LISTEN: KR_CmptrMx_Track2.mp3

Since the sounds that composer Keith Restaurant organize in this music have essentially no reference point (I.E., none of them are sounds that you or I would have heard before), every element of the production process is incredibly important in creating meaning.  In this way, the Magnecord PT6, with it’s peculiar frequency response, distortions, and flutter, is being used in a very significant way; it is a primary component of the sound, rather than an ‘effect.’  This contribution is intensified by the multiple-generations of recording and re-recording via the PT6.  It is also interesting to note than even in the longer (4:00) piece, the PT6 deviated less than 250ms over 4:00 relative to the Pro Tools safety copy.  This is great news for anyone who wants to fold one of these into their working process.

You can learn more about Keith Restaurant at his blog.

The culmination of the past 4 months of crate digging: Summer 2011 at Preservation Sound.  If you see me, ask me for a copy.  Full track list/links follow the pics.

Follow the link for track information…

1.            John Entwistle “Heaven and hell” from “Smash your head against the wall” Decca DL79183.  1971.  A great album all around.  Very dark sonics and dark subject matter.   JE was the bass player for THE WHO for most of his life.

2.             Man “Out of your head” from “The Welsh Connection” MCA 2190. 1976.  MAN have many records; this is the best one i’ve heard so far.  fantastic recording with a lot of quirky lines in the playing.

3.             Michael Stanley “Subterranean Homesick Blues” from “Michael Stanley” Tumbleweed Records TWS106. 1973.  (no link).  OK so the most crazy thing about this arrangement is the fact that MS took it from a different artist – one of my personal favorites, Terry Boylan.  MS does credit Terry on the sleeve, and I think even improves on it.  Terry’s abum “Alias Boona” is a lost classic.  Check it out if you can find it.

4.             Jeff Beck “Shapes of things” from “Truth EPIC BN-26413. 1968.  Unbelievable drumming on this cut.  Yet another classic Rod moment.

5.             Booker T and the MGs “Fuqawi” from ‘Melting Pot’ STAX Records STS 2035. 1971. (no link)  There are other cuts on this record that are even better, but my copy is slightly warped and this one played the best.  This is the best Booker T record; give it a listen and imagine how fantastic these cuts would be with a great singer and song over them.  By this point, BTMGs were not backing singers as a unit; this record was not even recorded at STAX.

6.             Kyle “I think I’m gonna rain” from “Times that try a man’s soul” Paramount Records PAS 6006. 1971.  (no link)  A good record all around.  Kinda Jim Ford/Elvis in Mepmhis vibe.  From the man who could-have-been-Billy-Joel, or so the story goes.  Kyle was apparently a member of THE LOST (classic 60s Boston garage band), although, I don’t see his name on their records.

7.             Gerry Rafferty “Right down the line” from ‘City to City’ United Artists UA-LA840-G.   1978.  A great track only slightly diminished by the fact that it will spend eternity living in the direct shadow of the preceding monolith ‘Baker Street.’

8.             Suzi Quatro “If you can’t give me love” from ‘If you knew Suzi’ RSO RS-1-3044.  1979.  <3 the Suzi.  This is a classic album.

9.             Mike Robbins “Some Cats” from “Long Time Comin’” AVI Records 6021. 1977. (No Link) Amazing.  A great example of the weirdness that results when you take a mediocre pop-rock-country song and layer it with way too many synth lines.  Bring em on, I say.

10.             Speedy Keen “Lesliana” from “Previous Convictions” MCA records MCA-331.  1973.  (no link)  Keen was the bandleader behind the Townsend-produced chestnut “Something In the Air.” This record is pretty mediocre, but this throwaway ending cut (named for the Leslie Rotating Speaker that is responsible for the beautiful wash of sound you hear) is a great piece of atmosphere.

11.             Jackie Lomax “Take My Word” from “Is This What You Want?” Apple SAPCOR 6.  1969. George Harrison produced this record while still in the Beatles; the lineup is predictably all-star.  Good disc all around.

12.             Ace “Know How It Feels” from “Five-a-Side” Anchor Records ANCL-2001.  1974.  (no link)  Anchor Records greatest success was AMERICA, which they had UK rights to.  This cut by ACE is one of the best blue-eyed soul ballads i’ve ever heard.  Right up there with the best of H+O.

13.             Nina Simone “When I was in my prime” from “Nina Simone” Upfront UPF 145. 1968. (originally appeared on “Live in Paris.”  Can’t say too much about this.  As epic as most of her output.

14.             Patti Smith “Free Money” from “Horses”  Sire 0698. 1975.  OK so I allllllllways knew that this album would one day get into my brain.  I resisted for decades but it finally happened last week.  I finally get it.  If you don’t dig this record, give it another chance.  and then again in 10 years, and then again…  it will be worth it.  Her ability to take the tropes and cliches of 60s blues/garage rock and turn them into a platform for something else entirely, something incredibly personal and expressive, is matched perhaps only by Beefheart.  He did a whole other thing with those bits and pieces but you catch my drift?

15.             The Seeds “Painted Doll” from ‘Future’ GNP 2038.  1967.  The kind of stoned doo-wop that I mistakenly thought only the Velvet Underground could really do right.  Great record all around.

16.             Norman Greenbaum “Alice Bodine” from ‘Spirit in the Sky’ Reprise 6365.  1969.  (no link)  Greenbaum’s ‘Spirit in the sky’ is maybe the most overplayed light rock hit of the Nixon era.  And it’s s0 absolutely brilliant and perfect that it does-not-even-matter.  Greenbaum never hit that same level again, but his other material at least shares the same warped sensibility.  Another great cut from this disc is ‘Marcy.’

17.             Randy VanWarmer “Just when I needed you most” from the 45rpm single.  OK yeah so this is pretty firmly in the genre that we all accept as waiting-room music, muzak, etc.  Mawkish sentiment paired to a sentimental arrangement…sure.  But then you learn that Dude’s father died unexpectedly when he was 10; and Dude wrote this only 8 years later…  gets a little more real huh.  Maybe not the predictable love song we thought we were hearing all these years.

18.             Shawn Phillips “Screamer for Phlyses” from ‘Contribution’ A&M SP 4241. 1970.   (no link)  Nothing to add here…

19.             John Lennon “Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple)” from ‘Mind Games’ Apple Records SW 3414. 197.  Not an obscure cut by any means; fantastic record all around.  Made sense given the whirlwind of very real revolutionary activity occurring in so much of the world right now.

20.             Kanter Slick Freidberg “Sketches of China” from “Baron Von Tollbooth….” Grunt 0598. 1973.  This is, in many ways, the last Jefferson Airplane record…before the Starship years…  and this is the last cut on that record…  huge huge amazing coda.  Grace Slick sounds better than ever.

1. “Ohio River, She’s So Deep And Wide” by Winifred Smith.  From ‘Folk Songs Of The South’ by Winifred Smith.  RCA Victor #61100

2. “It Ain’t Easy” by Ron Davies.  From “Friends” A&M SP 8021

3. “Broken Hearted Blues” by T-Rex.  From “Tanx” Reprise 0598

4. “Dear Mary” by The Steve Miller Band. From ‘Sailor’ /Capitol ST 2984

5. ”Jamie” by Hedge & Donna.  From ‘The New Spirit Of Capitol’ Capitol #SNP-6

6. “Hope” by Mason Proffit.  From “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream” Ampex A-10138

7. “Reflections” by The Chambers Brothers. From ‘New Generation’ Columbia C 30032

8. “Bad Night at the Whiskey” by The Byrds.  From ‘Dr Byrds and Mr Hyde’ Columbia CS 9755

9. “Innervenus Eyes” by The Bob Seger System.  From ‘The New Spirit Of Capitol’ Capitol #SNP-6

10. “In Your Life” by Tower.  From ‘Collecting Peppermint Clouds’ Technicolor Dream Records T.D.R. 002 (Originally a Decca b-side)

11. “Baal” by Exuma.  From “Exuma II (Air)” Mercury SR 61314

12. “The Joys Of Life” by Karen Beth.  From “The Joys of Life” Decca DL 75148

13. “Atlantis” by Donovan.  From ‘Barabajagal’ Epic BN 26481

14. “Take My Home Country Roads” by Olivia Newton-John.  From ‘Heavy Hits’, Adam VIII LTD # A-8010

15. “I’m Losing You” by Dwight Twilley.  From “Sincerely” Shelter SRL-52001

16. “My Love” by Paul McCartney.  From the 7” single Apple #1861

17. “August Day” by Hall & Oates.  B-side to “I don’t want to lose you” RCA PB-11424

18. “I Go Crazy” by Paul Davis. From the 7” single Bang # B-733

19. “Only With You” by The Beach Boys. From ‘Holland’ /  Captiol MS 2118

Follow the link for more information…

I used a slight different transfer setup this time.  Same Benz Micro cartridge on the JVC direct-drive table, but this time I went into protools via an Apogee Mini-me A/D converter with mild limiting applied.

Here’s some thoughts on the tracks…

1. “Ohio River, She’s So Deep And Wide” by Winifred Smith.   This was an interesting find; record was sealed.  From approx. 1965.  From what I can gather from the liner notes, this seems to have been a vanity-pressing; a very expensive gift from a Nashville banking-executive to his wife.  There are so many odd and conflicting aesthetics at work here.  It opens with the feel of early Leonard Cohen, but the grown-mens choir dispenses with that.  Smith’s blackface-esque pronunciation of “I got da blues” really puts it into outer space.  Nothing diminishes from the overall beauty and sadness of the recording, though.  The sum effect is a David Lynch-esque oddness that I have never quite heard captured before.

2. “It Ain’t Easy” by Ron Davies.   Yup, the same song from “ziggy stardust.”  This is the original version by writer Ron Davies.  Bowie’s ain’t bad at all, but this original version is just so badass.

3. “Broken Hearted Blues” by T-Rex.   Somehow I missed ‘Tanx’ for many years, despite being an avid fan of all the earlier Bolan jams.    A great record; maybe Bolan’s last great record.  this is just one of many fantastic tracks on the disc.

4. “Dear Mary” by The Steve Miller Band.   Yes, you are right; the Steve Miller tracks that we grew up with on rock radio are bland at best, and often awful.  His early records are all pretty strong though.  Check out the gentle-rainfall soundeffect throughout this track.  The effectively-warbley vocal performance.  Reminds me of the best of The Clientele.

5. ”Jamie” by Hedge & Donna.  Starts a little hokey but what a great chorus.  Some melody. I really don’t know anything about this group.  Pulled from a label comp.

6. “Hope” by Mason Proffit.  From “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream” Ampex A-10138.  I really dig Mason Proffit.  This is from their 2nd, and likely best record.  These guys had an interesting story.  They started their career as NUGGETS act ‘Sounds Unlimited’; like so many of that ilk, they transitioned to country-rock at the decade’s end (and then to Jesus-rock at the end of the 70s.).  Killer track.

7. “Reflections” by The Chambers Brothers. They did have other good tracks besides perennial licensing-juggernaut ‘Time Has Come Today’!   And this proves it.  From ‘Next Generation,’ which IMO is their best LP.

8. “Bad Night at the Whiskey” by The Byrds.   ‘Dr Byrds and Mr Hyde’ is a great Byrds LP. Dig the vocal pad in the verse.  Truly psych-country.

9. “Innervenus Eyes” by The Bob Seger System.  This originally appeared on NOAH, which I have yet to come across.  I largely included this track just for the Stooges-y piano figure in Ch1, which is one of the best arranging gimmicks of all time.

10. “In Your Life” by Tower.  Obscure Dutch band from the 60s.  I found this on a comp LP that I picked up in Paris maybe a decade ago.  The whole comp is excellent; i’d tell you to seek it out but my copy is hand-inked ‘372/500′ so there does not seem to be much hope of anybody finding this LP about.

11. “Baal” by Exuma.  E heard Exuma on Internet Radio one day and picked this up for me.  The rest of the album is a bit too world-music-y for my taste but goddamn this track is awesome.  what a voice.  Exuma is a fascinating character; check out his Allmusic.com entry.

12. “The Joys Of Life” by Karen Beth.  One of the best LPs I chanced upon all year.  The first track is godawful over-arranged schmaltz but the next 9 are all great weirdo-chick pysch-folk like this title track.  Reminds me of Nico, Edith Frost, and Bridget St John.  Highly recommended.

13. “Atlantis” by Donovan.  I am a Donovan fan.  I think I might have every LP released until the late 70s.  But I never, ever could make it though this track because… well…  the first 2 minutes are maybe the most embarrassing nonsense he ever recording.  BUT THEN.  good lord.  Just wait.  it is so so worth it.

14. “Take My Home Country Roads” by Olivia Newton-John.  I had not known that this disco-queen had a country-rock past but i am not surprised.  The opening 16 is so beautiful that I think I may have actually shed a tear when this came on one day in the shop.  Despite having heard many other versions of this song a million times before.  I pulled this from a comp; definitely gonna keep an eye out for the original LP.

15. “I’m Losing You” by Dwight Twilley.  This whole record is fantastic.  Buy it.

16. “My Love” by Paul McCartney.   Ahh the slick Paul. Dude can write ’em.

17. “August Day” by Hall & Oates.  Along the lines of the Bee Gee’s ‘Song Of Summer,’ a beat-less weirdo keyboard jam from some white soul dudes.  Very strange.

18. “I Go Crazy” by Paul Davis. For many years I felt that there was a companion track to Benny Mardones creep-out-anthem ‘Into The Night’ and now I know that it is called ”I Go Crazy” and it is by former (and future) country singer Paul Davis.

19. “Only With You” by The Beach Boys.  My father often extolled the virtues of this lesser-known Beach Boys album ‘Holland’ and I have to say that it took me a long time to get into it.  I think that the recent Legacy Dennis Wilson re-issues provided the pathway.  This is Dennis’ contribution to ‘Holland’ and it is the standout moment.

LISTEN: Wanted

Update: Tom Boudreau, writer of ‘Wanted’ and guitar-player for ‘Rude Awakening’ got in touch with PS.com.  Here’s a few words from Tom about the band and the studio:

“(re: the) Rude Awakening 45. That was a few lifetimes  ago. Roughly 25yrs later i can report that we sadly lost my brother / drummer in 05 due to complicated health issues / diabetes. I am still in contact with Joe Stoner (vocals).  Sean (bass) is still local and we have crossed paths over the years.  Joe wrote the A side and i wrote the B side of that record.  All 4 of us built the music. I do not have any contact with Sam Eckhardt who owned and opperated Downstairs Studio. This was an 8 track Tascam board, 388 1/2″ reel, 2 room facility in the basement of Davidsons Fabric in Downtown Bridgeport. A lot of bands recorded there in the mid-80’s. Currently i have a small project studio in my home.  I still have contact with Incas (Records). I have done some tape to cd transfer for them including ‘Ct Fun’ which was a compilation done with many bands from the times including Rude…

Tom Boudreau
www.boneheadstudio.com”

Thanks for getting in touch Tom!  The Davidsons building, btw, is still present in Downtown Bridgeport.  It’s just one of another abandoned buildings in the largely derelict downtown of this once-great city.  The huge painted ‘Davidsons’ signage is clearly visible to all who approach the bus/train station from the North.  I’ve asked Tom for some pics of  ‘Downstairs Studio’; if any arrive I will post them here.   BTW, nice to get a solid, concrete examples of one of the hundreds of busy, active Tascam-based project studios of the early 1980s.  See this previous post for more on the Tascam revolution.

Hallelujah_PS

Via Magnecord PT-6 tape machine and Tascam PE-250 large-diaphragm dynamic microphone.

T’s  mother passed not long ago, and in her possessions he found a small record-album that a suitor had recorded for her while serving in WWII.

It seems that Pepsi-Co provided these machines for the use of GI’s.  There is small print on the disc itself that reads ‘Recordisc,’ which was a popular pro-sumer disc recording unit of the era.  I have not been able to determine exactly what the recording apparatus for these Pepsi-branded discs were, but I imagine it was not dissimilar to these:

(web source)

When T first asked me to do this transfer for him, he was very concerned with the recording deteriorating due to the playback.  For this reason, I captured the material on the first-pass.

I used my shitty little VESTAX ‘porta-trax’ or whatever player, as it is my only deck that does 78 RPM. Why did I assume 78 RPM?  Well, the 33.3 LP or the 45rpm 7″ were not in common use during WWII,  so 78b RPM was a safe guess.

The recording was actually quite good, aside from the surface noise.  Since the VESTAX applies an RIAA equalization curve (which was NOT used in 194X), I had to re-EQ the audio in Pro Tools.  I attempted to research the Recordisc machines in order to determine which pre-RIAA pre-emphasis EQ curve they used, but I could not find any information on this.  So I use my best judgment.  I used my ears.  I applied a 24db/oct lo-cut at about 200hz, a 12db/oct hi-cut at around 5k hz, and then boosted a bit at around 2200 to help the intelligibility.  Two stages of compression were then applied.

Here’s the result.

LISTEN: AudioLetter_WWII_serviceman_to_ladyfriend

This is powerful for a few reasons.  Generally, when we hear voices like this, it is in the context of a film or radio news program of the period.  Although this GI is reading from a piece of paper (it sounds like), he is not an actor, and he is not acting; this is intended for an audience of one.

In case you were wondering: the woman in the photographs is in fact the addressee of this recorded message.  This man did come home after the war. He did not marry the woman that he is addressing, although they did remain in touch; and he is not T’s father.

]]> https://www.preservationsound.com/the-sound-of-the-front/feed/ 3 https://www.preservationsound.com/spring-reverb-defines-a-mythic-space-where-the-legends-of-rock-live/ https://www.preservationsound.com/spring-reverb-defines-a-mythic-space-where-the-legends-of-rock-live/#comments Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:43:42 +0000 http://www.preservationsound.com/?p=1080 Listen to this audio.

Gtr_Amp_Close_up

You don’t need me to tell you that this is the sound of an electric guitar playing through a guitar amp (speaker).  You would believe me if I told you this was what you were hearing.

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But what about the space that this happening in?  And what does the sonic event of this speaker-movement sound like in that space?  I can show you.

GtrAmp_in_a_room

…And you would believe me that this is the space in which this event is taking place.

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Humans are pretty good at using our ears/brain to evaluate a sound and judge the space in which that sound is occurring.  We never had to do this much until about 100 years ago, because until we had technology to record/transmit and playback sound as audio, the only way to hear a sound was to be physically present where the sound was being generated.  So baring blindness or blindfold, if you heard a sound, you did in fact have good direct knowledge of the space in which the sound was occurring.  But we now have the technology to capture and reproduce sounds divorced from their origin in time and/or space.  And we also have devised technologies to synthesize the sound of spaces.  We can synthesize very good imitations of real physical spaces that we have experienced in the flesh.  And we can also synthesize the effect of imaginary and unreal spaces.

Listen to the guitar performance again.

GtrAmp_DigitalReverb_Church

I have taken the close-mic’d guitar-audio you listened to initially and ‘placed it’ into a ‘church-space’ by processing it with a computer-reverb program.  There is no actual physical space captured here, other than the 2-inches between the microphone and the speaker.  But, if we suspend that knowledge, I think that we can all reasonably accept that yes it does in fact sound like the guitar-performance is taking place here:

(web source)

Many generations of computer-programmers have labored for decades to create that sonic illusion, and they have done a pretty good job at it.   Even the cheapest pieces of audio-hardware nowadays come with these digital-reverb programs built-in, and there are generally dozens of ‘spaces’ on offer, from Halls to Churches to Rooms etc.  And most of the time, these reverb-programs are effectively able to convince us of the spaces that their names suggest.

But what about spring reverb?  AKA., guitar-amp-reverb?  AKA, the reverb knob on your old Fender (or whatever…) amp?  Exactly what space is defined there?

Let’s take a listen.  Here’s the same close-mic’d guitar performance you heard earlier; this time, though, I have turned on the reverb knob on the amp.

GtrAmpSpringReverb

It’s evocative, right?  But of what?  And more importantly, of where?  Our brain is telling us that the guitar is now in some sort of space.  But what is that space?  Well, literally, it’s the space and the springs inside this little 9-inch steel can in the back of the guitar amp.

(web source)

But emotionally, we don’t feel like we’re hearing the sound of this little sardine can.  Instead, the guitar-performance (and our imaginations) have been transported to some sort of mythic Rock-Legend-Space.  How is this possible?  Because we have heard this same goddamn accutronics-reverb-tank sound a million trillion times since were little kids.  Because nearly every good-quality guitar amplifier made in this country or any other between the years 1965 and 2000 had one of these little mechanisms in it.  Furthermore, we never heard the sound of this ‘space’ when we were walking down the street, or to the kitchen in the middle of the night to get a snack (crunchy carrots).  We have heard this space a zillion times always and only in context of Rock and Roll.  Either on record, on the radio, or in a club watching a band on an elevated stage.  Through these millions of associations, the sound created by that little metal can has come to represent a sort-of Mount Olympus of Rock and Roll.

(web source)

Or, if you like, the Hall Of Justice of Rock.

(web source)

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Have you ever read Rock Dreams by Peelaert and Cohn?  It’s a collection of illustrations (with some explanatory text) that attempts to visualize the legends and myths that we associate with various Rock and Soul performers.

All of the personages represented in the illustrations are real, actual people who were born, lived, and died (or will).  But they have been placed in settings which are simultaneously unreal and yet totally expected.  The scenes depicted in the images are not actual places where these people ever set foot.  Instead they are spaces that we have created in our collective imaginations.  And they are very fitting.

I think the spring-reverb box in the guitar amp has come to define such a space.  Not a space of inches and miles, walls and ceilings, tiles and columns; but an imagined space where Rock and Roll lives; an imagined space that we all imagine with uncanny similarity.

]]> https://www.preservationsound.com/spring-reverb-defines-a-mythic-space-where-the-legends-of-rock-live/feed/ 10 https://www.preservationsound.com/fall-2010/ https://www.preservationsound.com/fall-2010/#respond Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:48:17 +0000 http://www.preservationsound.com/?p=275 I buy records.  I don’t seek out particular titles or pay more than a buck or two per LP; I go to estate sales and flea markets and dig and dig and dig for stuff that i have not heard yet (or not heard in years).  I pick up a few hundred per year.  It gets more difficult  (but also more rewarding) with each passing year to find music that i have not heard.  I generally look for rock and soul recorded between 1965 and 1975.

I like this way of experiencing new music because there is a bit of a folk-music quality to it.  As in: whether I like it or not, I am limited to listening to music that other people in my community were listening to some time ago.  It’s all music that shaped the hearts and minds of people who drove these same streets, lived in these same houses, played in the bars of my town many years ago.  Anyhow, of the 800 LPs that i buy each year, 60 will have a track that I like.

Those 60 end up on these seasonal compilations.  Tracks gets transferred from LP through a Proton  preamp and into Protools for trimmin.’   I use a Benz MC20E2 cartridge, which I highly recommend if yr in the market for a new cartridge.

Here’s the list for this season.  Link through for the details…

Cochise “Home Again”

Alive and Kicking “Tighter, Tighter”

Fairport Convention “Meet on the ledge”

Mark-Almond “Speak Easy It’s a Whisky Scene”

Dave Mason “We just disagree”

Mel and Tim “Starting all over again”

Jay and the Americans “Since I don’t have you”

Marvin Gaye “Troubleman”

Bobby Whitlock “Song for Paula”

Flaming Ember “Westbound #9”

Sandy Denny “It’ll Take A Long Time”

Macondo “Never thought I’d See You Go”

David Lannan “Morning”

Otis Clay “A House Ain’t a Home”

Steve Marcus “Tomorrow Never Knows”

Tufano-Giammarese “I’m a Loser”

Kevin John Agosti “Lighthouse Madness”

Jerry Jeff Walker “LA Freeway”

Al Green “Together again”

Gene Clark “1975”

Cochise “Home Again” from the LP ‘SWALLOWS TALES.’  Perhaps most famous for putting a woman’s naked breast on the cover of their first LP, Cochise was a largely unsuccessful British hard rock band of the early 70s.  I really dig this record.  It reminds me of Free with a pedal-steel player added in.  Allmusic.com describes them as ‘an uneasy 60’s-turning-into-70s-sound’ but shit, that’s just what i like.  The ‘unease’ of the 60’s turning into the 70’s is pretty much the saddest and darkest moment of the late 20th century.  Idealism laid to waste ETC.   This track in particular has a bass gtr sound that is 20 years ahead of its time.

Alive and Kicking “Tighter, Tighter.”  From the 7” single.   I was shocked at how cool this side was until i learned that it was a Tommy James reject that he gave to his bridge&tunnel buddies Alive and Kicking to record.  I could say so much about this.  Love the echo on the horn parts.  The surprisingly ‘acid’ gtr solo.  The unusual ‘mid’-tempo.  This will end up in a Tarrantino film someday.

Fairport Convention “Meet on the ledge” from the s/t LP.  This album is fantastic, and this track is so powerful.  A great band.  Their producer Joe Boyd recently published a book called ‘White Bicycles.”  He has an incredible story to tell.  One of the best books about the 60s that has ever been written.  Check it out.

Mark-Almond “Speak Easy It’s a Whisky Scene” (exerpt) from the s/t LP.   Not to be confused with Marc Almond, this was a duo of ex-John Mayall sidemen.  The LP is dense and (likely) conceptual, reminds me a bit of Penguin Cafe.  This is a killer groove.  Yes i said it.

Dave Mason “We just disagree.”  From the 7” single.  This falls firmly in the category of songs that a friend terms ‘some grown man shit.’  As the rock audience matured in the 70s, there were, for the first time, rock and soul hits that were not intended for a teen audience.  This soft-rock classic def fits that bill.  Mason’s traffic bandmate Steve Winwood would have even greater success mining this same terrain in the 80’s.

Mel and Tim “Starting all over again.”  From the 7” single.  WOW listen to that rhythm section.  The song is pretty mellow but…  that gigantic bassline and hypnotic drum part…so hip-hop.    The echo’d out guitar…  this is a great example of a good tune made GREAT by an inspired arrangement.

Jay and the Americans “Since I don’t have you.”  From the 7” single.  Feel like i am really gravitating toward the heavy bass-gtr feels these days.  This is a recording in which ½ the band has been ‘turned on’ and ½ the band is still living in the Pre Rock Era.  but it works.  Also:  “‘XXX’ and the Americans” is a guaranteed killer band name.  And AHH shit i bet you didn’t see that Association-style coda coming…

Marvin Gaye “Trouble Man.”  From a later Motown 7” single.  This was a non-album track from Gaye’s classic era.  WOW dude liked reverb on his voice didn’t he. From wiki: “Marvin called it one of the honest recordings he ever made. Gaye played drums and piano on the record as well as performing all the vocals himself.”   I engineered two albums for the record label ‘Trouble man’ in the early 2000s.  A band called “The ABCs” and a band called “Touchdown.”  Funny that the label found its inspiration here (these were avant-garde instrumental bands).

Bobby Whitlock “Song for Paula.”  S/T LP.  Kinda in the 70’s Session-Dude-Makes-Solo-Record thing.  I mean, shit, Leon Russell was a session player at one point.  Whitlock played with Clapton ETC…  Lots of great stuff in this genre (i just made it a genre).  Jesse Ed Davis is another example.  Check out the work of the guys who played on the records of the Famous Guys. That’s my advice.

Flaming Ember “Westbound #9.” from the LP of the same title.  Flaming Ember makes a repeat visit here.  Read a book recently by Dennis Coffey called ‘Guitars Bars and Motown Superstars.”  Interesting tale of a Motown session gtr player.  Ups and Downs etc.  Coffey worked with Flaming Ember, who were considered the best white RnB band in Detroit back then. Which is kind saying a lot…  Bob Seger System; MC5; Rare Earth…

Sandy Denny “It’ll Take A Long Time” from the LP ‘SANDY.’  Denny sang with Fairport Convention.  And she was known to American audiences from her appearance on a Zeppelin track.  This is a beautiful track from her solo LP ‘Sandy.’  Reminds me of the brighter moment of Bridget St John, who you should check out too…

Macondo “Never thought I’d See You Go” from the s/t LP.  I don’t know anything about this band.  Apparently they were marketed as a ‘Latin Rock Band.’  This is a cool track which sound way way ahead of its (1972) time.  Atlantic Records, and there are some bird illustrations on the cover.  They were somehow tied to Sergio Mendes (???).

David Lannan “Morning” from the LP ‘STREET SINGER.’  Man this was a weird thing to find at an estate sale in some random anonymous sad condo.  Lannan was apparently some sort of busker in SF, and this record was supposedly tracked “on portable stereo machines using two hand held microphones.”  Listen with headphones and consider this.  There are a lot of buskers in NYC. Some of them (Freelance Whales?) even attain some profile.  The most incredible busker I ever saw was many years ago at the 2nd ave F stop.  It was maybe 1AM.  An old (and i mean ancient) black man was sitting, barly moving, playing super-languid slide on an acoustic gtr with 2 strings, ALONG TO a raspy, echo-y, distorted vocal coming from a shitty old boom box.  It was totally and completely mesmerizing.  Never heard anything like it before or since.

Otis Clay “A House Ain’t a Home” from the LP ‘I CAN’T TAKE IT.’    I love Hi Records.  At 34, I love Hi Records like i loved Matador when i was 18.  I bought this LP because I listen to OV Wright, Ann Peebles, and Al Green all the time, and i was always thinking…  who IS that drummer?  Dude is so subtle he makes Jim Keltner sound like Lars Ulrich.  Anyhow, looked into Howard Grimes and…  he played on Clay’s Hi sides.  Genius.

Steve Marcus “Tomorrow Never Knows” from the LP of the same title.  EXERPT.  is this jazz?  yes i suppose it is.  This is the guitar solo.  Performed by Larry Coryell.  Serious fuzz.  I dig the drummer too.  Feel weird about including this but…  that fuzz…

Tufano-Giammarese “I’m a Loser” from the s/t LP.  Shit I was so excited when i heard this…  something about the ‘i’m a loser’ chorus lyric, and then i saw that Al Hansen was the string arranger credited…  i thought that i had found the hidden source of Beck’s first hit.  But alas this a Beatles song!  Leave it to me to not recognize a F-ing Beatles tune.  Anyhow this is beautiful and almost certainly better than any British recording of this song.

Kevin John Agosti “Lighthouse Madness” from the s/t LP.  This is a super-obscure record.  Made in Vermont in 1978.  This particular blend of acoustic guitar and primitive analog synthesizer has always been a favorite of mine.  The whole LP is good actually; I hope this album can see the light of day again.  It might be Jesus rock? I can’t even tell anymore.  U2 kinda blurred the lines on that one.

Jerry Jeff Walker “LA Freeway” from the s/t LP.  Christ this is a good album.  I had never heard of JJW before a friend gave me this LP.  From what i gather, Walker was considered ‘outlaw country’ back-in-the-day, but this is just good rock music… also wow this is a good-sounding recording.   The coda is just one of those magic moments that seems so simple but man when you are in a room playing and you get that feeling happening… it’s a rare thing.  i like this album like most people like Townes Van Zandt…  Walker’s voice is less annoying.  Seems like a less-uptight dude.

Al Green “Together again” from ‘HEART FULL OF FIRE.’ Another Howard Grimes appearance.  Man, Hi Records was great.  It was nice to see Willie Mitchell (Hi main-man) get some coverage when he passed away earlier this year.  I’d love to read some interviews with him. Such a singular thing he was doing in the 70s.  By 1976, 99% of RnB had migrated towards disco tendencies, but Hi stayed the course.  If you want to hear what 60’s southern soul music sounds like with another 10 years of development, craftsmanship, and sonics behind it, Hi is the source.

Gene Clark “1975” from the album generally referred to as ‘White Light.”  This LP deserves its strong reputation.   Another selection from A+M records.  So much great stuff on A+M.  Say what you want about Herb Alpert; he sure signed some good artists.

There is a lot of mystique and even superstition surrounding demos in the music/recording world.  People will speak of ‘demo love,’ AKA the condition wherein the commercial master can’t seem to eclipse the emotional impact that the demo manages to achieve.  On the other hand, some people will tend to apologize for their demos, even though their particular demo may be the best recording achievable on their budget, and even though it is the job of those in The Industry to ‘hear past’ the demo.  Anyhow, I am not interested so much in the operation of demos in their contemporary context, but rather, the special qualities that we can experience in the demos of the past.

Here’s a songwriting demo from Jim Ford, an obscure soul songwriter most active in the early 70s.  Several collections of his songwriting demos (demos created to ‘pitch’ his new compositions to artists who might potentially record them, thereby earning Ford and his publisher royalties on the recordings) were released in recent years by Bear Family, a German record company.  It’s sloppy and crazy and messy and my god.  It is cool.

16 Go Through Sunday

We generally agree that a demo is a ‘less produced’ recording.  OK.  but what does ‘produced’ mean?  Record production is an art that involves a great many details, many of them incredibly specific to particular genres and trends and microtrends that may last for brief years or even months.  Generally speaking, though, producing a commercial recording featuring some musical performers and a vocalist will involve, at minimum:

*)Some sort of dedicated recording space with the relevant tools and technology available (aka a ‘studio’).

*)The ability to capture multiple takes of a song, and edit between them if necessary.

*)A ‘producer’ who’s main minimum responsibility is essentially that of quality control – IE., someone with the authority and experience to say, “that’s the one.”

*)And, finally, time.  Enough time to set up the equipment properly. Dither around with all the knobs and positions and instruments until the desired effect is truly achieved.  And then do as many takes as needed, and afterwards, edit and mix and re-process all the various recorded audio signals until everyone who is invested in the project can say ‘what up, DONE?’

Let’s consider a typical example of a production task.  Music production of  instruments and especially vocals generally involves various electronic processes intended to enhance the sound of the performance.  For instance:  no one likes to hear a vocal that is not as well on pitch as the singer had intended.  But if the singer just can’t nail it, what do you do?  As an audio operator, you will employ various processes to either draw attention away from the flawed performance or even to correct the flaws.  Until 1965 or so, this was done by adding reverberation and/or echo in order to ‘smooth out’ rough transitions between notes.  (Try singing in the shower, or some other reverberant space, and you will notice that your signing sounds better!)   Moving on, in the late 60s/1970s, aiding a pitchy-y vocal was often done by recording multiple takes of the same part and layering them on top of each other (a.k.a. ‘double tracking’ -made feasible because now you could have 16 or 24 separate tracks on a multitrack tape rather than just 4 or 8 tracks).  by the early 80s and the advent of readily-available digital audio technology, you suddenly had the ability to ‘sample’ off pitch notes, correct the pitch, and then re-insert the corrected note into the performance.  By the early 1990s and the dawn of the Digital Audio Workstation era, you had the ability to manipulate the performance basically however you wanted to.  ANYTHING was ‘fixable’ given you had enough time and skill.  And finally, by the late 1990s, we were given the technology commonly referred to as Auto Tune, by which a performance could be pitch-corrected nearly automatically, with very little skill or experience required even on the part of the audio operator.

So that’s the broad strokes, and one macro example, of music production.  Back to my earlier line of inquiry:  If a demo is a less-produced recording, then, a demo is basically a recording that is less manipulated.  It has been subjected to less human-time spent modifying the audio.  It is more simply the product of the performances and the physicality of the microphones, recording environment, and  instruments that created the performances.  Also, randomness and chance likely will play a bigger part in the finished result.  None of what i am saying are absolutes – these are just generalizations.  But in general, when we hear a demo from, say, 1970, we are given the chance to peer back in time in a way that produced commercial recordings don’t always allow us to.  We can hear the way that an actual human drummer played a take In The Year 1970, as opposed to 7 recorded takes that were edited together and oh btw we tape-edited the drums in the bridge to really make it groove there.  Is this better or worse?  Neither.  it’s different.  It’s a matter of what you like.  But, the demo will likely offer closer access to the performances and the actual sounds of the instruments/microphones/studio spaces that were used in ‘those days,’ whatever those days may be.   I think in general, most people would associate ‘demo’ with ‘Lo Fidelity’ and ‘Studio Master’ with ‘Hi Fidelity,’  but when you think about it, a demo (so long as the recording equipment used was of decent quality) will actually bear much more fidelity to the actual acoustic event than a commercial master.  We could get on a major sidetrack here about the quality of the equipment did matter back in the day/still matters today, but you catch my drift.

Have you ever seen ‘Shadows’ or any of the Cassevettes films?  I was really struck by ‘Shadows’ when i first saw it at maybe age 18.  My god, i had never heard people talk like that!  Or move like that!  Cassevettes as a director really relied on his actors to improvise, and therefore, I think his films offer us a better view into how people actually behaved back then.  Sort of like what documentary films can offer.   Granted, his ‘people’ were generally trained actors, but still.  It’s less the work of a committee and more the work of One Person In Front Of A Camera.  And for this reason, i feel like it gives me better access to that actual historical moment in which the film was made.  I feel the same way about old demos.  Here’s a really obscure recording from around 1970 that i found on a cut-rate compilation LP called ‘the now sounds.’  The LP contains recordings of various pop hits of the day, credited to basically anonymous vocalists.  There is no information to be had on ‘jerry walsh’ or this recording.  I imagine that it may have been recorded as a demo for this singer.  Probably not for the band backing him, as there is a bad tape edit (or lack of an edit!) going into the guitar solo where the beat gets lost.  If this had been created to the satisfaction of the band, the drummer would have likely not found this to be satisfactory.  On the other hand, if the drummer was just hired to back up ‘Jerry’ that day, well…

04 Let It Be

Anyhow, yeah this is all conjecture on my part.  Nonetheless, when i hear this recording, i feel like i am really getting a good sense of what it would have been like to hear an average singer, fronting an average band, in some average bar, anywhere in America in 1970.  I’m not hearing The Entertainment Industry (which i have heard a million times, and it usually pretty much sounds the same).  I ‘m just hearing some guys making a demo.  And it’s evocative.

Does anyone  out there collect and compile ancient publishing company demo recordings?

Is Jerry Walsh out there somewhere?  Was this made as a demo?

Steve Douglas was a studio session saxophone player who performed on countless hits of the 60s and 70s.  Allmusic.com has a write-up and credit list for Douglas if yr curious.   In the mid-seventies, Douglas apparently went to Egypt and got permission to record some improvised music in the Kings Chamber of the Great Pyramid of Cheops.  Here’s an example:

09 Track 09

According to the liner notes, the whole thing was taped live by his buddy to 2-track Nagra tape deck (a Nagra is a high-end Swiss-made tape recorder which was generally used on film and television shoots in the era before DAT tape decks).  I am not sure how to explain the polyphony (IE multiple notes occurring at the same time), but it’s possible that Douglas was playing two saxes at once, a trick i have seen myself many times.

From what i can gather, this was originally a private press LP that was soon picked up by Takoma, the avant-garde/folk label.

This recording really illustrates how much information there is in simply hearing the sound of a room.  How much can be added to a recording by putting the performer in the right space.  The room sound of the chamber is the real content of this album.  Douglas brings this point home by including some brief ‘street noise/Cairo’ bits on the record; it lets us know that we are in for a largely sonic (as opposed to largely musical) experience.  I was in Cairo recently and it is a very visceral place.  noisy, crowded, smoky, strong smells everywhere- it’s overwhelming.  Even the pyramid park is stressful.  Cops with machine guns circle and extort money from tourists (yes for real).  In contrast to all of this is the inner quiet of the pyramid chambers.  Silence, darkness, no motion.  Check out this clip where we hear a percussive piece that seems to be wholly constructed from the valve and pad noises of the saxophone.

Cheops_ValvePiece

Douglas was not a really a jazz musician (although there are certainly ‘jazzy’ passages and scales on the record), and i think that’s part of why i like this album so much.   Jazz musicians tend to focus their energy on certain kinds of expression:  usually personal ’emotional’ expression, or some expression of their thoughts on jazz idioms and jazz form.  CHEOPS, though, is an audio expression of the physicality of an incredible place.  It is really just about the sound, and it’s beautiful.  I transferred this album from LP.  It’s available on Amazon (with a really terrible new cover), and if you like Eno, Budd, etc., i think you will dig this.

Does anyone know anything else about this record?  What sound effect units he is using?

Any similar records out there to hear?