Wednesday, March 27, 2002
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Wednesday, March 27, 2002 |
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Ultima Thule to rock the Log Cabin in Fayetteville By MICHAEL
BOYLAN If you pass by the Log Cabin in Fayetteville Saturday afternoon, chances are it will be rocking. Ultima Thule, a progressive rock band and the brainchild of Fayetteville resident Bob Hutson, will be performing a free concert. The band will be playing selections from the album Formation Projeckt as well as a tribute to those progressive rockers from Canada known as Rush. Ultima Thule was a city on the continent of Atlantis. It was where magicians and politicians trained and was a gateway to Atlantis. The band was around over 20 years ago and toured the Southeast in the early 1980s. Hutson went to on to the business world and was vice president of a logistics company but rock and roll never left his blood. Over the past few years, Hutson worked part-time on the album, Formation Projeckt, playing all of the string instruments, including the six and seven string guitars and all five string bass work. He wrote the lyrics with his wife, Colette, and then had a drummer friend in New Orleans lay down the beats. The album was originally going to be about the formation of the universe but Hutson felt that the theme limited him lyrically so he opened it up a little bit. The rest of Hutson's family is musical as well. His son, Robert, is a student at Georgia Tech and has been playing guitar since the age of 13, while his daughter, Bailee, is a freshman at Starr's Mill who plays flute and piano with the symphonic band and the wind ensemble. Formation Projeckt takes on many themes including friendship, religion, current events, the plight of whales and more. The music is complex and recording the album too a lot of time. "There are a lot of complex chord structures in the music," said Hutson, who also wanted onomatopoeia in the music, where the sound suggests the meaning. This is very evident in the song "Plight of the Whales," which is an instrumental about whales being hunted. Hutson describes Ultima Thule and his music as progressive rock. "Progressive rock is melodic art rock, like Dream Theater or Rush. It is more complicated than the typical power chords that are heard in much of pop music today." Hutson's background is in classical and jazz music. He learned his trade at World of Strings and Tulane University in New Orleans. Though this will be the first public performance with his new bandmates, Union City's Charles Sanders on drums and Michael Wilkes, a machinist for Delta, on bass, their extensive background in music and dedication to the music has the band energized about their future. Both Sanders and Wilkes have played their instruments for over 20 years and have been influenced by some of classic rock's biggest names. Hutson found his bandmates through the internet and the Georgia Music Industry Association. There are several record companies interested in the band and marketing them in Europe and Canada as well as in the U.S. "Progressive rock is huge in Europe," said Hutson, who says that record deals are the furthest thing from his mind right now. "We are looking forward to doing more shows in and around the Atlanta area and then maybe going to the Northeast or Europe. We are also working on our second album and will be playing a track from it at Saturday's show. It's called "High and Dry" and was written by my wife. It is about the drought in Georgia." Ultima Thule promises an incredible live show. There will be some amazing technology in the works at the show including guitar synthesizers and sequencers. "The band will sound better than the album," stated Hutson. "It will be my first performance in about 15 years and right now we are all very excited." Hutson has certainly worked hard on this project. Not only did he write, produce and perform on most of the instruments on the album but he financed the album and is promoting it by himself. He even worked with Rightside Graphics in Fayetteville on the album cover. For those looking to hear a little bit of Ultima Thule's "Formation Projeckt," visit www.cdbaby.com/ultimathule. The show will take place at 2 p.m. Saturday at the log Cabin in Fayetteville and is free.
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