WTF!? our 8th record — Rick Berlin w/ the Nickel & Dime Band

OPTIONS FOR LISTENING: (TBA)

VIDEOS: (TBA)

REVIEWS (by friends, fans, anyone’s opinion): (TBA)

About WTF!?

Safe to say that although the band spent 3+ months working up the vibe, arrangements, backups, and parts to all 12 songs, Brian Charles totally owns the producer’s chair. Great bedside manner, coaching, encouragement, at times new part suggestions, and above all - the mix. Magnifying glass pinpoint ears throughout. He works fast but with tremendous accuracy. Misses nothing.

We loved every minute in there, start to finish. Highest praise. Over the top recommendation.

Why the title? The explanation you can read in that song’s description, but I would add that those three (universal?) words cover much of the lyrical content, however obliquely, as well as referencing the state of our world of late, but with hope and hopefully humor.

(The photo of us in tutus alone…)

THE BAND

Savannah Marshall (kit, percussion, back up vox) - Matt Bailin (guitar, sax, backup vox) - Ricky McLean (guitar, backup vox, lead vocal - WALKIN’ MY DOG) - David Goodchild (bass) - Jane Mangini (all keys) - Rick Berlin (lead vocals)

THE FOUR QUARTERS

Jay Souweine (trumpet) - Jack Panora (tuba) - - Matt Bailin (sax) - Mike Kaskiewicz (trombone)

BACK UP VOX (in addition to the band) Aly Sorokina - Larry Terry - Shikiboo

PRODUCER/ENGINEER/MIX/MASTERING

Brian Charles @ Rare Signals Studio

ASSISTANT ENGINEERS

Annie Hoffman - Jamie Rowe

SONGS

Rick Berlin - ASCAP - Lobsterland Publishing

STAMP of WTF!? + background art - Dianne Jenkins

ART PER SONG DESCRIPTIONS - Dianne Jenkins

GRAPHIC DESIGN - Nick Kent

ABOUT THE SONGS:

I’m not to be trusted in the dance department. As a performer or flashing hot moves. But here I go on this puppy. Dumb simple, but I’m wriggling around in my computer chair singing this shit and laughing all over again at myself. Gotta say, the groove? Irresistible. So cut ol’ lady Berlin some slack and celebrate how sharp the band is.

Matt Bailin - sax solo

The band thought this is a honky tonk piano song. I think it's punk. Go figure. Somewhere in between?

It’s also about Robby Manochio (our guitar player for 11+ years) who, before he stopped drinking, had wild nights of scant recall. One morning he found himself asleep outdoors on a hill in the snow . He’d lost his phone and had no clue a) about where he was or how he wound up there or b) where he lived.

Also, after a gulping down a full 24 can case of Miller Lites at our rehearsals at 370B, Robby, Ricky and Tom Appleman would head to Costello’s where they’d transform into their longstanding live karaoke band (who’s name we stole) for $100 and where all they could drink was on the house.

‘I don’t wanna go,’ they’d say til they got there and fell into the vibe. (There was never a song they couldn’t play.)

Listening to an Iggy Pop song the other night, I thought I should take a crack at a chorus made up of nonsense syllables. A quasi singalong. Picture pretty hippie girls with tasseled tambourines, flowers in their hair, circled up at a Kumbaya hootenanny in a field of clover. Back when the 60’s were innocent and all ya needed was love.

This song, I dunno, a bit too smarmy for today’s nasty rhetoric, but I don’t mind another temporary visit to the days of wine, roses and LSD.

Mike Kaskiewicz - trombone solo

There are, there really are many relationships, brief or full life long, that feel the fire of love and desire without diminishment. No acted upon or wished-for another. Bess and Harry Truman were like that. When the White House was being renovated, they stayed at Blair. A secret serviceman was stationed outside their door. He reportedly overheard the squeaking bedsprings.

I have friends who still hold each other in that beautiful ongoing embrace. My Uncle Carl and his wife Clair. Same thing.

For me, I have ‘em all in my heart. Still drawn to those forever young flames as if it was yesterday.

Jay Souweine - trumpet solo

How do I put this?

At rehearsal the other night, Ricky McLean (guitar) n Matt Bailin (kit) were jamming. I recorded it. They were oblivious. Got home, loaded it up and added my fav percussion: a Grape Nut box. This here is the full-on result.

I’d add that for a loud person, I am also a hider. A chronic observer baiting the observed with my anonymity. On the other hand, tho at times a tentative control freak, I quietly encourage others to jump, to shoot the moon, to bring their best selves to whatever ‘on stage’ creativity they wish. (Or so I tell myself.)

‘What’s happening?’

My weak response: ‘I have no idea’. (As in more than I can say here, and more than you’d care to listen to.)

I do like the answering phrase - ‘I’m livin’ the dream’, but I’ve never said it. (Shamus Moynihan on the other hand…)

Not sure I'm living anything like that, though I’m pretty much a lucky bastard. My life ain’t that hard. So this tune? This new song? It combines, at least to me, both points of view. The good, the bad, the ugly and the pretty. And, fk, the chorus is catchy as hell.

There was so much audio information that the mix seemed an impossible task. Brian weeded it out, brought clarity and built it straight through to the final hard stop. (‘My favorite mix’, he said.)

Matt Bailin - sax solo

Had a long ago song w this lyric: ‘a life of caution is no life at all’, which, when I think about it, as an old fuck I fail to follow. Caution signs all over my flimsy highway. On the other hand, sometimes, out of sheer why-the-fuck-not? I put my foot in it.

So this song, tho it seems more like an outtake from a McCartney children’s song written with a crayon, is about my respect, my looking up to, those who just fucking go for it, caution be damned.

As I was thinking about this record, I’d always thought it’d make a cool New Orleans jazz horn arrangement. I suggested this to Matt and he collected 4 of his pals from The Party Band (on the record as The Four Quarters – name credit goes to Jay Souweine). Brian went for a 1930’s scratchy vinyl crooner vibe and Matt thought it’d best be placed mid-stream in the sequence. As a breather, audio palate cleanser. He was so right on.

At a rehearsal/drummer audition, Ricky McLean started a jam. (I can’t ‘jam’ t save my life. I just stare at the piano and wait for it all to end.) But Ricky was burning on this riff which was so hot and hit song memorable that I recorded it on my phone, Frankenstein chopped it to pieces - which weirded out the rhythm in spots (which of course I liked), wrote the song, and posted it up on Bandcamp.

A thinly disguised musical ‘sketch portrait’ of Mr. McLean - THE through line Heart-On-His-Sleeve Dude in the band. The last man standing from the band’s original 2011 beginning. As much as anyone in my life Ricky ‘gets’ my songs, which means the world to me.

Kept this one simple. Something sacred about anticipation. Another turning page in the heart. The ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ reflection in the eyes/soul of one you love.

Jay Souweine - trumpet

A faux arena rock song musically, but silly/hilarious lyrically. It’s also an anti bullying response to the aggressive and absurd attacks on Everything LGBTQ+ these days. Picking on/punishing The Other because it’s easy, and saves yourself from being discovered as Other.

(We all know how dark forces can begin to take hold. Fear over love/empathy - the unsettling dawn of the worst version of the ‘F’ word. I’ve written, at most, 2 songs in my life that border on the ‘political’ - this is the 3rd.

After the glorious disaster that was my dinner with Mickey O’Connell Sholes resulting in not one but two nasty tickets, I heard myself say at least 20 times ‘WHAT THE FUCK!!??’ - hence this song.

And this: Way back, when the Sox were in the game, after a show at the now defunct Smokin’ Joes, after driving my nephew Sam Dudley home to Union Sq, after crossing the BU bridge, and having not had even one silly beer, this idiot shot across Comm Ave into an oncoming lane and right onto the trolley tracks. Thump, thump, bang, bang, crunch.

In 5th gear I jammed my KIA Soul off the tracks, out of the way of the oncoming train, and onto the street. The front end looked like it had broken its neck. I had no phone. Borrowed one from a shy BU student, called AAA, and Ricky McLean drove back from the Brendan Behan to wait with me. This, the ultimate WTF?! situation referenced in this ridiculous song.

Note: the photo of the upside down dude is not art from Dianne, but it was outside her house.

Matt Bailin - sax

How do I put this?

Ricky McLean used to say, here n there, that THE NICKEL & DIME BAND was the best band in town (on some nights). ‘Every night there is a band that is the best band in the world, and it’s a different band every night.’ - Bruce Springsteen (something like that). A few months back Ricky changed it to ‘the worst band EVAH!’ which is hilarious and on a suck night, probable. It’s also a reverse brag.

So, this song. Besides stealing yet another McLean quote for a chorus, I have to tip my hat to Paul Westerberg (The Replacements) who said to the crowd on a recent tour: ‘Put your hands…in your pockets’ and ‘why don’t you NOT like us on Facebook’. Which is genius patter.

Maybe a throwaway, but also a potential shot across the bow for Nickel & Dime as a last song live. We shall see.