Rockets
The Rockets

THE REVIEW

Sifting through the bottom of the barrel of American rock, you can also scrape up these Rockets, hailing from Detroit. Attempting to find information about them on the Web is challenging because you always run into that namesake band, more or less contemporaneous with them, of French clowns dressed as stove pipes and dabbling in makeshift disco music, which they call space rock (sure).

They leave us a legacy (if you can find them…) of five albums, plus a sixth and final live one, published between 1977 and 1983. This formation had a decent following at the time, concentrated in the United States and particularly in their Michigan, a place always attentive to its rockers (Grand Funk, Bob Seger, Stooges, MC5, Jack White, Ted Nugent…), despite the fierce local soul competition (Steve Wonder, Aretha, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Miracles… and well, the best in America).

The two pillars of the lineup are the drummer, singer, and composer John Badaniek, nicknamed "The Bee" because he never stopped moving, full of initiative, eager to play, full of projects, just like a bee indeed. The other is Jim McCarty, a lanky and brilliant rock blues guitarist, not too talented in composing but conversely exquisite, an excellent soloist.

Jim came from his experience with the Cactus, tough rockers, with a more brutal and virtuosic impact than these Rockets due to an atomic rhythm section, the Appice/Bogert duo ex-Vanilla Fudge, and an extreme and alcoholic frontman. In his new group, McCarty finds a "normal" rhythm section, but above all, much more people around him. There are indeed a second guitarist and a keyboardist, so he can focus on working finely with the solo, without rushing too much on the keyboard, without worrying about constantly filling the sound, doing rhythm.

The genre is a varied but decisive blues rock’n’roll, nothing genius, but pleasant and gritty. Helping rock without frills and swoons is the singer David Gilbert, provided with a gravelly voice, yes, but without exaggeration. Think of AC/DC but with developed choral parts, a semi-slow blues now and then, even some ballads, with a more rounded and colorful sound, not perfectly shaped like the Australian champions, statuesque in their high-volume, purely guitaristic rock’n’roll. The Scottish Nazareth also comes to mind as a similar band.

Among always upbeat yet melodic rock’n’roll, more commercial three-minute attempts, long strokes of McCarty's guitar in the more extended tracks, the song that attracts the most in this album is the perfect, respectful, committed cover of "Oh Well," a masterpiece of the early Fleetwood Mac by the late Peter Green, with its statuesque riff and the stop&go that set a standard.

It’s always a pleasure to intercept non-essential, but very worthy pages like these, added at the time by the Rockets to the great book of rock’n’roll.