A not-quite Rum Bar Records showcase graced the Silhouette Lounge on Monday, 10 April 2023.

The Haymakers closed out the three-stack bill after openers Jay Allen and the Archcriminals and The Hi-End.

It wasn’t quite a Rum Bar Records showcase in the back room of the Allston dive, but it was close. Two out of three (Jay Allen & the Archcriminals, The Hi-End) of the bands have released music on the garage rock imprint.

It’s only a matter of time before holdouts The Haymakers contribute a CD release to the bottomless pit of the Rum Bar Records catalog.

More to the point, the scene was a Rum Bar Records scene. What’s that exactly? It’s a snapshot of a specific moment in rock n roll time, populated by music fans who do not give a single, stone-cold shit about what’s happened or happening with popular music outside of their own personal time continuum.

1981-1984 is the window of time (and The Cars is the band…) forever burned into the psyche of Rum Bar Records owner Malibu Lou, according to his recent WFMU interview (4/9/23). 

You see it and hear it in the RBR catalog. Chock full of visual and sonic references to luminaries of the bracing, if awkward transition from punk rock to new wave. Plus, occasional cameos by the luminaries themselves, such as Greg Hawkes of The Cars.

It’s a music junkie’s dream and a godlike impulse to recreate the world in your own fanatical image. Malibu Lou and the Rum Bar Records scene are living the dream. It’s the Island of the Lotus Eaters of the Boston music scene. Getting high on their own supply — and lovin’ it! And as long as they’re buying drinks and leaving a decent tip, nobody’s gonna stop them.

Jay Allen and the Archcriminals

Is ‘archcriminal’ supposed to be two words? Or do you need a hyphen in there somewhere? The three-piece wished its own Jay Allen (and the Haymakers’ Paul Delmonico) a happy birthday. The band gifted the back room with a suite of garage rock grinders. A bitchy videographer barked at anyone who approached the band too closely throughout the set, blocking his shots.

The Hi-End

The frontman for the four-piece The Hi-End had a kind of metal look, but he rocked the mic with a tumbler of clear liquid in hand like a Rat Pack crooner. Tequila, I suppose?

The Haymakers

The three-piece rockers The Haymakers performed a mix of originals and covers, including Neil Young’s “Mr. Soul.” There was a Brit rock timbre to some of their other tunes, a little more put together than the scruff-of-your-neck caterwauling earlier in the evening.

Shout out to Boston Groupie News, which had this show in their listings. The site is the online reincarnation of an old scene rag from the 70s. The moment you start digging into the personalities in and around nodes in the music matrix like Rum Bar Records, you fall down an abandoned, mile-long mineshaft of local history. Be careful.

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