Brand new music.
My interview with an old friend. (Part One)
I want to tell you about the latest album from an old band mate/friend of mine. I listened to this album the other day; and I just had to write an article and share my thoughts with you. The following is a short interview I did with Jim about this new album. Check it out!
[IMAGE: The Horicon Horn Band promo photo - circa 1980].
History.
Jim Pietkivitch and I go all the way back to high school days. He and I were in the school jazz band together. It was the second semester of the 1978-79 school year. Jim was just starting out on drums, and I was just starting out on bass guitar. Jim was the first drummer I had ever played music with in a real band. We also put together a few of our own bands outside of school. I met his older brother Robert who subsequently introduced me to what was then known as “Theater Rock”. Bands like Yes, Jethro Tull, Genesis, King Crimson, Emerson, Lake and Palmer - all the kind of music that I knew very little about, at the time. Jim and Robert knew this music very well.
Once we were out of high school, Jim and I lost track of each other. I went to work full time and Jim moved out of town. We reconnected via the internet sometime about twenty years ago. However, life has a strange way of changing things at a moments notice. It would be another twenty years before Jim and I would reconnect again.
Present Day New and Cool Stuff.
Recently, Jim and I have been communicating on a regular basis. I recently found out that he just finished his latest project called “Morrow”. He sent the link to the tracks, to me - and I listened intently to each song. As you may know, music should always have some element of surprise to it. I was most definitely surprised by what I heard on this latest album.
“Morrow” is all instrumental, and reflective of Jim’s earlier album releases called: “Twilight Dreams”, “Inner Worlds”, and “Spiral Journey”. However, this particular album includes the work of guest musician Steve Hysjulien, as writer and fellow collaborator.
What do I think about it?
I am a big fan of colorful music. What do I mean by “colorful”? Well, I believe that I possess a sort of form of synesthesia called chromesthesia. I have no idea when this developed in my musical life, but I think that it had to have been early on. This new album is highly colorful in the sense that it is deeply thematic, while it surrounds you with many textures of interpretation - depending on the listener. I can imagine endless terrestrial landscapes as well as astronomical passages when I listen to each track. Every song is a portrait story line that draws you in and engulfs your senses. You of course, must close your eyes as well, when you listen - so you can engage your extra-sensory perception and allow it to take over. Put your headphones on!
The Interview - Part One.
I asked Jim and Steve to answer a handful of questions in regards to this new album.
Here is my interview:
Dave: “How would you describe your music to your listeners and what do you hope they hear?”
Jim and Steve: “We hope they hear something they like! We have a strong desire to compose music for the pure joy of artistry and emotional expression. Perhaps the listener will feel it and dig it. Some people may enjoy listening to the entire album attentively while others may like it for the atmosphere. We hope to give something personal to discover but it is all subjective.”
Dave: “Jim, I already know the answer to most of the following questions - Where did your music background come from? Perhaps you could put it into your own words, from the beginning”.
Jim: “A lot of my early music background came from my dad and brother. Their love for music helped me discover it at an early age. I remember my dad and I laying on the floor of his basement art studio listening to progressive jazz organists Jimmy Smith, Dave Brubeck, and big band music till late in the night. My dad also introduced me to a lot of classical music like Mahler’s symphony No.1, Poulenc, Bach, Rachmaninoff, and many other composers. My brother Bob was also a huge influence introducing me to Vangelis, Larry Fast Synergy, Tangerine Dream, and many classic progressive rock bands. He took me to my first concert in 1977, a Genesis show of the “Wind & Wuthering” tour in Milwaukee. This was very influential as Genesis was a top touring band in the world. Also, many influences from music I loved from the 60’s through the 80’s.
I began playing the oboe and learning music at the age of 10 and performed with school orchestras until the age of 13. I often played the family upright piano in the front cloak room. I loved the great reverberation of that room and spent many hours playing and writing as I took lessons. In 9th grade, I started drumming and found a great local teacher Joe Pulice who was a nationally known jazz drummer. Taking lessons and buying my first drum kit to practice gave me the opportunity to become the drummer for the Walden III high school jazz and horn ensembles a year later. That’s when I met Dave Garski, who is a very good friend and bass player, and we established a solid rhythm section. We also had fun playing rock/fusion outside of school. I also was involved in a heavy metal group but had very few gigs. I tried a couple professional gigs but didn’t like the direction. Soon thereafter, I joined with Paul Kollar who was a great bass player for the prog rock band St. Elmo’s Fire from the Cleveland, Ohio area. He wanted to form a new band and asked me to be his drummer. My dream then was to be in a prog rock band, and I had hopes this was going to be a great gig, but it disbanded after a couple years. In 1989, I bought my first keyboard which was a Roland D20, a multi-timbral synth which allowed me to record tracks. This was indeed a way forward for me and I continued to expand my studio and write the music for my debut album “Twilight Dreams” in 1994. Matt DePasqua, an accomplished and very talented guitarist from the Chicago area band “Image”, co-wrote the track “Cyber-Dream”. Matt also co-wrote the track “Crossing the Line”, which appears on my 1998 release, “Spiral Journey”. My third release “Inner Worlds”. in 2004 features my wife Melanie performing flute on “Skyward” and vocals on “Peaceful Valley”. Five electronic prog rock tracks and a single vocal track were left out and were later released in 2022. The single “Center of Your Soul”, again features my wife writing lyrics and performing vocals. The EP “Invasion” features my drumming on the Roland V-Drums kit. Also in 2022, I reconnected with my old friend Steve Hysjulien from when we briefly worked together in 1984. Steve is a very creative and talented musician/guitarist, and we began sharing ideas. We originally felt we were working towards an EP, but we had enough material to make an album. “Morrow”, was released on July 14th, 2024, and is a collaborative musical effort of shared ideas”.
Steve: “My music interest was initially sparked by two older cousins who shared artists and music they were listening to with me. From Hendrix to Jean-Michel Jarre and everything in between. They had great taste in music, and they helped establish the importance of music in my life. I was in the school band and totally enjoyed that experience. I earned enough during my freshman year of high school to buy a used stereo, a Telecaster clone guitar plus a small Fender amp. My best friend also bought a bass guitar and amp that year and away we both went. A new band teacher was hired and was just a few years older than us and a great piano player. He pulled us together with a classmate drummer to start learning and playing songs. So, he was also very ‘instrumental’ in my initial development.
I went to college and continued interacting with musicians plus mixing live sound during that time. My interest in covering music wasn’t there, so I started developing various ideas and chunks of music. A few years after college I rented a house with a musician that I had met in college. We ended up developing and recording (four-track Tascam) several instrumental compositions and played the arrangements live a few times as a four-piece band. I got married and life got busy, I started playing acoustic guitar around the house as my family got larger, but the acoustic brought new ideas and methods to my playing. In 2005 I bought a Pro-Tools rig and ended up recording a bunch of songs but then life got super busy again. As Jim mentioned, we reconnected as I was restoring and digitizing a bunch of music recordings and snippets for myself and others. We both were at a point in our lives where time and effort were available, and we rekindled our recording environments, and our collaboration took off. We had readily created a bunch of ideas and jams back in 1984 that I was still listening to. So, we talked about exploring if the creative chemistry was still there – which quickly returned, and music started to be invented and formed”.
Please look for the continuation of this interview in Part Two.