Tales From Stony Brook: BOC - the meaning of Astronomy

Of course we can no longer ask Sandy Pearlman to expand on the creation of Astronomy, but in my imagination and understanding, the beach referenced would have been an Atlantic Ocean beach rather than a Long Island Sound beach. One feature of Long Island is access to both bodies of water.

BOC did have band houses near Long Island's north shore (the Sound side) during our formative period.

I am the someone named Todd Atteberry who wrote the article. I can't recall precisely where I read the story of the beach influencing Pearlman's lyrics, though it was likely on the Hot Rails site. Joe told me about coming up with the music/arrangement walking on the beach at Eaton's Neck. I did find the quote below from an interview with Albert, who places Pearlman's beach on the north shore. And yeah, it did take about fifteen years to finish it. Luckily I've been able to see BOC around southern Illinois more often than I did in New York, so the inspiration stuck. The only thing I never was able to find out was where Buck was living when he wrote Reaper and ETI. I read it was Melville, which is of course near Sweet Hollow Road and Mt. Misery. An appropriate location for those songs, as the neighborhood still has the reputation for being haunted by everything from native American ghosts to well, ETIs. Much to the irritation of those living there I would imagine.

"There’s a place that's not too far from Stony Brook University in New York called Port Jefferson and Sandy used to have a house near there. There’s a big bay there with a huge beach where people walk their dogs. The beach is on the South shore with tons of white sand, but the beach on the North shore is all rocks, with oysters, clams, crabs, fish and seaweed – it’s sort of a nasty beach, but it’s also kind of cool. I always thought Sandy was referring to that beach on “Astronomy”, it just seemed like the right place. Sandy grew up in Smithtown where there’s maybe two local bars that have music, so the location he was referring to was probably Port Jefferson where all the Stony Brook University kids went, especially when the drinking age was 18 back then. Sandy would go there and I think that’s what gave him the basic idea for “Astronomy”.

And I just noticed that BOC is playing here in southern Illinois tonight. Good to see the strange coincidences still abound.