August 29, 2020

At the Rat

Last Sunday my wife Annie & I crossed the bridge & left Gloucester for Boston. While we were there we had a cup of coffee at a place called The Thinking Cup ( i think ) on Newbury Street . We stopped there because many years ago in the early 7o’s was a place called Cafe Florian where I washed dishes & wrote some of the songs that went on my first album on MCA records . Back in the day I worked with a Chef named Al Livingston who supplied the lyrics ( tho he didn’t know it at the time) to the first Boom Boom Band 45 on Garage Records called “ Hit Her with the Axe .” Of course Al wasn’t there anymore & the place looked entirely different. In fact, the whole city looked different & Cambridge did too as Annie & i wended our way down Mass. Ave . Mass Ave & Kerouac were my first 45s under the name of Willie Alexander. At least the music is still there.