Jeff Lynne's ELO - From Out Of Nowhere

Just making sure - I only want to buy one copy. Not sure if I would pay triple to get a Japanese bonus track if that happens. Thanks.

 

They will probably wait until you buy it, then they'll release another in Japan. I wonder how many have Pre Ordered or bought that £400 plus box from Pink Floyd?

I will buy the Black vinyl and CD of the new JLELO,

 

Denny Laine was a founder of the MB and left after the first album. Justin Hayward took his place. Not a bad succession, hey?

 

Indeed, as I told you earlier.

I do like 'Go Now' it has that great piano solo and has real atmosphere, that was lost later on.

 

As far as albums by Wings go, Band on the Run was pretty good and there were some hits that weren't the greatest, most of these didn't even make it onto any best comps...

Give Ireland Back to the Irish
Mary Had a Little Lamb
Hi, Hi, Hi
Sally G
Letting Go
Venus and Mars/Rock Show
Mull of Kintyre
I've Had Enough
London Town
Getting Closer
Arrow Through Me

 

From Out of Nowhere Standard Edition JEFF LYNNE'S ELO CD Album

So Japan has a standard version up for sale - 10 tracks..

 

I hope this is not too off topic, but I recently heard a good podcast interview with Bev Bevan.
Despite being a longtime ELO fan, I honestly did not know much about him. He shares a lot of good history.

Ep185: Bev Bevan of ELO, The Move, Black Sabbath, Quill and more - | The Vinyl Guide podcast | For Record Collectors

 

BB has been around for many decades, long before the Move.

 

I think you can find them on those super expanded editions. Mull Of Kintyre was a massive UK hit 9 week out of 17 at Number 1. Co-written by Laine, who later sold the rights to McCartney.

 

When exactly was ELO a BAND with Jeff Lynne in the studio? Surely, you are not thinking of Eighties ELO then? (some of the songs were solo recordings, most of them did not feature all the core members) But even OOTB was'nt approached as a band album at all, although more people were involved.

 

Indeed, a very valid point.

It has always been JL and anyone, that survived the final mix. They may have played on the session but, did JL play over them? Probably after 1975 onward, we are looking at. I think we can say that by the time of the Discovery sessions, it was mostly JL, with the other three when required.

Just listen to the music and you can pretty much tell when JL was mostly DIY.

String section, credited but hardly present on the recordings, unless they were playing a piano, Cello or Violin solo.

It hardly matters to me or many others, as long as it sounds good and over 51 years across various session, groups and line-ups it sounds very good to ears.

 

Wow, well, that's where the US & UK differ as it only hit #33 here stateside, it's not even on our version of All the Best!

 

It did go on a bit. I prefer the Frog Song, out of the two.

 

Jeff Lynne's ELO on Twitter A word from JL

 

Time, Secret Messages and Balance Of Power would have been very different albums if Richard hadn't spent as long in the control room with Jeff working on all those keyboard overdubs, though I do agree that "the other two" were hardly needed by that point. Indeed, Kelly's barely audible on Time (outside a few prominent background vocals), and he was only present for the first four tracks recorded during the Secret Messages sessions. As for Bev, he got a few standout drum fills on Time and Secret Messages, while his only real showcase from Balance Of Power is Send It, which I always felt has more of an interesting back story than the underwhelming end result deserves. Also, it should be noted that Dave Morgan's official credit in the Secret Messages liner notes isn't close to being representative of everything he did on that album...

 

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1331620806999187

 

Well. indeed as you have previously told us SE. Some like it, some don't but JL does it his way

 

ELO in the studio - some quotes (Tandy interview 1994/ Mack interview Tape OP 81 (2011) )

No, they would overdub the strings [in London] and then come back. Then we'd do vocals and stuff. Vocals were always the very last thing. Nobody except Jeff knew what the deal was.
(Mack about the first couple of albums he did with ELO)

Basically it was Jeff and I just doing what we liked doing best! ... Basically backing tracks were done ... in a day or a day and a half. The fun part was the overdubs.
(Mack about recording OOTB and Discovery)

----
(Richard Tandy)
> Were the keyboard duties that you and Jeff shared a 50-50 deal or did you do most of the keyboard work?
This varied a lot over the years. At the start, I probably did most of the keyboards, but as recording techniques changed and synthesisers and electronics came into the picture, Jeff did more and more. For example, when we recorded On The Third Day, most of the tracks were started with Bev, Mike and myself,in the studio, and Jeff in the control room. By the time we got to Balance of
Power, the usual way was to have a stack of keyboards in the control room, and me and Jeff playing along to a drum track, and Bev adding his things later.


> In terms of recording with ELO, could you explain the process of creating a song focusing on your involvement with the song (kind of like a "Richard's guide to keyboarding a song for ELO").

First of all, it would be more correct to say that Jeff created the songs, and I helped to create the recording of them. As I mentioned earlier, the processes changed a lot throughout the history of the group. Basically,there were three periods, pre orchestral, orchestral and post orchestral.In the early days the group would rehearse a song together and get an ideaof how to start recording it, usually as I mentioned with Jeff Bev and Mike and myself, and the string section would be added later. Also bear in mind
that these were early days for electronic keyboards, all we had was a mini moog, and so that would be dubbed on later, by Jeff or myself.

When we started using a full orchestra, things changed. An early part of the process was to get the arrangements for the full orchestra, which normally involved me sitting down with Jeff and Lou Clark. I would play thetunes through on the piano, Jeff would suggest riffs and things, and Lou would write them down, then Lou would say "How about some of this", and Iwould say "What about a one of them", and so the string arrangements cameabout. We next heard them when we got to the studio and the orchestrawas running through them. That was quite an experience. In the meantime,the rhythm tracks would have been laid down as before, with the emphasis more on simplicity, so as to leave space for the orchestral parts. For Bev,
however, this would normally involve double tracking his drums in a suitably ambient space, very often the toilets. After the orchestra was recorded,
other keyboard bits were overdubbed, with the number of electronic keyboards growing by the minute. Post orchestral, the number of sound textures and sequencing possibilities
had increased enormously, and my contributions could be anything from laying down a basic string pad, watching Jeff lay down a basic string pad, working
out sequences on an Oberheim Sequencer, twiddling the knobs on all of the great toys that we'd got, saving sounds, loading sounds, sitting down with
calculators working out the milliseconds, I guess you'll get the picture.I also found time to actually play the odd keyboard. This has turned out
to be a long answer, and it still hasn't given the full picture. We all did the best we could to make a good record.
---


To sum up the people who pushed Jeff the most in the studio to try even harder were not so much the band members (except for Richard) but mainly the sound engineers. Listening to Jeff's message on Twitter my impression is that Jeff Lynne basically does the same thing with Steve Jay, looking for strange sounds and noises

 

He may have been ultimate leader from about 79 onwards but it's a bit unfair to say that Bevan and Tandy didn't introduce anything at all. 80's ELO showed Lynne at the height of involvement and arguably it's also when many started to lose interest.

I don't see why it's controversial to say that I prefer drummers to play drums, or keyboardists to play keyboards, and so on. Lynne is a fantastic songwriter and guitarist but he's not as proficient at other instruments, so I prefer that input from people that specialize in the things he does not.

 

I read this before and it shouldn't be a great shock. RT should get more credit than he actually received and JL does what he does, very well with or without others.

I get the impression that BB has really allowed JL to breathe just as this engineer does. MACK had a particular sound and it really gets in the way.

 

Spot on. And it does make a difference. When this new album was announced I was excited... until I read that JL was doing the 'drums' again. What's it gonna take to get the message to him that his 'drumming' is boring.

 

This is not exactly what I was saying. My point is that most ELO albums, with the exception of ELO2 and OTTD, maybe, cannot be considered to be band albums. Of course, Richard Tandy helped a lot in the studio although it's wrong to believe that every keyboard part was played by him. Bev Bevan certainly is a better drummer than Jeff, but in the studio he mainly did what he was told and had to simplify things enormously because of double-tracking.

By the way, my favourite ELO album is Time, and I like the 80ies output as much as the Seventies stuff.

 

I actually find his drumming is alright, no worse than Bev or no better.

Ginger Baker, the other day on the radio, they played an interview from awhile back. He suggested he was a Jazz drummer.

Then we can consider, Ringo, Rich, Moon etc they just drummed, keeping the beat going. Rich went on for hours. Moon, was very active and Ringo, said he was the click machine, in colourful language.

 

I want that billboard. I'd mount it over my house.