Anyone up on their history of punk rock has heard of them, but relatively few have actually heard the music they made. And this is one of the main reasons Rocket from the Tombs is one of the most mythologized bands ever. Active for less than a year-- from winter 1974 to late summer '75-- RFTT released only one single during its brief lifespan, but its legacy was magnified by the two bands that sprung from its ashes: the scuzzy Dead Boys and arty, Beefheartian new wavers Pere Ubu.
Ubu's Dave Thomas (who performed under the name Crocus Behemoth) started the band, later adding future Dead Boys Gene O'Connor (aka Cheetah Chrome) and John Madansky (aka Johnny Blitz). But the man most responsible for the band's mythic stature is Peter Laughner, a hard-living, Lou Reed-worshipping music journalist who wrote for the Lester Bangs-edited Creem magazine. He was also a promising songwriter (over the years his songs have been covered by Mission of Burma and Guns n' Roses, among many others) and a searing guitarist of Tom Verlaine-caliber. In fact, he was being groomed to replace Richard Lloyd in Television when he died of pancreatitis in 1977; years of constant drug abuse had simply worn out his body. And we all know what an untimely death means for an artist mythic stature, and as Laugher's rep grew so did that of RFTT. Of course, it didn't hurt that Pere Ubu released a series of excellent albums in the late seventies and early eighties.
A lot of the discussion surrounding RFTT focuses on their milieu. I wasn't there, so I can't say I have firsthand knowledge, but my impressions, based on what I've read and heard, is that Cleveland in 1974 was an industrial wasteland and a cultural desert, all mangled metal and shattered glass sprawled upon the rusty shores of a lake that was so polluted it periodically caught fire. Just ask anyone who was there at the time-- they're almost proud of how shitty it was. And Rocket from the Tombs perfectly embodied the bleakness of the city. Perhaps no other rock band has embodied (and thus, made commented upon) its surroundings better. It's something more akin to early 90s gansta rap than anything seen in rock.