HISTORY
The Story ...
Photos 📷: (Top) Kevin Stretch © 1991
| 📷: (Bottom) Mark Nguyen © 2021
Past to Present …
Friday, June 4, 2021 … PANGAEA (Masingale, Osborn, Poulsen, the Schenck brothers) reconvened at a hotel in Dallas, Texas and the band was resurrected. On July 31, 2022 they returned to Soundtek Studios with producer Robert Berry to record new songs. The new album, Beowulf, is the result of brotherhood-like friendship, artistic collaboration, and unwavering determination. It is both prospective and retrospective — featuring enterprising material with nostalgic influences. But, before this chapter began, they would go on a series of musical adventures over three decades …
PRELUDE
On Sunday, May 14, 1989 five young men gathered at a home in Tulsa, Oklahoma to see if there were any common musical threads that could generate the foundations for a new band. DARRELL MASINGALE (guitar/vocals), RON POULSEN (bass/vocals), the SCHENCK brothers ANDI (drums) and COREY (guitar/vocals), and KEITH TINKER (keyboards/vocals) were ARTICA. Two years earlier, Corey, Darrell, and Keith all registered for music classes at Tulsa Junior College, where their paths would cross. Ron had met the brothers through the soccer field and in the high school classrooms he shared with Corey.
They quickly began to build a large catalog of both original music and cover songs — enough to perform four hours of music. ARTICA would concentrate on their original songs at venues such as TuCCA (Tulsa Center for Creative Arts) and play sets of cover tunes in the city’s clubs, bars, college campuses, and backyard parties. That New Year’s Eve they played five, one-hour sets in the frigid temperatures of a barn in the small town of Jenks, Oklahoma. Throughout the rest of 1990, the group began phasing out the cover songs and focusing on their original music. By May of 1990 they added a three-piece horn section to the band featuring JIMMY ARCHER (saxophone),TERRY STORER (saxophone & flute), and TONY STORER (trombone & bass). This horn trio would remain an integral part of the group over the next year.
Sunday, January 20, 1991 STEVEN OSBORN — another college classmate — joined the band, establishing the lineup that would become PANGAEA. Osborn was a confident front-man who brought with him powerful lead vocals, commanding stage-presence, and grass-roots songwriting to the group. The sextet created over three hours of original songs, recorded several demos, and gigged continuously. They released their first ten-song album, Le Collage D’Exoticolours, on cassette in 1991.
In 1992, the band earned their first national recognition when Peavey’s Monitor magazine featured them — advertising, “an art-rock band that has a huge repertoire of highly original music and an arsenal of Peavey gear!”.
Tinker left the band in August of ’92, though he continues to make guest appearances as an occasional keyboardist and songwriter on future albums. With such a strong chemistry already established within the band, they decided to remain a quintet as Corey would take over on keyboards. By the end of the year, they released their second set of songs on a four-song, EP cassette. From 1992 to 1994, they concentrated on writing, recording, and distributing their music. The result was three CDs — Rotating Oceans, Grey, and The Guild — each of these gaining more national recognition.
Newsline’s review of The Guild stated: “It’s been a long time since a band has stood up and created a sound that will change rock history, just a bit. They offer progressive rock that has been long missing from the scene. This 12-song CD is mind expanding and entertaining. A journey back to the 70’s that delivers the listener into the Year 2000.”
As the Fall of 1994 approached, Osborn temporarily left to continue his academics and music studies at university. Masingale would step up to the front and take on duties as singer/guitarist. In the Spring of 1995 they recorded a four-song EP, Liquid Placidity, with producer/engineer Walt Bowers (The Osmonds). This EP caught the notice of industry executives in Nashville and the group made two brief excursions to the “Music City” — recording five demos at Sessions Records and Curb Studios.
ACT I
The same EP garnered the attention of producer/musician Robert Berry (3, GTR, Hush, Ambrosia, Greg Kihn, Sammy Hagar) and a creative, symbiotic relationship was formed between producer and band. In the second week of April, 1996, PANGAEA found themselves with Berry at his Campbell, CA Soundtek Studios. Here they worked on arrangements to three songs that would mark the beginning in a long series of collaborations. They wrote thirty songs, then selected ten for the album. By July, they would return to record their first of these projects The Rite of Passage. The band sold thousands of copies worldwide on their own label (Hargadein Music Group Records) and managed to find radio play on college, Internet, and international stations. The songs “Time Syndrome”, “The Winds”, “September Park”, “Father”, “Hollow Dweller”, “A Gift”, “Lonely is a Place” and “Beggar’s Hand” hit the airwaves in Canada, England, Poland, Germany, France, Sweden, Israel, Spain and the Netherlands, as well as stations in Asia, Australia, Africa and South America.
This led to interest from different labels across Europe and Pangaea signed with Angular Records of Germany. In the summer of 1998, PANGAEA recorded their second album with Berry, Welcome to the Theatre ... and released it early the next year. Again, various radio formats throughout North & South America, Europe, Asia and Australia played many of the songs. Two songs from the album were released on compilation albums in Europe - “Autumn Monsoon“ on Sysyphus and “The Hobo, The Dog, & The Moon“ on Empire - opening the door to a European festival tour invitation.
Andi’s track “The White Shaman”, which was inspired by his excursions of Native American historical sites in the Pecos River Valley of Texas, was distributed as a single through The Rock Art Foundation with proceeds being donated to the foundation. In 1998 the group was on the cover of the PINK FLOYD art-rock magazine Eclipsed in Europe. PANGAEA was also featured and interviewed in other magazines worldwide such as Subterranea in Chile, Empire in Germany and Metal Hammer in Germany, Hungary, and Poland. The palindrome, expressionist-inspired song “The Nightmare” received a “DJ mix” in Greece and hit the club circuit in 1999. Other notable songs were "The Fall of Rome", “Ride It Easy” and "Dark Room" which also received airplay in Europe, Asia, South America and North America. In early 1999 Alan Tiechler designed their website and the band shared web links with prog-rock giants ELP, ASIA, KING CRIMSON, YES, STEVE HOWE, KEITH EMERSON, GREG LAKE, CARL PALMER, JOHN WETTON, GEOFF DOWNES as well as legendary artist and designer ROGER DEAN.
By May 1999, Osborn returned to PANGAEA and the quintet began writing and rehearsing music for their next album, A Time & A Place, at a beach house in Galveston, Texas. Just before recording sessions began that July, Poulsen departed for a time; the album featured producer Robert Berry taking the bass duties for the project. Original band member Keith Tinker returned in the capacity of songwriter, co-writing “Beyond the Prism” with Corey. The group also recorded a compelling rendition of the PINK FLOYD classic “Time” for SIGNS OF LIFE, a tribute album to the British icons, which was released in October 2000.
In November 2001, PANGAEA crossed paths with Los Angeles-based manager/producer Dito Godwin (No Doubt, Motley Crue, Ace Frehley, Peter Criss) who heard something in the band that he liked. Throughout the first eight months of 2002 PANGAEA collaborated with Godwin on fine-tuning their live show and writing new songs. During this time other musicians such as guitarist/vocalist SCOTT DRAUGHON (VINTAGE THUNDER) and bassist/vocalist MAURICE BETTAGLIO (EAS) performed with the group.
Poulsen would return in 2002, just after the album’s release on Musea Records of France. The Schenck-Schenck-Osborn-Masingale-Poulsen quintet re-established themselves as a powerful and meticulous live band with songs that spotlight the individual members' instrumental and vocal prowess with performances from Texas to California. In conjunction with the winter release of their 2002 album A Time & A Place, on Musea Records, they found themselves in Hollywood for rehearsals, a showcase, a photo shoot, and demo sessions at Silvercloud Studios.
On June 14, 2003 PANGAEA returned to California and Soundtek Studios for the recording of, The Reckoning, their fourth collaboration with producer Robert Berry (3, Hush, Greg Kihn Band). The album would be a combination of styles from the first three albums done with Berry and the work in Hollywood. There was a focus on concise, direct songs that tell a good story — delivered with the same credibility, quality, and sincerity through writing and performance.
Godwin then brought the band to Westlake Studios in Hollywood on a series of trips from October 2003 through July 2004 to record an alternative version of the album that would feature a five-piece brass section including JOHAN KEUS, JASON BROWNE, GUS PAREDES (trumpets) and MARK NGUYEN and MATT TOMASELLI (trombones); RICO SCHENCK (youngest brother to Corey and Andi) joined the project on bass after Poulsen’s 2003 departure. Osborn would exit in late 2004, leaving only three original members; with Rico and the brass quintet now on board, the group played concerts and showcases from Texas to California as THE RECKONING.
The summer of 2005 found the band recording acoustic arrangements of several of the new songs at a home of actors/comedians/writers/brothers Dan and Peter Aykroyd. This led to an ‘unplugged’ tour of Borders Books, Hard Rock Cafe, and other venues. The U.S. trade magazine FMQB (Friday Morning Quarterback) featured both “Hold On” and “Lost in a Day” on its SubModern compilations #009 and #012. On August 20, 2008 things would culminate at a before-game performance to 12,000 people at a Houston Dynamo soccer match. Unfortunately, the group would go on hiatus after packing up for this show.
ACT II
Friday, June 4, 2021 … in Dallas, Texas: Ron, “We did a thing this past weekend in Dallas. The five members of PANGAEA got together for a photo shoot with photographer/musician Mark Nguyen to talk about plans moving forward. It had been eighteen years since the five of us had been in the same place together! Good times to say the least indeed!”. "We never really 'called it a day' as a band. Although we didn't perform shows or release albums, we continued to write and discuss what would be our next move. We've always been friends and always stayed in touch," said Corey.
Then on July 24, the five members got together and rehearsed for the first time in eighteen years. Corey, “We played seven songs over the weekend, and right away, the first song, ‘The Winds’, sounded great and felt great. It sounded like PANGAEA”, he continues, “some of the songs took a bit of work to bring back together, while others like ‘Time Syndrome’ and ‘Something Happened Yesterday’ were nearly there - the first time we played them.” Ron stated, “We made it through seven of the eight songs we had picked out … it was a blast to say the least.”
Sunday, July 31, PANGAEA arrived in California to collaborate with their friend and producer Robert Berry. After spending the past year rehearsing and writing new material it was time to record once again. The sessions were an explosion of creativity, collaboration, and performances with the band recording over a dozen new songs in just over two weeks. Berry stated, “This the band's strongest album in writing, playing, and arranging - as it should be.” The band also rekindled their relationship with German artist Rainer Kalwitz for new artwork for the album cover.
In October 2023 PANGAEA added multi-instrumentalist Scott Draughon to the band. Draughon is a long-time friend and collaborator with the group and played live with PANGAEA from 2001-2002. Ron Poulsen stated, “After we returned from San Jose recording our latest album and then started to rehearse for playing live we very quickly realized we could not cover all the parts on the recordings with the five of us. Multiple keyboard and guitar parts. Scott was the obvious choice to fill that void. Having played in the band before he knew the music. Heavy prog influence. And more importantly he is a brother. We get along well with each other. I am glad he said yes when he got the call. I can tell you firsthand the first time all six of us got in the room together it was a very big and full sound!!! It's an honor to have him on board. I look forward to playing with him on stage soon.”
On May 23, 2024 the band played the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Muskogee. They performed twenty songs from their 35 year career in two hours to an ecstatic crowd. The same evening they released their latest creation, Beowulf, while performing four songs from the album.
PANGAEA has a diverse and expansive catalog of music that will be released beyond 2024.
And the story continues …
✍️ by Christian Hargadein, HMG Entertainment
