Photo credit: Joe Wallace Photography
Chuck Clough 0:00
Hello, it's Chuck from Above The Basement - Boston Music and Conversation. So How y'all doing? I went and I got a tattoo if you've been on our socials and I hope you are, if not, go look us up and Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You can get all that information at abovethebasement.com I got a tattoo on my arm on the inside of my arm on the underside of my arm. It's called an oon alone. I got it at the gallery tattoo studio, and West Concord, Massachusetts. They're great. They're guy named swirls. Did my did my tattoo is my first tattoo and, and I'm excited about it and alone. It was very it's very apropos to my life right now. Let me see what it says in wiki here. symbol represents the path to enlightenment in the Buddhist culture. So it's got it like some spirals turned off with some like three dots and then some spirals and then it goes off into a straight line and then there's a.at the end. So the spirals are meant to symbolize the twists and turns of life. And the straight line is the moment one reaches enlightenment, or peace in harmony and the.at The End means I'm dead. So hopefully a very, very far from that dot and I think I am I'm still in the chaos of life but things are okay. So you know we've been putting out videos lately and we've got another podcast that we put out. It's through the folk Americana roots Hall of Fame. And you can visit that at the wing center in Boston. Go to folk Americana roots Hall of fame.org for more information there, but we've been putting out a another podcast called hallways, and we put out three episodes so far we had a little introductory trailer, and then we talked to the founder of the folk Americana rotala fame, Mr. Joe Spalding to the box center. And then last week, we put out an episode with Patty Griffin, who's amazing since we'd spoken to her she'd won a Grammy So we put out an episode there and tomorrow I'm gonna be putting out our fourth episode with Mr. Chuck McDermott, who is a local singer songwriter, and a fantastic guy as well. And we've got a lot more coming up will be, we've got kemo we've got a lot of episodes from when Ron went down to New Orleans to the folk Alliance convention there. So a lot more of these episodes coming at you. Alright, so let's get into who we're talking to. This week. Let me see where my Let me see what my document is. Okay, so, if you've ever been to the verb hotel, which is right outside Fenway Park on Boylston Street outbound, or perhaps seeing the recent documentary WBC, N, an American Revolution, or even if you visited the folk Americana route Hall of Fame at the wing center in Boston, you have seen artifacts gathered by Mr. David Bieber, David hails from Cleveland, but has lived in Boston since he moved here to attend bu as a journey There's a major in 1968 right at the beginning of the reign of WBC n. From there he went on to work for WBC n, as well as wF annex and the Boston Phoenix among others. And through those many years gathered all the posters, magazines, newspapers, photos, reel to reel tapes, LPs and other ephemeral to fill enough tractor trailers to necessitate moving into an enormous warehouse in Norwood mass. At the Norwood Space Center. We were lucky enough to chat with David at the David Bieber archives, recently, surrounded by piles of memorabilia and boxes upon boxes of awesomeness. You've got to check out the pics, our photographer Joe Wallace took to even get an idea of what this place has. Anyways, David is fantastic guy. And we were glad to finally talk about the collection and his plans for the archives. He even passed a rigorous a TB knowledge test that run initiated so congratulations to David for that. So Here is our conversation with Mr. David Bieber, recorded at the David Bieber archives in Norwood, Massachusetts.
Unknown Speaker 4:12
David, I'm so glad we finally got to do this film. I apologize for the long took. I blame Ron for it. Okay. Because there
Unknown Speaker 4:21
but shift elsewhere
Chuck Clough 4:24
it was it was something that we wanted we want to talk to you for a long time. On top of that. I think it's almost good that we waited a little bit because we got to work with you. Well not really work with you so much as be affiliated more with you to the hall through the
Unknown Speaker 4:41
fame. Yeah,
Chuck Clough 4:42
I've seen you more and more exactly by socially
Unknown Speaker 4:44
and events and concerts and fundraisers and just head and give me an opportunity to accumulate more items and artifacts. So you got to
Unknown Speaker 4:55
I was a shadow of my former self until you gave me the opportunity to
Chuck Clough 4:58
expand yeah We gave you opportunity to flourish. Yeah, I met you. The first time I met you was when our friend Adam Klein, whose offices right downstairs. Yes. He had an opening party and I came here. And you had this kind of open for people to kind of wander around and steal stuff.
Unknown Speaker 5:15
Right. So Exactly. So you I encourage everyone to always leave with more than you came.
Chuck Clough 5:22
Oh, really? Yeah. Well, so run you don't have to you don't have to empty your pockets. You just keep what you
Unknown Speaker 5:29
can leave your cameras behind and fill your bags with her again.
Ronnie 5:31
I love it. That's great. I took the gold record of the Jay geils band.
Unknown Speaker 5:36
Oh, it's already it's in the car. Okay, that's all right. I've got the platinum.
Ronnie 5:39
Okay, so you know, I love how positive you are. It's got nine I'm such an optimist.
Chuck Clough 5:45
We are sitting here at the David Bieber archives. And it's like Disneyland for me. It's like there's a
Ronnie 5:51
lot of Mickey to on
Chuck Clough 5:53
believable. I was just telling Ron, it would be it must be so fun to take a box and open and see what's inside and to start pulling stuff out.
Unknown Speaker 6:03
It's like Christmas every day. Exactly. And there has been when you come right down to a decades of delay gratification, because I've been here at the Norwich Space Center for about three years. And prior to that for probably 25 plus years, everything was in unavailable storage in Avon. at a facility where everything was compressed, there were probably 3540 boxes on a pallet, and the pallets would be shrink wrapped and a forklift would come and put the pallets on industrial shelving and that was it. See you later soccer was gone. It was in my brain that I had accumulated these things. Everything in here I've touched so crazy yeah, there's my DNA and on every item in here but you know, touching something for 10 seconds 32 years ago doesn't create a lasting memory.
Ronnie 6:57
Yeah, but you know what, though? It's it's a theme That you don't have another museums. That's why this is an art is a personal archives and thus the name, I would
Unknown Speaker 7:05
have about 3040 boxes going on at home concurrently. And I would bring maybe two three male crates of content home every day, you know, 16 years at WBC in 19 years at the Boston Phoenix and wF annex and I would go to that content and put items in the appropriate boxes. So it wasn't I wasn't creating time capsules. I was creating, you know, a sense of categorization that T shirts would go in a T shirt box press kits would go in a press kit box albums and go in an album box and when those boxes got filled, and my house at home in rock in West Roxbury was getting congested, then I chipped the items off to Avon never to be seen again. And I kept maybe point five one hundredths of 1% of my most favorite cherished items at home. So that whenever somebody asked me to the assignment. Can you show us some boston tea party posters? Those will be at home and they would be at my fingertips and say, Have you seen American pickers who watch that on TV? American pickers? No. So these two guys go around the country and they look in barns and garages. Yeah.
Chuck Clough 8:16
And they always are psyched to go into the owner of that their house, because they know that's where all the best stuff will be sure, because they always will take the best stuff for themselves. Sure.
Unknown Speaker 8:25
And that's Yeah, and that's where we gotta
Chuck Clough 8:27
go. That's where the really cool stuff.
Unknown Speaker 8:28
Yeah, your house. Well, that we can we can do a follow up. Yeah. But and,
Unknown Speaker 8:35
and maybe staying over tonight. So tomorrow morning is going to be a breakfast at your place. Well,
Chuck Clough 8:39
you know, let's, let's back up a little bit. So So are you originally from Boston area, originally from Cleveland from Cleveland? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 8:45
And when did you move to Boston? I know you want to be you want to be you came to Boston in 1968. Okay,
Chuck Clough 8:50
nice. 68 I was born.
Unknown Speaker 8:52
Yeah. So that was a pivotal time. It was
Chuck Clough 8:55
it was a pivotal time for me. Yeah. Hugely pivotal.
Ronnie 8:58
And for none of us. The fact that was born. But anyway, but for you, why was it?
Unknown Speaker 9:02
Well, I think that the 60s in general, or a very exciting and consistently transitional time, I look at the 60s, beginning with the assassination of Kennedy, and ending with the resignation of Nixon, you know, so you're really looking at the span from 1963 to 1974. And I think by 1974, the world had just run out of steam, that there was an exhaustion that said in because of the frenetic pace of what preceded the previous 1011 years, was so stunning in the changes that were occurring, not just in the areas that are in here in terms of music and pop culture and media, but sociologically, and culturally and, you know, politically, it was a relentless time, you know, people didn't really have a chance to take their breath before. It's almost like concurrent with what's going on. Today that something that has such stopping power today is replaced by something that is even more impactful and more real tomorrow. And so in a way, you just get into the rhythm of absurdity. You know, it's so crazy that if you take it seriously, your brains gonna explode.
Ronnie 10:18
Yeah, we're sitting in this room right now. There's lots of history. There's there's lots of shapes and sizes and colors, and there's pop culture, from books, to music, to TV, to news stories, and everything else, children's toys, all this stuff. To me, this seems, it reminds me of sort of like the physical like version of Instagram. If you walk through here, it just reminds me of like us kind of physically doing that. Yeah, that's what you've created here.
Unknown Speaker 10:49
Well, and you know, the funny thing about all of this, there's a degree of randomness to it as well, in the sense that I have found kind of delight in various categories of content so I am not singular in my pursuit. Friend of mine, whom I worked with for many years and has since passed on Stephen mintage, who was the owner of the Boston Phoenix and wF annex. He was a passionate collector of Jiminy Cricket. Okay. And we can examine the psychology of that, you know, a short man with maybe a sometimes questionable conscience, who, you know, collected a cricket that had the absolute conscience. But, you know, nonetheless, it was a wonderful person and I miss him dearly, but he would go online and he would buy Jiminy crickets of every configuration and every creation, any surface that had a Jiminy Cricket on it. The technology that you're talking about has eliminated the joy of the hunt for me. I sometimes tell people that having a day job is I did 16 years a WBC in 19 years at the Phoenix and wF annex. That was an actual Use to get all of this. All of the things here that were the wonderful tangible creations of so many different areas of commerce, whether it's the music business, the movie business, book, publishing, the media, the toys, and trinkets, and it was a constant challenge from one company to another within an industry to outdo the other in its creative endeavor, because they were looking to get attention. They were looking to get that edge slightly over their competitor to get airplay to get media coverage, whatever it was. So they create all these items and give them to you. And it was always the next thing there's going to be a new poster. And when you talk about the thrill of opening boxes that I haven't seen the contents of for decades, that really exists, you know, opening a box and finding from 1972 when Alice Cooper had the school's out album, I found a six foot yellow inflatable pencil was used for a glory display and it says schools down on it and you have to have enough oxygen to blow it up but you know there it is you know and
Chuck Clough 13:09
I'm gonna keep on pushing you backwards in time here
Ronnie 13:12
just one second though if you breathed in that air was that mean that was 1970 tues air
Chuck Clough 13:17
probably fresher than ever.
Unknown Speaker 13:19
I always wanted to do instant water just add water to say well you sell empty bottle
Chuck Clough 13:24
well that's a Steven right that's Steven right I forgot what Yeah, what do you add to a powdered water? He didn't know this question.
Ronnie 13:31
Okay. No, he said, oh one spot powdered water. I didn't know what to add. I didn't know what to add.
Chuck Clough 13:37
It doesn't sound like him at all. My friend is really good at limbo. He can go under a rug. Steven right ladies, gentlemen. So you came in at 68. You came at the very beginning. And and you can just got it. What under reg. slow on the uptake.
Unknown Speaker 13:56
His delivery is kind of slow. It is
Unknown Speaker 14:00
I don't have a good
Chuck Clough 14:00
delivery and they 68 that's when that's about when it's when you're born in took over, maybe a couple years earlier when Bcn went from classical was
Unknown Speaker 14:09
it was March 15 1968. It was okay.
Chuck Clough 14:12
So you can hear right when Bcn started? Yes. You work for at least two if not three of the most seminal rock and roll establishments in Boston, WBC n and the Boston Phoenix and W
Unknown Speaker 14:24
FX Radio hanyan radio station for Phoenix.
Chuck Clough 14:28
I mean, unfortunately, they're all gone.
Unknown Speaker 14:31
Right? And don't blame
Chuck Clough 14:32
me. I don't blame you. But I mean, Boston Phoenix that was the newspaper in Boston that was not just about the news. It was more about Boston and arts and culture and, and things like that, that we were so sad to see to see you go.
Unknown Speaker 14:45
But yes, I have many, many issues. Yeah. And the thing that's fascinating to see the growth and then the decline, I have issues that are four pages, and I have issues that are
Chuck Clough 14:58
405 members. Used to be thick it was button it was magazine size, right? So Well,
Unknown Speaker 15:02
it was just before the turn of the century in 1999, or maybe 2000. There was an issue that I think was 10 or 11 sections and 440 pages and the slash on the cover was 440 pages, our largest issue ever. And this was when the paper was free. And the the street boxes, the poor people who were having to deliver, they probably had to, you know, fill those boxes two or three times a day that she had were so thick, you could probably get, you know, half a dozen box and they were gone very quickly and they'd have to be restocked almost immediately.
Chuck Clough 15:42
But you can't you got here and right the beginning of that kind of revolution. Yeah, they called Bcn. The American Revolution is a documentary out right was created by billeting steam called the WBC in the American Revolution. I mean, you got here right and just
Unknown Speaker 15:56
the the photograph that's used on the poster and the web. I took that photo. Yeah. And it's what I commonly think about is, we believe that everything is going to be available until it's not that it's always a kind of our town moment. It's always a day in the life that kind of gradually morphs into something that goes in a different direction. And what we thought was going to be around forever isn't. And so I took that picture. Can you give me an example is that when I took I took that picture at 312 Stewart Street, it was for an article that I was doing. I was a journalism major at Boston University. I kind of took great delight in the fact that I was fulfilling classroom assignments, and also selling articles to publications. Like I did a probably seven page profile and Bcn for Boston magazine. Right. I was writing for Billboard magazine, I was writing for the glow. I was writing for fusion magazine, which was the East Coast counterpart of Rolling Stone. It's a time one can be better. I mean, being able to take care of scholastic responsibilities and getting paid and getting a byline to do things and to make connections with people. We were all kind of, you know, peer group. It was an enchanting time in the sense that the people who were working the underground media and the alternative later became the alternative media, but also the musicians and the people who working for the record companies. They were. It was it was kind of I am you and your mother were integrated. Yeah, we were all rooting for each other, because we're all kind of in that same other universe culture, and we wanted to see our peers succeed, you know, that. I was not a musician. But, you know, I love meeting musicians.
Ronnie 17:44
Well, they needed you and you needed them. Right, right. Obviously, there's friendship, but yeah, but there's a real sense that this whole thing is going to is not going to succeed without all the spokes of the wheel. Exactly,
Unknown Speaker 17:56
exactly. Right. And I think that that was very evident with a station like WBC n which until March 15 1968, had a classical music format was always on the precipice of bankruptcy or financial failure. And the concept was, give us your worst time. And if we can sell that time and show economic profitability, then let us move into the better time slots. And who were the early supporters, whether it was Bcn or Boston after dark or later, the Cambridge Phoenix supporters were the movie companies and the record companies and the clothing stores and you know, any of these entities that had product to sell that would benefit from the exposure in these media. And so it really was one hand washing the other Yeah, that you know, if you give us editorial coverage, good, bad or indifferent at least give us the exposure or give us the airplay We will reward you in kind with buying advertising, on the radio or in print. And we will also give you all these great toys and trinkets and artifacts to make you excited about what we're creating.
Chuck Clough 19:15
Is this something that you realize at the time? Is this something that you look back now and kind of understand how amazing time that was that it was it was an American Revolution of that kind of radio station of that kind of music that was coming out that beat that Bcn introduced to the to the world, or did you kind of understand that at the time?
Unknown Speaker 19:35
Well, I think what was understood at the time, and I even wrote my thesis on this in journalism, about the awareness of the fact that this was kind of the beginning of the DIY culture, you know, do it yourself that you had to take the reins because traditional media was not playing the game as you were seeing the game evolve. And so this was one Where the underground press and underground movies and then even the kind of independent movies, the easy riders in the world that can you know, thing, you know, projects that were made on a relatively marginal budget ultimately exploded with great financial success and convinced the people who were in control that we better pay attention because there's a goldmine out there that we're not attending to, you know, by having more hands on involvement, you kind of realized that there was a transition occurring, the rains were somewhat being passed, or at least the impact was being felt. You know, it's like I remember when I first came to Boston and I just cold called The Boston Globe and I went to the arts department, and I already had some dare I say credentials because I was a campus correspondent for Billboard magazine and and I went and the person who saw me was the guy named Gregory McDonald, who was later to become the creator of the Fletch series. Fletch detective novels. And yeah, and he was an arts writer for the globe. And I told him I just, you know, wanted to cover music and I love rock and roll. And he kind of scoffed a little bit and he was being a bit of a realist and pragmatist. And he pointed to the bottom drawer of his desk, and he said, everybody in here, I've got a bottle in that drawer, and they hate what they're doing. And you don't want to be a journalist. But if you are insistent upon being a journalist, I'll give you these albums to cover and review. And I think I got, well I know I got a copy. It was the best of the blues project, which was kind of strange because they never had any hits to begin with. But nonetheless, creative packaging allowed for another album to be put out, and the other was the third Velvet Underground album, and I reviewed each of them and I think I got maybe five or $10 for each of them. But very fortuitously, a month or so later, after the view was in the paper. And it was maybe five sentences at best, you know, because they weren't, you know, mainstream media was not all that intrigued by the blues project or the Velvet Underground. But I was at a Billboard magazine convention in New York. And I ran into Lou Reed. And he knew my name because I had it was one of the first traditional media coverages that the band had received. And he was there with his then manager, Steve says, Nick, and we hung out, and I went, you know, to the Record Plant where they were recording an album that didn't come out for another 17 years or whatever.
Ronnie 22:36
Well, I want to ask you, so we were talking before on the tour that looking around here, I asked, What's the span of time and you said roughly 1922 2020 now, yeah, so 100 years. How's that for math? Chuck? If you look at sort of the bell shaped curve looking back on this, what do you see as sort of the peaks of years and decades
Unknown Speaker 22:58
of the pure amount of the peak amount might be 1980s, just in the sense that there were so many publications. And record companies were still putting out vinyl. But they were also replacing the entirety of their catalog with CDs. And it was also that retail sensibility that you know, bigger, better, faster and more gaudy, more extravagant. It was just an endless cycle of content that was being created. Now, not to say that that's not the case today. But you can look back now on the transition of technology taking over particularly the 90s into the 2000s, where no film company to showcase a new release would put out an elaborate press kits with all kinds of production notes, and the backstory and all the actors and all the contributors to the creation of the film The producers, the director in the 90s into the 2000s. They cease doing that and they would Just send out a disk, and then had all the content. And then now it's a website. And now it's just a code for a limited duration for a month. If your viewer if you're somehow contributing to the attention of that particular film, you punch in the code and you have access to all the images and all the backstory information, and then it goes away. And there's no trace of it. So what is in here in the archives are all those items that were created to inspire some kind of coverage? And now, you know, there's, there's no, there's no footprint, right? It remains.
Unknown Speaker 24:41
Well, as you were collecting all this stuff. What was your curation? mind? I mean, I would imagine you could probably go home with a carload of stuff every single day. Right,
Unknown Speaker 24:50
right. How would you choose what would what you would take was very random. I was responding to what was in my midst. I mean, I was aggressively pursuing things. Well, people would have a box next to their trash barrel. And I would say to them, instead of putting in a press kit or a magazine in the trash, the loaded in the box and I'll come around weekly and pick it up, it was the same thing in the music department at WBC n. The trade magazines, you know, they would build up, they were used as a reference library. This was pre computer era. So you know, there was no technology to you know, give you the information that you needed, you saved your own reference content. And then it reached a point of saturation. It was an assembly line of content that was always coming through and I would be the recipient, the beneficiary of all that material. My fear was that if I didn't have this content, it was lost. And that truly was a pre tech sensibility that if you weren't resourceful enough to have your own media and your own material, for whatever unknown project might be lurking around the corner, then Where we going to get these things? You know, they didn't exist. I think what's occurred in the last maybe 10 plus years are the universities and museums and various institutions are coming to the realization that this content really does have value. It can be used for scholarly purposes. It can be used for installations for exhibits. I remember being kind of excited to learn at Boston University probably 30 plus years ago that there was a singular pursuit of one person. Howard Gottlieb, who started a collections Special Collections department affiliated I guess with the library at BU. And now I think the Special Collections number more than 2000 ranging from Martin Luther King to Betty Davis to Mike Wallace, and everything in between
Chuck Clough 26:56
when you collecting these and you're sending them off to warehouse I mean, I'm assuming that you're, eventually you couldn't get to your bathroom, and you had to send them off somewhere. So you can at least take a leak without having to jump over boxes. Right. And I mean, to be crude, you know, in the,
Unknown Speaker 27:11
in the, in the early days when I had a place in Cambridge, fortunately, there were two bathrooms, but one bathroom, the bathtub was filled with albums. So I know what you're saying.
Chuck Clough 27:20
But as you were collecting it, did you have was it really just about you just love the collection? Or did you have this idea of like, someday, people are going to want to see all these things. Did you have that in mind at the time? Was it really just an infatuation for yourself?
Unknown Speaker 27:35
I think I think it was infatuation myself at a very quickly as I started to save more things, people did turn to me as a resource. And there was a little bit of a pride in that to be able to deliver at the beginning, there was not even any payment. I just wanted a little credit line on the side, you know, courtesy of David Bieber, there wasn't even an archives at that point. There was no little central repository, even the record records the Film companies, they weren't saving their own thing.
Ronnie 28:02
Well, let me ask you something, though, because to me when I look around here, I see, like I said before decades and history here, but I also see a library of different categories. Right? So it's like, if someone were somehow to just snap their fingers and have the room have just film, the room of just politics, the room of just Disney music, you could imagine that category, I could also imagine a category of 1960 1980 1990 is that ever something that you foresee or have that sort of categorization?
Unknown Speaker 28:40
I've already begun to do that and I'm working with, you know, people and it's kind of turned into a business which is kind of completely unexpected, you know, it's like there are second acts in America. It all becomes a matter of the you know, kind of utilizing the software and the technology to cross reference all those categories that you're talking about, let's say that there's an issue of Billboard magazine from 1982, that has a great Rolling Stones ad that also has a great elton john ad. Where do you put that you put that in billboard? Because it's a magazine that you can have the chronological order or do you, you know, obviously, I'm not going to rip the pages out of the magazine to put you know, the stones and the stones pile.
Chuck Clough 29:24
Well, you know, it's interesting, because I'm taking a museums and exhibitions course. And we're actually going into museums, and we're going into their archives, and I'm asking them, like, how do you organize all this stuff? So we were at the Peabody Museum at Harvard.
Unknown Speaker 29:40
Okay,
Chuck Clough 29:41
right next to the Harvard Museum of Natural History, right? And they have a lot of indigenous peoples artifacts there and they separate all their bows and arrows and different things by region.
Ronnie 29:52
Yeah. This is all year century.
Chuck Clough 29:55
These things have been thought about by museum historians. curators and things like that. So do you have somebody doing that is this
Unknown Speaker 30:04
I've had people who have the scholarly background here, but I think it's almost premature that in terms of systems, I mean, I kind of have my own system set up. Yeah. And before that cross referential type of application of software and technology, I need to know I need the first hand experience, I almost need to play in my own sandbox before I start applying someone else's systems because that what you're saying, You're getting an education and I'm getting the fulfillment of delayed gratification, you know that I get to play with these things Finally, and then worry about the systems
Chuck Clough 30:42
Plus, you almost have to kick it out of the box to really understand it. You have to like have it laid out on the floor, to be able to understand the scope of what you have and then say, now what do I how do I now attack this so that everything can be access we can find what we need? Yeah. I mean, it's a monster.
Unknown Speaker 31:01
It really is it this is completely a work in progress that what's exciting it is and it's not like it has it's absolutely roadmap I when Steven mintage when the Phoenix close and FX was sold and he actually connected me with Steve Samuels, who owns the verb hotel. So that was the first opportunity to really in a major way to showcase the content where the marching orders were. We want to celebrate Boston music we want to celebrate Boston media and Boston pop culture and the Howard the old Howard Johnson's was like hours away from the Wrecking Ball. And then Stephen mintage connected me with Steve chambers in the verb hotel emerge. And now I'm into my second five year cycle of a very successful relationship. In that period preceding the verb I was working with Stephen minich on the transference of the contents of the Phoenix, and w, F and x and all the related companies To Northeastern University, this fell into their library, the snow library, their concentration was Urban Studies. But they really didn't have much material. The biggest thing that they had at that point was 50 boxes of the papers of the first African American Supreme Court Justice of Massachusetts. And he had entrusted his papers to them. And that was kind of the major element of their Urban Studies at that point. But then the Phoenix came along, they have all the Phoenix now on the strength of getting the Phoenix content, they were able to work out a deal with the globe so that when the globe left Morsi Boulevard, the globe photo file, which I believe is 1,000,000.2 photos, is now part of northeastern
Chuck Clough 32:49
I seen the they laid it out to us to show us what they have that they're really doing an excellent job.
Unknown Speaker 32:54
Yeah, at Northeastern but yeah, but I've seen the meticulous treatment, you know, it is true White Glove It is truly made it a point every single item and it's fastidious and it's for you know centuries to come
Chuck Clough 33:09
no
Ronnie 33:10
way but Chuck isn't that the mate like what you're majoring or you're majoring
Chuck Clough 33:13
in public history
Ronnie 33:15
Oh studies it's got a dovetail
Chuck Clough 33:18
on digital this digital history which is taking stuff like this and putting on that I just may have thought of my new project you should work with David and I just I had to come out but he
Ronnie 33:29
can be your project honorary mentor it oh my god my god well heat before but he'll do the work and you can just put like the David BB at the end of it. I'll
Chuck Clough 33:38
have to do all the work. I'm giving you an A automatically Yeah, I don't know if you're allowed to do that.
Ronnie 33:43
But so we've talked a little bit about the categorization and the fact that it's this nude. It could be a new job and yet, you know, you have to get to know all this. Yeah. Before you let anybody in and categorize what I'm also so impressed with just Conceptually or sort of the feel of being here is the lack of that. I love the randomness, right? And to me there's a lack of what the lack of lack of the categorization the lack of the organization. All of that we're what we're doing now is we're talking about the software and how you can sort of put things into yours or clothing or music or whatever. Yeah, but I love the fact that I was I was joking about BJs wholesale before where you're looking at something right next to another artifact that doesn't relate I love the the randomness is kind of is kind of beautiful.
Unknown Speaker 34:34
Well, because I think that we're having some fun with it too. I work with other people Chuck white and lancel Nemo and Jeannie Smith and Peter cast person Steven support a Steve Ferrara. These are all like minded people, we overlap and when we find something that excites us, we put it out on display, even if it's for a day or for a week, you know, we will utilize that The shelves and the display cabinets, and it's there. And then it's kind of put where air quotes belongs. But until it gets to that point, it's there just because look what I found, you know, it's kind of that fun experience. And when you're talking about having individual rooms like a 1969 room, or a space room, I would love that. But you know, what is the challenge? The challenge to that is finding the appropriate building that gives you that latitude to really just spread your wings. I mean, I used to, I used to joke with Stephen mintage, because he was an art buyer and he would go to galleries, he would go to openings. And, you know, I would joke with his wife, Maria Lopez would say, Stephen doesn't need to buy more art, he needs to buy more walls, you know, and that's what it's all about. You know, I mean, the things that are already we keep shifting and evolving items on the walls here just because we could change it on a daily Base Yeah, and you know, but would be a little
Ronnie 36:02
mind your mind keep up with it where things are in general?
Unknown Speaker 36:06
Well, I think that there are ultimate points of retrieval. I mean, we we try and as we open boxes to put things where they belong, so it's not a challenge of a black hole of the universe where did that thing disappear again to
Ronnie 36:25
if I were to put down my mic and go around and get a couple of items right now, could I kind of quiz you to see where thing where it was found? Yeah, sure. Yeah. All right. Can I go find two things? Sure. I'll be right.
Chuck Clough 36:36
Don't forget where they are because then you get to put them back so it's not this is not the Dewey Decimal System but you can find exactly where it
Unknown Speaker 36:43
is no card catalog got a market where
Chuck Clough 36:45
you get it out, right. But yeah, I do love how this is like walking into I wouldn't say it's like walking into your grandmother's attic because it's more organized than that. But it is walking you just never know you're gonna see around the corner. How much do you think is still left to open? Is there a you A number is there even a way to view
Unknown Speaker 37:01
I would say at this point you know, we're maybe 50% done obsessed. Yeah.
Chuck Clough 37:07
And that's that's two years it's been
Unknown Speaker 37:09
two and a half years anyhow,
Chuck Clough 37:10
we got a little bit but I think the job security there
Unknown Speaker 37:13
Yeah, I will share with you that this film shows a building eight that I'm in was not ready and so all the 237 pallets which was 12 and a half tractor trailer loads, landed in building two and just sat there until the space was prepared. And there is a video of a slow silent walk around for two and a half minutes just showing all the boxes unpalatable and shrink wrapped and you can see that it was great that these things were in boxes because you know just the dirt in the atmosphere sure settling on these boxes over 10 2030 years
Chuck Clough 37:52
shrink wrap to they always shrink wrapped. Yeah,
Ronnie 37:54
yeah. Okay. No. First item. Well, there's two cassette tapes,
Chuck Clough 37:58
cassette tapes. Boring.
Ronnie 38:03
One is the Beatles,
Chuck Clough 38:05
The Beatles
Ronnie 38:07
twist and shout, you can do that. No, you can't do that. Do you want to know
Unknown Speaker 38:11
secret? Well, yeah, and and that's, that's probably a counterfeit slash bootleg tapes that no royalties were paid. Somebody just, you know, grab the content that was in the Beatles artifact box area, you know, that's where items that are on shapes and are vital for instant retrieval if there's a Beatles exhibit or an installation going on, that's where that would be. Okay. So we'll put on the mics in a second. I want you to take me to that because I don't trust you. Right. And then the next one is Billy Squier enough is enough because this is a music podcast, so I was going to do two of them. Okay. Tell us where that one is. What's the last thing is this baseball that says the babe there was only one. It's a picture of Babe Ruth smoking a cigar well actually that's john Goodman. Oh, that is got john.
Chuck Clough 39:04
God. Yeah, that could have done better
Unknown Speaker 39:08
Nick. Nick comes now that's it's good
Ronnie 39:11
idea why don't you do something here now you're
Unknown Speaker 39:14
gonna go do something these are not your everyday ordinary items. Okay
Ronnie 39:16
so do let's put down the mics and let's let's see
Unknown Speaker 39:19
I will tell you that
Unknown Speaker 39:24
winning winning is making me lose that's that's the objective right that's gonna make you lose big time
Ronnie 39:32
but tell us about this john good so that
Unknown Speaker 39:34
was that was for the babe for the movie where john Goodman was was playing bill okay and so that would have been in the sports area on the shelves in the back area but the Billy Squier was I would guess most likely in local music Boston bands yes
Ronnie 39:53
bostonia is
Unknown Speaker 39:54
is around. He lives in New York now. He was originally in a group called Piper, which was on a&m Records and that was in the 1970s.
Ronnie 40:06
Okay, Chuck's got some good stuff here.
Unknown Speaker 40:10
Alright, so that was just the camel from Casablanca records, you know, you get the theme Casablanca but it was an achievement award given to a woman a friend of mine, Ellen DARS. So that's just a autographed poster from an in store that Robert Klein did from a comedy album that was back in the 1970s.
Ronnie 40:30
So okay, so I think what we what would be fun maybe you know, we did a few of these, but it'd be really fun actually to just to do this as like an extra because the randomness is beautiful because we pick something out and you just tell us some great stories about it. was impressed you don't know what you're gonna go
Unknown Speaker 40:47
you know quite frankly is up and done before we were and we didn't do this. It was planned to do it. We may still do it. We were going to do a 60 or 92nd what's in the box where we will just grab a box ran Open it and be surprised. Like and
Chuck Clough 41:04
I want to kind of go through everything where you can see these places these these exhibits. Yeah. At the verb hotel, the hotel is right, which is right over Boylston Street right outside of Fenway Park 12. So everyone is up to gioco.
Unknown Speaker 41:17
Right? You know what it's called gioco because it used to be how judges
Unknown Speaker 41:20
Hojo that is right there in the shadow of Fenway Park. And that has been just an incredible experience in a showcase for content and also a reference point that I can tell people maybe don't come here. We haven't seen the archives here in Norwood. It's a great, you know, 24 hours a day, just tell the valley that you're there to check out the lobby and the corridors and, you know, it's constantly changing in terms of the content. We're doing individual rooms, so there's no an Aerosmith room. A cars room just adds an experience to the hotel guests.
Ronnie 41:56
Oh, quick thing. Do you know Greg hawks? Yes. Yeah, he's been here. He's gonna He's gonna come on the show with us. Oh, great. So
Chuck Clough 42:02
anyway, cars fan. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 42:04
I am very excited at the Boston musical war. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 42:07
He was there. Yeah. They did Japan. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 42:10
Yeah. And I did the
Chuck Clough 42:12
Oh, that's right. You did the introduction. Yeah, that's right.
Ronnie 42:16
Specialist,
Chuck Clough 42:17
mentor, a mentor. And I say that even the
Ronnie 42:19
millennials, like totally appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. It was really cool.
Unknown Speaker 42:23
So yeah, the verb hotel. Yeah,
Chuck Clough 42:25
you will also at the folk Americana roots Hall of Fame. We have exhibits there. And we also have our exact hallways podcast. So give a little plug for that, that we're also doing Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 42:36
yeah. No, we're we're joined at the hipster.
Chuck Clough 42:39
Where else outside of this building. Will you find some of some other artists of the oven displaying? I know that's appearing in a lot of documentaries.
Unknown Speaker 42:49
Yeah. And
Chuck Clough 42:50
certainly the Bcn American Revolution
Unknown Speaker 42:53
documentary film. Yeah. When I do and what the people I work with you is it We're equipped to do in installations, exhibits related to almost any subject. And we have great versatility, flexibility. And the main understanding that has to be presented to the world at large is it's not just Boston centric. It's not just Boston music. Although the verb is really the embodiment of that.
Chuck Clough 43:17
And then balmy Boston I say, Oh, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 43:22
Brian Coleman, Brian calm. And by me Boston is a book of ads from the 1970s 80s and 90s that appeared in one off publications or Boston after dark or the Boston Phoenix and Boston magazine. I saw you at the bps i, you and Brian. Yeah, there's another book that just came out by writer Charles Giuliano, who is documented in interviews, about 1520 people, and I'm included in part of that. Boston counterculture. 1960s to 1980s. So it's out now so
Unknown Speaker 44:01
You know, there's always something going on.
Chuck Clough 44:03
David, thank you very much. Oh, my pleasure, really appreciate it. It is awesome. We would like to thank David for sitting with us and for putting up with our gawking at the archives. To learn more about the David beber archives, go to david beber in archives. com. We'd also like to thank Jeannie Smith for her assistance, and the entire staff at the archives for the good work they are doing. Go to above the basement calm where you can sign up for our newsletter. Listen and subscribe to our podcast and like our Facebook page. Follow us on Twitter, and look at all the nice pictures we post on Instagram are everywhere. From all of us at above the basement. Thanks for listening. Tell your friends and remember. Boston music like its history is unique.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
