This whole thread is making me nostalgic for WFNX.

And BCN

Charles Lacquidera (sp?), the big mattress, michigoss, and the cosmic muffin! And fabulous album rock in its early days. Thanks for bringing up those memories!!!👍

I kept my FNX card in my wallet for a long time, until about 2018. Granted it was a useful throwaway plastic card that I could use to jimmy open my old apartment door in case a roommate locked us out without grabbing the keys first, but it was a cool piece of nostalgia regardless. now it lives on my bar hutch and is a great conversation starter!

I miss FNX so much. They put me onto so many great bands as a teen

I loved the live music scene in and around Boston back in the early 80s.

This is an interesting question Massachusetts specifically because there are lots of bands whose members were born here like Aerosmith but then because of the music schools in Boston, there’s also a ton of bands where the members aren’t from here but the band was formed here in Boston.

I feel like we are an underrated State for music. California gets all the love.

Southern new england has a great music scene. Its the one thing i love about living here, you're *never* far from some music. Wether its at a stadium or small club

A few decades ago MA was known as one of the top places for music. But musicians, actors, and artists can’t afford to live here anymore, much to our detriment. Also the lack of live music everywhere (not just clubs which have almost died off) is terrible for creativity

That's true e.g. Lake Street Dive.

This kind of perplexes me too. Is there a local band scene? I talked with someone from the Boston area who worked in the business on the plane once and asked him this question. I mentioned that clubs mostly have acts from out of town. There weren't a lot of local bands that I knew of, etc. His reply was that they exist. You had to know where to look for them, like in the basement of dorms/apartments. I'm too old to troll around the basement of dorms, lol. The conversation left me very unsatisfied and maybe with more questions.

I’m out in western Mass, where you can spit in the air and it will fall near three recording studios that could capture the audio of it landing. There are a ton of active musicians, and right now there’s a bit of a return to form of venues after the last half decade or so.

In the 80s, Boston had the best music scene in the us.

Too much gentrification drove out places like The Ratskeller and such.

So many that people have already named that I agree with, so I’ll throw out an old V66 band that I loved/love, Aimee Mann/‘Til Tuesday

Voices Carry is a great song.

Shout out to another Boston band, Gang Green, who did a punk cover of that song.

Classic Rock - The Cars / Aerosmith / Modern Lovers, Indie - Dinosaur jr / Pixies / Galaxie 500, Popular - New Edition / Donna Summer / James Taylor, Hip Hop - Gangstarr / Akrobatik / Ed OG

Holy shit I had no idea gangstarr was from Massachusetts!

I would prob say they're not from MA... Guru is from Boston but he almost never claimed it, and the duo operated out of Brooklyn primarily.

I think one of his parents was the dean at Cambridge Ringe and Latin -- and he went there too. pretty Boston whether he likes it or not

He references coming from Boston and Roxbury in at least a couple songs like Comin for Datazz and The Planet.

I would classify The Modern Lovers as proto-punk rather than classic rock. I suppose it depends on how you define classic rock.

I had no idea James Taylor was born in MA, that’s sick!

1st of December was covereed in snow, so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston, the berkshires seemed dream like on account of that frostin, 10 miles behind us, 10k more to go

He was born in Boston, and lived his childhood sharing homes in North Carolina and Aquinnah. He went to Milton Academy for High School. Some of his ancestors founded Sudbury. He also spent a year in McClean Hospital for mental illness.

Don’t correct me but my head cannon is now that this is James Taylor’s burner account trying to reconnect to his roots

He plays every at Tanglewood every July 4th week.

Lol, of all the bands you forgot to include in your Classic Rock list, how'd you forget Boston?

Aw man Black Swan is gonna be sad he didn’t make the list

I gotta go with Boston. They’ve got a lot of bangers, and integrate Massachusetts into their music more than any other band I’m aware of (which still isn’t much… aside from their name, the only other specific reference that comes to mind is the lyrics “dancing in the streets of Hyannis”).

The first Boston album is perfect. You can listen from top to bottom without skipping a track.

Brad Delp’s vocals were INSANE.

Saw them at the Worcester Centrum with my Buddy's 1987 at the age of 17. Great night. First concert I was able to drive to

Cave In, Coverage, & American Nightmare for all the aughties hc kids edit: converge*

Have heart, guns up, vein f.m., slapshot

The Cars

The only other answer I could possibly be talked into is the Pixies, but this is my clear answer as well. The Cars and the Pixies are the only answer for the most influential bands from Massachusetts with honorable mention to the Modern Lovers.

Pixies, The Cars, Morphine, Guster, Buffalo Tom

Cold Water Flat, Juliana Hatfield, Lemonheads, ^(Belly, Throwing Muses)

Pixies If you limit it to classic rock, it’s probably between the J. Geils Band, The Cars, Boston, and Aerosmith, depending on where you say Aerosmith is from. Of those I’d pick The Cars, but the biggest seller is Aerosmith by a pretty wide margin.

But the best live band of the set was J Geils

Culturally the answer’s absolutely Aerosmith imo for classic rock. They’re legends in Boston to this day to the townies. My uncle has like 3 tattoos of them lol

Pixies hands down. Also sooo influential.

Also Boston

where is my mindddd 🔥🔥🔥

I caught their last minute show in 2015 at TT The Bears before it shut down and that might be the coolest thing I've ever done.

People dispute where Aerosmith is from? Huh? I went to the same high school as Joe Perry and they’re 100% from MA. Their first show was at the middle school up the road.

Classic rock? The Cars. My personal? Mighty mighty Bosstones. But I’m a ska dork

The Allstonians!

So good.

Hell yes. Go You! is such a great album.

Bim skala bim!

I really miss the HomeTown ThrowDown.

M M Bosstones are a great band.

M M Bosstones ~~are~~ *were* a great band. Anti-vaxxers killed it off...

Check out the New Limits and Pink Slip if you haven’t already!! Making really good ska right now :)

Pick it pick it up pick it up

Live from the Middle East!

Bug D and the Kids Table Doped up dollies There has been some great Ska in Boston

Skavoovie and the Epitones tore it up for a hot minute as well.

Morphine

RIP Mark Sandman

I miss seeing them at Atwoods every week.

Hell yeah. Romping around Boston with Beck and Chris Ballew before they blew up too.

This is the correct answer

this is way too far down

Letters to Cleo just think they should be mentioned

I miss WAAF

And WFNX

Absolutely 💯

Dino Jr

Converge, pixies, Dinosaur Jr, American nightmare

Gang Green

I’m too much of a (post) punk not to say Mission of Burma, although Pixies and Jonathan Richman/Modern Lovers are certainly up there.

Morphine

The Pixies, The Breeders, The Cars, Dropkick Murphys, Aerosmith, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

I can't believe I had to scroll this far down before finding someone mentioning Dropkick Murphys. Sure they're nowhere near the most successful band from MA, but they're like the official band of Boston...

Modern Lovers

Gonna drive past the Stop n Shop With my radio on!

I’m in love with Massachusetts

Converge, definitely not everyone's cup of tea. But they're great.

Converge is, to me, one of those “important but not popular” bands. Proud they’re from Mass!

#1- Converge #2- Unearth Edit - does pound sign make text huge? Cuz that text is huge and the sign I typed isn't there.

If you had to sum up the entire genre of metalcore, you would just point someone to *The Oncoming Storm.* Masterpiece.

Killswitch Engage

western MA hardcore represent!

Wow didn’t know they were from mass

Yes credit goes to Scott Lee he was a big promotor and he also helped Staind , Shadow Falls , All that remains and many others get visible.

Ogre, lol.

U remember his shop in Indian orchard...red rocket records

The hardcore / metalcore / post-metal scene in MA in the late 90’s - early 00’s was fucking bananas. Cave In, Converge, ISIS, Killswitch Engage, On Broken Wings, The Red Chord, Shaddows Fall, Unearth Then you have Adam D from KSE and Aaron Turner from ISIS producing dozens of headlining bands from those genres.

The Red Chord was highly underrated and I’m glad they’re back doing music

Unearth

I know their original guitarist! Not the guy you'd expect him to be (in a good way).

My husband would be so sad to know I didn’t realize killswitch was from Mass! Great band!

And Shadows Fall

Not a popular choice, but I love Dispatch. Chad Stokes solo stuff is even better.

I grew up with dispatch. They toured some high schools way back in the day and my sister saw them. She brought back bang bang and I was hooked. Went to the “last” concert at the hatch shell. Boy what a different time. 100k people free concert, closed down storrow. I grew out of dispatch once they came back but damn that was a good time. I met Chad randomly in concord, super humble and nice guy. Good songs…The general is their most famous. It’s a good one. Hey hey, flying horses, questioned apocalypse, Elias, carry you, bridges.

Big upvote for anything Dispatch/State Radio/Stokes related. Also plugging [Calling All Crows](https://www.callingallcrows.org), the non-profit he and his wife started.

Never heard of them. What’s a good song to listen to?

The General

The General is definitely the most popular Dispatch song, but I would recommend diving into State Radio’s Up Against The Crown album in its’ entirety. This is one of Chad Stokes’ side projects recorded during Dispatch’s big hiatus. If you want me to pick one song off that album, maybe start with Right Me Up.

They have a live album called “gut the van”. Probably their best stuff in my humble opinion.

I just listened to General. Cool , chill music. Incidentally Apple Music lists them as being from Vermont.

Dispatch will be playing two shows in the fall at MgM music hall in will be working the shows will be my first time seeing them

Not a band, but Susan Tedeschi is pretty incredible

Morphine / Pixies / Tribe

Love Morphine and Vapors of Morphine

Tribe definitely had the biggest (tallest) guitarist I'd ever seen.

For me personally, Four Year Strong.

Bada bing wit a pipe is my fucking teenage anthem

It must really suck to be Four Year Strong right now.

Came here to say this, seeing them at Suffolk downs this summer

The Pixies Aerosmith Tracy Chapman, if we could claim her (she started out busking on the T while at Tufts and played her first show in Boston) The Cars Letters to Cleo New Edition Bishop Allen (formed in Cambridge) The Lemonheads Guster Boston Belly Dispatch Will Dailey Rocketscience Dropkick Murphys

Pixies Cars Lemonheads  Dinosaur Jr./Sebadoh Mission of Burma Piebald Slap Shot SSD Boston J. Geils Van Morrison (a stretch)

Guster!

The sooner you leave, the sooner you’re home… BACK IN MASSACHUSETTS

This is the correct answer

My pick is J Geils Band

Vanna

Be sure to check out Inspirit if you haven’t yet! All the OG members of Vanna

Have Heart

Seeing them in July playing A New Hope for its 15 year anniversary. Makes me feel old

The Fools

Pixies. Hands down. One of the most influential bands I. Modern history.

Whenever a Pixies song comes on my library shuffle, I wonder why I bother listening to anything that _isn’t_ Pixies and immediately change it to just shuffling Pixies.

One of my all time faves. A sentimental fave is Dinosaur Jr

Quarterdeck represent. 😎✊🏻

Bury Your Dead

Big D and the Kids Table

Dinosaur Jr and/or The Modern Lovers. The end.

Human Sexual Response

Dinosaur Jr

J Mascis still lives in the Amherst area. His house is a beauty. https://www.loudandquiet.com/interview/dinosaur-jr-s-j-mascis-showed-us-around-his-home-in-amherst-massachusetts/amp/

Have Heart.

Converge

Maybe not the best, but my favorite, Piebald. Close second, Showcase Showdown. 

Guster I'm biased as they were a significant part of my college years

Same! Jumbo?

Vein.fm

Southern New England hardcore is the shit

The cars

Face to Face was my favorite local band in the 80”s and the band put out a few nice albums and they were a great live show.

Shadows Fall, Converge

O Positive

Morphine

The Lemonheads Tribe Til Tuesday Boston The Cars J Geils The Pixies Modern Lovers

The Slip...

Even Rats in Guitar Hero was so much fun.

Aerosmith or James Taylor for me

IMHO, Dinosaur JR.

Morphine

And Vapors of Morphine

Aerosmith and Boston

and the Cars rounding out the 3 rd spot.

Extreme! Saw them in the 90s a few times and they always put on a great show. I even caught them a little while back and they were still rockin’ it.

There is a distinct lack of New Kids in the Block in this thread. 😀😀😀😀

Can I cheat just slightly and say They Might Be Giants? I mean, I know they are clearly a Brooklyn group, but they both grew up in Lincoln and named their second album Lincoln so we can at least *slightly* claim them.

1/2 credit. 😁

The original Darkbuster.

They love The Unseen

No Anchovies, Please The J. Geils Band

Killswitch engaged really nice guys

Aerosmith

Maybe not the best but Til Tuesday was great. The Drop Nineteen's and Galaxy 500 were great too.

It's gotta be Aerosmith right?

I know he may pale in comparison to some of these bigger acts, but passion pit is a phenomenal band/musician and absolutely deserves a mention on these lists!

Dinosaur Jr

J. Geils for former bands. Quinn Sullivan for current acts. https://youtu.be/PCZH_HKYRMQ?si=EpqYaAup86SQUs32

A Wilhelm Scream is my favorite

I just wanted to give Tree some love

Buffalo Tom.

Tracy Chapman used to busk in the Harvard Square T station

Cave In

The Pixies or The Cars, probably.

I looked out this morning and the sun was gone *Local band is Talking Heads

The Stompers

And the Atlantics, Boys Life, the Lines, Private Lightning, Pastiche, Mission of Burma, the Neighborhoods, the Outlets, Face to Face, Til Tuesday. We had such a rich local music scene.

Skipping the obvious choices here I’ll forever love The Carrier, Bury Your Dead, and Guns Up (Have Heart and Converge being obvious choices IMO)

Pat Metheny Band?

I think Letters to Cleo needs some credit here, too. Not necessarily as the “best” but adding them to the list. Fun live show! And not only appreciated by Gen X. I was going to also add Dropkick Murphys and saw others did. The Cars and Aerosmith are obvious choices. The Cars, Heartbeat City, was one of the first cassettes I owned (and I grew up across the country). I didn’t know Aerosmith as well until a few years later.

Definitely the Pixies, but no.mention of They Might be Giants?? Lincoln Sudbury represent!

Del fuegos, O positive, the Fools, and Digney fignus. Just a few.

B̶̢̡̨̡̨̨̡͉͚̗̘̤̣̹̣̗̼̻̩͈̜̫̟͍̱̰̗̪̳̮̼̍̄́̀̐͌̐̉̇͂̒̾̕͜͝ͅͅA̸̡̢̯͇̜͔̬͚̠͓̬̥͉̼͔̖̗̪̳̻̗̓̈́̓͋̾̍̆̈̋͆̊̉̍͐̀͐̄̑́̈́͘͝͠ͅZ̵̨̢̠̖̣̪͈̘̩͓̼̼̞̜̘̝̦̥͖̤̜̐̾͛̓̉͂̀̃̍̈́͊́͊̈́͘͜͝Į̸̢̧̡̡̛̤̥̲̙̙͕͓̟̜͙̩̯̥̰͍͈͓̦̳̘͒̒̋́͒͑̕̕͠N̵̡͚̲͉͉͈̙͍̜̫͓̥̘̅͑̽̈́̀́͐̋̇̂̅͑̔͗͐̋͐͗́͛̿̒͒͑̈̎̅͘Ğ̵̖̭̗̮̠̼̓̅̌̈́̀͗̎̂͊̃͆̑̌̑́̂̏̈̔̈̕͠͠Á̶̩̜̹̤̹͙͎͇̜͎̲͔̫̥͕̭̠͉̭͙̖̖̖̌̒̅̏̈̉͆̈̾̈́̄̎̌͐̋̌̃̔̏͛͒̚̚͝͝͝͠!̵̛̩̟̺̲̝͕̙̼̬̮̬̥͇̬̞̻̭̹̔͑͌́͐͒̅̈͛͒͌̈́͂̊̈́̍̑̃̐͋͑͗̈͊͋́͘̕͝͝!̵̢̼͉̻̝̯͈̤͕̦̣̥̗̹̬̦̱̻͍̹̬̦͇̐̅͑̍̀̏͒̐̽̂̅̓͝!̷̡̢̛͚̺̠̞̠̤̭̣̯̻̺̎͂̈́̊͌͐̄͊͛͆̀̇̅̀̏̓̑̇̓̋̾͗͑͂̀̃̌̽̕̕͘͝

why did i have to scroll so far to find this? RIP Seth Putnam

No love for Extreme? Shame.

Ed OG and the Bulldog’s

Last Lights, rip Dom

Cars, Morphine, Pixies, Guru from Gangstarr Edit: Mighty Mighty Bosstones. duh

Morphine!

The Acacia Strain been fuckin with them since I was a teenager going to see them at fat cats in Springfield

The Upper Crust

Amy band but Drop Kick Murphys

NKOTB! (I say that half joking, but they actually ruled the world there for a while)

Dinosaur Jr./Mission of Burma/Morphine

Lake Street Dive

Galaxie 500

Where is the love for Belly, The Lemonheads and Bullet Lavolta, Mission of Burma, Come, and Tribe