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

On our Sense of Place collection, 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 right particular person to give you an inventory of 5 songs that outline Boston past a few of the extra apparent picks from bands like The Vehicles, Aerosmith or, effectively, Boston!

“5 O’Clock Angel” by Peter Wolf

“He’s a fixture right here in Larger 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 all the time skulking round. He would all the time simply type 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 effectively know, immediately and scarily on stage in Italy … He owned Central Sq. Cambridge. He had a loft there and a recording studio. He was the primary particular person on the town to not solely have one band, he all the time had a minimal of 5 bands going on the similar time. To at the present time, I do not suppose I’ve ever heard something remotely like them.”

“Monkey Gone to Heaven” by Pixies

“After they began, no person took them critically. I nonetheless have their unique demo cassette from the mid-to-late ’80s. There’s lots of nice faculty stations in Larger Boston, and most of them handed on it. However [the band] despatched it to the best individuals — the 4AD individuals, over in England — and rapidly, that little cassette was an attractive 12-inch EP. We had been, like, ‘How did we miss this?’ “

“Two 6’s Upside Down” by Dropkick Murphys

“They had been far more of a hardcore band once they began off, however they had been the hardcore band that took it to the subsequent stage — you hear their songs at sporting occasions. Ken [Casey] has began his personal document 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 strategy.”

“Roadrunner” by Jonathan Richman