A Web Ring For Ska Web Sites!

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SKATOLOGY

I got this from Seconds Magazine

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Punk rock just ain't what it used to be. Back in the day, Boston's Ska-coated Punk pundits THE MIGHTY MIGHTY BOSSTONES ham it up for their fans.

by Richard Gadsen

Porcupine-haired rejects and naysayers, alienated by the bloated mellow preenings of post-Hippie 70s America, found solace in the deconstructionist fuck-you fury of the Sex Pistols and all who followed in the trail. Thanks to the cocky nihilism of the likes of first-generation punkers like Rotten, Vanian, and Pursey, the ground rules were laid for suburban American Jock-Rock Hardcore thugs like Rollins, MacKaye, and Springa, to rip the heart and soul out of Reagan youth. Blending anti-Metal bomb ast with King's Road rancor, these Stateside Punk Neanderthals set the standard for the mood of maudlin Rock today. Out of all this aural mess and confusion came THE MIGHTY MIGHTY BOSSTONES. Appropriating a Two-Tone Ska revival vibe to their SSD/DYS/Gang Green Boston Hardcore "roots," self-proclaimed entertainer extraordinaire DICKY BARRETT and his pugnacious plaid posse have made their mark by presenting their Greatest Show On Earth styled pro-Punk roadshow at venues across the country to a rabid following for so long it's not true. Dismissed by Indie snobs and their minions of spazzy critics, the Bosstones are working class heroes. Never mind all those super-serious unwilling Rock godz who can't handle the fact that people may actually derive pleasure from listening to their music.

In the past, the rap on these Taang!-soaked punsters has been that their recorded efforts never lived up to their manic live appeal. Now having broken the shackles of their former indie label slavemasters, these toilers of yore have high-stepped into the limelight with their most accomplished effort to date, Question The Answers (Mercury). Imagine a songwriting session between Tom Scholz of Boston, Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire, and Meatman Tesco Vee, and you've only just begun to get a handle on the super-charged free ride delivered herein. From their genesis years of Converse commercials and opening slots on all-age hardcore matinees, to their current glut of sold-out shed gigs and their searing rendition of the Gene Simmons air-guitar anthem "Detroit Rock City" on the Kiss My Ass tribute album, we spoke with raspy frontman Barrett and horny horn player TIM BURTON about Punk roots, high fashion, stupid pigs and Michael Dukakis. In the end, the kids will have their say.

BARRETT: I could go through magazines and there's a thousand bands I love, then multiply that by the other bandmembers in the Bosstones. We never want to limit ourselves. If you read what we fuse, someone will all of a sudden say we're Ragtime. There's no limit. We love all kinds of music so we try to slam it all together.

BURTON: I think growing up in Boston where there's such a diverse music scene and no cliques, you felt welcome going to any type of show - Hardcore, Reggae, Ska, Rap; you'd see the same people at all the shows. So we felt free to try and do whatever we wanted.

SECONDS: Is that intimidating sometimes?

BARRETT: No, it's not, it makes it a lot easier. People seem to be impressed by us tackling so many styles. The bottom line is that we don't do any of them really well. It breaks down all the musical fences. There's never a time when we're writing something that we go, "Oh, we can't do that because it's not our style." Well, our style is not having a style, not having any boundaries. There's no guidelines, no rules. We set it up like that from the very beginning which makes it easier now. Expect the unexpected.

SECONDS: Although you guys sell lots of tickets and records-

BARRETT: Sell, sell, sell, that's us. Hats and T-shirts too.

SECONDS: - your band isn't taken very seriously, right?

BARRETT: We're not going to go away. You can disrespect us and ignore us, but even though we consider ourselves entertainers, we take our music seriously. As soon as people see us live or listen to our records, they'll realize it. We don't care either. We know that kids like us.

BURTON: It has been hard for us to be taken seriously. We'd be drawing a lot more people than other bands and selling more records on an indie label and thinking, "Why aren't we getting huge record offers?" At the same time, it was important to us that people at record companies come to us on our terms, and that's the way it ended up happening. We feel good about that; we feel like we've stayed true to what we do.

SECONDS: What is that?

BARRETT: Anybody that has any power in the business is a lot older and really doesn't understand music anymore. They'd rather go with the safe band.

BURTON: They'll say, "I want to get behind this band because they're like Nirvana." Before that it was, "I'm going to get behind this band because they're like Guns N' Roses." They're looking for Pearl Jam now, they're not looking for Ska-Metal bands.

BARRETT: Kids want to get behind us because we're not like any of them and they want to have something of their own. It wasn't a lot of hype, it was word of mouth through kids. We'll continue to do it on that level for as long as we have to. I'm glad we're not MTV darlings and they're not quick to put us on television. That would be fake. This is all stuff that probably every band you interview says.

SECONDS: The Ska element is important part to what you do as well.

BARRETT: It's taboo. It's hard to understand: no one really picked up on it the first time around, they didn't pick up on it the second time and it'll probably go right by them this time. But there are a lot of kids out there buying these records and going to the shows. I saw a Ska show in Boston two weeks ago that was packed wall-to-wall with eight bands playing. Everybody was having the time of their lives, more so than at a Grungefest where kids just stand there. If people ignore it, fine, I'd like to be selfish about my music. It's all mine.

SECONDS: Your first big break was that Converse commercial.

BARRETT: Now you're explaining why no one takes us seriously! We sold sneakers before we made an album! Now you're starting to enlighten us. This is like therapy.

SECONDS: You guys were wearing plaid before any Grunge bands.

BARRETT: We stole it from Small Faces.

BURTON: We were really concerned when we got offered the TV commercial. We really did sit down and think if this is the way we wanted to be presented to our fans. Were we going to be perceived as sell-outs? We certainly weren't huge at the time. We didn't want to destroy what we'd worked for.

BARRETT: Then we thought about the money and greed took over.

BURTON: It seemed like they were going to do a cool spot and it was a good product; it wasn't beer or cigarettes or something. I knew the guy who was running the show from the ad agency, and he gave us his personal assurance that we weren't going to be made to look like buffoons. In the final analysis, we weren't. It was a great spot.

BARRETT: Great for us. I don't think it sold one pair of sneakers.

BURTON: People that saw the spot didn't even know what it was. We still get people saying they saw our ad. It was more of a Bosstones commercial than anything else. It happened and then it died just as fast.

BARRETT: We didn't have to wear the sneakers on our head or anything, or kiss-up on camera. We didn't have to wear Ôem, but we felt bad so we did.

BURTON: It did get our name out there to a lot of kids.

BARRETT: It was great bringing out people who were like, "I saw these real cute guys on TV, I'll go down and check them out," and then we go on stage and horrify them. Taang! wasn't paying us any money, so the commercial allowed us to continue touring and pay our rent. At the time, we didn't like these creepy characters we were meeting in the music business so we got to check out the world of sneakers. Those Converse people, they're scumbags too. Television, advertising, they were scumbags. The grass is never greener.

SECONDS: Do you see your live shows as a participatory event?

BARRETT: Definitely. It's a team sport. A contact sport too.

BURTON: We don't tell people how to act but we don't discourage them from doing whatever they want to do. It's their show.

BARRETT: It's really funny that The Cars were saying the same things back in 1980. Things really haven't changed.

SECONDS: Are you guys a Punk band?

BARRETT: Oh yeah, we gotta be. With pipes like mine, you gotta call yourselves Punk. We have no real choice.

BURTON: That's the bottom line. We all came out of Punk Rock. We're just straight old-school Punk.

SECONDS: Are you upset that kids today don't know Punk history?

BARRETT: I want to be part of the history they remember tomorrow. I'm not holding kids and asking them who the Buzzcocks are. We covered Stiff Little Fingers on our last album, and that's some of the best music of all time. What I think they're listening to today is just as good.

BURTON: Punk rock definitely had a positive effect on the music of today. It definitely changed the music industry, the influence is there whether the kids realize it or not.

SECONDS: Dicky, you're very much an entertainer in the classic sense. Is that a conscious thing?

BARRETT: I like show business schtick and that kind of schmaltzy crap. We were earlier talking about Neil Diamond; I saw him live, and as stupid and inane as his moves are, I love it. I make up for any shortcomings I have with singing by my ability to entertain. I consider myself a decent writer, and a decent entertainer, and a horrible singer. I like all the old entertainers.

BURTON: Bands, to me, have to have the common decency - if people are going to pay ten bucks to see you- to give you a show. To care like you're there, to not just stand there and stare at your shoes. Put on a clean shirt and tie. Don't just wear the same T-shirt I saw you in at the soundcheck at ten in the morning.

BARRETT: When I was in court the other day, do you believe the way those people came dressed to court?

BURTON: There were people coming before the judge with a Tasmanian Devil T-shirt on and chewing gum.

SECONDS: May I ask what you were in court for?

BARRETT: I got arrested at a radio concert we shouldn't have even been playing. It was the most backwards radio station, WAFF in Boston. It was kind of out of hand, and then this bouncer grabbed a kid around the throat. He had a decent hold on him, and he turned pink and I kind of ignored it, and then he started turning grey; when he turned blue, I had to get involved. I jumped down and grabbed the guy by the shirt and we were all screaming to let him go. The police saw me do that and claimed I had assaulted him, which I didn't.

BURTON:The cops were beating people up all night. It was a pathetic show in this huge room. By the time we went on stage, the kids were so sick of the vibe and getting harassed by security.

BARRETT: Bands were coming in saying the cops were beating the crap out of guys. There were probably only a hundred Bosstones fans there, and they were miserable. It was a Halloween party and they were forced to watch this costume contest where the winner was a White guy dressed as Buckwheat.

BURTON: He had black face on, he combed his hair straight up and that was the winner of the contest.

BARRETT: This is something Eddie Murphy did in like 1983.

BURTON: The kids who were dressed like Wayne and Garth got beaten up by the cops and thrown out.

BARRETT: I saw Wayne and Garth getting beat up by Beavis and Butthead in the men's room. It was an ugly scene all around. At the beginning of the fight, Wayne and Garth had the jump on them because Beavis and Butthead had those masks on and they couldn't really see out of the eyeholes. Wayne was hitting Beavis.

BURTON: It was a just a pathetic scene where way too many small town cops were looking for someone to bust so they could validate the fact that they were even there -so they could have a reason to call out the paddy wagon and the dogs and justify their overtime.

SECONDS: So what happened to the charges?

BARRETT: I gotta go back to court, I guess. In the scheme of Rock & Roll arrests, it's a small one, but it's a pain in the ass. It just goes to show that, despite all the political correctness, there's still malletheads out there who have no clue what's going on.

BURTON: The radio station put together this show and it was free but everyone in there was invited. They had the show in a theater with seats and a security force ready to handle World War III.

BARRETT: When's the last time you went to a concert and had a seat?

BURTON: We go to the general manager of the radio station and say, "Are you familiar with the way kids like to view Rock & Roll shows these days?" Even Stone Temple Pilots, who we toured with, doesn't play those type of shows. They just get a nice big empty room, throw a P.A. in there and they have fun; that's the way it's done these days. These people didn't understand that at all.

BARRETT: There was a guy dressed as Frankenstein with a three-foot head sitting in front of Tweedledum trying to see a Rock Concert.

BURTON: There was a guy dressed as an airplane with an eight-foot wing span; he was taking up four seats.

BARRETT: Then the kids said fuck it and rushed the barricade, and the cops lost their minds.

SECONDS: How many suits do you go through on a typical tour?

BARRETT: If I think the show's not doing so well, I'll throw a suit coat out to the kids.

BURTON: Dennis brings one, I bring three or four, but you can mix and match. Sometimes you just put a regular shirt on.

BARRETT: Or you can hit a thrift store on the way. Say it's a month-long tour, maybe you're dry-cleaning twice.

BURTON: Sometimes we bring an iron with us.

BARRETT: For the other members who aren't here right now, it's getting a little lax lately. You know who you are guys, let's get those suits in shape. Just because we were out with the Butthole Surfers doesn't mean we can go on in T-shirts.

SECONDS: Do you have a good story about Michael Dukakis?

BARRETT: There's a picture of a boarding house on the first Bosstones album, and I used to live there with my crazy friends in Boston. Michael Dukakis used to pride himself on taking the "T" home from work everyday - I had a job, I'd take cabs. We'd always be on the porch drinking all day and we let the grass grow really high, and one day he came over and looked really sad and said, "I see you boys here every day. Can't you at least mow the lawn?" My friend Patrick said, "We could mow the lawn, but Kitty was by here earlier and drank all the gas out of the mower." Then he looked even sadder. I mowed the lawn the next day, because I felt bad for him. He had just lost the election. It was funny as hell.

SECONDS: What's the best music to fuck to?

BARRETT: It's definitely not ours.

BURTON: You should ask guys that actually have sex. We're on the road all the time, it's difficult. Cool Jazz, old George Clinton.

BARRETT: We'll let Vegas field this one because he's actually getting laid. I'd feel stupid putting on music.

BURTON: I'd feel weird trying to set up a love-making scene. Lighting candles, and putting on soft music. It's kind of presumptuous: "You're going to give it up, right?"

BARRETT: You go into the other room and come back in a bathrobe.

SECONDS: How would you guys like to be remembered in an encyclopedia of music?

BARRETT: It would be nice to be in it. I think that we could probably make a decent dent. I'd just like to be remembered. We're not going to write the next "Louie Louie" and be heard forty years from now, but it'd be nice for the kids to remember us as Rock & Roll.

BURTON: I'd like to be taken seriously. That we actually cared about the music, not just buffoons who jumped around the stage in plaid suits, a party band. But that's what we actually do.

BARRETT: This is all hypothetical, right? I'd like to be remembered as a song craftsman. As long as we're bullshiting, I'd like to be re-membered as a guy who could play the guitar like Jimmy Page.

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