THE RAT REUNION

March 17, 2007; Dilboy VFW Post in Somerville, Massachusetts

Rat alumni reunite! (L-R) Asa Brebner (of The Family Jewels, ex-Modern Lovers, ex-Robin Lane and the Chartbusters, ex-Mickey Clean and the Mezz), 3 lovely ladies of The Bristols: Kim Ernst, Kelly Knapp and Michele Haber, Miss Lyn of Boston Groupie News, Thomas White Trash of Unnatural Axe and Rat regular, model Jan Long Collins.

“How do you stop a fish from smelling?,” drummer Rat Scabies of The Damned once famously asked an audience at CBGB, NYC’s legendary and recently extinct, urine and cigarette-scented punk rock club. “Cut off it’s nose.” Even less amusing, if possible, is the answer to the question “How do you keep a dead Rat from smelling?” If that Rat is the Rathskellar, Boston’s legendary and equally odoriforous underground rock club that existed from 1974-1997, the answer is that you gut the place and turn it into condos, a hotel, a Blockbuster Video and a Kinko’s. Last Saturday, former Rat patrons and performers, ex-employees and various documentary filmmakers turned up for the first ever Rat Reunion, held at the Dilboy VFW Post in Somerville. Over 100 people showed up for what turned out to be a great party. Having moved to Boston the day after the club closed, I never made it there so pretty much just crashed the party for purposes of historical documentation and also because I knew many of my friends who were a part of the Rat's hierarchy where going to be there. We had a blast.

Asa Brebner, Rat owner and visionary Jimmy Harold and Richie Parsons of Unnatural Axe. Scroll over the photo to tickle Harold and Parsons.

Michele Haber, Kim Ernst and Kelly Knapp (all of whom I fell in love with) with Jimmy Harold

Thomas White Trash and party crasher John E. Coli Nikolai