Rocket From the Tombs “The Day the Earth Met The…” Subtitled “Live From Punk Ground Zero, Cleveland 1975.” 2002. Smog Veil Records. Subtitled “Live From Punk Ground Zero, Cleveland 1975” on marbled vinyl. Spinning this pre-Dead Boys comp of demos and live tracks in honor of Cheetah Chrome (b. Eugene Richard O’Connor 1955, d. September 13th 2026) who died yesterday at the age of 71. We briefly met Cheetah almost 10 years ago in April 2017 at Rush Mor Records (and saw he and Johnny Blitz perform later that night down the street at Club Garibaldi). That’s Cheetah giving Joe bunny ears. Sides 1 and 2 were recorded in February 1975 at the band’s rehearsal loft onto a borrowed reel-to-reel; Sides 3 and 4 are from a show on July 24th 1975 at The Piccadilly Inn in Cleveland (Television also performed and the internet tells me tickets were $3). I wrote about this LP back then and here’s what I had to say:

The Stooges-influenced 70′s band, plagued with internal strife from the outset, split after just a couple of years and formed The Dead Boys (Chrome and Blitz plus the fantastic Stiv Bators). The other half, Peter Laughner and David Thomas (Crocus Behemoth) formed Pere Ubu. This double LP (“the greatest album never recorded”) has early versions of “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” and “Final Solution,” which Pere Ubu would later rerecord and self-release as singles, as well as the entirely insane “Life Stinks” (on The Modern Dance). “What Love Is,” “Ain’t It Fun,” “Down in Flames” and “Sonic Reducer” all showed up on on the Dead Boys’ debut Young Loud and Snotty. RFTT also honor The Stooges with fairly authentic covers of  “Raw Power” and “Search & Destroy” plus there’s a sludgy punk version of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.”

Here’s a video from someone who was at that Club Garibaldi show in 2017: