#Good Rats

[mice-rats-daily]

Today's rat is the rat on the cover of the album Tasty by Good Rats!

[pipsqueak-official]

i need the general public to stop acting like it's a Big Deal when i bend down to photograph the subway rats on patrol sometimes. it isn't a Big Deal.

[vinylspinning]

Primevil: Smokin' Bats at Campton's (1974)

Time is the eternal champion and even the mightiest are doomed to fall before it; but time can also be peculiar and capricious, reducing monuments and empires into sand while sparing lesser mortals who, by all rights, should have been forgotten long ago.

Such is the story of Primevil: a short-lived combo from Indiana whose vocalist Dave Campton, guitarists Larry Lucas and Jay Wilfong, bassist Mark Sipe, and drummer Mel Cupp were barely out of their teens when they recorded 1974's Smokin' Bats at Campton's.

Half a century later, some of us retro-rock obsessives are still writing about Primevil's sole LP, and while it's natural to assume that Smokin' Bats was a thinly veiled reference to getting high, this reissue's liner notes insist the bats were real and lived in Campton's barn.

Did I mention that the band hailed from Indiana?

Whatever the truth, modern stoner rock enthusiasts have embraced this modest private pressing, which was produced by local do-gooder Moe Whittemore (who also contributed synthesizers) at his 700 West Studio, in New Palestine, Indiana.

And with good reason, as there's more sonic variety here than initially meets the eye ...

Yes, there's a lot of gritty hard rock like "Progress" (with its funky bass, wailing harp, and twin guitar midsection), "Pretty Woman," and "Tell Me If You Can" -- all of which smack the listener with a sub-Cactus thud, topped by some rather awful lyrics.

But the more distinctive "Hey Lover" (allegedly whipped together in one night) is a white-knuckled romp à la Sir Lord Baltimore, and "High Steppin' Stomper" teases a redneck glam rock complete with marching boots throughout.

And Primevil reveal another level of songwriting sophistication and instrumentation on the acoustic passages and stop-start riffs of "Leavin'," then they recall -- or rather, foreshadow -- Fly by Night-era Rush with the classy instrumental, "Fantasies."

The album winds down with a slow, emotional blues called, uh, "Your Blues," which like many songs here, I appreciate and understand far better today than I did 20 years ago, when I first laid hands on Smokin' Bats at Campton's.

And despite that scary cartoon demon and deep red sleeve, Primevil weren't particularly ... evil, so go figure!

Hence the differing opinions reflected here vs. my All-Music Guide review of the time, so I do think stoner rock enthusiasts are bound to enjoy this album's triumphs as much as they'll be captivated by its modest D.I.Y. origins.

More Obscure Mid '70s Hard Rock: Armageddon’s Armageddon, Baker Gurvitz Army’s Elysian Encounter, Bedlam’s Bedlam, Black Sheep’s Black Sheep, Black Spirit’s Black Spirit, Blackfoot’s No Reservations, Blackfoot Sue’s Nothing to Hide, Bloontz’s Bloontz, Blue Goose’s Blue Goose, Bux’s We Come to Play, Brownsville Station’s Motor City Connection, Cain’s A Pound of Flesh, Diamond Reo’s Diamond Reo, Dirty Tricks’ Dirty Tricks, Earth Quake’s Rocking the World, Elf’s Trying to Burn the Sun, Epitaph’s Outside the Law, Gedō’s Gedō ...

Even More Obscure Mid '70s Hard Rock: Goliath’s Hot Rock & Thunder, Good Rats’ Ratcity in Blue, Granicus’ Granicus, Granmax’s A Ninth Alive, Growl’s Growl, Hammersmith’s Hammersmith, Hustler’s High Street, Legs Diamonds’ Legs Diamond, Mariah's Mariah, Max Webster’s Max Webster, Mother’s Finest’s Mother’s Finest, Moxy’s Moxy, Murasaki’s Murasaki, Nitzinger’s Live Better Electrically, Nutz’s Nutz, Painter’s Painter, Pentagram’s First Daze Here, Piper’s Piper, Plus’ No Pisar el Infinito, Starz’s Starz, Stepson’s Stepson, The Storm’s The Storm, Strider’s Exposed, Strife’s Rush, Target’s Target, Tiger’s Tiger, Trooper's Trooper, Truth and Janey’s No Rest for the Wicked, Widowmaker’s Widowmaker.

[great-and-small]

The majority of the Earth’s rodents: How do you survive environments with practically zero oxygen, feel no pain, and live for decades when none of the rest of us can???

Naked mole-rats:

[emma-dennehy-presents]

Anyone know anyone that does psychedelic/hippy/flower child kind of commissions? Looking to get the album cover from Good Rats' Tasty remade for the New York Sirens (Pizza Rats). Bonus points is the artist is from one of the boroughs but Ill pay anyone that can do the job

[emma-dennehy-on-ice]

Can someone please turn this into a Pizza Rats image for me? DM me with prices.

[thursdaysyme]

[za1ka]

The Great Mouse Detective screenshot redraws! 🐁🔍🐀

[storybook-souls]

listened to the first episode of the severance podcast with adam scott and ben stiller today and i can't stop thinking about this bit they were discussing from the original pilot script where Ms. Cobel invites Mark into her house, has him watch while she tortures her pet rat, and then reveals that the rat is severed and "flips a switch" so the rat starts cozying up to her and acting like a sweet affectionate pet. like. okay! they were really just gonna put it all on the table like that! you're the rat, mark!!!! you and helly and all your friends are the rats, mark!!!! mark!!!!!!!!!!

[mrghostrat]

oh my god i finally thought of a vampire au that i'm completely unhinged for. i am about to be so insufferable about this

vampire aziraphale x vampire hunter crowley. and no, neither of them realise they're hereditary enemies when they hook up. they're dorks and idiots your honour.

edit: fic is here c:

[canisalbus]

Machete reminds me of a wet rat

[ephemeriee]

nothing quite like a rat graffitied in a toilet

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

HOT, SINGLE, UNSTUDIED SPONGES. 3000 NAUTICAL MILES AWAY. Come sail the distance and read Tiger Tiger!

[injuries-in-dust]

Bravest little rat of them all!

[wachinyeya]

400,000 new cases of tuberculosis (TB) were estimated to have been prevented by these rats, whose sense of smell would make a bloodhound take notice. As the number-one killer among infectious diseases worldwide, many of those 400,000 can be translated into lives saved.

“Not only are we saving people’s lives, but we’re also changing these perspectives and raising awareness and appreciation for something as lowly as a rat,” said Cindy Fast, a behavioral neuroscientist who coaches the rodents for the nonprofit APOPO.

“Because our rats are our colleagues, and we really do see them as heroes.”

APOPO uses giant pouched rates to sniff out traces of TB in the saliva of patients. In parts of Tanzania, a saliva smear test under a microscope by a human may only be 20-40% effective at detecting TB.

By contrast, a giant pouched rat like Ms. Carolina, a now-retired service rat who worked for APOPO for 7 years, raised the rates of detection on TB samples by 40% in the clinic where she worked.

It would take 4 days for scientists to analyze the number of samples that Carolina could screen in 20 minutes. For that reason, when Carolina retired last November, a party was thrown at the clinic in her honor, and she was given a cake.

TB is sometimes thought of as a thing of the past—a disease for which doctors used to prescribe “dry air,” leading modern humors to muse at the antiquated, pre-antibiotic medical advice.

But it remains the number-one cause of death globally from a single infectious pathogen, and Tefera Agizew, a physician and APOPO’s head of tuberculosis, told National Geographic that once people see what the nonprofit’s rodents can do to slow the spread, they “fall in love with them.”

3,000 times in her career did Carolina detect one of the six volatile compounds that can be used to identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and she got a hero’s send off to a special compound to live out the rest of her days with her closet friend and sniffer colleague Gilbert, in a shaded enclosure dubbed “Rat Florida.”

“We’ve made special little rat-friendly carrot cakes with little peanuts and things on it that the rat would enjoy,” Fast said. “Then we all stand around and we clap, and we give three cheers, hip hip hooray for the hero, and celebrate together. It’s really a touching moment.”

[shopwitchvamp]

For those who need it 💼🐀✨