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Left Nut - Mikey Welsh

MIKEY WELSH (1971 - 2011)
MUSIC :::

The fall of 1990 followed our legendary Provincetown Summer at Daddy Rabbit’s. It was back to Boston reality but that was equally as surreal as what had just transpired. The grunge bunny had escaped and began eating up everything on the horizon. It had outgrown its cramped cage at Jamaica Plain’s Green Street Station and made its way to greener pastures of Allston-Brighton and Bunratty’s.

We dragged several characters from Provincetown along with us for the ride: Joey Mars, Maze, Molly Magill, Mama Mayhem plus more and set up shop at our new HQ on a hill overlooking Cleveland Circle. It was soon christened Zen Palace due to the fact that we had no furniture and the only place you could sit was upon the plethora of throw pillows that were strewn about the apartment. When more than a few visitors were hanging around the living room upon their chosen pillows it began to resemble a Buddhist temple - hence the name.

We brought Martin Doyle on board to help with the booking and as we cleaned house of much of the old Bunratty’s staff.

One of the main goals at Bunratty’s was to establish the All-Ages Shows that were so successful back at Green Street. This came to a quick stop when the local Allston vendors petitioned the city to curb our enthusiasm because our clientele was instilling fear into the weekend shoppers when they congregated on the sidewalks between sets. During that time however we established a juice bar in the back corner of Bun’s with the help of two Brookline teenagers Micky Mo and his sidekick Mikey Welsh. These two skinny kids also helped dispose of the evidence when we did some interior decorating with a sledgehammer.

Not only were we booking both Green Street Station and Bunratty’s but we were also working with a handful of Boston acts among which was the illustrious drunk punk pioneers, Left Nut. For those of you who are not familiar with Green Street Station, it was located in the middle of a dangerous hardcore-ethnic-melting-pot-neighborhood alongside the Orange Line just a stop short of Forest Hills.

At this particular time in history a strange chain of events took place which leads to the whole point of this story.

My humble beginnings at Green Street Station began as a stint as the house soundman. In the drunken, drugged out haze of many nights, it was not uncommon for a band to leave a guitar or part of their drum kit or a keyboard behind. At first I took pride in making sure that any wayward property would find its way back to its rightful owner but as things began getting shady in Green Street's waning days, property that I would lock in the kitchen began disappearing. After a few grateful musicians became disgruntled with me after they showed up to claim their stuff (only to find that it was no longer in the club), I backed out of my role as the saint of lost instruments. If something was left behind I was no longer willing to run interference.

In one such case, a bass was left behind by a touring band that was probably unpacking a van in Philadelphia the following night before they became aware of the missing item. I brought the bass home and stuffed it in a closet.

Not long thereafter, I was having coffee with Mikey Welsh who had become a Zen Palace regular by this time. We were talking about music and he was bemoaning the fact that he wanted to be in a band but didn’t have the money to afford a bass. In a strange twist of fate, the phone rang. It was Martin Doyle and he was upset that bassist Tom Canalli had just quit Left Nut and they had upcoming shows and he wasn’t sure whether to cancel the shows or if we had other options.

I asked him to hold.

“Mikey. You want to be in a band?”

I walked over to the closet and pulled out the bass and gave it to Mikey. He aced the audition and the rest is history. He would go on to play for the Heretix, Juliana Hatfield and Weezer.

Sadly, we lost Mikey in 2011. By that time he had dropped out of the live music world and settled in Burlington, VT where he excelled in his new found passion; painting.

Motherlode.TV is proud to present One Way Production's Left Nut catalog

Left Nut


Left Nut:
Bad Attitude, No Apologies

01. Inside My Shoes
02. Long Time To Cum
03. Strange
04. I Give It Up
05. Take The Last Train
06. Torch This Place
07. Hard Drugs
08. Scared, I'm Sorry
09. Temporarily Involved
10. I Refuse
11. Dumpster

Available: CD - MP3s






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