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Biography
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones was formed in 1983 by members Tim Bridewell and Dicky Barrett on vocals, Nate Albert on guitar, Joe Gittleman on bass, Josh Dalsimer on drums, Tim ‘Johnny Vegas’ Burton on saxophone and Ben Carr as the group’s dancer. Having a shared appreciation for ska but also a wide interest in the local hardcore scene and hard rock bands including AC/DC and Motörhead, the band were known for blurring genre lines.
The band’s recorded debut came on the ska compilation “Mash It Up” where The Bosstones, as they were then called contributed the tracks “The Cave” and “Ugly”. After disbanding to allow members Albert and Gittleman to finish high school the band reunited and signed with Taang! Records who released their debut album “Devil’s Night Out” in 1989. The album’s follow-up came in 1992 with “More Noise and Other Disturbances” which saw Bridewell and Dalsimer depart to go to university and the introduction of drummer Joe Sirois, saxophonist Kevin Lenear and trombonist Dennis Brockenborough.
In 1993 The Bosstones singed with the major label Mercury, which was representative of a slight shift of ska into the mainstream. Through the label they released “Don’t Know How to Party” and landed a TV commercial for a jeans company. A year later came the release of a mini-cover album “Ska-Core, the Devil and More” which paved the way for their well-received fourth full-length “Question the Answers”.
With a change of tide approaching in the ska genre The Bosstones appeared on the 1994 film “Clueless”, performing the songs “Where’d You Go” and “Someday I Suppose”, and occupied a main-stage slot at the year’s Lollapalooza festival.
The band toured extensively throughout the 1990s garnering lots of public appeal including appearances at the Warped Tour and released their fifth studio-album “Let’s Face It” in 1997. The album proved the be The Bosstone’s most successful album largely due to the leading single “The Impression That I Get”, which reached the top spot on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. After the release the band appeared on Sesame Street’s Elmopalooza TV special as well as performing “That Impression That I Get” on Saturday Night Live.
Soon after due to the band’s success Mercury Records released a live album titled “Live From the Middle East”. Members Kevin Lenear and Nate Albert left the group to pursue their own things replaced by Roman Fleysher and Lawrence Katz respectively. The Bosstone’s follow-up album “Pay Attention”, as all of their subsequent albums failed to perform as successfully as “Let’s Face It” and the group parted ways with Mercury and returned to the independent label SideOneDummy for their seventh studio album “A Jackknife to a Swan” in 2002.
In 2003 due to non-stop touring and other side projects The Bosstone’s took a hiatus, which lasted until 2007 where the band played their tenth official Hometown Throwdown at Cambridge’s popular Middle East Club. They followed the show with a album of new songs called “Medium Rare” and have subsequently released the album “The Magic of Youth” in December 2011.
Live reviews
Aside from having one of the all-time great band names and being exceptionally sharp dressers - a quick Google image search will attest to the latter - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones are also an irrepressibly fun live band. Having celebrated thirty years since their formation last year, they’ve been touring hard ever since reconvening in 2007, after a four-year break. They’re a ska band, first and foremost, although it’s probably best to put shudder-inducing thoughts of Suggs and ‘Baggy Trousers’ to one side; The Bosstones infuse that particular genre with more straightforward rock and punk influences, making for an intriguing blend of genres that’s earned them a considerable cult following. Wearing matching - and often garish - suits on stage, lead singer Dicky Barrett leads his men - all eight of them - through career-spanning sets, including cuts from a pair of post-reformation records, 2009’s Pin Points and Gin Joints and its 2011 follow-up, The Magic of Youth. The instrumentation reflects their stylistic diversity; there’s brass, of course, in order to properly translate their ska leanings to the stage, but noisy guitars and thumping percussion are part of the setup, too, and with comical crowd interaction commonplace, you can understand why there’s such a close bond between the band and their fans.
Joeg_67
The show was great!
It was a 20-year anniversary tour for their '97 classic 'Let's Face It'. I have to compliment them for not riding the nostalgia card too hard. They played the album and then they played countless other hits.
HIGHLY recommend seeing the Bosstones anytime you get the chance.
andrew-devine-1
