In 1978 an unfortunate booking at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, placed Ed Tomney's first band, the Necessaries, on the same bill as openers for Johnny Thunders' Gang War, which featured Wayne Kramer, and for the Clash. Their largely unremarkable, leaden pop-punk set prompted a witty companion to brand them the "Un"-Necessaries and to conclude that the group had exited our orbit for good. Decades later the same observer finds himself assessing Tomney's subsequent enterprise, Rage to Live, a first-rate pop band—an outcome that underscores life's capacity for surprise.
Teaming with vocalist Glenn Morrow, an alumnus of the outstanding Individuals, Rage to Live fashioned polished yet forceful pop as a constituent of the "Hoboken Sound" that emerged from post-punk New York and introduced such notable acts as the Feelies, the dB's, and the unjustly neglected Wygals. The ensemble meshed naturally with that milieu; although they issued only two albums, later compiled on a single CD, the music they left behind remains consistently rewarding. Their self-titled debut displays a measure of hesitancy, yet its songcraft and overall execution are assured enough to rank Rage to Live among the more striking left-field discoveries of the mid-'80s.
Once the follow-up, Blame The Victims, appeared, RTL disbanded. Tomney then indulged his more experimental leanings through work with Jonathan Borofsky, while Morrow has maintained a deliberately low profile.
