FINAL STOP: BUNRATTY’S

1969-1993

186 Harvard Ave, Boston, MA

Years: -1969-1993
Opening: The Cowsills
Feature: Aimee Mann

Our final stop, Bunratty’s, hosted music year-round and featured the debut of many up-and-comers, including Aimee Man (‘til Tuesday). There were shots fired, a murder of one of their doormen, and a stop-in by the likes of Bono (U2), Jaco Pistorius (world-famous bassist extraordinaire), and Slash (Guns-n’-Roses). The venue changed names a few times, most notably to The Melody Lounge, a nod to the terrible fire at The Cocoanut Grove in 1942.

The Story

In 1885, the site of Bunratty’s was owned by wealthy area residents the Baldwin family, and the brick building itself was constructed in 1920 at 186 Harvard Avenue in the heavily Irish Allston/Brighton neighborhood. Much later, it became a bar and was named after an Irish castle, but it originally opened as a Vaudeville theatre that morphed briefly into a movie theater. Decades later, Dennis Mullins bought the bar and had his grand opening party on September 10, 1969. Mullins was an interesting character who once took out his pistol during an after-hours moment; and in front of a small group of friends, regulars and club employees doing clean-up, put a few bullets into the mounted moose head hung high on the wall behind the main bar. In it’s heyday, and for well over a decade, the venue hosted two to four bands a night: seven days a week; three hundred and sixty five days a year.

Much of this new operational management and organizational behavior, and the resulting success it brought, can be directly attributed to fellow Irishman Mickey O (Halloran), followed by Dave Gee (Giammatteo) and then back to The Mick; who were the managers and booking agents during these great years. Together they also owned The Beat Magazine, a weekly fanzine supporting the club and the Boston music scene. During one of the greatest periods of entertainment in the Massachusetts music industry, Bunratty’s personified a time and an era where area artists shared the attitude that everyone in the industry, including performers, production crews, club owners and employees, members of the entertainment press and all their fans and groupies, were on the same team. Bunz was one of the most important places to play and to be seen. During the seventies, eighties and early nineties Boston boasted a ton of different places to perform. It was a multi-college town with two music schools Berklee and The Conservatory: where young students from all over the world brought their talents; and people had plenty of disposable income to support this overflow of excellence. It was the perfect time for this club to exist.

The actual blue print physical layout was and is a stage, bar and bathrooms on the main floor with a bar and restrooms downstairs for when people needed a break from the consistently hectic and loud environment upstairs. In back is an alley for bands to load in where every person who has ever been there still shares stories of sex and drugs and rock and roll and cops. In August 1987, roller-skating doorman Abel Harris, a well-liked kid, was murdered by an angry patron and Dennis sold the bar to his girlfriend and accountant Lorraine Curtis the next year; in 1988. The night Abel was shot the metal band Bang was playing and many people in the packed place thought the loud noise of the gun fire was a part of their show. 

Source:
"Brighton Allston Rock Music History." Brighton Allston Historical Society. https://doi.org/http://www.bahistory.org/RockHistory.html.

1. "Brighton Allston Rock Music History." Brighton Allston Historical Society. https://doi.org/http://www.bahistory.org/RockHistory.html.

Performers (partial list)

Frank Zappa
Aerosmith
Bruce Springsteen
Stevie Ray Vaughan
George Thorogood
Extreme
B.J. Thomas
Jill Sobule
Johnny A
Del Amitri