Mr. Mod said I have the technology, so let’s try it out.
As a follow-up to the We Are The World thread of a few weeks ago, here’s Dylan rehearsing his part. In case you can’t make it through all 9-plus minutes (I thought it was fascinating but then I’m a Bobcat), d* If nothing else, do go to the 1:20 mark of this Best of the Making of clip to watch the stilted hug between Bob and Lionel Ritchie.
*[NOTE: The original full-length video was removed from YouTube!]
Hey, gang!
Say, I need your help. I just traded in my old Saturn sedan for an old Toyota pickup truck, and — as the Toyota is of a vintage that features a cassette deck — I’ve been rediscovering old cassette tapes that I’ve not listened to in about 20 years. What’s really frustrating is that I’ve taken to reaching into my old cassette box at random and listening to whatever the hell I pull out — and a good number of the tapes I’ve been pulling out are actually old 4-track cassettes full of 4-track demos, recorded on my 1989 Tascam Porta 05 Ministudio. Those of you familiar with systems like these know that popping a 4-track cassette into a plain old (i.e., “2-track”) cassette deck will allow you to hear only 2 of the 4 tracks originally recorded. So the net-net is that I’ve been tooling around DeeCee listening to these bizarro, dub-like “mixes” of partial songs (most of which suck) — maybe a bass and vocal track in this one, or guitar and drums in that — and it’s driving me crazy!
So here’s the deal: I managed to find my old Tascam Porta 05 in the basement, carefully wrapped in a bath towel and shoved in a box. But… no power supply, dude! So I’m stuck. Here I am, proud owner of a gajillion-dollar recording studio, and I can’t even listen to shit I recorded 20 years ago on a $150 cassette deck. I tried eBay for a power supply, but came up empty. There aren’t even any used Porta 05s out there for purchase anymore. I need help! If any of you can furnish me with some helpful tips for unlocking all this old music, I promise — I PROMISE — to post 3 of the most noteworthy tracks I uncover. This will likely provide many posts-worth of amusement at my expense, but no matter. I must have these crappy old songs back!
Any ideas?
Thanking you in advance,
HVB
p.s.: Mod, I also found the original box (though not, sadly, the cassette) of Three Miles Island!
Two things:
1) How many Rock Crimes can you spot in this video?
2) Can you correctly identify why this performance rocks anyway?
I look forward to your responses,
Oats
May I begin by sharing with our Townspeople what a thrill it was for me to chat with producer/engineer Roger Bechirian! As a teenager, while intently studying the liner notes of the records that first made me feel as if I’d finally hit on “my” music, music made for me and my bandmate friends, his name kept cropping up. My friends and I never saw a picture of him, and we still don’t know exactly how his surname is pronounced, but this Roger Bechirian fellow was held in very high regard among our band of nobodies.
If I may, I’ll continue in the first person plural, because that’s how strong my love is over this guy’s work – and beside, my old friends and fellow Townsmen, Andyr and Chickenfrank, contributed to this interview. Our introduction to Bechirian was as the engineer on all those great Nick Lowe productions for Elvis Costello and The Attractions. Shortly thereafter, we saw he had his own thing going as producer of The Undertones, the band in our wildest, humble dreams we thought we could emulate.
With Costello, Bechirian produced the one Squeeze album we all agreed sounded great and steered clear of the stiff, awkward moments on their earlier albums. Then we noted his name on the credits for what we thought was The dBs‘ last great single, “Judy”. This guy not only engineered my all-time favorite album, Costello’s Get Happy!!, but he produced one of my favorite overlooked gems for listening to in my bedroom with the shades drawn, The Undertones’ Positive Touch. As Elvis would eventually have an album produced by George Martin engineer Geoff Emerick, we fantasized having an album produced by Nick’s right-hand man. Considering the likely disappointment (for him!) resulting from this fantasized collaboration, his taking the time to answer the tough questions from Rock Town Hall is more than enough wish fulfillment for anyone to bear… But enough of this ass-kissing, no matter how sincere it is! Let’s get on with the questions.
RTH: I’ve read that you were born in India and moved to England when you were a boy. When did you get into music and how did you get into recording?
RB: There was always music on in the house. My father was a big Jazz fan, and my sister would get all the latest hits from the UK and the States. I also played piano, and would spend hours making up my own tunes. We had a tape recorder at home, and I soon started making up my own sound montages by editing various recordings… I did the same thing as you, scouring album credits, looking for the engineering and studio credits. I got my first job training as a mastering engineer, cutting vinyl!
I was so opinionated, and couldn’t stop myself from telling people what I thought they should be doing!
Nick Lowe, “Hope for Us All”
I’m not thinking about this song from Nick Lowe’s latest album, At My Age, necessarily, although it’s a song I like hearing a second time whenever I spin it once. The reason it’s being used as a part of this post is because of two Academy Award-nominated films I’ve seen over the last month, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. It’s not even the movies themselves that I wish to discuss, but for fear of SPOILING any plot elements for Townspeople who have not yet seen these fine movies and would like to do so without knowing too much about them in advance, let’s pick up this discussion after the jump.
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Some of you may know of my longtime hang ups with the Parliament/Funkadelic scene: too much of that Zappa/Krappa humor, not enough solid songs, too many white rock fans who hadn’t already been fans of the earlier forms of soul music telling me how much I should love them, etc. Hang ups…
I’ve long owned an early Funkadelic Greatest Hits album, including songs I did like, such as “Funky Dollar Bill” and “Cosmic Slop”. About 7 or 8 years ago I bought America Eats Its Young and verrrrrrry slowwwwwwly began to accept these cats for who they were. The hang ups have been dropping rapidly. I bought a Parliament Greatest Hits collection a few years ago, and I like some of their best stuff even more than the best of Funkadelic. Still wish they had more solid songs, but I’m digging them for what they are.
Is there an artist you’ve verrrrrrry slowwwwwwly come around to liking?
What do you think, as we prepare for the First Annual RTH Rock ‘n Roll Foyer of Fame celebration, is Electro-Harmonix the first entrant to the special gear manufacturer wing? For the combination of Look, Name, Concept, and Fairly Decent Function, does any other gear manufacturer first come to mind?
