Some people feel compelled to tell a very specific story. They build a universe in their mind and fill it with characters and then spend years trying to attract an audience for that story. No peace shall they find until they get it fully out of their head.
Writers… ya know?
Julian Jay Savarin was born in the Dominican Republic, but his imagination lived in space. The best he could do in reality was moving to the UK in 1962 at the age of 12. By the end of the decade he formed a band called Julian’s Treatment and served as its organist and main songwriter.
The group’s debut album, 1970’s A Time Before This, told the story of the last surviving man from Earth and his travels across space, where he eventually meets an alien lady and falls in love and helps her overthrow an evil princess. And some other stuff happens, too.
The album wasn’t successful and Julian’s Treatment broke up, but Savarin was able to record a second album under his own name in 1971. It told a tale of the last surviving man from Earth and his travels across space, where he eventually meets an alien lady and falls in love and helps her overthrow an evil princess.
Savarin recorded yet another album in 1974, although it wasn’t released at the time. Can you guess what it’s about?
Having failed to interest a wide audience in his musical space opera, Savarin decided that in order to truly do justice to his fantasy epic, he needed to take a more direct and explicit approach. On a record, even a double album, you have to leave out a lot of information. So instead, he sat down and wrote Waiters On The Dance, the first book of what became known as The Lemmus Trilogy.
Once he finally got that story out of his system, Savarin became a prolific author of action thrillers, writing close to 30 more books over the next few decades.
But he started the story with Julian’s Treatment as the vehicle. Featured here is the “Eleventh Chapter: Strange Things,” with vocals by Cathy Pruden. It’s not clear what the song has to do with the larger concept, but it can be enjoyed on its own, with Cathy belting out a catchy slice of ominous prog-rock and Savarin creating a spacy, sci-fi atmosphere with his organ:
