16 Harvard Avenue
Allston, MA 02134
(617) 549-5067
The legendary original Looney Tunes held court on Mass Ave. and then later on Boylston Street in space owned by the Berklee School of Music from 1978 until 2012. I remember buying Hot Rocks and Doors 13 at Boylston Street here in junior high after taking an interest in my dad’s grad school record collection. A few months later we got a CD player. I didn’t return for 36 years.
“I am in no way suited for regular fucking employment”
Pat McGrath 2017
After getting gentrified out of Back Bay by an ice cream chain in 2012, Looney Tunes impresario Pat McGrath and his bins re-emerged in a subterranean Allston lair across the street from the punk rock dive O’Brien’s Pub. Pat’s inventory in the Berklee days ran into the hundreds of thousands of records between the shop and various stash houses (it still might?). Today, the crates of jazz, blues, rock and classical are well tended, though you’ll need to bob and weave among the sealed moving boxes of records and precarious towers of unsorted acquisitions spilling across the aisles. This is a basement shop that is equal parts shop and basement.
None of this is a complaint. Pat is a raconteur and illustrates his record hunting and concert going stories with various photos and video clips from his phone and an iPad. He also wields a secret weapon sound system. Spying me un-sleeving a 50-year old copy of Sticky Fingers and squinting at the grooves, Pat extracted himself from a pair of college girls quizzing him about a Ramones reissue.
“The only way to check ’em is to play ’em, don’t you think?”
Now I often don’t know what to make of the “analog warmth” evangelists. Like Fox Mulder, I want to believe. But I generally think these audiophiles are describing a bodily experience with old records that I cannot tap into. Well, in Looney Tunes I feel … something. Pat cranks “Bitch” and it jabs and snarls to rival anything on Funhouse or Raw Power. “I Got The Blues” closes the sale. The music is enveloping. Keith Richards’ and Mick Taylor’s guitar chords don’t just reverberate around the room, they seem to run down the walls like syrup. Sticky Fingers is coming home with me.
When you visit Looney Tunes, bring cash.
Road To Ruane
Pat McGrath was a long-time compatriot of the late Boston/Cambridge scene maker and promoter Billy Ruane. He served as a co-producer and quasi-narrator of Road To Ruane, a years-in-the-making documentary that generated raves on the festival circuit in 2024.
As of early 2025, McGrath and his co-conspirators remain in search of a distribution deal to bring Road To Ruane to a wider audience.
Looney Tunes Body Count
- Doors 13, The Doors ($? – 1989)
- Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones ($? – 1989)
- Dookie, Green Day ($20 – February 2025)
- Bad Boy, Robert Gordon ($6 – February 2025)
- Rock Billy Boogie, Robert Gordon ($10 – February 2025)
- Sticky Fingers, The Rolling Stones ($25 – February 2025)