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[RSettee]

Anyone else a fan? He plays excellent powerpop, he records and mixes his own stuff, and plays all the instruments and writes it all himself. I've been a fan for a long time now, just thought that he'd make for some good discussion on a sound geek board, heh. I don't know what gear he has at home, but it's vintage reel to reel stuff, and sonically, I think he does an amazing job.

[Juergen]

Awesome, another Jason Falkner fan. I spend so many months listening to Can you Still feel, it literally wore my cd out. I, too, would appreciate any discussion coming this way about playing, recording or mixing of his stuff.

I didn't dig the sonics of "Author Unknown" that much, but i loved the songs. Never got to listen to "bedtime with them beatles."

[RSettee]

Bedtime With The Beatles (while it sounds kinda silly), is amazing! It's all Beatles songs, stripped down, instrumental, to sing your kids to sleep. While that's the intention, it still holds up as an incredibly awesome album on it's own.

I too, like "Can You Still Feel?" the best. Have you heard the new album mix that was leaked to the net? It's not as strong as the other records, but why he isn't much more popular that he is is completely beyond me. I recently just got a whole pile of his demos (stuff that wasn't on "Everyone Says It's Still On", or "Necessity"), and the guy is ridiculously talented. What classifies as a demo to him is what any other band would pay huge money for.

I don't know how many tracks that he uses on his songs, but i'd say upwards of 30 on alot. And he can pull it off, live, that's the cool thing....he's not covering up anything in studio, just expanding on it. I see him not only as a huge inspiration to the DIY, indie artist, but to experienced engineers, as well....there's some stuff that he's done on record that I have absolutely no clue as to how he managed it. The only problem: inexposure. Cult fans have been going apeshit over his stuff for years, while when you bring up his name, you get this: "???". I also surmise that if the "professionals" got wind of what he can do on his own, they'd fear the loss of their job, so I think there's been some jealousy and hypocrisy on the industry's end. He's a one man wrecking crew!

[phantom309]

I love The Greys album and loved the first track on"Author Unkown" (I Live?). Jason's stuff with Til Tuesday was great too....but Ro sham bo should have been the first of many. It's funny, as much as I love that record, I heard the version of it just before Jack Puig had another last pass at it and it was even more rocking than what we have today. Sometimes the best producers don't know when to say when. I'm sure JJ knows the inside dope on that little soap opera.

[J.J. Blair]

Jason was never in Til Tuesday, but Jon Brion was.  Jason was in the Three O'Clock and Jellyfish, prior to the Grays.  BTW, it's only available in Japan, but I worked on a record with Jason, Roger Manning and Brian Retizell (the drummer from AIR) called TV Eyes.  (That's also the name of the band.)  You should definitely check that out.  It's some amazing New Wave type stuff.

Bedtime with the Beatles was recorded at Ocean Way.  Jason has huge balls, as far as I'm concerned: When he worked with McCartney on Paul's last record, he played him both of the Bedtime Records.

Jason's current home studio, last I saw it, was a Soundelux U99 as his main vox mic, an Auditronix console (IIRC), a Urei 1178 and a bunch of other things that I don't remember.  He's been working with a PT rig for the last couple years.

I love his demos.  What they lack in fidelity, they make up for in everything else.  I mastered his covers record and his demos record.  Total fucking genius, he is.  He;'s one of those guys that I'd work with for free any time he asked, because I'm such a fan of his work, and because we've been friends for so many years.

Regarding The Grays mixes, there was a lot of craziness and I think too much micromanagement by four really talented people who wanted to make the record to end all records.  However, I was really disappointed when I heard the final result, as I think were most of the band themselves.  JJP threw up a rough mix on the console at studio for me of one track, and it killed me.  What I heard on the CD made me wonder what happened to the rough he threw together in five minutes.  

The Grays record never managed to capture what made them so great live.  They tried everything, too.  They even had a bunch of us come and be an audience in the studio for a session they recorded live.  I went to all of their showcases and they played my birthday party one year, and they would just wow everybody.  Once they made the record, even their live magic was gone.  I'm happy that I got to witness those early great shows when they all still got along and there was excitement.  Some people think the record is amazing, but perhaps I'm jaded by the fact that I heard them do so much better, and felt like it wasn't the best representation of how great they were.

[strawberrius]

i love ro sham bo and think it is brill.
i saw them live at 7th street entry in minneapolis in like 93 or 94. it was probably their only gig in minnesota ever. and JB was playing thru botha  gtr amp and a leslie (actually, more like a rotating drum thingy).  which got me thinking and i started layering leslie gtrs on everything i did from then on.

i love that song about aliens.

[wwittman]

I really enjoy The Three O'Clock.

I never liked Jellyfish.


Jon Brion was "in" Til Tuesday?

not when i met them (to mix their second single)

[Tim Gilles]

"Very Best Years" off Ro-Sham-bo is one of my favorite mixes of all time.

An absolutely bizarre/great guitar sound and mix posture.

JJP at his very best IMHO.

Rest of the record didn't blow my skirt up nearly so much.

Tim "Rumblefish" Gilles

[J.J. Blair]

wwittman wrote on Fri, 29 December 2006 21:40

Jon Brion was "in" Til Tuesday? not when i met them (to mix their second single)

One of the last incarnations, actually.

John, the Leslie Jon uses (I can't remember the model number), is a full range speaker into a styrofoam baffle, with a footswitch and a speaker input for whatever amp you want.  I stole the idea from him and took the defunct amp out of a Leslie 125 (another full range, no horn, but wooden baffle) and drove it with a Hiwatt custom 50, with an A/B switch to flip between that and my V4 rig.

Oh, and for you Jason fans, if and when my DVD ever comes out (hopefuly this year), in the session I did with Joe Baressi, I used Jason, along with Jack Irons and Scott Shriner.  They did a killer version of Jason's song "Great Big Yes".

And one last bit of trivia: Aside from playing keys with the Who, Brian Kehew and I share another dubious distinction, which is having Jon Brion live with us (at seperate times).  I still have the laminate Jon gave me that reads "Jon Brion Couch Tour 1993: kitchen, bathroom, living room ... all access."

[strawberrius]

wwittman wrote on Fri, 29 December 2006 21:40

I really enjoy The Three O'Clock. I never liked Jellyfish.

wow -you dont like 2 of my top 10 - steelydan and Jfish.
does that mean you dislike prince, ToddR, joni too?

[phantom309]

Yeah....Jellyfish. That's it. I get my wires crossed up with that bunch sometimes. Jack produced those two albums also, no?  Jon Brion never slept on my apt couch, but he spent plenty of time sleeping on our STUDIO couch...and I had the pleasure of trying to teach him how to drive a manual transmission in my Toyota Tercel!  What is Buddy Judge up to? I know that Dan is still around town and I saw him at a few Largo shows playing with JB.

That album also turned me on to one of my absolute fave guitar amps. On 'Oh Well Whatever" there is second overdriven guitar that comes in as punctuation on the second verse and stays in for the rest of the song. It's a gibson RVT stereo and it just kills me everytime I hear it...a Jason idea.

[phantom309]

....Also, was ALL of Ro Sham Bo recorded at Grandmaster or did they move it to Ocean Way before they finished?

[compasspnt]

wwittman wrote on Sat, 30 December 2006 00:40

I never liked Jellyfish.

In agreement once again.

[J.J. Blair]

Dan has an A&R gig at Capitol right now.  

Ro was recorded all at Grand Master, over a period of like four to six months or something.  I'm sorry, but no album should take THAT long of day in day out tracking.  IIRC, it was mixed at El Dorado on an 8078.

I haven't seen Buddy for the longest time.  He's such an amazing songwriter.  

My favorite track on the record is "Spooky".  Some great use of Leslie guitar on that song.

Most of the bass on the record is my '59 Epiphone EB-2 (below in the center), which Jack tried for years to get me to sell to him.  (Maybe because I wouldn't is why he started being a dick to me?)  The rest of the bass was my dearly departed friend Manny Versosa's cheap Kay electric bass.  IIRC, with the Epi, Jack had a transducer taped on the headstock, also ran it through a Matchless combo which mic'd using a 15" speaker.  (Was it a JBL?)  I'm not sure I love the bass sound on that record.  Once again, it could be that thing that I was so used to hearing that band sound one way, and the record came out another way.

Watching Jack's process had a big influence on me.  That was the first time I ever saw somebody really go from amp to amp, mic to mic, mic pre to mic pre, to search for the sound, rather than just changing using an amp, like Bogner, with a million variable setting and changing mic pre's EQ, etc.  I just think that Jack can get a little too caught up in that, and it can kill the vibe of the session.  I'm more interested in getting the performance than the "perfect" sound.  Winegar has some good stories about that kind of thing on a record he did with Jack.  Something about trying different mic pres for an hour just to record a tambourine track.  Matt?  Care to chime in?

[RSettee]

To be clear to a couple of people, even though Jason was in Jellyfish, he never adopted their quirky take on Queen meets the Beatles rock. I love Jellyfish, but I can see how their quirkiness and eclecticism would turn some people off. I love SPilt MIlk, and Roger Manning's new album, "The Land Of Pure Imagination" continues on quite in that vein (and he too played all the instruments on that record....I spot a pattern here   )

J.J. Blair wrote on Fri, 29 December 2006 21:55

but I worked on a record with Jason, Roger Manning and Brian Retizell (the drummer from AIR) called TV Eyes.  (That's also the name of the band.)  You should definitely check that out.  It's some amazing New Wave type stuff.

I'm not as much a fan of TV Eyes, simply because I think Jason does some really great new wave stuff in his own work. There's a couple of tracks from his new album that were leaked to the 'net that I think were wrongly included with the album ("She's A Study" is definetely TV Eyes). Brian Reitzell also used to be in Redd Kross (HUGE fan here).

Quote:

Bedtime with the Beatles was recorded at Ocean Way.  Jason has huge balls, as far as I'm concerned: When he worked with McCartney on Paul's last record, he played him both of the Bedtime Records.

Oh yeah, he has alot of cojones. But it's easy to see why, I couldn't see any powerpop fan not liking his stuff. All personal taste aside, I just consider those people to not like actual great music. So in his case, he knows what he's doing and he knows that other people know what he's doing. And going up to McCartney--arguably his biggest hero--and then presenting him his own takes on the material, and then having Paul be impressed enough to invite him to play on his album--that says it all right there.

Quote:

I love his demos.  What they lack in fidelity, they make up for in everything else.  I mastered his covers record and his demos record.  Total fucking genius, he is.  He;'s one of those guys that I'd work with for free any time he asked, because I'm such a fan of his work, and because we've been friends for so many years.

For sure....those demos are killer. Even his pre-demo of "Lucky Day" still is excellent. Did you do "Necessity", or "Everybody Says It's On"?

Man, I just listened to "Lost Myself" about ten times in a row....again. The harpsichord and the massive guitar crunch crescendo at the end is just amazing. He should be producing albums left and right....I don't know why he's not. I think he's done a couple, but that's it.