The progressive rock band "Discipline." formed in 1987. They gained a following in the Detroit area partly because they perform unusual, original music, and partly due to their strange live shows. Lead singer, Matthew Parmenter, delivers each song in a different costume behind a thick coat of mime's makeup. Discipline. features Jon Preston Bouda on guitar, Mathew Kennedy on bass, and Paul Dzendzel on drums. "Unfolded Like Staircase" (1997) is the band's best known work, containing three fifteen-minute songs including Canto IV (Limbo), as well as a twenty-two minute song-suite entitled Into the Dream.
In 2005 the band's independent label released "Discipline. Live 1995," a DVD that captures the band during its most theatrical period. Parmenter appears alternately dressed as a jester, a witch, a toga-clad prisoner of Limbo, and a straight-jacketed clown. This special edition DVD includes an extra hour of live footage spanning the band's career from shows in 1988, 1992, 1997, and a rare 1998 performance of Into the Dream.
In 1999, Syzygy Records released "Discipline. Live: Into the Dream." Recorded live in Baltimore as part of the Orion Progressive Rock Showcase, this album includes performances of songs from both the Discipline. studio albums. The same album includes Parmenter singing Between me and the End, a song that would later appear on the singer's 2004 solo CD, "astray."
Discipline. performed five consecutive years at the outdoor progressive rock festival in Chapel Hill, North Carolina known as ProgDay. ProgDay records has released several of these performances on CD including ProgDay '98 (2002), ProgDay Encore (7-CD Box Set) (2001), and ProgDay .95 (1997).
Although they released several early cassette recordings, it was not until 1993 that Discipline. released their first CD, "Push & Profit." The release helped the band gain an international audience, and the same year saw the band travel to Norway to support Push & Profit with a mini-tour.
Of Discipline.'s pre-CD releases, the most notable is "Chaos out of Order." Recorded in 1987, the album tells the story of a man's struggle to accept a life of unfulfilled aspirations. Though less adventurous than Discipline.'s later recordings, the album contains a hint of what was to come. Other cassette releases include "Faces of the Petty" (1992), "Blueprint" (1992), and "Canto IV" (Limbo) (1995). The cassettes from the 1990s feature live to 2-track mixes of the band engineered by David Krofchok, who was also the band's keyboard player from 1990 to 1993.
For more details about Discipline., visit the band's web site at
www.strungoutrecords.com