Studio Chatter

Don't know if this qualifies, but Sunday night "60 Minutes" did a piece on Ray Charles and included footage of him in the studio working on the album, apparently between takes talking to Willie Nelson (I think it was Willie). Ray tells him not to rush or hurry, or something, to take his time.

 

Only took me two months to get here!

Well. off the top of my head, there was "Band 6" from Headquarters, which featured Micky Dolenz trying to stay on beat with Chip Douglas' encouraging "That was a little slow...I think you've got it now, Micky". There's also all of that "1-2-3" business at the beginning of "You Told Me."

There's a version of "Forget That Girl" from the second pressing of the Rhino Monkee Flips LP that is prefaced by Micky Dolenz asking "Is President Johnson's son really Jan Berry?" It may have shown up on a few other things, but that's what I've got it on.

The next album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd. had that whole segment around "Don't Call On Me" that had party chatter and Micky Dolenz saying "And now, from the elegant Pump Room of the magnificent Palmer House, high over Chicago, asking that musical question ..." I imagine most of that was done intentionally in the studio, but I've read more than one source that says the entire track was actually recorded at the Palmer House in Chicago during a Monkees concert tour.

A little warm up singing, and Micky's "Hello!" opens "Star Collector"

There's a version of "Steam Engine" that Chip Douglas pressed up as a single in the 80's that has Micky Dolenz doing a bit of werewolf growling before the vocal starts.

And of course, "Gonna Buy Me A Dog" is almost all studio chatter, I've always wondered if they ever got through a serious take of that thing.

The Rhino CD of the Head soundtrack has a segment of studio tape with the group rehearsing the "Ditty Diego (War Chant)" bit, ending with a hilarious Nesmith line that goes straight in to the live version of "Circle Sky."

Plenty of studio chatter on the Headquarters Sessions set, and what's fascinating there is that from the sound of things, Peter Tork was really the dominant member of the group (not Nesmith, as most folks assume) in the studio. There's even one point where Tork gets a bit PO'd at Micky for fooling around when they're ready to do a take. Interesting stuff if you like hearing studio craft.

 

Speaking of The Monkees, there's also "Magnolia Simms." After two false starts, Mike Nesmith chuckles and says, "It's one of those days."

I love Bootsy Collins's reaction to the flatulent sound at the end of Deee-Lite's "Groove is in the Heart." He laughs and says, "Y'all are crazy, man!"

 

Not really what's been talked about so far, but in the released version of I Wanna Be Your Mama Again, you can hear Doug Sahm yeling chord changes to the band.

 

Wasn't that "President Johnson" thing on the Rhino CASSETTE of Headquarters first?

 

You've got me, I never had the cassette. It certainly wasn't on the first pressing of the LP. It might have wound up on a Japanese CD, maybe that's where I had it.

 

Frank Sinatra/On The Inside

There were a series of CDs put out betwen 1994 and 1997 called Sinatra, On The Inside which contain a LOT of studio chatter as well as false starts and full length alternate takes from his early Reprise albums. The sound is actually better than the actual albums because the discs are lifted directly off the multi-tracks and not the stereo mixes. What's good about the studio talk in these cases is that it's not just a little bit here and there to simply give one the feeling they're getting something that's not been heard before but a lot is left on so it's a bit of a mini-education as far as Frank Sinatra was in the studio. He knew what he wanted.

 

I always liked the David Crosby "I can't even talk, how can I sing?" intro to "Lady Friend" on the Byrds box set. Seems like it was edited in but it's still pretty funny considering the performance that follows.
The Grape chatter on "Vintage" that precedes "Fall On You" and "Someday" always bugged me because it impedes the flow of that great album, but I think the brief intro to "8:05" is hilarious (although also somewhat unwelcome for the same reason).

Aaron

 

I've heard one of these where he and the band are working through "I'm Gonna sit Myself Down and Write a Letter"(Don't know if I got the title right? It's early) Too bad there is not a "Sinatra in the Studio" type box set. Or "Sinatra Anthology". It sounded interesting.

 

NO. It doesn't have to have it's own track number for you to be able to skip it.

Using Feurio to burn CD-Rs has taught me a lot about "index 0".

"Index 0" is the area BEFORE a song. Usually you see the "time elapsed" counter going
backwards during this part of a track (-5, -4, -3, -2, -1).

If you skip right to a track - the "Index 0" part of a song is skipped.
If you play tracks straight through, the "Index 0" part of a song is included.

This is really nice for live albums... lets the "between song applause
and comments" stay BETWEEN the song (i.e. not attached to the end or
beginning of a song - or defined as its own track).

So lets say there's studio chatter between every track on a CD and
you don't want to listen to it. I believe you can program "Track 1"
followed by "Track 2" followed by "Track 3" etc - and you'll drop
all of the comments IF they are included in the "Index 0" area.

If they aren't... you could always fix it by making a CD-R with
the track and "Index 0" information where you think it should
go. Or just make a CD-R with all of the pre-song chatter
omitted (which is incredibly easy to do using Feurio).

 

Here's a favorite of mine from Dylan


"I first heard this from uh Ric von Schmidt
He lives in Cambridge
Ricks a blues guitar player......."

 

found studio chatter on hits by Annette and Gary Lewis. are those done by Ron as well?

 

I missed that one. Which one album?

 

Heh, there's a really early Mike Nesmith pre-Monkees single called "What Seems To Be The Trouble, Officer," where he parodies Dylan with the lines:

"I first heard this from Andy Segovia.
Andy never made it as a blues guitar player.
I don't know where he's pickin' now..."

 

Bump

 

Haven't heard them but have read the transcript which takes swearing to a truly professional level! Surprised that it has taken 3 pages of posts before Reg Presley and The Troggs get a mention. Would love to hear the tapes.

 

I have it, but it's not that bad. Maybe for its time it was seen as awful. He gave Al Pachino's Scarface a run for his money!

 

Pixies after "Oh My Golly" on Surfer Rosa

"You ****ing die, I said...to her
I said you ****ing die...to her
huh? what? no no, I was talking to Kim.
I said you ****ing die...
...no, eh ah, we were just goofing around.
No no, it didn't have anything to do with anything.
She said don't touc...anybody touches my stuff,
and I said you ****ing die, like that,
I was finishing her part for here,
you know what I mean?"

 

"Friends" from Led Zeppelin III - A Great "Headphone Listening" Song

 

"Black Country Woman"

 

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but wasn't this aspect what Stan Freberg was touching on / satirizing in such song parodies as "Sh-Boom," "The Yellow Rose of Texas," "Rock Island Line," "The Great Pretender," and "Banana Boat (Day-O)"? And one wonders if these little exchanges in Freberg's spoofs may have helped lead to this market for studio chatter we see today:
- "Too piercing, man."
- "You play that 'clink-clink-clink' jazz, or you won't get paid tonight!"
- "Well . . . makes a difference to the sheep!"
- "Excuse me, that's just a shade loud on the snare drum."
- "Mumble, you guys, mumble!"

 

On Procol Harum's "Exotic Birds & Fruit" album, Gary Brooker asks producer
Chris Thomas, "Is it on, Tommy?" and then the band slams into "Nothing But
the Truth". What a great way to start off the record.

 

To my knowledge the Hey Oh is actually part of Bungalow Bill.

 

I love studio chatter.
One of my recent discoveries was on the 'Proper' box set 'The Everly Brothers Story'
On 'Walk Right Back' there is studio chat & a false start.

Darryl