Photo by Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
We’ve got a brand new Journalism addition to the site today as Cameron profiles the rock group Boston in this lengthy interview for Rolling Stone. Boston was on top of the world and dominating the charts and sales, but feeling the sting of being a critical after thought. Topics include the bands history and the pressure on founder/leader/perfectionist Tom Scholtz to deliver their sophomore album…
Boston: The Band From the Platinum Basement
THE PHONE RANG AT SIX IN THE morning, early in 1975.
Twenty-eight-year-old recordman Paul Ahern grumbled into the receiver: “Who the fuck is this? This better be good!’ “It’s McKenzie. You gotta hear this, PA….”
As employees in Warner-Elektra-Atlantic’s regional office several years earlier, Charlie McKenzie and Paul Ahern were the young lions of Boston-area promotion. McKenzie had the ear, Ahern the rap. They became buddies with all the jocks and, one golden month in 1972, broke Yes and the J. Geils Band and placed thirteen company singles and album cuts on the Top Thirty playlist of Bostons WRKO. They had dreamed of finding the band that would take them off the street and make them “the idle rich,” but their era passed. Ahern moved to L.A. for a better job with Asylum Records. McKenzie left WEA but continued to work for other record companies in Boston. And he hung on to the dream…. You gotta hear this,” he was saying that early morning” in ’75. “Local guy, Tom Scholz … the group has no name. The whole tape is like this!”
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