Rftc.....rip

nutmeg81

So i bought this cd/dvd combo the other day and by fuck it makes me miss this band even more!!

Havin seen em live on their last two visits to Dublin's TBMC I can't believe they never really got the recognition they deserved?!

They were a classic rock n' roll band and I must say that with this last ever performance now available I gotta turn the volume up!! Their other recent compilation "The name of this band is...." of old odds n' sods tracks is great too!

Yellow Ledbelly

Sorry for my ignorance, but who is or was RFTC

facepollution

Yellow Ledbelly wrote:

Sorry for my ignorance, but who is or was RFTC

Heresy! Rocket From The Crypt!

nutmeg81

Rocket From The Crpyt, from San Diego.....1991-2005

6 studio albums:
"Paint As A Fragrance" '91
"Circa Now" (re-released in 2002 as "Circa Now+4") '92
"Scream, Dracula, Scream" (big hit "On A Rope") '95
"RFTC" '98
"Group Sounds" '01
"Live From Camp X-Ray" '02

3 compilations (rare sinlge/ep/compilation/hard to find tracks!):
"All systems Go" '93
"All Systems Go 2" '99
"The Name Of This Band Is..." '08

EP's:
"State Of Art Is On Fire" '
"Hot Charity/Cut Carefully & Play Load" (combination of 2 ep's from '99 & '05)

Live:
"RFTC - RIP" '08
last ever gig on Haloween '05

they had and unbelievable number of 7" singles/ep's/compilation tracks too!

nutmeg81

Pitchfork review:

Rocket From the Crypt
R.I.P.
[Swami/Vagrant; 2008]
Rating: 7.6

Glastonbury Festival, June 1998: A torrential downpour has turned the fields into an ocean of E. coli, flooding the festival grounds to the point where even Nick Cave can be seen milling about in standard-issue Welly rain boots. But up on the Other Stage, Rocket From the Crypt are looking like a million bucks (or, roughly £500,000). Halfway through their set, John "Speedo" Reis parts the crowd and challenges the more daring members of the audience to use the empty space as a mud slide; after five minutes of watching inebriated Englishmen hurtle themselves face down into the brown, Reis stops mid-song, flashes a shit-eating grin a mile wide, and announces, "Ladies and gentlemen, if we have learned anything here today, it's that you can dive face first into pig shit, and still not be famous."

Sadly, for Rocket From the Crypt, you could haul ass for 15 years, release 11 albums, and even get Interscope to pay for two of them, and still be only slightly more famous than a bunch of British knuckleheads swimming in mud. But then Rocket From the Crypt were early 1990s punks who operated much like an indie rock band circa now, releasing a seemingly inexhaustible supply of quality singles and EPs at a clip that hearkened the current post-blog de-emphasis on the album, while their atomic fusion of Springsteen and the Stooges foreshadowed indie rock's now-perfunctory Boss worship. But where so many contemporary indie rock bands pay lip-service to Bruce's all-American authenticity, RFTC were more proponents of the E Street big-band theory, favoring breathless, soul-revue-styled set lists, titanic blasts of brass, and only the most self-aggrandizing stage banter.

So it's fitting that when the San Diego sextet announced their final show on Oct. 31 2005-- as per their tradition of Halloween homecoming shows-- the venue of choice was not a local punk-rock landmark like the Casbah, but rather the ballroom in the Westin Horton Plaza Hotel. However, as last-show documents go, the CD/DVD package R.I.P.-- arriving perhaps two years too late, but just in time to herald the arrival of Reis' new band, the Night Marchers-- is determinedly low on sentimentality. It's hard to get too choked up when you've got El Vez reading your eulogy ("they were so young!"), and Reis taking the stage dressed as Screaming Jay Hawkins-- complete with nose bone-- to warm up with a goofy riff on "I Put a Spell On You". But after this awkwardly stagy intro-- Reis admits himself it's "long, boring and [goes] nowhere" in the entertainingly no-bullshit liner notes-- it's all business.

"We invented this type of music," Reis declares six songs in, "it's called rock'n'roll." He's half right: What RFTC really do is rock'n'roar-- you don't so much listen to songs like "Boychucker" and "Don't Darlene" as brace yourself for their rib-bruising onslaught of sax and violence. The chain-fight menace is reinforced by the fact that R.I.P.'s career-spanning set-list is stacked with one-two punches pulled sequentially from the original albums: "I'm Not Invisible"/"Get Down" (from 2002's Live From Camp X-Ray), "Light Me"/"A+ in Arson Class" (1995's The State of Art Is on Fire EP), "Middle"/"Born in '69" (1995's Scream, Dracula, Scream!). Like all great prizefighters, Rocket give you nary a second to figure out what hit you before hitting again.

The 51-minute CD portion of R.I.P. features only part of the full 95-minute set documented in grainy digital video on the DVD, and with good reason: this chaotic concert is marked by the sort of intrusions-- a tossed plastic gun to Reis' head during "Jumper K. Balls," an over-eager stage diver derailing "Carne Voodoo" mid-song-- that make for more interesting viewing than listening. But you still have to question some of the editing choices: a meat-slab-tough version of Hot Charity's "My Arrow's Aim" doesn't make the album cut at the expense of momentum-curbing selections like "Shy Boy" and "Velvet Touch" (both from 1991's Paint as a Fragrance), and while the CD omission of RFTC's one alt-rock semi-hit, "On a Rope" suits the band's contrarian attitude (says Reis in the liners, "[it's] the song that will forever be our piss stain on the footnotes of underground 90s rock lore...I still get checks for $13.92 every year. In some parts of the world I can buy an ox and fuck it for that price."), R.I.P. feels less like a definitive career-capper as a result.

But such quibbles are forgotten by the time we hit the late-set airing of Circa: Now!'s triumphant grunge waltz "Ditch Digger", where, even without the benefit of a DVD, you can just picture the costumed crowd raising their arms to valiantly brandish those RFTC tattoos that can no longer be used to get into shows for free. Even in its dying moments, a Rocket From the Crypt show is no place to get all emotional, but if only for a few minutes, you just might confuse all that sweat for tears.


-Stuart Berman, March 07, 2008

facepollution

I was at that Glastonbury show! They were AMAZING!

Evacuation Rules

Holy shit! I didn't know they released a live album. Thanks for informing me! I'm gonna run to the store and buy it right now. See? Sometimes it's good to make threads like this!

I fuckin' LOVE rftc. I listen to the Japanese version of All Systems Go all the time. The US version ain't too shabby either!

transplant

I read that review this morning and since have spun the following

The State of Art is On Fire
Group Sounds

They were incredibly good, very glad also that I got to see them live. I am excited to hear this new Reis project Night Marchers. they are playing here in Denver in May. I hope I get to check it out. He is retaining 2 members from Hot Snakes. I was a HUGE fan of Hot Snakes. Talk about a band that never got the recognition it deserved. Their live show was something to see for sure.

I love this from that review.

"and while the CD omission of RFTC's one alt-rock semi-hit, "On a Rope" suits the band's contrarian attitude (says Reis in the liners, "[it's] the song that will forever be our piss stain on the footnotes of underground 90s rock lore...I still get checks for $13.92 every year. In some parts of the world I can buy an ox and fuck it for that price."

BinFrog

Only one band should have an album entitled "The Name Of This Band Is..."

Talking Heads.

Period.

Flagg

Sad, but the only way I know them is because On a Rope gets to be a Daughter tag from time to time.

Evacuation Rules

A lot of people know them from their self-titled "RFTC" album and don't like them, when in fact it's their worst album.

facepollution

Scream, Dracula, Scream! Is a great album. I saw them a few times around the time it was released, they always put on great shows. I'll definitely have to look out for the live cd.

pr4mojo1

One of the best bands ever, period. Was lucky enough to have seen them about 40-50 times. Helped to have lived so close to San Diego the whole time. "Scream Dracual Scream" is their best in my opinion.

nutmeg81

BinFrog wrote:

Only one band should have an album entitled "The Name Of This Band Is..."

Talking Heads.

Period.

well that is a class live reord.....rftc's is an odds n sods collection!

nutmeg81

JWBusher wrote:

I fuckin' LOVE rftc. I listen to the Japanese version of All Systems Go all the time. The US version ain't too shabby either!

whats the difference?

Brain of mJ

I miss RFTC badly.

nutmeg81

still to buy some Hot Snakes & Drive Like Jethu records!

T-Case

Flagg wrote:

Sad, but the only way I know them is because On a Rope gets to be a Daughter tag from time to time.

haha the only way I know of them is that Chris Cornell dedicates a song to them, I think My Wave, on this Soundgarden boot I have, the funny thing is that apparently they we're booed when he mentions them.

Evacuation Rules

nutmeg81 wrote:

whats the difference?

Different tracklisting, spaces between songs...