heART on CenterAfter countless years of rocking the world silly, Rocket from the Crypt finally made their national television debut on the Craig Kilborn Show on Oct. 28. The band ripped through “Not Invisible” from their new Vagrant Records album, Live from Camp X-Ray. Rocket's infamously rabid fan base showed up en masse. So much mass, in fact, that you could barely hear Kilborne announce the band over the thunderous din of hoots, hollers, and plain old hysteria.
On the band's official Web site, Apollo 9 had this quasi-philosophical bro-down moment with the aforementioned loyal rowdies:
“No matter how hard you try, you cannot fit a square peg into a round hole,” Apollo 9 writes. “So what, then, becomes of the peg? It is usually discarded for being something it is not. Sometimes it is loved simply for what it is.
“Rocket From the Crypt has never enjoyed a lot of airplay on the radio. We have been treated like something just short of lepers by MTV. Even the support of the various labels that have put out our records could be considered suspect. And despite what some might think, or maybe what we may have projected at some point in our lives, none of us lead an extravagant lifestyle.
“We could end the story here and cry into our beers, blubber on about how the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world is going to be the greatest forgotten rock 'n' roll band in the world, blah, blah, blah. But the story doesn't end here.
“Yesterday afternoon RFTC made its network television debut on the Craig Kilborn Show. Not a big deal. One song, about two and a half minutes long. The big deal was the support the band felt by those who attended. You folks who were there made each one of us very proud. We, as a band, have rarely felt so loved and lucky.
“No, we don't have any hit records, or Cribs-style houses. Not one of us even owns a bitchen' car. What we do have is the best fans in the world. The kind of people who drive hours out of their way to see us. The kind of people who order tickets in advance and take the day off work or school to hear a song that you probably already have on both CD and vinyl. The kind of people who graciously sit through Sabrina the Teenage Bitch and Paul Rodriguez Pt. 2. (I smell cancellation) just so they can applaud louder the next time ‘Craiggers' mentions the words, ‘Rocket From the Crypt.' The kind of people who won't let the history books forget that the best rock 'n' roll band is alive and kicking in San Diego. You may not be large in numbers, but you are huge in heart.
“So it seems that hard work, discipline, talent and good looks does pay off in the long run for RFTC. Our thanks go out to you for loving the square peg.
“Give it up for the Fans.”
Pseudo-retraction
In related, belated news, CityBeat erroneously reported in a story about SOMA that the venue had helped build Rocket's career. In actuality, Rocket swore off the venue indefinitely after a scrap broke out during one of their first shows and still vows to never play there. We regret nothing.
New Pinback Side Project
Pinback's Rob Crow just can't keep his hand out of his own cookie jar. After winning “Album of the Year” at this year's San Diego Music Awards for Pinback's Blue Screen Life, the recordaholic, along with his partner Zach Smith, are working on two EPs-one for Absolutely Kosher Records and one for Ace Fu Records-and their full-length debut for Chicago's legendary Touch & Go Records.
Crow-already of Heavy Vegetable, Thingy, Physics, and Optiganally Yours lore-has started yet another side project called They Made Me Do It. They played their first gig at the L.A. all-ages venue, The Smell. Crow writes on his mailing list: “[It's] me on guitars and yelling, Mike from Charles Bronson (and also the illustrator of the new updated Star Wars Guide To Characters) on guitars and yelling, Chris from Roswell Project yelling, Kenny from the Drants playing bass and Marcus the Ona Sushi waiter on drums.”
In related, belated news: Appropriately, the anti-establishment Crow went on to criticize the San Diego Music Awards in The San Diego Reader the following week, much to the glee of dirt-digging gossip columnist Ken Leighton. Leighton traditionally runs two negative pieces on the Awards every year, with hard-hitting angles such as “my band was in the wrong category” or “my band wasn't nominated.” (Of course, Leighton failed to mention the nearly $40,000 raised by the Awards for local elementary school programs.)No word yet on whether Leighton wrote an anonymous “Letter to the Editor” about his own story in order to reap the monetary reward that the Reader kicks back to its writers for each letter.
