A DAY WORKING WITH MAROON 5 I did a little of everything including rock documentary work. Picture, go here: Facebook I've worn a lot of "All Access Badges", an all access pass is cool unless you fall off the stage or something.
ZZ POSTER IN FRANCE They were following me I guess. In 2017 I had just finished a week with the TV show Good Morning America covering the SuperBowl (Houston). Then I found a bargain flight to Paris ($ 455 round trip Houston/Paris) and grabbed my backpack. Here's the first thing I saw when I went down into the Paris subway. Picture here: (1) Facebook Yes, that's right
If it's the same Moby, he was on a rock station here in Houston called 97Rock (Kick *ss rock'n'roll was their slogan) back in the early/mid 80s. He was the afternoon guy, not really too much on the voices or sound effects then. 101 was the flagship rock station, and right next to it was FM 100 that was great rock station for a while.
I recall reading ( I think on Bobby Owsinski's site) that the backing vocals on Journey's Any Way You Want It were the same, one and done.
Linden - with what Billy did to the drum sound with the 1987 release of their fist 6 albums (released as "The Six Pack"), do you think Billy just doesn't like Frank's drumming or was it something else? Do you think those remastered drums were just Billy overdubbing a drum machine?
And no matter how terrible the end product was, technically it was very well made for 1986 or when it was done...
I think CD's were such a new thing that it was an open question of how much you could "improve" an old recording for digital. It seemed like a couple of artists (ZZ Top and Zappa, mainly) thought that really modernizing their recordings was the way to go. Reaction to those projects pretty much put an end to that.
Great answer, and true. Until the checks started arriving. Example: Ive taken my location sound equipment to work on TV commercials in the past, didn't do any sound at all, and got paid (it was a director choice or a mistake) it didn't hurt my feelings at all. It was just fine. And so, Frank has no true beef, he's a pro, still has his job, has great hair, has a wonderful family, has a massive house, he can be grumpy if he wants to, but....
No matter how technically well done they were, they still ruined those reissues for guys like me, who change the radio station when one of those abominations plays. The worst offender is the re-done "La Grange". Shudder...
Perhaps so. I for one however prefer Frank Zappa's reworking of Cruisin' With Reuben & the Jets by the Mothers with its freshly re-recorded drum and bass parts and overdubbed vocal enhancements, over the original album (now available as Greasy Love Songs). But that is quite different from ZZ's triggered digital drum replacements, which were machine-made as opposed to musicians actually being brought in to re-record new parts which was what Zappa did at least on Reuben & the Jets anyway
I wonder how they did that in 1980? Was the Synclavier around yet? The sampled vocals I did were in 1992. Dan
Well I was an engineer in 1980. Usually we'd not do "one and done", but if you wanted to do that you could premix a stack of back voices down to 2 track then lay it where you wanted over and over, and if you were rolling things at 30 ips you still have good quality. Every engineer will have a different suggestion. When digital recording was pretty well established, cut and paste etc got easy.
I haven't heard the re-releases of the early albums, but Ive heard gripes, In fact I haven't heard anything after Afterburner, I will venture though that Billy definitely had a problem with live drumming in studio (not just Frank, but anything that wasn't perfect), and, it's possible there was a specialist engineer doing some hi tech technique of replacement (all engineers have their strong and weak points, their tricks and specialties.) Ive never seen Billy operate a drum machine or synthesizer, let the specialist do the magic things. Contrary to what musicians say, the leader of a band or his manager my get overruled by their label as to this or that, so replacement might have been ordered by the higher powers with the label. Anything is possible and likely. But Im sort of old and I was say "if re-issues sound bad, then just simply listen to the original releases". There should not need to be mind games.
That's the only thing I could come up with, too, a layoff reel. I wonder if the entire thing was bounced to a 2-track to save tracks, assuming most or all of those vocals were Steve Perry. Nowadays, of course, just clipboard it and paste to your heart's content. My track hadn't been done with a click, so we were sweating as we triggered the sounds. It had ramped up in speed ever so slightly! Dan
Its of course one reason to produce with click tracks or digital drums, then you can make chorus loops, tom tom roll loops, rhythm guitar loops (some folks may not approve of these things Im suggesting, but saving time becomes important when there are budgets and deadlines). If you have a king's budget and tons of time then keep your ethics (whatever they are) clean and hack it out honestly note for note (Im being a little sarcastic but realistic too). If you have money and can get the session time that you want do it your way.
Here's another fairly accurate set of paragraphs from David Blayney's book "Sharp Dressed Men" David was ZZs first roadie and stage manager for 15 years. The book said: Copyrighting is always a wise idea in a business where borrowing is rife, and outright theft is commonplace. In December 1982 Linden Hudson obtained a copyright for "Thug". With all the rehearsals over at Frank's place, he moved on to other things and forgot about the song. That is, he forgot about it until he picked up a copy of Eliminator after it was released in April 1983 and discovered that "Thug" was one of the featured songs! Not only that but the name of Linden Hudson, the console magician who worked for weeks in the studio at Frank's place with Billy Gibbons as Eliminator was unfolded, appeared not one place on the album. The Boys had copyrighted "Thug" in April 1983, more than four months after Linden got there first. The forthcoming line from Ham, as the Boy's representative, was that the song had been purchased outright from Linden. This argument was weakened by the fact that no bill of sale for the (page 201) transaction could be located. After attempting to reason the subject, it finally became obvious to Linden that his erstwhile friendship with the Boys wasn't going to get him anywhere. There wasn't much he could do about getting stiffed on the credits issue, but the records of the copyright were clear. So, determined not to come up with a completely empty wallet, Linden moved out of Frank's house and sued. Texas Monthly magazine some while afterward reported that the matter was settled out of court for $600,000. Out of this sum Huey Meaux (who had published Linden's song) and Linden split two-thirds between them, the attorney's fee gobbling up the balance. A $200,000 profit for one song sounds like Linden got a pretty good deal, but that was not the case. Eliminator went on to become a multi-platinum album, just as Linden had predicted when he and Billy were setting up the 124 beat tempos and arranging all the material. Rolling Stone eventually picked the album as number 39 out of the top 100 of the 80s. Linden Hudson in a fair world should have had his name all over Eliminator and gotten the just compensation he deserved. Instead he got ostrasized. Is anybody out there looking for a songwriter/producer/engineer with ghost credits for a platinum album behind him? If so, I know just the man to recommend to you. I find it hard to believe that the Boys intentionally set out to do a number on Linden, but sometimes you tend to forget where you came from. It's very easy to get both greedy and self-serving in "show bidness". But unless their personalities have changed radically from what I knew them as, the fault for what happened lies elsewhere. (not every book on this subject is perfectly accurate as they're trying to conversational and not historic perfection, but David's book gives a good look at the situation and he knew the band better than anyone on the planet)
I have always thought Billy was a cool customer. Great guitar player and a fellow hot rod lover with much deeper pockets. I now look at him in a different light. Sorry you were done this way by people who you thought were your friends. Very sad.
Here's the quote for what it's worth: 3) The harmonies are very tight - maybe too tight, in that it sounds like they got one perfect then just flew the rest of them in on all the other spots in the song as needed. That's no big deal today since you can easily cut and paste in your DAW of choice, but don't forget, this song was recorded way back in 1980 in the days of magnetic tape. You had to do this kind of thing manually, which was a process we called "flying it in" back then. From this site: Bobby Owsinski's Blog . I'm not an engineer, this just happened to stick with me.
FLOORPLAN FOR FRANK'S 1980 HOME STUDIO Here's a drawing I did of Frank's home studio that I did for a documentary This is designed by me (not a big deal, it's simple, for 3 people) The whole studio was the size of a double garage. I sub contracted a carpenter to build the drum booth (I need my fingers) We sub contracted an interior decorator to put silvery gray fabric on the walls. This was basic, nice enough, and the best joint they'd had to that date (and Eliminator was born here and grew up later in Memphis and sold more than 20 mil albums). See it here; Facebook
Good find, verifies what I said (as I remember). Yes, Ive done tons of "flying it in" but I do not use lots of industrial terms because people go "say what"? Thanks for your find. By the way "flying it in" is very crude, not glamourous, can be frustrating but back then we were in the stone ages. We still are. I'm waiting for a transducer that I can just use to transmit music into my brain, I need that because I'm hard of hearing.
I think they did it again on "Velcro Fly". On this live version there is something entirely else where the slap bass break was, and the bass throughout the rest of the song sounds like it was played on a keyboard. (Actually, this video confirms that Dusty was playing keys on the song...) Problem was that these were the only versions available on CD for decades - and the standalone CDs of First Album, Rio Grande Mud and Tejas still have that awful drum replacement sound that totally ruins the grooves. Not everybody will know about this issue and may innocently pick up a CD like that only to get something that doesn't represent the sound of those albums at all.
