Can't hear the Music?

click on this player

Album: Sorry We're Late For The Party...we got here as fast as we could.
Label: Bittersweet Records
By Brian Sidler
Former music writer - Chicago Music Magazine

World Premiere Event - Release Date for MySpace: 11 JUNE 2006
Recording Engineer; Don Grayless of Dress Reharsals, Ltd.
Mix Engineer on Love Hound; Martin Stebbing from Poi Dog Pondering
Mix Engineer on Venice Beach; Don Grayless of Dress Rehearsals, Ltd.
Mix Engineer on Living On The Inside; Adam Przybyla, asst engr Paul Karker
Mastering Engineer; Al "Buster" Ursini of Studio Chicago
Exec Producers; Don Grayless, Al Ursini and Scott Pollack
Movie Music Licensing done through; The Management Firm/Los Angeles, CA

Chicago, IL This recording act has a distinctive good vibe. And Dr. 8's sound is all about good vibes. All their tunes are concert length (seven minutes or better) and there's a bit of the viper in all of them.

Dr. 8 is the culmination of more years in the art of making music, than they would care to admit.

Many years in the past, several artists all of which are part of Dr. 8 came into contact with each other through the osmosis of the underground Chicago Music Scene. Dr. 8 is a recording act that defies description because of all these incredible musicians who are all at the top of their craft and creative power when they are playing on Dr. 8's Songs. Each song is a work unto itself, which in the end is a stand-alone vibe of Dr. 8 as a unit, how and why they sound like this.

Take a listen to the way the solo break section in Venice Beach takes off! The whole development to the crescendo of this section, puts you in another zone. This tune is a put the top down, hit the pedal and drive song. Scott wrote it in 45 minutes one morning after seeing the scene a day before on a visit to Marina Del Ray, Venice Beach, CA. Equally facinating though, is that the no one on Venice Beach took more than a couple of takes each to make the tune happen, so in terms of production, it only took around 13 hours. The same goes for Love Hound, which is the story about how a girl of 19 finally snagged her boyfriend. He wrote this tune for her to sing in her band after telling her he would during a chance meeting in the lounge of Studio Chicago, over a cup of coffee but she never got around to it.

Ultimately though, the point is; that when pro's this good get together it's easy and way cool.

Scott Pollack and many of his friends are the producers and performers in all of Dr. 8's offerings. Scott sees the unit as a montage of talent formed to record a particular Song at which point Dr. 8 becomes an assemblage of artists united around the single vision of a song they are currently recording or have recorded...so the lineup changes with each tune. Sometimes entirely.

Each song has a history behind its creation into a final mix.

There's Derek Henderson on drums in Venice Beach. Henderson is known amongst his peers as one of the best all around groove drummers in Chicago. There isn't a groove that Derek can't add something unique, fresh, creative and something, that isn't distinctly Derek Henderson. Very few have a better set of wrists than Henderson, which is where that snap of the snare on Venice Beach is found. It was Derek that made the groove for this song really take shape. When Derek composed this track, all he had to play along with were vocal and acoustic guitar tracks. Derek cut the rythm mold for this tune. He solidified, in one song, Dr. 8's rythmic center.

Then there's Wes Gould on Bass/Venice Beach. Wes is a Bass Players, Bass Player. Gould has spent more time in the woodshed than many we've known and his influences span the spectrum of innovative Bass Player greats. He's played with several units over many years and his musical perspective with a prominence in Jazz and Blues instrumental sensibility brings the bottom out, and to such extent, that he again as a player, defines the rock flare bass playing of Dr. 8 in the Venice Beach production. Plus...he's hip. Wes' approach to the bass is unobtrusive, yet quietly definitive as only "The Vice Admiral" can deliver.

Justin Garriot on Electric Guitar/Venice Beach. Justin comes from a diverse background that includes working many years behind the scenes in the tour management industry, as well as, playing in many different rock bands over a long period of time. Where else could Dr. 8 have gotten that blistering melodic lead fill from had it not been for the incredible guitar melody sense of Justin Garriot. Well...nowhere! If you listen carefully to Justin's guitar in the beginning and then at the end of the tune, it's like the rising and the setting of the sun. "In rehearsal for the recording, Justin took a couple of passes at it and had it iced as if he had been playing the tune for 20 years. He only had the tune for three days. Wes and I just sat there stupified as we listened to him playing along with a boombox. It was undeniably cool!" said Pollack.

Al Ramirez on Electric Guitar/Love Hound. Al Ramirez, is one of the most unsung, yet incredible rock guitar greats in the histroy of the Chicago Rock Music Underground Scene, period. He's been playing the frets off of his guitars for longer than his still, good looking youthful appearance could let you detect. And when he takes out the Strat?...well that's our fave. Now we all love our Santana's, the heavy metal guys and all the rest, but in our humble opinion they've got nothin' on the wonderous Al Ramirez of the Chicago Rock Music Underground and well...he's just Great that's all. His fuzzed out lead fills in the tune Love Hound, single-handedly elevates the music bed of this cut. He makes that guitar sing like an alarm bell and it jars the listener to wake up and take notice. It's Ramirez who puts the flesh on this cut. His musical comments are all his own. You can't bag him, not Al Ramirez.

There are many other great players coming soon to the lineup of Dr. 8 and their story will start to unfold to all you jamsters out there. It's a story worth following. What will become apparent to those listeners who begin to pick up on the groove of this act is...these guys aren't recording musical pieces of self indulged fluff. They're a World Class Concert Act and that's the way they sound. Pollack says he'll take the act into the concert venues when the time is right. "Who needs the Major Labels when you've got MySpace?", said Pollack as he sipped his coffee and smoked a hand rolled cigarette during this interview. "They've got over 84 million music fans in one place, that's incredible. I just hope they like us."

For now, MySpace is where they are holding their World Premiere Event...and you can only hear them here or the Bittersweet Records Co. (link) download site, the only place on the web where these great tunes are available for purchase. But...This is their chosen venue...

Last but not least, there is Scott Pollack on Lead and Harmony Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Grand Piano, Synthesizer and the Writer/Arranger of the tunes. Scott was playing Acoustic Rock long before many of the then emerging, and now current players had begun to hit the national scene. Back in those days, often, he shared the stage with the venerated and earlier Chicago Rock Legend, lead guitarist from Conqueror Worm, Paul Michaels. On other occassions he appeared as a solo act opening for Enuff Z'nuff during their earlier rise to the National Scene. Ask Chip Z'nuff (if you know him) about Gibb's Lower Level and Scott's cheeky tune called English Rock Band. These days he can be seen, on a rare occassion, opening up for one of Chicago's Rock/Blues greats, Steve Arvey, when he's doing an acoustic gig. Like all the preceding members of this unit Scott has been all over the map and has performed in many places throughout the country as a solo acoustic guitarist and singer/songwriter. Pollack's Baritone/Tenor range and the maturity of his singing is at the top of it's craft here on both numbers. And...No one sounds like him! Love Hound and Venice Beach are both written, arranged and sung by Pollack. Don Grayless adds the timbales and congas on Love Hound which also has the Backup Vocals of Miriam Share, Beata Boboska and Ruth Elson. The Ladies are layered just underneath Scott's multed vocal mix. All of this is what rounds out the tune as a rock/dance number produced in the style of famed Rock Producer, Phil Spector's "wall of sound" production technique. So, it's a bit retro in that setting but a very fun piece of pop.

The next offering currently in production is an acoustic guitar anthem called Living On The Inside. This track is sure to please all the acoustic guitar rock nuts, as well as, the acoustic crowd in general. It's where we get a glimpse of Pollack's introspective folk type roots which were inspired by the playing styles of the Chicago legendary Howard Berkman of The Knaves during the years of the national coffee house scene circuit heydays.

Dr. 8 is an evolving recording unit always changing and always delivering a perspective that is unique in rock these days. A Dr. 8 song is always everything it needs to be, no more, no less and what good rock is. They're not a "Sounds Like" kind of band playing themselves into a "cliche' niche."

No. They are the one and only Dr. 8!