RAT ROCKERS: Asa Brebner, Kim Ernst, Kelly Knapp, Michelle Haber, Thomas White, and Jan Long Collins relive the good ol’ days. |
“How do you stop a fish from smelling?”, The Damned once famously asked an audience at CBGB, NYC’s legendary and recently extinct, urine- and cigarette-scented punk-rock club. “Cut off its nose.” Even less amusing, if possible, is the answer to the question, “How do you keep a dead Rat from smelling?” If that Rat is the Rathskellar, Boston’s legendary and equally odoriferous underground rock club open from 1974 to 1997, the answer is that you gut the place and turn it into condos, a hotel, a Blockbuster Video, and a Kinko’s. Last Saturday, former Rat patrons, performers, and employees, as well as various documentary filmmakers, turned up for the first-ever Rat Reunion, held at the Dilboy VFW Post, in Somerville.
Over 100 people showed up, including former Rat owner Jimmy Harold; former Rat soundman Grannie; Asa Brebner; Thomas White Trash and Richie Parsons of Unnatural Axe; Billy Borgioli, formerly of Real Kids; promoter Billy Ruane; Miss Lyn and Blowfish of Boston Groupie News; T Max of The Noise, formerly of the Bristols; Kim Ernst; Kelly Knapp; and Michele Haber. It was a great party and an impressive yet incomplete who’s who of old-school Boston rock.
Much of the same crowd will be reconvening on Friday, April 6 at the Linwood Grill when Unnatural Axe, Nervous Eaters, Classic Ruins, and ex–Dead Boy Cheetah Chrome share the bill.
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