My initial feeling about this show was that it would be a part of the most dubious reunion tour of all time. Most people reading this have been in bands that accomplished more than Rocket From The Tombs ever did. This was a band that existed for a whopping fourteen months, with it’s "classic lineup" managing to hold together for eight of them. A band that did maybe a dozen shows, and released… absolutely nothing. A band that broke up in 1975, with one of its guitar players dying less than two years later. I wouldn’t go to see your equally unsuccessful band if you had a reunion, so why would I want to see this? Why do I even know about it?
Well, as with many of the great bands in rock ‘n’ roll history, Rocket From The Tombs left a legacy, and became legendary. The band became known through the bands that it spawned, because the aforementioned classic lineup happened to include guitarist Gene "Cheetah Chrome" O’Connor and John "Johnny Blitz" Madansky, who went on to punk infamy with the Dead Boys, as well as vocalist Crocus "David Thomas" Behemoth and Peter "the aforementioned dead guitarist" Laughner, who founded the "avant-garage" institution known as Pere Ubu.
Whatever combination of factors leads a group of people to become the Stooges, or the Velvet Underground, made this group of Cleveland outcasts become Rocket From The Tombs. Of course, they had the luxury of hearing both the Stooges and the Velvets before they ever started, but they managed to make music that was as original and compelling. Music that very few people heard, other than rabid tape traders, who circulated copies of some live shows and a live demo made in the band’s rehearsal space. The cross purposes that led the band to splinter into such diverse and distinctive bands made for an explosive combination.
But why a reunion now? Well, for one thing, those tapes people have traded for over 25 years were finally stitched together into a legitimate compilation last year, released as The Day the Earth Met the Rocket From The Tombs. This inspired what appeared to be a one-off proposition in February, a reunion show in Los Angeles featuring David Thomas, Cheetah Chrome and original bassist Craig Bell.
But what about the late Mr. Laughner? He was the real driving force of the band, the spirit that wanted to create a scene in Cleveland to rival what he knew was happening in New York, whose idolization of Lou Reed drove him to do everything Lou Reed did, and a bunch of things that Lou Reed probably hadn’t done, but might have led you to believe he had, and ended up accomplishing one thing Reed definitely hadn’t: destroying himself at age twenty-four.
Filling in for Laughner at the L.A. show, and for the dates on this seven-show tour was Television guitarist Richard Lloyd, a factor that made the idea of checking this show out all the more exciting, as well as bestowing an additional air of legitimacy to the event. Peter Laughner was an early fan of Television, frequently travelling to New York to see them (and Patti Smith, etc.), and also setting up their first shows outside of New York City, in Cleveland, with Rocket From The Tombs as opening act.
The line-up was filled out by Steve Mehlman, the latest Pere Ubu drummer, a reasonable enough choice, who also happened to be more than capable of delivering the goods. (There are three different drummers on the accumulated tapes, John Madansky being only the best known.)
The show itself began in a most understated fashion, with the packed crowd at Maxwell’s just quietly watching the members walk through them to get to the stage and assume their positions. Things began in earnest with David Thomas chiding them, "You’re supposed to applaud when we get on stage!" As if they had been waiting for permission, the crowd erupted, and the band went into an instrumental version of "Frustration," one of the live tracks on The Day the Earth Met the Rocket From The Tombs. And it went on from there, a flawless set of classics, and nothing but classics. They were all here, these songs they wrote… "What Love Is," "Ain’t it Fun," "30 Seconds over Tokyo," "Sonic Reducer," "Final Solution," "Down in Flames."
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If they were just a band covering these songs this well, this gig would have been merely a guilty pleasure, but they delivered with such authority there was no question who owned these songs. When Thomas howled "But I’m not just anyone… I’m not just anyone!" during "Sonic Reducer," it was apparent that whatever a Sonic Reducer is, David Thomas invented it, not Stiv Bators. It was like finding out that Keith Richards had written "Sympathy for the Devil" with someone other than Mick Jagger, in a band before the Rolling Stones.
Cheetah Chrome handled lead vocals on two that Peter Laughner used to sing: "Ain’t it Fun" and "Amphetamine." The rasp in his voice indicated that maybe he had indeed bottomed out as badly as I thought he had the last time I saw him play, about ten years ago, but he certainly has it together now. He came off like a cross between a grizzled country singer and a former pro wrestler, and he’s a much better guitar player than I ever gave him credit for. His delivery of some of the more morbid of Laughner’s lyrics, like "Ain’t it fun when you know you’re gonna die young," was spine-tingling.
The mild-mannered Craig Bell took the lead on his own "Muckraker," one of the more glam-rock sounding of the original RFTT tracks, and looked really pleased with the response he got. (He also provided the funniest moment of the night, staring off into space during a bass-free section of a song, not noticing that Thomas was offering him a sip from his flask. Thomas held the flask up for a good ten seconds, and Bell didn’t even notice the crowd’s laughter when Thomas finally shrugged and put the flask back down.)
Richard Lloyd was the wild card in the proceedings, and although he didn’t sing anything (I wondered if he would sing any of the Peter Laughner songs), he more than made his presence felt. It was amazing to see his distinctive style deployed over a more aggressive backdrop than heard with Television or in his solo work, and his lead work added a new level of intensity to the material.
There seemed to be a high level of camaraderie among the musicians as well. Whatever bad blood may have existed between David Thomas and Cheetah Chrome seems to have been forgotten, with Thomas rubbing Chrome's bald head at the end of the set.
The band returned for one encore, a song written by Peter Laughner, and recorded by Pere Ubu, "Life Stinks." And I thought about what a popular sentiment that became so soon after it was written, and how it was reiterated so many different ways, but never quite so succinctly. And the legacy of Rocket From The Tombs is that they were the greatest unknown band that had anything to do with what is now known as punk rock. And this show demonstrated that it still matters.
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