Human Sexual Response at CBGB by Eugene Merinov This week Nightclubbing looks at Boston new wave band, Human Sexual Response, and features a video from 1980. Although they broke up in 1982, they very recently played a reunion show in their hometown...perhaps there will be more! It is hard to overstate the giddy hedonism of the early ’80s. Riding the tide of the ’70s sexual revolution, when feminism and gay power met the “if it feels good do it” ethos [...]
Though we could very easily paint her with mystique and specter, let’s humanize her. With a father who lives in Germany to perform with the Blue Man Group and a mother that was an integral member of the 70’s New ... Continue reading

I had been in Boston maybe two years when I first heard Human Sexual Response on the radio in 1980. The song was Jackie Onassis and to this day I still like that single. I immediately had to investigate. Human Sexual Response was a Boston band that lasted, give or take, maybe five years from roughly 1977-1982. That isn't a long time for a band as good as HSR was, but they definitely made their mark here. I have always found their sound interesting for some reason. They had four hits, mostly on the local level; Jackie Onassis, Andy [...]

My media micronation expanded today with the launch of pronounced WOO-BIN , a blog created to bring the majesty of the Boston accent to the starving masses. So if your morbidly curious or just want to put a voice behind my words, check it out. Or don't. I'm not pushy. In any case, I'm commemorating the event with this track, in which Boston's neurotic new wave legends do their take on a 1966 Detroit soul classic by The Capitols... Human Sexual Response - Cool Jerk [...]
I grew up in Boston and that means I'll never love a band more than some the groups I grew up listening to from that area. Bands like The Pixies, Throwing Muses and `Til Tuesday all went on to fame and fortune (Aimee Mann was the lead singer of `Til Tuesday) but as with most things it's the bands that didn't quite make it that fascinate me to this day. I've written about The Zulus and probably mentioned Rich Gilbert and lead singer Larry Bangor's earlier band Human Sexual Response before but I don't think [...]
Nathan Nothin here... I've been barricaded in the vinyl room for four days now. I just now found out that it's Sunday night. So my Saturday Mix is a slight misnomer, well sue me. The hurricane curtains block out all light, all sound louder than my stereo. Four days of nothing but vinyl... What I have convinced myself that I believe that I remember that I heard, random pockets of memory left un-eroded by the torrential squall of drugs & alcohol, the following soundtrack from my latest lost weekend. Tracks: Baby's on Fire - Brian Eno [...]

On this day in 1963, President John F. Kennedy had his date with destiny (and a rifle bullet) in Dallas, Texas. I have mixed feelings about the man and his legacy. My parents revered the man, whose election presidency symbolized the unbridled promise of a new decade and a new generation of leaders. My father especially took JFK’s vigorous brand of Cold War liberalism to heart, and to this day will not tolerate any criticism of the man. As I grew older, and my political awareness developed, the notion of JFK as a saintlike figure I [...]