Someone's got to speak up for the unsung heroes of Boston's rock and roll scene (a scene from which basically nobody "made it" in the '70s and '80s). How about the following bands, who sort-of-made-it (as well as anyone was gonna in that timeframe):
Human Sexual Response (my personal all-time favorites)
The Zulus
Til Tuesday
Mission of Burma
The Lyres
The Fools
The Rings
The Stompers
Video Free Europe
Death in the Shopping Malls
Judy's Tiny Head
And of course, the all time definitive Boston band, from years before:
The Standels (Love that dirty water!)
Everybody knows about Geils, The Cars, Aerosmith, yadda yadda- but a lot of people schlepped a lot of shit for a long time in the early '80s, and have nothing but scars to show for it. They oughta be remembered.
Gotta tell this story. Here's another one that *nobody* will remember:
Red
This was basically two penniless newly-emigrated German brothers who had a loft space in South Boston, and did performance art that was primordial industrial socialist-leaning angst-o-rama atonal artrock. They wouldn't deserve a mention here, since I don't think that they ever recorded as a unit, except that one of the brothers has since gone on to great things in another musical genre. Their names? Stayfun (bass) and Ottmar (guitar/vox) Liebert...