80's Worcester Memories and Some Local Worcester Bands

City Lights, City Nights....

Just uncovered this forgotten piece of 80's nostalgia in time for Christmas. Actually it's my own nostalgia--my band from college.

If you look carefully, you can make out the Hollywood sign in the background. Oh, wait, that's probably the old Polar Cola sign just off of I-290. I don't know if they still have that giant polar bear on the building, big enough to do battle with Godzilla. That's right, this is Worcester Massachusetts, not L.A!

It was a fun time, we were hated and adored, sometimes by the same people. Basically a covers band with a few originals, but quite possibly the first band on campus to be "new wave". We played dorm basements, drank beer. It was a lot of fun creating and hanging up jokey ads for our little gigs. One night we actually did perform in town at a Halloween Battle of the bands at Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner. Spoiler alert: I think out of the three bands, we may have finished fourth.

We had it all, the smart one, the cute one, the mysterious one, the cool one, the rebel, the sad one.
One of these guys is a Worcester Rock N Roll legend....I guess I gave away who the cool one was.

The college radio station at the time WCHC, had a playlist at the time which included playing area bands as well as bands from Boston. One of those local bands that was played a bit was The Unattached.

I don't know too much about the band, aside from hearing them on the radio--I've found one song uploaded on YouTube, but I think that there must have been more recordings, maybe a cassette release or an ep. The one thing I do know is that I recall Pat telling a story that they caught Jamey Jetson, the Unattached singer running down an alleyway after a Lynch Mob show trying to make off with one of their amps.

Here is a song off a compilation on the Throbbing Lobster label--Let's Breed!



I think a compilation of Worcester bands came out in 1980, but it seems a shame that with all of the Nuggets, Pebbles Power Pop Garage and Psych Rock scenes that have been issued that there isn't more done for the local punk new wave scenes around the U.S. Sure, some are out there, but we can always use some more. Think of all the cool singles that must be floating around that people ought to be able to be hear. I know there is a nice comp of Milwaukee bands A History in Three Chords, but that seems to be out of print these days.

Anyway, here's a few other noteworthy bands from back then.

The Odds




The Commandos




Just thought for a change of pace that I would share something personal. No fears, this is not devolving into a crappy Facebook Wall.

Pre Thanksgiving Special--80's Mystery Band from Worcester Mass??

The Kulus--part time punks
I don't know what a kulu is.
Guess who I am.

Wilco wrote a song called the Late Greats. I'm pretty sure it wasn't about us. But we still had a lot of fun. People loved us or hated us.We even played a brief set at a battle of the bands at Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner on Halloween. It was so hot up there, felt like the lights were inches from our faces.

But that was after Pat joined our band. Ralph's let us play as a favor to him. You see, he was Pat Lynch of the celebrated Lynch Mob. Not the metal band, but the cool band from Worcester. One of my friends in our band went to some shows in Worcester and got to see the Lynch Mob. One day he was walking around the Holy Cross campus and he recognized the singer of the band. Turned out Pat worked at the College at the time. He introduced himself and told him that he had seen them play. Ultimately a bunch of us wound up at Ralph's a couple times to see The Mob play. I thought that they were a great live act, with a nice mix of punked up covers and originals. I remember Doug Hartwell was in the band, and one time Pat's brother Mike was also singing. The Lynch Mob put out only one single that I know of, Naughty Girl/Pick of the Litter. Very good high energy stuff.

One day my friend told me that Pat wanted to play with us. I thought he was out of his mind! What happened was, the Lynch Mob had recently broken up. I think they had their share of tiffs. I remember he said that one time they were doing a gig with record industry people in the audience. They set up the set list and were about to start playing when the drummer refused to play the first song. He wanted to play another one. So they grabbed his drum kit and started tossing it off stage. Another time Pat mentioned that he was playing guitar on a particular song because the guitarist had gotten into a fight with another band member and got his hand bitten. The upshot was that Pat knew we had a band and just wanted to keep playing music. The one condition was that he would only play guitar and not sing lead vocals. He didn't want fans from town coming up on campus and crashing keg parties. After all, he worked there.

But Pat was a pro, a real rock and roll guy, with an intense presence. We gave him a tape of our songs and he had them down cold by the first practice. He was the real deal, in my opinion, as much as the so called stars you hear about in the music mags. But he was also a nice guy, down to earth but with a wicked sense of humor. After all he did agree to perform with us, something I still can't believe. I still remember hanging out with him at a Neighborhoods show in Auburn. He had so many musical anecdotes. The only record I have of those days is an old cassette of our last concert before graduation. I think its pretty great, but then again, I'm really really biased. We did have our moments though.

Pat's son is a guitarist in the Dropkick Murphy's and he has seen a lot more musical fame than his dad. Nonetheless, I did hear that Pat performed on stage with Rancid at least once on Warped Tour, and even did some backup vocals on the song Manthem from The Bouncing Souls' How I Spent My Summer Vacation. It's funny that there is so little I can find about that 80's on line. I remember how good bands like the Nebulas, Unattached and the Odds were. They used to play the Unattached all the time at the college station WCHC. I bet there is a really fantastic compilation of that scene just waiting to be made. If it exists, I haven't heard about it. Possibly the fact that Worcester is so close to Boston has unfairly impacted on the reputation of the local scene.



Can't hear us on the radio.
Can't hear us anywhere you go.



Sad note: Jeff Tweedy is performing in Tarrytown  next month. Show sold out in about 2 seconds. Boo hoo.