What can I say about Dream Makers? This is the project that launched my Producing Career (or is that Hobby? - Either way...). History: First I have to explain how this project came to be. I was at one of the local clubs here in Pittsburgh seeing some friends of mine in a band called Triple X. At that time (around April or May 1991) there were some really good local bands around town. The clubs were booming (unlike today) and everyone loved the local music scene. I was talking to a friend of mine about how cool it would be to get all of these bands together for some kind of benefit charity concert, you know, like a local Live Aid or something. We both agreed that the egos of the band members would never allow that to happen. I mean, who would headline. No matter who you picked the other bands wouldn't show up unless it was them. Then I thought, what about recording a song like "We Are The World" or the lesser know heavy metal version "We're Stars"? An original recording that we could get members of the local bands involved and sell the recording for charity. I thought I had a winning idea and that night went home and began to pen the lyrics to a song. I didn't know what the charity would be, so I kind of wrote it in general so that it could pertain to just about any charity. Here's a view of the original Lyrics. I couldn't believe that I could write that song in a week, but it only took me about 20 minutes to pen the whole thing. The words seemed to flow. Now, what to do with the lyrics? I am a drummer and a bass player and although I have written some music before, lyrics were more my strong point and I needed this song to be perfect. A definite hit song that could be played on any station. I had played in a band called Red Levin just before this time and the lead singer of the band was a good friend of mine, Ayhan (Rob) Ulke. I called him up and told him about my idea and that I even had lyrics for the song. He was very intrigued and asked me to come over. We talked about the project and the possibilities and he really liked the idea. "Leave the lyrics here with me and I'll see what I can do" Ayhan said. "Give me a week or two with them". The next day, he called me to tell me he had it. He played his idea on acoustic guitar for me over the phone and I loved it. I couldn't believe he had written it so fast. Some of my lyrics were moved around and he added some to match the music, but that happens all of the time (I was expecting that). We became very excited about the project and spent the next couple of weeks putting everything together. I worked on gathering the talent since I had most of the music connections around town. And Ayhan worked long hours in his home studio putting together the demo. I couldn't believe the willingness of the local musicians and singers to participate. A friend of Ayhan's was a video producer and agreed to shoot a Behind the Scene look at the making of the song. We put all of those shots together to make a half hour long Rockumentary that would be aired on TV. I met a friend of a friend of mine who happened to be an up and coming DJ at a local radio station (WRRK 96.9). He loved the idea and wanted to know if the station could get involved. We hadn't thought about just one station promoting the song, but the idea sounded great. WRRK did a great job at hyping the song by running commercials and even having myself and Ayhan on a Sunday Morning talk show of theirs. All of this was going on and we didn't even have a beneficiary yet. We were led to Whale's Tale which is an organization that helps youths with drug and alcohol problems an family problems too. It seemed that everything was coming together so quickly and smoothly. After months of preparation, hours of demo recording and weeks of getting talent together, it was time to record.
Studio Notes: The largest and best studio in Pittsburgh at the time was Audiomation. To get the most for our money, we had to record during the off-peak studio time. This meant staying up late and getting very little sleep. We went in around September 1991 and the first day went great. We laid down all of the basic tracks and a scratch vocal track. Ayhan and myself laid our vocal tracks down as well so we could concentrate on the other singers on the day they were to perform. Ayhan and myself also decided that we would share the job of producing. On a side note, Ayhan wanted to get into producing at the time and this was my first stint as Producer, so when he asked for top billing as Producer I kind of gave in. If I would have known then that I would like Producing so much, I would have said No Way! One thing I know that I really wanted out of this was a heavily Produced song. I needed the big guitar sound, the building emotions, the grand piano and so on. I think the finished product captured exactly what I wanted to hear. One thing that I thought the demo lacked was a ending guitar solo. After Eric Rankin (guitar player for Red Levin) had finished his solo for the song, I asked him if he would mind playing something at the end of the song. He said he would need time to figure something out and asked to roll the tape so he could do just that. When Joe West (engineer) was ready, I told him to record whatever Eric played. MAGIC!!! What you hear on the song is what came from Eric's fingers on the first run. After we got the take, he says "OK, I think I've got something." We then told him that we already got that something on tape. That was awesome. The next session was the vocal session. Over 50 local musicians showed up to lend their voices to the song including Tim Aymar (Triple X) who showed up late because he sprained his ankle that morning and had to go to the hospital. What a trooper for still showing up for the gig. That was incredible. Ayhan did a great job of organizing everyone and instructing the choir during rehearsals (all of which is captured on video). Layer after layer of choruses were laid down to make it sound like hundreds of voices. Randy Rhodes (engineer) was in charge of getting this all on tape and did a fantastic job with the recording. When the recording was done, we hand selected about 10 of the singers to sing with us on the harmony parts. These were layered as well and the end result was spine tingling. The solo vocalists were next and this was a very lengthy process. It was my job to assign the different lines to the singers and I think I did a pretty good job of getting a good variation of styles and arranging them to flow through the song. We had a total of 13 singers including myself and Ayhan. One of the singers (Joey Granati of G-Force) was not able to make it on this day so unfortunately he did not end up on the video. Another (DC Cooper of then Tung Bandits and later of the European supergroup Royal Hunt) had to return to re-do his vocal lines that we felt were just not fitting. This was a very long day, but when it was all done, we had captured a lot of great talent on tape. The next session was for the 6 lead guitarists that were to perform. One of them did not show so we asked Fred Nelson (Triple X) if he would record two bars instead of one and he of course said yes. He blew us away with everything that he played. We basically had to wait until he was happy with a take - it went that good (about 30 minutes of time). Next was Steve O'Toole (Lost Souls). Steve knew just what he wanted to play, so it was just a matter of going until he got it right (about 45 minutes of time). Tony Mascilli (Truth and Soul) was next. Tony is an awesome guitar player. He kind of knew what he wanted to do too and was getting a little frustrated when he wasn't getting the takes right away. When he nailed it, about an hour had passed. I looked at the clock and said "Great! We'll get finished in no time at all." Little did I know what I was in for. I won't get into this fully to protect good people's names so I'll just say that the next guitar player had a little (LOT) to drink and could not play very well. I knew he was a great player and had played with him before so I really couldn't figure out why he could not play at all. At the time, I didn't know how much he had to drink. We got what we thought we could use and said "NEXT!" (About two and a half hours time). The next guitar player was a local legend. This guy was one of the most phenomenal guitar players I had ever seen in Pittsburgh and I was so excited that he was playing on the recording. Then, the recording started. The first problem was that he insisted on using his 1975 wireless system to record - WHY? We gave him the benefit of the doubt and said OK. What happened next really blew me away. His brother was on hand during the recordings (which was not unusual). But then his brother started telling him what to play. He would make the sound of the notes with his voice (which I can't duplicate with words) and then his brother would play them. This went on for about two hours until they figured out what they wanted to play. It took us another hour before we got anything worth using on tape. What a nightmare! But it was finally over. Next was Mix-down day. I love Mix-down day. When we listened to the song before mixing, we both came to an agreement that the last two guitar parts could not be on the final version. The first was just way too sloppy and the second was way too noisy (due to the wireless system). Fortunately a friend of Ayhan's was in the studio at the time (Danny Shields) and we asked if he could do us a favor and record a guitar part for our song. Danny is a great studio musician and a real professional. I didn't know how I was going to tell the others that we couldn't use their stuff (especially after all the hours they spent recording them), I just knew we couldn't use them. Anyway, Danny listened to the song and began to play this Brad Gillis type solo. We loved it. In about a half an hour, we had our last guitar solo. Wish he would have been there the other night. The Mix-down went extremely smooth and with very little arguing (which I couldn't say about the rest of the recording time). When it was finished, we all thought we were listening to something extremely special. Just to make sure, we all took a copy of the song home to listen too, and the next day we confirmed that we had a winner. When it was all said and done, we racked up over 60 hours of studio time for one song. The amount of time that some bands could record a whole album. But the finished version was well worth it and the song received great reviews. The Rockumentary aired on Channel 53 WPGH and beat out Love Connection in the ratings (it was on at about 1:00 AM) and was viewed in over 10,000 homes. We had a release party at the Metorpol in town and had over 700 people show up the night before Thanksgiving to listen to a few of the bands that were involved with the song. WRRK hosted the party with myself and Ayhan speaking in-between. When it was all said and done, we raised some good money. Unfortunately, National Record Mart (who was carrying the tape) reneged on the deal to sell them and we got stuck with a whole bunch of tapes and a lot less money for Whale's Tale. Someday I will make it up to them. Want to buy a tape? Contact Me! Listen to a brief clip of the song.