2 posts tagged “boston”
The Tarbox Ramblers! OK, these guys have been around for ten years at least; I used to go see 'em at the Green Street Grill in Central Square, Cambridge, on Thursday nights back then. Live, they're fantastic. Or were. Haven't gotten around to seeing them recently.
So anyway, this is the best St. James Infirmary I've heard. Can't remember who wrote "Oh Death" (not Ralph Stanley; this is a different song), but I'm lazy these days so the hell with it. These are from their indispensible first album. The second album is less great IMHO.
The Modern Lovers, 1973. "Aborted album sessions with John Cale", say the credits. Somebody says "Kim Fowley" here, and also maybe they were actually just demos instead. I've got it on Songs of Rememberance [sic], one of those things that's not really exactly a bootleg, maybe, but then again there's no information about the label (Punk Vault), and when you Google the label there's very little sign that it ever existed. These guys make New Rose look like a major conglomerate. But anyway there's a lot of stuff like this out there, and this is one of the better ones. Mostly unreleased studio material, great sound.
Filene's is a department store in a part of Boston called Downtown Crossing, on the fringe of the "lonely financial zone by the sea". Beverly's a suburban town north of Boston. They say it's not much to look at now, but maybe in 1973 it was something special. But hey, whatever Jonathan says is special, is special. You want special? You talk to Jonathan: "It's so good to see the stars/I thought we'd lost them/I love Boston".
The guy in the band photo second from right, between Brooks and Harrison, is the late Jon Felice, who played guitar with the Modern Lovers for a bit. I think he's actually anachronistic as far as this track goes, but he's in the picture they put on the album so I figured I'd play along.
I started worrying that nobody's reading this blog, but then I thought, would Jonathan care? Nope. Jonathan would not care.
