Part 6 – It's a Gutter Ballet...Released December 1, 1989
Recorded Record Plant, New York City, February–July 1989
Genre Heavy metal, progressive metal, power metal
Length 52:25
Label Atlantic
Producer Paul O'Neill
All songs written and composed by Criss Oliva, Jon Oliva and Paul O'Neill, except "Silk and Steel" by C. Oliva and Paul Silver.
1. "Of Rage and War" 4:47
2. "Gutter Ballet" 6:20
3. "Temptation Revelation" (instrumental) 2:56
4. "When the Crowds Are Gone" 5:45
5. "Silk and Steel" (instrumental) 2:56
6. "She's in Love" 3:51
7. "Hounds" 6:27
8. "The Unholy" 4:37
9. "Mentally Yours" 5:19
10. "Summer's Rain" 4:33
11. "Thorazine Shuffle" 4:43
Band members
Jon Oliva – lead vocals, piano, keyboards, bass guitar and drums on "Gutter Ballet"
Criss Oliva – guitars, acoustic guitar
Johnny Lee Middleton – bass guitar
Steve "Doc" Wacholz – drums
Chris Caffery - Guitar, keyboards *
*
Note: Chris Caffery doesn't play on the album but he was credited with guitars and keyboards and is pictured in the album's booklet "both to prepare the fans for the line-up they'd see on tour and confirm his permanent member status".Additional contributions
Robert Kinkel – keyboards
John Dittmar, Stephen Daggett, Jerry Van Deilen, Dan Campbell – background shouts and laughs
Production
Paul O'Neill – producer, arrangements with Savatage
James A. Ball, Joe Henahan – engineers
Teddy Trewalla, Deek Venarchick, Jay DeVito, Dave Parla – assistant engineers
Dan Campbell – studio technician
Jack Skinner – mastering at EuropaDisc, New York
Gary Smith – cover art
Dennis Osborne – photography
The Demos By
Hall of the Mountain King, Savatage were well on their way to creating their own distinctive brand of heavy metal. Certainly, the band had a respectable degree of individuality on earlier releases, but once producer/songwriter Paul O'Niell entered the picture, the Oliva brothers and company set foot on a path to explore brave new worlds of music they had not seriously considered before, to see what they might be able to incorporate into their unique sound. On
Hall of the Mountain King, Savatage had begun to dabble in earnest with classical and progressive elements, and in the process had helped to lay the foundation for what would later become symphonic and progressive metal. But the band's sound, overhauled and reborn on that record, was still very much in a larval stage. It would be on the follow up album that Savatage would really spread their creative wings.
Before that, however, there were certain issues that needed to be taken care of first. On the tour for
Hall of the Mountain King, Savatage, bolstered by a modest level of new-found popularity thanks to the power of MTV, where the music videos from the album had found a ready audience, had managed to score an opening slot for Dio and Megadeth. While on tour, Jon Oliva had fallen into bad habits after spending too much time hanging around Megadeth's Dave Mustaine. Jon's already debilitating drug and alcohol abuse problems, which had come to the fore during the fallout from
Fight for the Rock, were exacerbated by Mustaine's influence. Jon was compelled by Atlantic to check into rehab (paid for by the label) before the follow up to
Hall of the Mountain King was to be produced. Jon's time in rehab would effect Savatage in a number of ways, not only by bringing their troubled lead singer into top shape, but also by providing experience that would serve as fertile ground for future lyrical concepts.
Once Jon was out of rehab, he and his brother Criss convened to record a series of demos to present to Paul before commencing the album proper. The demo would feature ten tracks in total, and while only two songs would make it onto the following album in any recognizable form, most of the other tracks would eventually be included on the silver editions of
Sirens and
The Dungeons are Calling. These “lost tracks” would provide a treasure trove of ideas that would reappear over the course of subsequent albums. Indeed, even as late as 2010, Jon Oliva was lifting ideas from the 1989 demos for Jon Oliva's Pain. The demos contained the following track list:
1- Gates of Hell
2- Before I Hang
3- Target
4- Livin' on the Edge of Time
5- Metalhead
6- Thorazine Shuffle
7- Stranger in the Dark
8- Instrumental
9- Rap
10- Outro
“Gates of Hell” is an early version of what would later become the song “The Unholy” on the subsequent record, with the only difference between the demo and the final version being a reprise of the first verse and chorus after the guitar solo. “Before I Hang” is a particularly heavy and wicked song about a man facing execution. The track would later form the basis of a song cut from the
Streets double album, “Beyond Broadway”. Much of the track's lyrics and vocal melodies would later reappear on the thrid JOP album
Global Warning, in a song also titled “Before I Hang”, which is an amalgamation of the original 1989 demo and another song cut from
Streets, “Larry Elbows”. The original demo of “Before I Hang” can be found on the silver edition of
The Dungeons are Calling. “Target” is another song that would be revisited for
Streets, re-titled “Sanctuary”, before being dropped from that record as well. A slow, doomy number about a man on the run, the opening guitar riff would resurface in the song “Symmetry” on the
Handful of Rain album, while the verses would be integrated into a track called “Nowhere to Run” on the first JOP record,
'Tage Mahal. The “Target” demo can be heard on the silver edition of
Sirens.
“Living on the Edge of Time” is a fast paced song from the Avatar days that was re-recorded in 1989, only to not make the final record. A drastically reworked version of the track would finally appear on JOP's
Festival album. The demo would show up on the silver edition of
Sirens. “Metalhead” is another rapid-fire, balls-to-the-wall metal number that can be found on the silver edition of
The Dungeons are Calling, while “Thorazine Shuffle” became the second track from the '89 demo to actually make the as of yet untitled album, albeit with radically different lyrics and some minor edits. “Stranger in the Dark” is a slow, but rather rocking, power ballad that re-uses some lyrics and melodies from the lost
Hall of the Mountain King track “This is Where You Should Be.” “Stranger in the Dark” also features a particularly awesome ride out section that would later from the basis of the chorus for “Larry Elbows” before, eventually, becoming the ride-out for the
Edge of Thorns track “Follow Me.” The demo of “Stranger in the Dark” can also be found on the silver edition of
The Dungeons are Calling. The last three tracks on the demos could be considered experiments. Both the “Outro” and the untitled “Instrumental” are Criss Oliva acoustic tracks, with “Instrumental” being in a somewhat similar vein as the later “Silk and Steel,” while the “Outro” is something a bit more dark and mysterious. “Rap” is exactly what it sounds like; Jon Oliva rapping. The track is rather humorous, surely something Jon did just for the fun of it, and possibly to poke some fun at himself through his own lyrics. Interestingly enough, some of the lyrics from “Rap” would later be referenced on the Streets album, in particular in the song “Tonight He Grins Again”, which Jon has mentioned as having much personal relevance to his own life.