![]() ![]() The remnants of what was white wine turned pink. Then, he spits it back out into the glass. “He picks up a wine glass with his teeth, snaps off a chunk and crunches it up. “Jimmy walks in and sees the small crowd drinking his booze and jeopardizing his license,” said Feingold. Promoter Joel Feingold recalled a night when he and pals were drinking around 3 a.m. Rules were not necessarily there to be followed. Some of it onstage, some of it under the table or on the back stairs outside the club. This was the defiant and unapologetic era of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Yet, for a club that was so downscale and dilapidated in its appearance - its cramped, graffiti-festooned dressing room, restrooms that were legendary for their filth and open doors (Oedipus: “Vile, despicable, disgusting”) - it had an A-level sound system and a great house soundman, Granny Weidman. ![]() “He once said to me, ‘I’m in the forest and didn’t see through the trees.’”Īnd, yes, there were rats: Former WFNX DJ Bruce McDonald recalls an audition at the club with his teen punk band, and “as we crashed into our first number, a pack of rats poured out from under the stage.” The Rain Parade’s Matt Piucci added the club “was well-named… When we arrived for soundcheck the staff was lighting incense everywhere to cover the smell of dead rats…It just made it smell worse.” Jim Harold (right) with Oedipus. “A lot of that negativity Jim never knew about,” said Rotberg. The club’s booker in the early days, Alan Rotberg, who said Harold had “a heart of gold,” admitted there were times when bands were shorted or the bouncers got, shall we say, overly aggressive. Were there disputes and fights? Certainly. "It was music only a certain amount of people gravitated to it had this edge of danger around it." OedipusĪmong the Boston bands, many found a home at the Rat as well, some of them - such as ‘80s bands ’Til Tuesday, O Positive and the Del Fuegos, and ‘90s bands like Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Dropkick Murphys - going on to wider fame and acclaim. It was music only a certain amount of people gravitated to it had this edge of danger around it.” “It was our scene,” said Oedipus, “and Kenmore Square was rough and tumble and so exciting. He couldn’t quite comprehend it, but he saw we were having a good time and the bar was making money.” ![]() He always had this look of amazement in his eyes. Our music, it lived on the edge, and Jimmy tolerated it all and welcomed us all. “Jimmy certainly didn’t know the music and it wasn’t his type of music. “Jimmy took a chance,” said Oedipus, who deejayed the country’s first punk rock radio show in 1975 at WTBS (now WMBR) and later went on to become DJ and program director at powerhouse rock station WBCN. I had some good background experience in that.” Over time, his properties at the location also included the Bertha Cool clothing shop, the Strawberries music store, and a martial arts studio. When I asked him, six years ago, Harold said his intention was this basic: “To make money. When he took over the space from the owner of the previous club, T.J.’s, where he worked, the club mostly had cover bands. (Bill Curtis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)Ĭreating a punk rock nexus wasn’t exactly Harold’s original intention. The Rat was a dive and proud of it.” Talking Heads, with David Byrne at center-left, performing at The Rat in Boston's Kenmore Square, January 1977. “It was a cellar after all, damp and stinky with low ceilings. “The Rat reeked of old beer and had wet, beer-soaked, wall-to-wall carpeting on the floor,” recalled Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz. The Police, The Jam, The Damned, The Stranglers, The Fall, Gang of Four - CBGB and the Rat became their staging grounds. There was a pipeline between CBGB and the Rat, with New York bands like Talking Heads, Ramones, Suicide, The Cramps and Dead Boys coming north and Boston bands heading south. The Rat, a basement club with a tangy street-level restaurant called the HooDoo Barbecue, morphed into the epicenter of Boston’s punk rock scene, this city’s equivalent to New York’s CBGB.Īmong the early Boston bands that made the Rat their clubhouse: DMZ, Third Rail, The Atlantics, the Nervous Eaters, Unnatural Axe, the Neighborhoods, and Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band. Those thoughts were echoed by many this week. ![]()
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