tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post3574962760175663523..comments2024-03-28T02:11:12.904-07:00Comments on Hooterollin' Around: Jerry Garcia Recording Studio History: November 1965-January 1967: Early Days (Studiography I)Corry342http://www.blogger.com/profile/08049035074121231425noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-90474950691370323362019-07-11T04:01:35.256-07:002019-07-11T04:01:35.256-07:00Nice Blog Post...
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Lo...Nice Blog Post...<br /><br /><a href="http://cosmicsounds.in/subtitling.php" rel="nofollow">Language Subtitling Services</a><br /><a href="http://cosmicsounds.in/indian-languages-dubbing.php" rel="nofollow">Localization Services For Indian Language</a><br /><a href="http://cosmicsounds.in/translation.php" rel="nofollow">Language Translation Services</a><br />Amithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10375642555364045903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-31225857927654107492019-06-05T04:10:56.778-07:002019-06-05T04:10:56.778-07:00Thanks for sharing. Great post very Informative, a...Thanks for sharing. Great post very Informative, also checkout <a href="https://loudhousestudios.com" rel="nofollow">Loud House Studios</a>John Christmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15623694734791930068noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-66520858628723114102018-12-13T21:04:59.620-08:002018-12-13T21:04:59.620-08:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04526851041344345898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-37798514655243828342018-11-02T04:16:16.009-07:002018-11-02T04:16:16.009-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Recording studios near mehttp://www.tutti.spacenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-32986241755566789412017-11-12T04:34:56.478-08:002017-11-12T04:34:56.478-08:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Bloggerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07287821785570247118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-45690316518771560932017-01-28T01:31:34.453-08:002017-01-28T01:31:34.453-08:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05456829417838688160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-47513408581450466512016-04-20T19:13:29.211-07:002016-04-20T19:13:29.211-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02006017538527358486noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-26206958041637076782016-01-14T15:14:16.902-08:002016-01-14T15:14:16.902-08:00Another account of the Buena Vista Studio session,...Another account of the Buena Vista Studio session, from Bob Matthews: <br />"We had been to a hippie recording studio on Buena Vista Hill, belonging to Gene Estribou... It was late at night after we had played at California Hall. We'd loaded in - in those days it was Bear's Altec Voice of the Theater [speakers], McIntosh power amps and pre-amps. Lug it up three flights of stairs to this attic recording studio. We were doing 4-track in those days, and it was brand new. We were still coming down from the show, Saturday night, and I remember watching the reels of tape go round and round. It enthralled me. I said, 'I want to do that.' I told Bob Weir, 'I'm gonna be the guy who's going to record the Grateful Dead.'" (This Is All A Dream We Dreamed, p.51) <br /><br />Datewise, this would place at least one recording session on the night of the 5/29/66 California Hall show (which was a Sunday) - I'm a bit surprised that Estribou would do nighttime studio sessions (the show had started at 9pm, so any recording would have been after midnight). So Matthews' memory may be a bit off, and in any case they definitely recorded for more than one day, but it helps give us a date fix on these sessions.Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-2154997367699948562015-05-17T23:58:26.236-07:002015-05-17T23:58:26.236-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01457336892732470432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-88393095052869170512014-03-10T20:55:20.051-07:002014-03-10T20:55:20.051-07:00Hi Corry,
Thanks for the nice summary. Looking f...Hi Corry,<br /><br />Thanks for the nice summary. Looking forward to the next chapter.<br /><br />JohnJohnhttp://theperfectipodcollection.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-79864035446394658342014-02-19T16:17:33.801-08:002014-02-19T16:17:33.801-08:00And http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2010/12/jerry-g...And <a href="http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2010/12/jerry-garcia-surrealistic-pillow.html" rel="nofollow">http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2010/12/jerry-garcia-surrealistic-pillow.html</a>.Fate Musichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05648291938690043423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-77038630904496639012014-02-17T17:57:43.078-08:002014-02-17T17:57:43.078-08:00Man, this is great--anybody who has read this far ...Man, this is great--anybody who has read this far down should follow the link. I was aware of Garcia's various contributions, of course, but when you see them in one list it's really impressive.Corry342https://www.blogger.com/profile/08049035074121231425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-63138761744831170262014-02-17T17:04:14.920-08:002014-02-17T17:04:14.920-08:00Let's not forget the followup:
http://jgmf.bl...Let's not forget the followup: <br />http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2011/01/few-more-surrealistic-pillow-tidbits.html Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-35469388729106662642014-02-17T17:00:06.504-08:002014-02-17T17:00:06.504-08:00It's written:
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/...It's written: <br />http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2014/02/garcia-in-background.html Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-87263119334016049672014-02-16T15:31:16.774-08:002014-02-16T15:31:16.774-08:00Excellent!
Some detail on Surrealistic Pillow: ht...Excellent!<br /><br />Some detail on Surrealistic Pillow: <a href="http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2010/12/garcia-on-jefferson-airplane.html" rel="nofollow">http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2010/12/garcia-on-jefferson-airplane.html</a>Fate Musichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05648291938690043423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-66667311919864680662014-02-16T05:01:59.371-08:002014-02-16T05:01:59.371-08:00I confess to leaving a Bear-size hole in the story...I confess to leaving a Bear-size hole in the story, but I was purposely constraining myself. It is a good point, however, that for a new band, even by 1966 the Grateful Dead would have heard decent sounding tapes of themselves. Thus, while they might not have known what they wanted from a studio recording, they could hear the playback and still say "whatever we want, that ain't it."Corry342https://www.blogger.com/profile/08049035074121231425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-67164601145815109422014-02-16T05:00:03.783-08:002014-02-16T05:00:03.783-08:00"There are actually quite a few albums that w..."There are actually quite a few albums that would not exist the way they came out, if not for him. But that's a longer story for another day."<br /><br />I hope this is a story you are planning to write!Corry342https://www.blogger.com/profile/08049035074121231425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-9338419992673980472014-02-16T04:58:59.773-08:002014-02-16T04:58:59.773-08:00LIA, I agree with you that Healy is probably squee...LIA, I agree with you that Healy is probably squeezing the timeline a little bit, but it all sounds plausible. The community of FM radio engineers must have been very tiny, and sneaking over to your friend's station to play tapes at 3am must have been easy and fun. Larry Miller came to KMPX-fm on February 12, 1967 (Donahue took over the whole station in late March), but clearly there were tentative experiments beforehand.Corry342https://www.blogger.com/profile/08049035074121231425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-39222681620985174732014-02-15T20:51:24.874-08:002014-02-15T20:51:24.874-08:00Though Healy's memory may be inaccurate, he do...Though Healy's memory may be inaccurate, he does seem to be remembering the period before February '67, at least. It's before Larry Miller started his night show at KMPX; Healy remembers Tom Donahue still being at KYA, and KMPX still mostly playing "ethnic religious programming," etc. He implies that he was the late-night DJ some nights on KMPX himself; as far as I know, that station did still have fairly empty blocks of unpaid time at night in '66, though you might know more details. <br />Though Healy may be mushing the events of a year into one shorter time period in his memory (leaving it unclear exactly when he recorded/played the Dead), the overall contour seems clear & believable to me.Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-63338557631625267912014-02-15T20:37:50.450-08:002014-02-15T20:37:50.450-08:00One leitmotif of this post is that the various sma...One leitmotif of this post is that the various smaller local studios the Dead tried out were not suitable for the music they wanted to make. I'm not so sure I'd put it that way - the Dead's musical ambitions (and talents) in '66 were nothing like they'd be a year later. I think their repeated disappointment may have been due to a combination of factors - their own inexperience with studio equipment and what sounds they could achieve; the limitations of their recording engineers; and their indecision as to just what they wanted to put on a record, with everyone feeling like the final effort was just another lukewarm compromise. <br />The sessions in this period are what you might call more or less "live in the studio" (though vocals were generally dubbed); but after the first album, the Dead vowed not to work so simply again - they didn't want to record just how they played live - and that future sessions would be as long and complicated as necessary to achieve their vision. Part of this had to stem from listening to the more complicated, different-sounding multitracked music that was starting to come out in '67; part of it was also the disparity between the big 10-20 minute pieces they'd regularly play onstage vs. the 3-minute songs Warners expected on their album. And part of it was probably because the right recording format for them just didn't exist yet; they'd have to create some of it themselves.<br /><br />It's also worth mentioning that the Dead entered their early sessions with an immense distrust of the producer, the record labels & the recording process. This grew over time, and is noticeable not so much in their own statements as in producers' and Warner Brothers' comments about them. It was one reason they were so hesitant to sign a contract in '66, with the example of other "victimized" artists before them; and after one album they were quick to seize the studio for themselves with no outside interference.<br /><br />There is also a giant hole in this post, by the name of Bear. Though his home rehearsals of the band were not in a "studio" environment, the fact remains, through early '66 the band had experience taping LOTS of rehearsal demos, with an audio engineer who had very definite ideas about what they should sound like. (In fact, in his rehearsal tapes it's impossible to tell that they're "home tapes" rather than studio sessions.) The Dead were, at the least, used to recording & hearing themselves on tape. This has to have had some impact on how they approached actual studio sessions later on. In short, if you've had Owsley taping you at home, a studio engineer has to be pretty good to measure up!<br /><br />By the way - it was in a 1980 Relix interview that Garcia said that early on, "I did some various sessions around San Francisco. Demos and stuff like that. [Q: Anything that was released?] I really don't know." <br />Unfortunately very vague, and since he follows that up with his claim to have played on a demo of 'Do You Wanna Dance,' perhaps unreliable as well. Though it's nice to imagine Garcia as a session hand in '65!Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-3688250220188682972014-02-15T20:37:10.543-08:002014-02-15T20:37:10.543-08:00Another way to look at the Dead's recording hi...Another way to look at the Dead's recording history is not just by the studios they recorded at, but by the engineers they worked with. Up through 1967, they were mostly recorded by "professionals" (or, in Gene Estribou's case, an aspiring amateur). Their reaction to these experiences can easily be guessed by the fact that they would only record with trusted friends, for the most part, for the next 9 years.<br /><br />It's telling that the engineer for Surrealistic Pillow was Dave Hassinger. Garcia knew that he'd been the engineer on several Rolling Stones records in '65, and that by itself was enough to impress the Dead; so they wanted him to produce their first record. Garcia must also have had a good enough experience working with him on Surrealistic Pillow. (But it would not take too many sessions in '67 before the Dead & Hassinger started to get disenchanted with each other...) <br /><br />One reason the Airplane wanted Garcia there was because they'd been disappointed with the production of their first record, feeling RCA was rather heavy-handed with the material. The actual producer of Surrealistic Pillow, Rick Jarrard, may not have gotten along so well with Garcia: he later denied Garcia was there at all; and in a March '67 interview, Garcia was none too flattering about Jarrard's role: <br />"They’ve been victimized by the record company to some extent, in that they don’t have a say...their producer decides what their sound will be like sometimes. Hopefully, that won’t happen on their next album, though this album was more a product of them than their producer. But it was his idea to have a lot of echo and reverb, and they’re really not too satisfied with it." <br />http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2010/12/jerry-garcia-surrealistic-pillow.html <br /><br />[As an aside, these Airplane sessions are one of the first examples of the lengths Garcia would go to to help other SF musicians. There are actually quite a few albums that would not exist the way they came out, if not for him. But that's a longer story for another day.]<br /><br />The Dead did not find RCA Studios a very congenial environment - the "quick pop song" requirements & timeclock mentality of the engineers was rather daunting for them, and that may have been another reason they rushed through the album. (They would start recording Anthem at RCA, but soon switched studios...and kept on switching studios, again and again.)<br /><br />You forgot to mention that 'Golden Road' wasn't recorded at RCA, but was recorded afterwards specifically for the single, at Coast Recorders in San Francisco. I don't know if Hassinger was present, but the Dead seem to have spent some time working on this song, with several overdubs, giving it a different sound than the rest of the album. Why they chose Coast (unless it was just the most immediately available for a booking), I don't know.Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-64714142675779407672014-02-15T17:38:48.334-08:002014-02-15T17:38:48.334-08:00Larry Miller at KMPX? I'm woefully ignorant ab...Larry Miller at KMPX? I'm woefully ignorant about that story so don't know the time line problem but, in danger of going off topic, Healy is pretty aggressive about his unacknowledged role in the start of FM music radio.<br /><br />The quotes I previously transcribed follow with<br /><br />"Finally Tom Donahue who was still over at KYA AM, picked up on what was going on, and it was at that point that contemporary music turned from AM to FM. That was the start of what was later to be called FM underground radio. Within a year of that, the AM stations were out of business except for news and talk. Tom Donahue gets the credit for starting all this, but the seed had already been planted. He took it to a farther place because he had all the radio connections, but he's not the guy who invented it or discovered it.<br /><br />"The owner of KMPX was a guy in his forties named Lee Crosby whose parents paid him to stay away from them. A real nerd. I think they bought him the radio station just to keep him out of their hair. He was the last person to care what happened at the station. KMPX wasn't making any money. Those of us who worked there certainly weren't making any money; I must have made something like fifteen dollars a week for doing five nights a week. Most of the time the station broadcast ethnic religious programming or whatever other types of programming he could get people to pay to put on the air. The equipment was lousy and didn't work half the time. I even had to bring in my own styluses just to get some halfway decent fidelity.<br /><br />"As soon as Lee Crosby realized that we were onto something really big, he tried to take it back and throw us all out. That's when the station staff, led by Tom Donahue, nailed ourselves in for a week. We finally emerged and Donahue led the staff over to KSAN and started the whole thing up over there. A bunch of us lost our FCC licenses over that; I did eventually get mine back."<br /><br />I don't think Healy's memory is particularly consistent or reliable but that's what he said in '93.<br /><br />And thanks for another fine piece.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-59794605892332880042014-02-15T13:39:36.599-08:002014-02-15T13:39:36.599-08:00runonguinness, thanks so much for finding this. It...runonguinness, thanks so much for finding this. It establishes that Garcia and the Dead had tried every studio in San Francisco prior to recording at RCA in Los Angeles. I added the comment to the main post.Corry342https://www.blogger.com/profile/08049035074121231425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5268955857828486331.post-63092192420788322032014-02-15T09:38:10.522-08:002014-02-15T09:38:10.522-08:00I think the Dead definitely did record with Healy ...I think the Dead definitely did record with Healy at Commercial Recorders in late '66. There is a Healy interview from before the Sacramento show on 1993-05-23 printed in Best Of Guitar Player Grateful Dead issue from 1993 on page 68 of which he says<br /><br />“I still had my job at the radio station (KMPX), and I was still working at the recording studio (Commercial Recorders). The next thing I did (after assembling a PA for the Fillmore Dead show) was to sneak the Dead into the studio after hours and we would record all night. As soon as they would leave I’d clean the studio like nothing had happened except that there would be this blue haze from the cigarette smoke. I thought I was getting away with something, but in retrospect, Lloyd (Pratt) probably knew all along and just didn’t say anything. He was really wonderful. We made some great tapes during those sessions but we couldn’t get any radio play because we weren’t in the club. The AM Top 40 guys wouldn’t play you if they didn’t own a piece of you, and if they didn’t play you, you didn’t go anywhere. So I’d take these tapes down to KMPX and play them after three o’clock in the morning when people didn’t care what you played anyway. Eventually there were several other bands besides the Dead whose tapes I produced and who I played during these late night radio show. Pretty soon it became a happening thing to listen to tapes late at night on KMPX. Almost overnight it became this secret, cult thing to listen to late-night FM radio; this dormant thing literally exploded, and people began clamoring to buy ad time and the thing just took off."<br /><br />Scully says much the same on p 60-61 of Living With The Dead but I suspect he's quoting Healy's interview. Additionally he mentions demos for Silver Threads (presumably the one on Rare Cuts), You Don't Have To Ask/Otis On A Shakedown Cruise and "many of the songs" from the first album.<br /><br />Healy's entry in "Skeleton Key" also takes great chunks from this interview.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com