a third guitarist. Tonight, Lloyd paid return 
love with spearing riffs and white-light solos: the sound of "Marquee Moon" 
rising over the desolate industrial wasteland where Rocket was born and all 
too briefly lived.

Rocket From the Tombs played nothing but classics and were done inside an 
hour. It was a long wait: twenty-eight years. And we will probably never see 
their like again. I'm just glad I got to see it once.

DAVID FRICKE
(June 10, 2003)

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