I'm very grateful to Desper's details and history on the ELTRO, which that blog mentions. Before Desper's writings on that piece of equipment, I had no idea what that was or how it worked. His is one of *the best* resources on that machine. Fascinating stuff. The best part was him describing how they pushed the machine to its limits, and on She's Goin Bald you can actually hear the machine at the breaking point for what it could do. Now it's as simple as clicking a mouse to some degree.

Another more primitive aspect of this for anyone interested is how Les Paul worked out his vari-speeding (different end result than the ELTRO and pitch shifting, he was basically speeding up or slowing down most of the tracks...) and it's also amazing every time I hear Ross Bagdasarian's work on that first Chipmunks Christmas recording, just how neatly he managed to put all of that stuff together with primitive technology.

"Wrapping" the tape heads related to a Pet Sounds reissue...I'm intrigued and trying to guess why that would be necessary on any tracks from that album. If they wanted to increase or decrease the pitch of a backing track, why wouldn't they just vari-speed the tape up or down to the pitch they wanted? There exists that great Brian Wilson session tape where he's trying to figure out what key to play in, in order to be in tune when they vari-speed the tape later.

These have been on Getty Images too, I've posted some of them in the past year in other threads. I hope to see more of the series, or anything from the October '66 Michigan shows. If anyone has more, let me know! Of course no one will, but I'm used to that by now.

Here are the Getty shots brightened up a bit so you can better see the bespectacled Mike Love, his "woo woo machine", and the backline of Fender amps:







Here's an interior shot of Hill Auditorium where they played:




And, of course, on the flight home from Michigan Brian requested everyone gather at the airport for these photos:

Some more...Notice two of the "group" shots around the mics are different groups and different microphones:






And Al on the box...I think they do this just to bait the fans who would spot such things :

I was thinking "AutoTune" writing my original post but I didn't want to mention it...but yeah, that's what I think was going on there *if* that film was an actual vocal session.

And groups still cut live "group" vocals around a single microphone today, or a stereo x-y or whatever, in the studio, but if you want ultimate control over each voice for tuning and fixing later in the mix, then you do a setup as shown in that clip...if you want that. Or if you're a one-man-band who can't do group vocals.

I'm just saying, all those amazing times those guys gathered around a single mic, with perhaps Mike Love apart on his own mic for the deep voice, and nailed it as a group with an impeccable blend and control...they can still do that.

Wondering why they showed film in the same clip of them doing just that, around a single mic, but again that looked staged.

Great news, I'm very excited to see what they do!

Now onto that video clip: I'm not passing judgement, I'm not second-guessing or critiquing before hearing the finished product, but I am questioning and hoping maybe someone will explain this from a sonic perspective, just as a curious fan who is into recording and such:

Why isolate each band member inside these gobos/baffles to track vocals when these same guys are quite possibly the finest group vocalists in all of rock history, with the best studio blend of vocals we've ever heard? In the same clip there are scenes of them gathered around a single mic, but that looks staged for the cameras while this shot has each of them on a single mic inside a booth...I'm just curious why or what they were doing when this was filmed.

I know this is 2011 and that's how it's done but when there is the finest group of harmony vocalists in the studio I don't get the setup in this shot:

They sell keyboards on the shopping networks and online discount stores that have keys which light up in time with the song you're trying to play, so your hands get into the right positions and you learn how to play a few tunes right out of the gate. That is invaluable. I'd consider getting something like that - they're usually around 100 bucks, they're a decent keyboard for a beginner, and you're learning to play actual songs and training your ears and hands to play songs.

As someone who does this professionally with string instruments, if you start out on lessons you'll likely be playing "Row Row Your Boat" and "London Bridge" for a few months, along with scales and exercises. As you get older, the attention span gets shorter than the 8 year old student scheduled after your lesson and it's easy to lose interest in that kind of rote memorization and exercise unless you really dedicate yourself to the piano. Playing actual songs and then applying those voicings and techniques to songs *you* want to play (via YouTube tutorials and the like) is a great way to get a feel for the instrument and hit the ground running. If you find you like it and have a talent for it, then seek out a professional teacher who you connect with musically and who can show you the heavier stuff, and get into reading if you find that you want to study more formally and related to the traditional theory and performance on piano.

One tip: The key of C major is all the white keys. You can form the chords C, Dmin, Emin, F, G, and Amin using just the white keys, and with those chords start playing basic chord outlines on songs like "Let It Be". Then take the C major scale and start improvising using only the white keys on everything from "La Bamba" in C, to a blues in A minor, to a modal vamp on Miles' "So What" played with D minor to E minor. It's about exploring those sounds and how they fit into chords and keys, and it's like being handed a palette of paints and a blank canvas to do with what you want.

YouTube has some nice tutorials.

http://www.moderndrummer.com/site/2011/12/micky-dolenz/#.Tutl93oRc78

I was happy to see this, I think it's great that Micky is getting this kind of coverage in a musicians' magazine. I always liked his drumming and his unique style. It was good to see him playing the full kit again in recent years. The only thing I missed in the article was any mention of Peter Tork's role in helping Micky learn the drums, which has been mentioned in other interviews.

I'm still waiting for updated information on the mysterious "Fast" Eddie Hoh, who played drums on those incredible Monkees tracks like Star Collector, Daily Nightly, and Goin Down, but seems to have fallen completely off the radar in the past decades. Great 60's drummer.

There is a similarity with this discussion of Smile and spirituality and the brief discussion in another thread here about the George Harrison documentary that was shown this year. I think with Harrison, that documentary in particular had focused primarily on George's spirituality, and as a result may use that as the plug-in explanation behind some of the history when there may be other answers and reasons that have more to do with George's personality and ego than his quest for spirituality. It depends on whose history you read, and which angle you're coming from when telling or reading the story. And it can also be read as "a little bit of everything" contributed to that history, just like the Smile saga. My early impression was that the Harrison documentary may have leaned too heavily on one part of a multifaceted story at times in order to give the audience a focus point when telling them the story.

I did this song as an experiment after recording some other things for Christmas that day a few years ago, imagining this song with the Chet Atkins chord sound from his old records. This was done pretty much straight through on each track, and wasn't tinkered with or edited since it was an experiment for fun anyway. But I liked it so I kept it and here it is, three tracks of guitar.

Then this week I was curious to see how it would look if I tried editing together video I found of professional, amateur, and animated ballet dancers performing the actual song in the ballet, and put the clips over the guitar track.

Dance Of The Sugar Plum Telecaster video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RocZzIjVzwY&context=C227b1ADOEgsToPDskJtzyiWVvif-YVx7Z0FLY0V

With the last two weeks before Christmas in full swing, I bumped this up in case anyone hasn't had a listen, before the season is over and the music has to hibernate another year. Something to play while doing all the holiday stuff. These covers have a shelf life of sorts...

Very nice cover!

Thanks!

Thanks for the clarification on the Herb Alpert situation. Much ado about nothing, which is what I suspected anyway.

It's worth noting something I had posted in another thread months ago: The trumpet solo on The Carpenters' classic single "Close To You". Richard Carpenter had arranged the song with a trumpet solo in mind which would hypothetically sound like what Herb Alpert would play on a Bacharach session. Carpenter wanted to feature Herb's trademark of bending notes a certain way at the end of a phrase...and he's right of course, Herb did have a very unique way of phrasing on the trumpet with those bends, and that is a signature sound of his records.

They didn't hire Herb Alpert to actually play it, so Carpenter auditioned three trumpet players to try out the part, some of the best in LA: Buddy Childers, Chuck Findley, and (drum roll...) *Ollie Mitchell* to play the solo passage. Whoever played it most like Herb Alpert was chosen for the actual take, and then triple-tracked to further match that signature Alpert sound.

Now put it all together, add it all up...if Ollie Mitchell were the real "voice" of Herb Alpert's trumpet on those classic records, he'd be the most likely choice after trying out the part to sound the most like Alpert himself.

But Chuck Findley won the contest and played that part. Carpenter said Findley nailed the sound so well that Bacharach himself, among others, assumed it was Herb Alpert himself playing the solo on the record.

Just an interesting asterisk to the whole saga.

If you check out the source of the Herb/Ollie rumors, it turns out that a major source is none other than Carol Kaye. She did apparently play on some Alpert sessions, but I doubt she was there from start to finish.  I also don't think it would necessarily be a sore point to bring up to Herb that there were multiple trumpet players on those Tijuana Brass recordings, or that he had extra trumpeters in concert.  It's not like he hid the extra trumpeters behind curtains so you'd think they were all him.

And what I said in my post was that the multiple trumpeters were the crucial element of the TJB sound. If you were to send Herb out there alone on stage, or even do one take of him playing just his horn on those TJB record sessions, it wouldn't be the sound people bought those records and tickets to hear.

Maybe I'm missing it but if the claim is made that Herb didn't play at all on the records, I'd seriously question that on all counts and probably dismiss it as total nonsense. If the claim is that Herb doubled and tripled his trumpet parts for a reason other than to create the signature sound of the TJ Brass, which was the doubled and tripled brass leads, I'd also dismiss it as total nonsense.

When you had 4 tracks to work with in the mid 60's, and you wanted the sound of three trumpets playing in unison, you'd hire three trumpet players to play the part. Again, I still don't see the controversy.

This is the print ad for the same tour, at the Hollywood Bowl...I guess Mike and the guys were thinking small venues would not be sufficient to hold the tens of thousands of devoted devotees who would come to this show decked out in their robes and flowers... I'm assuming ticket prices in Oakland were not too different from those in Hollywood.

This thread makes a nice bookend with the thread last week, where I think blame was convincingly placed on Jann Wenner and his various grudges, biases, and stubbornness as he sits on his high horse holding the scepter and deciding who is "worthy" of induction.

Check out that thread, many of the same points were made there as here, with the same bands and artists named as getting a raw deal.

And by all means, do a few Google searches and find the backstory of how Jann Wenner ignored the Dave Clark 5 who had won more committee votes that year in favor of a group he chose. Not that I'm for or against the DC5, but damn it if they got more votes than Wenner's choice it should have been the end of the story.

That, right there, is grounds enough for me to have written off the whole R&R HOF deal as a farce. If any other of the various Halls-Of-Fame who rely on voting membership to nominate and induct people into the hall had pulled a stunt like this, they'd most likely be put out of business.

as far as Herb Alpert goes - I was once told never to bring up the name Ollie Mitchell around him or his admirers.

Is that related to how Herb Alpert always had 2 or 3 guys doubling (or tripling) up his horn parts when he played live?  It'd be funny if that were still a touchy subject somehow.

Please elaborate, I'm not familiar enough with Herb's fan base to know of this backstory. Are there people saying Ollie Mitchell was actually the "voice" of Herb's trumpet on TJB records? Not sure if I buy that any more than the Jamerson stories, but again I don't know anything about those claims until someone points me to the history.

One less controversial reason why they had multiple trumpet players playing live with the TJB was they had to replicate the "sound" of the TJB's doubled and tripled brass. Doubling and tripling those horn lines gave a killer-sounding chorusing effect and *that* was the signature sound, and that sound was more popular than i think many folks today would realize...that brass sound was actually ubiquitous in advertising, jingles, TV themes, etc. If it had been one trumpet playing live, they'd probably get similar complaints that some leveled at The Beach Boys in 66-67 when their live shows sounded thin compared to the fully-orchestrated (and double-tracked) recordings.

I'd seriously like to hear more about this story with Alpert.

Jim Gordon's work with Delaney and Bonnie (and Friends) was just sublime.

I believe that's Jim with Brian in "BW24" on here: http://i458.photobucket.com/albums/qq306/Dstevenb/ContactSheet-001.jpg

Agreed! That's indeed Jim with the firehat in that Smile photo. His voice is heard on several prominent Smile session tapes that were out even before the box set.

For me, one of his greatest performances is Mason Williams' "Classical Gas". I heard that hundreds of times, always blown away by the drummer, then I found out it was Jim after Hal apparently couldn't make that date and he passed it on to Jim. The way he drives that band, and those drum fills...incredible for a relatively young drummer. That is a terrific performance.

I don't get the Jim Gordon reference...

I just thought that it was funny that he kept talking about how Denny's drumming got overlooked in favor of Hal Blaine, but then he didn't mention Gordon's contributions either, which kind of gets back to the point you made earlier.  It seems like some of these musicians (Kaye and Blaine, in particular) have been more successful at preserving their legacy while others get left behind, not because they were inferior players, but due to circumstance, bad luck, etc.

That does make sense, I just wasn't sure but wanted to clarify! Another factor is that some of them were better at the art of self-promotion than others, and may have been bigger personalities than others who may have been more quiet.

Hi guitarfool2002, I have to admit I am to blame for your having heard people got the photos. I was in the middle of reporting the whole charges of the pics to my credit card and something possesed me to write I had received them. More than likely I was being sarcastic at the time, but I honestly dont quite recall. To the best of my knowledge no-one ever got any pictures despite excuses such as the photographic paper being out of date and the pictures looking bad.

That was a fiasco along with the First Wave CD set which I unfortunately also never saw and subsequently losing money on - precisely because of broken promise after broken promise. Now I know better.

Thanks for the update, I appreciate the info! That set of photos has been troubling me for years, and I've been wondering exactly what ever happened. I was *this close* to going further in debt than I already was at that time to place an order, then the warning signs started to appear and I couldn't afford it anyway.

Fiasco is a great word for it - the promo materials looked amazing, just what I'd want to buy and display as a fan of classic studio stuff, yet it just didn't happen.

Does someone "own" that set of photo negatives in 2011 to the point where another set could at least be proposed for publication? Myself and many others would love to see them, I'd hate to think a bad experience 8 years ago or whatever could derail a future release of the photos.

I believe the Dailey negatives are currently held by someone whose name we all know here: I don't think there's any plan for prints in the immediate future, but given the imminent anniversary, who knows...

It would be an awesome compliment to everything going on this year and next, and if a direct appeal can be made to at least consider planning a respectful, comprehensive release of those session photos I'd like to make that appeal personally starting now, for what it's worth. I realize the legal and other issues are more complex than just saying "let's release these photos", but I think it would be a nice thing to finally see in good quality.

You're a drummer and founding member of a band. YOU played on the classic Beach Boys versions of Surfer Girl, Catch A Wave, Hawaii, In My Room, Little Deuce Coupe, Don't Worry Baby, Little Saint Nick, Fun Fun Fun, The Warmth Of The Sun, I Get Around, Wendy, All Summer Long, Little Honda, Hushabye, Girls On The Beach, Don't Back Down, Dance Dance Dance, When I Grow Up To Be A Man, I'm So Young, She Knows Me Too Well, Girl Don't Tell Me, You're So Good To Me, That's Not Me, Holidays, Wild Honey, I Can Hear Music,  etc... But 90% of the music aficionados who think they know a little bit about music history assume that someone else was the drummer on all of this stuff. When they hear this stuff on the radio or on TV or in movies they are listening with the thought in mind its that Wrecking Crew genius Hal Blaine playing those classic drums parts because he's an artist and you were only a clubber. And when they comment they say that you got replaced in the studio because you were not good enough. Sure, you were fun to watch in concert...but not skilled enough for the studio. To me the disrespect that Dennis Wilson routinely gets, not by low information fans, but by people who think of themselves as knowledgeable is sickening. ANY drummer would be thrilled to have a fraction of the memorable credits that Dennis should be remembered for, but more often than not he gets zero credit for. To me the point you made vs. this crime in progress do not compare. And I'm not saying YOU were comparing them...but the above is exactly why some of us get a little freaked out when someone like Glen or Hal or Carol take credit for something that wasn't theirs. It spreads like an infection, and in the end you get the constant drip that the Beach Boys were inferior musicians who could not cut it in the studio. I want to be one of the people who turns that perception back towards something closer to the truth.

Fair enough, Denny deserves more credit, but then why do you keep glossing over the not inconsiderable drumming contributions of Jim Gordon, sir?     Seriously though, he did some fine work for the Boys.  I just realized that's him pounding away on I'm Waiting For The Day.

I agree about the Monkees too.  For me, one of the coolest things about that band was the way they staged their rebellion (largely at Mike's urging) and seized control of their musical destiny on Headquarters (not to mention the subversive self parody of Head!).  Yes, a lot of people still buy the pre-fab myth, but fortunately, the Monkees have a strong and devoted following out there, counteracting the misinformation (as we see on the Hoffman board regularly).

I don't get the Jim Gordon reference...

I agree, and Jon, you deserve a lot of credit and thanks for your efforts in correcting that story and giving Dennis the credit he deserves as a drummer on those classic hits. It's definitely an uphill battle, as proven by the tens of thousands of fans who still, to this day, hang the line "but they didn't play their own instruments" around the necks of the Monkees, which totally discounts their music in a way. Just like saying Dennis wasn't on those studio sessions, it's like casting a shadow on the music and the enjoyment of that music by placing an asterisk next to the song title...and the asterisk shouldn't be there in the first place if people knew the truth. I'm afraid the work will be made much harder be decades of misinformation by those who have told the story in books, film, and the like, as you describe.

Welcome to the wonderful world of public relations.

So was I close when I posted about the Kokomo-Cocktail-Stamos connection with the song's success, seemingly out of nowhere for the Beach Boys?

They're still using the same PR angle to sell things in 2011, it must have worked at least somewhat in 1988 for them to repeat it.

Let me state again that my post(s) above are not about the Motown situation. I know the facts of that one and it's nothing I want to get involved with. I'm talking about the other studio players not named Glen, Hal, or Carol who we may encounter at some point and ask a question.

Or, narrowing it down even further than the December 23 example, try to remember *specific* details from 2 weeks ago today...what were you doing that Tuesday? Try that without the aid of email records, journals, calendars, memos, etc. It's damn near impossible unless you're like the actress Marilu Henner and others who have what amounts to total recall of exact days and events.

I've already posted Tommy's reply to the issue, which he'd tweak probably depending on his audience, but think about it like this for a minute: You're *that* session guy who has a career in music spanning decades, you've played on hundreds of "hit" records, and you're traveling around meeting fans at various shows and clinics. Someone approaches you at one of those one-out-of-365 days a year and grabs your hand, saying something like "Hey man, I LOVE that guitar part you played on (...fill in song name here...), I learned that part, that was such an inspiration, thank you!" and all the other hyperbole that fans hurl at these musicians regularly. That's what fans do, I've done it and so has every musician I'm sure.

So that famous session player cannot remember playing that particular song, but in his mind thinks "perhaps I did play that?" because he knows he worked with the artist this fan is talking about, what does he say? Does he act polite to that obviously grateful fan and say "Thanks!", or because he may or may not have played it, does he say "Sir, I don't know what the hell you're talking about, I never played that song, etc..."

This is one way the inaccurate information spreads through the years and snowballs into where some of these cases are today. I'm not saying this is to justify someone insisting something isn't so in spite of factual proof, but let's cut a bit more slack than some might be willing to do when the case warrants it, because do we honestly think these session players can remember each and every day from 4 decades ago when a fan calls them on it?

The issue with this particular theory is that Carol claims to play on several tracks that she doesn't - not just one or two.

This is specifically why I wrote the following, in case you didn't see it in my post: "I'm not saying this is to justify someone insisting something isn't so in spite of factual proof"

And this is definitely not about that specific case with Motown or whatever or any other specific case, but I don't want to see us impugn the words and memories of dozens of musicians who might take the time to have a conversation with a fan they never met before, if they happen to make a mistake. I've personally had it happen, both email and phone conversations with musicians, and I had to shrug some of it off. The bigger picture isn't about remembering exactly what happened February 19, 1965 at 2:37 PM at Gold Star in LA if someone takes the time to talk to a complete stranger and gets a fact or two wrong. That's the scenario I'm talking about, not the Motown stuff.