My First Hardcore Show
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