Day After Day #111: Talk About Love

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Talk About Love (1987)

When you're a rock fan, it's important to support your local music scene. If you're lucky enough to live in or near a decent-sized city, there's likely a bunch of local acts that are worth your time. When I started going to concerts in the '80s, I only knew about big arena shows, and those were the days when bands could routinely fill hockey rinks in major metropolitan areas. 

But once I started seeing bands in clubs, that's when my eyes really opened to the wide range of shows you could attend. And it was way more fun to be right up in front of the stage instead of way back in the rafters a mile away. 

Boston's music scene was especially healthy in the '70s and '80s with plenty of great bands playing interesting venues in the city and in the suburbs. In the '70s, there were bands like Aerosmith, the J. Geils Band, the Cars and more unique acts like Mission of Burma and the Neighborhoods. In the '80s, there was Til Tuesday, the Del Fuegos, Scruffy the Cat and later, the Pixies and Throwing Muses. 

Another Boston-area band that emerged in the '80s but got less fanfare was O Positive. Led by singer Dave Herlihy, the band formed in 1983 and soon became known locally for its earnest indie rock and its great live shows. O Positive's jangly sound and Herlihy's vocals were reminiscent of R.E.M. and the band could deliver the goods live. They released a few EPs Only Breathing and Cloud Factory, that got a lot of play on college radio and on bigger Boston stations like WBCN and WFNX. The band made videos that were played on the Boston-based music video channel V66.

"Talk About Love" is the lead track on 1987's Cloud Factory that starts with a stirring riff and finds Herlihy singing about lost love.

"I've got a flavor for the outside/Well I couldn't look away/Thinking about the book/That I read or that I wrote/And it feels like I've been read to/Talk about love."

In an interview, Herlihy says the popularity of "Talk About Love" caused Only Breathing to sell more copies at the Newbury Comics store in Harvard Square in December 1987 than any other record, even R.E.M. and U2, who were huge at the time. 

"I saw your face in the paper/You look so happy/You look right at me/I sing at your star/And I'm dying to smile but/I just couldn't be myself I had to/Think of someone else and never/Celebration day is broken/Talking about the words we should have spoken/Talk about love."

The band signed with Epic Records in 1989 and released its major label debut, Toyboat Toyboat Toyboat, in 1990. It's a great record, but the music industry was still focused on hair metal at that point so O Positive was lost in the shuffle. College radio still played them, but the label didn't pay for any videos, which at the time were hugely important for new bands. 

The band eventually left Epic and did one more album, Home Sweet Head, before splitting up in 1995. Herlihy had graduated law school before forming O Positive and became an entertainment lawyer; he's also a professor at Northeastern University. O Positive has played some reunion shows over the years (including one at the Paradise in January; see below) and Herlihy released a solo EP last year. 

I caught the band a few times at an old rock club called Grover's in Beverly, where I live. When I first moved down to this area in 1989, I went there often and saw great local acts like O Positive, Tribe, Heretix, Barrence Whitfield and the Savages, and Bim Skala Bim. But then one day, the club was closed because of failure to pay back taxes and it eventually became a restaurant. A lot of the old suburban clubs have come and gone, but there are some newer non-Boston venues for cool indie bands like Deep Cuts in Medford, Faces Brewing in Malden and Notch Brewing in Brighton and Salem (occasionally). There's still good local music out there, but you've got to look for it.