Features

RM: I think maybe we got too much flack for doing too many Dylan songs.

TA: Are you interested in the studio side of things, or do you just see it as a means to an end?

DC: I've been forced to get into it because I love the sound. I love making sounds. I love making it sound wonderful That's why If Only I Could Remember My Name sounded the way it did. That's me without any restraints or anybody in the way, you know? I am not a very good "tekkie" but I can hear fairly well and it's not too hard to figure stuff out. I've done things like running analog and digital off of the same recording (mic feed) and then really listening.

TA: And what did you come up with?

DC: I still like analog. I still would rather cut my tracks, anyway, on a Studer.

TA: And why is that?

DC: Two things: one transients, and the way that it handles them, you know? When a kick drum or something sort of shocks the tape, it behaves differently on the two different system but mostly overtone structures, harmonics.

Back in 1998 KOCH licensed both the RCA and Arista Kinks catalogs from BMG. Ray Davies supervised and approved the transfer from two-track analog masters, which was accomplished using an Ampex ATR102 directly feeding a Pacific Microsonics Model One A/D converter running at 88.2k/24 bit PCM (bonus tracks were sourced from Ray's DAT tapes). The files were sent to Bob Ludwig's Gateway Mastering for final mastering, including HDCD encoding.

Esquivel: Other Voices, Other Sounds/Four Corners of the World

Bar/None AHAON-090

Esquivel: Exploring New Sounds in Stereo/Strings Aflame

Bar/None AHAON-091

Esquivel: Infinity in Sound, Volume 1/Infinity in Sound, Volume 2

Bar/None AHAON-003

(1 and 2) Produced by Johnny Camacho, (3) produced by Neely Plumb

Reissue Supervision: Paul Williams for House of Hits Productions, Ltd.

Digital transfers by Mike Hartrey

Digitally remastered by dbs Digital, Hoboken, NJ

This whole Cocktail Nation, Space Age Bachelor Pad Music revival thing strikes me with extreme bemusement. All of a sudden, a new generation discovers and decides that what was once unhip is now the coolest-whether martinis, leopard skin, kitschy Fifties furniture-or the “easy listening” instrumental music popular at the dawn of the Stereo Age.

Years before Burt Bacarach became "hip" once again, well before he had a part in an Austin Powers movie, or wrote songs with Elvis Costello and Ronald Isley, your editor interviewed him. Bacharach's insight into music writing, recording and performing are still fascinating.—MF

In 1970, Simon and Schuster published a book called " How to do Almost Everything" written by syndicated columnist Bert Bacharach. The title refers to a collection of helpful home hints, not son Burt's musical career, but it might as well have.

Henry James, in another of his sour moods, once characterized then-President Theodore Roosevelt as "the mere monstrous embodiment of unprecedented and resounding noise." Thankfully, the Master died before hearing Cheap Trick. We think we know this record, and the Trick, too. A generation of rockers have dined out on the chops served up on the original (and brutally truncated) 1979 Epic release. The party crowd (i.e., all of us) has shaken sufficient booty, tail, and keister to make it one of the essential rock albums. And why not? The noise quotient is high enough for blare-oriented ideologues and the giddy fun intrinsic to the band's power-pop attack gets everybody else. The Tricksters make damned sure of that.

BOB MARLEY AND THE WAILERS
Live!
Produced by Steve Smith and Chris Blackwell
Engineered by Steve Smith
Mixed by Phill Brown
Island/Tuff Gong ILPS 9376 (LP), 422-846 203-2 (CD)

Music:11
Sound:8

Before Bob Marley cut Live! at the Lyceum in London, Marley's producer Chris Blackwell remembers how the fanaticism surrounding the singer was escalating. “At his shows he was doing 'No Woman, No Cry' and the audiences were singing so enthusiastically. I thought, 'Boy, I've got to record this live', because it sounded so incredible.”