Western Front

The Western Front was located at 343 Western Ave, in Cambridge

When did the Western Front start having live reggae bands?  Who were the earliest bands to play there? 

Here's the story of this club, which lasted for 46 years, with at least 27 years of Reggae music:

1930's-50s: 

• was a luncheonette, then a bar (see image above)

1960s:

• 1967: Marvin Gilmore opened the Western Front, hosting mostly Jazz

1970s:

• c.1974 Jamaica Hilton plays the Front, with Barrington Strange guest singer on at least a song.  They were a mix of Reggae and Calypso

• 1977-79? It was called "Marvin's Western Front" and hosted White Ram, Tappaknotts, Echo and other reggae DJ's spinning Reggae vinyl

• 1979:

"Porky" leases the front from Marvin, paints "Porky's" in big letters on the Marquee, but mismanages the club.  This may have also been the period when Jah Shirt was shot in the earlobe downstairs

1980-1990s:

• Fall 1980: 

After closing the upstairs for remodeling, it becomes as "The Western Front" (without the "Marvin's") and Sista Pam starts working there and soon becomes manager

• December 1980: 

An article in the Globe stated that the Front had had a "checkered history" and had reopened with a new focus on drawing in a more diverse crowd and including reggae bands in their lineup

• early 1981: 

Most of the bands playing at the Front were rock, folk-jazz, jazz, funky jazz

• Mar 6 1981: 

Reggae band I-Ses played the weekend (this band had Neil McGee on guitar and vocals and Stone Montgomery on vocals - Jaffar on drums?).  This appears to be the first time a live pure Reggae band played at the Front

• Mar 28, 1981: 

Culture (yes, that Culture) was supposed to play at the Front, according to the Globe  - I can't confirm that they did

• Apr 12, 1981: 

Healin' of the Nations played a Special Sunday afternoon reggae concert at 4pm.  They were listed as "Healin' of the Nation, featuring former members of I-Ses"

• May 15 1981: 

Lenky Roy and the Ethiopian Roots plays at what the Globe calls the "Resurrected Western Front"

• Sept. 10, 1981: 

First time I could find Zion Initation playing the Front

• January 1982

 the first time I could find Loose Caboose playing the Front

• July 1983 

the first time I could find the I-Tones playing the Front

• Feb 1987 

there was a shooting in the Western Front, while about 50 people were dancing to music.  It involved the Dog Posse from Boston and a man from the Bronx and it started a cycle of revenge

• 1989-1990:

Sonja Madson is the manager of the Front

• 1981-1999: 

regular Reggae bands on Thur-Sat, often with Reggae bands on Sunday or a Reggae DJ

2000s:

• June 19 2008:

 the last live local reggae band I could find  in the listings:  "Conscious Reggae Band and H-Kayn" - there may have been others in the next 5 years, but they weren't advertised in the Chronicle, Globe or Phoenix

• Dec. 31, 2013:

 Marvin announces he is selling the liquor license and the building

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Memories 

From Sista Pam, manager at W.Front:

• The 'Resurrected' in the [Boston Globe] article refers to the enlargement of the stage area at the Front. The back half of the tiny stage had been part of the old fire escape and with the remodel, the fire escape stairway became straight, allowing equipment to be loaded in that way, instead of up the curving main staircase.

• Not long after that, Marvin installed hot water to the upstairs bar - we used to be forced to carry tea kettles of hot water up the stairs (among customers) to wash glasses The bands and the crowd density had increased in size, making these alterations necessary. Consequently, the dance floor grew a little too.

• At some point, the stage ceiling collapsed on a band on a Sat nite. Can't recall what band. So the renovations were made cuz the repair had to happen anyway. And the back fire escape had been wood. Now it became steel.

• Also, with the renovations, came the first Jamaican food at the Front. I actually cooked curry chicken for Marvin to get him to let Phillip Adamson [Natty PA] to cook and sell food there at the grill area in the front of the downstairs bar. Phillip's Dad Baboo (Ernest) baked patties at his home across the street and brought them over every weekend to sell. Eventually Marvin bought a warming showcase to display patties. Phillip and I (serving as souse chef) cooked curry goat, chicken, steamed fish and fish tea in the industrial kitchen in the basement of the Front every Friday and Saturday.

• I think that the show Mutabaruka did at the Front, the poetry reading with no band was a landmark. It was quite the thing to have the upstairs set up like an auditorium (dance floor covered in folding chairs) and the crowd was mesmerized.  We picked him up in Marvin's Jaguar then I picked him up at the motel in Brookline the next day in my '68 flat black Chevy van. He cracked up when he saw it.  We went on a "shopping" spree at Rounder Records where he scored a bunch of Sam Cook records for free.  I asked him to please talk about cocaine to the crowd. Not long after that he released Johnny Drughead.  I took him to a WERS interview. It might have been Jennifer who interviewed him or Michael Perkins. He began the interview by saying "''Ere I am at Harvard, de place where mahn mek bomb."

• Fridays and Saturdays, food prep would start at 2pm. Then the place would open for the downstairs bar only at 4pm. Pam would tend bar until the downstairs bartender arrived at 6pm. She then moved to the upstairs bar getting it set up. The band would arrive later and she would help out with the soundcheck.

We all remember what happens next...

What many didn't know is that Marvin would often (esp. in those early years) have after-parties at the club, often with his friends, other club owners, and Cambridge cops (they would sometimes get a call from the Central Sq. station looking for them)

Also, in the early years, the band would sometimes go until 3am, until the cops shut that down

• Marvin leased the Front to a guy named Porky at that time and Pam says he regretted it for years.  She says Porky brazenly painted "Porky's" in oil-based paint on the Western Front Marquee out front and so the letters always showed through the paint when they tried to paint white over it in the coming years.  Porky had no idea how to run a club and that's what ran the Front into the ground and gave it a bad reputation by early 1980.  Pam thinks he was still running the club when Jah Shirt was shot in the basement (luckily it just him in the rim of the ear). The Porky's listing in the Globe (see below) says "275 people" but Pam says they regularly packed 400 people in on a weekend (she started at the Front right after it reverted back to the Western Front, in the fall of 1980)

• Did a 3rd floor of the Front exist? 
  ANSWER FROM PAM:"I can certainly solve that. I lived on the third floor for a couple years. It was two, pretty much gutted apartments. A real slum. But it was free and very convenient for me. I only had cold water unless the club was open, and if the club was open, I was there. It was accessed by a Putnam Ave door behind the club. There were more apartments behind that one too. Jennifer Spangler lived in one. A bunch of hippies lived in the others." [EDIT] Pam says it was the first door where you had to take the stairs, so not the low one, but the one just to the right of it

 From DJ and mother of Echo Edwards Vinnette Sista V Duhaney:

I remember making a lot of trips to the Central Square Police Station begging Detectve Rueben Dottin (Shaft) to allow the club to stay open. The gang war [in Boston] was getting so bad that the Western Front was the only place people could go to hear reggae music. Most of the clubs across the bridge was shut down. I finally decided it was getting too dangerous for me and it was time to walk away - this was before the bands started playing there [late 70's/early 80's]

Bob & Sim:

"Me & my pal Sim came here on Saturday nights to listen to the latest reggae sounds back in 1986. We were 2 English lads, on a trip to earn money for travel and this place was a great place to go to on a Satd'y night - bit of a smoke and some goat curry, man we loved it"