LMFAO! They opened for Rush on Rush's Hemispheres tour. Too funny...didn't know anyone knew The Good Rats.
Here's the long story: In 1983, I was in a record store when they played a new album by a female rock singer simply named Fiona. Mind you, this was the period when truly hard-edged female rockers were rare -- there was Pat Benatar, Deborah Harry of Blondie, and hardly anyone else of note. Not only was I blown away by Fiona, everyone in the store was bouncing around to the beat. I got the tape, and wore that sucker out. I thought I had been one of the first to discover a new star.
I was wrong. The album never cracked the top 20, and the single ("Talk To Me") didn't make it into the Top 40. Years later, she would climb up to #37 with "Everything You Do (You're Sexing Me)," a collaboration with archetypical hair band singer Kip Winger.
Anyway, that great debut album was produced by Peppi Marchello, and he also co-wrote most of the songs (Assisting on the album was guitarist Bobby Messano, drummer Joe Franco from Twisted Sister, and bassist Donnie Kisselbach). I discovered later Marchello was the front man for the Good Rats. Whenever I went into a used record store, I was on the lookout for Good Rats albums, and finally, I found one -- Birth Comes To Us All.
I expected something resembling the great straight ahead rock-and-roll that Fiona dished out. I didn't get that, and after listening to the first side of Birth, I started to think it was a miracle that Marchello had done anything as good as Fiona's album.
When I found From Rats To Riches on tape, I thought it had to be better -- after all, it got three stars in the Rolling Stone rating book. It was worse.
Every so often I go to a great used record place in SF -- Amoeba, for you locals -- and sometimes grab a disc or a tape for a buck or so just because it looks like it might be interesting. I have discovered few real gems, and have gotten a lot of run-of-the-mill stuff, but nothing as brutal -- IMHO -- as From Rats To Riches.
That is, unless you count stuff from The Shaggs. The Shaggs were in a class by themselves. Those three sweet and utterly talentless sisters shouldn't have been allowed a mile near a recording studio, and everyone knew it except them.
Having typed this entire thread, it occurs to me, RangeRatt, that you may be a member of the band. If so, sorry to bust your chops. At least you really ARE a musician. I can only play the radio.
Listened to them back in the late seventies. They are more crazed goofballs than anything else.
I saw them live at East Stroudsburg State College.