Jim Dickinson R.I.P.

Jim Dickinson, true friend and talented musician.
Remember...World Boogie is Coming.

BruceApalooza...the saga continues

Half-Pig, Chi-Cleveland ? The super group that was formed for my birthday party last February, consisting of Chris Butler, Debbie Smith, Harvey Gold and Rich Roberts (with the addition of Ralph Leguini). Half Cleveland played on a bill with Chrissie Hynde and Jerry Lee Lewis at the Akron Civic Theater in August. Check out Harvey's take on it at www.tinhuey.com/news.htm

Digital 8 Track ( the 1/2 Harvey sessions)

I'm recording several songs with singer,songwriter,guitarist,keyboardist,video dude Harvey Gold at his old schoolhouse home in Bath, Ohio. I hope to be able to document the process with photos, sound clips, and blog entries.
Tune in for More from Gold School Studio.

True Pioneers

Jim Mothersbaugh and Gary Jackett

"Jungle Jim" Mothersbaugh and "Genral" Jackett were both early influences in the entire Devo aesthetic. Jim was the band's first drummer and virtually invented electronic drums with his Barcus-Berry pickups mounted on drum practice pads. The output fed a synth module and the hihat pedal controlled a white noise generator!
Gary was an early experimental guitarst and graphic designer with some early incarnations of Devo. He also produced one of the first digital multi-media Cd-i discs, the forerunner to DVD.
Cutting edge guys.

Photo credit: M.Pilmer-www.devo-obsesso.com

Eccentric Producers

I saw this topic on one gear forum the other day. It got me thinking about all the wacky producer stories I heard and decided that "eccentric" didn't have to involve firearms and boatloads of intoxicants, but merely a different way of looking at things. Tom Dowd and Jim Dickinson represent these qualities to me of all the producers that I've worked with. We all have our Tom Dowd stories, so I thought it was time to give Jim his props.

In the early '90's Jim and I were mixing Toy Caldwell's last album at Chip Moman's Three Alarm Studio in Memphis. We were mxing a ballad when Jim decided it needed a bit of "ear candy". Jim brought in three crystal goblets and a violin bow. He filled the goblets with water to tune them to the track, he then had me set up a U47 fet mic through a Fairchild limiter to tape. with the preamp gain cranked all the way and the limiter spanking the signal, Jim would induce feedback by leaning his chest toward the mic as he bowed a note. After a pass or two, he placed seven perfect sustained notes under the guitar solo. Magic!
Albhy tells a story about Jim opening and closing the door to Studio C at Criteria in time to the track being played in the room. He had the control room monitors cranked and the control room door held open. The compression from the hall fedback through the control room, both rooms were pumping. Eccentric!

R.I.P. THE Loudist

Steve Gursky, AKA "Loudist", passed away peacefully on Sunday November 20th at his mothers' home in Ft. Lauderdale Florida. How fitting for an engineer, musician, raconteur that he died with the TV remote in his hand.
His brother reported that Steve had a smile on his face. That's how I want to always remember him.
I first met Steve at Criteria Studios in Miami in 1978 after I had fled Los Angeles for the East Coast. Steve was working a lot with Tom Dowd on the Allman Bros. record among many others. He did some engineering on Chi-Pig, a punk band from Akron OH that I was producing. He had great ears and a real musical sense of the sounds of the instuments and vocals. Steve was also a master of relating to the artists and their music. The feel and the "vibe" were an essential part of the Gursky sound. (MORE TO COME>>>)

Inventions in Sound

My friend Richard Bowden, an accomplished songwriter/guitarist has a long history in musical innovation. Besides several devices for the guitar to emulate slide and string bending, Richard devised a hilarious device involving whoopee cushions and a bellows. The article below describe it all.
"This was on Hee Haw around '84 and we are demonstrating to Roy Acuff how to play the instrument Rchard invented called the "Flatutina" or"Breeze Box, which is basically two fake Concertina ends with a bellows valve, with eight hollow whoopee cushions glued together in the middle, made rigid on the edges with rings inside them made from coat hangers.As you pulled it apart, they all inflated, and of course, you can imagine the sound it made as you pushed the ends back together.Both Roy and Ralph Emery (another TV show) learned how to play it extremely quickly. Talent runs rampant in that Nashville scene. Notice Bowden's and Acuff's outfits. Great minds think alike, I guess."