This podcast tells the true and complete story of the Channel nightclub in Boston, bringing the truth to light!

Based on a book in progress containing the vivid recollections of club founder Harry Booras, we cover the too-true-to-believe tale from the club's beginning in 1980 to its inglorious end at the hands of Boston's most ruthless mobsters.

Over the years, there’s been a lot of rewriting of the club's history.  

Harry led the operation of the club for eleven and a half of its twelve years of existence.

It's time to set the record straight once and for all.

This podcast is Harry's story…but it is also YOUR story!

If you were there — as a performer, audience member, employee, roadie, tech or media member, please share your memories, impressions, and observations. We're looking for the ones most representative of the true Channel experience to include in the narrative.

All comments are welcome. Even if you don’t have a memory to share, we’ll keep you in the know with updates and advance downloads. 

Here we are in 2020 with a major change in how we will experience live music even when we get to the new normal. Like The Channel did in the 1980s ChannelVision will bring us as close to the music as possible given this period of social isolation.

In a collaboration with Gigabit Live, for the first in the  series  which started June 23rd ChannelVision presented The Next Generation featuring young up and coming artists whose family members either played or worked at The Channel.  We had the series monthly through August and were able to raise some donations to help the contributing  artists out and will be back again on Tuesday, November 17th!

Boston’s live music venues are still closed and musicians are still hurting. In an effort to continue to help those in the Boston music community who are in need because of the pandemic, Boston Venue set up the Boston Venue Unity Fund, which is now a tax exempt 501c3 charity.

So please consider making a tax free donation to the Boston Venue Unity Fund and help out artists who are really hurting due to the closure of Boston Venues. 

For the month of May 2020,  we reprised The Channel's lunchtime mini-concerts from the late ’80s, featuring local and national headliners, a WBCN emcee,  presented in a virtual format, live on Facebook!

The series, which currently has over 50K views, featured Channel headliners including Jon Butcher of Jon Butcher Axis; Sal Baglio of The Stompers; Dan Zanes of The Del Fuegos; and Adam Sherman of Private Lightening. In the first weekend of Channel Vision, we featured Mike Girard and Rich Bartlett of the The Fools, Tom Hambridge of TH & The Wreckage, accompanied by his daughter Rachel, Fred Pineau & James Melanson of The Atlantics, Dave Herlihy & Dave Martin of O Positive, Gerry Lehane, James Young, Peter & James O’Halloran of The Dogmatics (from their porch), DiDi Stewart & Alizon Lissance of Girls Night Out, James Montgomery, Danny Tucker of Zion Initation, Kenny Chambers of Moving Targets and Vinny Noble of Bim Skala Bim.  Plus, legendary WBCN personalities including Chachi Loprete, Oedipus, Carter Alan, Carmelita and Bradley Jay have co-hosted and led discussions after each performance.

The concerts were held every Friday in May at noon on our Facebook page, and ended May 29th. This was followed by the first weekend of Channel Vision 2020: May 29th to 31st (exactly 40 years since The Channel's opening) which  featured a series of Zoom-powered, freeform performances, discussions, and a silent auction.

The silent auction featured items donated by Channel alumni including Woody Geissman of The Del Fuegos, Janet LaValley of Tribe, Joe Perry of Aerosmith and The Joe Perry Project, Tom Hambridge & Buddy Guy!  We raised $1,020.00 in the auction and a grand total of $5,624.00 for the month! All the winners received their items and checks are on the way to performers who participated, as well as to Right Turn, a great nonprofit organization that assists musicians with substance abuse issues.

To all of the artists, panelists, hosts that participated, people who donated and most of all each of you that tuned in in May-August : THANK YOU!