By Wendy // In order to write anything about the news that has broken today, I have to get something off my chest:
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…okay are you still with me?
Naive-but-optimistic zealots such as myself have waited a long time for this day. We believed in Carl! We gave funds! We bought the merch! We painted electrical boxes! We listened to hours and hours of Built to Spill. We got psyched about a certain former Regina’s location. We threatened to boycott Circle K convenience stores. We got nervous about the sale of the block where O’Brien’s pub is also located. We swore off the new Taco Bell at 1222 Comm Ave. We nagged local landlords, politicians, musicians, and our family to do the same. We’ve looked at our shoes when someone mentions losing hope. We’ve seen some shows at Deep Cuts and looked for the old curtains there, like you might a favorite ex. We’ve had strange, ominous dreams that featured checkered floors. We’ve quietly exited parties when people say “Allston is dying”. We’ve begrudgingly bought tacos from the Taco Bell at 1222 Comm Ave and felt a little weird about it.
There has been plenty of coverage about the club’s trajectory, and much of what needs to be said has been said. You’e read about the stars who have passed through its doors on the way to bigger things: Phoebe Bridgers, Orville Peck, Passion Pit, Charli XCX, to name just a few! There have been moving, thoughtful pieces about the significance of the space to local musicians in Boston. Our community exists painfully split in two realities at all times: it is a fact that there are incredible groups that form, play, and live here, and almost all of those groups worry that they must leave, in order to make anything happen for themselves. Great Scott’s initial closure sucked the air out of the room for so many of my friends. It proved to them, once again, that the only way to even pretend to support oneself in a ridiculously unfair, shallow, and greedy industry, is to move to the Brooklyns and the Los Angeles’ of the world for more resources and better exposure.
Carl’s news is monumental, it’s ginormous! The fate of Great Scott has been hanging in the air for four years now, but that is also true for its sister club: O’Brien’s Pub. The block O’Brien’s sits on has been for sale since 2019, and its future seemed all but guaranteed to go to another Allston developer who wants to put in more luxury condominiums (and build the paltry minimum amount of affordable units therein). We remember the joke first surfaced in 2020: visions of The Scott, a hollowed out shell of a former icon, priced for billionaires who like the idea of artsy little neighborhoods, but don’t care how many creatives they displace. It’s too real. As a member of the ACA since 2020, I’ve seen this process firsthand, with projects titled winkingly in some reference to “music” or “culture”, but without plans to give anything back to the community they wish to profit off of. What Carl has done, saves not only Great Scott and O’Brien’s pub. It also preserves Mad Oak, a recording studio on the same lot. By owning the block and soundproofing the spaces, they can protect against resident complaints or profiteering landlords. It guarantees that music stays in the heart of Allston. It makes me really emotional.
This is the ending I wanted, but was afraid to dream about. I honestly don’t know, four years later, what got into me when I heard they were closing. The simple fact is that I don’t sit with my feelings well. I decided to head down to Comm Ave with a notebook and collect signatures. I was, quite frankly, annoyed at the world-at-large and very numb from pandemic depression. The problem seemed simple! No one wants it to close. Naivete quickly took over: surely enough money or interest could solve this (I did not comprehend just how much money would be necessary). As speed and dumb luck would have it, Carl was at Great Scott when I got there, writing his final message on the chalkboard. I introduced myself to him. He was like, “Where did you come from, and why do you think this is going to do anything?”. I got interviewed for a GBH piece that reinforced much of the same feeling. And then, we got 25,000 signatures, opening the doors to political support and several rounds of crowdfunding. Writing this petition became of one of the most significant moments in my life: I met so many people in the music scene here (which is huge! Don’t believe the haters), some of whom have become close friends over the years. I’m glad, in retrospect, that I was annoyed just enough to do something.
Annoyance can only spur someone on for so long, though! It is a kind of nuclear fusion to alchemize your annoyance into hope, and you must become hopeful to sustain your sanity. Even when managed, four years is a long time to be in a prolonged state of hope. I painted an electrical box next to that cursed Taco Bell; I rallied friends around the potential of it all, with very few details myself. I chased Carl into a Crumbl cookies once, because I was so hungry for news about how he had been doing. The story breaking today finally gives my hope something to anchor itself to; it is exactly what I wanted.
Allston is possibly the only neighborhood in the country named after an artist. The activists and artists who live here do what we can to ensure it lives up to its name. There’s a lot of work ahead, but in the meantime it’s probably a good idea to fill up our hope chests again.
Here’s a playlist, selections from Great Scott’s bookings in 2019 and 2020, with some other faves mixed in: