When Dream and Day Unite Demos liner notes

In November of 1986, after a summer of live shows and our first demo tape beginning to slowly spread its way around the world, we decided to part ways with Chris Collins and look for a new singer...

The process ended up taking exactly one year, during which the 4 of us wrote a whole bunch of new material... We were already used to writing our music instrumentally without a vocalist around as that’s how all of the music on our first demo was written as well...

This time however, we were writing as a 4 piece band for the first time. Kevin Moore was with us full time as we had all decided to leave college and stay home to pursue our music. Writing with the addition of keyboards gave the band’s sound a whole new dimension as well as a fourth creative writing force. We spent most of 1987 writing and demoing this music and auditioning singers.

In the fall of 1987, Charlie Dominici auditioned. Although he was much older than us, he was a very musical person with a great, melodic voice as well as the ability to play guitar and keyboards. After working with him for a couple of months, he joined the band in November of 1987.

Finally re-armed with a complete line-up and plenty of new material, we set out to put Majesty back on course and move forward with our career...

This was an exciting period for the band, but also one that would teach us many valuable lessons. We ultimately would land our first record deal... but learned real quick that the music business can be a fickle world filled with many promises and few deliveries. By the end of the 2 year period represented on this 2 disc set. we will have gone through a name change, a management change, a record label change and ultimately another singer change... But let’s not get ahead of ourselves...

MP

CD1

1. Afterlife

This is the first “new” track we wrote upon returning home from Berklee in the summer of 1986 and completing the 1986 Majesty Demos.

We even performed this song live with Chris Collins several times during the summer of ‘86. (It had completely different lyrics and melodies than the version which evolved later on... but the name ended up sticking.)

2. The Killing Hand

I think this was the first true “epic” we ever wrote. Many different sections and musical parts made this a really interesting song for its time.

Even though we wrote this song during a period without a vocalist, John Petrucci wrote the lyrics to it during this time anyway even though we didn’t have anybody to sing it. Thus it was always titled The Killing Hand even throughout this instrumental period...

Note the Jeff Spicoli reference before the track kicks in (“Mr. Hand”).

3. The Ones Who Help To Set The Sun

The first of several different versions of this song available in this collection... the original instrumental version of this song was called “Death Of Spock” because of the spacey, Star Trek intro (it was even labelled that on all the cassette versions of the 1987 Demos)...

4. Ytse Jam

Ah yes! The very first “real” Majesty instrumental! Yes all of these songs were instrumental at the time, but this was the only one written to remain an instrumental. The main riffs of this song were actually written and arranged by the two Johns and myself back when we were still at Berklee, but then we shelved it for a while and then re-visited it with Kev in ‘86. This song was even performed live when Chris Collins was still in the band in the fall of ‘86.

And of course you all know where the name came from right? Just look in the mirror my friend...

5. Cry For Freedom

This song is the only leftover from 1985 Demos/Berklee Days that we re-demoed again for this batch of songs. Some of the song was reworked from the original 1985 version... most noticeably the middle section which now with keyboards, sounded more like something off of Rush’s Signals album.

Along with Afterlife, this is the only other song from this batch that had lyrics and melodies written to it and had been performed live with Chris Collins during the summer of ‘86.

6. Resurrection Of Ernie

This is one of the VERY few tracks (along with The School Song from 1985) that ultimately ended up getting shelved and never re-written or used either in the studio or live. So this is one of those true rarities...

And the title? When we write the tracks instrumentally at first – you really can name them anything at that stage... Well, I used to have Ernie and Bert from Sesame Street mounted each on one of my bass drums back in those days and when we were writing this song, the beginning of the song was so eerie and creepy that I remember John Myung sneaking up and slowly levitating Ernie in the air! It was truly PURE EVIL! (and this was before the days of Evil Bert on the internet) So we named the track after that ritualistic experience and even sampled Evil Ernie to start the song...

7. Drum Solo

Here’s a true story....this drum solo was recorded for a contest Modem Drummer magazine was having at the time where they were giving away Neil Peart’s Tama drum set. I submitted it under the title of “Peartnoy’s Complaint”.

Suffice to say, I didn’t win it... : (

But years later, Tama ended up making me many of my own! : )

8-9. A Fortune In Lies and Only A Matter Of Time

These next 2 tracks were recorded later on from the preceding sessions. There are a few differences in the arrangements of these versions from the versions that they eventually evolved to (most noticeably there was no chorus on A Fortune in Lies). Also, both of these demos do not have any guitar or keyboard lead tracks on them.

10-12. Early Charlie Demos 1987

We finally found our new singer!!!! These are the first 3 songs we (re)recorded after Charlie joined the band. The music wasn’t multitracked at all, it was simply a live stereo recording and then we overdubbed Charlie’s vocals afterwards.

The most interesting difference here is the vocal melodies for the verses on “The Ones...” as they are completely different from what they later became... (and what was I thinking with that drum intro to “Fortune”?????)

Believe it or not. this is the demo that got us signed! (really – I swear!!!)

My good friend at the time Chuck Lenihan (of the hardcore band The Crumbsuckers) introduced me to Steve Sinclair (formerly of the Crumbsucker’s label Combat records) who was just starting up Mechanic Records.

I sent these 3 tracks to him and he really liked them! He and I had several phone conversations and he finally came down to one of our rehearsals on Long Island along with some of the staff of Mechanic Records (which included our future manager Jim Pitulski).

Based on the cassette of these 3 songs and seeing us at rehearsal, we were offered our first record contract which we signed on June 23rd of 1988.

CD2

1-7. WDADU Pre-Production Demos 1988

Upon signing our record deal with Mechanic, we started to make plans to begin recording our debut album. We chose to work with Producer Terry Date as he had a reputation for making inexpensive and quickly made albums sound great (at the time he had produced Metal Church and Fifth Angel... of course he would go on to later produce Pantera, White Zombie and Soundgarden among many many others)

With a studio start date penciled in for July 18th, we needed to fire up my 4 track one last time to lay down some pre-production demos of all the songs we intended on recording for the album. Along with 6 of the previously recorded songs, we recorded a new song (“Light Fuse and Get Away”) which did not have lyrics yet.

Shortly after recording these 7 tracks, but before beginning the album, we wrote an 8th song called “Status Seeker” which we never formally demoed and these were the 8 songs which made up our debut album “When Dream And Day Unite”.

The entire album was recorded and mixed in about 3 weeks which by our standards today is about the amount of time we’d spend on a single song!

Of course as a result, the mix suffered and the album lacked time, budget and attention. It was still a very exciting experience for us nonetheless...

Shortly before the release, we were informed of another unsigned band who held the registered trademark for the name Majesty so we were forced to change our name (a blessing in disguise now in retrospect!).

After kicking around many ridiculous names (Glasser, Magus, M1) my father Howard Portnoy suggested the name “Dream Theater” which was the name of an art house movie theater in Monterey, California near where he lived... and it stuck!

When Dream And Day Unite was released on March 6th 1989 to very little attention and fanfare. The label never came through with a video or touring budget as promised and we went back to our rehearsal basement with the stars in our eyes fading away and the reality of our day jobs shining brightly (imagine John Petrucci as a deli slicer, John Myung as a music store gear moving man and yours truly as a Chinese food delivery boy!).

8-11. Xmas Demos 1988

Earlier, in the fall and early winter of 1988 while waiting for WDADU to be released, we had begun kicking around some new ideas and were itching to fire up the 4 track again. We decided to record a new 4 song demo as a Christmas present for our family, friends and the gang at Mechanic Records.

The only new original track included was “To Live Forever” which was written directly after seeing U2’s “Rattle and Hum” a film which inspired us tremendously.

The remaining 3 tracks were a mixture of various things:

Mission: Impossible was just a fun little jam... I have to laugh now at hearing how pissed I get at the end because John was having fun with the guitar at the end!! (Once a control freak. always a control freak!)

The 3rd track is a Beatles medley from the end of Abbey Road which I always had wanted to cover... (Charlie happened to be as big of a Beatles fan as I was and the two of us would sing Beatles songs on the drive to rehearsal all the time).

The final track was the traditional Christmas song which we recorded in the style of Jon Anderson’s version from his wonderful “3 Ships” album.

12. A Vision ‘89

This final track on this compilation marks our last recording with Charlie in the band. This was an abridged version of one of the songs originally on the ‘86 Majesty Demo 3 years earlier. Re-recorded with Charlie’s vocals and a new edited arrangement.

By the fall of 1989, it was beginning to be obvious that the band was in need of some changes again. Charlie’s age difference and reserved stage persona was beginning to be a frustration for us as we were longing for a vocalist with a stronger range more like Geoff Tate, Steve Perry and Steve Walsh.

We played one final show with Charlie on November 14th 1989 at The Ritz in New York City opening for Marillion and then parted ways...

The period of When Dream And Day Unite was surely a learning experience for us all and it helped prepare us for the major tests that lied ahead in the coming years while searching for a new vocalist... and the eventual payoff on the other end!

C-ya there in the next chapter of Ytsejam Records!