Rocket From The Tombs and Hampton Grease Band

Last week I enjoyed a couple of beers with a former work colleague who kindly passed on to me a couple of albums that I was unfamiliar with.

The first of these was 'The Day The Earth Met The Rocket From The Tombs' by The Rocket From The Tombs, a protopunk incarnation of Pere Ubu. The album was released in 2002 and features a collection of live performances and demos recorded during the short lifetime of the band between 1974 and 1975. Among the tracks are early versions of the Ubu classics '30 Seconds Over Tokyo', 'Life Stinks' and 'Final Solution', though they are heavier and more raucous than the Ubu versions.


The other album was 'Music To Eat' by The Hampton Grease Band. This is a double album dating from 1971 and has gone down in history as being the second worst selling record in the Columbia catalogue. (The worst selling album was the Maharishi Mahesh yoga instructional record). Despite the poor sales, the album has a great deal of merit and on listening to it, I can appreciate why the band were compared to Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and Pere Ubu.

If you should find a copy and enjoy some avant garde rock music, then I suggest you give it a spin.