Use What You Got
June 2, 2010 10:02 PM
(to Get What You Want). Another Salvaged From Cassette™ production. Circa 1986. The Beat Meters were my Funky Dance-pop orchestra.
Archiving music is a funny thing. The 1/4 inch reel-to-reel master from this session (4-song, 24 track demo for label-shopping purposes) is Ampex 456, and so badly deteriorated after 20 years that even with baking, it was falling apart on the tape deck, so no go, there. I have a digital "safety copy" on a Betamax tape. Nice idea, guys. Somewhere, there's a DAT with digital copies, but again -- machine? interface? Dammit. I haven't heard 2 of those 4 songs in about 15 years. We worked hard on these. I'd been putting off posting this because I've recently come back into possession of the 24 track 2-inch tapes, but have begun to despair that I'll ever be able to afford to digitize them, so. Here it is, from cassette, which was probably made from the above-mentioned master, but played to death.
Anyway. Big band. 6, 7 piece, sometimes 8. 2 girls, 2 guys on vocals. That's me on bass and the lower guy harmonies. I'd say I wrote this, but basically, I had a raw idea, and the whole band made mincemeat out of it -- it's like I would dump a pile of tinker toys on a table and tell them "this is what I think we should build," then they would all think better of my idea. Dig that brand new Roland D50.
Archiving music is a funny thing. The 1/4 inch reel-to-reel master from this session (4-song, 24 track demo for label-shopping purposes) is Ampex 456, and so badly deteriorated after 20 years that even with baking, it was falling apart on the tape deck, so no go, there. I have a digital "safety copy" on a Betamax tape. Nice idea, guys. Somewhere, there's a DAT with digital copies, but again -- machine? interface? Dammit. I haven't heard 2 of those 4 songs in about 15 years. We worked hard on these. I'd been putting off posting this because I've recently come back into possession of the 24 track 2-inch tapes, but have begun to despair that I'll ever be able to afford to digitize them, so. Here it is, from cassette, which was probably made from the above-mentioned master, but played to death.
Anyway. Big band. 6, 7 piece, sometimes 8. 2 girls, 2 guys on vocals. That's me on bass and the lower guy harmonies. I'd say I wrote this, but basically, I had a raw idea, and the whole band made mincemeat out of it -- it's like I would dump a pile of tinker toys on a table and tell them "this is what I think we should build," then they would all think better of my idea. Dig that brand new Roland D50.
posted by Devils Rancher (2 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
We were "in the moment" with it, yeah. Around the World in a Day was getting het up on my turntable for sure. I recall trying to hybridize stuff like Price and Janet Jackson with a more organic thing, like INXS, at the time. Synth yes, drum machine no. I was very anti-sequencing, and still am in a live setting. I wanted things reproducible by humans at all times, if we were going to be doing it live as a band.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:58 AM on June 3, 2010
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:58 AM on June 3, 2010
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posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:25 AM on June 3, 2010