Hello all from Ratchet-City. It's with much dragging of the feet that we must say that The Ratchets are taking a hiatus for the rest of 2007 effective midnight on Monday August 27, 2007. What comes of us in 2008 is up to the maker of the rocknroll universe, and in the meantime we ask you to join us in prayer that our creator may have enough cigarettes, pomade, and tattoo ink to keep happy. With a little bit of luck we'll be back around again with some new songs of rebellion, because what it comes down to is that we like playing in a band with one other. We would like to thank everyone who's rocked out with us, kicked it, passed the dutchie, and put money down for us, it's been appreciated. We'd also like to thank the bands we were lucky, and sometimes not so lucky, to share the stage with and also the venues that took us in. So while we say ta ta for now we've got three upcoming shows with The Low Budgets you won't want to miss this weekend:

Friday 08.24.07 @ Halfway House, 4141 Chestnut St., Philly, PA
w/ Low Budgets & F.O.D. Doors @ 7pm.
Saturday 08.25.07 @ Nerve Center, 2823 Huntington Ave, Baltimore, MD
w/ Low Budgets. Doors @ 7pm.
Sunday 08.26.07 @ Jerk House, 465 56th St Apt 3, Brooklyn, NY
w/ Low Budgets. Doors @ 7pm.

We'll be getting around to fixing up our website over the next couple of months so be sure to check in for some unreleased tracks and live recordings.

xoxo,
The Ratchets

We have some exciting news to announce. The Ratchets have a new member! Mr. Scott "Gobots" Golley of Lifetime fame is our new drummer and we couldn't be happier. Thank you so much to all the drummers out there who offered to try out and to all the fans for their encouraging words.

So now that we have a drummer we figured it's time to get back to playing some shows. Our first show back will be this Saturday, July 14th, in Easton, PA at the Outrageous on the River Festival with Suburban Legends, Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer, Deals Gone Bad, and others. The festival is at the Riverside Park Amphitheater (15 Larry Holmes Drive, Easton, PA) and it's a free event. The fest starts at 1PM and goes until 9:30. Now quite sure when we play but imagine that it's somewhere right in the middle of it all. We've also booked some shows with Philly's The Low Budgets for the end of August and are working on booking more shows now that we have a band again.

As for future Ratchets plans, we're working on putting together new material and will hopefully be recording either a new EP or perhaps full length this fall. There are no concrete details or dates for a release at the moment but we've had some offers but are keeping our options open for the time being.

While our site is down you can still order our merch at www.Chunksaah.com. The 2004 debut EP is now out of print and "Heart of Town" EP is not far behind so don't wait if you still haven't picked it up. Of course our most recent CD/LP "Glory Bound" from Pirates Press Rcords is still widely available and if you want a tee-shirt we have one of those for sale at Chunksaah as well. And of course, our myspace page is still active if you want to keep on top of what we have going on while the new website is being built.

Thank you for your support and we will see you soon!

Hello! Hello! Ahh...back from tour and settling back into things over here at Camp Ratchet. Our little jaunt out was quite pleasant. The Hold Steady surely did not disappoint and were quite friendly and gracious to boot, lending us their drums and amps because our van broke down on our way out of town. It was also great spending some quality time with old friends the River City Rebels. The Worthless United reunion and opening night of Chunksaah's Asbury Park Punk Night Takeover went off without a hitch. And then...trouble. We have parted ways with Erik, our drummer, and have been figuring out what the plan is. Well, we figured it out...get a new drummer. So...The Ratchets are looking for a young, powerful, and dynamic drummer. No jazz, no funk, no laid back! Drop us a line if you think you've got the chops.

And check this out...

New Brunswick, New Jersey, Goodbye - Vol. 1
A special edition focused on the release of host Ronen Kauffman's new book featuring:
Jack Terricloth (Sticks & Stones, World/Inferno)
Zak Kaplan (The Ratchets, Chunksaah Records)
John Waverka (The Break, Purpose)

Available for free at www.downloadpunk.com/ronen or www.issueoriented.

And this to...

rock,star myspace

Check out a bunch of old guys and a girl try to rehash a bunch of songs that they wrote a decade ago.

Features current and former members of bands such as: The Ratchets, Worthless United, Miss TK & The Revenge, Stormshadow, The Shemps, River City Rebels, Fast Times, Standpoint, The Measure, The Scarlett Letter, Fanshen, and a bunch more bands you never heard of!

"The greatest record out of New Brunswick that never came out." - Chirs Pierce (Doc Hopper)

"New Brunswick's best kept secret." - Ronen Kauffman (Zombie Apocalypse)

So, Glory Bound was selected as album of the day on the CMJ website: www.cmj.com. There's also a cool review of the record which is pasted below. Also, our whole record is availabe for download now on iTunes. Everyone with a video ipod can now dowload our album art too.

CMJ Daily Reviews February 2007
RATCHETS: Glory Bound
They may not be crying out for anarchy in the UK or pleading for sedation, but it's a comfort to know that punk has survived in its original spirit. It's very clear from their occasional reggae-influenced riffs that the Ratchets were raised on the Clash, but the fact that they were left with simple yet solid song construction and a political consciousness has put them years ahead of their contemporaries. The music itself may not come across as anything terribly original, but it's a respectful and intelligent presentation of a genre that has all too often been subjected to grousing about girlfriends. At just over half an hour, the 10 tracks on this record are very high energy and should hold the attention of even those with fidgety stereo fingers. Plus, even if their lyrical insights don't spur the masses toward a call to action, the album is, if nothing else, an incredibly fun listen.
- Amanda Farah

Hosted By: WFMU 91.1(nj) - 90.1(nyc)
When: Thursday Jan 11, 2007
at 11:00 PM
Where: WFMU 91.1fm
JERSEY CITY, NJ 07302
United States
Description:
WFMU 91.1(nj) - 90.1(nyc)

Click Here To View Event

Hey everybody! We just got back from our little West Coast stint and it was a pretty good time. A huge thanks to The Lucky Stiffs for, not only sharing the stage with us, but also sharing their equipment and their van. Also, a huge thanks to Eddie, Skippy, Charlie, Taylor, Marianne, and the whole Pirates Press crew for the places to sleep, the things to smoke, the food to eat, the video games to play, the tattoos, and so much more.

With 2006 coming to an end you may be wondering what The Ratchets will be bringing to 2007. Well, we've already got some cool stuff lined up. We're currently mixing a Ramones inspired tune called "Ramona" for the "Sedated Just Like You! 25 Original Songs About and Inspired By the Ramones" compilation being released by Full Breach Kicks. We are also appearing on "Prisoners of War: A Benefit for Peter Young" which is being released on Direct Achtung! Records and features our version of Schwartzeneggar's "The Way Things Are", which was recorded at Atomic Recordings during the "Glory Bound" sessions. The comp also features tracks from Bouncing Souls, 108, Strike Anywhere, Propaghandi, Goldfinger, and many more. We also jumped into Vinyl Raccoon Studio about a month ago to cut a track for Vinehell Records "Let's Do It For Lance!" benefit comp for Lance Hahn (of Cringer/J-Church fame) to raise money for his kidney transplant and other medical bills. We recorded our version of J-Church's "Bottom Rung" and it looks like we'll be featured along with some other great bands like The Queers, Radon, The Parasites, and a whole bunch more doing J-Church and Cringer covers.

Today we also got word that we are currently charting at 120 on the CMJ charts which is pretty exciting for us, especially since our goal was just to break the 200 hundred mark. So now we..re feeling greedy and asking all our fans to call their local college radio station and request that they play The Ratchets. Please, help us try to break the 100 mark by the end of the year!!!

Well, that's about it for now. Tomorrow we play Trash Bar in Brooklyn, NY with The Killtakers and Gaslight Anthem and we close out the year on New Year's Eve at the Crocodile Rock in Allentown, PA with Weston and Latex Generation.

THE RATCHETS - GLORY BOUND - IN STORES OCT. 24, 2006
PRE-ORDER GLORY BOUND AT THE RATCHETS ONLINE STORE. LISTEN TO "HUMAN AMPLIFIERS" ONLINE. DO THESE THINGS WE TELL YOU TO DO AND THINGS WILL WORK OUT FOR THE BEST.

We just did an interview with the fine folks over at www.punkshit.org. They've got photos from last Fridays show at the Church and they're also running a contest for some signed Glory Bound posters which are hot off the presses, and look really awesome. Go over to their site and enter your email address for a chance to win!

Hey everyone,
Zak and I did an Interview last week with Mutiny Zine, and it's up on their website. You can check it out at: www.mutiny.co.nr.
-Jed