Confessions of a Studio Rat

 Confessions of a Studio Rat: Yada, yada, yada.... BIRMINGHAM ENGLAND (1977) I was awakened by the silence and stillness. The lulling drone of the Rolls Royce’s engine and the gorgeous smell of the leather back seats put me instantly to sleep, but that soon gave way to the harsh reality of a British police officer’s head staring down at me through the car window about one foot from my face. He was simply curious, he explained, when he spotted a Rolls Royce cruising up the motorway driven by a man with shoulder length hair, at 5:00 on a Monday morning he couldn’t resist checking us out. We had to be somebody , so it was at least worth a stop. After the rude awakening, it was a pleasant enough little visit. We were “clean” although exhausted and no crimes were being committed. Off we went! The Roller belonged to legendary ex-Deep Purple bassist and vocalist Glenn Hughes. In the car were Glenn, his driver/ personal assistant Andy who was driving, another friend and myself. We were...

  C onfessions of a Studio Rat One mans journey through a world of recording studios and musicians in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s – without a net! IBIZA, SPAIN (1985) I still find it bizarre how these things happen, but I (with my background in jazz, and big band recording) was somehow invited to fly out to Ibiza to record an album with a famous (I’m told) Spanish heavy metal band. At this point in my career I had learned that travel was a blast, especially when someone else was paying for it, so I was like “Sure, why not?” The studio was part owned by the drummer from Judas Priest, and that may have had something to do with its popularity, but it was veeeery popular with the Spanish heavy metal crowd. As studios go, it was pretty state-of-the-art for its time: designed by Westlake Audio, horrible green shag pile carpeting on the floor and up the walls, lotsa glass and live rooms, MCI console and machines, all the usual accoutrements. It was actually quite a beautiful building wi...

CONFESSIONS OF A STUDIO RAT One afternoon, they all disappeared after lunch, and arrived back in the studio after an hour or so. Turns out they’d all gone into town to visit the local chemist (pharmacy). We’ve got a party planned at the weekend for the birthday of one of the band members, and they all decided they needed to be prepared with condoms. (Oh, the optimism of youth).   I would have loved to see them all marching into the pharmacy, each buying a small pack of condoms, especially as they could hardly speak any English. Anyway, here’s how the story was related to me when they got back. “We wanted to get condoms for the party, so we went and bought some, and we got back and we tried them on to check size”. “You tried them on each other?” I remember joking. Yes, came the reply, clearly not really understanding. Mark and I roared with laughter, but the best was yet to come, when I was asked “Do they come in sizes? These are all too big!” Well, I had no words…. This gave ...

  I had a pretty good friend who was an A&R man over in Tokyo. Let’s call him Mr. S. He immensely enjoyed coming over to England (and other  p laces) to record his projects. On this particular occasion he decided to bring his latest signing, a hot young Japanese rock band over to England to record with me, but he needed to do it in a setting where he could keep track of the guys in the band. It was just too dodgy (not to mention expensive) to put a bunch of 20-somethings into a hotel in the middle of London for about a month. These boys had never been outside of Japan before and Mr. S wanted me to find a residential studio where everyone could live (and groove) together. We chose Jacobs Studios in Farnham, Surrey. An English country manor in a really lovely location with two great studios. It had one cozy SSL room, (Robin Trower was using it while we were there), and the larger room that we used, which featured a Neve VR desk and a large live studio. There was also a pool,...

  C onfessions of a Studio Rat One mans journey through a world of recording studios and musicians in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s – without a net! LONDON (1982) So, I’m booked to work on a Saturday in studio-2 at Marcus Music. I’m doing what we referred to as a “tape swap” with Thin Lizzy. Here’s some background info for those that may need it. There used to be a very popular TV show on BBC television called Top Of The Pops. The show was a big deal because it featured a selection of the latest bands playing their latest hits, Live in front of a teenage audience. Hosted by a cadre of top jocks from BBC Radio 1, it was massively popular. I remember going to a taping of the program once and was amused to watch the chaos as the same small group of teens was unceremoniously shuffled from stage to stage by the floor managers as the acts changed over. At any rate, the bands are supposed to be playing LIVE. The  great secret is, they very seldom were. They were performing to a backing t...

  C onfessions of a Studio Rat One mans journey through a world of recording studios and musicians in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s – without a net! LONDON (1980) One of my favorite bands to work with was Osibisa, an acclaimed Afro Rock band based in London. We spent many happy hours together; this band knew how to enjoy themselves while Throwing Down some awesome grooves in the studio. We’d get everyone set up in the studio as if they were playing on stage and they would just wail. Somehow, many of the details of our sessions have been lost in the clouds of time, but I remember one or two stories that I’ll share. We were in Studio 2 at Marcus Music in Kensington: my home base studio at that time. Suddenly through the monitors comes the sound of the London Fire Brigade radios, and the door burst open to admit several firefighters, fully dressed in the Personal Protective Equipment and breathing apparatus. It seems that somehow, all the cigarettes in the small control room had trigger...

  C onfessions of a Studio Rat One mans journey through a world of recording studios and musicians in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s – without a net! NEW YORK (1973?):   There’s something magical about getting a studio ready for a recording session. If you’ve ever been a Set Up Man, Assistant Engineer, Second engineer, whatever title you’re given you’ll know what I mean. You’re in a position of trust to ensure the session gets started smoothly without a hitch. I’ve always regarded the recording studio as very special space, kinda like a temple, a sacred space, where an artist will come and potentially perform magic. Sometimes it’s easy for a studio rat to take that for granted. Where we studio rats spend our year recording one project after another, for these artists it can be like making a baby. This session could be their one chance to create something that they will sustain and support, (and hopefully will sustain and support them ) for the rest of the year, or maybe even their ...