Month: July 2018

Rock Doc spotlight: “Chet’s Last Call: A Story of Rock & Redemption”

There was once a time and place for a man like the late Boston club owner Richard Rooney, then known as Chet to everyone in the city’s indie rock scene. A local guy from the Charlestown neighborhood, Chet in the early Eighties became the rather unlikely proprietor of a music room above an alleged Mafia bar called the Penalty Box in the nearby North Station area. Although his original idea was for it to be a place for jazz or blues acts, a friend fortuitously suggested he open a punk venue instead. From 1983-87, its open-door booking policy made Chet’s Last Call a virtual clearinghouse for Boston rock at a time when the scene was growing exponentially and hitting a creative peak that nearly matched the glory days of the town’s more famous punk dive, the Rat, back in the second half of the seventies.

Chet was the proverbial gruff-but-goodhearted guy who was a once common staple of older cities. He was a bear of a man usually stationed at the end of the bar, close by the entrance. Although you wouldn’t want to get on his bad side, any beef was usually quickly forgotten. Naturally, the joint wasn’t much to look at: a darkened flight of stairs brought you into a dim, smallish space (capacity was about 175) with orange and gold diagonal wallpaper for a stage backdrop and an incongruous iron railing around the dance floor. Rich Gilbert, guitarist for Human Sexual Response and the Zulus, reminds us that in those days Boston was still a “rough, edgy city” where, in the days before critical-mass gentrification, places like this could be left alone to flourish.


The type of place you didn’t tell your mom about: Chet’s side street entrance is seen next to the fire hydrant. The name of the super-sketchy Penalty Box downstairs bar was inspired by the Big, Bad Bruins who played across the street at the old Boston Garden.

“Chet’s Last Call: A Story of Rock & Redemption” is part of a new micro-documentary trend for music films in this age of more accessible equipment and crowd funding. It’s made for and by many people who were there at the time (it was directed by brothers Ted and Dan Vitale, the latter is the singer for long-time local ska-punk band Bim Skala Bim). That Chet was well-loved by the local rock community is pretty obvious from the film’s opening minutes. Boston rock personalities line up to be interviewed and many are seen in performance footage shot at a pair memorial “Chetstock” shows that took place not long after his passing in December of 2015. Veterans of the scene will love to see clips of the Classic Ruins, Pajama Slave Dancers, Harlequin, Bim Skala Bim, Dogmatics and others, as well as the fun interview segments with local rockers like David Minehan, Ed “Moose” Savage, Barrence Whitfield, Xanna Don’t, Linda Viens, and Kenne Highland—not to mention members of Chet’s family and the folks that worked for him.

The one-hour broadcast version of “Chet’s Last Call” will be aired in the Boston area on Sept. 10th at 11PM on WLVI (the local CW outlet) Click here for more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/471390024834811

https://youtu.be/FSx5W-LDiQ0
Check out the trailer and see all your favorite Boston rock stars!!

Granted, this will all be a bit much for the uninitiated, even if the place did host the occasional out-of-town breakout act (Husker Du, the Beastie Boys) or have the odd rock-celeb hanging at the bar (Stones producer Jimmy Miller, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry). Chet’s Last Call was a provincial but supportive scene—and a rowdy one as well. “A playpen for drunken adults,” is how Ken Kaiser puts it. Ken is also seen in new footage playing with the other Ken (Highland) with the Hopelessly Obscure, whose defiant name and garage-punk power riffing is classic Boston.

Chet was Boston’s youngest club owner then and a savvy music fan, committed to empowering new bands and giving a platform to more outre acts like the Bentmen with their cultish persona (group member Chris Burbul was also part of the production team). With modest cover charges and a clientele that favored cheap Budweisers, Chet was not destined (or even looking) to make a killing. Neighborhood grousing, as well as the club’s lax ways with underage drinking and drug dealing, likely led to its closing in 1987 after a run of nearly five years. Chet became Richard Rooney again, going into rehab and, after re-emerging clean, he went back to school and became a substance abuse counselor. This problematic aspect of the music scene is not shied away from—several musicians like Al Barr from the Dropkick Murphy’s talk candidly about their own addiction-and-recovery experiences. This later part of Rooney’s life story is quietly inspiring and brings full circle the idea of the Boston music scene’s abiding spirit. It makes “Chet’s Last Call: A Story of Rock & Redemption” not just a fine tribute to the man but also to the lasting community he helped foster.

Have you heard about my book “Rock Docs: A Fifty-Year Cinematic Journey”? It’s an alternative history of rock ‘n’ roll, seen through the prism of non-fiction film, with over 170 titles reviewed. You can check out a 30-page excerpt at http://booklocker.com/books/8905.html or by clicking on the book cover image above. If interested in purchasing, you can contact me directly for a special offer and free shipping! Thanks, Rick.
rick.ouellette@verizon.net

Make Mine a Double #8: The Minutemen’s “Double Nickels on the Dime” (1984)

Double Nickels on the Dime is a landmark post-punk album that was reportedly inspired by another brilliant two record set, Husker Du’s Zen Arcade, recorded earlier that year. The Minutemen, a trio that proudly hailed from the working-class San Pedro area of Los Angeles, were an aptly named group—-both for the brevity of their songs and their readiness to confront the forces of oppression with the chosen weapons of their day. On Double Nickels, singer/guitarist D. Boon rails against government malfeasance and media brainwashing as if on a set schedule. But the group’s dry sense of humor never abandons them through these four dynamic sides and the overall feel is more conspiratorial than preachy. This is an album treasured by a considerable number of 1980s indie/underground rock fans and is essential for younger listeners of a similar bent. Besides, it’s hard not to love a record with such song titles as “There Ain’t Shit on TV Tonight”, “Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing”, “The Roar of the Masses Could be Farts” and “Do You Want New Wave or Do You Want the Truth?”

The Minutemen directly followed the first column of punk rockers and they give shout-outs to Joe Strummer, Richard Hell and X’s John Doe in “History Lesson-Part II,” perhaps the most well-known song here. But they are no back-to-basics purists. Boon’s fleet-fingered fretwork is as skillful as many of the Sixties’ axe heroes and the versatile rhythm section of bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley are as adept at swinging as they are at pile driving.

There were forty-five tracks on the original vinyl, though CD editions usually omit a couple to shoehorn it onto one disc. Only one cut was more than three minutes long and most were under two, meaning more than the usual amount of opportunities for double-album stretching out. There’s a countryish song, an acoustic guitar interlude, passages that resemble free-form jazz and several numbers of slam-poetry-with-musical-backing featuring acute social commentary, often emanating from the pen of Mike Watt.


The album’s much-loved cover photo (and its title) was a snarky reference to the recent Sammy Hagar hit “I Can’t Drive 55.” It shows Mike Watt driving his VW Beetles at exactly 55 MPH, heading for the San Pedro off-ramp.

Casual listeners may be put off by what seems more like underdeveloped sketches than full-bodied songs. But the Minutemen’s minimalist mindset reveals its skewed genius gradually, whether it is the hazardous intersection of romance, religion and workplace politics depicted in “Jesus and Tequila” or the great deadpan cover of Steely Dan’s “Doctor Wu.” The symbolically charged year of 1984 saw President Ronald Reagan get reelected and the deep discontent of the creative underclass with that topdog-loving society infuses much of the material here. This is made crystal clear in the fantastic video the band did for the fist-pumping anthem “This Ain’t No Picnic.” Footage of Reagan the actor as a World War II fighter pilot is used to make it look like he’s strafing the band with machine-gun fire. He finally resorts to bombing but our rock heroes emerge from the rubble, little the worse for wear and still shouting the chorus.

“Our band could be your life,” the opening line from the autobiographical “History Lesson-Part II” (and later used by author Michael Azerrad as the title for his great book about that musical era), at first pass sounds like a boast but stands as a message of solidarity to all those who would come after them. And though the Minutemen would prove to be influential, their own career would come to an end with the tragic death of D. Boon in a van accident just before Christmas 1985. A depressed Watt and Hurley thought about leaving music but were encouraged to return, forming the well-regarded fIREHOSE. Mike Watt in particular has remained active over the next two decades and eventually joined the re-united Stooges in 2003. He’s dedicated every project he’s been involved with to the memory of his childhood friend from San Pedro, where he still resides.

For those who want to see the story of the Minutemen on film, I would recommend the excellent documentary We Jam Econo. I also would, as usual, recommend my own book Rock Docs: A Fifty-Year Cinematic Journey. Click on the book cover above to see a 30-page excerpt.