Hometown Rant - A Few of my Favorite Things

Happy New Year!  I just stumbled across these amazing videos of some of my favorite Boston bands of the late 70's and early 80's and had to post them as a group.  Each reminds me of something that excites me about music from the past.

First up is The Atlantics - a band who were a local sensation in the early 80's, but whose lone LP - Big City Rock - I don't think really captured the excitement the band were able to convey in their locally released radio tapes and singles.  Here they are on an unnamed TV show playing a song I nearly forgot I loved "Weekend" - if this isn't perfect pop I don't know what is!  The clever guitar lines and frontman Bobby Marron's antics really make it happen.  Later members of this band would go on to form Ball and Pivot.  Guitarist Tom Hauck now writes novels.  Sadly bassist/singer Bruce Wilkinson and drummer Paul Caruso have passed away. 

Next is Human Sexual Response.  I long for the days when bands would wear crazy outfits like this on stage.  I met singer Larry Bangor years later when a band I managed opened for The Zulus, the band he and HSR guitar hero Rich Gilbert formed after this band's demise.  It was that night that Gilbert hung upside down from the rafters while playing a solo.  Hard to find performers like this anymore.

Closing out the trio, a song I reflect on all the time - The Sex Execs with "My Ex".  This song just about perfectly sums up everything about exes, and why not to go back to them.  Oh it's a simple rhyme scheme, but have there ever been truer words said than "When I think of you, I think of sex. When I think it through, I'm glad you're my ex. But then again, I still love you.  But then again, I'm glad you're my ex"  Execs Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie went on to become producers and with others found Fort Apache Recording Studios which the production house for an array of area notables including Big Dipper, Blake Babies, Tracy Bonham, Buffalo Tom, Lemonheads, Bosstones, and pretty much every other record you love.

Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind, .....