Rocket From the Tombs

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Rocket From the Tombs
Clockwise from upper left: Cheetah Chrome, Peter Laughner, John Madansky, Craig Bell, Crocus Behemoth
Country	Cleveland, OH, USA
Years active	1974–1975 2003–present
Genres	Rock'n'Roll,Protopunk
Members	Crocus Behemoth Peter Laughner Craig Bell Cheetah Chrome John Madansky

Rocket From the Tombs (or RFTT) was an American rock music band originally active from mid-1974 to mid-1975 in Cleveland, Ohio. Heralded as an important protopunk group, they were little known during their lifetime, though various members later achieved renown in Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys. Billy Bob Hargus wrote, however, that "The sound of the Rockets is much more ferocious than Ubu or the Dead Boys." [1]

There was some fluctuation of the group's personnel, but the classic lineup was David Thomas (then known as "Crocus Behemoth" - vocals), Peter Laughner (guitar, vocals), Craig Bell (bass, vocals), Gene O'Connor (a.k.a. Cheetah Chrome, guitar), and Johnny Madansky (presently known as "Johnny Blitz," drums).

When RFTT disbanded, the personnel formed two different musical groups:

O'Connor, Bell and Mandasky joined with singer Stiv Bators (who had briefly replaced Thomas in RFTT) to form the Dead Boys, a rather straightforward punk rock group.
Laughner and Thomas went on to form the more experimental Pere Ubu.

Both groups used songs first written or performed by Rocket From The Tombs as parts of their repertoires: the Dead Boys were known for "Ain't It Fun," "I Need Lunch" and "Sonic Reducer"; Pere Ubu went on to reinterpret "Final Solution," "Life Stinks" and "30 Seconds Over Tokyo".

Rocket From The Tombs never recorded an album in their lifetime, but various live recordings and demos circulated occasionally as bootlegs. Most of these were collected on a single CD by Smog Veil records, and titled The Day the Earth Met the Rocket from the Tombs (2002).

1 Reunion
2 Trivia
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Reunion

The CD rekindled interest in Rocket From The Tombs, and they reformed in 2003 with original members Thomas, Chrome, and Bell, joined by Richard Lloyd (guitar), and Steve Mehlman (drums). Decades earlier, Lloyd had been narrowly chosen over Laughner to join Television.

On June 10, 2003 they played their first-ever live radio concert on Brian Turner's program on WFMU [2]. In (2004), Smog Veil and Morphius released Rocket Redux, consisting of Rocket From The Tombs originals performed in studio by the 2003 lineup. It received mostly positive reviews; Joe Tangari declares that Redux "never sounds like a complacent reunion record, and in a way, I suppose it's not really a reunion record in the first place so much as it's a debut album, played with all the hunger and fire of a band eager to make their mark on the world."[3]

In 2006, Thomas announced that the band had again reunited, this time to work on a new material. The band toured the US in the summer of 2006.