Boston also spawned Aimee Mann, Jon Brion and Joe Pernice. Maybe their RAWK bona fides are less than ideal, but I don't really care.

I'm not sure "dominant bands" is something you can count on any city reliably delivering.

Seems to me that at some point, Boston had a teeming rock night life, which I kinda think is more important than dominance. I bet Trolleyvox has more to say this aspect, and Boston rock in general.

Mr. Mod, what U.S. rock cities are you down with? I can imagine Detroit and certain eras of New York rock. Where else?

Oats, we seem to be thinking along the same lines. What counts as a "downright dominant" band, and what other cities besides NYC and LA have produced them? Other than those two what comes to mind are cities that are more like scenes that produced 'dominant' types of music -- New Orleans, Memphis, Detroit, SF, maybe Minneapolis and Cleveland -- but I'm not coming up with dominant bands.

Actually for their era, the Cars come pretty close to what I might call a dominant band. They were HUGE for a while there.

Oats asked:

Mr. Mod, what U.S. rock cities are you down with? I can imagine Detroit and certain eras of New York rock. Where else?

Whether I'm "down with" the particular bands or not, San Francisco gave the world The Grateful Dead and The Jefferson Airplane. LA gave the world the all-important Byrds;), The Doors, The Beach Boys (close enough). NYC and Detroit are givens. The almighty Prince is a dominant musician from Minneapolis. I'm not just talking about sales figures, by the way, because on those merits The Cars, Boston, and Aerosmith (among others) make the grade. I'm talking about bands that set the standard ofr a branch of rock.

What other major cities? Memphis. New Orleans (yes, BigSteve, dominant types of music qualify, and beside, it's people like Fats Domino, that great drummer from the '50s [Earl Palmer?], Alain Toussaint, The Meters, et al who helped make that identifiable form of music). Seattle. (NOTE - I'm actually going through the Major League Baseball standings for a refresher on "major" cities.) Washington, DC (one of two major outposts of hardcore punk).

Cleveland is questionable. Lots of dominant bands came out of Texas, but I'm not sure if any came from the state's big cities. Oakland's big with the rap stuff, but I don't want to cheat and get too broad. Remember, though, Boston's biggest contribution to black music is that boy band that spawned Bobby Brown and Toni Tone Tony, right? Not what you'd call "major" contributions to music.

Chicago's rock legacy is weak, as Andyr once outlined in a similarly themed half-assed rant, but at least it's produced all that great blues and soul. Same goes for Kansas City's pre-rock output.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some big cities, but you get the idea.

I'm talking about bands that set the standard ofr a branch of rock.

I know The Pixies aren't your cup of tea, but one could argue they did this.

Also, Dinosaur Jr. are from Boston, right?

As I acknowledged, one could argue for the influence of The Pixies. Big whup!

Dinosaur Jr. fall into that "someone loves 'em" category, no?

It still seems to me that we're coming up with dominant places rather than dominant musicians. Prince to me qualifies as dominant, but how much of who he is is based on his location?

Other musicians from an earlier era that seem dominant to me, did not come from dominant cities -- Little Richard (Macon GA), James Brown (Augusta GA), Ray Charles (somewhere in Florida I think).

And conversely, who is THE dominant musician from Detroit or Memphis? And who are the "many" dominant musicians from Texas? It seems to me that those were fertile places, for whatever reasons, but they produced their influence through groups of artists, not individual ones.

Dominant musicians who came out of Detroit include Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, The Stooges...

I am purposely not getting into musicians from small towns, but if they came from a small town and were then formed by their move to a big city (eg, Bob Dylan), I'll count them toward that city's contributions.

Townspeople, think about what I'm saying regarding BOSTON, the city. Beside The Pixies, who I feel are a minor band cast in a larger role owing to the confluence of societal factors, as Dr. John might put it, I'm not doubting that I've left any major rock artists out of the equation. I love my share of Aimee Mann and Jon Brion productions, but have they carved out a unique place for themselves in rock? Are they a model for how the genre pushes forward? I don't know.

As for dominant musicians from Memphis, BigSteve, I'm going with the Stax house band. They defined a sound that others will use as a building block or completely rip off for years to come. Just because they don't have their face on the cover of many records doesn't mean they're not dominant figures in rock.

Have I overlooked the house band for Boston's great music scene? Is anyone upset I haven't included that Boston garage rock band that opened for The Beatles on their first or second American tour? You know who I mean.

Boston music? How about the Bosstown Sound?!?!? Who can forget Ultimate Spinach, Earth Opera, and the Beacon Street Union?

I guessed whom you meant, but I didn't know The Remains opened for the Beatles. Doing that was probably more of a curse than a blessing. Did anyone listen to them? They're a footnote now.

I personally don't get the Pixies (I've tried), but I think among people younger than me and many of the people here they would certainly count as influential to the point of being dominant. Any group that can tour pretty much indefinitely as a cash cow must have something.

Also, Dinosaur Jr. are from Boston, right?

Nope. Amherst/Northampton, not quite a hundred miles or so due west, or about exactly as far as Philadelphia is from Manhattan.

I'm down with Oats on this one: you can go see any one of several dozen local bands on any night of the week, at least one of which is actually pretty good at what they do, and it's been like that for decades. For what let's remember is in fact not really that big a city (Boston proper only has about 600,000 people in it, not that much bigger than the city I moved here from, Albuquerque), Boston always has local bands, local radio and local scenes. (Including being one of the main cities for what's been dubbed "backpack rap," courtesy of the folks in the Perceptionists orbit.) What's this "dominant" shit?

The Great 48 wrote:

I'm down with Oats on this one: you can go see any one of several dozen local bands on any night of the week, at least one of which is actually pretty good at what they do, and it's been like that for decades.

It may pain you and Oats to acknowledge this, but you're both down with me. I love the Boston music scene, or at least what I knew of it in the '80s, when we played there frequently. The Scene was fantastic - consistently the best city for rock 'n roll. I gave the city props for all this in the opener to the thread. What surprises me, however, is the fact that all those good scene vibrations and really good bands did not result in any "groundbreaking" bands. Don't Boston rock fans deserve a deeper place in rock history for all their support?

Boston has lots and lots of college kids, thus an instant audience which generates and supports local bands and a network of clubs, record stores, etc. The college kids play the local bands on their college radio stations. It's a constantly replenished critical mass of college kids, many with money.

The whole concept of "groundbreaking" bands having something to do with geography in this day and age seems a bit nostalgic. NYC and LA still are THE media centers, so they still matter, just not nearly as much as, say, when the Byrds were playing the Whiskey and there were 17 A&R guys in the audience.

Hm. No, not really. See, I'm only beginning to understand this myself after five years, and I probably wouldn't understand it at all if Charity -- minus those first 18 months in Germany -- hadn't been a lifelong Bostonian herself: Boston is a very weird, insular little city that really has no particular interest in the worldwide stage if that stage does not involve one of the local sports franchises. Boston, as a city, is uncomfortable in the spotlight. (The local reaction to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, at which a local boy was nominated, was to get the fuck out of town -- us, we spent a week in a cabin in Belfast, Maine.) This leads to bands who are more comfortable playing to their fans, no matter how small that group is. As Trolleyvox can attest, even back in the '80s, there was tremendous Balkanization in the local scene. Gang Green fans were not Salem 66 fans, and neither of them were Til Tuesday fans.

I remember reading a story in the Globe a few years ago in which black people who moved to Boston reported that they felt frozen out by the locals, who were distinctly unfriendly and taciturn. To which I thought, "Um...you know, townies treat EVERYONE like that..."

Great48 wrote: "even back in the '80s, there was tremendous Balkanization in the local scene. Gang Green fans were not Salem 66 fans, and neither of them were Til Tuesday fans."

Same thing in Philly to this day.

NYC and LA still are THE media centers, so they still matter, just not nearly as much as, say, when the Byrds were playing the Whiskey and there were 17 A&R guys in the audience.

Or possibly what happens now is the next big thing plays the Whiskey and there are 17 bloggers in the audience.

Philly actually has more colleges within a 50-mile radius than Boston - or something like that. The difference is that the college kids in Philly don't value live rock 'n roll the way the Boston kids do. Why? I don't know. Does it have something to do with the sale of Babe Ruth?

Townsman Trolleyvox, there's no need to paint anyone as nostalgic when we're looking back over 50 years of rock 'n roll. Boston didn't produce a dominant rocker in the '50s or '60s, the latter a decade when, as BigSteve I think put it, it was "easy to be great." Boston did better in the '70s and '80s, but it still gave its fans little more than a string of exciting 2nd-place finishes. Same goes for recent years. The city's had 50 years to produce a truly kick-ass band, and what do they have to show for it, Aerosmith and The Pixies? This may be significant.

Mr. Mod is showing a downright Cheney-like ability to follow his chosen theories even in the face of obvious points to the contrary, I'm finding.

For example, as to his question as to why did Boston not produce a dominant rocker in the '50s and '60s? Um...because it was too busy being the cooler of the two hotbeds of the folk revival. Rock was marginal in Boston until 1965 at least.

as to his question as to why did Boston not produce a dominant rocker in the '50s and '60s? Um...because it was too busy being the cooler of the two hotbeds of the folk revival.

OK, so it had to do with all those surrounding colleges. Too much book learnin'. This might explain Philly's problems as well.

But you're also missing the import of the various implications of that word "cool." As I mentioned before, Boston Cool is a completely different form of cool than New York Cool, L.A. Cool or Philly Cool. Boston Cool does not allow for the force of personality that allows someone to become what you're terming a Dominant rocker.

Dig: what's the throughline that connects Jonathan Richman, the Cars, the Pixies and, say, the Dresden Dolls?

Yeah, I think the Great 48 has hit on the issue. Boston Cool was not "failing" to come up with a Dominant Rocker, as Mr. Mod would have it. Boston Cool was actively opposed to the idea.

We go through this again and again. Our wonderful Mr. Mod accuses someone of failing to be mainstream enough, or something like that. And then the response is, they weren't trying to be mainstream. The idea of the "Dominant Rocker" is now, for better or worse (sometimes worse, I'd say), considered as old fashion rockist a view as it gets. It's all right to think that the lack of a Dominant Rocker is a problem. But the point is that it's not happening by accident. Try to be a Dominant Rocker in Boston and you'd see just how easy it is to go nowhere.

Dig: what's the throughline that connects Jonathan Richman, the Cars, the Pixies and, say, the Dresden Dolls?

Irritating, self-conscious artiness?

The Great 48 wrote:

But you're also missing the import of the various implications of that word "cool." As I mentioned before, Boston Cool is a completely different form of cool than New York Cool, L.A. Cool or Philly Cool. Boston Cool does not allow for the force of personality that allows someone to become what you're terming a Dominant rocker.

[And Mwall concurred...]

Man, you guys never fail to astound me. So for 50 years Boston rockers maintain this special cool that promotes solid, workingman rock mediocrity! Too bad Red Sox fans couldn't have bought into that line of thinking for those 86 years of suffering.

By the way, "mainstream success" is NOT what I'm looking for or judging bands by. Clearly Boston has produced its share of mainstram rock bands that have been highly successful. I'd settle for a fantastic Boston folkie at this point. DOn't tell me the folkies are too cool for their own school.

Actually, Henry James complains about weird, inward Boston in the 1880s, and he was a weird inward guy himself. It's always been the city's M.O. ever since New York became America's most important city. Uptight fussy people with irritating self-consciousness.

Seriously, though, I can't account for the 50s and 60s. But once we're into the 70s, Boston practically defines the concept of anti-mainstream rock. My guess is that Boston had no room for the period of the big rock and roll gestures, but blossomed when its M.O. suddenly fit alt-rocks desire to go underground.

Beside The Pixies, who I feel are a minor band cast in a larger role owing to the confluence of societal factors, as Dr. John might put it, I'm not doubting that I've left any major rock artists out of the equation.

What you say about the Pixies here sounds exactly like the current city of Boston. And in fact I think that clinches it for me: the Pixies are the perfect example of Boston rock, the kind of band that the city always wanted.

Didn't Bonnie Raitt come out of the Boston folk/blues scene?

Bonnie Raitt went to college in the Philly area. Her dad was a Broadway star, so I don't know exactly what place she calls home. Regardless, she's fine, but is she the defining musician Boston has produced?

Mwall, I have to give you credit for clutching onto The Great One's "Boston cool" theory. Do yourself a favor, though, and stop bringing up the mainstream thing. Plenty of Boston bands succeeded in the mainstream, made the broad gestures, etc. Plenty of Boston bands that did not reach those heights, I'm sure, wish they had. Not all, but plenty.

I get to go to the Boston area a few times a year and I always like to buy stuff in the used bins at Newbury Comics. I think there's been several terrific Boston bands. The Pixies were great. The Lemonheads were great (and Evan Dando's new version of the bands with two of the guys from The Descendents put out one of my favorite albums of last year, The Lemonheads). I wasn't a fan of J. Geils, but I should be. The fans of them around here when I was a kid put me off so much that I still can't enjoy them.

What about The Lyres? How about Dumptruck?

That's just some of the good stuff. You can't get much more dominant than Aerosmith, The Cars and Boston.

I think the kids there like the music because of the music school there. I saw some real talent at the Cantab Tavern for free (and met the surliest bartenders anywhere!).

And I'm the guy that likes Dinosaur Jr. The new album Beyond, has more ripping guitar solos in three minute songs than practically the last three years combined.

Irritating, self-conscious artiness?

Exactly. Boston's point of departure is not the arena, it's the coffeehouse.

I'd settle for a fantastic Boston folkie at this point.

There's this chick named Joan Baez you might have heard of. Biggest folk singer of her time and all that. Brought some dude from Minnesota into the spotlight, Bobby Something. Any of this ringing a bell, Sparkles?

Joan Baez SUCKS! What's the ratio of good looks to bad singing for her? It's got to be as close to 1:1 as for any artist. Come on, Great One, you must do better. Close your eyes, world, and tell me how the music of Joan Baez sounds.

I'm sorry that I've had to be such an asshole during this thread, but I start out by complementing the Boston scene and the wealth of solid bands. Am I heard on this point? No. I clearly distinguish between mainstream bands and critically significant bands. Am I heard on this point? Barely. I give more props to all the loveable bands that come out of Boston. Is this point acknowledged? I don't think so. All I've asked for is a great, effin' band that's come out of Boston - a band that set the template for bands that would follow...and I get Joan Baez?

I agree entirely that she sucks. That's not the point, dipshit. You asked for dominant. JOAN BAEZ WAS FUCKING DOMINANT! She had resonance where her brain should be (again quoting my father in law), but she was dominant!

Yeesh, G48. You actualy *like* Joan Baez? She gives me a royal, A-1 hemmorhoidal-grade pain whenever I hear her warbling away about, you know, John Henry or Norman Bethune or Cesar Chavez or whomever. She's got all the self-absorption of the hippie generation, wrapped in the itchy brown burlap of self-righteousness. Aren't there any pictures of her in a bikini anywhere? That might change my opinion.

Sorry, G48 -- our messages crossed in the ether.

Hrrundi wrote:

Yeesh, G48. You actualy *like* Joan Baez?

Yo, in all fairness to my man, Townsman The Great 48, he agreed with me that she sucks. Pay attention, folks! It's very important that we listen to each other.

I've gotta say, The Great One's ability to confront reality and put aside his personal tastes in the heat of battle is one thing I've always admired about him. We're "kin" in this sense. 48, I respect your example of Joan Baez as a dominant Boston folkie. To this I say, Big whup! :)

By the way, I haven't actually brought this point up before because it will be seen as nitpicky by anyone who lives outside of 128 and therefore doesn't get the subtleties, but here's the ting. You know two of the solid journeyman bands you keep bringing up? J. Geils and Aerosmith?

Um...neither of them are actually from Boston.

Aerosmith are actually from southern New Hampshire. Other than a few years when they were working on the local club scene in the early '70s, they've never even lived in Boston.

Geils were from Worcester, which is about 50 miles west of here. I'm pretty sure Peter Wolf was the only Bostonian, and even he was one of the thousands of kids who moved here for college and stayed. Isn't he from, like, Virginia or something? (See also: Tom Scholz.)

Remind me to discuss Philly Rock Culture sometime, focusing primarily on bands from Hershey and Harrisburg.

Mwall, I have to give you credit for clutching onto The Great One's "Boston cool" theory. Do yourself a favor, though, and stop bringing up the mainstream thing. Plenty of Boston bands succeeded in the mainstream, made the broad gestures, etc. Plenty of Boston bands that did not reach those heights, I'm sure, wish they had. Not all, but plenty.

I'm not clutching it hard at all. I simply misunderstood the direction the conversation was tending; I don't doubt that some Boston bands have had mainstream success. But my guess is that "real" Bostonians didn't approve. They were hanging around, waiting for the Pixies to bring it all back home.

hrrundi....in hopes of getting that ? record up here one day, I have searched ALL of the Internets for Joan Baez in a bikini for you.

http://www.richardandmimi.com/mimi-photos.html

Apparently, there's only one on earth. And I found it. Just for you.

Mwall: actually, the funny thing about the Pixies is that apparently, they were never actually that big in Boston prior to their success elsewhere. My wife, who was at the height of her club-going days during the Pixies' ascent, says that everyone always assumed that it was Throwing Muses who were going to be huge. Or as she put it once, "The Pixies were that band who opened for everybody at Bunratty's. Then they go to England and become stars. Go figure."

It's just like Boston to take their taste from London rather than NYC, isn't it?

G48, in the grand scheme of things, Worcester is Boston so far as everyone outside of the East coast is concerned (actually us folks in the midwest think Massachusetts is Boston). I think the Worcester Newbury Comics is where I usually shop. Driving in Boston and Cambridge is unbelievably difficult. It took me three hours to figure out how to get back to Franklin from Harvard Square. I could see the freeway, but I couldn't find a way to get on the freeway.

I phrased that poorly. What I mean was that the Pixies aren't really thought of as a band with heavy Boston roots. They're thought of, more or less, as a Boston band, but there's no sense of local pride involved with them the way there was and still is with, say, Mission of Burma or Aimee Mann.

Another way to not be remembered fondly by the locals is to start sucking. The Del Fuegos still haven't been forgiven, and no one locally has had many kind words for Juliana Hatfield for the last decade or so.

2KM: Well, if it makes you feel any better, I live close enough to Harvard Square that I walked there this afternoon to deposit my paycheck, and I had to sit here and think about it before I could suss out the quickest way onto the Pike from there. (Follow the Mass Ave curve at Out-of-Town News and the Coop, then turn left onto Eliot Street at the light and take a right onto North Harvard at the next light. Take that all the way down across the Charles and into Allston, and turn left at the Hess station onto Cambridge Street. You'll see the signs for the pike in about a quarter-mile.)

The Lemonheads are a good suggestion for a critically significant Boston band. It's a Shame About Ray is an A+ perfect album. Of course after making it Evan Dando decided that the gutter was preferable to success.

The great 48 educated us on the actual birthplace of Aerosmith and J. Geils Band while overlooking the fact that Joan Baez is *not* even from Massachusetts. She and her family didn't even move to New England until she was about college age. I'm not saying let he who's never gotten a fact straight don the pince nez, but watch it...

The main problem I have with Mr. Mod's premise is that he fails to understand the importance of Aerosmith. They were who they were, not a poor man's Stones/Zeppelin, as critics liked to portray them in their prime. They're as rock 'n roll and dominant as any proto-punk band you might get behind, like the Dolls (New York, not Dresden). The only 'problem' you might have with Aerosmith is that they actually *were* 'dominant'.

Bravo, Townsman Meanstom! Kudos to you for deciphering the rock snobbery hidden in Mr. Mod's Aerosmith bashing. He does the same damning-with-faint-praise thing to AC/DC, and it's time we stood up to it.

BTW, I'm sitting here listening to "Live It Up" by the Isley Brothers, and I'm once again marveling at what a shit-hot group they were. Anybody else love the Isleys as much as I do?

Townsmen Hrrundi and Meanstom, I've gone out of my way to send Map Props to Boston's finest. Don't use this as an opportunity to bash my hang-ups with the retarded lyrics of AC/DC songs, Hrrundi. In terms of rock dominance, AC/DC has got it. I simply feel they waste my time in the vocals/lyrics department.

You guys all cool with Aerosmith as Boston's finest contribution to the rock? If so, I'm willing to let things be.

As for the Isley Brothers, Hrrundi, I like them but nowhere near as much as you. Their '60s stuff is really uneven, and their early '70s stuff has moments of brilliance but severely lack editing. "Who's That Lady", for instance, gets out of the gates headed for a Hall of Fame career as a pop song. Then that strap-on synth solo goes on for 5 minutes too long and the thrill is gone. Maybe if I liked their soloing better I'd be as down with all that stuff as I initially think I'm going to be.

We may be looking at the bands-representing-cities through the wrong glasses. In the UK, because of the overwhelming dominance of London, bands are intensely identified with their cities if they're not from London -- the Beatles with Liverpool, the Smiths/Oasis/New Order etc with Machester, the Arctic Monkeys with Sheffield and so on.

Perhaps greater social and geographical mobility in the US means that bands are less likely to be tied to cities in the same way. Aerosmith were not even from Boston. Except for the Beach Boys, how many of the fabled California bands of the 60s were really from Cali? The Ramones may have been from Queens, but how many of the members of the various CBGB bands were real New Yorkers?

In America, you're perhaps more likely to have moved to wherever you are, not to mention likely to move somewhere else once you've achieved success. Maybe the sheer size of the country has something to do with it, and the fact that touring the US unmoors you in some way that wouldn't be true in another country.

Just throwing this out there....

You guys all cool with Aerosmith as Boston's finest contribution to the rock? If so, I'm willing to let things be.

Hell yes! Go find another city to pick on.

The great 48 educated us on the actual birthplace of Aerosmith and J. Geils Band while overlooking the fact that Joan Baez is *not* even from Massachusetts. She and her family didn't even move to New England until she was about college age. I'm not saying let he who's never gotten a fact straight don the pince nez, but watch it...

Well, none of the Pixies were from Boston either (California twice, Chicago and Dayton, I believe), and the core of Throwing Muses were from Rhode Island. Hell, I'm from Texas myself. But that's not what I'm saying in regards to Aerosmith and Geils: when Joan Baez was dominant on the Boston/Cambridge folk scene, she actually LIVED in Boston and Cambridge! I repeat: Worcester and Sunapee don't count!

Now "Boston" gets extended to "Boston/Cambridge"??? So you're telling me all those tough guys from Boston I see on tv, in movies, and at baseball games - the regular folks I used to run into when I went up there - don't claim Aerosmith and J. Geils Band as their own hometown heroes of rock but they clamor around Joan SUCKING Baez? My friend, take the pince nez off for a few minutes and rub your eyes!

Perhaps greater social and geographical mobility in the US means that bands are less likely to be tied to cities in the same way. Aerosmith were not even from Boston. Except for the Beach Boys, how many of the fabled California bands of the 60s were really from Cali? The Ramones may have been from Queens, but how many of the members of the various CBGB bands were real New Yorkers?

This is an important point, BigSteve. In the jazz context, almost none of the players associated with West Coast Jazz were from the west coast. The two major exceptions were Dave Brubeck and Art Pepper.

But if we go back to the Beatles thread, the idea that talent is about the individual musician would tell us that what city your from or become known in is just an accident. It's simply chance, not the fault of Boston, that Aerosmith is the biggest band ever to come from there. I'd be curious to know who on this list buys that argument and who doesn't.

Dear Mr. Mod: Here's a handy little tip, so you don't sound quite so much like a clod when you get up here next and therefore will be less likely to get your ass kicked by Sully from Dot: when people from Boston say "Boston," they mean "Inside 128." This includes Cambridge. This includes basically everything in a triangle with Beverly at the top, Waltham to the west and Quincy at the bottom. This does not include Worcester. This certainly does not include frickin' New Hampshire.

Now, to return to Sully from Dot, who is the archetype you're speaking of "regular folks" and "tough guys" from Boston. Sully from Dot does not give a tin shit about Aerosmith and has never heard of J. Geils outside of occasionally hearing "Centerfold" on BCN. Sully from Dot thinks Boston Rock begins and ends with the Dropkick Murphys. Sully from Dot will sing the entirety of "Tessie" at the slightest provocation, in public. He also thinks the greatest song of all time is Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline."

You're starting to embarrass yourself here.

Boston Cred and Philly Cred go toe to toe! And these days I've got San Diego Cred, which goes something like this: There ain't no such thing as San Diego. San Diego is a state of mind. I pity all your poor sots stuck in reality-based communities.

Sadly, Mwall, this has nothing to do with cred. It's becoming all about Townspeople not being able to deal with that fact that nobody's RIGHT in this matter. Sad day in the Halls of Rock, indeed.

The idea that "nobody is right" sounds like east coast reality-based thinking to me. You can only be wrong about something if something is actually there to be wrong about. Out here in San Diego, if you feel right, then you're right. Your Truth and the 48's Truth may have nothing in common, but as long as you both believe, they're both true. I don't know about you, but Hrunndi and I are going to "Join Together With The Band." Now, I may be drifting from the topic here, but that's okay, because the topic doesn't exist. All that exists is how you feel about the topic. If you could just recognize the truth of what I'm saying, think about how much easier it would be to LIGHTEN UP and learn to love the Pixies. You don't even have to move to San Diego. You can just go there in your mind.

Now, I'm headed down to the beach to get a margarita.

To me, Aerosmith and Boston's homegenized commercial rock sounds like they're from some suburb in Anytown, USA.

Which in the logic of the marketplace makes sense, because most rock fans are suburban. Cities are more the stronghold of fringe movements like indie-rock that don't tend to translate readily to the suburbs.

"It's just like Boston to take their taste from London rather than NYC, isn't it?"

Man, you've hit the nail on the head with this one. Boston has a centuries-long city crush on all things British, especially London. In music, I recall many early 80's Boston bands trying to ape the UK bands of the day. No wonder the Pixies were embraced when they got big in England. It was like they had become anointed an English band. Long-time civic dream fulfilled!

"I'm pretty sure Peter Wolf was the only Bostonian, and even he was one of the thousands of kids who moved here for college and stayed."

Fun fact: my dad's old painting teacher taught Peter Wolf at the MFA's Museum School.

"In America, you're perhaps more likely to have moved to wherever you are"

Yes, I think the discusson should focus on the city where you re-invented yourself. You have your talents which you've been honing since childhood, but you need the proper social petri dish (the Village, the Haight, Sunset Strip, the Factory, what-have-you)

"the fact that touring the US unmoors you in some way that wouldn't be true in another country."

another case for psychic oblivion!

Oh, and say what you will about the Cars and their possession of "greatness" or lack thereof, but at least within listening range of WBCN, the Cars in their day were massively influential. At first they were lumped in with the initial weirdo image of the new wave, in particular DEVO, especially with that hauty robotic way of singing and the space-age keyboards, but after they broke big, they made it ok for scads of regular-guy non-punk non-bohemian intellectual Boston bar bands to embrace the sonic and fashion tropes of the new wave (as modeled by the Cars). Between the Cars, and soon after, the Police, it was my perception (perhaps skewed) that the stranglehold of the '70's rock mode was finally breached, at least in eastern Mass and Rhode Island. But what do I know? When I first heard "Just What I Needed", I thought Lou Reed was singing it.

As it turns out, Virginia, there *is* a correct answer to this thread. It is to shake your head sadly at the monitor and say, O, Mr. Mod, Mr. Mod. God love you for trying so dang hard, day in, day out, but sit down and take a breath. Just because it has a question mark at the end of it doesn't mean it's really a question. Sometimes we take my boy to the park by the fish hatchery near our house. If you don't have the little fish-food pellets, you can throw a handful of pebbles into the pool and get a fair number of trout going bonkers for a few seconds until they realize it isn't food.

Philly does indeed claim those gelatinous-spined rockers Hall & Oates as their own, even though they were from Lansdale. But if you ask a Philadelphian on the street if a guy from Lansdale is a Philadelphian, they will surely answer no. So, to the peen-headed Bostonian who believes the nation is memorizing the "128" boundary, wake up and smell the beans. Bands have, sadly, been regional since way back when radio got big. Where a band is "from" means, as often as not, what radio station over a certain size first played its music. The doofae across our great land ask "Where are they from?" and they don't mean you to pull out the band's lease and tell them that the band has only lived there since their first single. Save that for the record geeks and anal-retentive music...uhm, nerds... who would...actually - oh. Oops. Wrong blog. Carry on!

The bikini in this photo is worn by Mimi Farina, sister of Joan (who stands to her left, not in a bikini)


http://www.richardandmimi.com/mimi-photos.html

Though I'm pretty sure Joan Didion's story about Joanie's center for nonviolence or whatever the hell it was in Berkeley in the late '60s mentions in one scene that she's wearing a bikini. However, you can't blame the poor girl for feeling that she couldn't measure up to her little sister, such a legendarily hot piece of ass that guys were sniffing around her when she was like 13.

General, I appreciate your support and the closure it has brought this thread. I'm sure just about all who've spent time in the Hall today thank you too.

The Ramones may have been from Queens, but how many of the members of the various CBGB bands were real New Yorkers?

While I generally agree with your point, Steve, the answer is more than you probably think. The Dictators are all NYC natives (mainly The Bronx and Queens) as were all the New York Dolls, though obviously they came before the CBGBs bands. Otherwise, though, of all the major bands to come out of the mid to late '70s CBGBs scene, Talking Heads, Blondie, the Patti Smith Group and Television are all comprised mainly (or totally) of non-native New Yorkers who moved there after college or high school because of the then dirt-cheap rents and then-thriving art scene and what not.

As for the Hall and Oates thing, I thought that Darryl Hall is from Pottstown (not sure about Oates) and that they met when they were both going to Temple, but I could be wrong about the Pottstown thing.

Oh and 2000man, I love the new Dinosaur Jr album, too, and the Lemonheads one was a nice surprise, too.

I do believe that Daryl Hall is from Pottstown, at least he was born there.

I have never really thought of Todd Rundgren as being from Philadelphia, although Upper Darby is so close to the city limits.

Then again, I always thought of the Milkmen as a Philly band although I believe that they're all from surrounding suburbs.

By the same token, I always think of Ben Vaughn as a "Philly guy" although he was actually from Camden/Collingswood NJ.

This is why I don't work for Rand McNally.

Hey - isn't Clutch a Boston area band?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx6FV2qR2TY

Morphine wasn't mentioned once in this thread. FOR SHAME (finger wagging)

Dropkick Murphys was, nice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=445PRHN9BFo&feature=related

crap wrong link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALH9afb4r2s&feature=related

I think we need to go further here and make the Rock Town Hall List of the Top 20 Rock Towns in America, or the Rock Town Hall List of America's Ten Most Disappointing Rock Cities.

I nominate Washington DC as an extremely disappointing rock town. It was/is a pretty lousy soul town, too, given the resources it had/has on hand.

I'm tempted to say, bakshi, that almost every American city is a disappointing rock city considered in and of itself. The question is where DC would belong on the list.

I got to call you on that bakshi. Any town that is a mecca - like DC is to Hardcore devotees can't be considered.

Being from the Witch City (Salem, MA), this was a pretty interesting thread to read. I think that between the successes of the Cars, Aerosmith & J. Geils & the influential acts such as the Jonathan Richman, the Pixies, Mission of Burma, Willie Alexander & the others that were mentioned, I say that Boston's a pretty solid rock town & we got nothing to be ashamed of. If anyone out there is interested in reading about it, there's a book by Brett Milano called The Sound of Our Town which I recommend. I'll leave you w/a couple of videos by another Bosstown legend, Barrence Whitfield of Barrence Whitfield & The Savages, who works @ the local used record store here while he's not touring the world. The first video is BBC TV footage from 1984 on the eve of his 1st trip to the UK w/the original line-up of the Savages:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOp3PObmPBA

The second video dates from this past 4th of July w/him doing a cover of a classic Them song in Marblehead w/the James Montgomery Blues Band:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjeTOXuEfz4

Finally, the greatest song of the '80s for me is "Help You Ann" by the Lyres. Have a groovy weekend everyone.