This blog is reprinted with the kind permission of Pencil Storm - the site where most of my blogs now appear - and is co-written with JCE, my best Virginia rock & roll friend.
THE SHOWS
Ricki, why don’t you kick things off?
There’s a BUNCH of entries earlier on this site about my favorite Boston band of all time, The Neighborhoods. (Two examples: Flying To Boston to See the Rock & Roll / The Neighborhoods “Cultured Pearls”.) Plus there’s an early forerunner of the 1X2 concept, a tandem blog with my good friend JCE from Pencil Storm in 2019 about the ‘Hoods (as they were affectionately known to their fans) linked here.
At some point, though, it occurred to me that many of those blogs were about how I GOT TO those gigs or what they meant to me more than they were ABOUT THE PERFORMANCES at the shows. This blog – again with JCE – will set out to correct that fault. (Plus we’re both gonna throw in some of our other homegrown faves from the early 80’s heyday of Boston rock & roll.)
THE NEIGHBORHOODS LIVE IN EARLY 1982 (TIM GREEN ON BASS)
My rock & roll-induced divorce was final in 1982 and occurred just as a marked decline in the quality of local Columbus r&r bands took hold. Thus, my live rock & roll sights began to turn increasingly toward Boston, MA owing to listings of gigs provided by the great Boston Rock magazine and the availability of cheap East Coast flights via People’s Airlines (see “Flying To Boston to See the Rock & Roll” linked above).
I entirely missed the pop-punk heyday of The Neighborhoods with John Hartcorn on bass, and my first trip to Boston to catch the ‘Hoods featured Tim Green on bass. This was the “noisy-post-punk-we’re-gonna-do-our-level-best-to-alienate-our-suburban-fans-who-only-wanna-hear-“Prettiest Girl” and ”Flavors”-period” of David Minehan’s mighty rock & roll assemblage.
The gig was at a small club in a kind-of strip mall in Boston that I can’t remember the name of. It had to be on a subway line, though, or I wouldn’t have been able to get there. In the early 2000’s – when I was tour manager for Hamell On Trial – I tried describing the place to Eric Law (who knows more about Boston rock & roll and its venues than ANYONE I have ever met) and even HE couldn’t pin it down.
That show was good-but-not-great as the band labored mightily to obliterate any pop sensibility from the set and hooks became an endangered species. I’m guessing I heard “Cash Dancing,” “We Don’t Do The Limbo” and “Drums Of Darkness” at that gig, but I can’t be certain. Here’s a video from that era that I find I enjoy a lot more now than I did the appearance I witnessed in ’82.
THE NEIGHBORHOODS LIVE LATER IN 1982 (LEE HARRINGTON ON BASS)
Okay, NOW we’re talkin’! I went to Boston in June 1982 to turn 30 by myself because I knew 30 was not gonna be easy for me, and I didn’t wanna subject anybody to my foul mood, in case that’s the way the birthday ball bounced. Either that visit or one later in ’82 was the first time I saw The Neighborhoods at The Channel club. I had been seeing shows at The Rat since 1977 (more on that below), but The Channel – capacity 1700 – was much more my cup of rock & roll tea, since I had grown up – literally, from the age of 16 – at The Columbus Agora, a 1300-capacity venue.
David, Lee & Mike Quaglia (on drums) were BLAZING at those Channel shows. On a huge stage – with tons of room to move around, great lighting and a nicely-balanced BOOMING PA – those ‘Hoods gigs were more like concerts than just small-club shows. The video below is a good – but far-too-SHORT – illustration of how those shows played out, but what I wouldn’t give for a FULL-SET video from that era.
Over the next two years I saw The Neighborhoods at The Channel probably 4 or 5 more times. At least THREE of those gigs were as good as any rock shows I saw in the 1980’s, and that list includes The Replacements. WAIT; am I saying that The Neighborhoods were a better live band than Paul Westerberg & associates? Damn straight I am. (It’s no accident that David Minehan wound up in Westerberg’s 14 Songs touring band and later Replacements tours well into this 21st century.)
OVER TO YOU, JCE…..
THE NEIGHBORHOODS at Bunratty’s, 1987 or 1988
This club was on Harvard Ave. in the Allston neighborhood. I had seen the ‘Hoods play a number of times in Virginia, but the idea of seeing them rock out in their hometown was impossible to resist. The show was well attended, but not as packed as I thought it would be. If there was an opening act, I don’t recall one. All I know is that once they kicked into gear, The Neighborhoods were a force of nature. They played a great set. Actually, I think they may have played two sets. While my memory is faded, I vividly remember the crowd shouting for the song “The Pipe” which was a staple in the set during that time period. There’s not too much more I can say - it was a great show. This was the Minehan/Harrington/Quaglia lineup. I shot a few photos on my Kodak Instamatic camera, this was way before iphones…
THE TITANICS w/ THE JONESES at The Rat
If I could have only been to one club in Boston, I would have chosen The Rat. In high school, I had the vinyl 2-record set called Live at The Rat and I loved it. Luckily, I got there in the heyday of ‘80’s Boston rock. I wish I had seen the ‘Hoods or The Outlets, but the show I saw was killer. On this visit to see my sister in Boston, she set me up on a blind date. The girl picked me up and promised to show me the cool parts of Boston nightlife. We started at some new wave dance club where the music was bearable and we got on pretty well, but after an hour or so of getting to know me, she realized what would really resonate. Out of the blue she said “Let’s go to The Rat.” Hell yes. I didn’t know if anyone was even playing that night and neither did she, but we were in luck. The Joneses played first.
The band played to a good crowd that really seemed like it was just waiting for The Titanics. I thought The Joneses had a good crisp rock sound with a bluesy flavor—The Rolling Stones meet Bad Company. Not too long after this show, they released a record called Hard on a major label which I still play occasionally. (SIDE NOTE: There is a California punk band called The Joneses that is better known and very good - this is not the same band.) I was in heaven already when The Titanics hit the stage. Their front man came out in this big fur Daniel Boone looking coonskin cap and just ripped into it. They never slowed down and the crowd was really jumping. I had The Titanics record at home, so I knew their songs, but as is often the case, the live set was superior. My date was a bit out of her element, but I am grateful that she was cool enough to know about The Rathskeller, and to take me there. We were pen pals for years after. If you happen to be a fan of the band Upper Crust, they grew from the ashes of the Titanics.
THE CLUBS
JCE: Other clubs I wish I had been to would have to be The Channel, and maybe T.T. the Bear’s. I differ some from Ricki C. in this area - I love the little dark basement clubs.
RICKI C. Small clubs like The Rat in big cities confused me. The first time I visited The Rat in 1977 I couldn’t find the place, even though I knew the address and was standing right in front of it. After crisscrossing Kenmore Square a coupla times I went into Strawberries – the record store next door & above The Rat – and inquired WHERE the venue was. The ill-tempered clerk on duty at Strawberries pointed outside the window. “Where?” I repeated, looking UP for a club as big as my beloved hometown Agora, and the clerk pushed my head down and said, “DOWN THERE! Down that flight of stairs.”
The fact that The Rat – the premier Boston rock club for punk & new wave bands – was no bigger than the church basement coffeehouses where I had played halting solo acoustic gigs in the early 1970’s SEVERELY strained the credibility of rock critics who had been telling me in print that punk was gonna be THE NEXT BIG THING in rock & roll and wipe Styx, Journey & others of their corporate-rock ilk from the airwaves and concert stages. (It’s probably a good thing I never made it to CBGB’s back in the day.)
I bet this was a Saturday afternoon all-ages show The Rat used to present back in the day.
(The interactions between those kids to the left in the front row and the club bouncer never fail to crack me up.)
OTHER BANDS
JCE: Other bands that were high on my Boston list were Shake the Faith, Nervous Eaters, The Blackjacks, Classic Ruins, The Real Kids, The Lyres (saw them in VA though) and more than anyone else, the aforementioned Outlets (saw them in VA too). And definitely in the late 1970’s I would have loved to see The Cars in a Boston club.
Ricki C. : Oh man, SO MANY other great bands; Willie “Loco” Alexander’s Boom Boom Band, DMZ (later The Lyres), The Nervous Eaters, The Real Kids, Reddy Teddy, Thundertrain, La Peste (later The Peter Dayton Band), Mission Of Burma, The Atlantics, Salem 66, and The Del Fuegos, just off the top of my head.
JCE FAVES THE OUTLETS AT THE SAME ALL AGES SHOW AS THE NEIGHBORHOODS ABOVE, 9/14/1985
JCE: The city itself is pretty excellent, or at least it was then. My sister would be working, and I would just get on the ‘T’ and ride all over the city by myself going to every frickin’ record store I could possibly find. There were so many record stores, like Newbury Comics. I had a real blast finding all these local releases I never would have found at home. I didn’t feel unsafe or anything either, although I did once get stopped by a young woman, who was apparently a sex worker, who flashed me. There were some great radio stations too, willing to play all the local bands.
Ricki C. : Everything I always hated about New York City I loved about Boston. (Then again, I never read a book that scared me about Boston like Hubert Selby’s “Last Exit to Brooklyn” scared me about New York. I read that book when I was 17 in 1970 - on the “recommendation” of Lou Reed in an intervew when I first discovered and fell in love with The Velvet Underground. I read it again during the pandemic and it STILL scares me.) Boston never intimidated me like that. And I admit; I’m a smalltown Midwest boy at heart with an innate mistrust of Big City Life. (Cue The Atlantics here.) But just like JCE mentioned above, I never gave a second thought to riding the Boston subways anytime of the day or night. It just felt like my home away from Columbus.
PARTING WORDS…
Ricki C. : There are probably more blogs to be done on Boston rock & roll. For one; the excellent 70’s & 80’s fanzines - The Boston Groupie News (STILL active!), Frenzy, The Noise (which I got to write for in the mid-80’s when Boston bands would play in Columbus on the van-tour circuit). For another; the time I bought a Mission Of Burma record from Aimee Mann (then in The Young Snakes, later leader of ‘Til Tuesday) when she worked behind the counter at Newbury Comics, Boston’s premier “alternative” record store, which also published Boston Rock. And finishing up; a compare & contrast blog on seeing The Del Fuegos here in Columbus and at The Rat only a couple of months apart in 1984, to illustrate the effects the (grueling) van-tour grind of the mid-80’s had on nascent “alternative” bands.
JCE: Those two shows (The ‘Hoods at Bunratty’s and Titanics at the Rat) are the best of my live rock n roll experience in the city of Boston. I did also see another show at Bunratty’s - The Cave Dogs, who were a Boston power-pop band. All four bands I saw were Boston local bands. I love the city for a number of reasons, dating back to my childhood, but I won’t go down that rabbit hole. Let’s just sum it up by saying that I have been to see the Red Sox at Fenway, I’ve been to see The Neighborhoods in their hometown, and I’ve been to The Rat. I’m all good.
JCE, or John to his friends, became a fan of the Boston Red Sox when his hometown Senators left Washington, and a fan of Bean Town in general when his sister moved there to attend Boston University. But it was the music coming out of the city in the 1980’s that sealed the deal. He counts himself lucky to have gotten to spend just a little time immersed in that music scene at the height of what he considers to have been a golden era.
Ricki C. began his love affair with Boston rock & roll when his best friend Dave Blackburn intentionally flunked out of Ohio State (note; not THE Ohio State University), moved to Boston and saw The Modern Lovers play AT A HIGH SCHOOL. That love affair continued through Willie Alexander’s “Kerouac / “Mass. Ave” single (see note below), The Nervous Eaters’ “Loretta” 45, DMZ’s e.p. on Bomp Records (among many others) and culminated in The Neighborhoods.
He hasn’t regretted one single minute of it.
© 2023 Ricki C.
