The Real Kids

And, um, so my wife and I got home, and we've been listening to some of it.

One of, the first CD we listened to was called The Real Kids, and man, it's phenomenal.

This punk band from Boston put out one album before they self-destructed [laughs] and real influential Ramones-type stuff, and it's just so good.

It's so much better than I thought it would be.

Bob Dylan was here.

But, you know, the stuff that I think about is really like kind of late 70s, early 80s, when, you know, clubs like The Rat, you know, anchored this sort of nascent boston garage rock and you know rock scene with bands like the neighborhoods and real kids and the nervous eaters willie alexander robin lane and the chart busters you know i mean that that stuff led into the kind of heyday that was really important to us with bands like mission of burma you know lemonheads morphine pixies helium tilt tuesday scruffy the cat You know, stuff that I really love, like Galaxy 500 and Buffalo Tom.

You know, we also have the giant bands.

We have, you know, Aerosmith and the Cars.

Um, another debut from 1976 sticking with my, my approach to this.

Yeah.

Um, uh, the real kids.

So, uh, I guess it was founded by kid from Natick and he was originally in, uh, the original lineup of modern lovers, John Felice.

Felice had less ball, 100-watt Marshall, and absolutely no interest in being quiet.

Eventually, Felice formed The Real Kids.

They played Chuck Berry-style rock and roll with British Invasion melodies and garage rock energy.

Then punk happened.

And because the Real Kids played short, loud songs in clubs filled with kids, people called them punk.

Felice never really agreed.

Punk just showed up, looked around, and apparently claimed them.

But before the Real Kids even had an album, somebody heard something in them.

where did that come or did that come later

a little well it seemed like ages but it wasn't uh you know we got signed to red star records marty thao who is a legendary um legendary uh record guy and he wanted to start as a new label and you know sign uh you know bands that he thought were being ignored by others uh first of all suicide And then he signed The Real Kids.

Great.

We were at a bunch of the recording sessions for that album.