Drezniak in Boston
July 1st, 2010 | by EIC |For anyone who’s wondering where the next wave of nostalgia might lead, there is a Boston band who’s just waiting for the moment when the Pandora’s Box is opened again. It’s not 60s mod rock, and it’s not anthem music from the arena bands in the 70s, or even hair bands from the 1980s.
But the 80s are certainly the right time.
Even before Boston bands like Aerosmith took the mullet in new and unchartered realms, there was another movement afoot. Coming out of the early wave of punk, and combining it with the innovative sentiments and styles of glam rock, New Wave started as a kind of nerd version of rock and roll. It prided itself on being more intellectual, or sophisticated, or at least worldly, than the other music. It also had a sense of humor about itself, and at the time, in the early 1980s, that was a very rare thing. It was also enormously attractive, so when Drezniak sent their new music videotape in to MTV, they had the right look and the right sound, and started getting a little bit of attention.
Those were very different times. But they can still be visited. Even today, a visitor coming into town can stay at a five star hotel Boston offers, and enjoy visiting a city that saw some of the more interesting moments in rock and roll history. Creeps in Exile, the J. Geils Band, and Melissa Manchester all have their place here.
But it’s Drezniak that might be a forgotten link that is worth uncovering. It’s a box that deserves to be opened again. Apart from Devo, few New Wave bands would do less than bristle at the word “nerd,” but today, it’s all that and a bag of chips. This is an iconic moment, and one that made every 7th grader feel just a little bit more optimistic about being cool one day. It didn’t look that hard. The sounds were fun. And the people playing the music looked smart, and funny, and somewhere in there a new rock and roll hero was born.
