ALBUM: A Tonic for the Troops (1978)
MVC Rating: 3.5/$$
Half of this album, the first side, is pretty good. Starting with Rat Trap, which is not a bad little Springsteen knock-off with some Meatloaf thrown in. The next songs on side 1 flow righteously through I Never Loved Eva Braun to Like Clockwork. She’s So Modern ( ‘she’s so 1970s’ — ha ha) is one on the other side I like.
So I guess I need to explain because I was there, and into music at the time. The Boomtown Rats of Ireland were no huge deal, in fact just another one of many young groups rejecting the so-called dinosaurs of classic rock, as defined by the Beatles, the Who and the Rolling Stones. The punks, like Sex Pistols, too often eschewed musicianship in exchange for energy and the democratization of the performer-listener partnership or focused anger at traditions and institutions. New Wavers like the Rats took the energy from the punks but added funky wardrobe and perhaps actually played their instruments well. In the end rock and roll evolved and came full circle. All rockers have their touchstones and nine times out of 10 it is the blues, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley electric guitar chords as reinvented by kids long ago like John Lennon, Keith Richards and Pete Townshend.
Inject Bob Dylan’s and other influences from folkies and country into that mix and suddenly the words accompanying the music were important. The Rats? Enigmatic, literary, befuddling and silly lyrics. They were clearly headfirst into New Wave with its higher level of musicianship and production. Which is OK if the songs were good. Quality is king unless you go the garage band route or the punk route — and that’s just taking off the filters and directly channeling Diddley, Berry, et. al.
Other notes: Perhaps ironically, Bob Geldolf, lead vocalist, went on to organize the benefit concert Live Aid, one of the largest fund-raising events of all time featuring many of the biggest acts of the time. It focused on hunger and starvation in Africa. The Rats also wrote and performed the worldwide hit about a California school shooting called, “I Don’t like Mondays” in 1979.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of a degenerative brain disease