Future Dads: Understanding Dynamics

Future Dads: Understanding Dynamics

Understanding the dynamics of any scene so far removed from time and place that we’re all accustomed to is difficult. It’d be hard to even name more than a few bands from Boston’s halcyon punk days before the hardcore kids took that place over. Richie Parsons, though, is a name that’s bound to come up over and over again. Founding Unnatural Axe, which we’ll get to in a few days, the guy apparently was thought of in pretty high regards, garnering approval from the Burma guys. Even if that wasn’t the case, one of Parsons’ latter day groups, Future Dads rank pretty high in their appropriation of punk and pop.

Figuring the band as pop punk in the same way the Queers or Screeching Weasel are pop punk is fallacious. Future dads sit closer to the fast paced efforts from neighbors the Real Kids. It’s almost power pop, but has nothing to do with the Jam or other more sucrose rave ups.

Releasing a single feature “Dorchester Summer,” which probably makes more sense if one’s familiar with the landscape up in Boston, seems to have been the band’s main triumph. Soldering together that single and whatever leftovers were sitting around, we can all take in 24 Winship and marvel at major label’s inability to pick up on good bands. Why weren’t these guys on Sire Records along with all the NY based punk acts?

No reason. Just bad timing and being in the wrong town, I suppose.

What makes Future Dads remarkable, apart from the name of the band itself, is the fact that the ensemble was able to work up instrumentals and not wind up sounding boring or musically inept. “Opus In D” may well be a pompous tag to levy on a composition, but it works. The only issue one might take with it is the eventual incorporation of a saxophone. It’s not that the instrument doesn’t fit – it does perfectly. But leaving the brass out until the final portion of the song only serves to mitigated the track’s success. Somehow it’s all punk, surf and fifties rock stuff rolled into one. And there really weren’t too many bands – Boston based or otherwise – able to combine all those elements in a seamless manner by 1981.

Surely, there’re punkier bands. And they’re more adept musicians. But Parsons being able to appropriate material from so many different sources and arrive at this almost pop concoction is remarkable. It’s a keeper.