Motorcycle Adventures with Mike Gillis
When I moved to Allston for the second time I looked at an apartment on Gardner Street. George, the landlord was going to show me the place but apparently had not given the tenants adequate notice. One in particular was adamant that we could not come in without notice and I kind of recognized the voice. It turned out to be someone I knew from Umass Amherst, from the Baker party scene. Mike and I recognized each and so it all calmed down. It turned out he didn't want to let us in because there were a couple of pot plants gracing the living room.
It was a shame he was moving out because I moved in but he didn't move far and we started hanging out a lot. We had the same politics but one thing in particular we had in common was motorcycles. Some people just get a motorcycle and don't really have any other friends with bikes and both of us were that way. So we were always up for rides. Mike had a Suzuki GS850 with a big Vetter fairing and I couldn't understand why he didn't want to take it off until many years later when I got a big old Suzuki with a fairing myself and realized it was way more comfortable, but I digress. I had an early/mid eighties Kawasaki GPZ750 that I had made out out of two others. One had been crashed hard and the other had experienced a fire so the resulting black spray painted jobbie was of course called crash and burn.
In the fall we'd ride way up north to see the foliage change and over the next few weekends we'd chase the foliage south. We got suck in freezing rain, and spent one night on a couple of pallets under a Semi trailer in the hard rain in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere. One time we were treated quite hospitably by the Harley gangs on the Laconia-Loudon run in New Hampshire run who we had feared would revile us for our Japanese bikes. We learned that there is a very real difference between the old time rough outlaw Harley riders and the snobby affluent new Harley riders who want to buy into the image. But mostly, and I can say this now in retrospect because we survived, we hit the bars on our bikes.
I don't know about now, but Boston was a very musically charged town. Sure, it was the bleeding edge of the introduction of British punk rock and the scene had a strong Ska thing going in the late eighties. But mostly it was a heavy metal city. Aerosmith and all. We'd hop on our bikes and chase Bim Scala Bim out to corny clubs full of townies on the North Shore. We hit small basement gigs in Somerville to see Plate of Shrimp, and it was all easy on the bikes.
But mostly we were denizens of the Commonwealth strip, the main line being the drag between Kenmore Square and Allston. Most of the metal in Allston was at Bunratty's, which was so nasty that the bathrooms sparkled from all the broken glass dust stuck to the beer stained bathroom walls. In Kenmore it was the Rathskellar, which had been there forever. In the daytime the upstairs was a popular blue collar lunch spot but at night the basement was ground zero for loud metal. Night people called it The Rat. Mike's taste in music honestly ran more towards Hot Tuna and more hippy dippy stuff but he was always game for what was obviously the more exciting local stuff for the night.
Maybe in some cities you can park motorcycles on the sidewalk but in Boston this was only the case if the sidewalk had some nooks that were not even remotely useful for pedestrian traffic. There was just such a nook next to the stairs at the entrance to the Rat where two bikes could squeeze in. One fine hot summer night we cruised up the sidewalk to park in those spots to see Extreme. Two guys on brand spanking new Harleys saw we were onto a good thing, and tried to muscle into the action, which was a bit problematic because there was a line to get in and the sidewalk was crowded. The bouncers yelled at them until they turned off their engines.
One bouncer screamed “What do you think you are doing?”
“We want to park our bikes over there.”
“You can't.”
“And you're going to let those two crappy bikes park there instead?”
“That's right.”
“You want two ugly old bikes park there instead of our Harleys?
“They get to park here because they ride those bikes here all winter in the snow!”
The whole assembled crowd broke into laughter and jeered at them to go to the disco.
When I moved to Allston for the second time I looked at an apartment on Gardner Street. George, the landlord was going to show me the place but apparently had not given the tenants adequate notice. One in particular was adamant that we could not come in without notice and I kind of recognized the voice. It turned out to be someone I knew from Umass Amherst, from the Baker party scene. Mike and I recognized each and so it all calmed down. It turned out he didn't want to let us in because there were a couple of pot plants gracing the living room.
It was a shame he was moving out because I moved in but he didn't move far and we started hanging out a lot. We had the same politics but one thing in particular we had in common was motorcycles. Some people just get a motorcycle and don't really have any other friends with bikes and both of us were that way. So we were always up for rides. Mike had a Suzuki GS850 with a big Vetter fairing and I couldn't understand why he didn't want to take it off until many years later when I got a big old Suzuki with a fairing myself and realized it was way more comfortable, but I digress. I had an early/mid eighties Kawasaki GPZ750 that I had made out out of two others. One had been crashed hard and the other had experienced a fire so the resulting black spray painted jobbie was of course called crash and burn.
In the fall we'd ride way up north to see the foliage change and over the next few weekends we'd chase the foliage south. We got suck in freezing rain, and spent one night on a couple of pallets under a Semi trailer in the hard rain in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere. One time we were treated quite hospitably by the Harley gangs on the Laconia-Loudon run in New Hampshire run who we had feared would revile us for our Japanese bikes. We learned that there is a very real difference between the old time rough outlaw Harley riders and the snobby affluent new Harley riders who want to buy into the image. But mostly, and I can say this now in retrospect because we survived, we hit the bars on our bikes.
I don't know about now, but Boston was a very musically charged town. Sure, it was the bleeding edge of the introduction of British punk rock and the scene had a strong Ska thing going in the late eighties. But mostly it was a heavy metal city. Aerosmith and all. We'd hop on our bikes and chase Bim Scala Bim out to corny clubs full of townies on the North Shore. We hit small basement gigs in Somerville to see Plate of Shrimp, and it was all easy on the bikes.
But mostly we were denizens of the Commonwealth strip, the main line being the drag between Kenmore Square and Allston. Most of the metal in Allston was at Bunratty's, which was so nasty that the bathrooms sparkled from all the broken glass dust stuck to the beer stained bathroom walls. In Kenmore it was the Rathskellar, which had been there forever. In the daytime the upstairs was a popular blue collar lunch spot but at night the basement was ground zero for loud metal. Night people called it The Rat. Mike's taste in music honestly ran more towards Hot Tuna and more hippy dippy stuff but he was always game for what was obviously the more exciting local stuff for the night.
Maybe in some cities you can park motorcycles on the sidewalk but in Boston this was only the case if the sidewalk had some nooks that were not even remotely useful for pedestrian traffic. There was just such a nook next to the stairs at the entrance to the Rat where two bikes could squeeze in. One fine hot summer night we cruised up the sidewalk to park in those spots to see Extreme. Two guys on brand spanking new Harleys saw we were onto a good thing, and tried to muscle into the action, which was a bit problematic because there was a line to get in and the sidewalk was crowded. The bouncers yelled at them until they turned off their engines.
One bouncer screamed “What do you think you are doing?”
“We want to park our bikes over there.”
“You can't.”
“And you're going to let those two crappy bikes park there instead?”
“That's right.”
“You want two ugly old bikes park there instead of our Harleys?
“They get to park here because they ride those bikes here all winter in the snow!”
The whole assembled crowd broke into laughter and jeered at them to go to the disco.
Labels: motorcycle The Rat Mike Gillis
