Psychotic Waltz

“Into the everlasting sonic stream”

A brief history through-out their releases (R.I.P.)

My personal Favorite Psychotic Waltz Album

Psychotic Waltz are from San Diego (U.S.A.) and were a dark blend of progressive heavy music with bizar vocal melodies. A social grace is my personal best album of Psychotic Waltz and the one that impressed me most. It is the first and only album I bought throug a mailorder company and I only saw the bandname and albumtitle and something made me order it and buy the damn thing. For that time, it was unbelievable to hear such unique piece of great psychotic twisted progressive metal.

The album brings the vision like a grotesque hall with crying and laughing jokers, weird dressed dreamers, prophets and a slowly walking ghost of death. The spinning play consists of 13 songs and lasts for more than one hour. Five songs were taken from two demo’s. “Spiral tower” was known already from the first one released in 1986 (under name of ASLAN), “And the devil cried”, “Halo of thorns”, “Successsor”, and “I of the storm” all were from Demo’88. In spite of great reviews in fanzines and magazines. “A Social Grace”at first was released by the band’s own Subsonic Records Label. Only a bit later, German Rising Sun Productions Licensed the record.

Psychotic Waltz Menbers:

Buddy Lacky:Lead vocals, flute, piano, Keyboards and acoustic guitar.

Dan Rock:Lead guitar, 6 & 12 string acoustic guitars, piano, keyboards and vibraslap.

Brian Mcalpin:Lead guitar, acoustic guitar.Norm Leggio:Drums and african percussion.

Ward Evans:Bass and tambourine.

Norm Leggio:Drums and african percussion.

The 1st demo:Aslan-Aslan

This demo tape, recorded in 1986 for about $700, was the beginning of studio recording for the young band, then known as "Aslan".The 3 songs established them as one of San Diego's top local heavy acts, and even got a bit of radio play "The Fry Tape" was an experimental 4 track recording by Dan & Brian. Spacey, ethereal, ambient stoner music. Probably the rarest of Psychotic memorabilia, the tape was released on a compilation CD, but was recorded from an old worn out cassette copy, resulting in a sound that was less than spectacular. Years later, it is now available on the "Live & Archive's" CD,

The 2nd demo:Psychotic Waltz-Psychotic Waltz

After discovering another band named Aslan, the band needed a name change. A friend described one of the new songs as sounding like some kind of a "psychotic waltz". The band loved the phrase and named the song after it. We loved it so much we named the band after it! The new demo, recorded in 1988, went in a much heavier direction than Aslan did. Playing with weird meters & tempos, double tracking and sonic sculpturing. This is the demo that attracted the attention of German magazines, and ultimately led to the next release, and debut at Holland's famous Dynamo Festival in 1991.

The Debut CD:Psychotic Waltz-A Social Grace

Recorded in San Diego from '89 through '90. With funds from local gigs & merchandise sales, friend & manager Richie Rich, as well as a front from German indie lable Rising Sun Records. This debut was well received by the music lovers in Europe, but remains an extremely underground item in the U.S. Blending all their influences into one massive sound, PW created a very unique style, once referred to as "Progressive Hippie Metal"! This CD also made "Album of the Month" in many Euro-mags, including Rock Hard & Metal Hammer, one fanatic went as far as to name it "Album of the Decade.

Buddy Lackey's Solo CD-The Strange mind of Buddy Lackey

While Dan was recovering from his fall in 1991, Buddy had a year to work on a solo project. The original recording was in his home studio, Buddy played all the instruments. But once in the mastering studio, the quality was so shot it needed to be re-recorded. Enter the German friends from tour support act, "Life Artist". They came to the rescue and performed the material in the studio where "Everflow" was recorded. Unfortunately, Buddy felt they didn't really capture the "feel" he wanted, more 70's than progressive rock. But it still offered the fans more ear candy

The Second CD:Psychotic Waltz-Into the Everflow

Recorded in Germany during typically cold weather in 1992. The band got to live in a 1000 year old castle during the session. After the recording, the band did a small tour as a preview of the coming CD. Dan was still recovering from a 40 foot fall off a bridge while rappelling, and had to play the tour sitting down...opposite Brian McAlpin, who is in a wheelchair from a car accident back in 11th grade. The band seemed very accident prone. This CD seemed to take the band into an even stranger syncopated sound, yet delivered melodic songs too. It also ranked "Album Of The Month".

The Third CD:Psychotic Waltz-Mosquito

Recorded in 1994 at the world famous "Record Plant" in Los Angeles with legendary metal producer, ( and cool guy ) Scott Burns. This CD proved to be the most commercial attempt by the band, and labeled by some hard-core fans as a "sellout". However, the less complicated material went over noticeably well live, PW was kickin' in the heavy grooves! It was also mixed in Florida at Morrissound Studios, famous for many things, Deep Purple recordings being one of them. It didn't fare as well as previous cd's...still, not bad.

The Final CD:Psychotic Waltz-Bleeding

Recorded in San Diego in 1996, this turned out to be the bands final studio work together. Scott Burns flew in to do the Engineering, but couldn't stay for the mix down. Critics & fans seemed to embrace this as deeply as the debut cd. And the songs, a mixture of the groove from Mosquito, the darkness of Everflow, and the Heaviness of Social Grace.

A Bootleg CD

This was the 1st bootleg CD we ever came across. It was recorded in 1993 in Eupen, Belgium.

The guy with the mics & camera's promised he wasn't gonna make a bootleg CD!!! Imagine that?

Not bad for a bootleg, not great either.

A Posthumous Release:Psychotic Waltz-Live & Archives

One CD is a live recording in Hamburg on Buddy's birthday by a fan with a DAT recorder, and the other is an entire CD filled with rare recordings compiled by Dan Rock. This was meant as a gift to the hard-core fans, as some quality is very " Lo-Fi". It includes early bedroom 4 track recordings, jam room 8 track demo's, live cover tunes, early versions of songs, some humorous live out-takes, and some unfinished, unreleased material. Comes with a 32 page color booklet full of photos, original artist Mike Clift paintings, and a song by song description of what each piece is about. Includes original hard to find "Aslan" demo tape songs. Remixed off the original Master tape

Posthumous nr. 2

For the Psychotic fan who still needs more, Institute Of Art Records (Darkstar & Live Archives also) put out this release in May of '99.

It features 7 incredible sound track-ish compositions by Brian McAlpin since his departure from PW, as well as a couple new instrumentals written by Dan & Brian. Those songs are a preview of Darkstar II.

It also has 3 songs from the infamous 1991 Dynamo gig in Holland that launched their European career, and a few more live cover tunes.

A 28 page booklet with more paintings by Mike Clift, Siggi, and friend Jim Woodward complete this interesting follow up of more unreleased PW material.

The 1st Side Project

End Amen

Recorded in Berlin after the 1st PW tour in 1991 by Harris Johns.Touring Support act "Deathrow" guitarist, Uwe Osterlehner was doing a project with his friend Siggi Blasey. (from German project "Crash Museum") They needed a drummer for the project, which became know as "End Amen". Norm Leggio volunteered to do it after the tour. Dan Rock, envious of the chance to hang out in Europe asked if he could..."hang out". Instead, they offered the chance to record a few solos and drink more beer! The rare out of print CD and Vinyl pushed Dan's guitar limits to new levels speed-wise. Some say it's kinda like Megadeth meets Psychotic meets an unknown. This laid the way for Darkstar.

Dan Rock's Side Project

Darkstar

This CD was recorded in Germany, after one of Psychotic's tours in 1995. Siggi and Dan thought it would be cool to make a CD with instrumentals, dark like Pink Floyd, but heavy like PW, with technical spoken samples and sequencing like Kraftwerk. It was well received by many fans of PW, and many who didn't like PW! Unfortunately, it was never put together live for touring, maybe some day... Features a 20 page full color computer art booklet by PW artist, Travis Smith!!!

Darkstar II

The long awaited follow up to me & Siggi's 1995 Darkstar project. This was recorded in late 1998, partly in San Diego, and finished in Frankfurt. This CD features fellow PW guitarist Brian McAlpin in places. Dark winding long harmony solos!!! The overtone of sadness throughout the CD was inspired by the loss of a loved one to drugs. This effort also adds the dimensions of 4 different vocalists on 3 songs. One female, three male.