Once, they played in Boston bands like Slapshot, Crash and Burn, Sam Black Church, Victory at Sea, the Men, and Cradle to the Grave. Back then, none of them would have dreamed of joining the Masons. Masonry — a fraternal society that dates back to the 1700s — has not, heretofore, been associated with rock and roll. But people get older and settle down. They get married. They have kids. They get jobs. They join the Masons.In a strange way, this seems like a logical next step for veterans of the Boston rock scene. "A lot of people become involved in music because they're looking for something higher — or to get girls, which is something higher," says Ian Adams, Mason, film grip, occasional Phoenix illustrator, and member emeritus of 8 Ball Shifter and Rock City Crimewave. "It's looking for that thing that's bigger than you — the first time you hear the Ramones on the radio, it's that spiritual thing."
Masonry fills that need, Adams says. "The idea that you're doing something that other people have done in the past [allows] you to step out of time," he explains. "We're born, get old, and die, but the rituals remain the same. It's a time machine. It's a connection to eternity."
In the Poenix.
