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Band History. Falling August frontman Daniel Sokatch and Scott Cohen (at right) met in 1986 at Brandeis University. Cohen would later say he was “annoyed” when Sokatch crashed his sit-in, where Cohen was entertaining young nubile freshmen women with acoustic blather; Sokatch rambled in with his Martin guitar and began singing.

Their harmonies were an immediate hit, and the pair began writing music and lyrics together. They connected later that year with the creative Steve “Auggie” August (below left), and Falling August was born.

While a three-guitar trio would strike some as absurd, the acoustic sounds and layered harmonies fit perfectly with the post-radical late-80s Brandeis community, and over the next several years Falling August would become a mainstay of campus life.

The Early Days

In 1989, the band began playing the Boston club scene. Auggie connected the band with manager Joanne Van Voorhis, a veteran of the local music scene (who scared the hell out of Cohen and Sokatch). While the relationship was short-lived, Joanne’s boytoy-of-the-moment, Aging Teen Idol Jon Golden, agreed to record Western World at his Roundwood Road Studios. The recording was quite rough, but the title track became a finalist in the 1991 ASCAP Boston Songwriting Workshop.

Golden played percussion on the recording and in some live gigs, but the relationship would not last.

To fill in for Golden, the band recruited bassist and Brandeis alum Ephraim Lessell. The self-professed “Greatest Songwriter in Boston”—a claim that was probably true at the time—Lessell had played guitar in the third-wave ska band Bim Skala Bim, and he contributed a thumpy slap and pop to Falling August’s musical style. Unfortunately, that relationship too was short-lived.

Brandeis alum Hillel Cooperman (left) agreed to manage the band. Cooperman—an early Mac software guru, evangelist, and devotee (who, ironically, later served a very successful decade-long stint at Microsoft)—took considerable abuse from the band, but did a good job getting Falling August into the local limelight.

In desperate need of a rhythm section (not to mention soul), the band placed an advertisement in The Boston Phoenix seeking a percussionist. Though the ad generated decent interest from some very bizarre characters—including one middle-aged lunatic who claimed he was not only “big in Japan” but served for a while as “David Bowie’s snow man”—none were as talented or likeable as Charlie Pallone. Pallone, who had previously played drums with the Michigan-based Cave Gods, brought immediate credibility to the band.

Pallone recruited former playmate Bobby Henline as bassist. Henline's talent and experience dwarfed the original three members of the band. Besides being a brilliant bassist, guitarist, and sartorialist (he once wore a skirt onstage), Henline had significant session and touring experience—he had once even toured with Bow Wow Wow (yes, that Bow Wow Wow). Basically, he elevated everyone's game.

And Falling August was complete.

The Band's Heyday

In the early '90s, Falling August checked into Oak Grove Studios to record its second album, Ends of the Earth, a recording that would include hits (a term used loosely) “Northern Border” and “Ten, Nine, Eight.” Sadly, copies of the recording would sit on the shelves at Tower Records until the music chain filed for bankruptcy in 2004.

That recording, however, ushered a period that would ostensibly become the band’s heyday. From 1991 to 1993, the band wrote its most memorable tunes (with the term “memorable” being used loosely). During that period, Falling August regularly headlined or opened for major acts at Boston’s top clubs. Many of those venues—including the Channel, Nightstage, the Rat, and the Paradise Rock Club—no longer exist. Others, such as TT the Bears and the Middle East, remain staples of the Boston music scene.

During this period, the band played with Jakob Dylan and the Wallflowers, Epic recording artist O Positive, Atlantic Records artist Melissa Ferrick, and—in a major coup for Scott Cohen, who grew up listening to the band—Miracle Legion, whose 1989 album “Me and Mr. Ray” was recorded at Prince’s Paisley Park Studios.

Running Out of Steam

While Falling August had numerous run-ins with major record labels—promises of deals seemed to come and go on a weekly basis—no recording contract ever materialized.

By 1994, the band was beginning to run out of steam. This may have been due, in part, to the fact that sister-bands like Gigolo Aunts were exploding, while Falling August was still occasionally playing to an audience of three at venues like the Green Street Grill in Jamaica Plain at 1 a.m. on a school night (and that’s the pre-gentrification Green Street Grill, folks).

And don’t even mention the Spinal-Tap-worthy gig at a Jewish summer camp in New Hampshire. There was also an embarrassing lunchtime show that was booked (unknowingly) at a UMASS-Boston cafeteria, and a promising gig at Wellesley College that was booked (idiotically) during the school's vacation.

So in one final hurrah, Falling August reentered the studio to record Work Refreshed. The recording, which included fan favorites “Every Everything” and “Nova Scotia” (with the term “fan favorites” used loosely) would be the band’s last. Shortly thereafter, interest in prolonging the inevitable began to wane; Cohen got the entrepreneurial bug, Sokatch met his soon-to-be bride, and Auggie departed for a backbacking trek across Asia...only to settle on the west coast.

Though the former band members think back with nostalgia at the Falling August era, they have no regrets; currently, four of the five band members are successful CEOs of companies or organizations on both coasts.