BOSTON 2011: HIGH HOPES & GOOD INTENTIONS CAN'T REPLACE FILM

I had big plans for our annual St. Patty's Day trip to Boston this year. I was super pumped to shoot the Dropkick Murphy's show at the House Of Blues. That fell apart at the last minute and so no dice on that one. Despite my friends complete hatred of having their picture's taken, I figured I'd class things up this year. I brought my Canon AE-1 and a roll of Tri-X along to capture all of our drunken belligerence in gloriously beautiful black & white.

But it might have been a good idea to make sure the film was engaged in the take up before snapping away. Probably would have been less of a shock when the film came back from the lab blank.... So what DO I have to share from my Boston trip? A couple of crappy pics from my phone, a twitter feed of drunken outbursts and a handful of stupidly wonderful stories to pass around the table. Here's a taste:

• Shitfaced by 7:30pm Mike got kicked out of the House Of Blues for vomiting in the trashcan before the Dropkick Show even started. Our first day in Boston ends with a bang or a whimper...

• Drinking starts at 11:00am the next day with microbrews across from Fenway Park where Vinny is chastised by the waitress for tricking her into serving him to 24oz glasses of beer so he can double fist. Jokes on him since the beer tastes like shit.

• Mike and I are graced with Tommy's presence for gluten free dinner at PF Changs. Drunken Zombie Tommy mutters "Someone really needs to ride those dragons..." the whole night in reference to the 15ft tall dragon sculptures outside the restaurant.

• Instead of going for prime rib at Durgin Park, I opt to eat french fries and consume abusive amounts of Magners at The Black Rose.

• Also at the Black Rose, Tommy tears open his hand when he punches a pint glass into a thousand pieces. Instead of kicking us out, they bandage him up with gauze and hand him plastic cups of Guinness the rest of the night. An upgrade from our last visit to the Black Rose which resulted in us getting kicked out for holding a "Who's Cell Phone Breaks Into More Pieces When You Throw It Against The Wall?" contest.

• For the first time in eight years I successfully order a drink by myself at LIR ending for now their entire waitstaff's boycott of me which have arose from belligerently yelling for more Guinness and then falling asleep on the bar, or so I'm told.

• Mike helps me get totally annihilated on gluten free beer at The Otherside Cafe, before bowing out and sending Vinny over as a replacement. We meet up with Mike again at McDonald's where I try to steal and eat some fries. 

• I order and eat a B Good burger combo on the way back to the hotel before passing out on the floor with no rememberance of ever doing so when I awake the next morning. I'm told it was on a gluten free bun.

With my phone in hand the whole time, one button now allows me to embarrass myself on multiple platforms so most of this was documented on twitter and facebook in real time, fantastic. It was an interesting conversation at work on Monday.

While the shows have changed greatly from years past, The Dropkick Murphys are always a good time. It was nice to see how much they take care of their fans as their stage manager had bottles of water passed out by security multiple times to all the kids in the pit. Plus got to see Against Me! for the second time in one week, good deal.

I have no love in my heart for the House Of Blues venue chain however. When it was still The Avalon, the second floor mezzanine was a free area that anyone could gather in and get some air, be it for picking up merch, grabbing a drink at the bar, or watching the show from one of the limited views near the balcony. Since then House Of Blues has made the second floor mezzanine a paid ticket area. If your ticket is for that area you cannot move anywhere else, leaving some poor souls a showlong view of the third mezz overhang or the back of the heads of people lucky enough to hug the railing. Sure it gets another 500 people in the door but they don't actually get to see the show. Gotta get that money don't ya HOB.

Our Boston trips are more or less four days of alcohol fueled shenanigans but it always good times with good people. I don't get to see my Jersey family as much as I would like but when I do nothing has changed. We'll see what next year brings.

Also, Vinnie and Jeff missed Bruce Springsteen sitting in with the Dropkick Murphys because "we didn't need to stay for the encore."

MUSIC NEWS: The Dropkick Murphys, Brian Fallon, & The Bouncing Souls

Every year my friends and I head up to Boston for St. Patties day. It is a three day shitshow of drunken revelry. Aside from consuming obnoxious amounts of Guinness, the main reason for the trip is to attend one or many of the Dropkick Murphys annual St. Patties day performances. Looks like this year we will have a little more to be excited for.

On March 1st, The Dropkick Murphys will release Going Out In Style, their first record in four years.

From kikaxemusic.com:

For Going Out In Style, Dropkick Murphys even enlisted the vocal talents of the legendary Bruce Springsteen — whom they first met at a DKM gig in New York and later collaborated with onstage at one of Springsteen's Boston shows. Springsteen swaps verses with [Ken] Casey for a spirited take on the old standard "Peg O' My Heart."  "It has a classic old fifties rock and roll feel," says Casey. "Both of my grandmothers are named Peg. One grandmother, Peg Casey, is always saying, 'When are you going to do that song? Your grandfather always sang it to me!' The time signature changed, so hopefully they still appreciate it when they hear it."

The collaboration is a perfect intergenerational bridge for fans and band alike. Dropkick Murphys have always strongly resonated with audiences young and old due to their working class ethos and cathartic sonic revelry.  "It links two generations," says Casey. "We're spanning a lot of years of music here, yet our songs share similar themes, stories, and values."

Rolling Stone interviewed bassist Ken Casey about the new album and his band's collaboration with the Boss:

"All we said was 'we thought it would be great to trade off on verses,'" Casey says. "You don't really give the Boss instructions."

Rolling Stone also has a preview of the new DKM track "Memorial Day."

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The Bouncing Souls have teamed up with Side One Dummy Records and screenprint designer El Jefe to release a 19x25 limited edition Misfit's inspired poster as part of the new "Artist On Artist Poster Series."

Future bands to be featured in the series include The Gaslight Anthem and Flogging Molly.

Side One Dummy will also feature The Bouncing Souls as part of it's Complete Control Sessions record release series. Each 10" record will feature a sleeve custom designed by El Jefe and exclusive recordings from the bands.

The El Jefe designed El Jefe print is available for pre-order now at the Side One Dummy Records store and El Jefe Design.com. Stay tuned here for more info on the Complete Control Sessions record release series.

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The Gaslight Anthem's frontman Brian Fallon revealed his new side project The Horrible Crowes on his personal blog, Cassettes In The Mailbox.

"Anyway, so here's the deal... the "night time music" is myself and Mr. Ian Perkins, and what we're doing is writing songs and making demos at the very moment. We hope to put out a full length record sometime this year, before it gets cold again, I don't know with whom, or when exactly it will come out. But the point is, it's coming out. We're calling ourselves The Horrible Crowes...

... Now how's this going to work with Gaslight, well it's easy, see, every time I write a creepy Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Mark Laneghan type song, I get an idea for a ripper which goes straight to Gaslight. So we're writing for both now, but Gaslight isn't planning on recording until the fall, for a 2012 release. Now I can't sit still so I'm doing this for fun, nothing more. We might do a few shows with the Crowes, maybe select cities in the US, Can, and Europe/UK, but not major touring like Gaslight does. This is my "for me" record, Gaslight is my baby, no mistake...

... I always said I never would do a "solo" record so that's why I found a partner in crime in Ian. So it's not going to be the acoustic Brian Fallon road show. There's organs, pianos, even (gasp) strings!!! There's drums, everything. So don't expect a folk record. Here's a good description, if Tom Waits, the National, the Afghan Whigs, Bon Iver, and Nick Cave made a band with Percy Sledge that'd be called The Horrible Crowes." 

You can keep up with The Horrible Crowes by checking out their blog and Facebook page.

PHOTO CREDIT: All images included in this post belong to their rightful photographer but I don't know who you are. If any of these are your photo, please contact me and I will credit you or remove the image should you want.