CHRIS ANTONOWICH (kit)
MATT BAILIN (guitar/sax/vox)
RICK BERLIN (vox) photo: Craig Johnston
DAVID GOODCHILD (bass)
JANE MANGINI (keys/organ/synth)
RICKY MCLEAN (guitar/uke/bells/piano//vox)
TOM STEPSIS (bass on Bullet)
THOMAS WENZL (percussion/vox)
VIDEOS:
DETAILS
BASIC TRACKS recorded/engineered at WOOLLY MAMMOTH SOUND by BRIAN CHARLES & ANNIE HOFFMAN. SIR DAVID MINEHAN loaned Woolly to Brian because his studio, ZIPPAH, burned to the ground last winter.
We were able to overdub Matt Bailin’s guitar solos/rhythm tracks and ultimately wound up using several of Rick’s scratch vocals in the final mix.
THOMAS WENZL (engineer/producer of TRUE STORY with the band) recorded vocals, sax, percussion, Ricky’s guitar tracks, the bells and mixed the record at BITCH KITTY STUDIOS which he has now moved with his family to New Orleans.
Mastering: Brian Charles
All songs: Rick Berlin - Lobsterland Publishing, ASCAP
Cover and insert artwork: COLIN BURNS
How come the title?
Though it’s a stretch, many of my lyrics are stolen from real life (whatever that is) experience. The title song , TRUE STORY, is explicitly that. It combines a long ago visit to California as well as my life as a committed, bell-bottomed hippie.
The first was a trip I made after graduation ‘cross country with two classmates from Yale. Bought weed in the Haight (duh) and when we hit Disneyland (before it got cartoon corporate), I hid in the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse and smoked it up. Cops wandered below, oblivious. Fought off paranoia, and had a laugh. Something about ‘illegal’ made all highs higher.
Two years later, visiting a friend in Santa Barbara, I dropped acid with his brother at the end of an endless dock that reached out into the widescreen Pacific. Curled around the pilings were bouncy Portuguese Men O’ War, reflecting afternoon sunlight in bubbly rainbow colors. I ‘heard’ them trash-talking me in ‘jelly speak’. Seriously. Next day I was arrested for shop lifting. I dressed up in a three piece suit (absurd camouflage) and spent the night in the slammer. I called my Dad. He went ballistic. His ‘homo son’ in prison?! But he quieted down and flew my friend Harlow out to rescue me. We drove back to Philly in my Chevy panel truck non-stop high on meth. (Written up in my first book, THE PARAGRAPHS - ‘Speed Bump’.)
I did spend many ‘homeless’ years hitch-hiking all over the place. It was safe back then, in the 60’s, at least for dudes. You found friends, floors to crash, and got drugs ‘laid on ya’. A nomad’s life. Loved every second.
About the Doors:
The first time I ever got noticeably high from pot was listening to ‘Light My Fire’ over and over again. Their music and that song in particular was weed to my enhanced brain. I built a light box, put on their records, lay on the floor and drifted into orbit. My adopted and drug-soaked lifestyle during those glorious, soon dismantled, years of flower power and the love generation sadly devolved into what is now blamed as Boomer Blowout.
No regrets.
About the other songs. Never a fan of ‘this is a song about…’ even though I’m guilty of saying that shit at shows, and going off on a non-sequitur tangent. Maybe if I do it here, I won’t have to do it there:
I WANNA BELIEVE
began as a dream. I still had a wisp of the song when I woke up, and sang a garbled version into my phone. The band was scheduled to record basics at Woolly, and had learned the songs we were hoping for. BELIEVE would make it another. I recorded a shit demo, sent it to Jane who, predictably, made a rhythmic pounding version which she ‘flew’ to TJ who sent it to Brian who had it uploaded and ready to go at Woolly when we got there. Dave and Chris slammed it into ‘Benny & The Jets’ Nirvana. Later, at Bitch, Matt, in one burst, nailed the sax call and response vs the back up vocals, and I sang the lead. It’s white boy gospel. (How could it be otherwise?) A corollary to ALL IN THIS TOGETHER from our first record. Dark days have me slouching towards Bethlehem in pale hope for rescue.
Can’t thank Jane and the guys enough for giving it life.
I’LL TAKE A BULLET FOR YOU
is a masochistic love song. Had the phrase in my head for years, in particular the ‘hip’ echo: ‘even if the gun is in your hand’.
It references one of my favorite all time movies, ’Band of Outsiders’ - Godard. Black n white genius. A triangular love story with stolen cars, guns, and that iconic run through the Louvre. Best part: when two boys and one girl dance the coolest dance ever, and you can hear what each of them is thinking. All contrary, romantic and intense. Can’t beat The French Wave.
Last note: My friend, Jeila Farzaneh, was talking to this immaculate black lady at The Brendan Behan Pub. Just the two of ‘em. Before she left, the woman said ‘Honey, I want you to have this.’ and walked out. On the bar, a single bullet, upright, brass & lead, ready to fire.
BARFLY
I am he. The bloated oaf of a self before the lights (Lites) go out at the pub. When one-too-many exposes the fool that I am, sitting alone, feeling fabulous about my latest shit demo, new record, words yet to be said or written, and a flamboyant nod to the hot kid a few stools down who I’ll flatter into visiting my apartment. Good luck with that, Berlin. All in my drunken imagination. A ‘stah’ at the bah. What a joke!
Matt had an hilarious add at Bitch when he trumpeted ‘Excuse me?’ Inhabiting that last call shut-him-off idiot demanding to be served by the fuck-you bartender lady who will never oblige.
STEP BACK
Paralyzing depression is not something I know about in myself. In too many of my friends, sadly, I do. A dark tunnel so destabilizing that it seems impossible to steady in your friend’s life. You can only wait it out, hoping that he or she can surface and locate some facsimile of a lightness of being. The biggest fear of course is that they could end their life. Those who do can often conceal the seriousness of any plan to do so. There are too many ‘if only’s’ that leave us impotent, angry, and distraught.
You can’t give an aspirin or platitude advice to those who live lethal darkness.
STEP BACK is dedicated to my roommate, Ales Gang, who, with the slimmest edge of courage, who can’t get out of bed for days, still fights for relief. Who, on his teetering roller coaster, manages to survive, continue and to love.
He trained to fight (box) at the House of Blues for the Haymakers for Hope as a way to at least lessen his suffering from chronic depression. the event raised over $600K. this is what Alex wrote about why he did this:
WHY I FIGHT
I suffer from chronic depression. In the 28 years since it manifested I’ve found that exercise, working too much, and finding any excuse to get out of the damned house have been the only treatments that work. The isolation of the past two years has not been kind; if 2020 softened me up, 2021 put me down for the count. I entered December alone, jobless, and in the detox facility at Mclean Hospital.
I start the new year sober, humbled, and hungry. There are things I’ve lost I can never get back. But there’s also stuff that’s just misplaced. Maybe the biggest is a sense of purpose, an answer for that meddlesome “but what am I actually doing here” question.
One of the more insidious things about depression is how difficult it is to fight for oneself. On the flip, fighting for others isn’t. So for the next four months, the tough question has an answer: I'm here to fight for the grandmother I lost to cancer, for the stepmother I didn’t lose but could’ve, for the moments I’ve lost because I couldn’t get out of bed or the bottle. While I’m at it, maybe I’ll find some of what I've misplaced.
Dancing sneakers: Lyda and Evelyn Cabot.
Funny sidebar: When I was in grad school (an incompleted year) I loved the Art & Architecture Building - Paul Rudolf. I’d climb to the roof, belly stretched on gravel and stare down at the street 5 stories below. I’d watch my spit, an expanding golf ball, hit the sidewalk. One afternoon, when I stood up, a semi-circle of students, arms outstretched in fear I would jump, stood about 10 feet away, wanting to save me.
Of course, I was fine. Laughed it off. Others in my life? Not so cavalier.
HYMN FORGOTTEN
touches upon that slender tread connecting us all, heart and soul, even as we (existentially) exist apart. Our ‘separateness’ could be what binds as one humanity. The connection we all experience of love felt, lost, and re-imagined. A sort of hymn remembered, one that won’t hurt your knees as you kneel in phony church. Alone, we stand together.
TEENAGE GIRL
is twisted self-imagery. There I sat, at the Behan, with my legs crossed and in a feisty mood (before Covid forced my absence). God knows how I had this picture of myself as a teenage girl. Maybe it’s that part of me that identifies with the hard core emotions of a girl that age. Or a boy for that matter. Can’t say. There is something hugely profound and challenging about a kid who breaks through all walls, all of our projections of who she is supposed to be. How she is supposed to act. To look. To speak. In the end, however, it is her love for her favorite person that wins the day, calms her heart, middle finger withdrawn. I love these kids. They scare the shit outa me.
I LOVE YOU, YOU ASSHOLE
was (for real) written on the windshield of a car parked outside the Behan. In the snow. Written in the snow with one gloved finger. I loved discovering it, anonymously drawn. I saw it at least 15, 20 years ago, and it never left me. Martha to George (‘Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?’) with a smile. That, or The Perfect wedding song. I used my guys, Wasabi & Carlotta for the video as the chorus phrase perfectly applied to how they love me.