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Back in 1974 I went to see The New York Dolls play at the Cricket Lounge in Ashland, MA. !! I'll never forget that night, standing right up front, I could see every wrinkle and curve of David Johanson's penis through his hot pink polyester pants!! The opening act was a local band called Reddy Teddy. I was in awe. All these cute cool guys making great music…and from Boston!! I made sure to talk to them after the show (groupie mentality already been blossoming from hanging out with a NYC band called The Harlots of 42nd Street). They invited me and my friend to come visit them at their house in Boston anytime…and to bring them food when we came.
At the Reddy Teddy "Mansion" I soon met Willie Loco Alexander and heard his very first tape of "Kerouac" performed fresh out of the tub as the stuff was still on his mind.
I moved into town, taking up residence in Harvard Square in what would later be called Groupie Towers.
I was out at The Rat and The Club every night, totally into the scene! At this time we were seeing bands like Thundertrain, Baby's Arm, Third Rail, The Real Kids, Mickey Clean and The Mezz, The Mindless Fucks, The Boize and Fox Pass. Then the first issue of the Boston Groupie News appeared. (Photo at right.) It was a gossip rag pointing jabs at everyone on the scene. I didn't write it but everyone thought I did.
Everyone waited for the second issue but it never appeared. I decided to take up the challenge and continue with the Groupie News. Since everyone thought I did it I figured I might as well fulfill the prophecy. I continued to do it anonymously and continued to deny having anything to do the rag.
I'd sneak into the clubs in the afternoon and put BGNs on the cigarette machines of the Rat, The Club and Cantone's. Everyone was waiting eagerly for every issue, there was so much stuff going on and the scene felt like magic at that time. Eventually everyone put two and two together and they knew it was me.
I came out, I was the one and the BGN continued on, only now it was up to 4 pages.
After several issues of doing it alone Blowfish sent me a parody of the BGN. I thought it was hilarious and wrote to him asking him to join forces with me, which he did eagerly.
There was so much happening in the scene in the late 70's! Bands came in from out of town, all new at the time: the Ramones, Blondie, The Damned, The Dead Boys. The Boston Groupie News was there to meet and "greet" them all, to get all the latest info and gossip on them!!
New clubs arose; The Underground, Storyville, more bands popped up: The Neighborhoods, The Nervous Eaters, Unnatural Axe, the Mighty Ions, The Billy Goons. Blowfish and I expanded the BGN from 4 pages to what would eventually become 24 pages of interviews, special photo features, news gossip. The local band members contributed as well, Willie Loco had a column called Deep Thot, Kenne Highland had DC Divin' , Mach Bell of Thundertrain and Frank Rowe of Baby's Arm did comics, other band members like Richard Nolan, Marc Thor wrote stories. It was awesome fun at an incredible time in history!! Eventually I married Kenne Highland, split from Kenne then decided to go to art school. Eventually something had to go, between school, working and the BGN it was all too much. In the 80's there were now all kinds of new papers around, with more money and more staff; Boston Rock, the Subway News so the BGN was abandoned. I pursued artwork and life, remaining close friends with Kenne all the time.
Then in the summer of 2002 Blowfish came up with the hairbrained idea of building a BGN website. I said "Don't expect me to devote a lot of my time to this, I have to do my artwork." Well folks, that was then , this is now…I never did get the that artwork, my studio lies neglected and the Boston Groupie News is once again taking over my life, this time on-line. This thing seems to have a life of it's own…I'm in for the ride.
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