Dave Herlihy

• Singer/Songwriter

Dave Herlihy has one of the clearest and most expressive voices the Boston rock scene has ever produced. He was most famously the singer of O Positive, a band that dared to be dramatic, even when rocking out. It’s been awhile since he’s come up with new music, but his latest batch of songs, Postcards from Kindergarten Volume 1, doesn’t disappoint. It’s not quite O Positive redux, since the sound here is more stripped-down–but it’s still got the smarts, the intrigue and of course, the voice.

Postcards has its genesis in the isolation of the COVID 19 pandemic. Like everyone else, Dave was sequestered in his home for more than a year. He seized the opportunity to begin writing songs-more than forty of them.

In 2021, once vaccines became widely-available, Dave reached out to producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Beth Burnett and he ventured to her studio in Bristol, Rhode Island. Over the next 18 months, Dave and Beth produced more than a dozen recordings. The music features Beth’s expansive production skills and Dave’s one-of-a-kind voice.

Dave says of their collaboration, “Beth and I had this understanding. Our studio sessions were going to be like hi-tech kindergarten—very spontaneous and immediate. We agreed to just get together, have fun, and make some musical postcards. We were striving for creativity with no corrections. No kindergartener ever goes back and fixes their finger paintings, they just paint one and move on to the next. So, Beth and I took a kindergartner approach in the studio, and we called the collection Postcards from Kindergarten.

The first single, “The Invisible Girl”–co-written by Herlihy, Burnett and guitarist Jeff Neuman–has all the earmarks of classic 80’s radio pop: shimmering production, guitar-hero sonics, and an unforgettable, melodic chorus. At the other end of the spectrum, “86 Years”, is a ripping alt-rock anthem that embodies the tension and release of the Pixies and Nirvana.

Postcards also features a handful of thoughtful acoustic numbers, including “It’s Alright” which may be the brightest gem of the batch. You could think of it as a pandemic song, or just one from any kind of rough patch: “It’s OK to not be OK’ is the lyric’s message. And while the song doesn’t give any easy answers, it does provide an uplifting cello riff at the end, just in time to offset Herlihy’s wail of desperation. It’s a sharp, cathartic moment from a guy who’s always specialized in them.