Blake Babies Origins

Another. chapter from my unpublished memoir from 2008

Part 12: New Band Night (Winter/Spring 1987)

Juliana never liked Seth (White, original BBs bassist). Freda and I thought Seth would be perfect for the band, because he was a skilled musician and songwriter and a good friend from Bloomington, Indiana (our hometown). What we didn’t anticipate was that Seth’s strong personality would clash so powerfully with Juliana’s quiet, yet in many ways equally strong personality. Seth had quirky opinions about everything imaginable, especially music. He revered certain obscure songwriters, especially Dale Lawrence of the Gizmos. He thought the best music was simple and emotionally direct. He worshipped the Ramones, the Modern Lovers, and the Grateful Dead. Juliana thought he was full of it.

Our nightly band practice became unbearable. Seth made no secret that he often found our arrangements overwrought and overthought. He found Juliana’s songwriting unnecessarily complicated. He would feign musical ignorance when Juliana brought in a new song, making me write all of the notes to the chords on a whiteboard so that he could pick out notes at random in search of a bass line. Seth and Juliana openly argued about everything. One or the other of them would often storm out of practice in a fit of rage. Back in the apartment,¹ the two avoided one another whenever possible.

Seth didn’t hide that he desperately missed Bloomington. His homesickness found occasional relief in the trickle of Bloomington friends moving to Boston in our wake and in the constant stream of Bloomington visitors at the Condo Pad. Freda’s best friend Dee moved to Boston that winter with her boyfriend Dave with plans to start their own band. Our friend Eva Marer—one of the younger members of our high school punk scene—visited often and eventually began a relationship with (our friend and producer) T.W. Bill, a high school classmate of Freda’s, quickly became a permanent fixture when he looked us up after transferring to Berklee to study guitar. Others followed, initially to visit and often to stay. The Condo Pad drew Bloomington people like a magnet.

By mid-fall (1986), parties occurred at the Condo Pad most weekends and some weeknights. Bloomington pals as well as some of our Berklee friends attended the parties, including Berklee-spawned bands such as The Manta Rays (a witty, stripped-down 60s-influenced band fronted by Peter Ducharme) and the Norberts (childhood pals Steve and John, who grew up privileged in the United Arab Emirates and wore lots of paisley). The Condo Pad parties became legendary, hedonistic free-for-alls of kids finally free of parental oversight—our version of the frat house. Juliana mostly stayed in her room with the door shut, seething. She didn’t party as a matter of ideology, and she had no interest in our straggler friends.

I continued to discover great local music, shopping almost exclusively at the unbelievably great record store Newbury Comics in Back Bay. Flipping through the local releases one day, I discovered the seven-inch single by The Lemonheads, cryptically titled “Laughing All the Way to the Cleaners.” I’d heard them live on the Emerson College station, taking note because they covered (my favorite Midwest punk band) Zero Boys’ Livin’ in the 80s.

The record was scrappy but beautiful—a blast of melody, snarl, and suburban punk attitude. Lemonheads reminded me of some of my favorite punk records that seemed to point the way forward for punk-inspired music: The Descendents, Husker Du, Replacements. The trio included two lead singer/guitarists, Evan and Ben, who switched off on drums. Both of them wrote songs – really good songs. Ben’s “Fucked Up” and Evan’s “Glad I Don’t Know” were instant classics. I brought the four-song record back to the Condo pad; Juliana and I played it obsessively for weeks.

By early 1987 we felt ready to play out. Our first real gig was a Wednesday “new band night” at the seminal punk/underground club The Rat, located in Kenmore Square near Fenway Park. The Rat was ground zero for the thriving Boston underground since the mid-1970s pre-punk era. In 1987, it was the underground club in Boston, ground zero for the emergence of the new wave scene spearheaded a decade earlier with The Cars, DMZ, Nervous Eaters, and other, less remembered bands.

It wasn’t particularly difficult to score a weekday gig. The catch was that—in order to move up to the desired weekend bills—bands had to prove they could draw an audience. Bands issued their own tickets that the “fans” presented to the door person. The ticket count at the end of the night determined whether or not the band would be considered for a Thursday or a weekend show.

We knew plenty of people; the problem was that few of our friends were of age. We left no stone unturned. Juliana sought help from her mother, who invited Susan Dando, a social acquaintance and mother of Evan from the Lemonheads, to accompany her to the show.

One night after band practice a day or two before our debut show at The Rat, Freda, Seth and I sat at a table drinking a pitcher of beer at a trendy bar on Boylston Street that didn’t bother to check I.D.s. We noticed a group of revered Boston musicians drinking a pitcher of beer at a nearby table. The group included members of a locally popular all-female band called Salem 66 plus Kenny Chambers, the singer-guitarist of the great power pop trio Moving Targets. Freda and I had seen both bands headlining at T.T.s on our Hoodoo Barbecue outings.²

A little starstruck, Freda and I approached the table and explained that we were fans of theirs, a new band with an audition coming up at the Rat. As Freda handed out tickets, Kenny was gracious; however, the women from Salem 66 looked as though Freda had placed a steaming dog turd in each of their hands. We returned to our table, dejected and humiliated. We learned in that instant that the Boston music scene was not as friendly and supportive as the Bloomington scene we’d come from. We were one of many bands trying to get in the door, and we’d have to earn every drop of respect and support from other local acts.

I don’t remember much about the Rat show, but it went well enough. The basement venue seemed small and filthy; the middle-aged owner and doorman, Mitch, had a matted beard, wore a leisure suit, and talked with a voice box simulator he placed against his throat. When I met him I thought he must have some good stories.

We managed to bring in about sixty tickets, which passed the threshold for a second gig, from Wednesday to Thursday. We’d have to pass out tickets once again before we’d be considered for a weekend opening slot.

The thing I remember most about the show is that Freda and I had a huge fight and broke up, this time seemingly for good. For months after the show, Freda and I barely spoke. Mired in so much drama and stress, I wasn’t able to enjoy the feeling of finally playing in front of people. Our first show and we were barely hanging on as a band.

In the weeks following the Rat show, we recommenced our recording sessions with T.W. We raised enough money to actually pay for professional recording sessions, so T.W. suggested we book discounted, overnight sessions at a high-end studio called Newbury Sound. With (T.W.’s roommate and Berklee audio student) Tracy Chisholm again at the board, we did several twelve-to-seven sessions at the pristine, state-of-the-art 24-track studio. The place felt uptight and looked sort of like a fern bar, lots of polished wood and overstuffed furniture. I remember seeing the (pre-fame) first New Kids on the Block album on the wall and thinking the place must be really uncool. Somehow the 24-track recordings sounded worse than the simple 8-track recordings from the Boston Film and Video Foundation a few months earlier.

In early spring we played our second official show, in the basement of a coffee house in the Fenway called She’s Leaving Home. Without the pressure to draw, we didn’t really promote the show, and as a result we played to about twenty of our friends. Mid-way through the set a couple of handsome young, punk-ish guys sauntered in – one dark complected with dyed-blond hair, and a taller, lanky blonde guy in pegged chinos. They sat on the floor up front and listened intently, bobbing their heads.

After the show Ben—the one with the dyed hair, and Evan—the lanky one, introduced themselves as The Lemonheads. Evan’s mom had raved to Evan about our show and told him we were fans of their record. Evan seemed particularly intrigued that we played this sort of jangly pop music, while I was wearing a Circle Jerks shirt. They invited us to their show the following week at Green Street Station, a tiny dive in Jamaica Plain, a former hippy enclave slowly becoming gentrified.

Evan, Ben, and bassist Jesse Peretz were classmates at the small, academically accelerated prep school The Commonwealth School, located near downtown Boston. The three best friends began practicing in the school’s basement during their junior year and started playing friends’ parties and new band nights the following year. With older friends attending Harvard, they were influenced by the obscure punk music favored by Harvard’s student radio station, WHRB. They taped the punk marathons and listened obsessively. The WHRB playlist, of course, included the Zero Boys.

After graduating the previous spring, Ben went to Brandeis, located near Boston, Jesse went to Harvard, and Evan, a year older than the others having repeated his freshman year at Commonwealth, went to Skidmore in New York State. Evan returned to Boston after quickly losing interest in college and flunking out of Skidmore. Despite his obvious intelligence, Evan was anything but a dedicated student. At Skidmore, he spent his book money on drugs and thus never actually did any of the reading. He seemed to have failed on purpose to get out of Poughkeepsie and back to the band.

With Evan back in Boston, the band was again the three friends’ focus. They’d added drummer Doug Trachten, a friend of Ben’s from Brandeis, and they just signed with the formidable local punk label Taang Records. Though not yet a popular band by any measure, the Lemonheads were certainly better known than the Blakes.

After we’d seen a couple of their shows, the Lemonheads invited us to join them on a bill at Adams House, the Harvard party dorm where Jesse lived. It was our first large, receptive crowd, and it felt amazing. We played a cover of Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” which worked because Juliana sounded so completely emotionally detached from the song. Although Juliana had no real interest in country music, I think we were able to sell her on the cover because the Replacements had covered “Hey Good Lookin.’” T.W. recorded the show on a four-track cassette deck.

Evan had very little going on that spring other than hanging out. He had a white station wagon and he occasionally worked as a waiter at a place on Newbury Street. Soon he started hanging around the Condo Pad pretty much all the time, and we quickly became friends. Evan and I had very similar musical taste, and we loved to turn each other on to new music. The first time we hung out, he brought over a vinyl copy of Big Star’s Radio City. He got me into Australian punk, and I got him into New Zealand guitar pop. In March when we both turned 21, we started going out to shows pretty much every night.

Evan often came to the Blake Babies practices at Berklee, which somehow simultaneously reduced and increased the tension. By then Seth had sort of resigned from participating and he’d just stoically trudge through the set, usually sipping a strong mixed drink through a straw. Evan would bob, pace around the room, and sing along to the songs. He loved music in general, and he loved being in the middle of our creative process. Having him there sometimes seemed to make Juliana feel inhibited, but he brought undeniable energy to the room.

One practice, during a break, I got behind the drums while Evan strapped on my Fender Strat. Freda hated it when I played her drums, so I usually stayed away. But this time I think she was in the bathroom or something. Evan started playing a Minor Threat song, and I jumped right in, familiar enough with the song to play it in my sleep. We played the first two Minor Threat EPs back to back, without a break. By the end of our Minor Threat jam, Freda had returned. Evan said, “That sounded amazing – we should get you should drum for the Lemonheads.” A tense silence came over the room.

1. We shared a two bedroom condo on Symphony Road we called the “Condo Pad.” Seth’s room was a curtained-off corner of the spacious living room.

2. Freda and I used to sneak into T.T. The Bear’s in Cambridge by showing up early for the barbecue and sticking around unnoticed after doors.