Hey, I’m as surprised as you are, but there you go … another night with Clutch Grabwell, this time down in the gateway to Plymouth, the last sliver of the Irish Riviera, beautiful Kingston, MA, home of Jones River Landing, wind turbines and the Kingston Collection. Don’t be surprised if the local moms with the much older husbands have the nanny stay late on Friday, and get in an extra yoga class before seeing Thurston and Charles off to an early bedtime (poor old guys need their rest), then hightail it out of Cohasset to shake their tailfeathers at an Irish bar in Massachusetts. Seriously, you can’t swing a dead cat around here without hitting an Irish bar … or someone claiming to be Irish even though his great-grandparents were born in Quincy … but I digress … back to the Real Housewives of Plymouth County ditching their old husbands and coming out to the bar – let’s do this. You wanna have fun, you wanna have a good time, and we’re just the guys to help you out. Now, I’m not trying to get all weird and suggest there’s a little behind-the-dumpster-after-the-show action in store (although with some of our fans, it’s on the table), I’m just saying that you can get down to Waxy’s, order some fruit-laden rubbish to drink, and experience the music and show that we have devoted years of our time and energy to create. I’ll try to keep the scent of failure and shame away from you, and you can dance and drink away your cares about your boring, yet highly-compensated, lifestyle. See? It’s a win-win …
 
All right you guys, this is real, this is happening and I cannot wait to see everyone down at Waxy’s!

Here's the info - tickets are $10.  They'll be available at the door, but recommended you get them in advance!
 
A long, long time ago in lace-curtain Irish beach town called Marshfield, there was a place known as “The Ranch House.”  This establishment was so far off the beaten path, that it had earned the name “Hidden Valley Ranch House,” and the more salacious “Hidden Down My Pants House.”  Tucked away at 222 Canal Street, this place looked like a recreation of Bob’s Country Bunker from the Blues Brothers, or maybe the Double Deuce in Roadhouse (before Dalton and Wade Garrett got in there and cleaned the place up).  You can see some pictures of its current status here (note who was on the bill in picture 8) and a pretty good summary here.  It’s been closed for years, and now I guess it’s finally been sold so that more embezzling State Street dudes can move down there with their much younger wives and second set of children and pretend they like it better than Hingham or Cohasset.  You know what I’m talking about … you’re at the soccer field with your 5-year-old and he’s on the same team as kids with hot moms whose husbands were waiters at the last supper … wearing khaki pants and Brooks Brothers dress shirts on a weekend, talking on the phone about some “deal,” about a step away from being the dead guy in Weekend at Bernie’s (that would be Bernie) and all the while, you’re hoping your kid makes friends with their kid because the mom is just that hot, then they do and you set up the play date only to find out that this young, hot mom is really annoying and only focused on how much money her Viagra-addled leather bag of a husband is bringing in to pay for Derby Academy where you tell Amelia and Constance to tell the teachers they live “near Norwell” …
 
Wait, what was I talking about … oh yeah, the Ranch House …
 
Anyway, the locals thought the Ranch House had a bad reputation, and that may have been true, but a lot of great bands rolled through there.  And that’s my segue to the reason for this post … there’s another place in Marshfield called The Jetty, and to honor the colorful history of the Ranch House, they have decided to do a weekend of bands that used to play there at their spot on Ocean Street in Brant Rock.  (Note: For those that don’t know, Brant Rock is a neighborhood in Marshfield, but folks like to be different so they don’t say Marshfield … it’s like Islington, which is really Westwood or Sheldonville, which is really Wrentham.  I don’t know why they do, probably just to give me another ZIP code to remember when I worked at UPS … “Feeding Hills” my ass, it’s Agawam.)  Back on subject, we’re playing there on Sunday, April 17^th.  “A SUNDAY?  WHY ON A SUNDAY?”  Relax Jackie – it’s Patriots Day weekend, and since everybody works in the “public sector” these days, you have Monday off.  If you don’t, well, you’re an idiot like me.  But that is besides the point … I hear that Fat City and Catunes are playing on Friday and Saturday night, so you’ve got a time warp weekend if you want to take a shot at it.  The way I look at it, we get to continue our tradition of shutting down clubs across the great state of Massachusetts.  Sure the Ranch House is long gone and the Jetty isn’t going anywhere, but at least we get to celebrate the spirit of remembrance of such places as:
 
The Beachcomber
The Lucky Dog
The Plantation Club
The Alternate Route (formerly Spotlights, now a CVS)
The Mill Hill Club
Every name the old Shooter’s in Quincy ever had
TT the Bears
Johnny Ds
The Causeway
The Tin Whistle (aka The Meat Whistle)
Jamie’s “Turning Japanese” Steakhouse
Paul’s Steakhouse/Madhouse/Paul’s Madcow Steakhouse
 
And that’s just what I could think of off the top of my head.
 
So make your plans now.  Get the day off on Monday and we’ll party like it’s 1999 … literally …
 
See ya.

THAT is correct ... we are back at The Tinker's Son in Norwell, and this time we promise everyone will set their alarm clocks and make it in before the third song.  True story.  Thank you to the small but incredible crowd that came out to Amazing Things Arts Center two weeks ago.  Thanks to Lennie, John and Mark, we decided to turn the show into something different and they shared stories about the music and about the band throughout the night.  It was like listening to Taylor Swift talk about all her ex-boyfriends (including the cringe-inducing John Mayer - that dude is such a fraud) except none of us are 6 foot tall hot blonde robots, and none of our songs rhymes "never ever" with "ever ever".
 
(Editor's note: Don't take him too seriously.  Jeff is a fan of bad rhymes, including Stitches rhyming "mail" with "mayo" as in "I love the smell of them bricks/You know they whiter than some mayo/And I can send them to your house through the mail", and Bowling for Soup rhyming "Texas" with "breastes", which isn't even a real word.)
 
Given that we knew everyone there, it was a lot of fun.  And we drank them out of Bud Lights by the second set, but that probably goes without saying.  Again, thank you to everyone, we had a blast.
 
Back to the Tinker's Son, here's the deal - the moron weathermen, like Kevin Lemanodoosh, are saying Saturday is gonna be a sucky snow storm luck last year, so you might as well come to Norwell on Friday.  Maybe have a little dinner - am I the only one who chuckles when they say "shepherd's pie"? - and crush some beers with us.  You're going to be stuck inside all day on Saturday, unless you're Tom and have to deliver the mail, so you might as well recuperate on the couch watching that murderer show on the Netflix that everyone is blowing up my Facebook feed about.
 
I'm probably a few years too late, but that Facebook has really jumped the shark, huh?  I don't have a lot of "friends" there, but the feed I get is a jumbled mess of animal abuse articles, politics and bad pictures.  I'm a bit disturbed that they are more bothered by the plight of a dog than the people around them.  "Hey, I just read this "article" that is really some dope's op ed from his basement, and I'm going to "share" it with all my friends and offer my commentary and pretend that: A. I know what I'm talking about; and B. That my opinion actually matters to anyone else but myself."  I wish it would go back to what it was good for - videos of people hurting themselves, and the new cover art for the LadyBug Smashers record.
 
Where was I?  Tinker's Son this Friday night!  Don't screw this up and don't say I never told you so.  Now, I'm off to share a picture of my lunch ...

Happy New Year from Clutch Grabwell Industries, LLC.  Here's to a fun, happy and relatively uneventful 2016.  We saw a lot of changes in 2015, and killed a lot of clubs, too.  Our respects to The Lucky Dog (not officially closed but under new management), Johnny D's (almost closed), TTs (haven't been there in years, but Central Square definitely needs another restaurant), and, of course, the Beachcomber.  I don't even want to count the number of shows we played there.  Most will be missed, but I keep my fingers crossed that the next generation will eventually gain appreciation for live music.  At the moment it seems only country cover bands and GB outfits are the only exposure the EDM/hip-hop/YouTube/MacBook generation has to live music.  It's a shame really - some will never know the amazing feeling of hearing a group for the first time and connecting with it.  Or buying independent released discs after listening in some dark club, sweating, drinking beer, dancing and generally having a great time.  And now I will stop ...
 
To that end, we're kicking the year off with a show at a new venue for us, the Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham.  This place looks very cool, definitely not the typical sticky-floor barroom.  These guys are doing something different, although they still have a bar so there's that.  We can't wait to get out there and hope to see our friends!  In fact, stay tuned as we might be on a local radio station this week to promote - I'll let you know as soon as I have the details.
 
We're trying to put some more shows together for this year, but it's a challenge given everyone's schedules.  Stay tuned here or on our Facebook page for updates.
 
Again, Happy New Year to all of you!  Can't wait to see you in 2016!
 

How ya gonna be now?  Was that obvious enough for ya?  Listen, we can't make it any easier for you ... we're going to f#cking kill it, and there's no damn cover.
 
Seriously.
 
What more do you want.
 
Let me tell you a story ...
 
I went to college up in beautiful Lowell, Massachusetts in the early 90s (I started in Worcester at another school, but staying up late and access to lots of booze made class a secondary priority, but more at another time ...) Anyways, Lowell was not the place it is now.  It was mostly dilapidated buildings (and classrooms) and bars whose major attractions included 16 oz. Old Milwaukee drafts (and transvestites ... The Laconia in the Acre if you want proof) and nightly fistfights (the PSC and Brian's (H) Ivy Hall) ... but there was one place, the Safe, that we went to pound Rolling Rocks and rip darts while listening to a lot of good local bands (Duck Duck, the Deliriants, the Shods, and more) ... That place closed years ago and was recently reopened.  Now remember, I'm crushing it up there through the mid 90s.  So, me and some of the boys go up there to check out "the scene" and the Safe is opened up again and charging $5 to see a Stone Temple Pilots tribute band, and a Guns N Roses tribute band.  So, I pay $5 to see a bunch of dudes ape a band that I listened to when they first came out at the same bar.  I'm sure there's a term for it, but I call it "wow, music sucks today."  Then I go around the corner to the old Pollards/Smithwicks/Evos that we used to play, and they're charging a $20 cover ...
 
... for a DJ ...
 
... did that sink in yet? ...
 
...$20 ...
 
... for a DJ ...
 
Seriously, if I've completely f#cked this up, please let me know.  But, if you guys want to pay me $20 to come over my house and listen to me play music off my iPod or MacBook, let me know, because I will crush you with everything from Slayer to Neil Diamond.  And then you can leave.
 
So where am I going with this ...
 
... Clutch Grabwell ...
 
... fantastic musicians (OK, bass player excluded but say it to my face) ...
 
... great songs, great playing ...
 
... great bar, great food, great people ...
 
... FREE.
 
Ain't nothing for free anymore folks, and now you have an option to take advantage, or not.  Maybe not so much the Gwen Stefani/Miranda Lambert type advantage (I, personally, am troubled by who should be sullied the most) but about as good an opportunity as you're going to get.
 
So here it is: 
 
T'was in the darkest depths of Scituate, you could meet a girl so fair
But don't let Gollum and the evil one creep up and slip away with her, her, her, yeah ...
 
See you guys there.  Don't f#ck this up.