Wed. Dec. 26 – Sun. Dec. 30

The bad news: Tickets for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones “Hometown Throwdown” – the revival of a revered Boston Xmas-time tradition – sold out in 15 minutes. The “good” news? You can probably find one somewhere at one of those ticket agencies. Might cost you a little more than face, however. The “Throwdown” runs Wed. Dec. 26 – Sun. Dec. 30. What follows is a version of a piece I wrote for the Phoenix in October.
     Dicky Barrett is on his cell phone from Atlanta. He, Jimmy Kimmel and one of Kimmel’s cousins have flown into the city for a Falcons game and “Monday Night Football” broadcast. (Kimmel is to do a spot in the booth on air.) Suddenly, there’s chatter in the background. It’s Kimmel. Barrett – the announcer on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” - tells him to be quiet; he’s doing an interview. “I thought it was 2007,” replies Kimmel.
     It’s funny – and Barrett laughs - but, you know, ouch. The implication: Generally, the announcer on a late-night talk show is not interview material, and didn’t that guy, Barrett, leave his post as singer for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones five years ago? This, after the band had played Lollapalooza and umpteen Warped Tours, had a big radio hit (“The Impression That I Get”), won MTV and Boston Music Awards, and cultivated a Phish-like fan base that supported the roving eight-piece ska-punk band everywhere it went. Hadn’t Barrett stepped down from the rock and settled into a quasi-post-fame existence?
     Perhaps. But now he and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones – the same lineup they left us with - are back, putting on their trademark plaid and freshly pressed suits for another “Hometown Throwdown,” a skein of five shows (with 10 different opening bands) at the Middle East Downstairs, December 26-30.
     The “Hometown Throwdown” used to be the most wonderful time of the year, the rock ‘n’ roller’s “Nutcracker.” The “Throwdown” began at the Middle East in 1995, went to the Rat, Axis, everywhere. It was Christmas in clubland. They sold out wherever they played. It was, Barrett said back then, a way of recapturing the joy he used to feel at Christmas when he was a kid, before commercialism over-ran the holiday and cynicism kicked in.
     In 2003, the Bosstones said there would be no “Throwdown.” And, effectively, no more Bosstones. No one called it a “breakup,” but the band was not anymore on active duty. Officially, on their website, they called it a “hiatus.” Barrett told me back in 2003, this was not a nail in the coffin, saying, somewhat cryptically,  “There’s no real beginning and no real ending. I hope it lives in my heart forever.”Wed. Dec. 26 – Sun. Dec. 30 The bad news: Tickets for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones “Hometown Throwdown” – the revival of a revered Boston Xmas-time tradition – sold out in 15 minutes. The “good” news? You can probably find one somewhere at one of those ticket agencies. Might cost you a little more than face, however. The “Throwdown” runs Wed. Dec. 26 – Sun. Dec. 30. What follows is a version of a piece I wrote for the Phoenix in October.
     Dicky Barrett is on his cell phone from Atlanta. He, Jimmy Kimmel and one of Kimmel’s cousins have flown into the city for a Falcons game and “Monday Night Football” broadcast. (Kimmel is to do a spot in the booth on air.) Suddenly, there’s chatter in the background. It’s Kimmel. Barrett – the announcer on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” - tells him to be quiet; he’s doing an interview. “I thought it was 2007,” replies Kimmel.
     It’s funny – and Barrett laughs - but, you know, ouch. The implication: Generally, the announcer on a late-night talk show is not interview material, and didn’t that guy, Barrett, leave his post as singer for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones five years ago? This, after the band had played Lollapalooza and umpteen Warped Tours, had a big radio hit (“The Impression That I Get”), won MTV and Boston Music Awards, and cultivated a Phish-like fan base that supported the roving eight-piece ska-punk band everywhere it went. Hadn’t Barrett stepped down from the rock and settled into a quasi-post-fame existence?
     Perhaps. But now he and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones – the same lineup they left us with - are back, putting on their trademark plaid and freshly pressed suits for another “Hometown Throwdown,” a skein of five shows (with 10 different opening bands) at the Middle East Downstairs, December 26-30.
     The “Hometown Throwdown” used to be the most wonderful time of the year, the rock ‘n’ roller’s “Nutcracker.” The “Throwdown” began at the Middle East in 1995, went to the Rat, Axis, everywhere. It was Christmas in clubland. They sold out wherever they played. It was, Barrett said back then, a way of recapturing the joy he used to feel at Christmas when he was a kid, before commercialism over-ran the holiday and cynicism kicked in.
     In 2003, the Bosstones said there would be no “Throwdown.” And, effectively, no more Bosstones. No one called it a “breakup,” but the band was not anymore on active duty. Officially, on their website, they called it a “hiatus.” Barrett told me back in 2003, this was not a nail in the coffin, saying, somewhat cryptically,  “There’s no real beginning and no real ending. I hope it lives in my heart forever.”

  But for practical purposes, an era had ended, for the band and its legion of second-generation ska-punk fans, stoked by the band’s aggressive, but brassy, upbeat, sound and Barrett’s Lemmy-like bark.
     “We’d been out on the road close to 20 years,” says Barrett, now 43. “And that’s the only way you can do the Bosstones. But it’s a grind. I could’ve rock and rolled ‘til nobody wanted me to anymore, but it was nice to leave early and have people say ‘Don’t go away.’ We crossed all the finish lines; we went way past what we imagined. We’re all really good friends. We created it, so it doesn’t have to go by any other guidelines. If you want to say ‘we broke up,’ feel free, but it was always a different thing, a rare bird.”
    “The stars aligned where a lot of us had other options,” adds bassist Joe Gittleman, 39, in a separate interview. “We were at an age where we looked at doing different things. There were times (with the Bosstones) where my enthusiasm waned, but Dicky would pick up the ball, or he would look to me to pick up the ball. But there was a time we both landed in the same place. We’d been doing it so long. We’d spent most of our adult lives out on the road. The Bosstones don’t deserve to be driven on autopilot. There has to be excitement and energy.” And so, they scattered – more than a few of them, including Barrett and Gittleman, to L.A.
    It was Gittleman’s idea to round up the troops. But not just for the “Throwdown.” The Bosstones are going in the studio to record three new songs and plan to release them (along with previously unreleased material and vinyl b-sides) on a CD called “Medium Rare” before the “Throwdown.”
     It came about serendipitously. “I was screwing around on the Internet one day,” says Gittleman, “and I came across the Bosstones myspace page, which I’d never really seen, and I got really emotional and nostalgic. I started corresponding with people (in the band) and one thing let to the next. It’s such a huge part of my life. I thought ‘Let’s not put it to bed by dropping it on the floor.’”
        “I miss the city of Boston quite a bit,” says Barrett, “But I missed the ‘Throwdown’ most.”
    Still, to have all eight people – and some of those who were once in the band may rejoin for the gigs  – back in the fold seems astonishing in this splintered age. Not to Barrett. “ It’s not like we’re coming back to work at the pizza parlor,” he says. “We’re asking them to come back to something very fun and memorable. It’s like if you were in the army with a bunch of guys, you want to come back and have a barbecue.” So, Boston and the Bosstones welcome back guitarist Lawrence Katz, drummer Joe Sirois, saxophonists Tim Burton and Roman Fleysher, trombonist Chris Rhodes and dancer Ben Carr.
      Of course, the Boston the Bosstones return to is not the same one they left. Consider the landscape of Kenmore Square, once the nexus of rock. When they were considering the 2007 “Throwdown,” they initially thought they’d play Avalon. Whoops. No more Avalon. But the Bosstones, which always cultivated a fervent, all-ages crowd, were the Dropkick Murphys of their day and they have little doubt that their audience shows up in droves. It will be old home week between Christmas and New Year’s at the Middle East.
    Will the Bosstones exist beyond the CD release and their December shows?
     “We’re not looking very far past it,” says Gittleman, “because I’m looking forward to it so much in and of itself. It’s a huge thing to get going. I’d love to play some more and work on music. Will we go back on the road like we did? No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love playing those tunes.”
   “We’ll play it by ear,” says Barrett. “Figure it out as we go.”
   Oh, and Barrett says he won’t be sporting flaming orange hair, as he once did. It’s natural now, an adult mix of black and gray."

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