Original Sound Mono 45 RPM Singles:
13. DOUBLE YELLOW LINE (Extended 2:34 Version) OS 71 Single Fades at 1:56
~ Billboard And Cash Box Reviews April 22, 1967
~ Entered Billboard May 13, 1967 pk #111
14. ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY OS 71 B
15. THE EAGLE NEVER HUNTS THE FLY (2:48) OS 75 ~ Billboard And Cash Box Reviews June 17, 1967
16. I'VE LOVED YOU (2:46) OS 75 B
(Turn On) The Music Machine OSR LPS 8875 (Stereo):
17. TALK TALK
18. TROUBLE
19. CHERRY CHERRY
20. TAXMAN
21. SOME OTHER DRUM
22. MASCULINE INTUITION
23. THE PEOPLE IN ME
24. CC RIDER
25. WRONG
26. 96 TEARS
27. COME ON IN
28. HEY JOE
CD 02 (52:08) Previously Unreleased (Mono)
01. THE PEOPLE IN ME [Rehearsal]
02. TROUBLE [Rehearsal]
03. MASCULINE INTUITION [Rehearsal]
04. THE EAGLE NEVER HUNTS THE FLY [Demo] 4:17
05. SUFFERIN' SUCCOTASH [Demo]
06. WORRY [Demo]
07. NO GIRL GONNA CRY [Demo]
08. SMOKE & WATER [Demo]
09. I'VE LOVED YOU [Demo (Back Cover) or Alternate Version (Booklet)] ? 2:32
10. DISCREPANCY [Demo (Back Cover) or Alternate Version (Booklet)] ?
11. BOTTOM OF THE SOUL [Demo (Back Cover) or Alternate Version (Booklet)] ?
12. THE TRAP [Demo (Back Cover) or Alternate Version (Booklet)] ?
13. ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY [Early Mix (Back Cover) or Alternate Version (Booklet)] ?
14. SOMETHIN HURTIN ON ME [Early Mix (Back Cover) or Alternate Version (Booklet)] ?
15. AFFIRMATIVE NO [Early Mix (Back Cover) or Alternate Version (Booklet)] ?
16. TALK ME DOWN [Original Mix]
17. ASTROLOGICALLY INCOMPATIBLE [Original Mix]
18. WORRY [Original Mix]
19. NO GIRL GONNA CRY [Original Mix]
20. SMOKE & WATER [Original Mix]
21. TALK TALK (KHJ-TV Boss City Video)
22. CHERRY CHERRY (KHJ-TV Boss City Video)
THE BONNIWELL MUSIC MACHINE
ASTROLOGICALLY INCOMPATIBLE (2:31) (Mono) On 'Hallucinations: Psychedelic Pop Nuggets From The WEA Vaults' (Rhino Handmade) February 2004
DISCREPENCY (2:29) (Mono) On 'Come To The Sunshine: Soft Pop Nuggets From The WEA Vaults' (Rhino Handmade) February 2004
THE BONNIWELL MUSIC MACHINE
Warner Brothers album WS 1732 / W 1732
~ one of 14 January albums in article 'WB Sales Meetings Get 2 Million Albums,' Billboard January 20, 1968
~ 'New Album Release,' Billboard February 10, 1968
Billboard Special Merit Spotlight December 2, 1967:
BONNIWELL MUSIC MACHINE Bottom Of The Soul (Thrush/Insert/Drive-In, BMI) (Prod. Brian Ross) (Writer: Bonniwell) The "Talk Talk" group's move to the Warner Bros. label is a raucous driver loaded with discotheque appeal. Warner Bros. 7093
Cash Box Review December 2, 1968:
BONNIWELL MUSIC MACHINE (Warner Bros. 7093)
Bottom Of The Soul (1:55) [Thrush, Insert, Drive-In, BMI Bonniwell] Brisk-paced rock woeser could do big for the Bonniwell Music Machine. Give it a listen. Flip: "Astrologically Incompatible" (2:18) [Thrush, Insert, Drive-In, BMI Bonniwell]
Cash Box Ad December 16, 1967:
RARE SINGLES ACHIEVEMENT IN CHART TECHNOLOGY: THE BONNIWELL MUSIC MACHINE "BOTTOM OF THE SOUL" #7093 PRODUCED BY BRIAN ROSS - A BRIAN ROSS PRODUCTION
Billboard Album Review February 10, 1968:
THE BONNIWELL MUSIC MACHINE
Warner Bros. W 1732 (M); WS 1732 (S)
The importance of electronics to today's sound is best demonstrated in this 14-cut album with the renamed Bonniwell Music Machine, now acknowledging Sean Bonniwell, who wrote all the material. This LP features the singles "Me, Myself, And I," "Astrologically Incompatible," "Bottom Of The Soul," "Double Yellow Line" and "The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly." "Soul Love" is also topnotch.
Bonniwell WB Discography:
WB single 7093 Bottom Of The Soul / Astrologically Incompatible (Picture Sleeve) Released November 1967 Reviewed in Billboard And Cash Box December 2, 1967
WB single 7162 Me-Myself, And I / Soul Love Released January 1968 Not Reviewed in Billboard or Cash Box
WB album WS 1732 / W 1732 Released January 1968 ad in Billboard January 20, 1968 Reviewed in Billboard February 10, 1968 Not Reviewed in Cash Box
WB Seven Arts single 7188 In My Neighborhood / You'll Love Me Again Released April 1968 Not Reviewed in Billboard or Cash Box
WB Seven Arts single 7199 To The Light / You'll Love Me Again Released May 1968 Reviewed in Billboard June 8, 1968 Reviewed in Cash Box July 13, 1968
WB Seven Arts single 7234 Time Out (For A Daydream) / Tin Can Beach Released September 1968 Not Reviewed in Billboard Reviewed in Cash Box September 28, 1968
THE WAYFARERS
Sean Bonniwell Tom Adams Raymond Martin Blouin (b. 1939) Dick Bailey
Come Along With The Wayfarers ~ RCA LSP-2666 Billboard Review May 18, 1963
N2PW-3369 Ticonderoga / N2PW-3370 Monday Morning ~ RCA 47-8152 Billboard Review March 2, 1963
The Wayfarers At The Hungry I ~ RCA LSP-2735 Billboard Ad November 2, 1963 Billboard Review November 16, 1963
"Folksinger" on V / A Ford Hootenanny ~ RCA PRM-152, 1964
The Wayfarers At The World's Fair ~ RCA LSP-2946 Billboard Ad August 29, 1964 Billboard 'New Release' September 5, 1964 Billboard Review September 19, 1964
Crabs Walk Sideways /
Shenandoah ~ RCA 47-8258 October / November 1963 45-8254 & 8255 Billboard Reviews October 26, 1963 45-8256 Billboard Review November 16, 1963
Most WAYFARERS songs by Hylton R. Socher (b. 1935) & Ronald Samuel Miller
WAYFARERS producer Neely Plumb d. October 4, 2000 age 88 in Sherman Oaks, CA
(Turn On) The Music Machine
OSR LPM 5015 / LPS 8875
5575 / 5576
33-UB-2653-F-1 / 2654-F-1 released November 1966 Billboard Review December 31, 1966 Entered Billboard January 27, 1967 peak #76 on chart 16 weeks
OR 141 Double Yellow Line (Short Version)
OS 71
OR 142 Absolutely Positively
OS 71 B
Billboard And Cash Box Reviews April 22, 1967 Entered Billboard May 13, 1967 pk #111
Best Of The Music Machine ~ Rhino LP / Cassette RLP 119, 1984 Side One: Talk Talk (Stereo) The People In Me (Stereo) Masculine Intuition (Stereo) Trouble (Stereo) Come On In (Stereo) Advise & Consent (Mono) Mother Nature- Father Earth (Mono) Side Two: The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly (Stereo WB version) Double Yellow Line (Stereo WB version) Absolutely Positively (Stereo WB version) You'll Love Me Again (Mono WB single version) Everything Is Everything (Mono) Black Snow (Mono) Dark White (Mono)
Sean Bonniwell's Autobiography: dPub December 1, 1994 dReg December 12, 1994 Goldmine September 29, 1995
Sundazed CD SC 11030 November 30, 1995 CD rvw Chicago Tribune June 13, 1996, DisCoveries August 1996, Goldmine #420, August 30, 1996.
Sundazed CD w/ "Affirmative No" in mono & extended ending on "You'll Love Me Again" (mono).
Sundazed Sampler #2 Sundazed CD SC PRO 02, 1995 w/ Stereo WB Version of "Double Yellow Line"
Sundazed single S 131 Point Of No Return/ King Mixer b/s Mono 1997
Collectables CD 6044, 1999 Turn On LP in Stereo + Original Sound 45 versions of "The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly," "I've Loved You" & "Affirmative No" in Mono. Also includes "Double Yellow Line" in Mono but NOT the short version as on the Original Sound 45.
Record Collector review September 2000 Goldmine review May 4, 2001, Issue #542
Sundazed LP 5038 180 Gram Vinyl June 2000 MONO (14 Tracks) Missing: This Should Make You Happy, Smoke And Water, King Mixer, Worry (Instr.) & Point Of No Return
Nuggets September 15, 1998
Nuggets Track Annotation by Gary Peterson:
2/1. TALK TALK - The Music Machine
(Sean Bonniwell)
Personnel/SEAN BONNIWELL: vocals, guitar * MARK LANDON: lead guitar * DOUG RHODES: organ * KEITH OLSEN: bass * RON EDGAR: drums
Produced by BRIAN ROSS & MAURIE BERCOV for A.P.I.
Recorded in Los Angeles, CA
Original Sound single #OS-61 (9/66); Pop #15
3/28. DOUBLE YELLOW LINE - The Music Machine
(Sean Bonniwell)
Personnel/SEAN BONNIWELL: vocals, guitar * MARK LANDON: lead guitar * DOUG RHODES: organ * KEITH OLSEN: bass * RON EDGAR: drums
Produced by BRIAN ROSS & MAURIE BERCOV
Recorded in Los Angeles, CA
Original Sound single #OS-71 (4/67); Pop #111
The Boston Globe
September 18, 1998, Friday, City Edition
SECTION: ARTS & FILM; Pg. D15
HEADLINE: Digging rock's nuggets;
Rhino brings back the pre-punk garage gold;
By Steve Morse, Globe Staff
Garage-rock. Garage-punk. Garage-psychedelia. Call it what you want, but the
operative word was garage. It was music often literally made in suburban garages
during the '60s, in the wake of the Beatles-led British Invasion. And it birthed
a renaissance that made instant heroes out of many regional bands rarely heard
from again, while paving the way for the do-it-yourself ethic of today's
alternative-rock nation.
Think of the Beau Brummels from San Francisco, the Music Machine from Los
Angeles, Barry & the Remains from Boston, the Cryan Shames from Chicago, the
Amboy Dukes from Detroit, the Nazz from Philadelphia.
These are just a few of the bands represented on the new four-CD box
"Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968" on Rhino
Records. It's an expanded version of the original "Nuggets" disc released in
1972, which spawned the compilation/reissue craze so prevalent in retailing
today.
There was no shortage of American acts unashamedly jumping on the Beatles
bandwagon. "In 1964, when the Beatles came out, I saw exactly what was going to
happen," says Sean Bonniwell, singer with the Music Machine, which has two
songs on the "Nuggets" box: "Talk Talk" and "Double Yellow Line."
The Music Machine, however, became one of the most original garage-rock
groups of that time. The band rode the songwriting genius of Bonniwell, who was
ahead of his time in protest songs like "Eagle Never Hunts the Fly" (about
government hassling) and "Mother Nature, Father Earth" (about ecology). They
also had the technical genius of bassist Keith Olsen, who invented the
"fuzzbox," which created a trippy guitar sound that revolutionized the genre.
The group split up in 1969, but Olsen later became a prominent producer whose
chief credit was Fleetwood Mac's mega-platinum "Rumours" album.
Bonniwell, unfortunately, was not as lucky. Today, he lives in a garage on an
Arabian horse ranch in the small California town of Porterville (between
Bakersfield and Fresno). The garage has no running water (he does have access to
the main ranch house for that) and he's fighting legal battles to recoup his
song- writing royalties from the Music Machine's record label, Original Sound.
Clearly, the euphoria of the mid-'60s has given way to a harsher reality in
his case. "I'm just trying to survive," says Bonniwell, who is finishing an
autobiography, "Beyond the Garage," which he expects to put out by himself for
Christmas. (For more info, write to PO Box 409, Porterville, CA. 93258.)
Bonniwell is now a born-again Christian who is trying to deal with his anger
over his perceived mistreatment by his label. "The Lord says I must forgive my
enemies," he says.
He still sounds full of life, though, and is still writing songs. "I never
stopped writing," he notes, adding that he even has three albums' worth of
unrecorded material from the Music Machine days.
And what heady days those were, he recalls. The Music Machine once played 35
nights in a row. "You just threw everything in your VW bus and off you went," he
says. "We'd play almost anywhere, any time, but our resources were never
coordinated at all. That, and the fact that we rarely got paid. You couldn't
take a check from a promoter back then, because it would bounce. So I'd have a
big brown shopping bag and take the cash from the door."
Although the Music Machine had a druggy, psychedelic sound, Bonniwell says he
didn't do drugs and was "as straight as an ice cube tray." But the group was
radical in other ways. In order to stand out from the garage-rock pack, the
Music Machine dressed all in black, complete with dyed black hair and black
guitars, amps, and drums. They even wore a black leather glove on one hand (this
was long before Michael Jackson's single-glove look), all of which conspired to
get them into trouble when touring backwater spots in, say, the Deep South.
"I went into one place in the South and wanted to use the restroom,"
Bonniwell relates. "And this was still in the days when there was segregation.
The owner said, 'The white restroom is here, the black restroom is there, and
you ain't got one.' "
While many of the acts on the "Nuggets" box turned out to be one-hit wonders,
there's still a spirit that makes this one of the most essential collections to
any rock historian's library. The suggested retail price is not cheap ($ 59.98),
but it's a bargain considering there are nearly 30 songs per CD.
Turn on the Music Machine / Beyond the Garage
Popular Music and Society Winter 1997
Volume: 21
Issue: 4
Turn On the Music Machine. The Music Machine. Compact disc. Performance PERF 397CD (P.O. Box 156, New Brunswick NJ 08903-0156), 1993. Recorded 1966. Produced by Brian Ross. Reissue produced by Stephen Kaplan and Arthur Marko.
Beyond the Garage. The Bonniwell Music Machine. Compact disc. Sundazed SC 11030 (P.O. Box 85, Coxsackie NY 12054), 1995. Recorded 1967-1968. Produced by Brian Ross and Sean Bonniwell. Reissue produced by Bob Irwin and Sean Bonniwell.
The Music Machine's "Talk Talk" was probably the most uncompromising single heard on Top 40 radio in 1966. Lead singer and songwriter Sean Bonniwell growls like a misfit from Mars. The chord change leading into the bridge is audacious and unheard-of. The entire song is pure, ugly wallop. Unfortunately, "Talk Talk" was only a minor hit nationally. Worse still, the Music Machine became a one-hit wonder, which means that relatively few people have heard the marvelous body of work that fleshes out the promise of "Talk Talk."
That is a situation that can now be remedied, thanks to the release of these two CDs, which comprise almost the entire Music Machine catalogue (only a few cuts are missing, and these oversights are avenged by the release of several previously unissued tracks). What is revealed in these recordings is the genius of Sean Bonniwell-a true American original.
Bonniwell has an amazing voice. The closest points of comparison are Eric Burdon, Tom Jones, and Scott McKenzie-as bizarre as that combination may seem. Bonniwell shifts effortlessly from punk screaming to smooth ballad stylings. His pitch range is incredible. He is a brilliant singer.
On top of that, he has a unique personal vision, which guides his songwriting. Beyond the Garage consists entirely of original material and is full of should-have-been hits. Bonniwell's best recordings are almost impossible to describe. "The Eagle Never Hunts the Fly," a favorite of mine, is both chaotic and tightly structured. The arrangement is noisy and unrelenting, but richly textured in its own way. The words are about ecology, predation, and (probably) love, mixed together angrily and sarcastically. This is a frightening, devastating record.
Turn On unfortunately includes five cover versions, which are adequate but much less interesting than Bonniwell's original songs. "Taxman," "See See Rider," and "Hey Joe" are the worthiest covers, with the latter being both slow (a half year before Jimi Hendrix) and operatic (!). Turn On also features "Talk Talk" and its excellent followup, "The People in Me."
"Punk" that he is, Bonniwell is no snot-nosed sniveler. His approach is entirely adult, and his songs are for adults. This may be why commercial success mostly eluded him. You hear that Vox/Farfisa organ sound and expect bubblegum. What you get instead is mature psychodrama. Expecting a nasal, tenor "Come on down to my boat, baby," you get a throaty baritone, singing: "Come on in and show the world the soul you've never had, and tear away from dreams unborn. Shed the cage that makes you sad. Come on in. Don't cry no more. Come on in . .and close the door." (Another interesting comparison is the Monkees' curiously upbeat protest song "Pleasant Valley Sunday" vs. Bonniwell's much darker "In My Neighborhood," which covers the same subject.) The Music Machine had a commercial "sound" but were not juvenile or trivial enough for their own good at the time. That 1960s misfortune makes their work all the more listenable now.
Excellent musicians rounded out the Music Machine, and arrangement and production also shine in these recordings (except that the stereo mixes are generally primitive and often annoying). One odd fact that strikes me as I listen to the Music Machine now is that they knew exactly how to use a tambourine. But that is only the least of their charms. More importantly, the Music Machine pioneered punk rock while remaining a multidimensional band that also excelled at ballads, blue-eyed soul, and even dixieland flavorings. Bonniwell's visions and dreams took him far "beyond the garage" to create a great panorama of American music. His songs deserve to be heard.
The packaging of Beyond the Garage lives up to the usual high standards of Sundazed Records, with original liner notes plus several additional pages (including reflections by Bonniwell). Turn On is a barebones reissue with no new songs or liner notes-too bad it was not a Sundazed project.
Bonniwell has also written a touching and fascinating "autobiographical novel," called Talk Talk. It is available from Christian Vision Publishing, PO. Box 409, Porterville CA 93258.
~ Gary Burns
Northern Illinois University
THE RAW SOUNDS OF PROTOPUNK
01/13/1985
Los Angeles Times
Home
Page 61
Band: The Music Machine . Personnel: (original lineup) Sean Bonniwell , vocals, songwriting and guitar; Ron Edgar, drums; Keith Olsen, bass; Doug Rhodes, organ; Mark Landon, lead guitar. Record: "Best of the Music Machine ," Rhino Records. History: Caught up in the swirling excitement of soon-to-peak psychedelia, various American "garage bands"-several from Los Angeles-began to experiment in late '66 and early '67 with a brash, raw sound that would later be termed "protopunk." Among them: Seeds, Standells and Music Machine . Inspired by English bands like the Yardbirds and the Who, these U.S. outfits discharged what might be called aggressive confusion, swinging their chief weapon-the chain-saw buzz of fuzztone guitar-at enemies both real and imagined. "Talk Talk" was Music Machine 's only big hit, but one that expressed the raging style with a fury exceeded at the time perhaps only by Love's "Seven and Seven Is." The band's subsequent recordings for the Original Sound and Bell labels achieved little more than regional success. There was only one album, "Turn On." In late '67, members began to drop out, including Olsen, who began a production career that led to albums with Fleetwood Mac and Pat Benatar. Bonniwell kept MM going two more years, then tried a solo turn with little luck. Sound: Psycho-rock at its finest and progenitor of such modern songs as "Institutionalized" by Suicidal Tendencies, "Talk Talk" has a charged-up, manic urgency that still delivers a punch. It's hard to believe that a band able to wax something that powerful faded, but this smart compilation of singles, album cuts and four unreleased tracks shows that Bonniwell was never able to write anything quite comparable. Rockers like "Absolutely Positively" and "The People in Me" skillfully emit neurotic vibes but fall short of the hit's musical drive and vocal tautness. Still, several songs have a semi-naive, garage-psychedelic charm and considerable energy, and the album ends with two unreleased cuts from 1969 that indicate the group was getting the knack for newly evocative, moody material just before it broke up.
~TERRY ATKINSON
Studio Sound
August 1997
HEADLINE: Keith Olsen
From the Summer of Love to the Winter of Content, Keith Olsen has balanced
technical suss with musical sensibility and produced some classic recordings.
Dan Daley shares his view of the changing ages.
SOMETHING SEEMS to happen to people from colder climes when they get to LA.
Something about the palm trees, perhaps, which are as non- indigenous to
Southern California as most of the people who live there. More likely, it's the
weather. It's manifest in a physical and intellectual freedom that comes with
the knowledge that you will never be shut in again by 7-foot snow drifts-the
kind commonly found on the plains around Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where Keith
Olsen was born.
After growing up in the equally frigid environs of Wayzata, Minnesota, Olsen
attended the University of Minnesota where he got hooked up as the bass player
with a few local bands, one of which, as he puts it, 'dumped me off in
California in the late 1960s'.
It was a fortuitous dumping, indeed, for Olsen went on to become one of the
seminal producers of radio rock in the 1970s and 1980s. His oeuvre is
prodigious-Fleetwood Mac, Eddie Money, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, REO Speedwagon,
Rick Springfield, Starship, Heart, Joe Walsh, Stevie Nicks, Whitesnake, Kim
Carnes, Sammy Hagar, Santana, Pat Benatar, Foreigner and the Grateful Dead. See
what getting out of the snow can do?
But how did one transition from journeyman musician to the other side of the
glass? In a sense, how did one not, back in the days of the Summer of Love. 'A
producer in those days was a guy who used to tell you how good your take was,'
says Olsen, sitting in his publisher's office in Nashville, where he is working
on getting this town to open up its catalogue coffers for material to work on
his next project, multichannel surround mixes for Olsen's KORE Group Records.
But more on that later.
After an introduction to production from the late Kurt Baetchler, who
produced the Association's classics 'Cherish' and 'Along Comes Mary', Olsen
helped form the Music Machine whose radio hit 'Talk Talk' got Olsen on the road
again, but at a higher level, and kept him tangentially tied to the evolving LA
music loop. Upon his return to LA, he was ready to take a shot at his own
productions, but first, he recalls, he realised that, as the equipment of
recording was evolving so quickly, he needed to spruce up his technical chops.
'I had enough electronic training in college to know what's going on
underneath the desk and enough music training to know what should be going on on
the other side of the glass. And then these good opportunities to go start
working with some bands started coming in-this was around 1971. But even though
I had learned the musical palette, I needed to know more about engineering. So I
hooked up with Gary Paxton's studio in his garage, then with Sound City in the
Valley. The board was a couple of equalisers, an old mixer and some wire
switches. I think it was a 3-track machine, then a 4-track, a Scully. But I was
learning the ropes and meeting people. I met Brian Wilson at his house just
after the Beach Boys had done Smiley Smile. And he was a little outside even
then. But I learned from him to envision everything about a production as you
hear the song the first time. You've got to see the whole picture, and get to
the point where you can see and hear where everything should be. It takes a
while to learn how to do that.
'I also learned that when you get into the studio, you have to be able to
modify your vision. But from the very beginning I learned that I always wanted
to be prepared when I walked into a recording studio.'
The engineering experience he gained was critical to the success of future
productions, enabling him to become a producer in a more traditional
manner-switching chairs in the middle of a recording session when Jerry Wexler
gave him the green light to finish Mac Rebenack's Dr John's Gumbo record in
1972. The credit opened the door for Olsen to hang out his producer's shingle.
The first act he worked with was Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks before they
assisted Fleetwood Mac into its pop phase. Both the music and the technology
were about to emerge from their respective incubators at the same time, with a
synchronicity that was perfectly timed for Olsen and his innate pop
sensibilities.
'The technology was starting to get better,' he remembers. 'The consoles,
the microphones could all take ever-higher SPL levels, so we weren't distorting
the preamps every time the snare drum hit.
'For a while I had been doing a bunch of weird acts-the Grateful Dead and
The Sons of Champlain-real San Francisco acts. I did Terrapin Station with the
Dead. I was really learning to be a producer working with acts like that.
'Terrapin Station was an album that we worked on for four weeks before we
got our first basic track. Speaking of envisioning a record before it starts-I
was looking to hear something tight-sounding, and I picked the wrong band to do
that with (drummer) Mickey Hart played on top of the beat and (percussionist)
Bill Kreutzmann played behind it, so everything sounded like a flam. After about
a week of that, I suggested the possibility of orchestrating the drum parts to
Jerry (Garcia). And Jerry says, "Sure, man, see you later," and walks out. His
way of saying, "Just go ahead and do it". So I had Kreutzmann be the kit player
and Hart as the percussionist, cause he's the fire anyway. And it worked.
Instead of having two drummers playing against each other, we had a little
groove thing going.'
It wasn't enough to get the Dead big radio hits-that would have to wait
another 15 years for 'I Will Survive'. But the lugubriousness of the San
Francisco music that was coming to LA to record was a useful learning tank for
Olsen as pop music and recording technology were about to join forces and put
corporate rock on the map in a big way. On Foreigner's 1978 Double Vision album,
Olsen was looking for new ways to cut guitar sounds and stumbled onto the notion
of using the inherent fuzziness of wireless systems when guitarist Mick Jones
showed a predilection for staying in the control room while playing at New
York's Atlantic Studios.
'The long cables running from the control room to the studio were taking the
top off the sound,' Olsen says. 'We didn't have amazing cabling then like we do
now. It was more like zip cord. But the gain from the transmitter on the
wireless gave us a little more input power, and that gave us back a very cool
top end. The amps were set up in the studio in a corner-when you corner-load the
cabinets you get a really great bottom end out of them. And we miked them with
some kind of Shure mics-that was about all we had for high SPL mics back then.
And we used the room for natural reverb with some mics placed relatively close
around the amp as well as right on the speakers.
'For the drums, I built a riser with cinder blocks from a construction site
and thick plywood on top-there was no ring to the drum sound any more. The drums
had snap and power. Combined with the angle of the mics on the drums, we had
eliminated the ringiness of the kit. I had figured out part of that when I was
working with Fleetwood Mac; their drum sound was so tight because the room was
so dead. I had been experimenting with recording in more live environments, but
I found that if you had a real live environment you get so much destructive
interference from reflections that you get a real roomy drum sound but you don't
really get any of the power, the snap, punch and crack.
'On Lou's vocals, I used a technique that I had been using since Buckingham
Nicks days, processing similar to what George Martin had used with the Beatles.
I took a Dolby noise reduction card and started clipping the odd bit off, a
transistor or two. You then out the card on the encode side instead of a
compressor. Use it as an expander-it's level-sensitive and band-sensitive, and
all of a sudden you have this really tight and airy vocal sound without having
to go through intense amounts of EQ or compression. I don't think the Dolby
people liked me for using their stuff that way.'
Like it or not, Olsen was looking to create the sound in the tracks, not in
the mix-a classic approach in the days before remixers had even been heard of,
and one that helped define the radio sound of the day.
'You learn about spectrum mixing-not putting everything into the same EQ
area. I was layering things, but I was also using the musical arrangements to
get the sound together. Not so much using EQ, but arrangement. The one thing I
learned was, remember the source-where the music comes from. Great words to live
by, because all the gear in the world cannot make a bad guitar player play
great. I also didn't like leaving things until the very end in the mix. I liked
to put it together the way I heard it the first time in my head. If the artist
is fine with that, then everything's moving ahead, but if not, then you have to
try things a few different ways and the mixes get a little more hairy because
you're then trying to take two visions and put them together. That can make for
a difficult mix.'
One that wasn't difficult was Rick Springfield's classic 'Jessie's Girl'.
'Here you had a soap opera star who was actually a very creative, musical
guy. He was very inexperienced in the studio but we had the basics cut for that
track in one day by 4 o'clock. Bing, bang, done. That's how records were often
done in those days. Looking back, it was remarkably fast.'
Then there were the ones that didn't go quite as smoothly. Preparing for the
follow-up to Whitesnake's hugely successful Slide It In in 1987, lead singer and
band leader David Coverdale had been working with another producer at Compass
Point Studios in the Bahamas. But Coverdale was hung up on the vocals, and he
and cowriter John Sykes called Olsen in mid-way through the project.
'He calls me and sends me the tapes and I realised that the problem was that
David couldn't sing in tune because every guitar and bass track on the record
was, shall we say, outside the window of acceptability, pitch-wise. They had
printed a lot of effects like harmonisers and somebody went a little bit
overboard with the outboard. They were going for a sound, but they weren't
looking at the big picture. If you can't tune to it, you can't overdub or sing
to it. So I had to go in and rebuild, taking tracks that were half of stereo
tracks, but which had less effects on them and put them together to form new
tracks. We were looking for things that could pitch references. And the drums
were also a bit off timing. I and engineer Brian Foracker was using two machines
to do punch-ins and fly around, and offset the beats. I built a 32- track
digital master out of all of these analogue tapes. It took a month, but it gave
us workable tracks for the album. That and a few new overdubs with guitarist
Dann Huff. Then I called David and I said "I think it's time for you to sing
now". He came down and on the first day we punched play and I started him off
with an easy one, which turned out to be "Still Of The Night". So it worked out
quite well in the end.'
So did a few others, including Heart's 'Passionworks', REO Speedwagon's
'Here With Me' and Pat Benatar's 'Precious Time', not to mention Fleetwood Mac's
'Rhiannon' and 'Over My Head', which took the band's eponymously named first
album to 9 million in sales.
Olsen has a new project now, based on a new technology. DVD offers over 9Gb
of storage capacity, which makes the Red Book CD look like a piker, indeed, with
its barely 650Mb of data. While name-brand technology has never held any
particular allure for Olsen-his 20-year-old personal studio, Goodnight LA, is
fitted with a 96-input Trident Di-an console, and of which he laughs, 'I'm the
only man in the world using one on a semi-regular basis'-DVD holds some business
potential that he finds irresistible.
The rapid growth of home theatre: over 10 million US households have some
type of surround-sound system, and another 23 million are equipped with Dolby's
Pro Logic matrix surround. This has opened the possibility of delivering
surround music mixes on DVD, and a truncated matrixed version on CD, the
latter of which Olsen started doing last year with the formation of the KORE
Group record labels. The latter of these he is gearing up for as the new disc
technology slowly, but inexorably comes on line. Two new artists, one in jazz
and one in new age, and two sampler discs of remixed material, have been
compiled thus far.
'The idea is feasible and viable technologically,' says Olsen. 'We needed to
see if it was also feasible and viable in the market. If the market was there
for surround mixed music. Twenty-five million people go down to the video store
twice a week, get a video, stick it into their surround-sound home theatres and
for 96 minutes they sit there and get whacked by surround-sound effects. Then
they turn off their VCRs and if by chance they have left the Pro Logic decoder
on when they put in a CD, the centre collapses on the sound. It doesn't work. So
I say, why don't we make the mix an event? Make it an experience to listen to
music again. So we started mixing a few things I had in the vault and a few
things friends gave me-Tom Petty, Stevie Nicks. I mixed that in surround sound
keeping the artistic intent of the original mix in mind-remember what I said,
remember the source? The same tone and the same placement of instruments, but
everything else just spreading around you.'
What is the secret to mixing in 5.1 versus stereo? 'The thing in surround mixing in general is not how much you do, but how
much you don't do,' cautions Olsen. 'That seems to be the secret. You use
effects in a different way. You don't want to load up the front of the mix with
effects; you can use them in the rear channels.'
Olsen gives an example of a Pro Logic 4-channel mix: 'We place the guitars
left and right, we put the drums kind of spread out among all three front
channels, then move them in just a little bit so it doesn't become all kick and
snare. The bass (guitar) is mostly in the centre. The lead vocal? Well, gee,
there's a band here, so let's have the lead vocalist take two steps forward
towards you, like he is on stage. Then you take a bit of the vocal or its
effects and put it behind you to achieve that. Put that into the surround and
all of a sudden the vocal is in front of the band, but still part of it. But
there are delays on these home systems and people screw with them, so you have
to be careful about not placing things too far out and moving them around like
crazy. Don't go crazy because it makes people nauseous to the point where they
don't want to listen to it. There's the potential for high listener fatigue in
surround mixing. The Dolby Pro Logic system gave this a lot of thought because
it's also compatible to stereo and to mono, which is very handy for this
market.'
The KORE Group's plan is to license existing masters, remix them for
surround, and rerelease them, using a variety of direct mail and retail outlets.
The project started three years ago and pulled Olsen out of the production
loop-voluntarily, he says.
'I took three years out of my life to figure the surround thing out. And I'm
not going to do anything else until I figure the business side out because I
think this thing is going to be massive. In 1998, GM, Ford, Toyota and Mazda are
supposed to be coming out with surround systems in their cars, so that's really
going to open the door. DVD is still a buzzword for the next six years or so,
but it'll be there, too. To paraphrase Jerry Garcia, it's been a long, strange
trip. But I like where it's going.'
Sleeve notes: The Best of the Music Machine
'It gives us great pleasure to finally make available a consummate package
by one of the best rock bands to emerge from the mid 1960s. Because of their
aggressive attack and dress-all black, including dyed hair and black glove on
one hand only-the group was placed in the vanguard of the punk rock boom. But
the Music Machine was much more than that.
'Songwriter Sean Bonniwell assumed various provocative stances and
propelled his men through a series of successful experiments, unusual approaches
to tuning, use of cymbals, bass emphasis, electronic guitar sounds, an early
version of the fuzz box created by bassist (now producer) Keith Olsen, all aided
by the production team consisting of Brian Ross, the producer, and Paul Buff the
recording engineer. The latter, an electronic genius, invented a 10-track
recording machine during a time when most other advanced studios were struggling
with four tracks. The records of the Music Machine just might have been the most
state-of-the-art of their day.
'The group's very first single, "Talk Talk", provides a good example. An
intense whirlwind of disillusion, the song is based on a series of stops and
starts that Sean refers to as 'Chinese Jazz'. The only time the title is
mentioned is at the four beats at the very end. Right off the group forged its
own identity, characterised by fuzz guitar and Farfisa organ, swathed in an aura
of mystery. Sean sang and played guitar and wrote the songs. The rest of the
band consisted of Olsen, Mark London, lead guitar, Ron Edgar, drums, Doug
Rhodes, organ. This is the line-up that played on the Music Machine's better
known recordings. Although the group was popular in its native Los Angeles, and
while various singles achieved regional recognition, save for "Talk Talk" the
band's gems have been long waited to be rediscovered. That time has finally
arrived.'
