Best Local New Act

Dropkick Murphys

Rat rats Sunday-afternoon all-ages basement gigs at the Rat bred a particular strain of punk rock that drew the blue-collar kids from the Blue Line and the Orange Line, not the college kids from the Green and Red Lines. Stepping into the Rat was sorta like stepping into a time warp, back to 1983 London or so -- the skinheads with the boots and the Anti-Nowhere League patches, the bands sporting three chords and shout-along choruses. It was the kinda place where everyone knew your name, or at least knew all the words. The Rat finally went kaput last year, but the scene it spawned and nourished was vindicated, in a way, by the success of the Dropkick Murphys. Working-class pub-core rowdies with a penchant for slipping the echoes of an Irish seissiún into pounding hardcore anthems, the Murphys became the first East Coast band signed to Epitaph's Hellcat label. Lo and behold, Do or Die is an album firmly entrenched in Rat-grime roots, but with a big-gun sound (Rancid's Lars Frederiksen produced) that's shaking foundations well beyond Kenmore Square. Even the expansive Middle East Downstairs couldn't contain their record-release party, with the kids who got shut out getting rowdy out on Mass Ave. In the old days it was a given that punk had no future, but the Dropkick Murphys sure as hell sound built to last. Unfortunately, they broke up just before we went to press.

-- Carly Carioli