The Story of Maslow Needs
Progressive Rock from Chicago

In the Summer of 1998, Marty Quinn and Jason Williams decided to part ways with their guitar player. Frustrated with the current music scene in Chicago, they were determined to create something different and began to explore more progressive music. Placing an ad in the Chicago Reader, the search for a guitarist to join their progressive rock band was underway. Nether looked forward to the audition process; guitar players are a dime a dozen and rarely seem to have a good sense of time. Enter Matt Ryburn, a guitar player lost in the pop sensibility of the 1980s pop/glam rock. After a few times of playing together, things seemed to work and thus Maslow Needs was born.

In many respects, with such musically diverse interests, this band seems almost as if it was made to fail, but there was one common link between each member: the adoration of a band called Dream Theater. This is the basis of Maslow Needs music, to create something to showcase their abilities to write and perform while maintaining something the average listener can, at least, tolerate. The music is layered with odd time passages, tempo changes and , very often, a dark melody.

Since that late Summer of 1998, the band has had its challenges and accomplishments. The auditioning of vocalists has been and still is a never ending battle. In December of 1998 the band played out for the first time as an all instrumental act with an hour of original music. In March of 1999, a keyboardist joined the band and left six months later.

In the Spring of 2000 after months of no direction, the decision was made to write new material and record both new and old material as instrumental pieces. The self-produced and self-recorded Out of Context is Maslow Needs recording debut. It highlights the bands interest in progressive rock as well as the diverse musical interests and influences of its members.

Click the player to listen to the song

1. Half Dollar (6:57)

This is our intro song when we play live. It came about from a simple jam idea that spawned into a seven minute long tune. Originally, this was an intro to a cover of the Led Zeppelin's No Quarter hence the title of the song. By the way, the beginning with the choir singing was Matt screwing around on the keyboards about 30 seconds before recording the keyboard part for the song, Jason and Marty loved it and as the saying goes ...the rest is history!

2. 18 Minutes of Silence (4:36)

This one is Matt's fault! In the original Watergate tapes there is about 18 minutes of silence. Although the song is not 18 minutes long, this is what Matt thinks was playing during that time and the government tried to cover it up with silence. Special thanks to Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon for his vocal work on this song and opening up China.

3. Feelings of Deceit (7:29)

Cool repetitive guitar riff that Matt brought into rehearsal. The piano intro and the keyboards were Matt's idea and never heard until it was actually recorded. We like this song..... a lot! The third and last part of the song is in 7/4, very cool. As for the name..... no clue.... ask Jason.

4. D.T. (5:27)

While Jason and Marty were looking for a guitar player (pre-Matt!) they began getting into more and more progressive music. Progressive music usually means long songs (6 minutes or longer), very challenging music (difficult to play) and odd time signatures (anything outside of the 4/4 realm, i.e. 5/4, 5/8, 6/4, 6/8, 7/4, etc.). During that time period, we discovered a band from New York called Dream Theater that was formed at the Berkeley School of Music in the late 80s. Quite simply put, these guys are some of the best musicians in Rock, if not on the Planet! This song was our first attempt to express our take on progressive music. It contains parts in 7/4 and 3/4, our humble little tribute to Dream Theater.

5. Smoking Weed with Ravi (2:45)

Jason came in with a very nice bass riff in 9/8. When we stated jamming on the idea it began to feel like Middle Eastern or Indian music. Jason had recently bought a Ravi Shankar CD. One thing led to another and we pictured a group of people sitting around jamming with Ravi and smoking weed out of an Indian Water Pipe ... A very special thanks goes out to a good friend who said he would take one for the team and help us out with the intro/outro sound effects, his professional debut! Yes, it is the real thing!

6. Two Dogs

Another song that began with a cool guitar riff (3/4). The first part of the song is 3/4, the next part is in 5/4 then it goes to 4/4 and comes around again with a breakdown in the middle. The ending is totally unrelated to the rest of the song, it was just a way to take the song out. It used to be much longer, we shortened it for the recording, but it is still over 5 minutes. The name of the song comes from an old joke, we will just give you the punchline...."The Indian Chief replies, why do you ask Two Dogs f*#king?" (Thank You Dennis!) This one is dedicated to Bubba & Lobe!

7. Maynard (5:22)

The man: Maynard. His band: Tool. If you not heard of them, you should look them up. Our intro on this song has a Tool vibe to it, hence the name. Matt hates the ending guitar solo, but was out voted so it stayed.

8. Fate (4:21)

This is the first song that Jason and Marty ever played together. It was written long ago by Jason. It is straight forward rock. It was the first song we recorded for this CD and was supposed to be a test track to check recording levels and sounds. We liked the final product so much we decided to keep it and put it on the CD. Nice piano in the breakdown section Matt! The name, once again, ask Jason!

9. Two Minutes of Tape (Live) (2:09)

Just what the title implies, we had finished recording everything that we set out to record and ended up with 2-3 minutes of excess tape. We decided to do a spontaneous jam idea and hit record, this is the result, for better or for worse. This was completely off-the-cuff, no edits, no overdubs, completely live, we liked the end result!

10. Accidental Incident (4:08)

As the name implies, the song came together by accident. Each part was something written at different times for different songs and we somehow made them all go together, even the odd time stuff. The end is pretty much a total jam, something for us to have fun with ... sometimes we have a little too much fun.

11. Brian’s Song (0:27)

This is the "little too much fun" previously referred to. Thanks to Brian at Studio Chicago.

12. All (5:45)

Before recording we had decided to write a few new songs. This is one of them. Jason had this great bass intro with two parts and we worked into an entire song. The result: one song that rocks start to finish.

13. Ohm (8:26)

When you get a odd time loving drummer, a laid back bass player and a guitarist lost in the 1980Õs, this is what happens. The song was written when Maslow Needs was first formed from a jam that became the intro to this song. We close our live shows with this ... something we like to consider our conceptual song.