Dont know, if ít has been on IORR before but anyway - quite an interesting article / interview:

[65.61.32.96]

What an excellent article for music engineering geeks like me. Thanks!

It's obviously from 1975 and it's funny how all the stories we're used to -- about mediocre albums and the usual drug madness, which Andy has told us a lot about -- is totally absent. Still, there's so much one recognizes in there between the lines, and you can sense the frustration behind some of the positive remarks, now when we know more about those times (such as those about having the tape running because you'll never know who's doing what at a certain time ... because someone's going to the kitchen to eat...).

Again, that was a great read, to the last page. Reveals a lot about their 1968-1974 recordings. Wonderful stuff about Mick Taylor and Keith, about stuff like Sway and Rocks Off.

I just learned that the solo in Winter was done live, no overdub. Wicked.

His candid remarks about some IORR tracks are funny, too. Like on Dance Little Sister:
"Interviewer: I can't believe that Mick Taylor would have approved his track here for the master take.
Andy: By that time, he probably didn't care. I don't blame him either. It's a shitty old track."

Or on Short And Curlies:
"I did this, unfortunately. [...] We don't have to listen to this, do we?"



It's also interesting when he stresses that some of the tracks on IORR are badly mixed and should have had more "air" in them. Definitely what I think too.

Anyway, thanks again, bumbum!

No problem - just found it on the net and thought it was interesting and could share with the board.

He has worked with Stones for quite some time, and therefore has lots of inside knowledge to the band - both personally and musically.

Agree with his points that some songs on IORR are pure/bad fillers as fx. DLS and SAC - unfortunately. But it was a moment with Mick T leaving the band, Keith heavily on drugs and therefore less inspiration.

fantastic - thanks for the post

I don't agree that Dance Little Sister is a filler.Someone else must not either or it wouldn't have been included on Made In The Shade.S & C,on the other hand,is obviously not meant to be taken seriously.

I just think that if he feels the tracks were badly mixed,he should have spoken up on this before the album was released instead of in an interview 18 months (or so) later.

fascinating! thanks very much for posting it

Great reading. Thanks for posting.

Man, was this guy a Mick Taylor fan!!!

MLC

i don't think dance lil sister was a filler either...its a jagger track and he seemed to like it...thats what he said anyway.. but thanks...good read!!

That's a great article. Seems like Keith was more involved in the IORR album than I thought. MT mostly did overdubs. I always assumed that Keith didn't play on Til the Next Goodbye (maybe because it's kind of lifeless) but I guess the inspiration just wasn't there. They were basically a four piece band for most of the sessions as they would be for Black and Blue, but Black and Blue has much more life.

I always felt MT was great on Goats Head, but his solos on IORR are somewhat lacking in real feeling - pretty, predictable, & ornate including the beloved (except by me) Time Waits for No One...And he is missing on at least a couple tracks, which was unusual until then.

I was intrigued by Andy's statement that MT always played loud in the studio, in order to get "that" tone. Hmmm -- he seems to have early on developed a hankering to be the only guitarist in a given band.

Had he been a bit more adventurous, he could have preceded Stevie Ray Vaughn as the leader of a kickass bluesrock trio. Truth be told, had it not been for the Stones, MT would've remained relatively unknown, despite his work with John Mayall.

You don't know that. The same could be said for Watts or Wyman, maybe even for Keith or for Mick too.

Without Mick Taylor they wouldn't have become the best live band on the planet between '69 and '73.

But back to the topic .............

Taylor was very active on IORR album - more involved with Mick on it than Keith was, (although Keith's presence is obviously stronger than it was on GHS).

Taylor does lots of bass and synth on IORR album, aside from all the usual lead stuff. Yes DLS is basically very shallow, one riff stuff, but Taylor's lead gives it an biting edge. He does his best to rescue it.

The two best tracks are defined by him. Time Waits - anf F File, (it's him on bass).

But really, their worst seventies effort.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-01-18 02:16 by Four Stone Walls.

I do think MT has been lost much of the time since '74, his virtuosity and occasional superb sessions notwithstanding (I especially like the "Real Live" Dylan album & "Too Hot For Snakes") but I agree he might have formed a band with someone like Paul Rodgers (just an example) or Kenny Jones, a group with a good singer and strong songwriter(s).

I don't like "Time Waits for No One" either...

what a terrific article, thanks bumbum! I wish "big" rock critics were able to comment with any skill on this kind of stuff. They write for decades without learning a thing. Laurence is actually a good interviewer, I think, making good follow-up questions. Kind of a pity the piece was done about IORR, or we'd hear more about better albums, but still... diagrams? tables? wonderful!

are we sure this is the whole thing? The end is somewhat abrupt. Then again, there are some problems with the text throughout...

does the diagram of the IORR miking set-up seem to show mick's guitar without a mike? or is his the one in the middle of the wall?... b/c in the interview Johns says he would use 2 amps for keith. Poor mick. I guess he's contributing to the songwriting by playing as they jam up the tune.

how interesting that taylor was absent for most of the sessions... it doesn't show on the final album. Doesn't sound like he ever quite fit in... snapped at by keith, and wanting to overdub bill's bass himself.

Mick T started out developing a pretty good musical rapport with Keith - 'Ya-Ya's', 'Sticky Fingers', 'Exile', and then as Keith's presence on 'Goats' felt more unearthly, Taylor and Jagger really worked well together on '100 Years', 'Winter', 'Can You Hear the Music', 'Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo' with MT at his most integral. The disaffection is clearly evident by IORR. Wood's already on one track. Keith's "back". To me the Stones were a bit lost, so the album's flawed. Jagger's chunky guitar is prominent Finferprint File, but they'd play funk more convincingly on 'Hot Stuff'. Ditto 'Luxury' and reggae. I always thought IORR was one of the drabbest sounding RS albums, with the long (24 minutes) sides being blamed - but the '94 CD is only somewhat better. Johns produced the first Television album a couple years later, and the comments by the band on his approach in the Rhino booklet for Marquee Moon are worth checking out...

>> Andy's statement that MT always played loud in the studio, in order to get "that" tone <<

it's good to finally have an explanation of that anecdote about Keith telling him he was too loud in the studio -
Johns has related that story more than once, but this is the first time i've read an elucidation.
the minor detail that Mick T did indeed play very loud adds considerably to the story :E

JohnR,

I hadn't realised Johns produced (engineered?) that first Television album.

It's number 11 in my top ten albums.
Now there'sgood guitar interplay.

Keith's remarks about Taylor not being a studio musician are true I guess, unfortunately. Even though the '68 to '74 period is the golden period for the Stones, there's only a few standout Mick Taylor moments, and most of these were recorded live in one or two takes. I have always felt that Taylor is fairly absent on most records. There's just a few tracks on each album were Taylor plays something prominently, and mostly it's lead guitar. Keith was correct I think when he stated that 'Taylor is a beautiful guitarist, but that's all he is. He thought he could write and produce songs, but unfortunately he can't'.

Funny by the way that Johns mentions that Taylor was having problems with his sinuses. It was always a bit of a rumour that Taylor was in hospital due to a severe coke addiction, but this has always remained vague.

Mathijs

few standouts in studio no way

sway
moonlight
CYHMK
winter
100 years ago
jivin sister
I dont know the reason why
time waits
hide your love
heartbreaker
bitch - his riff
fingerprint - his bass
tumbling dice - his bass
all down the line
shine a light
ventilator
stop breaking down
you really want to be my friend
till the next goodbye
torn and frayed
sweet virgina

come on now

play that guitar

I agree with you OpenG, but not on these songs:

tumbling dice - his bass (hardly standing out)
till the next goodbye (Where?)
you really want to be my friend (Where?)
torn and frayed (Al Perkins)
heartbreaker (only live IMO)

Quote
OpenG
few standouts in studio no way

Well, I do think so. On Sticky Fingers it's Sway and Can't Hear Me Knocking. He has some nice (rythm) parts on Wild Horses and Dead Flowers, he plays a nice slide on Moonlight and he plays Keith's riff on Bitch. That's it.

Exile: his rythm guitar is hard to pint out, but there's some nice things on Rocks Off, Rip this Joint, Shake Your Hips. Lead: Shine a Light, All Down the Line, Stop Breaking Down.

Goets Head: slide on Dancing WMD and Silver Train, nice leads on 100 Years, Hide Your Love and Winter.

IORR: Time Waits, DLS and bass on FF.

And to add: axcept maybe for Sway and Time Waits, none of the studio recordings come even close to any of the brilliance of Taylor's lead parts on the 72 or 73 tour. If you want to study Taylor, the official albums is not the way to go.

Mathijs

>> problems with his sinuses ... It was always a bit of a rumour that Taylor
was in hospital due to a severe coke addiction <<

smile: i find "problems with his sinuses" a very admirable euphemism for coke-related problems -
i plan to use it myself at the earliest opportunity :E

meanwhile maybe i missed something, but that "you're too loud in the studio, come back later"
doesn't sound to me like a dismissal of Mick T's skills - just that his volume got in the others' way
during the shaping-a-track-up stages of the process. like i said earlier,
for me the sense/tone of that anecdote is real different now that i know he *did* play hugely loud -
in other versions i've read Johns has presented it as if Keith was merely being pissy for no reason.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-01-18 17:49 by with sssoul.

Mathijs, I still think that list that even you give Taylor credit for is
deserving of a little credit!!

Taylor last CD - Stones Throw has a few numbers I think are as good as
anything Keith, Ronnie or Jagger has produced "solo" lately.

And Taylor's 1st album has a few good numbers.. This guy is a MUSICIAN!!

studio or Live, just because he hasn't sold millions of his solo works doesn't
mean they are crap... He just didn't "strike" while the iron was hot back in
the late 70's, when he could have gotten his "work" played on the radio, and
people still knew who he was. He let too much time go by before jumping back
in and being a POP star was not what he had in mind. Things could have been different if he had hooked up with another "star", who knows..

Remember, even Charlie said he was the best musician who was ever in the band,
and he wasn't just talking about "on stage"...

MLC

Quote
with sssoul
smile: i find "problems with his sinuses" a very admirable euphemism for coke-related problems -
i plan to use it myself at the earliest opportunity :E

yeah, let's also notice that Andy Johns is "ill" at one point too and unable to scout out Musicland for the group... funny for a 24-year-old! such fragile constitutions.

Quote

meanwhile maybe i missed something, but that "you're too loud in the studio, come back later"
doesn't sound to me like a dismissal of Mick T's skills

well, Johns's quote of keith is actually: "man, you're great on stage, but you're awful in the studio. Can you just go away for a bit?" If that's not precisely a dismissal... I mean keith acknowledges taylor's skills, but also a limit to them, and dismisses him.


that said, is there _any_ chance we can avoid turning this valuable thread about this gold mine of an article into the usual debates about taylor? Let's actually read the article and talk about it, eh? instead of leaping into the standard arguments...

shifting the subject: what _is_ the "fantastic" "Bill Wyman sound"? He doesn't quite say. I would have thought it was something fairly trebly, but he implies that bill actually put out a hugely bassy sound in the studio. It doesn't really come through that way on the records, or am I just thinking of the Some Girls era?

tumbling dice - his bass (hardly standing out)
DP - The bass is so melodic just like an extension of MT playing guitar

till the next goodbye (Where?)
well if keith just plays the bass then MT is on guitar and but the slide is swooping and sounds like keith just going from one fret to another fret without much added vibrato.

you really want to be my friend (Where?) stinging SLIDE
torn and frayed (Al Perkins) Okay
heartbreaker (only live IMO) IMO the studio version of heartbreaker is taylor at his best its a PERFECT short solo and is one of the greatest short solos along with Jimi Hendrix little wing.

play that guitar boy

>> Johns's quote of Keith is actually: "man, you're great on stage,
but you're awful in the studio. Can you just go away for a bit?" <<

thanks for the fine-tuning - i was contrasting it with a more sensationalized rendition of the same anecdote,
where Johns said that what Keith said was: "fvck you, you play too loud;
you're really good on stage but you're no good in the studio, so you can play later" -
which comes out sounding pretty different when you know Mick T *did* play hugely loud in the studio.

now it sounds to me way less like Generalized Rude Criticism (even if Johns enjoys presenting it that way);
it sounds more like a protest that the giant volume was a nuisance at the moment Keith said it,
and "can you just go away for a bit" sounds like "after we get this worked out that volume won't be so problematic."

but anyway: yeah let's move it right along. the bass?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-01-18 23:10 by with sssoul.

Maybe I don't grasp something, but what I got is quite different picture of what Johns says about Keith's criticism of Taylor. Namely, it is not the question of him PLAYING loud while recording, but his involvment in the mixing. There he ends up mixing his guitar too loud, and that's what Keith complains. I can see it in the way that Taylor does not understand the idea of getting the whole song, the idea of it, right. And I think Keith is right. Keith has a great what I call 'holistic' attitude - to see the right balance of what is needed and what is not, and in what extent - and very untypical for a guitarist he does not overplay the importance and loudness of the guitar in the song. Basically, as we know there is no room for a loud lead guitar in the Stones song context (a "Sympathy" kind of thing happens once in a life time). So when Keith 'asks' Taylor to leave - the question is not from the session of recording, but from the stage of mixing things. (That was the original question of how much individual Stones are involvement in that stage of the production). In fact, as far as I interpret Andy John's talk - it is KEITH who might (with his 'big sound') play a bit too loud, and cause trouble for the engineers. (That's also what I remember some other engineers saying. For example, during their "Brown Sugar" sessions in America '69).

To make my point more concrete. There is a version of "Shine A Light" circulating, with very loud outfront Mick Taylor lead guitar. There is no background vox, just the two Micks shining. I guess that is maybe a Mick Taylor kind idea of mixing the song - putting the guitar very clear, distinct and loud. In the final version the guitar is more or less buried in mix. To be honest, I don't know which version actually is better. The incredible and timeless results say that we should trust Keith's instincts and intuitions, but it does not mean that even he might end up with wrong decisions sometimes.

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2008-01-18 21:40 by Doxa.