|
In the world of Rock and Roll, the trench work for anybody not immediate to THE BAND, begins on load in day at the recording studio. This is the world I come from, 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. I can't complain though because the people you meet in this world, and the things you learn are part of the payoff for such long hours and the complete lack of a social life. Honey, I'll be home at 7 tonight. Tom! Where were you last night? You said you'd be home at 7pm, and look, it's 7:30 pm the next day! You're only 24 1/2 hours late! Find yourself another girlfriend -*#?n!&* GOODBYE! Yes, being a recording enginner has it's drawbacks, but all in all, it was fun. Did some great music, and studio tales-I got a million of them. This one though, sticks out in my mind. Although it doesn't involve illegal substances, yeah right, it does involve a certain band with whom I recorded numerous albums. This particular studio where we recorded most of these albums no longer exiists in LA as it was known in it's glory days which were the early 70's through the late 80's. It has been divided up into three separate studios under different names but when it was on top, our only competition was The Record Plant, which was famous (or infamous) for the number and variety of distractions available for the bands recording there. Rock stars are supposed to live a wild life-right, so why not cater to them and have a lounge from which you can go through any one of 6 doors. A room wth whips and chains, another with mirrors and water beds, another with all the pinball machines you could want, and on and on. It had a back entrance where all the goupies hung out waiting for their chance to put another notch in their belt with as many rock stars as possible. Simply put, the longer it took to record and mix an album project, the more money the studio made. Our studio though, approached things alot differently. We were tucked into a little side street in Burbank, with the philosophy of if you make the work enviornment hospitable and condusive to creative music making, fill it with state of the art recording consoles and multi-track reording machines, good engineers etc., in short cut the distractions down to a bare minimum, you'd attract a different type of artist and a slew of producers. Guess what-It worked!! During my time there I did albums for George Benson, Frank Zappa, Carole King, Bill Withers, Christopher Cross, Ozzy, REO Speedwagon, Jefferson Starship, Billy Preston, Bobby Womack, Keith Richards, Ron Wood and the list goes on. I've forgotten half of them as it has a tendency to become a giant blurr due to seriuos sleep deprivation. Anyway I digress. The subjects of this particular story were done tracking, overdubbing, and thee quarters of the way through mixing(a period of approx. 7 weeks) when one night around 6pm, the band got together and decided to celebrate almost finishing the album. What to do? What would everbody like to do? GET LAID!! Hey Tom, check out the escort services and pick one out you think might be cool, and send them over with an open ended contract. "Hey, I'm not your pimp! I'm your mixer!" Well, order them anyway!! So into the phone book I dive, and after much consternation, a suitable and somewhat questionable organization was selected, not so much for their splashy ad, but for their name-DO BLONDES? After suitable monetary arrangements and some haggleing, a satisfactorily discrete agreement was reached and negotiations were completed. With much anticipation, the band instructed me to "keep the finished mixes playing throughout the complex(we happened to be ensconced in our own separate building apart from the other two studios) and otherwise make myself scarse." Precisely at the agreed upon time, a really streached white limo rolled up and proceeded to disgorge a quintuplet of tall, slim, gorgeous blondes who, from our view using the remote tv monitor for the front door, looked for all the world like PAMELA ANDERSON X 5. Everyone rushed to be the first to buzz them in( as I recall the bass player won that race) and they were not disappointed when the ladies finally made their way into the control room. During that 45 sec. walk from the outside door to the control room door, the band members were calling dibs-I got #2, I got #5 etc.. In the ensuing hours after introductions, I observed various pieces of recording equipment being used in a most unusual way, in fact ways which I dare say their inventors never invisioned, such as Mr Steinway, or Mr Marshall, and lets not forget Mr. Gibson. I faithfully played back a dub of the 1/2 " master with the finished mixes until around 11 am the following morning, when all 5 limped back out to their still waiting, idleing white limo. From the looks of the band members, the overriding question of that night had indeed been answered- Yes, Blondes Do!! That albun went on to sell 36 MILLION units world wide (in those days the now antiquated $7.98 vinyl record) and resulted in a couple of double platinum wall decorations for my house. They look nice, but you can't eat 'em, only tell stories about 'em. I got 999,999 more.
|
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
