There are theories how a person’s innate sense, their very DNA, might offer them a priori knowledge they are not long for this lifetime and they better get, while the getting is good. From Arthur Rimbaud to James Dean to Jimmie Rodgers to Hank Williams to Kurt Cobain, history is littered with artists whose creative arc is that of a fleeting comet. Then again, there are theories about a lot of things.
On the cover of the five LP box set that chronicles his life in music—that is to say his life—the late Peter Laughner is shown playing a Grammer acoustic guitar. It is a fitting match: Grammers are rare birds and Laughner was shooting star more heard of, than heard. Until now.
Peter who? Laughner’s songs have been covered by Pearl Jam, Henry Rollins, Peter Murphy, Guns 'N Roses and Wilco. The little-heard original versions are better.
Cleveland Ohio’s late seventies pre-punk music scene was home to a band called Rocket from the Tombs which split into better known (less obscure, at least) acts Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys. Guitarist/songwriter Laughner was a key member in RFTT and was a founding member of Ubu—he co-wrote "Sonic Reducer," "Final Solution" and "Ain’t It Fun." As a scribe, he also wrote for Creem magazine and other rock music publications. He was also briefly was considered to play guitar in the NYC band Television.
Aside from Ubu’s initial singles, Laughner’s slim discography was limited to bootleg recordings, live tapes and a pair of limited run albums. Smog Veil has remedied the situation with a five-disc box set that includes a hard cover book collecting essays on Laughner’s work and his articles.
From solo folk blues to full band onslaughts, his music is given the treatment reserved for better-known artists. The collection traces Laughner’s musical evolution from leaning on cover versions (Bob Dylan, Michael Hurley, Velvet Underground) to finding his footing as a writer and guitarist. He sang “Ain’t it fun when you're gonna die young.” Fittingly, Laughner had read the writing on the wall as the collection includes a handful of home recordings he made the night before he died in 1977.
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The box includes the 7” single “Drugstore Cowboy” recorded with Lester Bangs, who would eulogize his protégé, in the pages of Creem. The set traces Laughner playing confident folky acoustic and blues tunes. He seems to be waiting for the right scene to plug into. He had an affinity for the songs of Jimmie Rodgers in the era, also working with his band The Original Wolverines.
By the second album Laughner’s radar is picking up on artists like Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground and Mott the Hoople while developing original material like “Cinderella Backstreet.” A onetime English major at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve Universit, his material is laced with some fine literary songwriting. Laughner’s “Baudelaire,” “Rain On The City,” “I Must Have Been Out Of My Mind,” “(My Sister Sold Her Heart To) The Junk Man” and “First Taste Of Heartache” deserve a wider audience. “Sylvia Plath,” his ode to the doomed poet suggests a simpatico ethos.
Part of the story here is how difficult it must have been in the 1970s rustbelt Midwest to play underground rock and roll, and in turn develop an original sound. FM radio was taking hold, but other than a few open-minded clubs there was virtually no circuit.
If you wanted punk rock, you had to build it yourself. He was a brash hustler, booking shows and revving up the locals. By the time Laughner had ramped up Rocket From the Tombs (only one RFTT performance is included here) for liftoff, he was bridging the gap from the high energy music that came before him and a revolution that he would not live to hear.
Around this time, he wrote “Ain’t It Fun” with the tragically prescient rejoinder “when you’re gonna die young,” and his masterstroke “Amphetamine” which could be Laughner’s epitaph, “take the guitar player for a ride, he’s never been satisfied.”
The final LP, the only disc pressed on white vinyl, is a harrowing document. It was recorded late in the evening Laughner died, in his bedroom at his parents’ house.
“Everyone’s gone to sleep,” he says, his voice a ghostly rasp, “I’ve got a six pack of Genesee and some Lucky Strikes.” Before dawn he would be dead from acute pancreatitis at the age of 24. But the night before he would leave one final recording session. It is no surprise he could cover the equally star-crossed bluesman Robert Johnson’s “Me and the Devil Blues” as well as the most doleful take on “Pale Blue Eyes” you will ever hear. Getting in the final word, Laughner quips, “you didn’t think I’d leave you with that, did ya?” before launching into Eddie Cochran’s rave-up “Summertime Blues.”
At end of the day, Laughner’s reviews and interviews with folks who inspired him, help tell the story of a specific time and place. As a catalyst his energy nurtured a music scene that birthed a pair of iconic proto-punk bands. At one point he was considered to play guitar in Television. He forged friendships with the likes of Lenny Kaye and Lester Bangs. If his vision was simply to live fast and die you, his legacy became so much more than that.
At the time of his death in 1977, few people would have predicted that over four decades later a deluxe box set recognizing him as a prime mover of the Cleveland underground music scene. Well, maybe Peter would have.
