The Freeze

If you slammed at a hardcore show in Boston or on Cape Cod in the 1980s, you probably saw The Freeze. Formed in late ’78 on the Cape, the members of the band were all in high school when they started. Basing their sound on a love of English punk and reinforced by the approach of California contemporaries like Dead Kennedys and Black Flag, The Freeze developed their simple bid to avoid boredom into a legacy that thrived for over 30 years.

Clif Hanger, the band’s driving force, organized hardcore concerts on the Cape and eventually brought The Freeze into the Boston hardcore scene. The band’s first single, 1980’s “Don’t Forget Me Tommy,” backed with the local hit “I Hate Tourists,” gained the band regular airplay on WBCN and helped them earn an appearance at the station’s third annual Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble in 1981, which brought them some measure of credibility. But the inclusion of eight Freeze songs on one of the era’s essential hardcore documents – the Modern Method label’s compilation This is Boston Not L.A. (the band provided the title track) – placed the band on a playing field that included Hub standouts like Jerry’s Kids, Gang Green and The F.U.’s, which indicated that The Freeze had truly arrived.

Some thought that this group of kids from the Cape was not part of the Boston scene and didn’t deserve to make that claim, but The Freeze had the last laugh as they went on to outlive all their colleagues, recording over 15 albums and touring various parts of the world on several occasions. That irony alone should be enough to demonstrate the importance of elevating The Freeze to the roll count of Boston’s best.

(by Carter Alan)

Carter Alan is a former WBCN deejay now heard of WZLX-FM in Boston. He is the author of Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN (University Press New England, 2023), The Decibel Diaries: A Journey Through Rock in 50 Concerts (University Press of New England, 2017) and Outside is America: U2 in the U.S. (Lulu.com, 2009).