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 a listing of 5 songs that outline Boston past among the extra apparent picks from bands like The Automobiles, Aerosmith or, properly, Boston!

“5 O’Clock Angel” by Peter Wolf

“He’s a fixture right here in Higher Boston, and he goes all the best way 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 all the time skulking round. He would all the time simply form 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 properly know, abruptly 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 all the time had a minimal of 5 bands going on the identical time. To at the present time, I do not assume I’ve ever heard something remotely like them.”

“Monkey Gone to Heaven” by Pixies

“Once they began, no one took them critically. I nonetheless have their unique demo cassette from the mid-to-late ’80s. There’s quite a lot of nice faculty stations in Higher Boston, and most of them handed on it. However [the band] despatched it to the correct folks — the 4AD folks, over in England — and rapidly, that little cassette was an exquisite 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 after they began off, however they have been the hardcore band that took it to the subsequent stage — 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 virtually like an Irish, punk, Woody Guthrie method.”

“Roadrunner” by Jonathan Richman