Joe did indeed graduate from
Harvard. He studied archaeologi-
cal anthropology and graduated
cum laude. If that surprises you,
it probably means you never had
a conversation with him. He was
almost always the smartest guy
in the room. According to his
obituary, he worked as Assistant
to the Director of the Peabody
Museum and accompanied the
Comprehensive Survey of the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the
central Arabian desert before
realizing his true calling was a
return to music.
Joe became active in the Bos-
ton/Cambridge music scene and
was one of the founders of the
Fort Apache Recording Studio.
This is where his legendary status
began. Not only did bands like
The Pixies, The Lemonheads, Di-
nosaur Jr., Morphine, Buffalo Tom,
and Throwing Muses all record
there, but in a write-up in the East
Boston Times-Free Press after his
death, John Lynds connected the
dots a bit further.
“One can argue that without
Eastie’s Joe Harvard the world
may have never heard The Pixies,”
wrote Lynds. “Without The Pixies
and their influence on later artists
like Kurt Cobain one can also ar-
gue there would have never been
Nirvana and without Nirvana the
grunge explosion of the early
1990s that defined a decade
would have never occurred.”
After he died, Belly released an album of demos made with Joe
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