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Artist History ==> Web Page 12 of 26
Concerning Dombrovski's self-imposed hiatus from drumming, there were two exceptions. In October 1995, Dombrovski was involved as drummer in preproduction rehearsals with recording artist/tenor-voiced singer/songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist Mario Padovani and the aforementioned Tim Sands of RARE FORM on bass for Padovani's upcoming, solo studio project. The three musicians were in two studios recording throughout October, November, and December 1995, in addition to January 1996, starting at TUNE ROOM STUDIOS in Wilmington, DELAWARE, U.S.A., and finishing in Marc Moss' TARGET STUDIOS in Elkton, MARYLAND, U.S.A. Dombrovski and Sands were also involved in the mixing of Padovani's three-song solo project in July 1996 at TARGET STUDIOS; additionally, Dombrovski was with Padovani in August 1996 monitoring the mastering of Padovani's recording at MASTERWORK RECORDING, Inc. in Philadelphia, PENNSYLVANIA, U.S.A., by gold-and-platinum-record chief mastering engineer Peter Humphreys. Humphreys' credits included gold-and-platinum dates for Teddy Pendergrass, Lou Rawls, and many others. The result was a three-song adult contemporary recording produced by Padovani containing the tracks "I Won't Give Up," "Casual Kisses," and "Love Will Find a Way," all composed and sung by Padovani.
DOMBROVSKI: Mario and I go WAY BACK. I was nine years old when I first became aware of Mario's presence in 1977 because I began attending the same DELAWARE-U.S.A. grade school as Mario. Mario was the guy on the playground surrounded by all the girls because he was the one with the guitar singing ELVIS PRESLEY love songs to them. Incidentally, I'm about six months older than Mario. Oh yeah, Mario was also the guy who would beat the living crap out of you if you dared suggest KISS was better than LED ZEPPELIN, although I still think Destroyer by KISS is a great recording no matter how hard Mario beats my head in. Even at that tender age of nine, Mario could do a mean Robert Plant vocal impression, plus he could riff like Jimmy Page on the guitar. Mario was also studying and singing opera at the time; furthermore, he was studying composition and music theory, all with a private teacher. He could also play CHOPIN and BEETHOVEN on the piano, an instrument Mario had some serious classical-music-influenced chops on. Mario had good knowledge of the blues and ELVIS. Mario was probably the only nine-year-old who knew what the hell ROCK-AND-ROLL was really about, which are those things you don't discuss in polite company, but in private with a fine young lady. SEE ELVIS PRESLEY's "Baby, Let's Play House" in reference. Mario was working very hard at music for a nine-year-old kid. We're talking vocals, piano, guitar, and composition.
DOMBROVSKI: Well, I was 10 years old when VAN HALEN's self-titled debut album was released on February 10, 1978. Rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen made history on that recording. It wasn't long after that a young guy Mario and I were in school with named Bob Enloe took up the guitar. I'm pretty sure Bob's first teacher was a guy named Sam Stipo. I think Sam eventually taught Bob how to play Eddie Van Halen's monster guitar solo "Eruption" from VAN HALEN's self-titled debut recording. That was the guitar solo that began the entire guitar "shredding" revolution. Anyway, sometime after July 31, 1980, when AC/DC released Back in Black, which contained their big hit "You Shook Me All Night Long", and when Mario, Bob, and I were 13, the three of us had a little rock group with the tentative working name "METAL."
DOMBROVSKI: We made some recordings in Mario's basement. Two that I'm aware of were "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC and an original entitled "Basement Jam" by METAL. Mario played lead guitar, Bob was on rhythm guitar, and of course, I was playing drums. My brother, Dave Anthony, was playing percussion on those tapes, probably not by choice, but I was bigger than he was back then, although my brother began playing drums when he was seven, four years before I began. I remember a dude named Troy banging like crazy on some bongos my brother and I brought over to Mario's place. I don't remember the exact date of this, it was probably 1981, but Mario also played a cool, solo guitar piece entitled "Death of My Girlfriend Bolero," which he had written and I named.
DOMBROVSKI: Some of my earliest recollections of playing drums include playing along to VAN HALEN's "Runnin' With the Devil" and VAN HALEN's cover version of "You Really Got Me." This was sometime in 1979, when I was eleven years old. I used to play along to THE CARS a lot, too. I suppose I took up the drums because it was a matter of convenience. My brother Dave Anthony began playing when he was seven, and he began on a little block of wood that had a rubber pad on it. My brother didn't have a drum set yet. He was allowed to play the drum set belonging to the first teacher my brother was taking lessons from at those lessons, but that teacher made my brother practice on that little block of wood when my brother went home. I think my father decided to invest in a drum set for my brother after my brother's first teacher said my brother actually had genuine talent. I think my father bought my brother a drum set sometime in 1977. It was a used drum kit, and I remember the price being around $40, but I may be wrong. I remember my brother playing this used drum set to FOREIGNER's hit "Feels Like the First Time." There's a real cool drum lick in there between the bass drum and snare that goes like, "OOM-BOP-BA-DA BOP-BA-DA BOP!" My brother was real young, and he could nail that lick. I remember my father being impressed with how my brother could easily coordinate all four of his limbs. My point is, watching my brother were my first tacit drum lessons. I wasn't just randomly banging when I first sat behind the drums because, thanks to my brother, I had a concept of how to approach the drums. I was a young kid; I had an entire drum kit at my disposal; and I could play along with records made by great bands, like VAN HALEN and THE CARS. That's a pretty satisfying and rich experience for an 11-year-old kid. It was self-motivating. Plus, I could look at the drum instruction books my brother had. I was aware there was technique involved with playing the drums, although I did have a tendency to wail away like a madman. I just liked the sound of that onslaught of acoustic energy the drums could release. It's just a lot of power to put into the hands of a child, acoustically speaking. Most kids couldn't legally make that much noise. I could under the pretense of making something supposed to be music. I was already enjoying the chartered privileges of artistic license.
DOMBROVSKI: Back to Mario, I know we made recordings of various jam sessions in my basement. Usually, Mario was on electric guitar, my brother was on drums, and I would jump in on my brother's drums occasionally. I more or less tried to play producer and engineer. I pushed the record buttons and bossed everybody around, but I rudely discovered musicians have a mind of their own. The three of us were recorded on a cassette tape I entitled Soundchitecture. Mario, my brother Dave, and I recorded the jam sessions containing the three of us on August 8, 1983, when Mario was 15, my brother was 14, and I was 15. By that time, Mario and I were attending different high schools, but we would still run into each other occasionally when school was out for summer vacation.
DOMBROVSKI: This was around the time (circa 1983) I discovered overdubbing. I bought a little REALISTIC four-channel audio mixer at RADIOSHACK. That mixer had eight input jacks, two per input channel. Each input channel had a 1/4"-phone-plug input jack and an RCA input jack. That mixer also had two 1/4"-phone-type output jacks, left and right. I would have the musicians record their backing parts to a cassette tape being recorded on a consumer cassette deck, the resulting cassette being in stereo, left and right, because consumer cassette decks recorded two tracks simultaneously. Next, I would plug the RCA left and right outputs of my PANASONIC boombox/ghettoblaster into two input channels of the mixer, transfer the cassette tape from the other cassette deck to the PANASONIC boombox's cassette player, and I'd play back that cassette tape of the musicians playing I'd just recorded. That was the stereo backing tracks. I'd plug two microphones into the remaining two channels of the audio mixer, and I'd record the musicians playing or singing along with the cassette backing tracks they'd just made, which they were listening to through headphones plugged into the PANASONIC boombox. Obviously, the headphones were necessary to prevent the backing tracks from bleeding into the microphones. I couldn't play the backing tracks through the boombox speakers because of the audio-bleed reason. The net result was the audio mixer was combining two backing stereo tracks, left and right, of music coming from a boombox cassette player with two channels, left and right, of a live musical performance coming from two microphones. These four channels of input were mixed into two stereo channels of output, left and right, and recorded on the other cassette deck.
DOMBROVSKI: Effectively, what I was doing was taking two separate, distinct, and discrete performances recorded at completely different times, and I was merging them together to form one greater composite performance. I really had no idea Les Paul used a similar sound-on-sound technique on his 1947 recording "Lover," which had an overdubbed, multilayered arrangement of eight guitars. Also, one of the things I recorded in August 1983 was a 15-year-old Mario Padovani performing ELVIS PRESLEY's version of "That's All Right, Mama." I think ELVIS recorded that in July 1954 on SUN RECORDS in Memphis, TENNESSEE, U.S.A.; so there we were about 29 years later, 15-year-old kids functioning as living proof of how completely and widely Les Paul and ELVIS changed everything in the music business. I say that because I believe this was one of the first times Mario ever overdubbed his vocals on top of his own rhythm guitar playing and to do that Mario chose a song ELVIS PRESLEY covered about 29 years earlier. I was the man who captured Mario on tape using a recording technique similar to that first utilized by Les Paul. Les Paul brought the technical innovations that forever changed the sound of popular music and how it was made, while ELVIS brought Rhythm-n-Blues a.k.a. Rock-n-Roll to the world at large soon afterwards.
DOMBROVSKI: After that summer of 1983, I remember my next big encounter with Mario occurring circa August 1987. I'd just written and recorded this weird and eerie piece entitled "Derelict Fairies," and I was driving along listening to it on the car stereo at an extremely late hour on a very dark, brooding night near Newport, DELAWARE, U.S.A. The streets were completely deserted, except for the sole figure of someone whom I thought was doing a damn good impression of a madman or lunatic, furiously ambulating towards some Godforsaken destination. I was frightened, but because this blackest of nights was providing the perfect ambiance for my "Derelict Fairies," I decided approaching the ghastly madman might further enhance the macabre pleasures of the evening. I pulled the car up to the sidewalk upon which the grim man was stomping forward; I rolled down the passenger-side window; I leaned over; I looked out, and I recognized an extremely agitated Mario Padovani. I insisted he jump in the car with me, which Mario did, and I subjected him to the horrid and odd delights of "Derelict Fairies" and other sullen pieces of music I was involved with as we drove nowhere through the black night. I then dropped Mario off, having much further provoked whatever spiritual turbulence was then afflicting Mario. This was 1987, and we both graduated from the separate high schools we'd attended. We drifted apart and lost touch for most of those high school years. Unfortunately for Mario, I was back. Mario was 19 and I was 19.
DOMBROVSKI: I was drumming in the band RAEL in 1987 and 1988. Not long after our "Derelict Fairies," circa August 1987 encounter, I played Mario the version of my original song "Sherry," which I'd just finished recording in January 1988 using the vocalists from RAEL. After that, I'm pretty sure early 1988 was the time Mario and I recorded an original song of his entitled "Remember the Night." I played drums on it, and Mario was on vocals, guitar, bass, and keyboards. That's when I remember hearing some other original songs Mario cut in his basement on his four-track cassette recorder. Mario sang and played all the instruments except the drums. Those Padovani originals were: "Keep Away from My Girl," "Little Lover," and a very harmonically rich instrumental piece I never learned the title of. My brother Dave Anthony played drums on Mario's "Keep Away from My Girl." I still enjoy listening to those songs. They kinda' sound like a very bluesy WHITESNAKE mixed with LED ZEPPELIN, with the exception of the lush, harmonically rich instrumental piece, which sounds like something cherubs would listen to in Heaven.
DOMBROVSKI: On July 19, 1988, I spent time in OHM STUDIO in Wilmington, DELAWARE, U.S.A., while Mario was cutting a major three-song demo. I was just an observer. I was there from 12:00 a.m. until 6:00 a.m. The late RUDY RUBINI was producing. Our grade school buddy Bob Enloe played lead guitar on the track "After the Tears." There were two other tracks on that demo: "Angel of My Dreams" and "Midnight Angel." All three songs were written and sung by Mario, plus Mario played guitars and keyboards. The other musicians included Bob Corrado on bass, Ritchie Rubini on drums, and RUDY RUBINI on keyboards. I would say this was probably the biggest production Mario was involved with up to that time. I think Mario learned a lot about producing and the tricks of the trade from RUDY during the making of that demo. The demo sounds polished and punchy.
DOMBROVSKI: RUDY RUBINI had a lot of studio production experience because he logged a lot of hours at WAREHOUSE STUDIOS in Philadelphia, PENNSYLVANIA, U.S.A., under producer Lance Quinn. Lance Quinn was one of the producers on BON JOVI's self-titled, 1984 MERCURY release, which featured the hits "Runaway" and "She Don't Know Me." RUDY sang and recorded background vocals for Lita Ford, Nils Lofgren, APRIL WINE, SKID ROW, etc. Again, the end result was Mario had a very polished and punchy demo on his hands thanks to RUDY.
DOMBROVSKI: About a year later, in July 1989, I was drumming for the heavy metal/hard rock band EXXESS, and the band was cutting a demo tape at SOUND LAB STUDIOS in Newark, DELAWARE, U.S.A. We invited Mario to the studio, and Mario laid down keyboard parts on two tracks. About another year later, circa July 1990, Mario was trying to put a band together, and he wanted me on drums, with Mike Walker (formerly of EXXESS at that point in time because EXXESS was disbanded) on guitar. That never happened because Mario found it tough lining up the remaining personnel. From July 16, 1990, to August 8, 1990, Mario and I planned on working with Vince Eoppolo, producer of my first major solo effort "The World Isn't Home Yet." The three of us met, and Mario and I later cut some tracks outside Vince's studio for Vince to listen to, but things didn't work out due to creative differences with Vince. On August 11, 1990, at Mario's little home studio, Mario and I began cutting a song Mario primarily wrote entitled "Tell Me You're Mine." I think I may have added some vamps and maybe a bridge, in addition to some arranging and orchestration ideas to the track, but it was primarily Mario's song. We spent a lot of hours producing and engineering that tune to the point where we both discovered if you spend too much time recording, you'd develop a serious case of ear fatigue. That track was finished on August 18, 1990, but Mario's four-track cassette recorder developed some serious problems and stretched the master tape, which screwed up the pitch. We managed to salvage the song somehow and got a final mix of "Tell Me You're Mine" onto cassette.
DOMBROVSKI: On September 2, 1990, Tim Sands, Mario, and I began working on Mario's song "Can't Let Go." On September 25, 1990, I was at Tim Sand's Wilmington-DELAWARE-U.S.A. home recording studio, while Mario, former-lead-singer-for-EXXESS Mark Ridley, and Mindy Cintron put down background vocals to Mario's song "Can't Let Go." On October 13, 1990, Tim Sands, former-lead-guitarist-for-EXXESS Mike Walker, Mario, and I finished "Can't Let Go."
DOMBROVSKI: By taking the time to make and produce our own little demos, both separately and collaboratively, I think Mario and I were beginning to truly understand creating a musical recording requires TWO distinct artistic performances. There's the actual musical performance from the musicians, and then there's another performance, requiring just as much technique, taste, and skill, from the recording team, usually comprising the engineer and producer. You cannot simply record a musical performance; you PERFORM the recording, too. You begin to appreciate this after you spend time trying to determine why your recordings don't sound like the music on the radio. You're trying to recreate the "feel" of a band of musicians performing live, and that "feel" includes the charisma and ambiance of the group. Capturing individual musical performances on tape, then "sculpting" those sounds to create such a "feel," and finally transferring all that to a piece of plastic that recreates said "feel" for the end listener, is a subtle task. Learning the art of it takes time and experience.
DOMBROVSKI: From March 24, 1991, through March 26, 1991, Mario and I were in Boston, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A., with John Dougherty, whom both of us were privately studying jazz theory with. John Dougherty brought Mario and me, along with five other of his students, to Boston to tour BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC. John Dougherty is a BERKLEE alumnus and knew a lot of the faculty there. On September 2, 1991, Mario and I were sharing a dorm room at BERKLEE because the two of us were now attending the music college. While Mario and I were at BERKLEE, we recorded a couple of tunes in a makeshift recording studio we set up in our dorm room.
DOMBROVSKI: One of the songs we worked on was entitled "Every Time We Touch." It was originally an instrumental entitled "Mariko-san," which I wrote circa June 1990. Mario and I renamed it "Every Time We Touch." Mario put vocal melodies and lyrics on top of the music. Circa July 1990, Mario and I were working on that song in Wilmington, DELAWARE, U.S.A. At BERKLEE in Boston, we resumed working on the song on October 4, 1991. We were going to enter it in a BERKLEE songwriting contest. At that point in time, I was handling the sequencing and MIDI issues, plus the drums, keyboards, and synth-bass. Mario handled keyboard voicings, lead vocals, and background vocals. We were both handling the overall sound. Mario asked a BERKLEE student and vocalist named Mia to sing backup on "Every Time We Touch." She liked the song and agreed. On October 16, 1991, Mario, Mia, and another BERKLEE student layed down the background vocals. Oh yeah, that was also the day Mario became extremely angry with me regarding an instrumental breakdown section of the tune. He hated my idea concerning that particular part of the song, but I insisted. I remember Mario furiously slamming the door behind him as he stomped away to go get the background singers--Ah, the joys of musical collaboration! We both finally agreed I would get my way because I wrote the original music for the song, but Mario said he still hated that part. On October 17, 1991, we abandoned "Every Time We Touch" despite all the worked we'd put into it. We'd just recorded Mario's lead vocal track, but since there was so much going on in the music the lead vocal did not sit well in the mix. The song sounded extremely cluttered. That was a valuable lesson concerning production overkill.
DOMBROVSKI: The next time I was in major contact with Mario was on March 21, 1992. I was, for all intents and purposes, stranded in Los Angeles, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., and I was talking to Mario from a pay phone. Mario offered to send me some money. When I returned to DELAWARE, U.S.A., I was in contact with Mario on April 14, 1992, and we talked about doing something musical together. On May 21, 1992, Mario and I were setting up his recording equipment in the basement of his home. For the rest of 1992, and for a little more than half of 1993, I was drumming in various bands. The remainder of 1993, and about the first half of 1994, I spent acquiring recording gear and recording my music using said gear. At night, Mario and I spent a lot of time in a little doughnut shop somewhere between Newark and Wilmington, DELAWARE, discussing all things music and music-related.
DOMBROVSKI: In May 1994, I set up my drums and some stage gear I purchased in Mario's basement. I needed somewhere to store that stuff, and Mario was kind enough to allow me to store those things at his place. Unfortunately, circa August 1994, Mario's basement flooded, and I had to move my very wet equipment somewhere else.
DOMBROVSKI: By August 1994, I was living in an apartment in Stanton, DELAWARE, U.S.A., and my home recording studio, which I named "TOXIC STUDIOS," was in operation. I helped Mario record a demo of his song "Casual Kisses" at TOXIC STUDIOS. We started work on August 20, 1994, and finished the next night.
DOMBROVSKI: From August 1994 until October 1995, I was pretty busy recording at TOXIC STUDIOS. I was involved in several recording projects. When I wasn't busy in the apartment studio, Mario and I would often get together to discuss and listen to music. On October 1, 1995, Mario played me some home demos of his songs made with Tim Sands' assistance. Mario was planning on recording this newer material in a proper commercial recording studio using backing musicians, myself among them. I think this is when Mario decided to begin producing his own relatively major and expensive recording projects himself because RUDY RUBINI, the producer of Mario's previous 1988 major demo, died on January 28, 1994, at the age of 36 in Wilmington, DELAWARE, U.S.A. RUDY and Mario enjoyed a good rapport, and I don't believe Mario thought there was another producer in the area that could replace RUDY. Back to using a commercial recording studio--Mario wanted live drums, and I couldn't use live drums in my apartment-based studio because live drums were obviously too loud for the neighbors. Plus, the soundproofing in most apartments is nonexistent, which meant the neighbors' comings and goings, slamming of doors, and starting of cars would possibly end up on tape. Also, those things disrupt the vibe and mood of a recording session. Another major problem with my semipro home recording/project studio was the acoustics of my apartment. In general, commercial studios spend more money on acoustic design, and sometimes there's post-construction work done by a professional acoustician to get rid of any remaining acoustic problems. In my apartment, there was negligible structural isolation; furthermore, the apartment wall construction, floor construction, and window construction there did not really support recording when push came to shove. Another problem was I didn't have an acoustically-separated control room; obviously, I couldn't build one because the apartment managers wouldn't allow that. In short, my apartment-based, semipro home recording/project studio suffered from some very serious limitations from a professional standpoint. At least, that's what I believe I was thinking when I supported Mario's decision to professionally record his home-demo'd songs in a commercial recording studio. We then picked up my drums and my stage monitoring system, both stored in my grandmother's house. The next day we set everything up in Mario's basement. On October 3, 1995, Mario was on vocals and keyboards, Tim Sands was on bass, and I was on drums, the three of us rehearsing Mario's original material. This was preproduction rehearsal, and we recorded everything on a boombox cassette recorder.
DOMBROVSKI: The preproduction rehearsals were time well spent before going into the recording studio; when we listened to the quick-and-dirty recordings of those rehearsals, we noticed things sounded sloppy and too busy. It was better to discover this before we went into the studio because studio time isn't free, and it becomes rather expensive trying to fix those problems in the recording studio. Mario, Tim, and I continued preproduction rehearsals through October 14, 1995.
DOMBROVSKI: On October 17, 1995, Mario and I were in TUNE ROOM STUDIOS in Newport, DELAWARE, U.S.A., working on guide parts for Mario's songs: "Casual Kisses," "I Won't Give Up," and "Love Will Find a Way." On October 21, 1995, I was laying down the drum tracks for those tunes. On October 29, 1995, I was in the studio with Mario helping Tim Sands lay down his bass tracks. After that, I believe Mario was in the studio without me laying down his vocal, keyboard, and guitar tracks. On November 11, 1995, Mario and I were listening to rough mixdowns of the tunes. On November 14, 1995, Mario and I agreed there was a problem with the feel of the songs, and it was about that time Mario decided he was going to try to re-record those songs at another studio named "TARGET STUDIOS." On November 24, 1995, Mario and I were in TARGET STUDIOS. I recorded the drum tracks for: "I Won't Give Up," "Casual Kisses," and "Love Will Find a Way." Mario layed down guide vocals and keyboard parts for bassist Tim Sands. On November 27, 1995, Mario and I were researching the mastering process because Mario wanted this project acoustically complete, and mastering is that final step. On December 18, 1995, Mario and I were in TARGET STUDIOS while Tim Sands layed down his bass tracks to the three songs. On January 1, 1996, Mario and I were back in TARGET STUDIOS, and it was cold as DANTE's Hell outside. Mario layed down his keyboard tracks. I think Mario liked to have me around, even though I wasn't performing on any tracks at that time, because he needed an outside ear to make sure he wasn't getting too off-track. Mario liked having the opinion of another listener. On March 15, 1996, Mario played me a rough demo of the tunes. Mario was in TARGET STUDIOS earlier recording the guitar tracks. On May 15, 1996, Mario and I were discussing MASTERWORK RECORDING, Inc. in Philadelphia, PENNSYLVANIA, U.S.A., as the place to have Mario's project mastered. On July 8 and 9, 1996, Mario, Tim, and I were in TARGET STUDIOS mixing down Mario's three songs. On July 16, 1996, Mario was happy with the mix, and on August 12, 1996, Mario and I were at MASTERWORK RECORDING, Inc. in Philadelphia listening while Peter Humphreys mastered Mario's project. I was 28. Mario was 28. About 19 years had passed since 1977, when we were first in the same grade school.
DOMBROVSKI: It was a happy day. Mario had produced a project from start to finish, which included that all-important last step of mastering. We listened to the final product on Mario's car stereo on the way home, and it sounded good.
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Artist History ==> Web Page 12 of 26