Punk Rock Writing

Growing up in Waltham, it may be fitting that my first hardcore show was at The Channel in Boston in an area of town that in the early 80s looked like Mad Max badlands. According to unofficial urban legend, the club was owned by Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi of Whitey Bulger's notorious Winter Hill Gang and it got closed down due to a dead body in the back of Flemmi's car. And when you walked over to the club, it really looked like a place where a mobster might stash a body or two or three. Like CBGB in New York and the 9:30 in D.C., The Channel is now the stuff of legend and lore but back in the spring of 1983 when I saw my first hardcore show, it was a rough club in a sketchy neighborhood and you took your chances venturing that way. I was always into music and loved hard rock and metal and in the summer of 1982, I discovered punk rock in Newport, Rhode Island when I was visiting my cousin, Johnny D, who figures in many of my stories. I spent many summers and...

Is punk rock too popular? I don't think so.  As a 51-year old man cutting up blackberry bushes today and hoping their alternative tentacles did not carve me up in the process, I heard Police Truck by the Dead Kennedys--one of the oldest punk bands and perhaps the one with the most staying power when an epiphany hit me across the ears. This is great music no matter how popular it is at this juncture or how unpopular it was with mainstream music audiences in its heyday. I loved Police Truck then and I love it now. The delivery mechanism (vinyl in 1983 vs. Pandora today) does not matter to me. I got into punk rock when I was 15 in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and started going to shows in 1983. I once saw the Dead Kennedys in my hometown of Waltham for $7.00 with three other awesome bands and today people pay much more to see a modern version of DK sans its most critical component--the vocals of Jello Biafra. They pay more for way less as they are clamoring for a taste of...

Because today is the 35th anniversary of Suicidal Tendencies' debut album, it led to some Facebook exchanges with fellow fans and to this story about music sharing. Right after this album came out, Suicidal Tendencies were still pretty small but word was spreading by carrier pigeon. Around this time, we went to see the Necros and Reflex From Pain in Cambridge, MA and we got to hang out with the Necros in their van. The Ohio boys told us about bands they knew of and about ones to catch. They played us a few of their fellow bands from Touch and Go Records on the van's sound system and we shared some Boston hardcore with our new friends. I was with my cousin Johnny D  from Newport and his friend Dylan Roy who stayed at my parents' house in Waltham. We took the bus to the show and shortly after, climbed in the van. We saw the Ohio plates and a bunch of guys with short hair and dark clothing blasting punk rock music and calculated that it had to be the Necros. They were so...

While I grew up in Waltham, Massachusetts, my musical heart was in Newport, RI and the fantastic scene there. It was where I discovered punk rock via an old record player in a third story bedroom. My mom grew up there and we were lucky enough to spend many summers and school vacations there hanging out with the families of my mom's two sisters, Pat and Nancy, who lived on Aquidneck Island, in Newport and Portsmouth, respectively. During my time away at college, my parents moved to Newport full time and have lived there since. The city by the sea continues to be a great place for music to this day. My cousin Johnny D, who was hip-deep in the Newport music scene, and I were close and went to many shows together. I cover some of our escapades in my Johnny Thunders piece but many of our adventures entailed going from Newport to Rhode Island's shrine for independent music, The Living Room in Providence, for shows with many of our favorite punk rock acts like Black Flag, Hus...

Punk rock music was instrumental to my youth. Discovering albums like Black Flag's Damaged with my cousin Johnny D in his bedroom on an old Realistic record player in Newport, RI gave me joy and happiness and provided something to be excited about. While I grew up in Waltham, Massachusetts, I spent many summers, weekends, and school vacations staying at the Davis house in Newport and hanging out with my cousin Johnny D, a local legend in the hardcore scene. Johnny D knew everyone and everyone liked him. I was shy by contrast and simply enjoyed tagging along and being part of, at least by proxy, their music scene. Newport had a music scene of its own that did not exist in Waltham. By attending shows in Providence (Living Room, Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel) and Boston (The Channel, Paradise, The Rat etc.) with the Newport kids, we all eventually met some of the tight-nit Boston crew and became friends with them. Many of us have reconnected decades later via the magic of soc...

Josh Kiley, the former lead singer of 1980s straight edge band Deadlift , now lives the quiet life of family man in Ayer, Massachusetts. The once formidable frontman has traded hitting punks in the pit with a taped up hockey stick for soccer games and trips to Home Depot to gather annuals and perennials. He still sports an 'X' on his shoulder with the words “Clean till Death” etched below in a Celtic script. However, this weekend at a soccer game, some parents thought they saw something amiss. The sprawling acres of soccer fields sit next to the Wachusett Brewery and during halftime a group of males that Josh calls “Dads Who Drink” disappear and leave Josh alone to educate the wives and kids on the virtues of abstinence and clean living. On this day, Josh noticed the dads were late returning and could possibly miss the start of half two. He announced he was walking over to the brewery to retrieve these wayward dads. Playing the hero came naturally to Josh. It was time for...