Opium Den

Opium Den's "Clandestine" is now available on CD Baby go to this link to purchase. www.cdbaby.com/opiumden : The formation: Opium Den came together in the mid 80’s in Boston. Christian Gilbert, and Mike Demma were looking for a singer for a psychedelic band they wanted to form. Annette was coming from touring with a Boston theater company. She felt disillusioned with the theater scene. “I felt theater was a dinosaur. I wanted to create something that was creatively stimulating and cutting edge.” I was auditioning guitar players. Christian and Mike saw my advertisement and we got together. It was instant synergy. We had a blast making music together. We auditioned John De Gregorio as a bass player and we liked his unique musical creativeness. Our rehearsals were much more about the ritual and transformative nature of music. During rehearsal we would light candles and incense. This translated to our live shows and we eventually played to sold out clubs.The genesis of the name: The name, Opium Den, as Annette Farrington explains, the name invokes a multi layered meaning the social context and the literal meaning of an opium den. I wanted to invoke the state of where I thought the social awareness lay. “As a nation we are asleep in an Opium Den” Asleep to consciousness and clarity. The drug being, materialism, greed, lack of connection to spirit. But also the transformative nature of being in a state of altered consciousness. we grew up in a post apocalyptic society. There was so much fear, internal and outer. I felt a need to express the emotional struggle of finding a way to maintain a sense of purpose and hope in my life. This recording of Clandestine Recorded in 1994, these songs were the last professional recordings of Opium Den. It consisted of 6 songs that come from a demo tape that the band initially made in 90 plus newer song that the band had been playing out in the clubs. All four original members are on this recording. Some of the songs were recorded at Squidly Hello studios in Jamaica Plain with Y Mike and the other part at David K studio in Cambridge with David engineering. Annette went into Master the tapes with Monte McGuire at Totally Sound Studios in 2004. The end The band was going through some personality conflicts and priorities were changing. Annette was pregnant with her fist child during this recording. Mike had just gotten married. The band had had a lot of critical success. Although they were distributed by Dutch East India they were still not signed to a record label and had no financial backing.