Rocket From The Tombs - The Day The Earth Met The... 2-LP new

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.

Approaching the band from this viewpoint only deepens their myth. But what about the actual music? Does it measure up? Is RFTT actually worth listening to? Or are they just a band to be discussed, name dropped, and filed away?

This 19-song comp, The Day the Earth Met the Rocket from the Tombs, seeks to answer those questions by offering "a tantalizing glimpse at one of the greatest albums never recorded," as the back cover puts it. Nine of the songs are from home recorded demos, while the remaining ten are from two live dates; the sound quality, while nowhere near spectacular, is consistent and listenable.

The easiest way to describe RFTT's proto-punk is as a combination of the Stooges and Alice Cooper, with hints of Sabbath, the Velvet Underground, the Troggs, and Beefheart. Altogether it's a jarring concoction. Lyrically, they were easily the most nihilistic American band since the Stooges. But RFTT's music is even more arresting than Iggy & Co.'s in the sense that one can imagine doing something else while listening to it-- say, exercising or driving. But with RFTT, all you feel like doing is huddling up in the corner, or turning it off. These are the only options this music offers.

This comp fittingly begins with a partial cover of the Stooges' "Raw Power" and ends with "Search and Destroy." In between, the band covers "Satisfaction" (almost beyond recognition) and the unreleased-at-the-time Velvet Underground song "Foggy Notion." All of which have their charms, but far better are the RFTT originals, many of which later wound up on Pere Ubu or Dead Boys albums (or both). There are nascent versions of the classics "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" and "Sonic Reducer" bearing witness to a great idiosyncratic songwriter (Thomas) coming into his own.

But the highlight of the album is Laughner's oft-covered "Amphetamine" (anyone familiar with Wilco's "Misunderstood" will immediately recognize the lyrics, which were respectfully lifted from this track nearly verbatim). This is the closest one can hope for in terms of a definitive recording of this mournful, yet unrelenting ballad. Yes, a ballad. These aren't all heavy punk songs. In fact, in this one song, you can almost hear the entire career of Paul Westerberg being born.

But back to my earlier question: does the band's music live up to the lofty myth surrounding it? One might as well ask if unrealized potential can substitute for actually delivering the goods. The answer, friends, is no.

Had personality conflicts not ripped the band apart before it could capitalize on its members' talents, Rocket from the Tombs might have recorded a groundbreaking album. But they didn't. And so, all that's left are these fragments, left over from a by-gone era, and they can either be mourned over for what they're not, or enjoyed for what they are. I'll choose the latter.