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URBAN RENEWAL
Re:generation Records opens
BY CAMILLE DODERO

The sign isn’t up yet, but Re:generation Records is open for business. Owned by Ross Noyes and Sue Jeiven, two punks active in the local DIY scene, Re:generation is a small record shop and soon-to-be tattoo parlor specializing in punk, hardcore, indie, and garage releases. Settling into the Harvard Avenue space where "hodgepodge retailer" Flyrabbit used to be, the newest tenant in Allston’s Harvard Avenue strip just rolled up its iron mesh this past weekend, and already it feels like part of the neighborhood. On day one, Re:generation had its inaugural show, with hardcore band Sleeper Cell playing on the small stage in the back. On day two, Re:generation had its first official shoplifter, a former understudy for the New Hampshire punk band the Queers, who cried when he got caught. On day three, well, it’s only half-past noon and Noyes has already figured out what the early-afternoon business will be like. "This time of the day all you’re going to get is that one kid," he says, referring to a lanky kid trading in a stack of seven-inch records, "and then every Allston scumbag on the strip who’s trying to sell you cans of fish food they stole."

For Noyes and Jeiven, Re:generation Records is a reformation of sorts. Two years ago, they rented out a vacant Standard Electric building in Dorchester with the intention of booking shows there and calling the place Regeneration. Jeiven sank her "life savings" into the project, installing a sound system and building the place into a venue. But after only five shows, Boston’s Inspectional Services Department came knocking and told them they needed to sink a bunch more money into the place to bring it up to code. Noyes and Jeiven couldn’t swing the cost, so they shut down the warehouse, lost their entire investment, and went flat broke. Noyes, who’d been living in the warehouse, ended up sleeping in a friend’s closet. Jeiven had the repo man after her, trying so aggressively to repossess her car that every night she removed the car’s license plates and hid it in a neighbor’s driveway. "It was the worst," says Jeiven, 33, emptying a can of wet dog food into a dish for her Chihuahua, Ren. "We were in financial ruin. It was so bad. I look back at it now and that was the worst time I’ve had in Boston."

Jeiven, who moved to Boston about seven years ago from New Jersey, worked at Flyrabbit. So when the store’s owner decided to shut down the business, she asked if Jeiven wanted to take over the lease. The answer was yes, and the name Re:generation has never been more appropriate.

A lot has changed. The display-case storefront formerly cluttered with phrenology heads, ’zines, and plastic insects now holds three fuzzy television sets, a thick biography of the Germs’ Darby Crash, and a one-armed manikin with a tattooed sleeve and a R(A)W POWER T-shirt that’s priced at $12. Inside, the room’s comfy, with a red couch, red walls, and red carpets, and a corner stage with a flier-plastered base. On the floor, there’s a rack of backpatches (Corrosion of Conformity, the Pogues), T-shirts (Rancid, Napalm Death), and bookshelves with day-glo Japanese fashion magazines, street-art books, and small-press releases. By the door, there are 50-cent headbands emblazoned with Headbangers’ Ball bands circa 1989-’90: Skid Row, Whitesnake, Scorpions, Dokken, Ozzy.

Re:generation makes no apologies for being a specialty shop for punk/hardcore/indie record collectors. Recently, some guy came in and complained that he’d never heard of anything in the bins. "He was like, ‘I listen to ’BCN, I’m hip, and I don’t know any of these bands,’" says Jeiven. And that’s exactly the point of Re:generation: to be a kind of oasis for people who might buy The Original Modern Lovers CD, the Cramps’ Booze Party, or an Alternative Tentacles compilation. "We only want to deal with independent music and independent bands," explains Noyes. "Anything major that we get in would be something that we’re buying used from a person."

And they both realize that opening a record store when indie shops all over are flailing financially is a risk. But that’s where the tattoo parlor comes in — the aspect of the business that’ll actually make money. "That way we’ll be able to run the record store how we want," says Noyes, who’s also in the Refuseniks and the recently disbanded Sirens. "The ideal situation would be for the record store to break even and be self-sustaining." They’re also hoping to make Re:generation a brick-and-mortar beachhead with a ’zine library, tattoo shop, and occasional DIY venue "for touring bands who can’t play anywhere else and local bands [whose stuff] we’re selling." Basically, says Jeiven, "we want to have a core group of customers, and then things should be okay."

Re:generation Records, located at 155 Harvard Avenue, in Allston, is open daily from noon to 9 p.m. Visit RegenerationBoston.com or call (617) 782-1313.


Issue Date: October 15 - 21, 2004
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