Rat Attack

Today's post really takes me back to my youth. When I was a 15 year old lad growing up in Cape Town it was considered the height of cool to own "Into The Night We Slide" by Radio Rats.

The album - considered by many of the admittedly small number of expert commentators on the subject to be one of the best South African rock albums of all time - came out in late 1978, although like most others I only really became aware of it in early 1979 through the big hit single, which got to number two in the local charts.

That single was "ZX Dan". It blew us away at the time to think that a local band could produce something so good, and it still sounds fantastic now. While it was the stand out track on the album, the rest of it was all pretty good too - take, for example, "I'm Not Like That".

"Into The Night We Slide" was the only album Radio Rats released at the time. After a couple more singles they went quiet, but reformed in the 1990s and I believe are still recording if not performing. My original copy of the album went the way of all flesh many years ago, but it is now available to download - along with the more recent Rats' albums and much more top notch South African music - from Rhythm Online.

Needless to say I could find any clips of Radio Rats, so here instead are some other, lesser, rats who were also active in 1978: