SONG-A-WEEK: BUS STOP (for Michael) ~ RICK BERLIN
Sunday, July 15, 2012 at 02:48PM 
Years back, as my first band, ORCHESTRA LUNA, was getting off the ground, I recorded a bunch of songs reel-to-reel. I had an upright piano with tacks in the hammers and I banged these tunes out so I wouldn't forget them (a condition that has lasted with me to this day). They embarrass me. My voice sounds operatic, and the playing is awkward. I show them to practically no one. But there's something endearing about them. They have an innocence that belies my later, albeit intermittent obsession with, hit songs and a 'career'.
This one, like many at that time was recorded at Ridgemont St in Allston - big yellow house at the end of the street which one night we closed off, dropped acid and had a square dance - and we could actually walk to Jeremiah's on Harvard Ave - the place where OL got signed onto EPIC from - is about my friend Michael Weaver. I 'd met him in Somerville. He was a crazy poet kid who resembled and even wrote like Rimbaud and who was a long time, wild-eyed friend. He was certainly troubled. And ultimately alone. Horribly, one afternoon, he drowned himself in a bath tub at Marlboro State Mental Hospital. He held himself under the water. Terrifyingly sad.
I play a way-to-long intro and the sound is kinda smothered, but still…this is for you, Mike. Like so many of 'em were back then.
Reader Comments (1)
I love these early demos so much, the nucleus of the O.L. sound. Operatic and awkward maybe, but in no way embarrassing. They're filled to bursting with fascinating and off-kilter poetry, playing, arrangements and ideas.