Lindsey’s Birthday Party
OC45 / Dead On The Streets / The Black Cheers / The Digs
Midway Cafe, Jamaica Plain, MA 7/18/14
So tonight is Lindsey’s birthday. Lindsey is probably the biggest fan of the music I know. And we have over 800 friends on facebook now.
I wanted to help celebrate her birthday because besides being a sweetheart I think she best embodies the spirit of TNB beyond anyone I know. She is the biggest fan of the music and I know a lot of you hooligans.
She blushed when I said this tonight, might blush if she reads this, but the spirit, power and passion that we all inhabit by going to shows and being in bands inspires me to make letters with my pen. As I’m doing now and later create in “word documents” (oh, that sounds important!) on my laptop and press send.
But the words will never come close to representing the great guts and feelings everyone exhibited tonight and on many nights. Letters on a page are pale representations of the greatness you all exhibit with your energy, emotions, passion, compassion, honesty and sense of community.
I apologize for my inferior renderings but it’s a scene that deserves some rendering, no doubt. And if I can succeed in displaying just a small bit of its awesomeness than it’s more than worth it for me.
The hippie hour is still going on as I arrive. I know on Friday evenings it says 6- 8:30 pm. It figures that the hippie “hour” would be two and a half hours long but even with that they can’t finish in time and are still playing at quarter to nine.
I mention to someone that if it was the punk hour it would probably be over in fifteen minutes.
I order the pizza next door for Lindsey’s party but don’t want to bring it over till the hippies disperse. And Lindsey’s still at band practice (Whoopie Sticks). I tell members of The Black Cheers that if only I remembered to bring some granola and leave it at the bus stop across the street to lure the hippies away all my problems would be solved.
But for now I’m determined to keep it from the mouths of hippies and into the belly’s of punks where it rightfully belongs.
The Digs starts playing, they’re pleasant enough. They have pop/punk in their style and regular pop rock’n’roll as well. They do nicely.
But now Lindsey and her entourage (band) arrive and it’s pizza time! Four large pizzas are engulfed in moments, in mere seconds.
The Black Cheers play next. Along with Duck And Cover they are the two bands that remind me most of old school Boston punk’n’roll. Maybe add The Scrapes as well. This is the style of music Andy & I were going to see in the eighties when we were still in elementary school.
The usual guitarist Chris Brat, is at a convention so Daniel Sussman is the fill-in guy and proceeds, as a good friend should, to make the band appreciate Chris even more.
But seriously, he did great and this band rocks the house with their great garage punk’n’roll and it’s a joy to hear them as always.
Dead On The Streets is up next from Pittsburgh, a town I always thought would be a nice place to visit. And they do have the Andy Warhol Museum there as that is where he was originally from.
These guys fit in with the Oi/street punk style more than pure hardcore. And this they do great, maybe coming from a steel-making, working class type of town.
I guess they had a good time playing New Hampshire last night and it’s their first time at the Midway. I hope they had an awesome time ’cause we all did listening to them. And I hope they return again soon.
Oh, and to answer the singer’s question about why so many Dunkin’ Donuts? According to my mom when you get one of their franchises you’re required to help sponsor a new one within a mile after yours is all set within two years.
Imagine that.
But now OC45 are ready to take us out, as long as we fill their whiskey glasses, as long as we dance about.
They have a lot of home town fans tonight and I think it’s only right. I don’t know of a band more dedicated on our scene in what they do, like traveling all across the country on long tours, than OC45.
And are they also the best pop/punk on our site? I think so.
They come out rip roaring and play a great set. Though at the start of one of their songs one of the guitars give out for awhile and it makes me smile to think that when they first started, three years ago, we thought of them as the “malfunctioning band “ as something always seemed to break during their sets.
Though they may be labeled pop/punk they have the guts and passion of the wildest hardcore band you know. They do an extended set, embarrass Lindsey once again with birthday wishes and pay tribute to the Midway noting that their first video was shot here. We’ve always loved them and they make us feel proud.
It’s on nights like this that I’m glad I have a hand and pen to write because I feel there’s nothing more inspiring, nothing more that I would want to write about than this, that just transpired, occurred before my eyes.
And now all the original Ramones are gone and that makes me sad. But really it shouldn’t because the pure light of art, creativity, inspiration, guts, feeling and pure joy, joy, joy is exploding in front of our eyes and minds and hearts (yah, yah) that they started- and it won’t never ever leave, won’t ever stop, won’t ever go, will it?
But The Ramones are gone.
Sad to see you go, go, go, go goodbye.
Sad to see you go.
(Slimedog)
