Hours before they played, we were told to brave a Hamilton’s “Party Nite” and catch the opening set at all costs. The tip sounded sincere, not a prank to get us beat up by college boys, so we donned an inconspicuous brown jacket, paid the $5 and mosied in.

Turns out the band in question, Teaspoonful of Zest, was the latest performance project from our illustrious pal Dead Lewis. As is his wont, he found a cache of obscure songs in a certain genre, found some sidemen who could share the joke, rehearsed them exhaustively in the style in question (in this case, a sort of primitive suburban funk familiar to white AM radio listeners in the mid-1970s) and let loose the results upon an unsuspecting audience. Songs included “Gift Trap,” “Wink,” “Apples to Apples” and “Couch of Power”—did we just have you diving for your parents’ record collection there.

The most popular by far were the double-entendre tunes like “Priest of the Parish,” “The Resistance,” “Never Have I Ever” and “Buck Buck”…

From Rich to Rick: We were remiss in not noting last week the actual names of the drummer and bassist in Tin Rick. While we maintain that the real story there was the merging of vocalist/guitarist Martin Gibson and lead guitarist Eddie Rick, we ought to have made room for the hallowed names of Carvin and Cort, the Benedetto brothers, formerly of (duh) The Benedettos and the power trio Bee See Rich (with Richard Fernandes, now of the more conventionally acronymed PSR)….

Kangaroo Hop at the Bullfinch with Siam How Lonesome I Am and Wake Up America… Bantam Step, Dog-Gone Dangerous Girl, Tiddle-De-Winks, The Rolling Chairs—sounds like another College Nite at Hamilton’s. Drink up, fellas… Cool psychedelic basement show with Havanola, So Long Sammy, Where Journeys End, Picture I Want to See, Mr. Jazz Himself and Poppy Land—but we’re not allowed to tell you exactly where it is. Frosty (Q’s bald pal) will be standing on the corner of Day and Knightsbridge at 4 p.m. with details. Seriously… White reggae paradise at D’ollaire’s with scandal Walk, Jim-Jam-Jems, Kickin’ the Clouds, backing singers Lonesome Little Raindrops and backing band Idol Dreams….

One of the trolls in the play is really cute. Too cute to be a troll. Her initials are CT.

[As Christopher Arnott continues to chart his 45rpm single collection.]

1. Jeff and Jane, Special World b/w Mother Told Me. My wife took a class in video art from Jeff and Jane Hudson at the Boston MFA-affiliated Museum School around the time this single came out. I didn’t know that until years later. I first knew Jeff and Jane Hudson as The Rentals—not the much later Weezer-related act, but a local Boston band that got to open  for The Clash’s debut Boston appearance, at the Harvard Square Movie Theatre in mid-February of 1979. The Rentals got the gig because the ever-progressive Clash decreed that their opening acts must include a verifiable rock legend (at this juncture it was Bo Diddley) and a local band with a woman in it.

I saw that Clash show with my friend Wally Gagel, who eventually met the Hudsons and plays drums on this 1983 single. Wally, now a big record producer in L.A., was still in the thrall of John Lydon’s Public Image Limited back then (who who’d heard them wasn’t?). A derivative yet well-meaning mechanically paced doom and gloom pervades this disc. 1984 was nigh, after all, and distanced empty clanging was in vogue. I’d thought that The Rentals’ single “Gertrude Stein” was a brilliant punk translation of literary minimalism. This single, not so much. But it’s surprisingly vibrant for something otherwise so outdated.

2. 10cc, The Things We Do for Love b/w Hot to Trot. Ah, the allure of the non-LP B-side! This is the early days of the Graham Gouldman/Eric Stewart edition of 10cc, after Kevin Godley and Lol Crème (the more avant-garde half of the quartet) split off to go invent a guitar gadget and record the sprawling Consequences with Peter Cook. The first four 10cc albums were a mix of trad pop and postmodern itchings, cool and edgy yet strangely comforting. This single showed that something clearly had been lost, though it was a hit and the band endured in this form for several more albums.

3. Poundcake, Kick the Can b/w Algernon. From the silver age of power pop in Boston, as mounted by the Q Division studio/label. Guitarist Clayton Scoble Jr. had been part of Aimee Mann’s band and would later form Francine. Mark Rivers was a recovering Cavedog. Josh Lattanzi was the most charming bassist in Boston. This was an extraordinary trio. They seemed to have so much goofy fun playing together that you knew it couldn’t last long, and it didn’t. They did produce an album however, Aloha Via Satellite. Poundcake’s best songs, including “Kick the Can” here, were wondrous mixes of playful lyrics, profound musicianship and severe, algorithmic rhythms.

4. The Streams, The Drift b/w Failed Speech. Early single by the David Brooks-band which got darker and more roots-oriented as it matured. “The Drift,’ by contrast, has some delirious guitar swoops.

5. The Lean-To’s, Lucky and Soapscum b/w Jackie. This three-song EP by David Brooks’ pre-Streams band, issued on the British label Watercolour, came with some of the cattiest liner notes ever distributed, a tipped-in card that read:

Notice: The makers of this record have neglected to inform you of important information regarding this music. Evidently they felt their artwork and the name of their label was of more significance than giving proper credit to the individuals responsible for this music. To alleviate any confusion you may experience while examining this product, the following explanation is offered: The Lean-to’s were founded in 1987 by David Brooks and Joe Rees. The Soapscum/Lucky side of the record are two of the earliest recordings we made. The rhythm section on these tracks was Jim Balga and Spike Priggen. The Soupjackie side was from the second formation of the group, which included Jim Copola and Jon Morris on rhythm. All three compositions were written by David Brooks. Thanks to everyone who supported the group over the years. I hope you enjoy this music.

—Dave Brooks, November 1991.

Frieda Bettany sold out. Yes, she did her analytical disco revue at D’ollaire’s Saturday night. But all irony was lost. Her lyrics which mock dance-music stereotyping were either lost in the buffeting beats or had been whittled down from daggers into splinters. Her stage manner was just plain exhibitionistic, not campy or purposefully contrived or “contextual” as it was when she presented it as her Feminist Studies thesis projects mere weeks ago at the college on the hill. She just did a bunch a dance tunes. Whether they were good or not no longer matters in the same way.

As one who’d been actively pushing for this show to be seen by real people off-campus, we’re disco-distressed and apologetic. Hard to explain how different this was from what we saw up on the hill on a rainy afternoon last month.

In any case, a star is born. Bettany’s been booked, on the merits of the D’ollaire’s gig alone, by a big-city promoter to do a statewide tour of dance clubs—those “surprise” one-song showlets they insert in the middle of dance nights at the bigger clubs in order to create the sort of live human bonding that Bettany seemed to satirizing in her original class project. The idea is to try out a few different songs on those unsuspecting dancers and figure out what to release as her first single.

Oh, and her name’s changed. Frieda Bettany now goes by “FreeBet.”

If you ask us, all bets are off.

A Martian’s mistake, Objects for Common Telescopes and Picking on Charlie Chaplin at the Bullfinch… Other Famous Americans, Science in Rhyme and One Love Vain at Hamilton’s, one of the higher-end original music nights they’ve held lately… Grand on-the-way-down return to D’ollaire’s for Life’s Birthday Party and The Last Dandys. It’s an early show, so get there late…

A lot of shooting in the middle of the night? Turns out they were rehearsing a play next door. I went over to shut them up and now I’m in the play.

I showed the movie Rock & Roll High School to my daughters for the first time just last week, so the May issue of MOJO magazine couldn’t be more timely in our household. The cover shows Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Marky from the exact era when the R&RHS was made. In one of the three feature articles inside the mag, David Fricke hones in on 1979, the year when Rock & Roll  was released, the Phil Spector-produced album End of the Century was recorded, and the Ramones made their most valiant stab at mainstream success.

As this month’s free MOJO CD compilation suggests, The Ramones’ influences were more commercial than they were avant-garde or revolutionary. The disc includes sublime hits by Bobby Freeman, The Shangri-Las, T. Rex and The Trashmen, and omits even more popular acts which the band frequently cited as inspirations, such as Slade, Alice Cooper and 1910 Fruitgum Company.

The Ramones of course were not fated to be a chart-topping band. They became what Artaud was to theater or Nathanael West to 20^th century literature—artists who perhaps came off as more confrontational than intended, showing audiences a future they realized they should be bracing themselves for. In any case, despite concerted efforts from producers, managers, promoters and audiences, the leap to mainstream consciousness (for better or worse) eluded the Ramones.

I saw the Boston premiere of Rock & Roll High School, which The Ramones were there to introduce, had seen them play a couple of times before that, and went on to see them perform several dozen more times. I may have been the first on my suburban Massachusetts block to know who they were, but I knew I was an embarrassingly late-comer to the party even then.

What I would have given to be Tom Hearn. A ‘70s suburbanite like me, albeit in Connecticut and a couple years older, Tom happened to go to high school with the guys who later founded Punk Magazine, and had pretty prescient musical tastes himself. Revered as the leader of the rascally roots-rock Big Fat Combo, Tom Hearn is also a fine photographer who, especially in the late ‘70s, often found himself in the right place at the right time to shoot iconic photos of some punk and new wave legends back when they were just bands standing on street corners outside small clubs. The Ramones loom large in Tom’s photographic portfolio.

An exhibit of headbanging Hearn images, The Flowering of Punk Rock, will be held April 14 through May 27 at Fairfield University’s Thomas Walsh Art Gallery. There’s an opening reception Saturday the 16^th from 6:30-7:30 p.m. with Tom’s old school chum Legs McNeil reading from his oral history of the punk movement Please Kill Me, plus music from Billy Hough.

Jam Like a Mother found a riff they liked at Hamilton’s the other night, and rode it. For four hours.

We’re sure that’s not any kind of world record. But it felt like one. We were back in what the club still refers to as its pool room (the pool table broke apart and was removed years ago; they might as well call it the cool vibe room since it doesn’t have one of those either), chatting and guzzling with members of Old Shorts, who were under the impression that they were also playing that night. We’d spent over an hour collectively cataloging the best vegetable-themed horror movies of all time, among other austere archival pursuits, when somebody cocked an ear and said, “Are they doing that song again?” We ambled stageward, quizzed some JAMLAM fans, and concluded that in fact they hadn’t stopped playing the song the first time. And weren’t about to.

A couple of the Shorts planted themselves in view of the blissed-out Jam Likes, gave the universal mimed-wristwatch symbol for “planning to finish up sometime this year?” and were met only with shrugs. Afterwards, the

JAMLAM bums swore with straight (if goofy) faces that they had no idea there was any another band on the bill. That’s the perfect excuse, even though both acts were listed in local listings and on Hamilton’s flyers; this is not a band anyone expects to know how to read. In any case, they made a lot of noise about being “in the zone.” Which, if we were Jam Like a Mother’s mother, we’d be inclined to refer to as the “impolite zone.”

The song that took so long, you ask? You know that two- chord-plus-retro-Casio-beat current radio hit? That one. We didn’t say these guys could play, just that they could ride a riff. Like water torture, it was. Bongwater torture.

The proper amount of bands, right here: Heresy Hunters, Peeping Toms of the Camera and The All Fun Show at the Bullfinch; College Band Nite at Hamilton’s with The Red Rig-a-Jigs, His Name is Ebenezer/His Name is Smith, The Doings and Also the monk! Coillege Band Nite is not ever to be confused with the party-happy cover horrors of College Nite at the same location, the next swarm of bands at which will (ugh) include Nay! Nay!, But They Didn’t, the Duke of Spaghetti and Peach Basket Hat… D’ollaire’s is dark. No money to be made…

We played scrabble for  24 hours straight. Gar got mad because I won the tournament because I took average of the ZRXBLJ rule, and now he’s says he’s sorry he ever agreed to the ZRXBLJ rule.

The wrappings have come off the outside of the new Rudy’s Bar & Grill on Chapel Street near Howe Street. The place has been encased in boxed-out plywood partitions for the better part of a year, while renovations within took much longer than expected. The wooden outer walls had been stenciled with nostalgic enticements, cartoon speech balloons intended to remind regulars of Rudy’s previous location, two blocks down Elm near Howe. (My favorite: the clearly pre-written, or at least forced-seeming “I like the local music that gets played there.”)

Rudy’s lost that old site, but legally retains a name hallowed on the New Haven bar circuit. The bar was forced to move when its lease ran out. The landlords at 372 Elm (who run the Main Garden take-out joint in the same building) had been clear for years that they wanted the space for themselves. Turns out they wanted it so they could create their own bar. It opened a few months ago, with several old Rudy’s employees from the bar’s silver age running it, in the mid-‘90s, under the name Elm Bar. The neighborhood may already be taking it for granted—an opening for the new Rudy’s to create a splash, you’d think—yet Elm Bar continues to change, rearrange and renew. They’ve installed a pool table, for instance.

Though I haven’t drunk alcohol in a decade now, I watch the split future of Rudy’s with interest, since I lived directly next door to 372 Elm Street for 12 years. My front lawn was used by many regulars as the bar’s second Men’s Room. When the stage was built in the front room and pool room in back was created, it got a whole lot louder, but I didn’t mind. I was such a regular Rudy’s customer that mail would get delivered for me there. I would get nightcaps there in order to sleep, and help bus tables at closing time if I was still awake. I practically had office hours there when people knew to find me for my journalistic pursuits. It was considered an honor to have one’s photo on the walls of Rudy’s, and I was in at least four photos.

My wife still remembers staying over one night and being more alarmed than usual by all the noise next door, especially when a couple of men slipped out the back exit and began smoking and chatting just outside my bedroom window. They weren’t supposed to be there—that pool room door was an emergency exit only—but I’d become completely immune to the drone and hum of Rudy’s (not to mention the Yale frat houses and societies which surrounded the courtyard behind my place) and was not just tolerant but tired. Until the guys outside started talking about one of my favorite bands, Cheap Trick. “They suck,” one of them said. “That’s it,” I yelped, staggering to the ‘phone and calling the bartender Jon Flick (the very guy plucked to be the inaugural manager of Elm Bar), who rushed out back and pulled the ungrateful oafs inside.

Many people associated with the physical Rudy’s (Elm Bar) and the spiritual Rudy’s (on Chapel Street) have strenuously avoided pissing matches (not even in my old front yard!) and catfights. The bars will need to build their businesses honestly and openly if they want to attract regulars, and petty battles with other bars can’t possibly help.

But some will nevertheless take sides, and comparisons will be made. The new Rudy’s has yet to open, but we can see from its gleaming windows that it cares about design and comfort. Sunlight and moonlight will stream through those grand windows. The grand reopening may have taken oodles more time than originally announced, but Rudy’s may actually benefit from the hanging fortunes elsewhere on Upper Chapel. There’s another bar/restaurant opening soon just a couple blocks down the street—a Mexican cantina which will replace the buffet paradise Indochine. The district may well become a regular new destination for drinkers, especially collegiate ones, and Rudy’s may never even have the need to regain “neighborhood bar” status, opting for part of a new club row instead.

The band we personally continue to call the Rock Pirates—though they still do not have a new band name, and are persisting in their hit-and-run, play-unannounced ways—are on tour! They sent a tour diary (er, postcard) scrawled by at least three distinct hands:
“Yo Artie! We’re bored out of our skulls! Why else would we be writing you?
Stuff we’ve seen on tour:
Trees
White Lines (the highway kind)
Bad pizza
Bad bands
Bad local beers
Crappy clubs (except for two. That’s all we’re saying)
Cheap hotels that sell beer
The movie stink skool, about 50 times.
a guy from the Bullfinch, going to college or something.
Really disgusting gas station bathrooms.
Our navels.
See you back home next week, unless we see you first.”

The note was unsigned. Because they don’t have a name.

Pulling up nearer by: The Good Roads Movement, Rocks Ruts and Thank you Marms at the Bullfinch; BPR at that godforsaken roadhouse near the supermarket (thanks for the tip, Frenchie): and Invisible Government at Dollaire’s. Hamilton’s is closed for a massive private party, a wedding or something…