The Rabbit Hole USA

The Rabbit Hole has widened its window into the Boston indie heyday of the 1980s with even more classic vinyl slabs from that wildly creative era when New Wave, Post Punk, and pre-grunge guitar growl ruled local stages. Stop by and get an eyeful of these disks: the stripped-down glam-punk of Lou Miami & the Kozmetix, the Blondie-meets-Spaghetti-Western innovation of Rubber Rodeo, the Mission-of-Burma/Wire style avant garde of Native Tongue, darkly gothy Mrs. Peacock, the experimental eclecticism of Men & Volts, the joyously driving roots rock of Barrence Whitfield and the Savages, Wild Stares, Scruffy the Cat, Skin, the polished rock and pop of The Buddy System, the Pixies-informed grunge of The 360′s, the garage rock of The Last Ones, Loose Ties, The Drive, and many more earlier arrivals in our new Local Indie bin, but don’t forget to check the CDs, 7″s, and DJ Vinyl sections for even more.

Check out some MP3 excerpts:

• Lou Miami & the Kozmetix – New Romantix
  
• Rubber Rodeo – How The West Was Won
  
• The 360′s – Illuminated
  
• The Last Ones – Number One Again
  
• Native Tongue – Blame It On Gravity
  
• Scruffy the Cat – Betty Drops In
  
• Mrs. Peacock – Creator
  

The Boston area is famous for many things, some of which not everyone is aware. For instance, the local original rock scene has been on the vanguard of new music for over 40 years!

Thought to be due to the special concentration of colleges and universities, including the Berklee School of Music, Boston attracts a lot of young, smart, artistic, and talented folks, creating a surprisingly sizable audience for new, independently made, original music. The number of good college radio stations in the area is legendary, as is the number of nightclub venues that cater to the original rockers — a higher number per capita, by far, than New York City.

With such a supportive atmosphere for art, the number of original rock bands in Boston at any given time is between 500 and 1000 — astonishing!

One of the main goals of any original artist is to record. And in the 1980s, recording studios boomed in the Beantown area. Punk-inspired bands like The Neighborhoods and Mission of Burma released 7″ singles in 1979 that actually became local radio hits. Other bands followed suit, local record labels formed, studios got more professional, and the 1980s indie boom began! Things didn’t cool down until the late ’90s when corporate radio became more rigidly programmed and pulled support for independent artists, which eventually reduced the number and size of original rock venues — but oh what a time it was as the major record labels came calling and picked up such artists as The Pixies, Buffalo Tom, Dinosaur Jr., ‘Til Tuesday, Digney Fignus, Jon Butcher, The Atlantics, Big Dipper, The Neighborhoods, Throwing Muses, and many more.

The Rabbit Hole’s music department is pleased to have many gems of independent production from this golden era when influential bands like The Neats, Lou Miami & The Kosmetix, The Outlets, Classic Ruins, Noonday Underground, The Unattached, Boy Wonder, The Puppet Rulers, and hundreds more graced the local stages. Check out some locally produced and released sounds right here.

– The Outlets, Knock Me Down, 1980, on Modern Method Records.
– The Gluons, Enter Your Void, 1983, on Eternal Turtle Records out of New Bedford.
– The Skeletones, Siamese Sister, 1986, on VAR International Records.

The Rabbit Hole presents another free, all-ages, after-hours music event on Friday night, May 29, at 7 PM. It’s a special reunion show by Boston rock stalwarts of the early ’90s, Miranda Warning. Their 186th and last gig was June 17, 1995 at the Hard Rock Cafe in Boston. The band says, “It takes Michael Jackson less time between albums than it took us to organize a reunion show!”

Check out some reviews and free MP3s on the Miranda Warning web site.

Miranda Warning’s three LPs will be on super-deep discount sale. A second treat is an opening set by The Bones, a new group composed of veteran Boston rockers from various Boston-area groups. They’re taking a break from recording their debut album to play this, their first live gig — not to be missed.

The Rabbit Hole has a great selection of favorite movie soundtracks on vinyl — something to tickle everyone’s fancy. Putting a soundtrack album on the old turntable is like going back in time as you fondly recall the film and hear the music again. We have classics from the 1950s like South Pacific, and from the 1960s like West Side Story, The Music Man, and Doctor Zhivago. We have science-fiction classics like Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters, Star Trek II, and Alien. Rock soundtracks, we’ve got ‘em. Check out Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Saturday Night Fever, and Heavy Metal. There are horror classics like Carrie, Poltergeist, and The Lost Boys. We have stage musicals galore, such as Annie, Evita, Cats, and Phantom of the Opera. Like James Bond films? How about Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Live and Let Die featuring Paul McCartney’s theme song. Modern favorites abound, too, like Titanic, Freaky Friday, Reality Bites, and The Lion King.

Browsing our soundtrack LPs and CDs, you might even discover something new, like the almost-forgotten Disney gem from 1967, The Happiest Millionaire. Given a listen to an MP3 from this LP, which is an original 1960s pressing, by the way, in fantastic condition: Geraldine Page performing There Are Those.

If you’re a metal fan, you might know there’s been a rich tapestry of metallic majesty for decades now, with a never-ending depth and many sub-genres to explore, most of which never made the “big time” due to limited commercial opportunities, but are known and sought after by metal fans.

The Rabbit Hole has your Sabbath, Rainbow, UFO, Saxon and Queensryche, but we also have a wide selection of lesser-known hard-rocking artists for you to discover, like Masi, Barren Cross, Roughhouse, Tank, Black ‘n Blue, Savatage, Pandemonium, Bonfire, Disturbed, Harlow, Hullaballoo, Jumpa, Killer Dwarfs, Lillian Axe, Coven, Loss for Words, Pretty Maids, Love/Hate, Obsession, Precious Metal, Fierce Heart, Prong, The Stand, Blessed Death, Talas, Victory, Loudness, and Voivod.

Check out some song samples just in, from the fertile late 1980s:

• The Dio-esque Zed Yago playing The Spell from Over Yonder.

• The punk-metal of Maelstrom’s Step One.

• The barreling sound of Rage doing Round Trip.

• The speed-metal wizardry of Crumbsuckers doing Jimmie’s Dream.

• Or if something with a slightly more commercial production is your style, tune in Fifth Angel doing Midnight Love.
  

This week the music department has come into a delightful pile of 7″ indie pop vinyl and CDs from the genre’s 1990s heyday. The style is a truly unique aesthetic, a merger of DIY punk ideals, indie spirit, and enthusiasm for the rush of pure pop music. There’s nothing like it. The pioneering indie-pop-dedicated site, TweeNet defines the style:

They call it “wimpy” and “twee”, but Pop Kids everywhere know that the true spirit of Punk Rock lives on not in the mass-marketed “alternative” scene, or the sub-metal caterwauling of testosterone-poisoned grunge-rockers, but in the simple and pure efforts of kids banging out sweet delicious songs on cheap guitars.

The insular indie pop scene has its own web sites, record labels, zines, discussion groups, blogs, net radio stations, and events around the world. To explore it, sites like IndiePages and Ad’s Indie Pop Links will get you started.

So, if you’re keen to discover bands like The Apples in Stereo, The Push Kings, All About Chad, Clock Strikes Thirteen, Pest 5000, Moving Pictures, Now We Are 6, Papas Fritas, Tizzy, and more, drop by The Rabbit Hole and check it out. If you can’t wait to sample some sounds, take a listen to these groovy MP3 samples, all of which happen to feature female vocals:

• Bunnygrunt, from Missouri, does Macho Beagle

• Red Sleeping Beauty, from Sweden, does Seasons Change

• Poopiehead, from Texas, charms you with P-Day

• Prickly, from Boston, goes dreamy with Fancy Party Hairdo

• Jumprope, also local, captivates with Swimming With Nancy

   

We regularly post here just a few selections from our new arrivals in music. We will also include Mp3′s which stay up for one week only. All of our records are expertly cleaned and play graded before we put them in the racks. A time consuming task, so we are usually a couple thousand records behind. This week we had to clean up some of those records that sell rather well, so several of the list below are more mainstream than much of what we usually post here.

Billy Joel – Cold Spring Harbor

Billy Joel was coolest and most introspective in his earliest years, as evidenced by this acoustic-guitar-based gem from his debut album: Why Judy Why

Cheap Trick – Dream Police

From Rockford Illinois, the original Cheap Trick is still recording, touring, and playing with no less vigor than they did 30 years ago. You can listen to Way of the World.

Axe – Offering

Despite their first break-up in 1984, and a tragic automobile accident, Florida hard rockers Axe are still around, remembering the days they toured with the likes of Iron Maiden, Motley Crue, Judas Priest, Scorpions, and Ozzy Osbourne. From their third LP offering in 1982, Holdin’ On.

Blessed Death – Destined for Extinction

This is a some what rare Thrash Metal LP. Not to be missed if that is your kind of thing. We are lucky to have turned this one up. Fans of the genre consider these guys to be one of the more interesting of the 80′s thrash scene with their technical and composing expertise, and lyrically – primarily about the horrors of war. Check out Death in Sky.

I just found out about this event happening across the street from us:

The Boulder Coffeehouse features Peter Fischman & Deb O’Hanlon, Saturday 7:30, April 11th!

PETER FISCHMAN is a hidden gem of a songwriter who ought to be widely known and lauded. His songs of home, friends, and family capture a moment or depict a place or event with the visual acuity of an Ansel Adams photograph. His wife DEB O’HANLON adds her beautiful clear voice. Together, they released “In His Own Words”, a CD of Peter’s songs, in 2008. Here’s what people say about it:

“Peter, this album is so moving. Song after song, I’m getting chills, tears, laughs, all of it. I think of my dear daughter [in] California whom I miss. I think of how very lucky I am to be living here in nature’s bounty with loved ones all around. On and on. You are a word wizard. Very tastefully produced and mixed also, not over done and heavy. Deb, your voice is amazing, so clear and true. It is a pleasure to listen to.”

“Kudos to Peter and Deb for a great job, well done. Been listening to the CD all week in my car. Very clever, thoughtful lyrics and beautiful harmonies. Quite the storyteller, Peter. Can’t pick a favorite just yet. I love “The Nearsighted Poet”. Makes me grin every time it plays. And “The Vegetable with Feet” is hilarious. Deb’s beautiful voice is so perfect on “Here in This Place” and “York, Maine”, it almost makes me want to move back to New England.”

And there will also be a new Secret Special Guest performance!

Proceeds will be shared between the host church and a local non-profit organization selected by the featured performers.

The Boulder Coffeehouse is a smoke-free, alcohol-free, fair-trade coffee, candlelit venue for folk and other musical genres, located at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Fitchburg, MA, 923 Main Street on the Upper Common. The show begins at 7:30

Don’t forget to stop by this Thursday, April 2nd at The Rabbit Hole and check out our events with Emily, Mabel, and Bert and to enter the raffle for a beautiful new kayak. You can read more about the event here.