WUMB’s Albert O picks his quintessential Boston tracks : World Cafe : World Cafe Phrases and Music Podcast : NPR

On our Sense of Place sequence, we attempt to actually dig right into a metropolis’s music scene. Generally, it helps to show to the consultants.

Albert O is the afternoon drive host and the host of the present Freeway 61 Revisted, at WUMB, World Cafe’s affiliate station in Boston. Albert has been a radio host in Boston for many years, so he is the proper individual to provide you with an inventory of 5 songs that outline Boston past a few of the extra apparent picks from bands like The Vehicles, Aerosmith or, nicely, Boston!

“5 O’Clock Angel” by Peter Wolf

“He’s a fixture right here in Better Boston, and he goes all the way in which again to the ’60s, actually … I used to see and go to the Center East, up and down on a regular basis in Central Sq., and he was at all times skulking round. He would at all times simply sort of blow right into a room quietly, all wearing black.”

“Remedy for Ache” by Morphine

“There’s one other one who was a fixture and beloved. Mark Sandman, who died, as you nicely know, all of the sudden and scarily on stage in Italy … He owned Central Sq. Cambridge. He had a loft there and a recording studio. He was the primary individual on the town to not solely have one band, he at all times had a minimal of 5 bands going on the similar time. To today, I do not assume I’ve ever heard something remotely like them.”

“Monkey Gone to Heaven” by Pixies

“After they began, no one took them significantly. I nonetheless have their unique demo cassette from the mid-to-late ’80s. There’s loads of nice faculty stations in Better Boston, and most of them handed on it. However [the band] despatched it to the proper folks — the 4AD folks, over in England — and unexpectedly, that little cassette was a stupendous 12-inch EP. We have been, like, ‘How did we miss this?’ “

“Two 6’s Upside Down” by Dropkick Murphys

“They have been far more of a hardcore band once they began off, however they have been the hardcore band that took it to the following degree — you hear their songs at sporting occasions. Ken [Casey] has began his personal report label … “I am Transport As much as Boston” has Woody Guthrie influences and all that. Two or three years in the past, they stripped down, went to Oklahoma, to the house of Woody Guthrie, in Okemah, and recorded the primary of two albums which might be all Woody Guthrie covers. It is surprisingly actually, actually good. They pulled it off. It is nearly like an Irish, punk, Woody Guthrie strategy.”

“Roadrunner” by Jonathan Richman