The BGN News Archive

Click here for full review of Willie Alexander 81st Birthday Party.

Last week was the huge Willie Loco Alexander 81st Birthday Party. Of course the BGN had to be there!

Would the BGN ever have gone past the mysterious Issue #1 if it wasn't for WA? That's just a tiny fraction of how Willie has affected the Boston Music Scene. There was a sold out crowd to celebrate Willie last Saturday (1/13 his actual birthday) in Gloucester at the new club The Cut. In fact this event was the official opening of the club.

Like his 70th Birthday 11 years ago this night gave us performances by many local bands, all covering a Willie song or two: The Neighborhoods, MOB, The Darlings, Kenne Highland, John Felice, Classic Ruins, Richie Parsons, Reddy Teddy, Randy Black & The Heathcroppers and a lot of others. Oedipus was also there to say a few words during some sets. It was a night of amazing music and a celebration of not only Willie himself but the Boston punk scene!!

You can read all about it and see the John Keegan photos and slide show by clicking here - Full review of Willie Alexander 81st Birthday Party..

We have to stop again and relate the passing of another Boston punk and he was an early one. Stanley Clark passed away this week. Stanley (above to the right of Kevin Glasheen) was guitarist in the original line up of the Nervous Eaters. That’s him on the far right on the cover sleeve of the “Loretta” single on Rat Records. The photo is the group outside the back of the Rat. He seemed like such a cool guy to us back in the day.

We all call the Nervous Eaters "The Eaters" for short. Now it's official. They have a new logo.

The ever popular Lemmyfest is up to it’s fifth iteration. This time it’s at Sonia on February 10th. The bands are Iron Fisted, Maiden New England, Queens of Noise and Slim Lizzy. Proceeds go to the Ronnie James Dio Stand up and Shout Cancer Fund. Tickets here

We said last week that Key of Caustic was calling it quits. That wasn’t completely true and Key of Caustic clarified their situation. They say, “we're not calling it quits; we're just taking a hiatus while we move forward with our new partners, new label, and new members.”

We glad to know we will have more Key of Caustic music.

Want List Records is now in their new location and are open for business as of Saturday 1/20. They are now at 113 Trapelo Road in Cushing Square, Belmont.

They have Brother Cleve’s collection amongst all their vinyl treasures Want List website Insta Facebook

BOOKS.....

The book Live From The Underground: A History of College Radio is going to be of great interest to local music fans for obvious reasons. Katherine Rye Jewell has written the first history of US college radio.

By some reports there are plenty of local stations in the book like WTBS/WMBR, WERS and WZBC. We know about the stations but maybe not the politics and cultural influences that were causing changes in radio that would have happened with or without punk.

In a WBUR web interview Jewel says: "The key place is MIT’s radio station, which had a lot of community DJs who were connected to the punk underground. And they claim the status of having the first punk rock radio show. They were really embedded in that scene and were committed to bringing that music onto the airwaves.”

Even Jewel makes the point that the internet changed everything again. Radio no longer has the clout it once had. We love to see part of the scene we were in become part of history. This is an example of that.

Here’s an hour video of Jewel where she is interviewed and also talks through the part of the book that deals with WTBS when it changed its call letters to WMBR.

The WBUR website Purchase the book here.

Aug Stone who wrote Buttery Cake Ass, which was an hysterical take on obscure band fandom, has a new book Sporting Moustaches. Stone brings his comic prowess to the magic of moustaches in the sports world. The stories are full of clever word play and musical references. One park is named Van Dyke Park. A special golf club is called the Cavern Club. He attributes Russian author Gogol with the book We Got The Beet. His humorous tone reminds us of James Thurber and Stone does put a lot of stories in the 1920s and 1930s.

We’re glad to have found Stone with Buttery Cake Ass. Sporting Moustaches is coming out in April on Sagging Meniscus Press

VIDEOS......

The American Hardcore documentary is on YouTube. If you haven’t seen it, this is a good chance. It’s the story of the hardcore scene and Boston bands have their voice in there. There’s SSD, Gang Green and Jerry’s Kids. There are comments from Chris Doherty, Dave Smalley, Springa, Al Barile, Bob Cenci and Dicky Barrett. There’s plenty of comments from Ian MacKay and Henry Rollins.

The video is age restricted so they will not let us embed the video. You have to go to YouTube

The Dandy Warhols have a new song/video of the song “Danzig With Myself.” It's a tribute to Danzig. Also, helping with the guitar work is Black Francis from the Pixies.

The video looks like blobs from a liquid light show that entertained club goers in the 1960s. The song is from the upcoming album ROCKMAKER out on March 15. The Dandy Warhols will tour on the album and will be in Boston on March 5 at Royale. More info on the Consequence website

RADIO......

This Tuesday 1/23 Skybar will have on Answerman on this Rising show. They will talk about their Black Light Poster album.

Listen Tuesday at 8pm at 91.5. After that the show can be heard in Archive at the WMFO schedule page Hit the Rising show on 8 to 10 pm on Tuesday, then hit the ‘archive’ button.

Joanie Lindstrom has a special show this Thursday 1/25. She's going to play songs from groups that played her favorite shows at the Channel. She’s got a lot of good groups to choose from. Every punk band of interest from that era (1980 – 1992) played the Channel. You can get in there and check out the listings yourself on the Channel gig page

That was one unlikely location for a club. The area was spooky at night. Some nights had more shit going on in the huge parking lot area than in the club. Check out the club’s history for more colorful characters

Listen in on WMBR 88.1 FM on Thursday at 10am. After that it will be available on the WMBR archive page for two weeks.

On last week’s show Joanie played Citric Dummies from Minneapolis, MN. This band has a wicked wit. The name of the song was “I Want to Punch Larry Bird” which will raise the ire of every Celtic fan who gets a gander at the title alone. The song, well you can’t tell what they are singing. This is off an album whose cover looks like Husker Du’s Zen Arcade. They have the cover saying Citric Du and the Zen and the Arcade of Beating Your Ass.

Other songs are: “Doing Dope at Chucky Cheese”, “My True Love Is Depression”, “Tubing Down a River of Anxiety”, “Being Male is Embarrassing”, “Incapable of Long Lasting Love” and “I’m Going To Kill Myself (At the Coop)”. The song titles are funnier than the songs because, again, you can’t hear the lyrics clear enough. It’s all punk though. All songs average a minute and twenty five seconds.

And one more song to mention. Joanie played a great one by the Hoodoo Gurus – “Out That Door” from 1987’s Blow Your Cool album.

Us South Shore people just love WRPS 88.3 FM. They play a mix of new and old punk. Every day at noon they play an hour of local bands. If you’re a local band they invite you to send in your music!!

This Wednesday at 3pm they will play a bunch of Dogmatics songs on the Rocco’s Rewind show. You can listen online at the WRPS website

Anngelle Wood on Boston Emissions had all new songs this week. She played Tysk Tysk Task who are playing in the Boston Calling concert this year. She played “Today” by Fireking and gushed over the songwriting on that and we agree. Evil Felipe’s “Forever and a Day” made the line up.

We liked “Hellbound” by The Ghouls from Lowell. The song had a classic indie sound. We love the guitar gymnastics going on at the 1:10 mark.

You can hear the whole show below.

PODCASTS.........

The Elastic Glam Breakfast show was back on this week after one show got blocked. It was the familiar T.Rex opener that led into Rob Moss and the Skin Tight Skin doing “The World is a Playground” sung by Jen D’Angora. We love the Rich Kid Expre$$ singing about “Bubblegum Radio”. Duran Duran’s Andy Taylor has a solo album and they played “The Last Straw” from that.

NEW MUSIC/CDs......

“Soo All the Way” is Canyons and Locusts newest release. It has their signature sound – the bare and raw roar of the guitar. Your ear naturally goes to the voice, and there singer Justin Keene makes his mark. Its power is in its minimalism.

The eventual EP will be dedicated to Justine Covault since this was meant to be a Red on Red Record release.

The new digital single by the Boston hardcore group Billy hits hard. The songs “Escape” and “Inevitable” capture a mind in deep turmoil. Hardcore needs to be agro but these lyrics go beyond pretense. They seem to speak from personal knowledge.

The first lines of “Escape” are:

“So fed up with the shit that I see
Do I hate the world, or do I hate me?
It doesn't really matter in all honesty
I can't stop making myself the enemy”

The slow scream and sudden stop at the 40 second mark make the point even more explicit. Things are at the breaking point.

“Inevitable” is just as good depicting the state where even when they say “I know it’s all in my head” it doesn’t make it any easier.

We have “Escape” on our Top Ten Songs

Triple-B Records pumps out a steady supply of local hardcore. We like the self-titled album by Cosmic Joke released a few months ago. It’s full on hardcore with screamo vocals.

The tribal drum intro led us into the song “Throwing Stones.” Then the cool chant of “never enough.” “Tempered Expectations” has some pummeling drums and busy bass work. The band gets a workout like this in every song really. The last song is “Morphine” and by the time we got to that we were sold on this band. They have loads of hard hitting moments in this album.

One song that stuck out was “Hedonic Treadmill” with its intro chant of “running in circles”. As Wikipedia says: “hedonic treadmill (or adaptation), is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.” The song’s lyrics deal with that phenomenon…all in a minute and fourteen seconds. That’s why hardcore rules!

Wirelines are from New Bedford have a new album. A Tragic History of the Sea sounds like a book, not an album. The lyrics of this album actually seem very novelistic.

“Transatlantic Flight” feels like a Twilight Zone tale. It has the upside down logic of a transatlantic flight that can’t come down because it ran out of fuel. The passengers are fated to circle in the air never to land as they become skeletal.

“All Purpose Cleaner” which has got a lot of local airplay is about a man with the heart of a dedicated hunter looking for…an all-purpose cleaner. The lyrics go: “All day and every night, all-purpose cleanser. It's my God-given right.” You would laugh but the singing is way intense and without humor.

In “I Never Signed Up for This” the singer lists the wonder of Spring and Summer but begging forgiveness rages “I never signed up for this”. He just hates living it seems. Again there nothing jokey about this, the singer goes into screamo mode for “I never signed up for this”.

To get into this album we suggest reading the lyrics (on Bandcamp) and listen to the singer who is center to what’s happening. This all makes for a very impressive piece of writing. I stands apart from most cookie cutter albums that just line up tunes. It very much comes across a special project or theme album.

They cover the Pixies song “Gouge Away”.

Cocker from Cincinnati, OH have a new single “Distant Dawn”. The group is self-described as post punk. There is a little synth in there that is almost buried with the guitars. There is a neat fast guitar riff that acts as a hook. It doesn’t sound too electronic and it has an overall rawness that appeals to us.

“I Mean You” by The Losin Streaks (Sacramento, CA) is the leading single off of the album Last House due out February 2.

“I Mean You” is a cool garage tune with a Woggles like swagger to it. It’s got a Lyres like chord progression. It has tons of tasty fills and riffs. Did we mention organ fills too?

We’ll be revisiting this when the whole album is released.

We have “I Want You” on our Top Ten Songs.

Here's some good shows coming up .....

January 24, 2024 (Wednesday) Sweet Petunia, SiMoN (On Tour From Japan), Ivy Boy, Daphne Blue Underworld at The Silhouette

January 25, 2024 (Thursday) The Strangemen and Fast Tracks are playing Bakbar at Tempo restaurant, 494 Moody Street in Waltham. 8PM doors.

January 25, 2024 (Thursday) Slo-anne, Really Great, at Deep Cuts - This is a Know Your Scene gig- its FREE!

January 26, 2024 (Friday) Hooligan Holiday Night 1 - Suited and Booted with DJ Boss Hooligan, Stress The White Boy, DJ Ruben Doc Marten Soundsystem - MIddle East UP

January 26, 2024 (Friday) Mercury On Mars, The Zip Ups, Phantom Ocean at Faces Malden

January 27, 2024 (Saturday) HRT'S (Heather) Birthday Masqueerade with Hands of Spite, CE Skidmore & the DFB, KCUF, Shake, GHOST GRL at The Midway 8PM

January 27, 2024 (Saturday) Hi-End, Classic Ruins, CYNZ, Rearview Romantic at The Square Root

January 27, 2024(Saturday) BikeTrasher, Miracle Blood, Neck Dive at Faces Malden - tix here!

January 27, 2024 (Saturday) Hooligan Holiday Night 2 - The Templars, Battle Ruins, Merauder, Violent Way, Powerhouse at The Paradise

January 27, 2024 (Saturday) Know Your Scene Show (Free) with Tatooine Punk Scene, Good June at Deep Cuts Medford

February 2, 2024 (SFriday) Baabes (Record Release) , Salem Wolves, Sex Fixx, and Komodo Rojo - Deep Cuts, Medford, MA

February 3, 2024 (Saturday) The New Frustrations, The Instamatics, Wired for Sound at The Jungle, 4pm Matinee

February 3, 2024 (Saturday) Bootleg Dan presents The Sigmatics, Haxawald, The BickerSins at The Square Root.

February 3, 2024 (Saturday) Happy Little Clouds, Crow Follow, more TBA at The Jungle

February 3, 2024 (Saturday) TJ Welsh & The Wasted, The Gobshites, Queens Reign, Cloud Nine at The Midway 8PM doors

February 4, 2024 (Sunday) Gossip Collar, Wake In Fright, The Brave Noise, Stress Balls at the Cambridge Community Center, 5 Callendar St Cambridge. All proceeds to the Jimmy Flynn Memorial Fund

February 7, 2024 (Wednesday) Pledge Pins, Nice Guys, Andy California at The Silhouette

February 7, 2023 (Wednesday) Jon Spencer, Tiger Bomb at Sun Tiki Studio, Portland, ME - FB page

February 8, 2024 (Thursday) The Dreadnoughts, The Gobshites, Mickey Rickshaw at The Burren - 7-9PM show.

February 9, 2024 (Friday) The Dreadnoughts, Mickey Rickshaw, The Pourmen at Stone Church, New Market, NH

February 10, 2024 (Saturday) Gretchen Shae & The Middle Eight, Ex-Hyena, Looking Glass War at Faces Malden

February 10, 2024 (Saturday) Lemmy Fest at Sonia!!

February 10, 2024 (Saturday) The Grand RE-Opening of Thirsty First in Lowell with music by Matt Charrette, Motel Black and More TBA FB page to check as we get closer to the actual date.

February 10, 2024 (Saturday) The Dreadnoughts, Mickey Rickshaw, The McGunks at Askew in Provi, RI

February 17, 2024 (Saturday) State of the Union, Huck 2 at the Square Root presented by Bootleg Dan

February 17, 2024 (Saturday) Payphones, Hell Bech, KCUF, Jeff Rowe at Faces Malden

February 17, 2024 (Saturday) Warthog (Ramones Tribute), Tsunami of Sound, Bikini Whale (B52s Tribute), The Angry Debutantes at The Midway

February 25, 2024 (Sunday) LøbøHømbre, Pint Killer, The Hagglers, Shuriken at The Midway for a 3PM matinee show

March 2, 2024 (Saturday) Tj Welch & The Wasted, Hold Fast,| The McGunks,| State Of The Union for a 3PM Matinee at The Midway

March 2, 2024 (Saturday) Negative FX, Wrecking Crew. Wound Man, Savage Heads, Please Die, Eye Witness at The Middle East Down - all ages 1PM matinee show

March 3, 2024 (Saturday) Protex, Crimps, Mystery Girl at Deep Cuts- Music at 7PM $20

March 16, 2024 (Saturday) Junkyard's 35th Anniversary Tour also on the bill Casket Rats at Koto Lowell (76 Merrimack St)

March 16, 2024 (Saturday) 13th Annual Joe Zippo Fund & Scholarship show with Mephiskapheles, Mamadou, The Riki Rocksteady All-Stars (appearing as a trio this show) with DJ sets by Breaux Silcio of Residency Records. At Salem Old Town Hall -7-11PM FB page

March 20, 2024 (Wednesday) Chinese Telephones, Constant Insult, Cigarette Camp & Blame It On Whitman at Faces Malden

March 24, 2024 (WSunday) Teen Mortgage, Death Lens, Zip-Tie Handcuffs at Deep Cuts Medford

March 29, 2024 (Saturday) Cold Expectations and Hasbro and Fandango (both from NYC) at The Square Root

April 6, 2024 (Saturday) Huck 2 and Island of Alaska at The JUngle Somerville.

April 13, 2024 (Saturday) Children of the Flaming Wheel, Electric Street Queens, Orange Whip, Christian Kids -8PM at The Midway FB page

April 19, 2024 (Friday) Quattracenta, Thalia Zedek Band, Rip Room - at The midway - 9:30 show.

May 4, 2024 (Saturday) The Lights Out, Gretchen Shae & The Middle Eight, BBrain K & The Parkway at Faces Malden

May 16, 2024 (Thursday) The Dead Boys, Nervous Eaters, The Plimsouls at Sonia this is a 7PM show.

CONTACT US AT....misslynbgn@yahoo.com Send us your gig listings, your anything else you've got!! You want your CD reviewed?? Contact us for that too.