Rick Berlin

Old Stag
Produced by Rick Berlin | Recorded by Joe Stewart | Mixed by David Minehan at Wooly Mammoth | Mastered by Dave Locke at JP Masters

For what may well be his most completely realized and thoroughly beautiful album, Boston’s legendary Rick Berlin has gathered another team of talented youngsters (most notably the string section of Joseph Simcox, Katie Franich, Christina Hornby and Meredith Cooper and Sand Machine singer Jay Dave Jeremy) in his Jamaica Plains apartment and an empty Boston University classroom and emerged with a baker’s dozen of musical treats. While the cracking heart-rending vocals and poetic pathos remain Berlin’s trademarks, the strings (arranged by Brendan Cooney) give the ensemble of lyrical observations a story without words. Whether laying a bass foundation for his Lady Elaine Farichilde whine or wafting along with him as he reaches for the most emotional shades of each note, the strings offer Berlin a base and a goal and provide support when things turn personal and introspective.
Though titles like “John Lennon’s Nose” and “Happy Lesbians In The Snow” may seem frivolous, they give Berlin room to play and often lead to insightful inspiration. Other titles, such as “How Can I Hate People I Don’t Know,” are clearer in their intent, but they are not the only songs that deserve close listening. In fact, whether it’s in the subtlety of the music or in a heart-felt passage, nearly every song invites listeners to leave the noise of the street (which is also used here to subtle but great effect) and join the musicians in Berlin’s apartment. There, they will not only be surrounded in swirling strings, but will also have the pleasure of meeting characters (which is the right word) like the mysterious ex-roommate “Michiko, “ the even more mysterious (yet somehow more human) “Unknown Soldier,” and an uber-groupie known simply as “The Fan.” As he is so comfortable inviting people into his room and into his life, Berlin tells it like it is, using frank language and sometimes sacrificing tonality for emotionality. Shock value? This is way beyond that - this is a set of keen observation steeped in well-considered lyric and wrapped in a musical package that invites repeated listening and deeper contemplation. (Hi-N-Dry)

www.myspace.com/rickberlin

-Matthew Robinson

Rick Berlin
Quirky Creativity at its Core

By Matt Robinson; photo by Rene Rives

For over 35 years, singer/songwriter/impresario Rick Berlin has been at the forefront of the Greater Boston and New England music scene. Throughout his long and storied career, Berlin has continued to combine his own heart-felt (and heart-rendering) senses of story and sadness with the talents of some of the best young performers around.

“After years of wandering and wondering who I was,” Berlin recalls, “I began to crunch oddball piano improvisations into songs. In those lucky moments, I felt like a blind man who could begin to ‘see.’”

Such insightful improvisations incited Berlin’s music and his future. But it has not always been easy. In fact, he admits, it rarely is.

“I am inevitably scared each time when I try to write something new,” he says. “I am never sure if it’s going to arrive honestly or have something worth saving.”

At the same time, however, Berlin sees his musical exploits as comforting, even sustaining.

“The ability to sublimate distress, pain, humor - mine or others’ - into a shape as small as a song,” he explains, “that keeps me going.”

As a former toilet designer who has seen more than one band raised on the shoulders of the industry only to be dropped again (perhaps most notably Berlin Airlift, who were signed to a CBS Records imprint that went bankrupt only weeks later), Berlin comes to this frank sense of tragedy easily and honestly, which makes his expressions of them all the more real and affecting.

“So many of my songs reference people, loves, friends that I know,” Berlin explains, “I have to respect them in my lyrics or I’d feel I’d let them down.”

On his latest album, the beautiful Old Stag (Hi-N-Dry), Berlin shares stories of mysterious roommates, obnoxious music fans and other people we all know yet about whom we may not think enough about – or at least not enough to write a song about. Haiku-ing these people in what he calls his “vampiric” way, Berlin touches upon their essential truths and, in so doing, recalls and relates to the truths of all humanity, be they beautiful or not.

“Being truthful is the only way I can get through,” he says. “It keeps me on my toes.”

“It’s different each time,” Berlin says of his musical career and the people who have contributed to and come to appreciate it. “New people…challenge me.”

Berlin also admits to being “challenged” by the solo piano pieces on the new album, even though this is a format he has long embraced at venues such as Jacques’ in Boston’s Bay Village and the Midway Café in Jamaica Plain.

“It was scary,” he says, “but in a good way, and the result [is] true blue.”

As he recorded most of the album in his apartment, Berlin and his talented colleagues could “take our sweet time [and] get performances that counted.”

Having engineer Joe Stewart as an upstairs neighbor did not hurt either, Berlin adds.

“I knew how fine a tech he was from his work at The Lizard Lounge,” says Berlin, recalling the site of his (in)famous variety shows “Marlene Loses It at the Lizard,” “and the incredible David Minehan [of Wooly Mammoth Studios] is a compatriot. [So he was] able to ‘get it’ and make what could have been disparate elements gel and shine.”

As his past has been so diverse and divergent, Berlin is not quite sure of what may lie ahead.

“I’ve never come close to making a profit from this stuff,” he says, “but that hasn’t stopped me, or made me think of myself as a flop.” And while a “real job” might “be nice,” it is not really in the cards for this architect-turned-teacher-turned-filmmaker-turned-musician (with a side of bartender, among others).

The key, he says, is to stay creative and keep doing what he loves to do -- whatever it is at the time.

“The main thing for me is to not run outta gas as a writer, as a creative person,” he says, already hinting at the next CD before quoting Ingmar Bergman. “The day you can’t be yourself, or express yourself, it’s the day it’s all over.”