The Channel (nightclub)

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youth hang out in the Channel's parking lot before an all-ages show

The Channel was a music venue in Boston located at 25 Necco Street. Important to the underground arts community of South Boston known as Fort Point, the club attracted regulars and staff from that community.

1 History
2 Environment
3 Music
4 Acts
5 See also
6 References

[edit] History

Joe Cicerone founded the Channel in 1980, choosing the name because the club sat on the edge of the Fort Point Channel, which separates South Boston from the Financial District.

In 1990 Harry Boras, the last owner of the club, filed for chapter 11. The authorities had revoked his liquor license several times and fined him for serving minors. For a brief period the Channel seemed to pull through, but the doors closed on December 31st, 1991.

Rumors that mob boss Frank Salemme had a foothold in the club circulated. These rumors proliferated after the Channel reopened its doors as an exotic dance club. This state of affairs lasted less than a year. In the late 90s, developers demolished the building that housed the Channel to make way for Big Dig construction.

[edit] Environment

The Channel had a legal capacity of 1700, though management often oversold the venue for major acts.

The 4' high stage faced a 20' square sunken dance floor nicknamed "the pit". Drink rails and tables with padded stools surrounded the pit. For punk rock and heavy metal shows, the management locked this furniture up in the coat room for safety. When the bands were playing and the crowd was jumping, the entire wooden floor often bounced up and down, causing the 15' high PA system, designed and maintained by sound engineer Dinky Dawson, to sway precariously back and forth.

In addition to a dozen bar stations, the club had a concession stand that sold hot dogs, candy, soda, and popcorn, as well as official club merchandise such as t-shirts, jackets, and sweatpants. Behind that was a game room with half a dozen arcade games.

For all-ages shows, the management closed off the back bar area by lowering metal grates over the window openings. A bouncer at the only door checked for hand stamps to allow the legal crowd to enter for a drink and to prevent them from bringing alcoholic beverages back into the rest of the club with the underage crowd. The bouncers had a reputation for aggression.

To the rear of the back bar area, a smaller room known as the VIP room played host to bands such as U2 and Aerosmith when they were in town and wanted a private place to sit with friends and have a few drinks.

Depending on which act was performing, the pit often became a mass of sweaty skinheads, punks, metalheads, goths and the occasional hippy slamming into each other. In the late 1980s, the management sometimes had to call a halt to shows because of violence in the audience.

[edit] Music

For ten years the Channel stood as a pillar of the Boston music scene. Cicerone started out booking New Wave bands such as Human Sexual Response, Jon Butcher Axis, and The Cars. Unknown local bands, as well as local heroes such as The Stompers, The Pixies, and Mission of Burma played alongside major touring acts such as Big Audio Dynamite, Los Lobos, The Damned, and Einstuerzende Neubauten.

As the New Wave scene faded, punk bands such as Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth, and Black Flag headlined. Regulars found it difficult to go to a show and not wind up getting dropped on their heads while crowd surfing or getting smacked in the jaw in the mosh pit.

Booking included acts outside the punk and metal genres. The Godfather of Soul, James Brown played there, as did jazz legend Ornette Coleman. Classic rock acts such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Gregg Allman, Eric Burdon, and Steppenwolf also packed in the crowds.

The club also booked reggae shows featuring acts such as Yellowman, Dennis Brown, Steel Pulse, Toots and the Maytals, and Black Uhuru. Blues greats B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Charlie Musselwhite, and Pinetop Perkins graced the stage on more than one occasion.