OT: 50 years ago today...
- Thread starter MtNittany
- Start date
First album I ever bought as a 10yr old kid …
wasn’t too long ago when I learned that my favorite track on that album “Rock & Roll Band” was but a fairy tale written to fool their record label; as Boston was just one guy … never played in bars, never slept in their cars … nor did they practice right out out in the street (except maybe basketball)
wasn’t too long ago when I learned that my favorite track on that album “Rock & Roll Band” was but a fairy tale written to fool their record label; as Boston was just one guy … never played in bars, never slept in their cars … nor did they practice right out out in the street (except maybe basketball)
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Oh, I wasn’t aware that Boston had made a cover of “One More Cup of Coffee.” Cool.
I would have lost a trivia contest against you on that band. I thought they originated around Detroit.
As a freshman, I brought this album with me to Penn State. First time I played it, the guys in the room next to told to stop playing that crap. A month later I couldn’t get them to stop playing the album. They played it so much I got sick of it and couldn’t listen to it until years later.
Had a friend in college that asked me if I wanted to go to the Tomorrow Club in Youngstown to watch a new band. He said that they were going to be big very soon. I didn't go. It was Boston and he was right. Time frame - fall 1975 - spring 1976
Bought both early Boston Albums at Arboria in State College used - still have the vinyl.
I used to go to the Tomorrow Club a fair amount as I was from Warren (born in Y-town). Even went labor day weekend after moving back into the dorm, traveling back home to get some more stuff (and bringing a friend from my dorm floor with me to hit the local bars).
The famed WMMS from Cleveland was pushing Boston and the Springsteen albums late in the summer. A couple of artists (of many) that they helped to break over the years such as Rush. I was an early adopter of Boston and why people on my dorm floor had never heard of them at move in time.
I read somewhere that Born to Run was one year earlier, Aug 25, 1975 rather than Aug 25, 1976. Whatever, Born to Run is a great album too.
Boston caught flak afterwards for not following up as good and for taking a long time between albums and for being "corporate," whatever that means, maybe they became that later but the first album was mostly a guy making an album in his basement, which is as anti-corporate as you can get.
But all that aside, just put on Boston's first album and listen. It's been 50 years and it still sounds absolutely great. That is what matters in the long run (and BTW, Boston's first album has aged a lot better than The Long Run by The Eagles if you ask me).
Boz Scagg's Silk Degrees came out the same year as did Frampton Comes Alive.
I love What Can I Say and Lowdown, Frampton hit it with the Live album, it became
a fad to do live albums and not too many succeeded. The arena rock era.
...an album was released.
If you're looking for something to tell you that the band in question is composed of nearly notable former members of various bands, or how many jam sessions the drummer sat in on with rock superstars who are now dead or disabled or retired, forget it.
Unless the names Mother's Milk, Middle Earth, or the Revolting Tones Revue ring any particular bells, where the people who make up this band called Boston came from is irrelevant to who and where they are now.
Listen to the record!
As to how the band came together, we'll let lead singer Bradley Delp tell the story:
"Fran knew Barry, and I knew Frank, and Fran had played with Sib, and Sib had played with Tom, and Barry knew Tom, and Tom knew me, but Fran didn't know that I knew that he knew Barry too, so what happened was…"
Listen to the record!
If you still need more information, try this: Boston is masterminded by a guitarist named Tom Scholz. An MIT graduate with a master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Tom was living a split existence at the time his concept for Boston began to fall together. By day, he was a highly-touted member of the Product Design wing of a major Massachusetts-based corporation, helping to develop all sorts of media machinery that he's not supposed to talk about. By night he was a member of any one of a handful of constantly shifting bands on the North Shore club circuit in Boston. Considering the day gig, when he bought 12-track recording equipment and began experimenting with basement tapes, mastering the machinery at his disposal posed no great problem.
"People have already fallen prey to that, in my opinion, with items that they just go out and buy to get a certain sound without really understanding where that sound comes from and how to apply it."
Those who question how the precise technology of the group's record will translate to a live environment will discover that, with the aid of some special sound innovations developed for live performance by Scholz, the Boston concert will easily be a comparable experience to the Boston album. That's a lot to look forward to, but you know where to start.
Listen to the record!
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