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Jeff Conolly Photo:Miss Lyn

We found out Saturday that Jeff Conolly of the Lyres is dealing with cancer. He is scheduled to have his bladder and prostrate removed soon.

He has set up a Go Fund Me page to help with expenses. We all know that with the current situation of our health care structure that this is the only way to go sometimes. We can also appreciate the toll that chemotherapy and surgery takes, we’ve all seen it around us. We feel that as our punk community is connected so strongly that we have the urge to help. The GoFundMe is the immediate way to get involved.

The release of On Fyre: Live at the Rusty Nail 1985 has made us think of Jeff and the Lyres a lot. The word genius has been used to describe Jeff many times and it’s true. We fans know that. You can hear it on the On Fyre album. And you've seen it in the live performances. It's there for those who want to find it.
We came across a video, in a random way, and it was an amazing performance. We have it posted to the right. Medical science can do miracles, and we wish that for Jeff, so that the road ahead is smooth and long.

So again here is the GoFundMe page for Jeff Connolly.

We were interested some time ago in the Beautiful Was The Fight documentary about women in the Boston music scene. It was finished in 2024. Now we see that it’s streaming everywhere: Tubi , Hoopla and Prime .

The filming is striking. it's so sharp and the colors so vibrant. Some of the photos in the film are by Nicole Tammaro and Coleman Rogers. The hour and a half film almost never veers from the women’s view of their career challenges. They really get their say here and that feels so satisfying. They praise Boston for being a welcoming place but do mention the slights they have gotten along the way.

The filming makes the clubs look so inviting. The Burren gets lots of time along with Once. The film is a few years in the making which is why the long-closed Thunder Road is included. Some of the artists we knew were Happy Little Clouds, Linea Herzog, Stormstress, When Particles Collide, Carissa Johnson, The Dirty Dotties, Lily Black, Ruby Rose Fox and Sapling.

There is a much larger collection of artists that are outside our punk world. All are talented and you can tell even with the brisk live cuts they show. That would be our main complaint. We would have loved some longer musical interludes.

VIDEOS......

Muck and the Mires have a new single on Rouge Records from France. The single is “Tripping Out On Love”/”Let’s Kiss and Make Up Tonight”. “Tripping Out On Love” carries the love as drug metaphor through the song as does the video. That opens up the video to some colorful tripping imagery and the use of Valentine candy hearts to display lyrics. And listen to Linda’s drum work. Spectacular!!

If “Tripping Out On Love” is late 60s psychedelia then “Let’s Kiss and Make Out Tonight” is solidly back in Mersey Beat territory. Muck and the Mires don’t just play that era they make if fresh as today. The excitement you feel is now, not nostalgia. That’s what makes them so good. The guitar work is delicious. Hear the single below, see the video above. We can’t get enough Muck!

Ever since “X’mas Time (It Sure Doesn’t Feel Like It) by the Dogmatics came out in 1984 it has been more than just another seasonal song. The unusual combination of sadness with Christmas marks out its own territory. It’s like Handel’s Messiah for Boston punks.

The Dogmatics, who have had a few amazing years, now give a video of the song that includes footage from The Dogmatics: A Dogumentary . Including shots of the band playing and antics on Thayer Street. At the end are a few short interviews that deal with the song and season.

The song was written by Paul O’Halloran and the band dedicates this whole project to Paul. It’s so heartwarming to see Paul’s mother tell the story of the truncated Christmas tree. RIP Paul, you are not forgotten, and never will be.

What we have here is a one hour video of Chigago’s The Effigies at the Middle East on 11/29/25. It’s a good view by someone with a steady hand. This was released by the band itself. There were so many good reports on social media on this. The band has a perfect hard sound and the riffs to drive it all home.

RADIO......

Astral Bitch was on WMFO’s On the Town With Mickey Dee show 12/10. They played a live set and did an interview later. Astral Bitch is not shy about their name. They want it to be a calling card.

They still like to put up flyers for shows. The band has been together three years. They say people are always requesting physical mementos from the band. CD’s are still popular they say. They mentioned their cover of “Pretty In Pink”. The interview was wide ranging. One thing that came out was that the band listens to a lot of music that you wouldn’t expect them to with their sound. We have the set and interview below.
Asked for a local song to play after the interview they picked “Deadbeat” by Whyte Lipstick.

On The Town With Mikey Dee has been bringing local music to the airwaves for a long time. The show is on Wednesday at 9 to 12pm. To listen go to the WMFO webpage and hit the show listing on Wednesday at 9pm and then hit archive.

PODCASTS......

Blowing Smoke with Twisted Rico talks with Tim Shea of Black Helicopter. Tim talks about the transition from Green Magnet School to Black Helicopter. Steev questions how Tim does his songwriting and that'is interesting. The latest album was recorded in their rehearsal space. Tim did the engineering himself. He says he learned a lot working with Rick Harte.

The new Black Helicopter album Balancing Act is on Best Brother Records. Steev gets Tim to talk about the tracks and get insights. One song is titled “Egypt, MA” which Steev didn’t know about ... but Blowfish spent every childhood summer at Egypt beach (part of Scituate). That's one of our favorite tunes too. We also extra-like “NRG Nug”, “Charlestown’s Burning”, “Five of Hearts” and “Paralyze”. In the end every song is worthy.

Steev says this will be on his Top Albums list of the year and we say it's one of the year's best too. All the talk makes you want to hear the album.

The next interview Steev had this week was Rich Gilbert of Human Sexual Response and other groups. This is the third time for Rich on Blowing Smoke. Rich lived in Nashville for a long time, went to Italy for a year or two and now is back in Nashville. He talks about his projects in Nashville of which there is many. He also has an album of Christmas songs. Rich talks about the whole Zulu’s situation and the release of their Outer Space album on streaming services. We have it below.

Rich says that he and Larry Bangor wrote the whole album in two weekends. He discusses how the album was recorded which involved some remote recording. There are more albums by Rich coming soon, one is Music To Fall Asleep To. He was quick to make the point that it’s not boring but dream inducing.

On The Elastic Glam show 12/5 they began with the traditional T.Rex song “The Slider”. Then it was to the first all-female Slade tribute band Slady. Check out “Merry Christmas Everybody” Slady style. Sethyspice played one of the best neo glam Christmas songs The Voltz’s “Do You Remember Christmas?” When they think about Christmas it’s Christmas of 1974. Then it was two Peppermint Kicks songs, “Number One Record” and then “Peppermint Christmas”. We have that below.

There’s a memory inducing throwback with the 1973 live version of “Sweet Jane” by Lou Reed. Another glammy good one was “My Teenage Queen” by Harpo from 1974.

You can vote for the Top Glam Songs of the Year. The results will be played New Years Eve on Elastic Glam. There’s plenty of local groups in the list.

On the 12/19 show Elastic Glam did their Christmas show. They began with two T.Rex Christmas songs. Sethyspice had a parcel of local Christmas music with The Other Girls, The Peppermint Kicks and Stop Calling Me Frank.

Classic Glam Christmas tunes were Shadowaddywaddy’s “Hey, Mr Christmas”, The Goodies’ “Make a Daft Noise For Christmas”, and Sweet’s “Let It Snow”.

The Pretty Reckless “Where Are You Christmas” from a 2005 Grinch movie had a great production. Romano Nervoso’s “Glam Rock Christmas” is a neo glam take.

Al Quint had a particular wide range of music on the 12/8 Sonic Overload show. Even though it went from Broker T and the MG’s to Ministry it was still hardcore heavy as usual. We liked hearing the early Goo Goo Dolls with the punky “Up Yours”.

There were a few hardcore versions of Beatles songs to commemorate John Lennon’s death. There was a set to mark the 45th anniversary of The Clash’s Sandinista. We’re going to embed two almost random hardcore songs to give the flavor of the show. M13 do “Cops Get Away”/”FDA” and Displeasure have “Real Men Don’t Wipe”.

On the 12/10 Sonic Overload show Al ended with a punk set. The first song was “Combat Love” by Shrapnel. Theat band never got the attention back in the day but people keep bringing up fond memories of the group in social media. In 2022 huge Shrapnel fan Alisyn Camerota, who became a notable news anchor, wrote the book Combat Love. The group played Boston a few times, once at the Underground.

Al's set continued with Devo, Nervous Eaters, Baby’s Arm and Buzzcocks. The last song of the show was “Valid or Void” by Shrink a nice new wave effort from 1979 that evokes the era. Here it is on YouTube. We embed “Combat Love” by Shrapnel and “I’m a Wimp” by Baby’s Arm.

You can hear the Sonic Overload shows on their web blog. Al has logged all the shows since 2009.

Punks in the Garage from Cincinnati posted on The Rat’s Facebook page that they had a feature on DMZ. We had to check that out. Punks in the Garage is a one hour hit of garage. They had some nice picks like “Mighty Idy”, “Shirt Loop” and “Busy Man” from DMZ. One obvious connection of DMZ to Cincinnati is Peter Greenberg who was later in the group The Customs from that city.

We listened to the latest Wormtown Underground Radio show with LB as DJ. It's the disregard for genre barriers that we liked again. They had The Yum Yums next to the Nervous Eaters and then The Dropkick Murphys/Elvis Costello/LaPeste. Another run was Alice Cooper/Sapling/ The Chelsea Curve/Green Day. What about Boomtown Rats/Amyl and the Sniffers/ Dogmatics/Lyres.

LB alerted us to the fact that a new LaPeste collection I Don’t Know Right From Wrong: Lost La Peste 1976-1979 will be released in April of 2026. It’s posted on Bandcamp now to preorder. If you go there now you can hear “I Don’t Know Right From Wrong” streaming – and it will take you back! The album will be on vinyl, CD and streaming.

NEW MUSIC/CD’s ......

It’s another great one from Rum Bar Records. The Lemon Drop Gang are from Arizona but that doesn’t prevent them from having one…nay, two O’Halloran family (Dogmatics) members in the group.

“My Mind’s Got a Mind of Its Own” is suburb garage with a nice chord progression chunking along. The kicker is the vocal by Steph O’Halloran. She knows how to sing with a crazed whelp that makes you believe she’s fighting with her own mind. It’s a nicely realized comic/horror scenario. The flip is “Wine” which has some southwestern Tuscan flavor in with the garage. Johnny O’Halloran is also on guitar.

We catching up with old friends now. The drummer for 4 Barrel Frankenstein is Ron Boulanger from The Chelsea Curve. He moved following work and this is his new group. They're rockabilly.

In “Rat Road Deuce” they often let the sound go to a heavy rumble with the bass and drums. It’s like a signature thing and a good one. It’s a unique take done up by excellent musicians.

UK Rock pop artist Marc Valentine has been getting lots of attention. He's now on Wicked Cool records with a current single out - “You Are the Jet” shows his smooth power pop rock mix. It’s almost too good, and also too good to pass by.

This Christmas classic “Santa Clause is Coming to Town” is done by NOAPOLOGY from Kyiv, Ukraine. It's Christmassy but it will also rock your ass off with their hard rock/metal attack. Our speakers were shaking with the red lined recording.

They have albums of covers where they do up favorite hit songs the same way. Here that on Bandcamp.

Canadian punkers Wasting Time has a song that pines for the 90’s and that’s their sound - 90s punk. You can hear Green Day and Alkaline Trio in the vocals of their new song “Ripped Blue Jeans”. Those new punk bands and others were a big attraction in the 90s and this song manages to capture nostalgia for those times.

The music is ripping with rolling thunder drums and active bass lines vying for attention. The song will be on a new album Are You Out Of Your God Damn Mind? scheduled for early 2026

More Canadians…Fake Friends are from Montreal. “Sucker Born Every Minute” is the leading single from the forthcoming album Let’s Not Overthink This. Of course overthinking or thinking a lot in any case, is what they do. They sound like a combo of post punk, indie and a smidgen of New Wave and they tag all those descriptors on their Bandcamp page.

Their energy is almost too high to be indie and that’s a big plus. Sometimes they put a wash of background noise that almost swamps out the instruments and that adds to the excitement. In the lyrics they put the “Sucker born every minute” next to another cliché “you were born to lose” and that gets your attention and reinforces the message. These guys are smarties. They have a video for this too.

Mal Thursday released the recent Lyres album On Fyre at the Rusty Nail 1985 Now his group The Mal Thursday Quintet has their own album Mods & Gods. One single, “If 6 Was 5” is released on Bandcamp now. It's drenched in 12 string guitar. It not only sounds like the Byrds but the arrangement twists in the song are very Byrds-like also. Mal isn’t just a fan he’s a student of the sixties garage genre. The whole album will be released on February 14, 2026.

Here's some good shows coming up .....

December 26, 2025 (Friday) Nokturnal - a night of The Cure & Siouxsie & The Banshees at Alchemy, Prov. RI - various DJs thru the night: Faust, Kahihara, Azrael, Vamp Daddy - FB page.

December 27, 2025 (Saturday) Hammered Saint, Jack & The Idiots, Farewell Drugs, Yes Nanny at the Middle East Up - doors 7 FB page

December 31, 2025 (Wednesday) New Year's Eve!! with The Legion Basement Band, The Manglers, Gimmick, Spectacle - The Midway TIX

December 31, 2025 (Wednesday) New Year's Eve!! with Battlemode, Linnea’s Garden, Truckers Atlas at The Jungle TIX

January 9, 2026 (Friday) Clock Out, Cooked, Latch, Billy, In Contempt at O'Brien's

January 9, 2026 (Friday) Black Helicopter, Spiller, Daughter of the Vine at Faces Malden

January 10, 2026 (Saturday) Sweetie, Never Better Baby, Tatooine Punk Scene at O'Brien's

January 11, 2026 (Sunday) The 15th Annual Joe ZIppo Memorial Benefit Show with Burp, The Prozacs, TJ Welch & The Wasted at Moon Base One, Salem. 7-10PM All Ages. TIX

January 10, 2026 (Saturday) Condition Baker, Never Gonna Make it, Josh Mcelvie, Weigh Boat at O'Brien's

January 17, 2026 (Saturday) Silver Screams, Static Friction, Screw Cart, Fear is a Mind Killer at The Midway - this is a Matinee show at 3PM.

January 17, 2026 (Saturday) No More Youth, The Greying, Mortar, Alchemy, Crime Of Passion at O'Brien's

January 17, 2026 (Saturday) The Park Hill Romance, Late Night Idle, The Sleds, blindspot - The Midway

January 17, 2026 (Saturday) Big Time Kill, Proles, Endation - 930pm show at Koto Salem

January 18, 2026 (Sunday) Galaxy Cake, The Haymakers, The Spackles, Bob Cenci’s Orange Guitar - another 3PM matinee at The Midway

January 23, 2026 (Friday) Smitt E. Smitty & The Fezztones, TELL, Yes Nanny (this  is a celebration of the new music video for TELL's new single "Things To Do When It's Dark.") at The Warp & Weft Lowell MA

January 24, 2026 (Saturday) Hooligan Holiday Boston with The Oppressed - ALL AGES show at The Middle East 7PM doors. FB page

January 24, 2026 (Saturday) Stop Calling Me Frank, Unnatural Axe + More - this is a 3PM matinee at The Midway

January 24, 2026 (Saturday) Sapling, John Hovorka Band, Crow Follow at The Square Root

January 31, 2026 (Saturday) Snowbeasts, Spirit Hotel, Neponset Monastery at O'Brien's

February 5, 2026 (Thursday) Sparks the Rescue, 5ever, Megan From Work at O'Brien's

February 6, 2026 (Friday) Sparks the Rescue, We Demand Parachutes, Borderlines at O'Brien's

February 7, 2026 (Saturday) Muck and The Mires, White Dynamite, Sonic Bomb, The Humanoids, We Own Land At Sonia’s, Cambridge Doors at 7pm. 18+ $20 Show will be shot by Sonic Lobotomy TV. FB page

February 20, 2026 (Friday) Lux Lives East Coast 2026 Featuring: The Evil Streaks, Gossip Collar, Cryin Caleb, DJ Kogar the Swinging Ape playing Lux and Ivy's Favorites all night long at Faces Brewing Co. FB page

February 21, 2026 (Saturday) KCUF, Oh The Humanity!, Leisure Boys, CE Skidmore at Faces Malden

February 21, 2026 (Saturday) Worshipper, Zip-Tie Handcuffs, Gossip Collar, Bastard Leg at Deep Cuts

February 21, 2026 (Saturday) Inplainsight, Dowsing Rod, Evil Felipe, Horrendous Downplay at O'Brien's

March 7, 2026 (Saturday) TREE, Catching Hell, Beantown Boozehounds, Hammered Saint at O'Brien's

March 19, 2026 (Thursday) The Len Price 3, The Chelsea Curve, Stars Like Ours and DJ Sherman at The Stone Church Music Club, New Market NH. FB page

March 20, 2026 (Friday) Angry Samoans at the The Middle East Up FB page

March 20, 2026 (Friday) The Len Price 3, The Chelsea Curve, Muck & the Mires, Pop! at Deep Cuts | Medford, MA FB page

March 21, 2026 (Saturday) - The Bags and Trinary System are at The Crystal Ballroom. TIX

March 28, 2026 (Saturday) The Zeros, The Downhauls at Deep Cuts, Medford, 7-11PM

CONTACT US AT....misslynbgn@yahoo.com