by Mitch Myers
“And there were just as many people hanging out, too. I remember Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was watching us the whole time and Mick Jagger kept walking in and out of the control booth. Would you believe Dennis Hopper was there, taking photos? It was a rock ’n’ roll party, and Phil worked us harder than usual just to impress everyone.
“With so many musicians in the studio, Phil took his ‘wall of sound’ to a whole new level. It was positively orchestral with four guitarists, four bassists, and three keyboards, all going over this killer arrangement written by Jack Nitzsche. Nitzsche was always in the studio with Phil, and so was engineer Larry Levine. Jack, Larry, and Phil fussed endlessly with the sound that day—adjusting each microphone and cranking up the echo and reverb beyond anything that I had ever heard before.
“Phil used two drummers for the first time, as well as two percussionists. We were falling all over each other, but the sound was huge; there were saxophones, trumpets, and trombones. Phil threw them all together until the instruments reverberated into one giant roar. Later, he would add an entire string section and a battalion of backup singers.
“Of course, the whole thing was done in mono—and nobody made mono recordings like Phil Spector.
“Tina tried doing her vocals that day, but she just wasn’t ready for the total Spector experience. So, Phil rehearsed Tina for another week before finally recording her vocal track. That day, there was hardly anyone in the studio—just Phil, Larry, and me. The lights were low and Tina was wearing headphones with Phil’s tremendous sound booming in her ears.
“Spector was relentless, and he kept making Tina sing the song over and over until the sweat came right through her blouse. Finally, she said, ‘Okay Phil, one more time.’ Then she pulled off her shirt, stood there in her bra, and nailed it. She matched Phil’s majestic production punch for punch. It was fantastic.
“We all figured ‘River Deep’ was headed straight for number one but a funny thing happened…the record bombed. Some said it was overproduced, others thought it was just too far ahead of its time. Besides, Phil had alienated a lot of people in the music industry and many of them were happy to see him fail.
“In any case, ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ flopped, and Phil took it real hard. He became reclusive and hardly made any records at all for about three years. Of course, he rebounded in the ’70s, producing albums like George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass and John Lennon’s Imagine.
When the song on the jukebox ended, Harvey the K stood up and said that he had to get going. As we said good-bye, I noticed a button on his jacket that read, “Back to Mono.” Then he was gone.
I was so intrigued by Harvey’s story about Phil Spector that I contacted the American Federation of Musicians Local Union 47 on Vine Street in Hollywood. Sure enough, they had a contract listing for a recording session using twenty-three musicians on March 7, 1966, working on a song entitled “River Deep.”
The funny thing is, no one named Harvey was listed on that recording session. Not only that, there was absolutely no mention of anyone playing a glockenspiel.
HELLHOUND ON MY TRAIL
It all started out innocently enough. I was trying to get some work done while listening to Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings.
To tell the truth, I was well into the second CD before I started writing. I’d been unproductive that day and spent hours on the phone before typing a single word. By the time I’d finally gotten into a decent work groove the music on disc 2 had ended and I wrote in silence for about twenty minutes.
I’d forgotten all about the music when suddenly, Robert Johnson’s blues-ridden wail started coming out of the speakers again. “That’s funny,” I thought. “The disc player isn’t on auto-repeat and there aren’t supposed to be any bonus cuts on this CD.”
I went into the living room and looked at the digital display on my disc player. The machine read TRACK 30 but when I checked, the CD box listed only twenty-one tracks. The song ended, so I programmed the machine to play track 30 again. No such luck. The song seemed to have vanished.
I examined the entire CD, track by track, but it only went up to twenty-one. I went backward and forward, but there was nothing else to be found. I even plugged the damned thing into my computer and read all the existing data. Still no go.
Feeling confused, I called some people who I thought might have the Robert Johnson collection. After a few conversations, I found an old friend who owned the two-disc set.
“Have you listened to disc 2 all the way through?” I asked him. “I think I’ve listened to it,” he said. “Come on, Jim,” I pressed. “You’re no blues fanatic. Are you absolutely sure that you’ve listened to both CDs all the way through to the very end?”
“Well, actually,” Jim confessed, “I only remember playing the song ‘Crossroads’ to see how it compared with the version by Cream with Eric Clapton.”
“Well, don’t put it on now!” I yelled. “Just wait for me to get over to your place and I’ll tell you all about it. I’ll be there in twenty minutes!”
I hustled over to Jim’s house and explained the situation. After telling him what had happened, we agreed to play disc 2 in its entirety rather than searching for a phantom track. As a backup, I suggested that we use his old tape recorder to make a copy of the song if it appeared.
According to plan, we sat through all twenty-one tracks on disc 2 and then turned on the tape recorder. Sure enough, the CD kept going rather than stopping after track 21. Exactly sixteen minutes and thirty seconds later, track 30, the ghostly, angst-ridden blues that I’d heard in my apartment, was emanating from Jim’s stereo.
I must admit that I was a little freaked out. It was definitely Robert Johnson, but neither Jim nor I recognized the song, and it wasn’t listed anywhere on the CD package. As I predicted, the song ended and we couldn’t get the disc to play track 30 again. Still, the meters on Jim’s tape recorder had been moving while the tune played, so we were confident that we’d captured the elusive song.
When we tried to play it back, the tape came up blank. Then Jim started to get nervous. “I don’t know, man,” he whined. “It’s just too weird, this whole legend about Robert Johnson having a hellhound on his trail and selling his soul to the devil at the crossroads? Think about it, the liner notes say that Johnson was only known to have recorded twenty-nine compositions in his short life. The rest of the tracks on these two discs are just alternate versions of those same songs. Twenty-nine songs…Track 30? Come on. This one piece of unidentified music just happens to disappear from two different compact discs on two different stereos and can’t be recorded onto tape? It’s just too weird!”
We fiddled with Jim’s stereo a little more, but there was no trace of the song. It became clear that Jim was uncomfortable with our discovery, and he wanted me (and Robert Johnson) to get the hell out of his house. “Let it go, man, it’s just too weird!” he shouted after me as I walked to my car.
The next day, I began my search for unopened copies of Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings. I started by talking with some employees at Sony Records to see if I could get any information that would explain this phenomenon. The Sony folks seemed sympathetic, but I got the sense that they thought I was crazy.
I also got the impression that one guy I spoke to, one who actually participated in the production of The Complete Recordings, was hiding something. When I asked him about the existence of a track 30, he said that he’d have to call me back. I never heard from him or anyone else at Sony again.
Meanwhile, my search for unopened copies of Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings was going poorly. None of the record stores I called had the box set in stock and neither did any of the online retailers. One friend in the music business told me that while the Johnson collection was supposedly still in print, Sony had been showing the item on back order for the last eighteen months.
By this time I was convinced that there was some kind of cosmic blues conspiracy going on. No matter how hard I tried, I was unab
le to remember the slightest thing about the phantom Robert Johnson song. The lyrics and the melody were lost in my memory like a drunken dream. The song was hiding somewhere in my subconscious, but I was unable to summon it into my thoughts.
On top of that, my friend Jim stopped talking to me. Then, he moved out of town.
After more research, I determined that there were a few Johnson compositions that (supposedly) had never been recorded by the bluesman himself. Could the song have been “Little Boy Blue” or “Take a Little Walk with Me,” both alleged Johnson compositions recorded by Robert Jr. Lockwood, a surrogate stepson to the legendary blues singer? No clue. The late Johnny Shines sang Johnson’s little-known “Tell Me Mama” back in 1972, but the Shines version didn’t jog my memory in the least.
There was only one answer: I had to hear that song again.
Desperate, I found a high-priced broker whose specialty was locating hard-to-find blues and jazz recordings. “Listen,” I told him. “I’m looking for a double-CD box set called Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings on Sony. I’m only looking for new copies but I’ll pay top dollar for as many as you can find.”
The broker laughed and said, “Kid, you’re out of your league here and let me tell you why. I already have a standing order direct from Eric Clapton’s business manager for every copy of The Complete Recordings that I can get my hands on. You don’t even want to know how much he’s paying; it would make you sick. Now, I don’t know what it is about these Johnson discs that you guys are so hyped up about and the more I hear, the less I want to know. I can tell you that I’m not the only one who’s been contacted by people like Clapton—all of the guys in my business have had similar requests for two years running. Every once in a while somebody comes across a few of these box sets and makes enough money to buy a new house. My advice is to just scour the record bins and leave the high-end dealing to folks who can afford it.”
In the following months, I spent my time calling vintage record stores and noted blues historians. I even located an old Robert Johnson crony in Chicago, bluesman David “Honeyboy” Edwards. Edwards was nice enough, but as soon as I asked him about the chance recording of a thirtieth Robert Johnson song, he hung up the phone.
Music authorities like Greil Marcus and Peter Guralnick ignored my queries, perhaps unwilling to share such forbidding information with a stranger. I found one copy of The Complete Recordings in a suburban CD shop, but it had already been played and there were some strange markings carved onto the cover.
Then, one night, after spending hours looking through Internet auctions and other online music sites, I turned off my computer in a state of complete exhaustion. It was late, nearly midnight, and a wave of discouragement swept over me.
“Damn,” I said out loud. “I’d do anything for another listen to that song.”
Immediately, there was a knock at my front door. Startled, I went to see who could be stopping by at such a late hour. As I approached the doorway, I felt an extreme heat coming from the outer hall. The smell of sulfur filled the air.
At that exact moment, I realized that I had made a big mistake.
NUGGETS
The year is 1968 and it’s a quiet Tuesday afternoon in Cleveland, Ohio. Sid Garfinkle is on the phone with one of his more friendly business associates. Sid’s office is a mess. Stacks of papers are everywhere, remnants of Chinese takeout litter the room, and the ashtrays are all filled with half-smoked butts. The shades are drawn and Sid is doodling on a yellowed invoice for an entire season’s worth of secretarial services.
“I don’t know, Manny,” Sid groans into the phone. “It was a hell of a lot easier when I was promoting comedians like Morey Amsterdam and Shecky Green.”
Sid crumples the unpaid invoice and tosses it toward an overflowing garbage can where it bounces off the rim and lands on the floor. He pauses for a quick slurp of hot coffee and burns the roof of his mouth.
“Shit,” he mutters. “I’m telling you, Manny, all I can do nowadays is book these crazy rock-and-roll acts for a living. I don’t even know where half of them come from. Every single region of the United States has more Beatles and Stones imitations than you can shake a stick at. These pimply-faced kids, most of them aren’t twenty years old and never even been laid! They think they’re so frigging clever with their ‘secret’ drug lingo—one look at them and you know they’re smoking more reefer than all of the jazzmen in Harlem. And the clothes! One group came onstage wearing electric suits, no less. Most don’t bother wearing matching outfits—except for the ones dressed up like colonial soldiers. And I’ve never seen so much long hair since Flossie and I drove Bobby to college out in Berkeley, California.”
Sid moves an empty pizza box from his desk and spreads out the mail.
“You wouldn’t believe some of their gimmicks,” he laughs. “I swear, one group has a kid that blows an electric jug, and another bunch wear capes just like Dracula. They all look completely ridiculous! I’ve booked two different bands that actually had a guy with a hook for a hand.”
Sid plops back in his chair and says, “At least some of the kids have a sense of humor, or their managers do. I got one bunch an entire week in Boston on the strength of their single, ‘Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?’ These groups each have one hit single and then fade back into the suburban garage oblivion from whence they came. Honestly, most of them should stick to teen dances and stay away from the big time; they’re just not ready. I canceled one tour because some parents decided that their kids needed to go to summer school! Can you imagine?
“Yep, three weeks of music lessons and they all think they’re going to be stars. Of course, some get so scared when they first see an audience that they piss themselves. Occasionally, I’ll recognize one or two kids from the last big dance craze—they think that just because they’re wearing bangs now or singing with English accents that no one will remember what snotty punks they were.”
Sid Garfinkle counts the cash in his wallet and places a bank deposit slip in his breast pocket. “All this talk about psychedelic music doesn’t mean anything to me—it all sounds pretty much the same. Well, at least somebody’s buying something. I’d be totally screwed without these bands.
“You know,” Sid says. “The funny thing is that almost every rock concert I’ve been to has one moment that stands out from the rest. Most of these groups have the sense to wait until the end of their show before playing their hit song; otherwise, the crowds would go home long before they’re finished. Anyway, the audience is there for the song they’ve heard on the radio, and when the band finally plays their hit single, the room goes wild. The band is so cocksure that they bear down on their instruments, and for one brief instant everything falls together. The crowd adores the band and the band gives every bit of intensity they’ve got right back to the audience. I hate to admit it, but the music sounds magical in a freaky, ominous kind of way. It feels like I’m being pulled into a strange cult ritual of a very secret society.”
Sid Garfinkle rises slowly from his chair. “I have to head over to the bank, Manny. If I don’t deposit some money quick, every check that I wrote this week will bounce from here to Akron. Hey, don’t forget to say hi to Gladys for me and I’ll catch you at the pinochle game next Thursday.
“You know,” Sid adds. “As far as all those bands are concerned, nobody’s going to remember them in six months. Any kid in America can make music like this. The only thing I would do is take each one of their best records and put them together in one big fancy package—maybe then you’d have something worth remembering.”
—For Lenny Kaye
THE SOUND AND THE FURY
Since first released in 1975 Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music has been scrupulously analyzed by a number of pop culture journos. This includes serious analyses and not-so-serious prose. Reed himself has caused much of the confusion, but there have been so many details, myths, lies, half-truths, accusations, and discussions devoted to this radical piece of work that a more
thorough investigation has long been in order.
So, consider these disparate bits of information if you will. Metal Machine Music was Lou Reed’s seventh solo release after leaving the Velvet Underground. It was also his first double album, which affirmed RCA Corporation’s faith in the marketability of their most notorious recording artist. Developed in Lou’s west Long Island studio out near Pilgrim State Hospital, the sonic opus was created without the use of conventional instruments or the human voice.
Instead, Reed chose to stack multiple combinations of reverberating electronic sound to create a vast industrial howl. Derived from a process of manipulating aural frequencies and distorting both intensity and pitch, Reed’s mechanized drones and harmonic buildups released shifting waves of pulsing white noise and emitted squeals of pure feedback into two separate (but equal) stereo channels.
Now, what’s up with that?
On the back cover of the original album—above an incorrect chemical diagram of some unholy amphetamine—there was a specifications list that included such things as ring modulators, tremolo units, high-filter microphones, and Jimi Hendrix’s very own Arbitor distortion box. The spec list further asserted, “No Synthesizers No Arp No Instruments? No Panning No Phasing No.”
In some way, that last lone “No” betrayed the true underpinning of MMM’s conception. Representing a diametric swing away from his then-popular identity as the androgynous rock ’n’ roll poet laureate of Manhattan’s mean streets, Reed’s oppositional soundscape could hardly have been anticipated, even as an extension of the feedback/noise/distortion found in Lou’s early work with the Velvet Underground on their groundbreaking performance of “Sister Ray.”
This new (metal machine) music, Reed contended, was “the perfect soundtrack to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Lou also claimed to have inserted tiny snippets of classical music into the mix and that many of the sound frequencies were dangerous, even illegal to put on a phonograph record.
