Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome back to the bob Lefsets Podcast. My guest
Speaker 1: today is engineer and producer Elliott Shiner. Elliott, you and
Speaker 1: your compatriots are having these gigs in New York. Can
Speaker 1: you tell me about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, you know, you've been in the business so
Speaker 2: long and after fifty years of recording music, there are
Speaker 2: some amazing stories that go with it. Stories said nobody's heard.
Speaker 2: Maybe a few engineers' friends have heard the stories, but
Speaker 2: you know, some of them are so bizarre. And we
Speaker 2: go on stage and we talk about the various experiences
Speaker 2: that we've had, like George. You spoke to George well
Speaker 2: ago and he had like amazing experiences with earth, wind
Speaker 2: and fire, and now we're hearing for the first time.
Speaker 2: I hadn't heard any of that stuff that George talked about.
Speaker 1: So how did this come together?
Speaker 2: Well, do you know anything about med Alliance?
Speaker 1: I do, but my audience give them an explanation.
Speaker 2: Med Alliance is a group of engineers producers. There's seven
Speaker 2: of us and originally it was Al Schmidt at Journey, Philomone, Frank,
Speaker 2: Philip Petty, George, Me and I'm forgetting one and somebody
Speaker 2: else and we got together. It was a thing we
Speaker 2: wanted to get together to help improve audio, help determine
Speaker 2: what was actually good for engineers. You know, you could
Speaker 2: buy this piece of gear and it'll help you.
Speaker 3: So we were.
Speaker 2: Testing out pieces of gear and trying to determine whether
Speaker 2: it was okay for engineers on professional level. And we
Speaker 2: did and that's all we did for twenty years. And
Speaker 2: I had come up with the idea, probably ten years ago,
Speaker 2: why don't we do this. We tell stories to each other,
Speaker 2: why don't we tell it to an audience. And the
Speaker 2: policy of META is everyone has to agree. If you
Speaker 2: don't agree, it's off table. So at that point I
Speaker 2: was getting pretty old, and I mean he was still
Speaker 2: working and doing great work, but he said, going out
Speaker 2: on the road and doing this for people, not going
Speaker 2: to do that, And so we put it in the can.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately Al died and Trinity died, Phil Ramone died, and
Speaker 2: it came up about two years ago and I suggested
Speaker 2: it to the new group. It was me, George, Frank Chuck,
Speaker 2: and Frank Check and that was it. We brought on
Speaker 2: Sylvia Massey, Jimmy Douglas, and Nicole Bowls and everybody agreed.
Speaker 2: We wanted to do it, and we did our first
Speaker 2: performance in Ridgefield, Connecticut at the Ridgefield Playhouse and it
Speaker 2: was huge.
Speaker 1: It was great.
Speaker 2: The place was filled, they were all laughing, having a
Speaker 2: great time. And it was our first performance. There really
Speaker 2: wasn't much of a rehearsal and there was screw up,
Speaker 2: but it all came off great. It was natural. So
Speaker 2: we decided to warn that up again. And here we are.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're playing for a couple of weeks at the
Speaker 1: she and Theater. Yes, what are the logistics? How did
Speaker 1: you end up there? How did you decide how long
Speaker 1: you were going to play?
Speaker 2: Well? I had been in the theater once before and
Speaker 2: I saw a van there and was amazed with the
Speaker 2: way it looked, the way it sounded. It had for
Speaker 2: it only seats two eighty three, but it has a
Speaker 2: full personum stage. I mean, it's an amazing stage. So
Speaker 2: we have everything we needed, we need, video, drop down screens.
Speaker 2: Everything was in place, and we thought, let's do it,
Speaker 2: and we booked a theater. We did. We weren't hired
Speaker 2: as an act come in and we delayed a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks and we start on Thursday, and so that
Speaker 2: Thursday and Friday Valentine's is almost Soliah. We're having a
Speaker 2: great time.
Speaker 1: Okay. Is it going to be the same show every night?
Speaker 2: No? I mean I've got fifty stories to tell, so no,
Speaker 2: not at all.
Speaker 1: Okay, So theoretically someone could go every night and get
Speaker 1: a different experience.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 1: Okay, how did you decide? Okay, is anybody going to
Speaker 1: tell a story on stage that the rest of the
Speaker 1: group has never heard? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've only heard two stories from each person, so yeah,
Speaker 2: there's forty eight more from me. Ha ha.
Speaker 1: Okay, how many stories are you going to tell?
Speaker 2: With the length of each story, it's about two tonight.
Speaker 1: So how did you decide what to you wanted to tell?
Speaker 2: I usually pick what's funny, what got me into trouble?
Speaker 2: You know? I had a date one time with Chuck Berry.
Speaker 2: It was for a commercial, but it was also a
Speaker 2: documentary and we didn't finish at A and R, and
Speaker 2: I got a call from the advertising agency asking if
Speaker 2: I would go down to Saint Louis and work with
Speaker 2: the finish up couple of overdubs who checked down there,
Speaker 2: and I did, so I go down there. And this
Speaker 2: was in the days when somebody could meet you at
Speaker 2: the gate. And Chuck met me at the gate and
Speaker 2: he's standing opposite the gate that came in on and
Speaker 2: he was up against the side of an escalator and
Speaker 2: he had his hand around a young girl, young blonde.
Speaker 2: She was probably half his size, and she was really beautiful.
Speaker 2: And I go over and we say hi, and he said,
Speaker 2: you're sleeping at my place tonight and then in the
Speaker 2: morning we'll go to my studio in Saint Louis. I said, okay, fine,
Speaker 2: so we go off to his place. He's now he's
Speaker 2: got a car. We used to call him when they
Speaker 2: came out Pimpmo Hills. They had like plastic a plastic
Speaker 2: bubble over the driver's seat and passenger seat and it
Speaker 2: just looked it was a Cadillac. It'll look hideous, but
Speaker 2: he had one of these gut in. We drive up
Speaker 2: to Chuck's house and there's it's huge, I mean it's
Speaker 2: really huge, and there's a gate. It opens up. You
Speaker 2: go into a small area where there's another gate, so
Speaker 2: the front gate closes, the next gate opens up and
Speaker 2: you drive up this path. Where where did you grow
Speaker 2: up up?
Speaker 1: I grew up in Connecticut.
Speaker 2: Did you ever go to the Catskills, of course. Okay,
Speaker 2: driving up this path was like going to a hotel
Speaker 2: in Ellenville. And we're driving up and there's a tennis
Speaker 2: court on the left hand side, but the weeds are
Speaker 2: eight feet high. On the right hand side is a
Speaker 2: swimming pool and the weeds are the same. So we
Speaker 2: get up there and I'm looking at this house and
Speaker 2: it looks like a hotel. We get up to the
Speaker 2: front door and a girl comes out. She doesn't lift
Speaker 2: her head, she just faces the down, looks at the floor.
Speaker 2: She opens everybody's door, everybody gets out. We go into
Speaker 2: the house and it was like walking into a lobby
Speaker 2: of a Catskill hotel. There was purple shag carpeting about
Speaker 2: three inches high on the floors, but he built in
Speaker 2: the kitchen as you walk in there. We sat down,
Speaker 2: we talked for a bit and he said, I don't
Speaker 2: remember the girl's name, the one who looked down at
Speaker 2: the ground, but he said, she's going to take you
Speaker 2: to your room. And we go in another part of
Speaker 2: the house and there are a whole bunch of rooms.
Speaker 2: So I go into this one room and it's the
Speaker 2: same carpeting on the floor, but the bed themselves had
Speaker 2: bedspreads that were purple shag carpeting, and I walk in
Speaker 2: there and there are two double beds in there, and
Speaker 2: she still hasn't lifted her head. I have no idea
Speaker 2: who this person is. And she says to me, you'll
Speaker 2: be all right. I'll come back a little later and
Speaker 2: give you some information, okay. So she leaves and I'm
Speaker 2: in the room and I'm thinking something feels wrong here.
Speaker 2: I don't know what it is. I looked round the room,
Speaker 2: either cameras or I couldn't find anything, you know, so
Speaker 2: hell with it. I got undressed, went to bed. About
Speaker 2: twenty minutes later, there's a knock on my door. I
Speaker 2: get up, I opened the door. It's this girl again.
Speaker 2: She's still looking at the floor and she says to me,
Speaker 2: I'm letting out the dogs. Don't open your window, okay,
Speaker 2: and made sure the window was closing through. I got
Speaker 2: back at the bed, thinking I think this girl's gonna
Speaker 2: come and chop my head off during the night. So
Speaker 2: but all worked out well, and got up in the
Speaker 2: morning and Chuck and I went in Saint Louis. We
Speaker 2: get to studio. His studio was a fur warehouse and
Speaker 2: he sectioned I built a room in there control room studio,
Speaker 2: and it looked like was built in fifty five. It
Speaker 2: was so old. It was like a three track console,
Speaker 2: but you can get into there were patches to get
Speaker 2: into sixteen tracks. It was a sixteen track tape. So
Speaker 2: it was all going to be fine. I found one
Speaker 2: working fader and we did the overdubs. Everything was great,
Speaker 2: didn't take much time. At about two o'clock in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: the advertising agency gave me a check to give Chuck.
Speaker 2: It was the back half of his payment and was
Speaker 2: five grand. So I handed him in the check and
Speaker 2: he looked at it. Can I curse on there? Bob? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Okay.
Speaker 2: So he looks at and he says, what the fuck
Speaker 2: is this? And I said, I'm pretty sure it's a
Speaker 2: remainder of the money they owed you. And he said,
Speaker 2: this ain't money, and he rips it up. He says,
Speaker 2: I want money now. You ain't leaving until I get cash.
Speaker 2: I said, I didn't they You know, I was young.
Speaker 2: I didn't think that anything weird could happen to me.
Speaker 2: So I called the agency and I spoke to the
Speaker 2: producer and he said, I said, look, Chuck doesn't like
Speaker 2: to check. So he wants cash. Now, well, I don't
Speaker 2: know how we can do that, but maybe I can
Speaker 2: get it tomorrow. I said, no, he's stopped letting me
Speaker 2: leave here until he gets money. And he said, okay,
Speaker 2: let me get to Western Union. We'll figure out how
Speaker 2: to get the money to them. And he called me
Speaker 2: back in a bit and he said, okay, it's coming
Speaker 2: down Western Union. It should be there by three this afternoon. Okay.
Speaker 2: So I tell Chuck this. He's fine, everything seems fine.
Speaker 2: We're talking talking about politics, and it was the end
Speaker 2: of Nixon administration and it finally gets close to three. Now,
Speaker 2: this was their warehouse. There was a very large safe
Speaker 2: in the room, and it looked like a big bank
Speaker 2: safe with that kind of door. And he puts his
Speaker 2: arm around my shoulder and he walks me over there
Speaker 2: and he said, look, while I'm gone, I want you
Speaker 2: to stay here. I said, in the safe and he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, I didn't know what. I said, okay, And
Speaker 2: I got in the safe. I didn't expect him to
Speaker 2: close the door, but he did, and no lights. And
Speaker 2: I'm sitting in there thinking maybe i'd rush to a
Speaker 2: little too soon to think I wouldn't get hurt here.
Speaker 2: And I sat in the safe for maybe about twenty
Speaker 2: five minutes, thinking, oh my god, you know I could
Speaker 2: be dead. How much your is in here. He finally
Speaker 2: shows up, and he's a happy guy. He got his money.
Speaker 2: He lets me out, Hey, I want to take you
Speaker 2: to dinner before you leave. I said, okay, So we
Speaker 2: go to a soul food place in East Saint Louis
Speaker 2: and we have a dinner. I said, Chuck, you know,
Speaker 2: it's none of my business, but what was that all about?
Speaker 2: And he said, Look, you know, in the fifties, I
Speaker 2: would do a gig in Texas and they would write
Speaker 2: me a check and then that night I would leave
Speaker 2: for Arkansas, and by the time I got there the
Speaker 2: next day, the check was still good. So at some
Speaker 2: point I stopped taking checks. And you know, once he
Speaker 2: said that, I totally understood. I thought it was, you know,
Speaker 2: times of change, and these were the seventies, the fifties,
Speaker 2: and you know that's why people get paid. But it
Speaker 2: all worked out. Okay. Took me to the airport and
Speaker 2: we were good after that and never saw him again.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you one thing I don't like talking
Speaker 2: about this it's not a good thing. About a month later,
Speaker 2: Chuck was arrested in Missouri. They had a statue called
Speaker 2: white slavery, and he was blamed that these two girls
Speaker 2: were white slaves. I'm pretty sure he got out of
Speaker 2: it and everything was cool, but that that was the
Speaker 2: kind of thing they would do down there, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's like so evil, but it was weird.
Speaker 1: Ask you this, this is a sleazy business. What problems
Speaker 1: have you had getting paid? And how much money all
Speaker 1: these years later are you owed?
Speaker 2: You know. There was only one gig that I didn't
Speaker 2: get paid for and I was asked to engineer something.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to mention the name, and I I
Speaker 2: was doing a Manhattan transfer rick in LA and this
Speaker 2: gig was in New York and they were okay about
Speaker 2: me leaving. I got to New York and I get
Speaker 2: a call from the producer. He said, we're going to
Speaker 2: have to delay a few days. Not quite ready, okay.
Speaker 2: All my equipment was shipped back to New York. And
Speaker 2: then night before we're going to start, I get another call,
Speaker 2: We're not going to be ready till next week. And
Speaker 2: you know, I'm thinking, why did I come back for this?
Speaker 2: I could have been finishing off the transfer and then
Speaker 2: he calls me next week. You know. It was a
Speaker 2: woman and she fell in love with an engineer that
Speaker 2: she had worked with and he was not doing the gig.
Speaker 2: And all I said was, okay, I want you to
Speaker 2: pay for the shipment of my gear here and going back,
Speaker 2: and he said, no problem. I never got paid. It
Speaker 2: was maybe a couple of grand But in ninety and
Speaker 2: two thousand and five I got a call from the
Speaker 2: same person saying, will you mix a cut for a
Speaker 2: movie for me? I said sure, and she said how
Speaker 2: much she get? Knowing this was a couple of grand
Speaker 2: I said, I get something to five hundred to mix
Speaker 2: and no problem. So I got her back. But that
Speaker 2: was the only money that was ever owed to me.
Speaker 1: Well did you ever have trouble getting paid? Were you
Speaker 1: ultimately got the buddy?
Speaker 2: Yeah? You know, record companies were being incredibly slow to pay,
Speaker 2: and from the time I started to the early two thousands,
Speaker 2: it was still being paid by record companies, you know,
Speaker 2: except like when I worked with the Eagles, they were
Speaker 2: their own record company. They paid you and you always
Speaker 2: got paid on time. But while record companies were paying
Speaker 2: you never knew when you were going to get paid,
Speaker 2: and you never knew if you gain any royalties.
Speaker 1: Do you still own your royalties or did you sell them?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I am and to what degree do you think you're
Speaker 1: being paid fairly?
Speaker 2: I'm being paid fairly for streaming. I'm amazed at how
Speaker 2: much money there is in streaming.
Speaker 1: Are there any records that you worked on that were
Speaker 1: not you know, in the old days, a physical store
Speaker 1: had to stop the physical album in order of you
Speaker 1: to buy it. We're essentially everything is available on streaming.
Speaker 1: Are there any royalty streams that were very low because
Speaker 1: the records weren't available whatever. But now, because of the Internet,
Speaker 1: you're getting paid on these records in sums that you
Speaker 1: didn't get previously.
Speaker 2: That's true. And I have to say a lot of
Speaker 2: the record labels they would figure out when the album
Speaker 2: would be coop, you know, and right as it's a
Speaker 2: battery coop, they'd stopped production, so you wouldn't make anything,
Speaker 2: you know, unless it was a huge band, you know,
Speaker 2: they would have to do it. But for spoiler acts
Speaker 2: they'd usually stop it. You wouldn't get anything, but now
Speaker 2: you do.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me ask a different question. Whenever you're in
Speaker 1: the studio, assuming there is a separate engineer and the producer.
Speaker 1: I have never heard the engineer say anything negative, even
Speaker 1: if they want to say something I'm not talking about.
Speaker 1: If you're asked, you know, should we do it this
Speaker 1: way or that way? But the engineer is not rendering
Speaker 1: an opinion. He is number one. Other than working the board,
Speaker 1: the number one thing seems to be to get along
Speaker 1: and stay calm. Hey, what's your experience and how did
Speaker 1: you learn to behave behind the board.
Speaker 2: Well, my teacher was film own, so he always told me,
Speaker 2: you know, you have to be friends with the producer
Speaker 2: and the band or the artist, and you never want
Speaker 2: them as your enemies. Always keep them on your side.
Speaker 2: And one of the earlier albums I did was a Peter,
Speaker 2: Paul and Mary thing. I sat in Fulfill one day
Speaker 2: and I knew how they would set up and how
Speaker 2: they would sing all three at once on three different mics,
Speaker 2: and produce came in. You know, I always question whether
Speaker 2: he was really a producer. You know, he would sit
Speaker 2: there reading the times, and I don't think he ever
Speaker 2: really paid attention to what they were doing unless they
Speaker 2: thought they thought it was good. And there was one
Speaker 2: take on one song where they said they asked him,
Speaker 2: how did you like that? And he had the paper
Speaker 2: down load and he sort of turned towards me and said,
Speaker 2: how was that? So, yeah, you had to learn that.
Speaker 2: That's how it worked in the seventies. And at some
Speaker 2: point they were realizing both the artists and the labels,
Speaker 2: because the labels were paying these guys aren't on a
Speaker 2: weekly basis whether they worked or not. And they thought,
Speaker 2: you know, it's time we started to change things. And
Speaker 2: they decided that they would try to make the engineers
Speaker 2: producers and you know, with the artist's approval, and that
Speaker 2: seemed to be the way it turned. And it was
Speaker 2: a good thing. I mean, we didn't make much more.
Speaker 2: They didn't really pay us. They said, well, you have
Speaker 2: the credit, you get a production credit, and you can
Speaker 2: go on from there. Like first thing I co produced
Speaker 2: was Van Marson Moondance, and having your name on that
Speaker 2: was like, that was a good thing.
Speaker 1: Okay. There are some producers who are big characters, Richard
Speaker 1: Perry no longer with us, who would come in there
Speaker 1: divas unto themselves, and they have a vision recording and
Speaker 1: producing are slightly different, you know, they merge at some point.
Speaker 1: But to what degree if you're hired as a producer,
Speaker 1: will you say, well, you know, this song needs a
Speaker 1: bridge or we need to change it. To what degree
Speaker 1: will you dig down on a vision.
Speaker 2: Level if I'm a producer, yes, oh, right from the beginning.
Speaker 2: I mean it's I won't go into a study of
Speaker 2: somebody until I heard the songs. You know, It's always
Speaker 2: been my policy. I want to hit the songs first,
Speaker 2: so I get involved right there. But interesting you talk
Speaker 2: about Richard Perry. He was a good guy from the
Speaker 2: old school in the fifties. And I got called to
Speaker 2: do Today with Art Garfroncle and Richard was producer. And
Speaker 2: the first day we go in there, Richard hadn't flown
Speaker 2: in yet from La So I'm doing vocals with Art,
Speaker 2: and finally Richard walks in and he's sort of not
Speaker 2: happy with this. I said, well, Art won this thing,
Speaker 2: so I couldn't say no. He said, okay, Well, Art
Speaker 2: says hi.
Speaker 1: He comes in.
Speaker 2: Art's very angry, you know, he didn't like Richard being
Speaker 2: so late. And Art comes in skintrow room and he
Speaker 2: said something, you know, you're late. Why are you late?
Speaker 2: You know? And they argued for bid, well, let me
Speaker 2: hear what you've done on this. He said, how many
Speaker 2: tracks do you have? We have like eight or nine tracks,
Speaker 2: you know, and he said where are they? And I
Speaker 2: gave them the faders. He looked at the faders. I
Speaker 2: don't even know if he knew the song, but he
Speaker 2: was like he'd get the first two syllables from one take,
Speaker 2: go to another take, not having heard any of these
Speaker 2: vocals once in another take, and then it just kept
Speaker 2: going around from tack to take, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: Art said I'm getting out of here and he left,
Speaker 2: and Richard was hired, and he eventually left too. The
Speaker 2: next morning, I get a call from Arts manager and
Speaker 2: he says, look, it's not working out between Richard and Art.
Speaker 2: Could you do me a big favor? I said, sure,
Speaker 2: what's that? Could you fire Richard? Oh? Boy, fire Richard.
Speaker 2: I don't do that kind of stuff. You don't want
Speaker 2: to fire him, You fire him, you know. So he
Speaker 2: never got in. I just left. There was nothing to do,
Speaker 2: and that was that. I finished the record with Art.
Speaker 2: You know, he was the producer.
Speaker 1: I'm going to jump for a second. A few years back,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of publicity about you getting into
Speaker 1: car audio with accurate Hey, how did that come to be?
Speaker 1: And B tell us about the process. Well, it was right.
Speaker 2: About five years after five point one started to come
Speaker 2: to light, and at some point it was right after
Speaker 2: two thousand and one, after nine to eleven. I said,
Speaker 2: how are people going to hear this? I don't know
Speaker 2: of anybody who's going to buy four more speakers and
Speaker 2: seed you up in the middle of their living room
Speaker 2: with cables going all over the place. And so I
Speaker 2: thought back to every format, and every format always happened
Speaker 2: in the car. When we went to from tape to
Speaker 2: a cassette and E track cassette, it was only in
Speaker 2: the car. Nobody bought those things and it happened for
Speaker 2: a while, and then after that it went to CD
Speaker 2: and it didn't happen until it was in the car.
Speaker 2: I thought, well, there should be no difference. Why don't
Speaker 2: we put in a car. And there was a DVD
Speaker 2: entertainment group in New York and they were having all
Speaker 2: these manufacturers come and talk about what they're doing with
Speaker 2: five point one, but nobody had put it in a car.
Speaker 2: Nobody had plans to put it in the car. So
Speaker 2: I don't even know who I was speaking to, but
Speaker 2: they had been to come and talk about five one,
Speaker 2: and I got in my head that I'm going to
Speaker 2: go to every manufacturer and say, hey, it's never been done,
Speaker 2: why don't we put it in one of your cars.
Speaker 2: Why don't you try and sell this to a manufacturer?
Speaker 2: And every single person from every company said nah, but
Speaker 2: you know, we think it's going to be too difficult
Speaker 2: to add all that information into a car, and they
Speaker 2: all said no. I got a call about six months
Speaker 2: later from Panasonic. They said, we like your idea. We
Speaker 2: did a mock up system. Would you come out and
Speaker 2: see if it's what you would like? And we have
Speaker 2: a company that's interested. And I got out there. I
Speaker 2: helped tune system got it to a point where I
Speaker 2: got my stuff sounded good, and we played it for
Speaker 2: Accura and they were totally blown away by it, and
Speaker 2: they asked us to they want to do this in
Speaker 2: the two thousand and four Accurate TL and we did it.
Speaker 2: They it was standard gear. You didn't pay extra for this,
Speaker 2: and we actually made up a demo disc of all
Speaker 2: the five wins that people had done at that point,
Speaker 2: and they gave it away if you bought the car,
Speaker 2: and it was a then deal after that. I mean
Speaker 2: I eventually was in every accurate model, and it was
Speaker 2: only till about two years ago. They wanted the system
Speaker 2: was named after me, and they wanted to have a
Speaker 2: bigger name, so they decided to go to Harmon Harmon
Speaker 2: Cardon and they did that. But I'm still in two
Speaker 2: of the cars because I don't know whether they couldn't
Speaker 2: get one that was fitting. And in the Rocker report
Speaker 2: that came out last Friday, they had ten SUVs and
Speaker 2: they called them best the shirt and class and you
Speaker 2: know BMW for a power and a Cadillac for comfort,
Speaker 2: all these things, and finally came down to audio. The
Speaker 2: best audio you'll ever hear in a car is the
Speaker 2: ELS system in the RDX Accura. And I'm thinking I
Speaker 2: haven't worked on it, and that car is still using
Speaker 2: the same program I used six years ago.
Speaker 1: Okay, when Panasonic called you in it and you subsequently
Speaker 1: worked with Accura, did they say this is the equipment's
Speaker 1: in there you tune in or did you have input
Speaker 1: as to what speakers and amplifiers they put in the cars?
Speaker 2: Sign I would have to go by what the car
Speaker 2: company wanted. They had specific standards. You couldn't put a
Speaker 2: speaker head. You couldn't put a speaker there. The amp's
Speaker 2: too big. You know, there's a whole lot of I
Speaker 2: get to approve it though. You know. In their first
Speaker 2: car they put in the tweeter and it was really
Speaker 2: a good place on the top of the dash, and
Speaker 2: they actually put in insulated, an insulated front windshield so
Speaker 2: nothing would bounce off it. And you know, they really
Speaker 2: took consideration that they wanted to have a great system.
Speaker 2: The year before I came in, they had another company
Speaker 2: in there and it was raided by Car Current Track
Speaker 2: or one of those magazines as the worst Ordeo system
Speaker 2: you can ever have. So they were looking to make
Speaker 2: this the best started system and it was. It was.
Speaker 2: It was rated the number one system in all of
Speaker 2: car audio.
Speaker 1: Okay, in my car, I have an aftermarket system. I
Speaker 1: have top of the line FO call speakers. I have
Speaker 1: a sub warfare from AVII, which I don't think is
Speaker 1: in the business anymore. I have a JLA amplifier at
Speaker 1: the top of the line Alpine head unit forgetting tuning,
Speaker 1: which I'm gonna get to in a minute. Is there
Speaker 1: any manufacturer who is selling sound of that quality, not
Speaker 1: that enough. No, so let's just assume I drove my
Speaker 1: car over you. That's what I got, And I said, Elliott,
Speaker 1: tune in. How would you do it?
Speaker 2: I'd have to know the program that they use to
Speaker 2: install it. There's there's usually a ton of VQ available
Speaker 2: for every channel. So for every speaker, is is there
Speaker 2: a two channel system?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Okay, so but you have multiple speakers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I have a uh two in the
Speaker 1: front doors, one in the rear door, and then the
Speaker 1: sub warfare in the back.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, all those speakers have a ton of VQ probably,
Speaker 2: so I need access to that system and I could
Speaker 2: tune it from there.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's jump back. How did you decide to get
Speaker 1: into this business?
Speaker 2: Well, it was right after nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, not the car business. I decided to
Speaker 1: get into the music business. To begin with.
Speaker 2: I was a player and I knew that I wasn't
Speaker 2: going to go anywhere, you know. I had a record
Speaker 2: deal on London Records with the band that we were. Okay,
Speaker 2: we didn't write the song. They want to release a
Speaker 2: single on us, and we didn't write it. We didn't
Speaker 2: do anything. They hired a bunch of great New York
Speaker 2: studio guys to record the track. We could be there,
Speaker 2: but I knew it wasn't going to happen. But being
Speaker 2: in the studio. The engineer was an old timer named
Speaker 2: Bob Lifton. He was a really good guy, had a
Speaker 2: great recording studio, and I thought, Wow, this would really
Speaker 2: be something to maybe go in this fashion. The other
Speaker 2: thing is when I heard Sergeant Pepper for the first time,
Speaker 2: I listened. My uncle had a pair of Costs headphones
Speaker 2: and I listened to it and read the album jacket
Speaker 2: and I looked at Jeff Emeric I said, I want
Speaker 2: to be this guy, and you know I eventually. My
Speaker 2: uncle was a New York studio musician, a trombone player,
Speaker 2: and he was great friends with Phil, and I told
Speaker 2: him what I want to do, and he said, meet
Speaker 2: me tomorrow morning at an R and gave me the address.
Speaker 2: And I walked in there and Phil was doing the
Speaker 2: date and they had just finished, and my uncle told
Speaker 2: him about me, and he said, let's talk and went
Speaker 2: to his office. We talked. It was a ten minute interview.
Speaker 2: I was totally different than what the engineers and seconds
Speaker 2: were like back then. I came in in hippie clothes
Speaker 2: and most of the guys who were in jackets, ties,
Speaker 2: white shirts, they were business guys. And Phil was staring
Speaker 2: at me. I had an appleseed necklace around my neck
Speaker 2: and he said, what's that you're wearing. I said, it's
Speaker 2: an apple seed necklace. He says, where do you get that? Oh,
Speaker 2: there's a place down in a village. Hey, can you
Speaker 2: get me one? So I started that way. You know,
Speaker 2: I had to get a sports jacket and ties and shirts.
Speaker 2: And as a second, you were in the hole. You
Speaker 2: were doing stuff you never thought you do. And I
Speaker 2: ripped my jacket on the second day and I said, Phil,
Speaker 2: you know I don't have enough money to do this,
Speaker 2: and he said, well, can you be more pleasant than
Speaker 2: what you wore to meet me? And I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I could do that. I don't have to be a hippie,
Speaker 2: you know, but.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah I could.
Speaker 2: I could dress differently if I don't have to wear
Speaker 2: a jacket. He said, okay, I'll make that a room. Now,
Speaker 2: nobody none of the seconds have to wear jackets. And
Speaker 2: that's the way it was. But if for about a
Speaker 2: year everybody was a hippie, they were all the engineers
Speaker 2: were wearing different clothes, so it was it was great.
Speaker 1: And let's go back before this. Where do you grow up, Brooklyn?
Speaker 1: And what do your parents do for a living?
Speaker 2: My father was a mechanical engineer and a World War
Speaker 2: Two hero, and my mother was a nurse.
Speaker 1: And how many kids in the family? Two are you
Speaker 1: the older the younger?
Speaker 2: I'm the oldest. And they got divorced at some point
Speaker 2: and my father had two more kids. My mother had
Speaker 2: another kid, so I have a few step brothers.
Speaker 1: Okay, your band, What did you do in the band?
Speaker 1: What did you play?
Speaker 2: How's your drummer?
Speaker 1: Okay, drummer's always a business guy. What inspired you to
Speaker 1: pick up the drums?
Speaker 2: I don't, honestly can't remember, but seeing Jeane Kruper and
Speaker 2: Buddy Rich playing a man's and what they would do,
Speaker 2: I felt like I would love to do that. So
Speaker 2: I talked to my uncle and he said, well, I
Speaker 2: have a teacher for you in down in Manhattan Beach,
Speaker 2: and you know he's a great guy. You love the guy.
Speaker 2: So I started taking lessons and I was playing on
Speaker 2: a pad for it seemed like a year, and I said,
Speaker 2: when can I actually play in drums? He said, you
Speaker 2: could play in drums anytime. And so I told to
Speaker 2: my uncle, I said, you know, I don't. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: know what to do, and I don't even know if
Speaker 2: I have the money to buy them. And he said,
Speaker 2: I'll pick it out for you. I'll take care of everything.
Speaker 2: Buddy Rich which was his best friend, and he and
Speaker 2: Buddy went to Manny's on forty eighth, of course, and
Speaker 2: picked out a drum set for me, a Slingerland drum set,
Speaker 2: and that was it. You know. I brought him to
Speaker 2: my house and I played drum set constantly, annoying everybody.
Speaker 1: Right, that's gonna be my next question. Okay, did you
Speaker 1: play in bands before the Beatles?
Speaker 2: I did, but they they were bands, Like one summer
Speaker 2: I worked in the Catskills and I was in a
Speaker 2: band there. But what you played was fakebook stuff, you know,
Speaker 2: old songs, and they were dance and that's what it was.
Speaker 2: At some point I got into a surf band from
Speaker 2: a surf been from Long Island. Played that for a
Speaker 2: while and then when I right after high school, I
Speaker 2: actually got a call to play in a band that
Speaker 2: was going on the road with Little Anthony and the Imperials,
Speaker 2: the ron Ats, Ruby and the Romantics. So it was
Speaker 2: all three of them playing home. You know, they would
Speaker 2: do plan the same night, and I did that and
Speaker 2: I was the only white guy in the band, and
Speaker 2: it was sort of a fun gig for me. Okay,
Speaker 2: was college ever in the picture. I went to Brooklyn
Speaker 2: College for about six months where each class was like
Speaker 2: five hundred people, and I said, no, this is not
Speaker 2: working and I took off to play in a band.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're on the road. You're the only white guy
Speaker 1: there was, you know, the Civil Rights Act whatever, but
Speaker 1: that didn't really come until Johnson. What was it like
Speaker 1: being on the road. What insights did you gain it
Speaker 1: being a black person on the road.
Speaker 2: Well, the last the next last gig was in Miami
Speaker 2: and we were in We were driving everywhere they would
Speaker 2: They were on a bus, we were driving and we
Speaker 2: got in the car and that night from Miami, I
Speaker 2: was driving and we asked what was the safest way
Speaker 2: we were leaving at night to get through Georgia, and
Speaker 2: they told us how to go and we didn't know
Speaker 2: what we were driving into. And there was four black
Speaker 2: eyes and me and we go through this one town
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, there's a red light flashing
Speaker 2: behind us, and that there were no blue lights for cops.
Speaker 2: It was all red lights.
Speaker 1: And it was a.
Speaker 2: Pickup truck with a gun mount behind driver. And he
Speaker 2: came out and I was driving. He said to me,
Speaker 2: going mighty fast, boy, And then he looked in the
Speaker 2: car and saw the rest of the guys were black,
Speaker 2: and he said, you know what, I'm gonna turn around.
Speaker 2: You follow me. I didn't even see it down and
Speaker 2: we go back to what this town was. It was
Speaker 2: two stores, both uninhabited, but the judge lives above one
Speaker 2: of them, and he woke him up, called him down,
Speaker 2: and they sentenced us to five days in jail, and
Speaker 2: should have been because what it was we were doing
Speaker 2: thirty five. That was the last sign we saw. And
Speaker 2: he said, no, it's thirty here, and the judge said
Speaker 2: it's seventy five dollars a point, so you need three
Speaker 2: seventy five if you're going to stay out of jail.
Speaker 2: Three seventy five. We didn't all make that, you know, so,
Speaker 2: but they sentenced us to five days in jail. And
Speaker 2: I wasn't thinking about much of anything, but they had
Speaker 2: to come too. They were locked up. There were two
Speaker 2: cells in the basement. One was for me. The other
Speaker 2: guys stayed in another cell. And you know, I didn't
Speaker 2: think about it. I felt like we were, Okay, we're
Speaker 2: gonna have to pay time, but it's what it was.
Speaker 2: The good thing is that Jerdge's wife was a cook
Speaker 2: and she burnt uspiels that were incredible. So we got along,
Speaker 2: we talked, we had fun. It wasn't until I saw
Speaker 2: an easy Rider and I said, oh my god, man,
Speaker 2: you know, we could have died in that place and
Speaker 2: nobody would have ever known. But we got to have
Speaker 2: got back up north.
Speaker 1: How long were we actually in jail?
Speaker 2: Five days?
Speaker 1: Wow? There wasn't a gig that you were supposed to
Speaker 1: be at.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we missed it. Nobody asked about us either.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what happens when you hear the Beatles?
Speaker 2: My life changed? I mean it. I couldn't listen to
Speaker 2: anything else but the Beatles, you know, every moment of
Speaker 2: time and listening it was all Beatles and listening and
Speaker 2: headsets through those times. Was remarkable. Hearing how these guys
Speaker 2: engineered and what they did. When by the time I
Speaker 2: heard Sogan Pepper, it was like amazing. How did he
Speaker 2: do this? You know? I just there was no other way.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be a beatle. I want to work
Speaker 2: with them.
Speaker 1: So how did you get in this band that signed
Speaker 1: to London Records?
Speaker 2: I got a call. I knew the bass player and
Speaker 2: he told me about what was going on. We started
Speaker 2: playing gigs in the Bronx at this one club that
Speaker 2: loved us, and we were there like every Thursday and Friday, Saturday,
Speaker 2: Sunday for months a time, and we got pretty good.
Speaker 2: We didn't look like a band, but we got good
Speaker 2: and they signed us.
Speaker 1: Okay, going back to Phil, I knew Phil, but I
Speaker 1: knew him outside the studio. In the studio, what was
Speaker 1: Phil's magic? What did he bring.
Speaker 2: Well? Like when he said to me about an artist
Speaker 2: and a producer, he bront that kind of magic. How
Speaker 2: to treat people? Don't ever don't ever condemn if you're
Speaker 2: an engineer, don't ever argue with her. Second, don't put
Speaker 2: him in place where he's going to be embarrassed. And
Speaker 2: so I think I did it once in my whole life,
Speaker 2: where the second did something. I said, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: What are you adope? You know? And I never ever
Speaker 2: did it again because for Phil tell me and later
Speaker 2: on I only knew him as an engineer. I spent
Speaker 2: my second career just working for Phil, and when he
Speaker 2: started to produce, I wasn't there. I think he called
Speaker 2: me twice when he said, we engineer for me on
Speaker 2: these two projects. And you know, it wasn't enough to
Speaker 2: really get a feeling for what he was doing. But
Speaker 2: you know, have you seen that Billy Joel h Doc
Speaker 2: I mean, seeing what he was doing. I missed all that,
Speaker 2: you know, I didn't see all that from Phil. You know,
Speaker 2: he was an engineer, a great engineer.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to when you're a second. If you're
Speaker 1: in a busy studio a second, you could be working
Speaker 1: almost around the clock, getting no sleep. What was your experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, in my first year, Phil was doing a
Speaker 2: movie with Peter Yarrow and it was a movie about woodstock.
Speaker 2: It was before a woodstock and it was just the
Speaker 2: town was like the people who lived there and it
Speaker 2: was very sany you know, it was mind bucklering. But
Speaker 2: we worked on the end of the movie. We were
Speaker 2: close to the deadline and we spent I think almost
Speaker 2: seventy hours in the studio just working. I don't know how.
Speaker 2: I know how I did it, but you know it
Speaker 2: wasn't great.
Speaker 1: Okay. As a second, how did the clients treat you
Speaker 1: on record dates?
Speaker 2: Great? Really great? But you know within r you would
Speaker 2: work from eight in the morning till five in the
Speaker 2: evening on jingles, and those people treated you like shit.
Speaker 2: They just didn't like you. They thought you were low,
Speaker 2: you had you had no credibility in their eyes, or
Speaker 2: like the arranger who was doing the music, they you
Speaker 2: were just a boy died them. I actually did a
Speaker 2: commercial with the arrangers said, hey boy, they didn't bother
Speaker 2: to learn.
Speaker 1: Your name at that point. So how did you ultimately
Speaker 1: get behind the board?
Speaker 2: Phil was funny about that. He would pick us by
Speaker 2: anything he ever did to make somebody an engineer. I
Speaker 2: was doing a project with Phil. I was the second.
Speaker 2: It was Jimmy Smith and I think there were five
Speaker 2: guys in the bed at that point, and it was
Speaker 2: book Monday through Friday, and we started seven in the
Speaker 2: evening after the jingles had to be set up, and
Speaker 2: we worked till about midnight. On the third day, I'm
Speaker 2: set up. I set the whole day to Phil and
Speaker 2: he says, or rather, it's about ten minutes before, and
Speaker 2: no Phil. Phil always shut up a half an hour before.
Speaker 2: And I started looking for Phil and can't find him,
Speaker 2: not in his office, nobody. He finally calls with about
Speaker 2: five minutes despair, and he says, look, I got some
Speaker 2: problems I can't do to say, you're gonna have to
Speaker 2: do it, and I'm on the phone. I said, I
Speaker 2: can't do this. He said, yeah, you can do it.
Speaker 2: I said I can't do this. I said, you can
Speaker 2: do it. Just do it. You saw how it's been working,
Speaker 2: Just do it. And I did it and it was good.
Speaker 2: It was okay. He came back to the next side
Speaker 2: to finish and it was all good. And that was
Speaker 2: the first experience for me.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about that experience. Were the MIC's already
Speaker 1: set up or did you have to deal with Mike Blazman.
Speaker 2: Yeah? I did that because I was second, So I
Speaker 2: set up on exactly what we did the previous tune now,
Speaker 2: so Phil would just come in and get levels. In
Speaker 2: those days, there was no EQ, no limiting. You had
Speaker 2: to mic things, you had to place mikes. But you know,
Speaker 2: Phil would say to me, you know the guitars, run,
Speaker 2: go out and move the amp where's it now? And
Speaker 2: he had a change the mic on the app. And
Speaker 2: I saw all this and learned all this, so I
Speaker 2: knew what was going to happen, what I needed to
Speaker 2: do to get sound like Phil.
Speaker 1: At the time. How sophisticated was the board.
Speaker 2: It was a three track radio broadcast console and we
Speaker 2: had I mean at the time there were four track
Speaker 2: tape machines and Phil put in an Altech mixer, a
Speaker 2: six channel mixer below the desk, so if you wanted
Speaker 2: to use the fourth channel, you could use that. But generally,
Speaker 2: you know, on a big date where there was strings, horns, vocals,
Speaker 2: all the rhythm section, you had to listen it was combined.
Speaker 2: Like Phil would put all rhythm, drums, bass, guitars, piano, anything, percussion,
Speaker 2: anything on one track on track three, but he had
Speaker 2: to blend it in. He hadn't decide right then and
Speaker 2: there no going back. You could decided that the balance
Speaker 2: is right. And he taught me how to listen for that.
Speaker 1: Okay, they're all these technological breakthroughs in the late sixties
Speaker 1: early seventies in A and R. Did they buy that stuff?
Speaker 1: Were they early on that stuff or were they leap.
Speaker 2: No, they were early, yeah, at forty eighth Street. It
Speaker 2: was right next to Manny's and there was a bar
Speaker 2: there called Jim and Andy's, and all the musicians would
Speaker 2: go into the bar. And at some point we were
Speaker 2: being kicked out of that studio because they're going to
Speaker 2: build a big high rise. But Phil bought Columbia Studios,
Speaker 2: the original studios on Seventh Avenue, and turned into I mean,
Speaker 2: it was one of the greatest rooms ever. Frank did
Speaker 2: all his early recordings in that room, and he did
Speaker 2: his very last recording in that room as well. And
Speaker 2: so when he moved, when we moved off for the
Speaker 2: seventh Avenue, all of a sudden a track was out.
Speaker 2: He bought an a track machine. He did one funny
Speaker 2: thing when I came there with the mic selection was
Speaker 2: pretty incredible. He had all great two mikes and real fancy.
Speaker 2: At that point, Neuman came out with the U eighty seven,
Speaker 2: which he felt that was the new standard. He sold
Speaker 2: all these great mics and put in maybe fifty U
Speaker 2: eighty seven's, you know, and we started using him. But
Speaker 2: there was something it didn't have. It was clean, it
Speaker 2: was a good microphone, but there was no character to it.
Speaker 2: Which all the tuoe mics had and this didn't, but
Speaker 2: he did. He so that that was a change that
Speaker 2: needed to be made, and a lot of people were
Speaker 2: doing that. Most people got rid of there. They're great
Speaker 2: two bikes in New York.
Speaker 1: So we went, you know, scully out of twelve. But
Speaker 1: basically it went from you know, four to eight to
Speaker 1: sixteen to twenty four. Tell us about but what tell
Speaker 1: us about the evolution of the boards.
Speaker 2: Well, the boards didn't change once we got to seventh Avenue.
Speaker 2: There were new consoles and they were all capable. The
Speaker 2: one that wasn't was a telefunking console which only had
Speaker 2: any track output, but we only had an a track
Speaker 2: machine and it usually worked out. But all the other
Speaker 2: consoles were now at sixteen and he had two consoles
Speaker 2: made for an R by a guy named Neil Munsey,
Speaker 2: a Canadian, and he built everything to do anything beyond that.
Speaker 2: So he knew about twenty four possibly coming in, and
Speaker 2: sid come in pretty fast within a couple of years,
Speaker 2: and so there were twenty four buses on those consoles.
Speaker 1: Okay, you have this Jimmy Smith date, how long had
Speaker 1: you been a second before that date? And after that date?
Speaker 1: How long does it take you to get more tied
Speaker 1: behind the board.
Speaker 2: I was a second for about eight months and fill
Speaker 2: gaving the opportunity. But I had had plenty of time
Speaker 2: behind the console because Phil's policy was when the studio's
Speaker 2: not working, you can come in. You can bring a rehearsal,
Speaker 2: bland or a band you like and work with them.
Speaker 2: So we had access by ourselves to the alarm system,
Speaker 2: the elevators. You can go in and get there and
Speaker 2: just work, and he was totally cool with that. So
Speaker 2: I had a pretty good amount of time but doing
Speaker 2: demos and screwing up all the time. And it wasn't
Speaker 2: until Jimmy that I had a little more conscious about
Speaker 2: what I was doing and what could be bad and
Speaker 2: what to look for and trying to blend everything in
Speaker 2: the mix that they would come in and listen to
Speaker 2: it and you know, it be okay. So after that time,
Speaker 2: I think they got me started doing jingles and that's
Speaker 2: all I did. But then I had a friend from
Speaker 2: high school who was a trombone player in what was
Speaker 2: that big horn band, Blood, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and they were doing a day. The whole band was
Speaker 2: doing a day for another artist, and my friend Jerry
Speaker 2: called me and said, you want to do this? Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know. So it was the whole band and now
Speaker 2: I was doing a record day for the first time.
Speaker 2: This is in sixty eight and it worked out well.
Speaker 2: Brick came out. It was at a hit. There was
Speaker 2: nothing about it that appealed to anyone, but it was fun,
Speaker 2: it was good. It sounded okay to me at the time.
Speaker 2: I never listened to it again, but from that point
Speaker 2: on I started to get dates and the office who
Speaker 2: booked everybody said, what you've done record date, you can
Speaker 2: do others. And they were the ones that gave me Van.
Speaker 1: To what degree did you have to bring in your
Speaker 1: own business and hustle or did studio manager give you work?
Speaker 2: Well, they gave you work for a while and they
Speaker 2: say you're only as good as your last hip. And
Speaker 2: I didn't have any hits at that point, but they
Speaker 2: gave me Van and they said, you know, they actually
Speaker 2: had a bunch of guys. Van was going from one
Speaker 2: engineer to another, but I was the last engineer that
Speaker 2: worked with Van tracking and I stayed to mix the record.
Speaker 2: So that worked out great. And when that came out,
Speaker 2: that was wasn't a big hit where it sold a
Speaker 2: lot of units. I think it took like three years
Speaker 2: to go gold. But it got a tremendous amount of
Speaker 2: airplay on FM, and you know, and now I was
Speaker 2: known for having done that and having mixed that, and
Speaker 2: now calls were coming in for me and they didn't
Speaker 2: have to place be anymore. People were actually asking can
Speaker 2: I work with Elliott? And that was a thing, and
Speaker 2: now I could say, well, I think I deserved more money.
Speaker 2: And you had to go through it, you know, failed
Speaker 2: to take care of that. You know, his partner did
Speaker 2: all the negotiating with engineers, and it was hard. It
Speaker 2: was difficult to get them to pay. I think the last,
Speaker 2: the last time I worked on staff, they paid me
Speaker 2: one thousand dollars a week. No profit sharing, no nothing,
Speaker 2: no anything, you know, but a thousand seemed pretty good.
Speaker 2: But then I realized that I was bringing them at
Speaker 2: least a million dollars a year in the dates I
Speaker 2: was doing, And I said, I went back to him,
Speaker 2: I said, you know, I think what we should do
Speaker 2: is I don't want to be paid anymore by you.
Speaker 2: I want to get a commission on the hours the
Speaker 2: tape and rentals and they hempted hard and didn't want
Speaker 2: to do it. And I had an Ashford and Simpson
Speaker 2: record coming up, and they said we're not going to
Speaker 2: do it. So I called Valerie. I said you could
Speaker 2: do me a big favor. I told her what was
Speaker 2: going on, and Nick heard about it too. I said,
Speaker 2: canceled the time, and she called up and canceled the time,
Speaker 2: and they said what happened? And I said, look, you
Speaker 2: don't want to pay me. I don't want to work here.
Speaker 2: I could work anywhere and get a commission. I think
Speaker 2: I didn't know, but I was wanting to take a
Speaker 2: chance to say why should I be here? So they
Speaker 2: finally agreed to everything I said, and it was fifteen
Speaker 2: percent commission. So the first week with that for Simpson,
Speaker 2: I went from one thousand to six thousand. They went nuts.
Speaker 2: They hated it. They wanted to change it. Okay, we'll
Speaker 2: give you fifteen percent on time and we'll give you
Speaker 2: I think it was ten percent on rentals and five
Speaker 2: percent on tape, so it came down. But I was
Speaker 2: making so much more money. You know. I stayed A
Speaker 2: and R. I did everything at an R until people
Speaker 2: started calling me and saying, hey, can you come out
Speaker 2: to LA, can you do this? Can you work as
Speaker 2: a power station? You know, so things start to happen.
Speaker 1: What year was that when you started to spread out
Speaker 1: work in other studios?
Speaker 2: It was seventy three, okay, is.
Speaker 1: You know people want to work with people who were successful,
Speaker 1: and you had some success. But what else were you
Speaker 1: bringing to the studio? What was the magic that you
Speaker 1: had that others didn't have?
Speaker 2: God, I wish I could say I don't really know.
Speaker 2: I mean I knew from Phil like it was something
Speaker 2: to set up a room. You know, you're working with
Speaker 2: an artist for maybe two weeks at a time. They
Speaker 2: had a room totally blocked out, and I was working
Speaker 2: with a band called Jackie. The artist was a guy
Speaker 2: named Jackie Lomax. He's still live anymore, yeah, And they
Speaker 2: wanted to record everything live and he wanted to sing.
Speaker 2: And the room we were working in had one vocal
Speaker 2: with so he was set up in there, but the drums,
Speaker 2: the bass and two guitars. Now two guitars, would you know?
Speaker 2: It wasn't the right room to be doing this then.
Speaker 2: And I ended up and was I got scaffolds in
Speaker 2: the room. They were about eight feet high and I
Speaker 2: had the amps put on the scaffolds, thinking well, be
Speaker 2: less stuff going through the floor, and we did that way.
Speaker 2: But when they walked in and saw this, they were like,
Speaker 2: holy shit, this looked great. You know, so I accomplished
Speaker 2: something doing that. To me, it sounded awful. You know,
Speaker 2: it really didn't work. But they loved it, and Jackie
Speaker 2: loved it, and he love everything about it. So that's
Speaker 2: the only thing I could think of it, you know.
Speaker 2: I had people thought I had magic with drums, and
Speaker 2: it maybe did because they started work with Steely and
Speaker 2: they wanted something that was different, and I did what
Speaker 2: they wanted and I started to get place. So well,
Speaker 2: that's the guy only does is Steely Dan. And if
Speaker 2: you want your record to sound like that, you know,
Speaker 2: and most guys didn't, so it was problem getting bagged
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, in the early days, you talk about mixing, you know,
Speaker 1: recording three tracks, you're talking about phill blending the sound.
Speaker 1: But it's not very long till we had sixty channels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got to mix down to twenty four, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. How did you learn how to mix? Trial
Speaker 1: and error?
Speaker 2: It was for me it was using speakers that were
Speaker 2: not very good and listening to a mix at a
Speaker 2: very low level. You could barely hear anything that was
Speaker 2: going on. You had a demand such quiet in a
Speaker 2: room when you mixed, and you know, I insisted I
Speaker 2: would never let anybody put their hands on a console
Speaker 2: and say can I do the guitar or can I
Speaker 2: do the bass or I never did that, And Steely
Speaker 2: was the first one that said that. Where Walter wanted
Speaker 2: to work guitar, Gary one who worked the vocal. You know,
Speaker 2: it was just like and finally, after about two passes
Speaker 2: at Black Cow, I said, this is not working.
Speaker 1: You know, you.
Speaker 2: Guys are making mistakes and you're lasting up what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: I can do this all, just let me do it.
Speaker 2: And they backed off and that's where it went from
Speaker 2: there on. I did everything by myself.
Speaker 1: Okay, there were very particular cats you mixed, and you
Speaker 1: sent them to mix. What did they say? How many
Speaker 1: times did you have to remix a tweak till they
Speaker 1: were satisfied?
Speaker 2: On Asia, that was the first record I mixed for him,
Speaker 2: and it only happened on one cut on Asia, And
Speaker 2: what happened we did the cut? It was twenty four track,
Speaker 2: and it was loaded with different you know, on one
Speaker 2: track there would be a guitar, a vocal, you know,
Speaker 2: different things on the track, and you constantly you'd get
Speaker 2: as far as the verse and have to repatch certain things,
Speaker 2: or had setups for where you knew you were going
Speaker 2: to have to bring that fader down to and we
Speaker 2: did that. And there was one spot in the mix
Speaker 2: right after Steve's solo where the bass had to cut out,
Speaker 2: and I had to cut it out before and after
Speaker 2: the solo we went back into the next part. I
Speaker 2: never put the bass on because you could hear a
Speaker 2: little bit of the bass through the drums, and I
Speaker 2: thought it seemed okay. They got back to California and
Speaker 2: I get called from Gary and he says, there's this
Speaker 2: Asia has no base in the end. I said, no,
Speaker 2: that can't be. You know, we're coming back. We want
Speaker 2: to do that, do that again. And I started thinking
Speaker 2: about it and realize, you know, maybe I didn't put
Speaker 2: the base on, and sure enough I didn't. So but
Speaker 2: I had notes for Asia, I had photographs where the
Speaker 2: EQ was where you know, it was all manual. There
Speaker 2: was no computers, no nothing. So that morning I got
Speaker 2: to mix up close, really close to where it was,
Speaker 2: and I said, they walked in the city and I said,
Speaker 2: you guys are fucking crazy. There's plenty of base on there.
Speaker 2: I kicked it up point and I said, listen to this,
Speaker 2: and I played the take and they said, no, that's
Speaker 2: that does sound like what we have And I started laughing.
Speaker 2: You know what you do? Try to remix it? Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, I got it up. I said, okay, let's
Speaker 2: start again. And when we started a whole song from
Speaker 2: the beginning the first time it took I think it
Speaker 2: took three days to mix that.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, do you mix fast or slow?
Speaker 2: Well, from doing jingles, they used to mix fast. By
Speaker 2: the time I got to the Eagles and Steely Steely first, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was mixing pretty son.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's use the Eagles as an example. By time
Speaker 1: you work with Eagles, they've had experience with a lot
Speaker 1: of other people. So what's it like working with a
Speaker 1: client that you know you're new, but they're not new
Speaker 1: to their own music? How demanding and how accepting of
Speaker 1: you are they?
Speaker 2: Well, I had been working with Glenn a lot before
Speaker 2: they got back together, so I did a bunch of
Speaker 2: things with him and I had quite a few hits.
Speaker 2: So when they got back together, Glenn said, Glenn called
Speaker 2: me up. He said, because there was nothing going on,
Speaker 2: he said, I feel like doing an Needles record. I said, no,
Speaker 2: come on really, and he said, yeah, we're getting back
Speaker 2: to here. Do we want you to do it? I
Speaker 2: was beside myself, and Irving called me up. He said,
Speaker 2: I'm going to fly you out. I want you to
Speaker 2: have the band rehearsing because it's for MTV. And I
Speaker 2: came out. They were all on acoustic guitars. Acousta pays,
Speaker 2: no dryme stuff going on. Just hearing these guys sing,
Speaker 2: and it was mind boggling that these guys sounded as
Speaker 2: good as they were and they accept me. I knew
Speaker 2: Timmy from before because he was in Jimmy Buffett's ban
Speaker 2: for a while. And meeting Joe and Don and Felder,
Speaker 2: you know, it was a great experience for me. I
Speaker 2: felt very comfortable. The hours were incredibly long, but it
Speaker 2: was well worth it.
Speaker 1: So once you start to have a success today producers
Speaker 1: have managers, et cetera. But we're going back. You know,
Speaker 1: you're there more in the beginning when it blows up
Speaker 1: Are you hustling for work yourself or are you sitting
Speaker 1: there waiting for the phone to ring?
Speaker 2: What's it like in what party, what time period?
Speaker 1: Let's start with the seventies. You leave you know, you're
Speaker 1: talking about seventy three, you leave A and R, And
Speaker 1: let's talk about that period. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: money before the business crashed in seventy nine. Could you
Speaker 1: just wait for the phone to ring? Or were you
Speaker 1: out working it saying hey, yeah, you know you need
Speaker 1: to work with me. I'm good, you know, you know.
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah. I had a manager and they were
Speaker 2: pretty big, very good, and I never heard at all.
Speaker 2: I mean, I was working all the time in those
Speaker 2: years in the nineties, the beginning, like ninety one ninety two,
Speaker 2: it was harder work with us.
Speaker 1: So how'd you cope with it?
Speaker 2: I didn't work And that was at that point. That
Speaker 2: was when it was like ninety three. Glenn called me
Speaker 2: up and said, do you want to do an Eagles record?
Speaker 2: And that changed my life right then doing the Eagles.
Speaker 2: I had so much stuff after that.
Speaker 1: So doing the Eagles, did people call you just because
Speaker 1: you did the Eagles?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And because it was MTV. It was what they
Speaker 2: call that show unplugged, right. So right after that, I
Speaker 2: got a call from Fleetwood Mac. They were doing Unplugged.
Speaker 2: They wanted me to do that, but they wanted me
Speaker 2: to produce it as well with Lindsay, so I did that.
Speaker 2: After that, I got a call from John Sometimes the
Speaker 2: mind goes Cretin's clear Water. He was doing the same
Speaker 2: thing and he said, well, you do mine, and I
Speaker 2: did his. So it was We're constantly coming in and
Speaker 2: after that, people just I would do a lot of
Speaker 2: unplug seth just mixing. They weren't me to mix it
Speaker 2: more than anything.
Speaker 1: Well in those days, you know, like sometime in the seventies,
Speaker 1: FM would broadcast live stuff in stereo. But mixing. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're mixing Asia, you want it to sound good
Speaker 1: on small speakers, but you also want high fidelity. You're
Speaker 1: mixing for television. Most people are listening to a tiny
Speaker 1: little speaker. How do you do that?
Speaker 2: Well, by the nineties it was stere and you know,
Speaker 2: I'd been using the end it's tens for a while
Speaker 2: and I knew what level to listen to and what
Speaker 2: would give me in return. So you know, if they
Speaker 2: were there was always a set of General X or
Speaker 2: something nearby, so if the band came in, they could
Speaker 2: hear it a louder on those.
Speaker 1: Okay, are you still a fan of the NS Tens?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I am.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I call you to work to what degree
Speaker 1: are you particular about equipment?
Speaker 2: I'm particular. You know. I've done all my best work
Speaker 2: on a Neive console, so I try and to always
Speaker 2: work on an EVE. I'll direct some to a studio
Speaker 2: that has an EVE.
Speaker 1: So what's your take on SSL? When that became in
Speaker 1: and they had their automation, et cetera. What did you
Speaker 1: not hear or there? What did you not like about it?
Speaker 2: I didn't like the EQ very much, but I did
Speaker 2: an album. He was a songwriter, an Irish songwriter, Gary
Speaker 2: Katz produced it, and he asked me to come over
Speaker 2: to Paul Brady.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Paul Brady, Yeah, And I was mixing on the SSL,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden I went to recall a
Speaker 2: mix and erased it, and every time I went back,
Speaker 2: it would erase a mix. So after that, I said,
Speaker 2: I'm done with this.
Speaker 1: Although I happened to love the sound of the record.
Speaker 1: That's a great record. Yeah, thanks, really, I listened to
Speaker 1: that record, can't stop wanting you and then trick or
Speaker 1: treat with Bonnie Braid. So what point do you get
Speaker 1: a percentage? I'm talking about a royalty.
Speaker 2: It really started with me with Hornsby, the very first
Speaker 2: Hornsby record. That was you know, I had earned royalties,
Speaker 2: but you know ten bucks a quarter orangsby having a
Speaker 2: record like that, it was very big. I mean it
Speaker 2: bought me in my house.
Speaker 1: Do you remember how many points was at one point?
Speaker 1: Or what was it?
Speaker 2: Uh? It was it was two.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're all getting older by the minute new people
Speaker 1: come up. Does it get to a point people say
Speaker 1: I don't want you, I want the younger guy. He
Speaker 1: worked on the younger thing. Do you find that ageism
Speaker 1: involved irrelevant of talent?
Speaker 2: Well? I know that's the reason nobody else says it
Speaker 2: to you. You know, and I think about some of
Speaker 2: the artists and making records stay They don't want to
Speaker 2: work with me, but I don't really want to work
Speaker 2: with them either, you know. So you know we're taking
Speaker 2: it on the road and telling your stories. Now.
Speaker 1: Okay, it switches to digital this century in terms of
Speaker 1: recording on computers. You know, pro tools, logic, et cetera.
Speaker 1: That's a huge evolution when that starts to happen. Are
Speaker 1: you all in and learning? Are you like one of
Speaker 1: the people say no, no, no, I'm holding on that
Speaker 1: stuff will never work.
Speaker 2: No. No. I went along with it, but it never
Speaker 2: ever said don't use analog. I was still in favor
Speaker 2: of doing analog before approach tools and sitting here, I
Speaker 2: haven't told you this. Josh knew it, but sitting here
Speaker 2: in the corners George best merk and he hasn't heard
Speaker 2: anything because I'm in buds. But we used to get
Speaker 2: in arguments all the time about Didge and analog, and
Speaker 2: he would say, you don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Dig is better, and I would just be off on analog.
Speaker 2: And finally one day we got a call from Berkeley
Speaker 2: in Boston to both take part in doing working with
Speaker 2: Kathy Mattea. She was there doing a writing clinic and
Speaker 2: they had written a song and they wanted to record it,
Speaker 2: and George and I came up there to do it,
Speaker 2: and uh, he wanted to do it? Did I want
Speaker 2: to do analog? And we did it both ways, and
Speaker 2: after we were done, George looked at me, George, remember
Speaker 2: what you said, no, he said.
Speaker 4: The analog does sound betater. Okay. At this late date,
Speaker 4: you know, there's hard to get tape. There was that
Speaker 4: class system for a while.
Speaker 1: They was supposed to imitate analog, but the sampling rates
Speaker 1: have gotten higher and higher and higher. Yeah, today, how
Speaker 1: do you feel about digital compunity analog the same?
Speaker 2: You know? I I always when I did antalog, I
Speaker 2: always work with Dolbie. You know, I recorded a fifteen
Speaker 2: with Doby's, so the noise level was pretty good, you know,
Speaker 2: and to day I like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk vinyl. So in the old days, the
Speaker 1: records were cut out aalog and they're on a vinyl record,
Speaker 1: which inherently has compromises. Does it make any sense to
Speaker 1: have a digital recording on vinyl.
Speaker 2: Well, they're doing it, that's not my question. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think so, whether it's good or not, it could be.
Speaker 2: I don't know. If I couldn't stay one way or
Speaker 2: the other. Oh no, don't do that. You know, people
Speaker 2: love vinyl, and you know, there's a fair amount of
Speaker 2: vinyl being sold now, especially in New York. And I've
Speaker 2: done digital records that came out on vinyl and they
Speaker 2: sound great, and you know, with new formats and Vinyl
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty.
Speaker 1: They're pretty great. Wait, let's hold on a second. You're
Speaker 1: cutting digital, there's no compromises. When it goes to vinyl.
Speaker 1: There are a million compromises. You know, roll off this
Speaker 1: and that. Doesn't that affect the sound?
Speaker 2: Well. A lot of them are doing one side double records,
Speaker 2: so you know you get two songs on the side.
Speaker 2: It's pretty good. Yeah, I can't complain about that. I've done.
Speaker 2: I did some. George did a record with Jennifer that
Speaker 2: was what record was famous, famous Blue Rine Code, and
Speaker 2: I did the one right after and they were both done.
Speaker 2: You did digital, right, Yeah, I did too, But I
Speaker 2: did Yeah, it was tape at that point. It was
Speaker 2: ditch tape, uh and it went the final and it
Speaker 2: sounded great. I couldn't complain about anything.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you were talking earlier about this person who
Speaker 1: stiffed you shipping your gear, do you still travel with gear?
Speaker 2: No, not anymore. I just make sure that they have
Speaker 2: what I need at the studio, and its usually speakers,
Speaker 2: and most places have in us sense, and that in
Speaker 2: itself is if they haven't even n s tense in goodbye,
Speaker 2: some set.
Speaker 1: Okay, do you ever get starstruck?
Speaker 2: Yeah, when the Eagles the MTV thing came out. We're
Speaker 2: up for a couple of awards and I had co
Speaker 2: produced set, and I got the the Grammys Radio City.
Speaker 2: And in all the times that I'd done interviews for magazines,
Speaker 2: they would always say, well, who if you work with,
Speaker 2: who do you want to work that you haven't worked with?
Speaker 2: And I would always say Peter Gabriel. And so we
Speaker 2: went to the awards and my wife and I were
Speaker 2: in the third borough at Radio City, and on my
Speaker 2: side was Peter Gabriel. On her side was an Evedder
Speaker 2: and I turned around. He introduced himself to me and
Speaker 2: I told him who I was, and I must have
Speaker 2: said it fifty times Peter Gabriel, you know. And he said, oh, wait,
Speaker 2: are you the guy that wanted to work with me?
Speaker 2: And I said, yeah, I'm that guy.
Speaker 1: He said, what for.
Speaker 2: What? I thought it would be good for me?
Speaker 1: So was that it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: That was it? So he never called you, you know,
Speaker 1: after all that, But I.
Speaker 2: Did get a call from Phil Collins. I did the
Speaker 2: Tarzan movie with him.
Speaker 1: Okay, so to what degree are you still working today?
Speaker 2: I'm still working, but not as much, and I don't
Speaker 2: want to make records when nobody's playing with each other.
Speaker 2: So I'm doing more jazz than they used to. And
Speaker 2: I like what happens. And a lot of people talk
Speaker 2: about what happens with jazz band and what feeds it.
Speaker 2: Like George, did he tell you about his encounter with
Speaker 2: A one He was I think he's on Claude and
Speaker 2: he sent them a message saying AI. And he sent
Speaker 2: them a mess it's saying, why does AI music sound
Speaker 2: so fucking awful? And they wrote back to him and
Speaker 2: they said, well, they're probably not playing in the same room. Uh,
Speaker 2: they're not together, you know? Was there a lot more
Speaker 2: than that? The six points come here.
Speaker 3: But the idea of it being impossible for AI to
Speaker 3: have intentionality? You remember this, I said you.
Speaker 1: Of course, George, we started off with it, and I
Speaker 1: totally agree with you. He h.
Speaker 3: Do you remember when we used to share buds with
Speaker 3: our girlfriends but one guy yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and
Speaker 3: the other would take right right. And AI has these uh,
Speaker 3: these limitations, right, I've got to put it in the
Speaker 3: right ear.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: AI has basic limitations that are pretty hard to overcome.
Speaker 3: But one is that it can't have intentionality. It can't intend.
Speaker 3: It can't intend to write a song.
Speaker 1: Well, I find it interesting that all the talk from
Speaker 1: the record companies is about AI. When you talk about
Speaker 1: the intentionality and the creative process, no one is focusing
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 3: No, but that's that's what gives music. It's humanity.
Speaker 1: I agree, and that's one of the problems with the
Speaker 1: business today.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, but it can't. It can't. AI can't say, ah, wait,
Speaker 3: I'm lacking humanity. Maybe I can fill it in with
Speaker 3: this element of humanity. AI can't do that. It can't
Speaker 3: self evaluate.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that we've lived through thirty plus years
Speaker 1: of technological innovation and the new new thing, and they
Speaker 1: keep focusing on this. It's like, oh, it's going to
Speaker 1: be another step. When I agree with you, you can
Speaker 1: get listen. I think we talked about this. AI can't
Speaker 1: create something new. It can only be an amalgamation of
Speaker 1: what came from the past. And this is a business
Speaker 1: that's all focused on the new got I who can
Speaker 1: they come up with that? That's what we're looking for.
Speaker 3: It's also AI is invariably a mix of other other
Speaker 3: forms and other approaches, other ideas, to the point where
Speaker 3: the result of a cycle of AI where it's cycles
Speaker 3: where it goes through organizing a result an average result,
Speaker 3: you inevitably end up with a beige sludge of mixed ideas.
Speaker 3: And that that's not new, that's that's just pablem that's
Speaker 3: that's uh. That's not something that establishes a new type
Speaker 3: of music. Good vibrations. I can't invent good vibrations. It's
Speaker 3: not an average of anything. It's new, and it's came
Speaker 3: from somebody's recesses of somebody's brain. In this case, Brian
Speaker 3: was his brain. Who knows where that came from?
Speaker 1: Well articulated In any event, you're both there and I
Speaker 1: know you're having a rehearsal tomorrow before you go live.
Speaker 1: I want to wish both of you good luck. It
Speaker 1: sounds like you're doing well. It's sold out to begin with,
Speaker 1: and Elliott, I want to thank you so much for
Speaker 1: telling your stories today. You're not on screen even though
Speaker 1: we're audio only. Can you hear me there?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: I can, Okay, there is. I could tell. It's funny
Speaker 1: because in a lot of businesses, you know, competitors don't
Speaker 1: get along, but you guys are big buddies, so that's
Speaker 1: great to see so Elliott, thanks so much for taking
Speaker 1: this time with my audience.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. You know, we've
Speaker 2: you've always said things about me in your interviews before,
Speaker 2: and there were such nice things. You know, it was
Speaker 2: could have finally got a chance to be with you.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I always admire excellence and some of
Speaker 1: those records. I mean that that Hornsby record. I forgot
Speaker 1: you did that, but that Paul Brady, you know that.
Speaker 1: You know, Irving sent me some of the stuff before
Speaker 1: it came out. The Eagles, did you tell you just
Speaker 1: hear those voices together go wow? Yeah, yeah, really something Okay,
Speaker 1: until next time. This is Bob Left six