[3/06/01]

Earl Slick returns to NYC

Earl Slick and I became fast friends during our stint together touring and recording with David Bowie last year. Around that time we discussed the possibility of doing a Slick solo record should he be inspired to write one, and if I managed to find a hole in my schedule. Luckily, both of these things happened at just the right time, and after sending me several snippets of ideas to whet my appetite, Slicky flew into town towards the end of February and we began preproduction at my home studio.

We decided early on that we didn't want to do a straight-up guitarist's record, which usually means tons of soloing, distortion, and noodling. Rather, we decided on a series of moody instrumentals, as his melodies were so strong. Pieces which were more apt for a soundtrack as opposed to the transcription section of Guitar Player magazine. A postmodern spaghetti-western. Twangy, but twisted. The Ventures on crack. We came up with basic arrangements for six tracks, and then took the band - in this case, Slick on guitar, Sterling Campbell on drums, and myself on bass - into a rehearsal space for a three hour run through of the lot of it. The following day we loaded into Looking Glass Studio 'A' for two days of tracking, where the engineer from 'Toy', Pete Keppler, and my assistant from the same record, Hector Castillo, had everything set and ready to go.

Once again, we recorded straight into Logic via a Neve sidecar loaded with 1073's, and Apogee AD-8000's, among other things. Slick had his Ampeg cabinet and Line 6 pedals, and his Peavey and Gibson 335 guitars - that was it. I used only my '63 Jazz Bass split through a tube DI and an Ampeg B-15. In what's become typical Sterling fashion, he nailed everything in around four hours. Then we spent the rest of the time in 'A' perfecting Slicks rhythm parts, playing some acoustic guitar, knocking out a couple of leads, as well as pausing for interviews/pictures for the aforementioned Guitar Player, and linguine with clam sauce. (Slick without clams? Perish the thought. We were thinking of you, Mr. Garson.)

We then moved into the smaller Studio 'B' for the remainder of the week. At that point I took over the engineering and replayed all of my bass parts as I'd only been experimenting while doing the basics, the point of that session being Sterling's drums. By now I knew exactly what I wanted to play, so it was a snap and I was finished in an afternoon. Nothing sounds like that '63, it's an amazing instrument. I needn't do anything to it - all I have to do is pick it up and plug it in, and it sounds fantastic. We were then joined by Emm Gryner, who was in town for the Tibet benefit. She added some backing voices on a couple of the songs purely for atmosphere, and providing many (more) comic antics. (It should be noted that both Slick and Emm stayed with me during this process, thus the summer camp mentality). Slick then finished up all the leads, and we did a few rough mixes in anticipation for doing the second half of the recording, which will most likely take place in the following month.