ETTORE SALATI

This month's Artist in Spotlight is Ettore Salati from Italy. Ettore is a sought after session guitarist by many prog musicians not just in Italy but all around the world. He started playing piano at a very young age (mostly classical music) but when he became a teenager and discovered the world of Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Genesis and 70's rock in general, he was immediately fascinated by guitar... more

KAT EPPLE (Emerald Web)

KAT EPPLE, flautist and composer, is our interview guest this month. She has won 8 Emmy awards, was nominated for a Grammy and she has released 18 albums internationally. Most of you know her as the other half of the legendary ambient/new age duo EMERALD WEB. She has a very large collection (over 200) of flutes that she gathered from all around the world during her travels. Kat composes original New Age/Jazz/World/orchestral music and has produced film scores and television soundtracks for National Geographic, Nova, CNN, Carl Sagan, Another World, The Travel Channel, Turner Broadcasting System, History Channel, HGN, The Guiding Light, PBS, and NASA among others, and was Music Director for the feature-length film, Captiva Island. She also owns a record company and works on both sides of the music industry as a musician and as a business woman... more

New Grass Revival / On The Boulevard

New Grass Revival are one of the pioneers of progressive bluegrass. Formed in 1971 by Sam Bush (mandolin/vocals), Curtis Burch (guitar), Ebo Walker (bass) and Courtney Johnson (banjo), they immediately got the attention from the industry both in a good and bad way. First of all, they were often told that their music was not bluegrass, and they knew it wasn’t “bluegrass” in its traditional sense, and it wasn’t what they were trying to achieve anyways. They were blending rock, soul and blues rhythms with the traditional bluegrass music. They were not wearing suites, but instead they had a more casual style along with long hair... more

RICHIE NIETO

Richie Nieto brings about a refreshing change in the industry with his own brand of progressive music. Using the Chapman stick to mix rock, metal and experimental in the pot that is his creative mind.

Nieto, a Costa Rican native musician, has been in the active music scene for over 20 years. He worked on projects in different genres including progressive and experimental, both as a solo artist and in established groups. He toured in Central and North America opening up for artists like Sting, Jethro Tull and Yes’ Jon Anderson. "Giant Robots and Sunsets" is Richie's first solo album. He not only wrote the songs and played almost all the instruments on the album, he also worked on the programming, production and engineering levels.

Richie's music can be described as King Crimson meets Rush and Trey Gunn, but don't let this description mislead you, because Richie has his own style all by himself. Mostly on the experimental side, his music has elements of progressive music too. Songs like "Caffeine" and "Down The Rabbit Hole" reflect a good mixture of both genres. Caffeine's bass lines were played on both bass and Chapman stick, it includes a stick and a metal guitar solo. Down The Rabbit Hole takes his title from Alice In Wonderland as it is a "song within a song".

"The Hill Of Holes" is one the best songs on Richie's album. This song was remixed and produced by Lee Fletcher (halo), but not only that, Warr guitar was played by Markus Reuter (Tuner / Centrozoon). How he got to meet these musicicans is a 21st century tale. He and Lee started exchanging messages on myspace making comments about each other's work. They developped a friendship in time and one day Lee asked him if he could rework on one of Richie's tracks. "Low To Ground" that is. In return, Richie programmed drums on three of the halo's tracks. He met Markus while working on Tuner’s ’11 versions of 11-11’, which was an experiment to display different drum arrangements by different producers and drummers for one of their tracks. They exchanged emails and that is how they began working on "The Hill Of Holes".

On top of everything, Richie plays one of the most interesting instruments: Chapman Stick (aka The Stick). He first was blown away by the Stick in 1989, when he saw a video of Tony Levin playing it with King Crimson. Richie was a guitarist at the time, and having a Stick seemed like a distant dream. Then in 2000 he moved to Los Angeles, and it turned out that he was living about 15 minutes away from Chapman’s workshop. He drove there and ordered one, which took around six months to be built. He says when he first got it, it felt very alien and weird. But after practicing for a few months, it began to feel more natural, and now he finds it more satisfying to play than the guitar, which he has played for more than 20 years. He also says seeing Trey Gunn play live a couple of times, and listening to his CD's really helped him understand this instrument which looks quite intricate.

For those who are not familiar with the way the Stick sounds, we can only try to describe it like this: sounds like guitar and bass at the same time, but also in times feels like keyboards. Basically one hand plays the bass lines while the other plays the guitar lines. It is sort of similar to playing piano.

We asked Richie how and when he started working on his solo project. He said he started writing and recording the first track for the album in early 2002. The entire album, except for "The Hill Of Holes", was recorded in his home studio on evenings and weekends. The recording equipment was very minimal at first, and he had only been playing the Chapman Stick for about six months, so as the setup grew and he got more confident in his playing, the writing started to evolve and get more complicated as well. "Low To Ground" was the first track to be written, which has been since re-recorded to get a better sound, and he added a Stick solo. The last tune written was "Caffeine", which is sonically very complex and combines almost every tool at his disposal – Stick, different guitars, electric bass, synths, drum and percussion samplers and sound effects. About him playing almost all the instruments on the album himself, Richie says this was done intentionally as an experiment, to see how far he could push himself musically and mentally.

Richie is also a member of the band called Neurotica. This project sounds different than his solo work as it is more on the progressive / new wave side. Neurotica have recently released a self titled album. Here are the links for you to find more information about Richie Nieto's projects and how to purchase them. We also included a short sample of the track "Low To Ground" for you to get an idea about his music.