Bringing punk back home

By Walter Smelt

American punk was born in a dive bar and music club whose name stood for Country, Bluegrass and Blues, which is the kind of music the owner expected to book there. Instead, the Ramones started playing at CBGB's and turned the music world upside down. So in an upside-down kind of way, it seems appropriate that Somerville's own dive bar and music club should book bands whose members grew up on punk but found their way back to punk's roots in older American music: music like rockabilly, rhythm and blues, and country. Of course it's the Abbey Lounge we're talking about, which last Saturday night hosted a sold-out show in which all these traditions were represented-and not just represented, but resuscitated.

The only misstep came at the beginning of the night with a band that called itself, aptly enough, the Almighty Terribles. Unfortunately, honesty was the Terribles' only virtue.

Luckily, Nate Gibson and the Gashouse Gang were up next. This rollicking act may have been short a lead guitarist, but you never would have known it from the aplomb with which Gibson handled his own instrument, a guitar with a sparkly gold façade that looked as though it was cut from the $1000 wedge in Wheel of Fortune. His vintage pompadour, meanwhile, stood up like the fin of a '56 Cadillac.

If the front man was all rockabilly glitz, upright bassist Miles Anderson was straight-up hillbilly with a red flannel shirt and reddish beard. Completing the sound was Tom Long on drums and Steve Toebes working the piano over in exuberant honky-tonk style. All you need to know about this band is that they rocked out “Folsom Prison Blues” like it was a celebration, complete with yodels.

Oh, and Gibson also plugged his pirate joke book, which was for sale in the back. (Question: Why did the pirate go to the adult movie theater? Answer: Because XXX marks the spot. Rim-shot sound from the drummer.)

They were followed by the Sprained Ankles, whose lead singer Drew Pilarski seemed woefully underdressed after the pearl-buttoned Gibson. All was forgiven, however, when he whipped out a kazoo for the first number.

The perfect marriage of buzzing and melody, the kazoo is not a bad metaphor for the Sprained Ankles as a whole. The seven-member band buzzed like a burnt-out speaker, but inside the almost-cacophony were sweet melodic lines you could trace back to doo-wop bands such as the Coasters. On these, Pilarski was assisted by back-up singers Andrea Baird and Emily Vides, known collectively (and inexplicably) as the “Brides of Tankenstein.”

When not singing or kazooing, Pilarski jittered spastically across the stage as though the drumbeat threatened to tear him apart, all the time wearing a confused and hapless expression belied by his strong voice. Guitarist Ryan Logsdon also joined in the fun, making a brief foray into the crowd with his instrument, and once running the kazoo up his fretboard like a bottleneck.

The band was rounded out by Michael Patterson on drums, Henry Ryan playing funk-bass, and Patrick Kennedy on keyboards. The total effect was goofball genius.

But as fun as they were, the best had been saved for last. In fact, the Sprained Ankles were originally supposed to go on after the Swinedells, but as an ardent fan explained to me, “No one wants to follow the Swinedells.”
With good reason. The six-piece Swinedells played their first club show just over two years ago, but already they are a Boston institution, laying down old-school R&B and rock 'n' roll with the conviction of apostles. They sound like a band booked 50 years ago for a high school prom against the principal's better judgment.

The band is fronted by Sean Coleman, a singer who resembles a bantam rooster not just in size and  energy, but even in his cockscomb of a pompadour. (One of his more passionately sung numbers was entitled “Don't Touch My Hair.”) He can slide without faltering from a crooner's tender tremolo to the shriek of a blues preacher, until you wonder how such a thin frame can contain that truck-horn of a voice.

Behind him were guitarists Stiggs Piranha and Greg Giannino, drummer Jeebs Piranha (brother to Stiggs), Bat the bassist and Terry O'Malley on the all-important saxophone. The whole band was on and swinging from the first note of an old song that sounded like “Good Golly Miss Molly,” for which Coleman summoned Little Richard's trademark scream.

While O'Malley and his saxophone swayed and dipped together and the guitarists leaned over their instruments like surgeons, Coleman was everywhere, jumping, gesticulating-in short, jiving.

Sometimes he went down on one knee as though proposing to the entire audience. To judge from their shouts, the crowd was ready to accept.

The Swinedells played honest-to-God, no-holds-barred rock 'n' roll with an extra helping of soul, and their energy was so irresistible they even got a roomful of hip Northerners to forget their carefully slicked-back hair and dance. When the band announced the next song would be their last, the crowd disagreed vehemently. So the Swinedells pounded out one “last” song after another, a band obviously unconcerned with the forward march of time.

Comments

[Mark Peterson]

The Abbey lounge needs to clean up all the trash, garbage, and cigarette butts in front and on the side. They also need hold the noise down! Many of the neighbors with children complained that people leaving the bar have even urinated in their lawns, and thrown beer bottles in the streets, sidewalks and gardens. I am sure it was just a neighborhood bar when it initially received a license but now they have live music on Sunday nights too and it is not fair to the neighborhood.

Last September some college age young women moved into a top floor apartment above the abbey. Their parents were there for the move in day and helped them with all the large furniture. By the time the weekend was over, they were moving everything out again.

A neighbor asked them why and they said among other things that they could not even open their windows to get air because of all the smokers out front.

Shouldn't a bar like this be in a commercial district without apartments and homes surrounding it?

[Mark Peterson is a liar.]

Mark, As a regular of the abbey, I can surely say you are making stuff up. At any given time there are maybe 10 smokers outside of the abbey and if those people were really on the top floor, the smoke would have dissipated before it reached their windows. I think the bottles people are complaining about have nothing to do with the abbey lounge, but more the homeless that pretty much live in the park across the street. Get your facts straight.

[Kate]

Actually, 5-10 smokers, at one time, create a considerable amount of smoke. I don't know how many stories are in the Abbey building; however, I live on the 2nd and 3rd floors of a house, and when the neighbors (2-3 at a time) are outside smoking, and I'm on the third floor, the smoke definitely wafts up there.

Yet, when you live above/beside a bar, you've got to expect some smoke and noise.

[somebody]

Mark, it's too bad for the residents, that's all. There are certain things you should expect when living above a bar, and if you think you can't deal, then don't move there. It's like moving next to a freeway or train tracks, and then complaining about the noise and asking that the freeway/tracks be removed.

[Ron Newman]

Depends. What if you live next to a quiet restaurant or bar, and then the ownership changes and it becomes a loud disco?

That's not hypothetical. It actually happened to someone who lived next to what turned into the Aquarium restaurant on Holland Street. She had to move out of her condo for a while because the loud, live music came right through the party wall. Fortunately, the city eventually closed the Aquarium and it was replaced by the much more sedate Orleans.

[Mark Peterson is a liar.]

The Abbey has been a live music venue for many years, it's not like the change from the neighborhood bar was overnight. anyone who lives near it knows what it is.

[Ron Newman]

Kate - the Abbey Lounge is the first floor of a three-story building. (Thanks, Google StreetView.)

[somebody]

Ron: That's a tough break for the person who lived next to the Aquarium, but I still think you are taking this kind of risk when you live that close to a commercial district. The point is that things don't stay the same forever, and people shouldn't expect them to. So if you are going to invest in real estate, you have to weigh your risks. If you share a wall with a restaurant/bar/etc, then that's the risk (noise, rowdiness, etc) you take for living there. Now, if the zoning changes and a residential space turns commercial, that's a different story.

[Kate]

Thanks, Ron.

[Orleans]

Will there be a repeat? The old Aquarium is now Orleans, and they added DJ's a year or so ago, and have recently had several live bands. I assume they still share the wall with the adjacent residences.