Well, Scholz has a libel lawsuit against the Boston Herald for a column which suggested that tension between himself and Delp was a major factor in Delp's suicide. So the Herald wants to prove that there was indeed significant tension between them and that it contributed to Delp's depression.


Their current lead singer is a Delp imitator whom Scholz discovered on myspace. So they're basically a partial tribute band now, just like Journey and Kiss.

i was able to catch the original line up on what i guess was the 'dont look back' tour. it was at one of the texxas jams with some other bands. rush may have headlined that year. there's website devoted to the texxas jam's; i'll have to check it to confirm. they were pretty hot at the time. great show.

went and checked the site (linked below) and i guess i saw them twice. rush didnt headline that year but headlined another jam the month before. maybe why i got confused. $15.00 tickets! Rock on! I remember bitching when they went up. Those were the daze!

http://thezoofile.com/texxasjam.html

Boston singer Brad Delp installed a hidden camera in his fiancee’s sister’s bedroom – and killed himself nine days after he was caught.

Evidence given in the court case between Boston mainman Tom Scholz and a newspaper revealed how Delp, who committed suicide in 2007, was ashamed and apologetic after his spy device was found.

Events came to light as part of Scholz’s claim that the Boston Herald defamed him by suggesting he was to blame for his bandmate’s death.

Delp was engaged to Pamela Sullivan while her sister Meg Sullivan lived in the singer’s house. His relationship with Meg was described as “platonic”.

But in February 2007 she discovered his battery-powered spy device when it fell from its hiding place. She confronted him about it then went to stay with her boyfriend.

Delp emailed her to apologise, saying: “I feel sick about this, and deservedly so.” He later added: “I want to try and make you understand that I consider myself a decent person who made a dreadful error in judgement. I acted out of some impulse that is still not completely fathomable to me.”

But her boyfriend, Boston sound engineer Todd Winmill, ordered him to tell his fiancee what had happened. “He essentially apologised for half an hour,” said Winmill. “I told him he had to tell Pamela. He didn’t like the thought of having to do that.”

Delp later took his own life by lighting two charcoal grills in his sealed bathroom, leading to his death by carbon monoxide poisoning. In one of four notes he wrote: “I have had bouts of depression and thoughts of suicide since I was a teenager.”

Afterwards the Boston Herald reported he’d been “beaten down by the years of dealing with Tom Scholz,” which the bandleader says amounts to blaming him for the singer’s death. He’d countered that Delp’s depression was caused by “an extremely upsetting and embarrassing incident,” although he’d refused to provide details.

But Meg Sullivan says Delp had told Pamela about the camera, and the couple were dealing with the issue. She tells the Boston Herald: “In the years that followed Brad’s death it has seemed that Tom Scholz has desperately tried to find someone to blame for Brad’s decision to take his life. Quite contrary to what the article implies, Brad’s fear of the repercussions from the event between us was not the reason that he decided to end his life.”

The case continues.

I wonder what a lot of lawyers would be doing if there was no rock and roll and its related lawsuits.

just one man's opinion, but boston might just be the single most overrated band of all time.

Really? Even with their just-about-perfect debut?

Its funny, Boston has made a fair amount of songs, I like, but I don't consider myself a fan. I think they're very talented but I've never wanted to buy their albums. I love almost all their hits (especially More Than A Feeling) but that's about all.

But I have to disagree they're overrated.

well, since you aksed......side one maybe, side two...meh.

Boston - 10
Don't Look Back - 7
Third Stage - 4 (I should take off even more points for how long it took them to make it.)
Walk On - 5
Corporate America - 1 (...and that's being generous!)

Just my opinion and all on a scale relative to each other.

I love the first three albums but Walk On is more like Wank On. Never owned Corporate America.

I would rank "Third Stage" much higher. Perhaps it's because that album came out in a pivotal year for me and I have emotional connections to several songs. The fact that there were eight years between albums doesn't take away from the fact that it's still a very strong record. I probably like it as much as "Don't Look Back," which would be in the 8/10 range if I did numerical ratings (while the debut is easily 10/10...for me it's perfect, start-to-finish, without a wasted note).

Obviously every album hits every person differently. I just personally thought that "Third Stage" was weak, mostly because it seemed to just drag on and was almost entirely lacking in any spark or fireworks. That's just me.

As for "Walk On", I actually think it has more fire than "Third Stage" and the vocals sounded close enough to Delp's that they weren't a distraction for me.

Yep, it's all about timing. Not sure about "Third Stage" dragging, since it's only about 36 minutes. My three favorite songs are all at the end: "I Think I Like It," "Can't You Say (You Believe In Me)/Still In Love" and "Holyann." Not sure if I would love them now had I never heard the album before, but it takes me back to the year I turned 20. So many good and bad things happened to me that year.

I only heard "Walk On" once, but I'm just not a fan of Fran Cosmo's voice. He's fine but not in the same league as Delp. I felt that way with the Barry Goudreau solo album (where Delp's songs were the highlights), and his voice is the reason I never could fully embrace Orion The Hunter.

There are 4 or 5 very good tunes on "Corporate America" but the rest doesn't even SOUND like Boston, like the female lead track(s). One can edit down the disc to a good EP at least.

One thing I can say though that "Boston" self-title was a game changer. When their first album came out nothing sounded like it before.
Tom Scholtz, the MIT grad, whose creation of the "Rockman" really supercharged the production of music.

Rick A.

I can't think of any other band whose first album is so astronomically better than the rest of their catalog as Boston. Scholz really shot his wad on that first album.

I remember their manager I believe who jokingly said that they were going to retitle and reissue their first album as "Boston Greatest Hits".

Rick A.

If you add Don't Look Back (the song) as an extra track, it pretty much is "Boston's Greatest Hits."

Well, going by the charts, "Amanda" spent 2 weeks at #1 in 1986, and "We're Ready" followed it into the Top 10.

Update from Boston's website.

To Infinity and Beyond...

Many exciting things are moving forward as we head into spring 2013.

Tom is buried in the studio, lovingly coaxing his legacy analogue equipment to bear with him just a little longer while he wraps up the mix of his latest song, "Someday." Although he has listened to it more times than he cares to count, he is still very excited about it, saying, "This final song might be the title track for the new BOSTON studio album; it reminds me of the up tempo rockers I wrote for the debut album over 30 years ago."

With a little more tweaking, then some re-tweaking, then a tad more tweaking, Tom says the new album should be ready for release by mid year ... that would be mid year 2013. "After completing this mix I only need to redo vocals on a couple of the cuts, remix them, and sequence and master the album. After working on this project for over 10 years I can finally see light at the end of the tunnel," he says. Tom plans to start work on the long awaited BOSTON live DVD as soon as the studio album is finished.


Word is Brad Delp will be on some of tracks from the archives that Tom Scholtz has. That get's me very interested.

Rick A.

Might have found a better choice of words, considering other developments.

No matter how many times they say these things, if there was ever a band who should always be in the "I'll believe it when I see it" category, (along with Guns N' Roses of course!) it's Boston.