Music of Massachusetts
1960s
There was a considerable amount of rock and roll musical activity in Boston in the 1960s. In the early part of the decade, Boston produced acts like Freddie Cannon and The Rockin' Ramrods. In the middle of the decade garage rock acts like Barry & the Remains and The Barbarians came out of Boston. The psychedelic era saw a promotional hype for the Bosstown Sound, but most of the bands thus promoted were closer to bubblegum than psychedelia. The exception was the band United States of America, who pioneered the use of the Moog synthesizer in rock.
1970s
The J. Geils Band and The Modern Lovers, featuring Jonathan Richman, came out of Boston, as did more mainstream acts like The Cars and Boston.
Alternative rock
The earliest alternative rock bands in Massachusetts hailed from Boston and included Salem 66 and Volcano Suns. Farther west, the dissolution of the legendary hardcore punk band Deep Wound spurred the foundation of future legends Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr. from its ashes. Northampton also spawned the Pixies, Buffalo Tom and Cordelia's Dad, the latter uniquely fusing English folk music with hardcore punk rock.
Boston
As the hardcore underground hit Boston, only a few New Wave bands like Del Fuegos, DMZ- who were to Boston what the New York
Dolls]] were to New York City, and who evolved into garage rock revivalists The Lyres, The Real Kids,Mission of Burma and The Neighborhoods played any form of punk. The founder of the Boston scene was Alan Barile from Lynn, Massachusetts. Barile saw Minor Threat in Washington DC and brought hardcore home with him, intensifying DC's skinhead and straight edge subcultures.
Barile's first band was Society System Decontrol (later SS Decontrol, then SSD), formed in 1981 and recording the following year. SSD organized their own shows, playing at clubs like The Rat and bringing intense violence to the scene. Other bands soon joined (in contrast to Barile's SSD, most of these were from upscale towns); these included Gang Green, DYS, The FU's, Jerry's Kids and Last Rites. Barile's (straight edge) scene was called the Boston Crew. The Boston Crew was known for fighting with hardcore punks in New York City and throughout Boston, as well as for the first major group of militant straight edgers who physically attacked people drinking alcohol or using drugs. One of the most notorious of these straight edgers was Choke, who played in a series of legendary bands including Negative FX, Slapshot and Last Rites.
Boston developed an active hardcore zine culture by 1980, most influentially including Forced Exposure.
Unlike most hardcore bands, Boston's scene included heavy metal fans. Barile himself was a fan of Def Leppard, while DYS, SSD and Gang Green all eventually tried to switch to metal.
The death of hardcore in Boston is said to have occurred in 1984, when Jerry's Kids announced at a show that "this is the end of hardcore. We started it and we're ending it here today".
Western Massachusetts
More laidback and less violent than the Boston scene, western Massachusetts had several notable hardcore bands, including Deep Wound, All White Jury, Brain Injured Unit, Cancerous Growth, Seige, Pajama Slave Dancers and The Outpatients. Of these, Deep Wound was the most important, spawning pioneering alternative rock groups like Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh after the breakup of Deep Wound.
References
- Blush, Steven. American Hardcore: A Tribal History. 2001. Feral House. ISBN 0-922915-717-7
Referenced By
American music | List of cultural and regional genres of music | List of regional and cultural genres of music | List of regional genres of music | Music of the United States
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