Desert Rat

Two entries by this description; 1. For those of you who don't know who Desert Rat is, here's a brief characterization. He's not actually a rat, biologically speaking. He is a guy with a banjo who sings songs about things that are really going on. If it is going on, he might sing about it, no matter how controversial it is. For this reason, his songs occasionally become popular, in spite of the fact that they will rarely play on the radio.

Desert Rat emphatically warns his audience that they must look elsewhere to find the best singers and banjo players. The only reason to listen to Desert Rat, according to him, is to hear the banjo used to tell the real story. "The empires have their TV stations, and we have our beat boxes and banjos; we might as well use them", he says.

2. A Melbourne, Australia pub band that worked heavily around the traps. Recorded one album in 1976 named Home From The Front that was engineered and produced by Gil Matthews from Billy Thorpe and The Aztecs. Desert Rat's members had already been around the block a couple of times by the time of the LP's release in 78' - guitarist John Moon and bass player Ian Ryan had both been in Buster Brown (with a pre-Rose Tattoo Angry Anderson and a pre-AC/DC Phil Rudd), among others. Home From The Front also spawned a single (Need Your Love / Reach For The Sky) both included on the LP.