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Artist History ==> Web Page 4 of 26
Soon after Dombrovski began drumming for the heavy metal/hard rock band EXXESS in February 1989, Dombrovski and former RAEL band mate Ken Eros, along with co-producer/engineer/guitarist/keyboardist/electronic composer Vince Eoppolo of Wilmington, DELAWARE, U.S.A., recorded Dombrovski's first major solo effort "The World Isn't Home Yet." Eoppolo, chosen for his considerable, prolific, and demonstrable prior musical and production accomplishments in various genres, was featured in an article entitled "Discoveries" by Titus Levi on page 139 in the September 1995, 20th Anniversary issue of KEYBOARD Magazine for his recording Fragments, which contained a mind-shattering, KAFKA-inspired piece and other extreme, avant-garde, electronic works. That being said, "The World Isn't Home Yet" is an ethereal, pensive, synth-pop lament composed by Dombrovski, with an impressive vocal performance by Eros, which recognizes humanity, the heart, and Heaven have yet to reconcile.
DOMBROVSKI: On October 12, 1984, I remember jamming on drums with Vince Eoppolo on guitar and a mutual friend who introduced us, Antonio Panaccione a.k.a. Tony, on guitar. This was at Vince's home in Wilmington, DELAWARE, U.S.A. Vince was 22, Tony was 17, and I was 16. Tony and I were still in the same DELAWARE high school Vince graduated from. In high school, I remember Tony talking about this great musician who played guitar and lived close by in Wilmington, DELAWARE, which is where Tony lived. Tony and I had made some recordings in the summer and fall of 1983; Tony was on guitar, I was on drums, and there we were about one year later jamming with Vince.
DOMBROVSKI: I mean, it was obvious from the get-go Vince was more than just a rock guitarist. He was playing rich, jazzy chords with interesting voicings, you know, those kinds where you add all the tensions to the basic major and minor chords to produce hybrid chords, plus Vince knew how to exploit whatever electronic effects he had to get some real strange stuff out of the guitar. I vaguely remember seeing books and notes belonging to Vince about electronic music composition. I believe one book was The Development and Practice of Electronic Music by Jon Appleton. I knew then Vince Eoppolo was a musical test pilot.
DOMBROVSKI: Tony and Vince would work together every now and then, and sometime in 1985, I remember Tony telling me Vince obtained a TASCAM Porta One -- 4 track MiniStudio cassette recorder. Then Tony gave me a cassette tape with four Vince Eoppolo original songs on it: (1) "Heartbreak Heartache"; (2) "Urban Subculture (Dance)"; (3) "When I Think of You"; (4) "Midnight Subway Ride." Tony played guitar on the last two tracks. I listened to the tape and was amazed and blown away. I couldn't believe what I heard was possible outside a recording studio; however, it was possible because all those tracks where recorded in Vince's home on his four-track cassette recorder. I think Vince called his stuff "VIN-E MUSIC" at the time. Also, the songs were very, very good. To this day, I still love "Heartbreak Heartache." It's a jazzy/R&B/blue-eyed-soul/Brit-pop number with some great chords and melodies in it. I realized at this point how talented Vince was. Not only was he a good guitarist, but more importantly, this guy could write a catchy, singable tune. Vince sang on all the songs with vocals in them. I remember playing the tape for my father, and my father asked something like, "Why doesn't this guy have a record deal? Why isn't he famous?" Oh yeah, Vince played all the keyboards, too, and programmed the drums. For keyboards, he was playing a KORG Poly 800, which I still think has incredible sounds. The point being, this was 1985, and the technology/MIDI revolution was just starting to hit music. Vince was riding the wave at 22 or 23, I was 17, and VIN-E MUSIC overwhelmed me because I was listening to a tape from a guy from Wilmington, DELAWARE, U.S.A., that had decent vocals, cool songs, hot guitar, good keyboards, decent drums, and good production values. At 17, I thought a musician needed a record company to do all that. I just couldn't believe it was possible to do at home, and I couldn't understand why Vince didn't have a record deal, given what I felt was superlative-quality work at the time.
DOMBROVSKI: Oh man, "Urban Subculture (Dance)" by Vince was wild. It had a real progressive/jazz-fusion/funky feel to it and some decent keyboard licks. Vince performed everything. It was a concept piece, a bit cerebral. It was at this point I understood Vince knew about taking chances and was thinking beyond the commercial mainstream. You knew this was a guy who wasn't going to just limit himself to pop/rock music and play it safe. Vince was too adventurous and had too much musicianship under his belt for that, but he could do pop/rock when he felt like it. I respected that. Vince just wasn't interested in finding one acceptable musical style and exploiting it until Hell froze over.
DOMBROVSKI: I believe it was still 1985, when Tony let me listen to a song named "Calabrian Lady," which had Tony and Vince on guitars and Vince on keyboards. This thing sounded like it was coming straight out of the hills of the old country in ITALY. I could taste the olive oil and garlic. I thought it was very cool how Vince could move from genre to genre so easily. I loved the versatility. The next song was an Eoppolo original entitled "My Wish" with Vince on all acoustic guitars and vocals. It was such a beautiful acoustic and melodic love song with great harmonies and chord changes and nice lyrics. The song just spoke well. Vince was consistently musical and interesting to my ears, and he knew how to record and mix his material, the result always being a recording with good production values, pleasant to listen to.
DOMBROVSKI: After our October-1984 jam session, I wasn't in contact with Vince, but every now and then something interesting of his would come my way. I believe it was around April 1987, when I heard "Appassionato," written by Vince and Tony Panaccione, with Vince performing all instruments. It was a lush, samba-esque, Brazilian-jazz tune filled with nice chord changes; so I knew Vince was still making music. There was also "We Belong Together," done on his four-track cassette recorder, which had lush, 10CC-like backing vocals, and a cool, dive-bomb guitar solo. It was a cool, pop ballad about an ending romantic relationship. At that time in 1987, I was drumming in the band RAEL. Well, circa December 1987, I wrote a song entitled "Sherry," and I was demo-ing various arrangements with different singers and guitarists. I finally settled on a version with the singers in RAEL and Tony Panaccione on guitar. I played keyboards and my brother programmed the drums. I guess through Tony Panaccione, the final cut of "Sherry" made its way to Vince sometime after January 1988. I remember Tony telling me Vince said, "I didn't know Joe could write like that." I was probably no more than some teenage drummer in Vince's mind he jammed with several years ago, but I think Vince noticed "Sherry" had some nice chords in it: Cm7, Gm7/Ab, Fdim, Eb/Ab, Abmaj9, Fm7; so I'm guessing "Sherry" had some appeal for Vince.
DOMBROVSKI: By March 1989, I was out of the power-pop/rock band RAEL, and I was drumming in the heavy metal/hard rock band EXXESS; however, I was still writing and trying to develop my own material. I wanted to complete a three-song demo of my original material with an outside producer, but with me leading the show, which is something I wasn't able to do yet as a drummer in bands. I thought an outside producer could possibly take things to a higher level than I could alone. Primarily, I wanted a demo with good production values. Vince Eoppolo was my first and only choice because his were the only ears in town I trusted, especially after hearing his music, and I enjoyed his aesthetic. He was a good engineer, too, and very resourceful with the limited amount of studio gear he had at that time. Also, I knew his tastes were as broad as mine. I mean, my record collection consisted of: GENESIS, THE POLICE, YES, RUSH, Bob Dylan, THE KINKS, LED ZEPPELIN, QUEEN, Jeff Beck, AC/DC, SUN RA, MOLLY HATCHET, RAINBOW, JIMI HENDRIX, FRANK ZAPPA, BLUE OYSTER CULT, BLACK SABBATH, JOURNEY, JUDAS PRIEST, PINK FLOYD, THE MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA, THE BEATLES, Al Di Meola, Pat Metheny, MILES DAVIS, Jean-Luc Ponty, The Choir of Trappist Monks of the Benedictine Abbey, En Calcat, FRANCE, SQUEEZE, MISSING PERSONS, KING CRIMSON, Robert Fripp, U2, Thomas Dolby, XTC, UTOPIA, Todd Rundgren, THE ROLLING STONES, Chick Corea, UK, Neil Young, Claude Bolling, THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS, DURAN DURAN, VAN HALEN, MOZART, WAGNER, Jean-Michel Jarre, BACH, Lou Reed, BENNY GOODMAN, THE CARS, Gino Vannelli, BRAND X, Mike Oldfield, BILL WITHERS, KRAFTWERK, TALKING HEADS, The Max Roach Quintet, BUDDY RICH, BEETHOVEN, Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Paul Simon, SPYRO GYRA, Billy Joel, etc.
DOMBROVSKI: Also, my father was a music aficionado, and through him I was exposed to: Little Richard, THE JIVE BOMBERS, Stevie Wonder, CURTIS MAYFIELD, BARRY WHITE, Isaac Hayes, MARVIN GAYE, Al Green, Michael Jackson, George Shearing, DIZZY GILLESPIE, STEELY DAN, etc. My father also liked country, so I heard a lot of Ricky Skaggs, Merle Haggard, and HANK WILLIAMS. You know, I didn't realize I liked HANK WILLIAMS so much until I noticed I kept singing HANK's song "Jambalaya":
"Good-bye Joe, me gotta go, me oh my oh
Me gotta go pole the pirogue down the bayou
My Yvonne, the sweetest one, me oh my oh
Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the bayou
(Chorus)
Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and file' gumbo
'Cause tonight I'm gonna see my ma cher amio
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-o
Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the bayou
Thibodeaux, Fontainenot, the place is buzzin
Kinfolk come to see Yvonne by the dozen
Dress in style and go hog wild, me oh my oh
Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the bayou"
DOMBROVSKI: I had a feeling Vince could open his eyes wide enough to see a world going from jambalaya to atom bombs, and he would want to write songs about it. To use his phrase, Vince was "full-tilt bozo." Another reason I wanted to work with Vince was I also heard two demos Vince produced, arranged, engineered, and mixed, plus wrote and performed most of the music for. The first was named LYNN, and the second was named LYNN X. Both were done in Vince's home studio using a TASCAM Porta One -- 4 track MiniStudio cassette recorder, and they still sound great to my ears. I would put them up against anything done in local studios in DELAWARE, U.S.A. They're little gems in the rough of it all. The LYNN demos came about after someone sent a girl named "Lynn" Vince's way. Lynn was a singer and lyricist, and Lynn needed music created for her words. Someone highly recommended Vince to Lynn, so Lynn decided to work and record with Vince. Lynn took care of all the lyrics and lead vocals, and Vince handled all the instruments, music, and backing vocals. Both LYNN demos have an overall sleazy, underground, alternative feel to them with a slight techno-ambiance because of the programmed drums. The first demo begins with a song entitled "Vintage Love," which features some chunky-blues rhythm guitar and blistering-blues lead guitar work from Vince. The next track, "You Stopped My Heart," is a nice, little pop number featuring some very-jazzy chord changes on the keyboard. Then we get to "Tongue In Cheek," which is very haunting, lyrical, and pretty. It's very artistic. Finally, the demo ends with "Love Through Gloves," which sounds very funky, decadent, and sleazy. There's some blistering guitar work on it. There's good prosody between the words and music of this song, given the bohemian subject matter.
DOMBROVSKI: Now we're on to the second demo LYNN X. It begins with "Punk Pretty," which is an aggressive, punkish number, with cool guitar licks from Vince. Next, there's "Angel," which is keyboard dominated and features a nice keyboard solo performed by Vince. Then comes "Bordello Boy," which is just totally outside from start to finish, just outright strange and very cool. Finally, the demo ends with "The Invocation," which is very mysterious, haunting, and lyrical. It's some kind of tone poem.
DOMBROVSKI: Vince wasn't one-dimensional. Working with Vince meant working with a huge palette of sonic colors and working with someone possessing an expansive tonal vocabulary. It was pretty obvious stepping outside stylistic boundaries didn't make Vince nervous. He was into making artistic statements. I wanted Vince to help me complete my project because he was bringing so many demonstrable accomplishments to the table, which I heard with my own ears--and the price was cheap!
DOMBROVSKI: On March 6, 1989, I dropped off a package of my lyrics entitled Precision at Vince's home, and I believe a tape containing some originals I wrote, which were recorded and performed by my now-former band RAEL: "Sherry," "Gimme' Your Love," "You Move Me," "Run to Me," "Scorpio," "Baby I Believe," and "Your Love." Vince told me that day he was willing to produce my demo. Incidentally, I just joined the heavy metal/hard rock group EXXESS as drummer. On April 3, 1989, Vince and I got together and set a tentative date to begin work on my demo. On April 10, 1989, Vince and I sequenced a couple of song ideas, and I played a few other ideas on the keyboard. Vince picked four ideas he liked, among them "The World Isn't Home Yet." Work began on "The World Isn't Home Yet" on May 31, 1989. By June 21, 1989, the instrumental tracks were done, but the vocals tracks didn't exist for "The World Isn't Home Yet." On July 13, 1989, Ken Eros, former vocalist for my former band RAEL, was given a tape without vocals of the demo I was working on. On July 16, 1989, Ken and I rehearsed "The World Isn't Home Yet." On July 19, 1989, Ken recorded the lead vocal track for "The World Isn't Home Yet" at Vince's home studio. On July 31, 1989, Vince and I were mixing down "The World Isn't Home Yet" when part of Ken's vocal track was erased by accident. On August 3, 1989, Ken was back at Vince's home studio, and the vocal track was corrected. On August 7, 1989, Vince and I did the final mixdown, and my project was finished. Thanks to Vince, it was really the first thing I'd done on my own that was close to sounding like a professional CD or album. Creating a demo with good production values was just a step that had to be taken.
DOMBROVSKI: On August 20, 1989, I gave a copy of that demo to a local producer/musician/writer named RUDY RUBINI, who had contact with A&M RECORDS. Mike Walker, the lead guitarist in the hard rock band EXXESS I was drumming in at the time, saw RUDY on September 24, 1989. RUDY thought I had some talent. I felt good about that because I wasn't trying to shop the demo around or land a deal; I just wanted to see how the world would react to something I was ultimately responsible for that had decent production values. I'm glad RUDY even bothered listening.
DOMBROVSKI: You know, having Vince Eoppolo produce my first demo with decent production values was cool because Vince brought some nice influences to my tunes, especially "The World Isn't Home Yet." In that summer of 1989, Vince was in transition from his "THE GHETTO PONIES" period (primarily instrumentals combining jazz, funk, R&B, and pop) to his "Electronic Music" period. Vince's electronic music eventually received praise from Jon Appleton, author of The Development and Practice of Electronic Music and music professor at DARTMOUTH. The UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE played Vince's music on their classical music program, and KEYBOARD Magazine gave Vince a decent review, which brought Vince some international recognition, especially from GERMANY. The point being, I was lucky to work with a guy who refused to be pigeonholed into one style. Don't forget, all this stuff was coming out of a residential room in Wilmington, DELAWARE, U.S.A., not a commercial recording studio.
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Artist History ==> Web Page 4 of 26