Side Projects Discography
Speedway Blvd. - Speedway Blvd.
CD/Reissue, 2002
Debut from 1980 on Epic Records featuring Jordan Rudess.
- Speedway Boulevard
- China Town
- (I Think I Better) Hold On
- Dog In The Distance
- Out Of The Fire
- Telephoto Lens
- Prisoner Of Time
- Money Money
- (Call My Name) Rock Music
- A Boulevard Night
SPEEDWAY BLVD as revisited by Jordan Rudess
It's a hit!! I remember producer Jerry Kaznetz slamming his fist down on
the console board after reviewing our latest work in the studio. The
other producer Jeff Katz would mostly spend his time in his office
dealing with the finer business matters at hand, but Jerry was all
enthusiasm! I vividly recall the day the "big guy" from Epic
records, Lennie Petzi, arrived at the studio in his black limousine. He
was dressed in a dark suit, smokin' a fat cigar. I was 23, it was Epic
records and I thought- "this is the big break." Here comes
stardom!
Speedway Blvd. was quite an interesting collection of musicians
assembled for the task of realizing the producers next success story.
After all, their previous work included non other than the 1910 Fruitgum
Company's "Yummy Yummy," and the hit song "Black
Betty" by a group called Ram Jam. We thought were next in line.
My first contact with Kasenetz and Katz happened when I was 17 years old
in 1974 and had acquired my first Moog synthesizer. Those guys owned a
studio called K & K studios in Great Neck, NY,. I went in there to do a
recording with my Mini Moog. Six years later I was living in New York
City when I got a call from K and K asking if I wanted to come check out
this group they had in the studio because they needed a keyboardist.
They had remembered me, and tracked me down so many years later! Well, I
could not refuse this offer. I mean 50 dollars a week to basically live
in a studio and make a record with a group for Epic Records seemed like
the best deal in the world at the time. I moved back home and everyday
would report to the studio, which was 10 minutes from my house, for
writing and recording. The guys had a few tunes down before I got there
as they had started hashing stuff out some months before my arrival. I
arrived with a Mini Moog, a Yamaha electric piano and an Arp String
Machine. I remember walking in to the studio the first day and seeing a
fabulous amount of percussion equipment all over the room. Glen Dove the
drummer even had timpani drums as part of his huge drum set. Nowadays a
huge drumset has taken on new proportions (just check out my group,
Dream Theater's, drummer Mike Portnoy's rig on our World Tourbulence
tour)! I was ready for action. There was a lot of inspiration in the
air. Dennis Feldman and I hit it off really well and would sit around
the piano coming up with all kinds off stuff and always letting the tape
roll to capture whatever came out. Dennis was the bass player and had
one of these amazing voices that could sing stratospheric notes that
even Geddy Lee would blink at! Dennis did most of the harmonies on the
CD. He always was a very talented guy and though we are not in touch,
I'm sure he is writing songs somewhere as I type this! Gregg Hoffman was
the guitarist and a founding member of the band. He was always able find
the needed rockin' edge that made the group's sound. Last I heard he was
driving the family bakery truck. I hope he has had the chance to dust
off the old axe and get back to rockin! The singer Roy Herring was a
discovery! He was found by K and K at his job loading trucks in NYC and
would come directly from the studio in some amazing outfits directly
from his packing job. He had a cool, soulful voice. I'm not at all sure,
where Roy is today , 22 years later! My last information about drummer
Glenn Dove is that after playing in club date bands around NY for a
while, he became a famous psychic out on the Long Island. So he probably
knew about this re-release years ago! One interesting piece of
information is that Speedway Blvd. never played one live gig together.
We were a genuine "studio band." It's great to see the band
getting back together after all these years! Who knows- maybe there will
be a tour??
After Speedway Blvd.'s era was over, I spent quite a few years
re-exploring my music and my life. I had spent most of my childhood up
until the age of 19 being a classical pianist, having studied from the
age of nine at the Juilliard school of Music in NYC. The quick rise to
stardom was definitely not the way things were intended for me. If we
study the 22 years since Speedway Blvd. we can see that my rise to
success has been a slow and steady climb that for the most part actually
started some years after Speedway's time was over. My career journey has
taken me from my days at Korg where I met Jan Hammer and joined he and
Tony Williams for a concert tour, recording "Time Odyssey"
with guitarist Vinnie Moore, writing an Off Broadway musical entitled
"Mask, Myth and Magic" for renown magician, Jeff Mcbride,
recording several solo CD's including my debut, "Listen", and
my latest two, "Feeding The Wheel" on Magna Carta Records and
"4NYC", a private release primarily featuring music from a
concert I did for a 9/11 benefit. Over the years, I have hooked up with
Steve Morse and the Dixie Dregs for the "Full Circle" tour in
1994 followed by an album with drummer Rod Morgenstein, the "Rudess
Morgenstein Project," 2 albums with Liquid Tension Experiment, and
most recently I completed my second studio album, "Six Degrees of
Inner Tourbulence," with Dream Theater. My work can also be heard
with Annie Haslam, Prefab Sprout and in the coming months on the next
David Bowie release. Entitled Heathen, on his own ISO records label..
Dream Theater is the highlight of my career. We have sold millions of
albums around the world and proudly play exactly the kind of music that
we choose. Together with John Petrucci, John Myung, Mike Portnoy and
James Labrie, Dream Theater's music is a combination of classic
progressive rock with a metal intensity and a rare virtuosity that
shines through on each instrument. Tomorrow I leave for Asia with Dream
Theater to continue our current world tour. That seems like a big
journey, but the journey back in time to write about Speedway BLVD of
1980 has been a trip in itself!
Musically,
Jordan Rudess
April 9, 2002
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