It might surprise you to know that Boston`s very first album, who have certified sales of 17 million in the USA alone, never was number 1 in any country. Their peak position was never higher than number 3 (In the US and Switzerland). This proves that you don`t need a number 1 album to do well. And what an album it was and still is. It is among those albums I would take with me on an desert island, for sure. “Smokin” may very well be my favourite song on the album, a song that must be one of the very best ever constructed in modern music history. But all of the album is sooooo good!
No wonder that they had such instant success. Very much deserved.
Read on!
How can any band be so special that their VERY FIRST album goes platinum?
A suspicious GEOFF BARTON goes to the States to investigate and falls victim to the…
Boston stranglehold
BOSTON. BARELY a year old. Been on the road just a few months. Even so, have their first single high up in the US charts. A platinum album as well. Look set to make a similarly indelible impression on the British music scene in the near future.
Enough to make bands that have been around for years with little or no success want to shut themselves in their dressing rooms and slash away at their wrists, isn’t it?
HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA, vast, sprawling steel city, scene of the night’s Boston concert. A two band bill, Bob Seger And The Silver Bullet Band the support act, the mainmen from Massachusetts proud headliners.
I didn’t have high hopes.
Of course, I’d heard the album, liked it a lot. But somehow I couldn’t visualise the music coming across live, in concert, very successfully at all. Those soaring, precise harmonies; that restrained, BTO-like chugga-chugga guitar work; those latchable, cleverly commercial melodies; that crisply dynamic production — all fine and dandy in your living room, your own personalised listening environment, but onstage? In a place like this? Uh-uh.
The venue was about as conducive to an evening of riotous rock ‘n’ roll as a housewife’s Tuppaware party. Hoofprints all over the dirt floor, the wood of the temporary stage structure emblazoned at various places with the words ‘Harrisburg Cattle Show’, the smell of animal sweat hanging heavily in the air, it was more than evident that agricultural functions usually took place here, that the hall was more familiar with the grunting of pigs than the growling of guitars.
But it was big. And, as a band, Boston are big as well. Most of the time, it seems, the size of things is an American promoter’s sole concern.
Boston, at this time, have been gigging for just under two months. Which, together with the way CBS personnel appeared to be scrabbling around for even the smallest amount of publicity for the band did not, I decided, bode at all well.
So, settling my feet into the suitably soft soil, I stood stagefront with my hopes — as I say — not in the least bit high.
By the end of the evening, however, it was an entirely different story.
A guitar wails. From behind the drum riser, a flourescent backbloth appears, depicting a UFO shaped like a guitar, blue flame searing like a thousand a curiously cultivated noise, swooping around, flooding the auditorium. Immaculate three part harmonies add that extra touch of class.
The gawky yet accomplished lead guitarist, Tom Scholz, teeters about to the right, playing licks of superior quality, well honed, refined but raunchy, the mainstay of Boston’s music. End the number; begin another, ‘More Than A Feeling’, almost instantaneously — and to a tremendous reaction.
My misgivings were blown away, a few Kleenexes carried off by a heavy rock hurricane. Live, Boston take on a new dimension. Building upon their melodic, harmonic characteristics, layer after layer, adding a tinge of aggression, they no longer bear relation to the carefully calculated album image of several individuals who have managed to blend every known rock style and come out on tops, no sir. They sound like a band, pure, simple, direct, entertaining.
Five men, the aforementioned Tom Scholz (lead guitar, keyboards), plus Brad Delp (vocals, guitar), Barry Goudreau (guitar), Fran Sheehan (bass) and Sib Hashian (drums). Tom and Brad are the front men, the former dressed in a black jumpsuit, tall, lanky, slightly aloof; the latter possessing an altogether warmer stage presence, a lithe, quick mover, oozing confidence.
Boston are supremely tight for a band with just a handful of concerts behind them. ‘More Than A Feeling’ twists, turns, switches from light to shade and then back again with well-greased ease. Just like on the album, at the same time taking on a rather majestic quality, dual guitars gas jets from its base. ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Band’ is the number, interchanging riffs, Brad’s faultless, wide-ranging voice climbing up above the overall sound, then plummeting down, effortlessly reaching the opposite end of the scale.
Then ‘Smokin’, the showstopper, reminding me — no kidding — of vintage Deep Purple. Really, it powers along like any ‘Machine Head’ track you’d care to name, Scholz playing Lord-like classically orientated keyboards, then switching to guitar for a compelling solo. His spidery frame outlined by a white spotlight, he contributes an instrumental showcase of great dexterity, utilising the Echoplex cleverly.
‘Foreplay/Long Time’ follows, again firmly entrenched in Purple tradition.
Eventually, Boston end up doing most of their album, encoring with a new number ‘TV Politician’, leaving all and sundry stunned but satisfied.
BOSTON IS, basically, the end result of a master plan first conceived, lo, some five years ago by Tom Scholz. The band’s album sleeve notes give you the outline of his unusual story — from 1965 to 1970 he studied at MIT, eventually gaining a master’s degree in mechanical engineering.
Up until last year, he was leading a double existence. By day he was a highly-regarded member of Polaroid’s product design team, lending a hand in the construction of a number of pieces of complex equipment, some of which even today remain top-secret.
But by night he played in bands on North Shore club circuit in Boston city. The not inconsiderable salary he received from Polaroid enabled him to purchase 12-track recording equipment and, using his electronic expertise, he constructed his own studio over a period of several months. Then, together with a few friends he had known in previous bands — but had never, up until this time, worked as a unit — he recorded a set of demos.
And with a quick hop, skip and jump he had a platinum album on his hands.
“Which is pretty amazing,” says the man himself, “I still can’t quite believe that it’s happening.”
Tom, Brad and I are sitting in a sleazy downtown Harrisburg niterie, drunks propping up the bar and ‘Mary Hartman’ blaring from a TV in the corner, attempting an interview.
Close up, both of them remain true to their onstage images – Tom unconsciously offhand, mildly eccentric; Brad more outgoing and good-humoured.
“I thought if our record ever went gold it’d be incredible,” submits Brad, “but platinum? Ulp…”
I wondered if either of them could offer any concrete explanation for the band’s fast-rising success.
“Nope…” says Brad, bluntly.
“A lot of credit must go to our managers, Paul and Charlie,” continues Tom, “who went around to just about every American radio station to make sure that the DJs had a copy of the record. But their endeavours alone can’t account for it all. To be absolutely truthful, I don’t really know.”
Apparently, much of Boston’s album was recorded in Tom’s own basement studio. How much exactly?
“Just about everything bar the vocal tracks,” Tom reveals. “In fact, I think the record actually suffered a great deal because we couldn’t complete it in my basement. Once we’d signed the contracts with CBS we were forced by the unions to move into a professional studio.
“We couldn’t cope with the pressure — after so many years of doing your own stuff, having your own way, going into a proper studio was like going through an interpreter you know, you have to tell the engineer what you want, which is difficult if you have a specific sound in mind, and then he has to go about trying to get that sound for you… God, it was frustrating.”
Finally, I asked Tom to give his reasons as to why he left a safe, steady gig at Polaroid to plunge headlong into the unpredictable rock-biz world.
“I love playing” he says, with an authentic ring of sincerity. “I worked at Polaroid intending to be successful, get as much money as I could and then play rock ‘n’ roll for a living. At first, Boston was just a shot in the dark, I didn’t think that the band had anything more than a slim chance of succeeding.
“I didn’t really think it would work at all…”
The original music paper this article came from (pictured at the top) is for sale!
Send me an e-mail if you are interested. Send it to: geirmykl@gmail.com
The offer should be 20 $ (US Dollars) to be considered. (This includes postage).
If you order several papers – contact me for a “special” offer.
We conduct the transaction through my verified Paypal account for the safety of both parties.
If you have a large collection of the following magazines, don`t throw them out, but contact me as I would be very interested in these: Creem, Circus, Hit Parader and Metal Edge.
If you have a music-related web-page where this fits – please make a link to the article. With credits to the original writer of the article from all of us music fans!
My Things - Music history for those who are able to read. 