SH Spotlight We love LOVE! "Forever Changes" Elektra 1967 recording sessions and dates, studios, stories, etc.

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Steve Hoffman, Jun 19, 2013.

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  1. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    And back then when I was young, there was a lot of record shops that would let me dig through the back rooms to find out of print goodies and sell them to me cheaply to get rid of them, sometimes they'd give me old unsold records. Once upon a time, there was a lot of great music not in print. Love, Four Seasons, many a 1960's or 1970's group and soloist's best was unobtainable.
     
  2. Jim N.

    Jim N. Just another day in what was once Paradise...

    Location:
    So Cal
    Not following Steve's thread but the reminder of how much was OOP in the late 70's early 80's really hit home. I was looking for newer copies of Love's first two LP's around 1978 and was really getting frustrated not seeing either of them in print. One day I was flipping through the import bin at Licorice Pizza and found a copy of "Da Capo" (German, I think) and was elated. I had nearly given up hope on finding a new copy of it. It was sad just how much was OOP back then.
     
  3. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    That is such a quintessentially Los Angeles story! :righton:

    More than any other music (including the Beach Boys), I feel that LOVE and FOREVER CHANGES captures everything that's good and bad about life in Los Angeles - the sunshine as well as the dark underbelly. In fact, for several years after I left California, I couldn't listen to Love, their music made me too homesick for the Golden State.
     
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  4. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    Interesting. I never really associated LOVE with Southern California (even though I understand the connection, etc.). I tend to think of all music I like as coming from some universal music heaven or something. But, I must say, when I was in Holland and Germany for three weeks in 1982 (business and pleasure) I was pretty homesick and when I'm A Believer came on the radio in Düsseldorf once I nearly wept, so happy to hear an old friend from home. Silly but I guess that's how we are wired.
     
  5. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    Would it be correct to assume that you've spent your whole life in the Los Angeles area? I think that once you move around a bit, you start to make more associations like that.

    As for San Francisco (where I lived), the one band that most captures that city's vibe for me is the Beau Brummels. Their melancholy minor key music brings to mind visions of SF's cold wind and damp fog drifting over the hills.
     
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  6. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    I've lived here always, yes, except for 1/2 year in New York City (chasing a girl) and a few months in Nashville (chasing a girl). But when I was in New York I didn't start listening to Billy Joel or something.... Dunno.
     
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  7. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    I don't blame you for sticking around... there's a reason there's not that many native Californians living outside of California!
     
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  8. Mr Bass

    Mr Bass Chevelle Ma Belle

    Location:
    Mid Atlantic
    Believe it or not, sales of this type of stuff is not through the roof, far from it.. [/quote]

    FC is a bit introverted, with song titles and lyrical images that are unsettling, not in the usual theatrical or overheated way that is less threatening because of its staginess, but something more real. I don't see it as a work that reaches out and grabs you. Instead you have to be looking for it even when you don't know it.
     
  9. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    I will say that whenever I'm between Clark and Hilldale (which is at least twice a month or so) I get a little brain bump...

    There is one thing I want to say about FOREVER CHANGES. What saves it from being (to me) mostly lyrically self-indulgent claptrap is the fact that Arthur really believed all that stuff he was singing about, I have no doubt about that whatsoever. When I got to know him in 1982 (working on the Arthur Lee/Hendrix Love thing before he went in the slammer) he was pretty much as pessimistic as back in the Summer Of Love. If Arthur sang about something, he meant it, or he believed it to be true. That has always been good enough for me.
     
  10. scottc1963

    scottc1963 Forum Resident

    A friend of mine who worked at a music store (in Indianapolis, IN.) handed me a copy of this and said play it as the sun sets. I have only bought two records more than once, Forever Changes and Pet Sounds. I count myself luck to have been alive to hear Marvin Gay, Aretha, Otis, Pet Sounds and most of all Forever Changes.
     
  11. indy mike

    indy mike Forum Pest


    Bobby Fuller Four, Turtles, Nuggets comps that complemented the Original Artyfacts 2 lp set, new S-T-E-R-E-O mixes, Wild Man Fischer - Rhino found a niche, dug into vaults and mined them thoroughly. :cool:

    And now, back to our feature presentation.
     
  12. John DeAngelis

    John DeAngelis Senior Member

    Location:
    New York, NY
    An interesting segment of an interview with engineer/producer Bruce Botnick:

    Q: Was it hard for the other guys in the band to keep up with Arthur, when
    his music was developing so rapidly?
    BB: The only thing about that was the fact that he kept the focus, and he
    was going a lot faster than they could. I think it's well documented that I took
    them into the studio to produce this album [Forever Changes], and they
    couldn't play, basically. He was quite upset about it. I did a little shock
    value, and I said "Look, I'm going to bring in [top Los Angeles session
    musicians] Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew...Let's try and record a couple
    cuts with them." And I did it intentionally, to shock the band into getting
    serious, which -- it did work. I remember Bryan [MacLean] sitting there
    crying during the session.
    Q: Was there a sense that you might not be able to record with any of the
    band playing their own parts except for Arthur?
    BB: I don't think that was the case. I always went into it with the concept
    of getting the band on track, so that they would be on the album. As it turns
    out, two of the songs that I did with the Wrecking Crew did wind up on the
    album ("The Daily Planet" and "Andmoreagain"). But I mean, when we recorded them,
    I remember that Arthur played live rhythm guitar. I don't think we did too many
    overdubs with the guys on those songs. I think it was as it was, and then he
    overdubbed his voice, and that was kind of it.
     
  13. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    YES!!!!!!
    That is a huge reason why that album is such an intense listening experience. I mean, jeez, the guy was convinced that he was about to DIE, fer crissakes.
     
  14. indy mike

    indy mike Forum Pest

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  15. tubesandvinyl

    tubesandvinyl Forum Resident

    I like your stories better than Mikey's stories :)
     
  16. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    Yeah, even though it was just his paranoid delusion, it makes a difference to me. Joan Baez once asked Bob Dylan what some of his lyrics meant. He told her he had no idea but the words kind of sounded good together. Arthur Lee just spelled it out and he knew exactly what his lyrics meant, every word. That makes and keeps FOREVER CHANGES honest for me.
     
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  17. entropyfan

    entropyfan Forum Resident

    Wow. That was actually pretty clever on Botnick's part.

    I wish more producers had the 'nads to emotionally manipulate lazy bands.
     
  18. attym

    attym Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    I love the sound of the recent LP reissue.
     
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  19. AlienRendel

    AlienRendel Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, il

    Me, too. It's my favorite version. I also enjoy that alternate mix that Steve mastered a few years ago. Cool to hear an album I know so well sound just a little bit different like that.
     
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  20. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    "The Daily Planet" Hal Blaine, Carol Kaye, (forgot who is on piano, electric guitar, etc.) Wrecking Crew folks.

    Hey, this doesn't sound like a fold-down to me! That's a dedicated mono mix, for sure.



    On the alternate mix version I mastered you can hear Hal counting it off at the start. I wonder what he thought of the song? Without words it probably made no sense to any of them. That's Johnny on fuzz guitar after the break and Michael S. doing the extra thumps during the ride out. He had to get his licks in via O/D. Goes on much longer on the alternate mix.
     
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  21. vonwegen

    vonwegen Forum Resident

    That's where I heard it first too. Then a few years later, our soon-to-be convicted rhythm guitarists bought the CD and played it constantly. Fast-forward to 2000, I was in the big music store in Venlo and saw it for 12 Guilder, so I thought what the heck, and purchased it. Been on my constant playlist ever since.
     
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  22. Raunchnroll

    Raunchnroll Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle

    Thats because Lee was authentic. Authenticity is hard to define - the best description I've ever heard is that its the fine, high, pure ring of a silver coin dropped on a floor, but its counterfeit leaves the unmistakeable dull clink of the pot metal it is made from. When an artist lives, bleeds, and believes in their music - thats what makes it truly great.

    Clark & Hilldale was the first Love track I ever heard - probably about 1975 or '6 or so. I fell in love with that song, it was so lush. Then I bought the album at Peaches Records - on a red Electra label. Loved it ever since.

    As an aside, a former girlfriend used to rent a room from Snoopy, their previous drummer. One day she woke up to a weird loud noise; he was shooting a shotgun into the woods from the edge of the yard. Then put it away like nothing was up. Said he was a peculiar and interesting dude.
     
  23. nightenrock

    nightenrock Forum Resident

    Aren't you the same Steve Hoffman who posted that he couldn't listen to Monk because he was listening to a guy who'd lost his mind?
     
  24. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    Aw, Monk wasn't as nuts as people think he was!
     
  25. Chris M

    Chris M Senior Member In Memoriam

    Not sure who was "in charge" but here is a relevant quote from Johnny Echols. "Bruce wasn't even there for many of the sessions, since they were done at Western Sound with John Haney as engineer. Jac wasn't there at all."
     
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