Original_To:  ALLM
Original_cc:  OLIVOTTO
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Mon, 21 Dec 1992 13:30:00 N
From:         "OUT,
              OUT - YOU'LL NOT FEEL THE FALL-OUT..." <OLIVOTTO@ITNCISCA.BITNET>
Subject:      Don't kill me, I'm only wasting bandwidth! ;-)

Hi all!
        I suppose that with Christmas drawing near we're all more or less
taking it a bit slower than usual... except, maybe, for the unlucky ones
at the .com nodes :).
        Therefore here are some hopefully interesting, occasionally funny,
always insignificant ramblings about various and mixed-up musical subject.
Something like ALLMUSIC's fruit salad; so, enjoy!

        Ciao, Marco

*** *** *** *** ***
1. IPSE DIXIT

        "The maximum tension you can add [while playing] is stopping comple-
tely."
        This was written by Robert Fripp in 1981, in one of his diaries on
the second day of rehearsals of his band Discipline, soon later to evolve
into King Crimson ("Fripp, Belew, Levin, Bruford" incarnation). Taken from
the colossal scrapbook to "Frame By Frame".

2. NO TECHNOLOGY NECESSARY [aka IPSE DIXIT, pt. 2]

        A while ago Steve Lukather was asked to describe his favourite way
to produce distortion. I quote from memory: "No trick - it's all in the fin-
gers. No need to stack ten amps, no need to use boxes. Once one has a good
overdrive from the amp that's enough. I once heard Jeff Beck play at home
through a 20-watt amplifier, and he had exactly the same wonderful sound I
had heard on his record. So, you see, it's only a matter of hands. Everyone
has his own sounds in the finger."
        My unresolved question is: is it possible that Beck had used that
very same amp on the record? Come on, Steve, get a clue...

3. THE MYSTERY OF THE DAMPED BASS

        Again, quoting from memory. Tony Levin in an interview, last summer:
"I've often been asked how the bass sound at the start of 'Don't Give Up',
in Peter Gabriel's _So_ was produced. OK, I'll tell you. My son was still a
baby those days, and I had diapers almost everywhere. One had ended into my
Fender Precision's box, and had slid under the strings just at the level of
the bridge. Peter was so amused that he wanted me to try and play that way -
and we found this beautiful sound, chunky but damped. For the live shows
I finally got a real damper -- wouldn't have liked to go on stage with a
diaper under the strings..."
        Another unresolved question of mine: was it a *clean* diaper, Tony?
I hope so...

4. STABBING HIM IN THE BACK

        "Sure he plays 'Traintime'... but he gets the wrong chords!"
This was said by an uncommonly jocular Peter Hammill after a chat about David
Jackson, co-founder of Van der Graaf Generator, now more or less retired (he's
not really into music anymore, he plays some solo shows occasionally [with
saxes and tape recorder] and should have a CD out sooner or later). He plays
that Hammill's song since "I would have liked him to write it five years
earlier, so I could have played in it..."

5. IS REVERB SEXY?

        This is, in my opinion, one of the best quotes from reviews to our
(TNR's) album "The Chessboard", written by our own Rev. Bob "Bob" Crispen:

>production.  To give two examples, the sax is way too far front in "The
>Runner" and "The Path" is nearly (thank God only nearly) marred by what
>might be called "Italian porno film reverb".  In fact, the mixes are
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        This has ended in the album of "weirdest and funniest things written
about our work", up at The Noisy Room. The only thing I defend is that if one
notices the reverb, then I can't imagine how horribly poor the film must be...
8-) 8-)

6. PUN OF THE YEAR

        After mixing down "The Chessboard", I exchanged some e-mail with
Rachel (Becker, once on ALLMUSIC). Her remark was: "I suppose you have mixed
feelings...". Well, quite a few, admittedly -- I usually do after a *mix*down!

7. YES

        Rick Wakeman declared that he first got seriously in touch with Yes
when Chris Squire called him for rehearsals. The point is that he did - by
phone - in the middle of the night. Rick swears that things went as follows:

"Hello, I'm Chris Squire..."
"What... do you know what time it is, man?"
"Hang on a minute... yes, it's 3:30"

        On that very same night, "Heart Of The Sunrise" was born.

8. TURN IT ON AGAIN

        This one really happened to me with a girl who had come down at the
studio to bring in a tape of her songs -- which she wanted me to listen.

        MARCO: "I think the last Tori Amos' album has some of the most cru-
                shing lyrics I've ever heard."
        GIRL:  "Why do you say so...?"
        MARCO: "I find them disturbing because she's female to the excess,
                a bit like Anne Sexton -- if you know her."
        GIRL:  "No, I don't -- but I am female to the excess too, wanna try?"

[just in case you're wondering -- no, I didn't try :-)]

9. RADIOFREQUENCY EQUIPMENT?

        On stage, rehearsing -- dialogue between me and the sound engineer:

        ENG:    "Can you give me the piano? Come on..."
        MARCO:  "I'm playing..."
        ENG:    "Then why nothing comes thru'?"
        MARCO:  "Always playing..."
        ENG:    "Hell..."
        MARCO:  "Let me check the cables, wait a minute!"
        [...]
        MARCO:  "Well, I seem to understand why you don't get it..."
        ENG:    "Broken wire?"
        MARCO:  "*NO* wire, fool..."

[the reason was simple: passing by, he had seen the damper and pedal wires
 plugged in, and had thought that were the cables going out to the mixer...]

10. ALTERNATIVE TUNING

        This is for guitarists. One of the weirdest things you can try is
as follows: from low to high strings -- E,A,D,G,B,C. That's it, the high E
goes down two full tones. Thus the 2nd and 1st string are only half a step
away. Don't change your fingerings! Simply play chords as you would usually
do (mostly minor chords). Results can be amazing. And, maybe, I've just ma-
naged to understand how Adrian Belew played "Heartbeat" on King Crimson's
_Beat_. Not sure, but it sounds like there was this strange 1st string two
steps down...
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