CHAPTER 5: THE BRITISH INVASION
When the Beatles hit the Boston Garden in September 1964, the British Invasion became more than a collection of imported records—it became permission to look different, sound different and scare the hell out of your parents. Boston answered with its own insurgency: Barry & The Remains, The Rockin’ Ramrods, The Lost, Moulty and the Barbarians, and Peter Wolf’s Hallucinations, while Bob Dylan plugged in down the road at Newport and Gram Parsons drifted into Harvard Square. Then the Rolling Stones arrived at Lynn’s Manning Bowl in 1966 and the whole thing ended in a stage rush and tear gas. The British had invaded—but somewhere between the screaming girls, long hair and feedback, Boston discovered it was perfectly capable of starting its own revolution. This September, Boston Babylon follows the invasion and the beautiful mess it left behind inside the Motherlode Inner Room on Patreon.
INTRO
Hurricane Carol:
Swan Boat Time
Before Boston learned how to rock & roll, Hurricane Carol blew the roof off the joint.
CHAPTER 1
The MIT Riot:
The G-Clefs
Boston’s rock & roll revolution didn’t begin in a nightclub—it began when the kids knocked the stage down at MIT.
CHAPTER 2
Banned In Boston:
Blacklisted
Boston had been banning entertainment for generations; Alan Freed simply gave it something loud enough to ban.
CHAPTER 3
We Shall Overcome:
The Folk Singers
Before Cambridge became synonymous with computers, it was busy rewriting America with an acoustic guitar.
CHAPTER 4
Harvard Squares:
Leary & Alpert
Harvard set out to study consciousness and accidentally helped blow the doors off reality.
CHAPTER 5
The British Are Coming!:
The Invasion
The British came back to Boston in 1964, and this time the teenage girls opened the gates.
CHAPTER 6
The Birth of Americana:
Gram
Gram Parsons came to Harvard for an education and left with a new idea of what American music could be
CHAPTER 7
The Combat Zone:
Ground Zero
While Boston worried about what rock & roll was doing to its children, the Combat Zone was busy teaching the grown-ups how to misbehave.
CHAPTER 8
Dylan Goes Electric:
Newport '65
Dylan plugged in at Newport, Mel Lyman blew into his harmonica, and somewhere between them the folk revival stopped looking backward.
CHAPTER 9
The Velvet Underground:
Jesus Chrysler
The Velvet Underground came to Provincetown for a five-night stand and left having rattled the farthest edge of America.
