THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE 1993
Even though the band began in December of 1990, this summer of 1993 release is the very first 3RDegree CD and features band founder Robert James Pashman on lead vocals. It was recorded from 1989-1993 and originally released on Portland, Maine's Reindeer Records. It also featured songs Robert wrote for his previous band Unreal. In addition to the original 10 tracks (featured on the original cassette-only release) are 6 bonus tracks. This is quite different from the 3RDegree of "today" or even their second album. It is not "bad" but a bit different mostly because of it's age and different lead vocalist-current bassist/keyboardist/backing vocalist Robert James Pashman.
HUMAN INTEREST STORY 1996
This is the first album of the quartet version of 3RDegree and second overall. Most of this music, worked on from 1993 through 1996 were ideas that began with Kliesch & Pashman, often completing each other's started songs. George Dobbs would join in the summer of 1995 with the project well underway and contribute mostly lyrical ideas and some vocal melody improvements. Very little of George's keyboard skills would be heard on this album as Pashman's keyboards would still dominate. Fans would have to wait until the band reformed to get a taste of what Dobbs was capable of.
When the original pressing of the CD sold out, a new CD of the 2013 Mark Downie remaster with new running order and 1 exclusive bonus track would be made.
NARROW-CASTER 2008
The long gestation process some of the songs had on this- the third 3RDegree album-was truly remarkable. Some of the tunes were written in 1995-96 and finished in 2006-07 like "Apophenia", "It Works", "Live With This Forever", Cautionary Tale", "The Proverbial Banana Peel" and "Young Once". Others were completely freshly written in '06 ("Scenery", "Narrow-Caster", "The Last Gasp") or in the case of "Free For All", was completely written and recorded at the very end of the band's 90's existence.
From 1990 until well into 2008, the band was a very unknown entity. Then Robert showed up at NEARfest in Bethlehem, PA in June of 2008 looking to change that. Narrow-Caster-which in June of 2008 was just a nice looking CD-R in a jewel case version sold well and started getting very good press-so much so that a German distributor contacted Robert asking for case of CDs for the European market. Flabergasted, the band had to decide if they would press "real", replicated versions of the album since they would not accept CD-Rs. The decision was made to take the leap and by December, the new "eco-wallet" version of the album was released.
Top 10 Album of 2008 -USAProgressiveMusic.com
LIVE AT PROGDAY 2009 2010
With the burgeoning success of Narrow-Caster in the air in the spring of 2009, in came an email to 3RDegree asking the band to play the long-running Chapel Hill, North Carolina progressive rock festival ProgDay. Robert of course immediately said "yes" but there was just one problem. Well... really two. Even though the "band" had just done another acoustic "living room" show like 2 years earlier that April, it was only George on vocals and piano and Robert on bass and backing vocals augmented by Dan D'Elia (who played drums on two songs on Narrow-Caster) representing. Eric Pseja helped out on one song but 3RDegree was really not fielding a live band and were more a studio-only Steely Dan-like entity for over a year at that point. With the ProgDay phone call some fancy footwork needed to be done-and quick! First, Robert called original drummer Rob Durham who had left the band a few months prior but he was just not able to put in the time. The recent living room concerts other player, current Kansas keyboardist Tom Brislin suggested giving a drummer called Aaron Nobel a call. While that worked out, his suggestion for guitarist did not so it was decided Patrick would fly back a week before the show and do a crash course of rehearsals with the east coast contingent of the band. A "practice show" was to take place a month before with Eric Pseja back as guitarist to a great Brooklyn audience with Phideaux and Edensong. A little rough around the edges a spirited performance took place and was captured by no less than 4 hi-def cameras.
THE REUNION CONCERTS 2008
This CD/DVD/BLU-RAY package cuts between two April 2007 shows by the band that were on consecutive nights. One acoustic show at the band's living room as well as the next night's electric show at NJ Proghouse's Schoolhouse setting in Metuchen, NJ. It consists of the band's renderings of Gentle Giant's "Peel The Paint" (still their most watched YouTube video) as well as the one-time-only "Elsewhere" by Sarah McLachlan! It would consist of many songs from the 90's era of the band along side brand new Narrow-Caster songs and more tunes the band would not release until even later albums like "A Work Of Art" (later on The Long Divison), "A Man" (later on Ones & Zeros: vol. 0 as "Olympia") and "Home In The Clouds" (later on Ones & Zeros: vol. 0 as "The Future Doesn't Need You"). Also featured is "Doesn't Quite Belong" which was not heard from again until the 10th Anniversary Narrow-Caster bonus disk.
AMONG FRIENDS 2009
This is a recording from the April 11, 2009 "House Out In Hackensack" house concert where 3RDegree's George Dobbs (lead vocal, piano, bass) and Robert James Pashman (backing vocals, bass, piano) played a short set with long-time music collaborators Dan D'Elia (drums), Eric Pseja (guitar, percussion) and guest drummer Greg Jones (Pinnacle) on a tune. It was the first concert since the release of 2008's Narrow-Caster collection. Featured are the never-before played (or since!) title track and Genesis' "Me & Sarah Jane". The performance was recorded in a living room featuring a Steinway K-52 upright piano.
THE LONG DIVISION 2012
“You’re Fooling Yourselves!”, wails 3RDegree lead singer/keyboardist George Dobbs on the band’s lead-off single from the new CD THE LONG DIVISION-their first since 2008. This song-as well as a few others on the first half of the album-flesh out the band’s 2012 political treatise: that America’s political parties (and probably those in other countries) have long divided it’s populous on the basis of color, salary, sex, age and much else, have played on their fears, and have used their accumulated powers to build up largesse to keep their supporters in the fold. Ok, it’s not always that heavy, but the album was penned in the shadow of the 2008 economic collapse that was happening right as 3RDegree were releasing their first album in 12 years: NARROW-CASTER. While that third album was a combination of fresh songs and resurrected ideas from the period just before the band’s original breakup in 1997, THE LONG DIVISION is in the shared vintage of Tea Parties, Occupy Movements, shovel-ready jobs and banks and car companies “too big to fail”.
Top 20 Album of 2012 -Progarchives.com
#54 Album of 2012 -The Gagliarchives
9 Song & #29 Album of 2012 -DPRP.net
Top 10 Album of 2012 -NewEars.org
Top 10 Album of 2012 -Fire Of Unknown Origin (blog)
P0rta1 2000
In early 2000, Robert James Pashman and Patrick Kliesch were feeling like trying something new. They had been very interested in the “trip-hop” movement started years before by bands like Portishead, Massive Attack, Björk and others and set about writing material in their spare time in this vein. Enter star vocalist Ceci Castelblanco, originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, who entered the call for a vocalist that the band put out in NY’s Village Voice. The result: the very promising EP length, self-titled "P0rta1" (Portal). Sadly, after just recording 4 songs and finishing 2, Ceci returned to the west coast. “I still look back very fondly on these few songs” says Robert “and I think if we made a full-length album we would have had even better stuff than what we finished. It’s amazing how just the following year came the debut album by Zero 7. I think the albums they’ve made are a really good indicator of what we were setting out to do. Too bad they did it instead of us!” The album features current Kansas keyboardists Tom Brislin's Wurlitzer and Fender Rhodes electric pianos as well as Korg PolySix and Oberheim Matrix 1000 synths. Drum loops would feature large as well.
ROBERT JAMES PASHMAN: RECOVERING DREAMER 2001
Out of the ashes of the January 1997 3RDegree breakup came founder Robert James Pashman amassing recording gear to record some ideas he had for 3RDegree songs and others certainly not for his former band.
This collection of songs represents a labor of love over the last few years, recorded now and then, here and there. Some are “leftovers” from 3RDegree final days, while some represent different “new directions” Robert tried to go in. The result is a hodgepodge of sorts. There are an abundance of cover songs for different reasons-Level 42, Kevin Gilbert and Marillion covers for entry on tribute CD’s and Led Zeppelin for a birthday present!
Robert finally put all the songs that were his when 3RDegree broke up and everything he did on my own from ’97 to ’00 onto a cd and it became RECOVERING DREAMER. He got sidelined with the p0rta1 project and waited ‘til ’01 to let it out in the wild. The album title remains one of his favorites. It doesn’t pertain to any particular songs or even an overall theme but the two words really “say” a lot. For a while “Love In A Peaceful World” was able to be heard on the level42.com website and “Souvenir” was available for download at the Kevin Gilbert website. There’s a lot of songs on this CD that are little known cover songs with the possible exception of “The Rain Song” which is a slightly obscure Led Zeppelin song that is one of their finest moments and holds some personal meaning for Robert. Two songs are pretty transparent. “Live With This Forever” sort of takes on O.J. Simpson while “Running Joke” refers to President Clinton’s “troubles”. “Lesson Book” is a lyrical reworking of one of 3RDegree’s best out-takes “Heaven Is...”-later "Cautionary Tale". Basically the songs are more drum loop and keyboard based than the usual 3RDegree song but there’s plenty of RJP guitar playing on the CD-something he could only do in the studio! Patrick Kliesch shows up on the intro to “A Man” while Rob Durham appears on saxophone (!) on “A Work Of Art”. Also, the band’s long-time drum tech and drum session co-producer Dan D’Elia joins Robert on “Hollow Man”-a Marillion song entered for a tribute CD.
"Live With This Forever" & "Lesson Book" (formerly "Heaven Is" and later "Cautionary Tale") would later be recorded for 3RDegree's Narrow-Caster album in 2008
"A Work Of Art" would later be recorded for 3RDegree's The Long Division in 2012
"A Man" would later become "Olympia".
LIQUID 56 FOIL (PATRICK KLIESCH & ERIC PSEJA) 2004
All songs written by Patrick Kliesch and Eric Pseja
Recorded, Mixed & Mastered at POS Studios Westwood, NJ
Liquid 56 is Patrick Kliesch and Eric Pseja,
with contributions from many other extremely talented musicians and supporters-friends and family alike (including 3RDegree members Robert James Pashman and Rob Durham).
This EP is the result of 21 months of inspiration, exploration, cultivation and most of all...hard work (along with Trappist beers, single-malt scotches and many cups from The Republic of Tea).
NARROW-CASTER 10th ANNIVERSARY BONUS DISK 2018
They said it couldn't be done. Not sure who "they" are but man it seemed far-fetched that 3RDegree would ever reconvene after their January 1997 breakup. Even though in late '97 when no one was looking they actually recorded Marillion's "That Time Of The Night (the short straw)" for a tribute album that never happened, it felt like that ship had sailed. After that it was over except for some side projects involving no more than a few of the band members at a time. Anyway, the story is told in the inside of the album liner notes but when Robert, Rob & Pat met in December of 2005 and decided to reform the band, demos for new songs were then created, re-arranging of old songs never finished ensued and George was included a few months later so that by late 2006 the band were recording what would be an album of the same name as a new RJP demo called "Narrow-Caster" which basically laid out exactly how the band would approach the next decade. Instead of going crazy trying to "make it" as they once did, they'd instead narrow in on the pockets of people who might like their type of music enabled by something that really took hold in the time they spent apart: the internet...and to a great extent: social media.
Anyway, you probably know the rest but joined the band's legion with 2012's The Long Division or the more recent latest Ones & Zeros albums. If you look at the "crossover prog" page on Progarchives.com you will see the 2008 album Narrow-Caster as one of the revolving "overlooked and obscure gems" and the band kind of agrees. They've put out better albums since (IMHO) but Narrow-Caster was a real bridge from where they were in the 90's to who they'd become in the 10's. It was their calling card for a bunch of years as they tried creating a name for themselves by making friends in various places of the prog world be it radio, the festivals, review websites or with fans on line and at the shows. This would all pay off to their great surprise with a 2009 ProgDay invitation.
Narrow-Caster served the band well but would be surpassed in popularity quite quickly with subsequent releases. They would love you to take a first-or another-look at the 2008 album that debuted in the merch room at NEARfest that year in jewel case form and then in December with their first "eco-wallet" that would be copied for every release after. This was the "blueprint" if you will, featured all over the CD sleeve.
For the occasion, here are many of the demos members of the band made for other members of the band to hear of songs that made the album. Also included are some songs that never made the album in various states of "finished" and also a one-time-only performance of the title track from our living room.
credits
released September 28, 2018
1. A Capella open
This is a strange experiment Patrick recorded with various melodies from the album. Almost an overture of sorts.
2. Narrow-Caster (live in the living room 4/11/09)
This is a spirited version of the song (faster) with bass, drums, piano and vocals featuring Dan D'Elia on drums along with RJP and George. You may hear Eric Pseja on cowbell too!
3. Apophenia (George Demo)
4. Doesn't Quite Belong (Demo)
A pretty acoustic number we played at our '07 Reunion Concerts and recorded for the album but never finished.
5. It Works (George Demo)
6. Home In The Clouds (The Future Doesn't Need You early version)
This is a song we played live in '07 and was from '96. By this point it was in it's 2nd melodic incarnation with the third featured on our new album Ones & Zeros: vol. 0. It was called "Home In The Clouds" in the first two versions.
7. Papa Jim Story
Papa Jim Harrel tells the story of the time he was lost in Pittsburgh with nothing but his Narrow-Caster CD...
8. Heaven Is (Cautionary Tale early version)
A 90's era demo recording of just drums, rough vocal and keyboards to get the idea down of the song "Heaven Is" which later became "Cautionary Tale".
9. Live With This Forever (Robert Demo)
A 90's era demo
10. The Art Of Being Alone
This is a mixed and "finished" version of another pretty number we played in '07 at our Reunion Concerts. It was "released" on a one-time-only EP we named SNEAK PEAKS.
11. Scenery (Patrick Demo)
12. Narrow-Caster (Robert Demo)
13. Free For All (George Demo)
14. The Last Gasp (Patrick Demo)
15. Scenery (A Capella reprise)
Just a little idea Pat had to call back to "Scenery".
DISCOGRAPHY of 3RDegree and related projects
(in chronological order)
STILL THERE IS MORE... 1995
This double CD tribute to Todd Rundgren (the second released by Third Lock Records) features the band tackling the then-recent 1991 Rundgren track "Kindness" from his SECOND WIND album. The band also contributed the even more recent "Fascist Christ"-perhaps the strangest 3RDegree recording ever. "Kindness" features the only recording of drummer Rob Durham playing acoustic guitar and also features Stephanie Raye Quick who would be heard later on the next 3RDegree album.
PATRICK KLIESCH: DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY ALBUM 1999
This is the solo EP from the band's guitarist and features one song with Patrick on lead vocals. It would feature future 3RDegree guitarist Eric Pseja as well singing on 3 tracks. Available now at Bandcamp it is pared down a bit as it featured 2 unreleased 3RDegree songs as well.
SNEAK PEAKS 2007
To have something new available for sale at their April 2007 Reunion Concerts to give people a taste of what they were working on for a year prior the band created this one time EP consisting of a never-released until the Narrow-Caster 10th anniversary CD track "The Art Of Being Alone" plus other song later released.
RECITAL FOR A SEASON'S END: A TRIBUTE TO MARILLION 2010
This triple CD tribute to Marillion features 3RDegree's version of the 1987 Marillion song "That Time Of The Night (The Short Straw)" as song #1. The song, originally recorded in 1997 after the band's official breakup-strangely-would never see the light of day until this opportunity came to the band's attention. This was released by Italian prog label Mellow Records.
TALES FROM THE EDGE: A TRIBUTE TO THE MUSIC OF YES 2012
This double CD tribute to Yes features 3RDegree's version of the 1977 Yes song "Going For The One". This song was recorded freshly at the sessions that would become THE LONG DIVISION. This take features 3RDegree taking many more liberties with the Yes original than they took with the Marillion song released 2 years earlier-also by Mellow Records in Italy.
ONES & ZEROS: vol. 1 2015
In 2010, George and Patrick had the original ideas for what would become Ones & Zeros. Even "More Life" and "The Gravity" would be recorded alongside the 10 tracks that would become THE LONG DIVISION. Since 2012-an election year-was coming up, the band decided to shelve the "transhumanist songs" to a future release. In 2013 much of what would become ONES & ZEROS: vol. 1 AND even vol. 0 were written and recorded. Once George sequenced the album in early 2015 it was discovered that the album was well over 70 minutes and the band thought that was not only too much music for one release but that it would also be fiscally stupid to release that much music in this day and age where prog fans only pay attention to album releases. The band decided they almost had two albums so it was decided that more songs would be written in 2016-17 for a 2018 "prequel" release.
The album finished 2015 as #3 album of the year at Progarchives.com, not to mention many other press outlets' best of 2015 lists such as DPRP.net and The Gagliarchives.
#3 Album of 2015 -Progarchives.com
#9 Album of 2015 -DPRP.net
#5 Album of 2015 -Background Magazine (NL)
#16 Album of 2015 -The Gagliarchives
#10 Album of 2015 -NewEars.org
#5 Album of 2015 -Angelo’s Rock Orphanage
Top 50 Album of 2015 -SeaOfTranquility.org
Top 5 of 2015 -Grendel’s Headquarters
3 Top 10 Lists of 2015 -Progarchy.com
#5 of 2015 -Aural Moon.com radio
HELLO WORLD! 2016
Since the band toured Europe for the first time in September/October of 2015 they thought it a great idea to be sure to capture as many shows as possible on video. The result is this combination live concert audio/video from The Netherlands and Baltimore, MD USA.
ONES & ZEROS: vol. 0 2018
The songs moved off of 2015's vol. 1 possible running order ("Olympia", "The Future Doesn't Need You" & "Logical Conclusion") as well as a bunch of completely fresh songs ("Perfect Babies", "Click Away!", "Connecting", "Ones & Zeros" and "Unintended Consequence") were meshed along with a "recap" instrumental ("Re1nstall_0verture") with many of Vol. 1's themes to start off the "prequel" release Vol. 0.
The album finished 2018 as #3 album of the year at Progarchives.com, not to mention many other press outlets' best of 2018 lists such as The Gagliarchives.
OLYMPIA (single edit) 2019
Nothing really "new" here but a slightly truncated version of what the band feels is one of their most "accessible" songs suitable for the band's fans to share with music loving friends who maybe do not share their love for progressive rock.
3RDvd 2006
This DVD consists of the best, "most watchable" parts of the afformentioned TOTAL VIDEO COLLECTION. It basically has all the music videos and roughly one song each from every concert the band recorded during their 90's era.
THE TOTAL VIDEO COLLECTION 2005
This 4 DVD collection made for the band and a few close associates captures every VHS and Hi-8 recording of the band's 90's era as well as music videos originally shot on the professional Betacam format. The last DVD features the quartet version of the band.
3RTY: from A to Xanadu 2020
"Best of" collection of remixed and remastered tunes with a few rarities thrown in. The band's last album until further notice.