“A model of a thing is the thing itself. That`s a basic axiom of magic.”

Oz
Fritz
On a beautiful day in early March, Oz Fritz Tell me about starting out. Did you go to
recording school?
showed up at the door of New, Improved
I
did
go to recording school. I’ll give you a real brief
Recording - a studio I co-own in Oakland,
synopsis
of my history - I got really interested in
California. He had been hired by multimanipulating
audio when I was eleven years old. My
instrumentalist/singer Mark Growden to cofriend and I recorded “Revolution 9” from the [Beatles’]
produce and engineer Mark’s new record Saint
White Album onto a cassette tape, which were fairly new
Judas. I was pretty nervous. This was the guy
in 1969, and then we took it apart and flipped it around
that recorded and mixed Tom Waits’ Mule
so we could hear it play backwards. It was an incredibly
Variations, Blood Money and Alice, has been Bill
spooky experience. After high school I started doing live
Laswell’s right-hand man for two decades, and
sound. I did that for four years in the Western Canadian
has worked with Wanda Jackson, Iggy Pop and
bar band circuit and got to the top of where I could go.
the Ramones. The man that showed up on my
I went to New York on a visit and really loved it there,
so I tried to find a reason to go back. I discovered the
doorstep that day surprised me - Oz Fritz is as
Institute of Audio Research, and I went there for a year,
unassuming as they come despite all the great
in 1983. I went back to Canada, couldn’t find work in
things he has accomplished, and I was
studios there, went back to New York two years later and
immediately at ease talking with him and
started out as an intern at a studio called Platinum
helping him get set up. He walked into the
Island, that was an up-and-coming, state-of-the-art
control room with only his trusty Peavey Kosmos
studio that eventually rivaled The Power Station, which
Pro and a very practical attitude towards the
was the studio of the time. Then, after a couple of years
task at hand, which was to capture the sound of
working there as a staff engineer, Bill Laswell came in Mark’s sextet performing their songs live. Luckily
he was looking for an alternative to the Power Station,
he had time to sit down with me one morning
where he normally worked. We hit it off and when I went
for breakfast to talk about Meat Loaf live
freelance not long after, my first few years were as his
full-time engineer at his studio that he opened up in
albums, quantum physics, magical battles and
Green Point [Brooklyn].
recording music that can’t be recorded.
by Eli Crews
Photo by John Baccigaluppi
“A model of a thing is the thing itself.
That’s a basic axiom of magic.”
That was the late ‘80s?
I started as an intern in 1987, went with Bill Laswell in
1989 and went freelance in ’89-’90.
From your school experience through
being an intern, an assistant and
finally a staff engineer, was there a
particular methodology that you feel
you learned?
Well, there’s a pedigree. The great thing about working
at a commercial New York studio is that you work with
all kinds of well-known producers and engineers in
different types of music. I sort of aligned myself
mostly with the people from The Power Station. My
main engineer-teacher was Jason Corsaro, and his
pedigree was The Power Station and Bob
Clearmountain. I learned how to get big drum room
sounds from Jason and Tom Edmonds, who started
out working with Todd Rundgren up in Woodstock.
Roger Moutenot [issue #20] passed on the lineage of
another top New York studio called Skyline. I learned
a great technique from Roger when he recorded
Caetano Veloso singing and playing acoustic guitar.
He placed a [Neumann] FET 47 at about the level of
his chin angled toward his mouth. The rejection side
of its pick-up pattern was facing the guitar to
minimize guitar bleed. Some months later I used the
same technique for recording the Turkish saz player,
Talip Özkan. His album, The Dark Fire, was an early
successful recording for me. I learned how they did
things at the Hit Factory from Robert Musso and Bruce
Tergeson. But back to Jason Corsaro - when I did live
sound, it was predictable that every drummer would
come up and tell you, “I want my drums to sound like
John Bonham, Led Zeppelin,” except at one point a
drummer came up to me and said, “I want my drums
to sound like the drums from Power Station,” and it
was my friend Jason who came up with that sound. It
was such an incredible sound that when John
Bonham died one of the drummers they were thinking
of getting was the drummer in Power Station - they
tried him out and he wasn’t that great. Because it
wasn’t his playing that was so awesome - it was the
sound that Jason got.
You’re talking about Robert Palmer’s
band, Power Station?
Yeah. They were called Power Station because they
worked at the studio a lot.
You’re saying that sound was more tied
to the engineer than to the studio if he worked somewhere else he’d get
a similar sound?
He was a unique engineer and he never got the same
sound twice, but yeah, he would stretch the box in that
way and get sort of breakthrough sounding records. I
worked with him as an assistant on the Swans’ Burning
World and Ginger Baker’s Middle Passage.
Does it create friction when a band asks
you to get a specific sound, but you
want to do something new?
exactly (no one does) - to align myself with that. You
work with a new band or producer, and there’s a little
period where you’re finding out how to relate to each
other, and what each other wants. When you develop
a relationship where you’re working with the same
producer over time like I have with Bill Laswell, he
doesn’t have to tell me. I get the mix set up, he comes
in and it’s already sort of how he wants it, but then
he does the fine-tuning. It was like that with me for
Tom Waits. I find after a while there gets to be almost
a telepathic musical connection.
You’re describing your role almost as a
conduit, in service to the artist.
aligned with how I approach things. It just works out
that way, that I end up working with people like Mark.
And the whole approach to making this record was
his, partly based on budgetary limitations.
Limitations aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Limitations
are part of the parameters of your project and can be
approached creatively, rather than feeling like it’s a
detraction from the project. I try to keep it on that
course. It’s funny, because Mark had an engineer who
had requested being there, as an intern type of thing.
I took a break and they started editing stuff and I
come back, and all of a sudden they’re editing more
and more. So I had to say, “Hey guys. Wait, we’re not
doing it this way.” I’m not against editing, I just think
it gets carried too far... you’ve got to use it cautiously.
Exactly, but I’m not in service to the artist - well I am,
but what I’m really in service to is the music. To me,
music is a sacred thing - it’s the closest thing I have Are there any other projects you’re
working on now or coming up that
to a religion. When I worked in a studio in Madras,
India with Bill Laswell, they treated their recording
you’re excited about?
studio like a temple. The only places you had to take A couple of festivals with Bill Laswell in the summer and
the upcoming mix of Rupa & the April Fishes. I’m
off your shoes in India were in the Hindu temples and
currently working with Johnny Boyd, who had a band
in the recording studio.
called Indigo Swing, on his solo project.
Wow!
When you walked into this recording studio, which was You mentioned that about 75% of your
work these days is at Prairie Sun [in
a major one in that city, you walked through a little
Sonoma County, CA]. Do you think
lobby area and then a little anteroom before you got
being away from a city can help in
to the control room and the studio. In the anteroom
the process of making a record?
there was a huge Indian altar set up, and there was a
woman whose sole job was to tend to that altar with I’ve found it helps, because it takes away some of the
distractions that you get in the city. It tends to make
all of its pictures of deities and flowers. Before we
people more focused and concentrated on what
actually started recording we did a little ritual to mark
they’re doing. It’s my personal preference, but it’s not
the beginning of the project. It was acknowledging
something I set out to do. I got turned on to Prairie
the sacredness of what we were doing. I try to honor
Sun by Tom Waits - he wanted to work there so we
that and serve that.
In contrast, would you say the
worked there. I don’t look for clients at all and I don’t
have a manager - I have a lot of other stuff I do when
reverence for the recording studio as
I’m at home [in Grass Valley, CA]. It just happened
an institution has diminished in
that I developed a relationship with the owner of
this culture?
I really couldn’t answer that question. What I think has
Prairie Sun [Mark “Mooka” Rennick]. We have a
diminished with the advent of home recording
mutual relationship in that he’ll recommend me to
systems is that music has gone from something that
clients and he uses me as a marketing device.
you feel to something that you think about. I’ll try to
Conversely I’ll bring my clients to Prairie Sun. I also
explain that better - Robert Fripp wrote a series of
do believe in the sound of Prairie Sun. It’s quality
incredible articles for Musician magazine that
stuff - not by default.
influenced me a lot in the early ‘80s, and he talked In this climate the relationship
about the three different aspects of a musician, what
between the studio owner and
he called the head, the heart and the hands. All three
freelance engineer is important and
aspects, in order to make great music, had to be
has to be mutually beneficial.
aligned and going to the same place. Nowadays with But you’re both interested in the same goal, which is
Pro Tools you’re able to mainly go into your head and
making great music. In the old days studio owners
look at the waveform, and you’re doing things based
were often disconnected from the process of
on how you think it should sound, rather than how it
recording, believe it or not. To them it was another
feels. That’s what I observe a lot, and I think it’s a bit
business, but instead of selling shoes they were
of a tragedy that people over edit their music and try
selling music production. Mooka is himself, like you
to conform to some ideal, perfect standard, because
are, a producer, engineer and musician. He knows
to me it loses feeling.
gear, he can relate to my needs and so he talks to me
about what gear he would like to get. The relationship
The project you’re working on right
extends beyond us just getting clients - we talk about
now at my studio with Mark Growden
how we’d like to improve Prairie Sun.
- you’re doing live band takes, almost
exclusively live vocal takes, a Maybe because being a studio owner
isn’t as lucrative as it used to be it’s
minimum of overdubs, a minimum
No, because I don’t have a particular thing I personally
going to weed out people who aren’t
of editing…
am going for. What I’m trying to do is translate the
doing it for the love of music.
vision of the artist. I’m trying to be transparent - I’ve found, although I can’t prove it, that my respect for
music has meant that the projects I get are usually I don’t know that it was ever a lucrative market. One of
there is no “Oz Fritz sound”. I’m trying to tune in to
musically great, like Mark’s music, and they are more
the interesting classes I took at the Institute of Audio
what they’re looking for - which they don’t really know
Research was supposed to be a maintenance tech
class, and it was given by a working, in-demand New
York maintenance tech - very street. His whole thing
was, “I’m gonna tell you like it is.” He did a lecture
(and this is in 1983) on how all studio owners are
crazy because they’re never going to get caught up on
their overhead, because they’re constantly having to
update their gear.
Even on a smaller scale we’re always
playing catch-up.
But I don’t think you can generalize about the whole
industry. There are studio owners who have a great
deal of integrity and I’ve been meeting them more
and more.
Are there any benefits of working in
smaller studios?
Every performance is affected by the environment it’s in.
Smaller places can be more intimate and bring about
a different, perhaps closer, chemistry amongst the
musicians. Obviously there’s a lot more to it than size.
Smaller places have to take care that the spaces stay
clean and don’t get cluttered with non-essentials.
You’ve done a huge amount of live
sound. I’ve always tried to keep in
mind that doing live sound is about
facilitating an experience that all of
these people are sharing together,
and that’s the payoff. There doesn’t
have to be a plastic disc at the end for
it to be valid.
The payoff is in the moment, however that moment can
be recorded. I try to record all of my shows. I’ve got
a pretty good collection of interesting bootlegs of Bill
Laswell’s bands: Praxis, Massacre, Tabla Beat Science,
Material, etc.
or may not be going on while you’re doing that.
to L.A. and worked with The Eagles, and he was the
Another thing I recommend that has nothing to do
guy up there. I hung out with them in the studio and
with music is to watch Marx Brothers movies because
it was such a tedious, boring thing that I swore I
they really get you thinking outside of the box. But
would never, ever become a studio engineer. [laughs]
you asked about live versus the studio... I find they
They would spend thirteen hours trying to get the
complement each other a lot. Live sound gave me a
basic tracks for one song. They would play it, and it
lot of great ear training - trying to make bands sound
would sound great to me, and this guy would go,
good in horrible bars. You just learn a lot from doing
“Well, it sounds really good, but in measure sixtyit, like how to EQ. You know, my internship in New
three, on beat three, the hi-hat dipped a little bit in
York at that time… if you got on with a big studio
energy” - stuff like that. It turned out that they
you could spend six months - and some people spent
weren’t happy with it - it didn’t sound like the band.
eighteen months - as an intern. It was just ridiculous!
The next time when they recorded they had me do it
I had an interview at The Hit Factory and they had me
on a 2-track in a bar. I’d never recorded before and I
waiting in the lobby for three hours to tell me,
got a better sound.
“Thanks. Don’t call us - we’ll call you.” When I got on Nice!
at Platinum Island I was very fortunate - they were I swore I would never do it. Then a year or so after that
up-and-coming and I only spent three months as an
I put on this new record I had, My Life in the Bush of
intern before I got thrown in as an assistant engineer.
Ghosts by Brian Eno and David Byrne, and it just totally
I was able to progress from there.
transformed me. It was as strong an experience as
hearing “Revolution 9” backwards all those years ago.
People who are well established in their
I realized there were things you could do in a studio
field often talk about that moment
that you could not do live, and it totally changed my
where the perfect opportunity arose,
perspective. Years later I ended up meeting Bill
and they had the wherewithal to
Laswell, and it turned out that Bill was the co-writer
take advantage of it.
and played [bass] on the first track of that album.
There’s a lot of mystery to it. When you say
“opportunity” you’re absolutely right - these There’s synchronicity and opportunity
for you.
opportunities happen. When I was doing live sound I
was with the top band in the area, and they saved up Here’s another one - I was twelve, and there was a guy
who was turning me on to music, because he had
their money - $15,000 - which was a lot of money
older hippie brothers and I didn’t. He told me about
back in the early ‘80s, and went in to make their demo
these magical musicians, the Master Musicians of
recording that was going to get them their deal Jajouka - their music was so strong it could not be
original songs - just a basic rock and roll band. They
recorded. [The Rolling Stones’] Brian Jones had gone
hired the top producer/engineer in Alberta, [Canada].
there and had made a recording. The recording was
I’m not going to say his name, but he had been down
What is the difference in the
satisfaction you get out of doing live
sound versus recording in a studio?
To me, there’s less of a difference. Live you have less
control. In the studio, to me, that’s also live music,
because I’m there hearing it. One of the first records
I did as an assistant was a Meat Loaf live record [Live
at Wembley], and maybe I’ll get in trouble for saying
this, but who cares? They recorded it live at Wembley
[Arena], but they came into Platinum Island and
basically overdubbed all the vocals... so is it a live
album? Well, it was live for me. I was there! I saw
them play, you know? [laughs] To me, that’s not
taking away from it being a live album, it’s just
playing with time. It’s different periods of time being
pieced together. I think there are a lot of things you
can bring into recording that are not directly related
to music. If you read some of the theories of quantum
physics, it can relate to the idea of creating
performances by piecing together different stretches
of time by cutting it up. If you take the example of
recording a vocal - you record five takes of singing
and then you make a comp - what you’re doing is
taking different segments of time and putting them
together. Also, if you think about when you’re turning
the pot on a board, you’re manipulating electrons.
You’re directly influencing the subatomic world. I
think it helps to have some knowledge of what may
Maybe it was a
coincidence, but I
said, “From now on,
if people are having
magical battles let’s
make sure they don’t
show up.”
Working With and Learning
from Oz Fritz
by Bill Moriarty
During the past several years I’ve had the good fortune
of learning recording directly from producer/engineer Oz
Fritz through phone conversations, assisting him on
recording sessions and many, many emails. The main
thing I’ve learned is that Oz’s working techniques (and
favorite recording equipment) are far less important than
his way of being.
When you meet Oz he’s kind, intense and always
paying attention. He’s also really funny, which I didn’t
expect. When you’re with him he’s fully present and
awake. If you’ve never been near someone like this it can
be unsettling. He does not pass time idly, doesn’t chitchat
and doesn’t get bored. He smiles a lot, tells bad/good
jokes, drinks tea nearly constantly and always has a book
open in front of him.
Repeatedly, Oz encouraged me to be present and work
in service of the music. He taught me that when mixing
I should be aware that I’m creating one sound wave. He
sees a mix not as a number of instruments playing
simultaneously, but as one force working together. Oz also
sees music as a sacred entity, and when working with it
the speakers should be viewed as portals to another
dimension, not just paper moving in boxes. You’re
communicating directly with music as a living being. It
bothers Oz when the artist approves a mix, goes home
and then the next day wants to change it. “The mix didn’t
change, they did!” He’s present and knows the mix is
correct in the moment. Most people are not so constantly
aware, and so their perceptions change.
Before learning from Oz, I used to approach projects
with an intellectual notion of how it was going to turn
out or what philosophical message the mix would send. I
assumed Oz worked this way and when I was struggling
to decide between working in a realism/documentary
style versus a more fantastic style, I asked which he used
and received this response: “I’ve never thought about
documentary style versus fantastic, and certainly have
never consciously approached recording with one method
over the other. I just try to do the best job I can, try not
to impose too many expectations, but let the music be
what it is. When mixing I try to work intuitively more
than intellectually and look for that feeling of musicality
beyond any concept.”
Oz also has achieved that state some engineers miss a balanced life. He has a family, he’s a painter and writer,
he’s active in his community and says recording is “just
one thing I do.” r
okay, but when he had gone to mix it he was trying
to recreate the experience he heard in his head, not
document their sound. It was very phased and flanged
- it wasn’t an authentic document of their sound.
Ornette Coleman was very influenced by their music he took a recording crew four or five years after that,
in the early ‘70s, to their village in Jajouka, and he
made a recording. For some reason, it didn’t turn out,
I don’t know why - there is a lot of really strong hash
in that area, so who knows? I heard this story when
I was a kid. Flash-forward years later, I’ve just flown
to Japan with Bill Laswell - it’s my first time in Japan.
I know he had been approached by the Master
Musicians of Jajouka to record them and the engineer,
Billy Yodelman, bowed out and all of a sudden I was
the engineer. Here’s this thing I’m hearing about at
twelve years old, that it can’t be done, and there I am
doing it. [laughs]
Well, can it be done?
Yeah, we did it! We did a record.
Do you want to talk more about
recording “World Music”? I always
feel like that has to be in quotes.
of his friends has a farm outside of the city so we’ll go
out there. We’ve done stuff in the city inside people’s
living rooms. It’s wherever we can find it. We’ll scout
it out in advance to find out if it will work. Then we
have to figure out if we have to bring a generator or
if they have electricity we can use. But there are
engineers over there and there are studios. It’s hard
to communicate how it is over there, but for them,
magic - phenomena that exist outside of what we
consider rational experience - for them it exists over
there. One of the people we were recording, he’s
called a donso, and they use music to change things
- to create rain, or to create a more fortunate hunt.
There are specific songs that are for the hunt, or to
drive evil spirits out of someone who’s psychotic. This
one - he’s a master. We went over to his place, which
was an honor. It was an unexpected and rare thing to
be invited to his home, but it wasn’t a house like we
think of it. In one of his areas he’s got a live
crocodile, and he says that’s his power. And this guy’s
an incredible musician - he’s the guy we’re recording!
He had an apprentice who’s an incredible musician, a
good kora player and singer. These two were having
difficulties with each other - the teacher felt that the
student was using his talent for personal gain too
much. That he was using it to pick up women, and
stuff like that - which he was. They had this
disagreement, and they were having what I was told
was a magical battle with each other.
It’s a European/American-centric view. I’ve had a gig for
the last three or four years field recording music in the
West African country of Mali. It’s so refreshing to get
out of the model of music as something that has to
be a business - [something] you do because you’re
trying to become famous or rich. Over there the
people are very, very poor. Mali is one of the three
poorest countries in the world, but the people over
there seem to be, generally speaking, happier than
the people here. Mali is one of those areas that’s just
so rich in music, which is why my friend Aja Salvatore
started this label, Kanaga System Krush. He doesn’t
have a lot of money - he was a musician himself who
had gone over there to study African music - but he
just realized that there’s so much music there that can
be recorded fairly cheaply if you have Pro Tools and
some mics. They call themselves a Fair Trade label,
which means they’re trying to give back to the
musicians as much as they give. But the musicians Wow!
over there, there’s no hope of them becoming famous We’re in the studio and they had decided to try some
- they just do it for different reasons. We were outside
lighting system to help with the videotaping, an
of their main city in what used to be the capital of a
electrician had to come, etc. We were recording the
huge empire four or five hundred years ago. This is
teacher, and the student showed up for no clear
where a lot of the old-style drumming originated.
reason - he had no business being there. The
These old-school guys were playing, and I was
electricity in the studio, not long after, freaked out in
recording it, and you go into a trance - it’s like that
a way I had never seen before. Forty-eight volts was
thing where you’re outside of your identity of who you
going across everything. All this electricity had fried
are and your problems and all that, and you’re just
out our Pro Tools, and it totally destroyed two [AKG]
connecting to something on a deep level. So, after we
414s and a [Neumann] KM84. We were still able to
did this, and everyone had this experience, this one
record, but it totally shut down the electricity there.
drummer was running around saying this phrase in
Maybe it was a coincidence, but I said, “From now on,
Bamana, their native language, and they told me he
if people are having magical battles let’s make sure
was saying, “music is medicine, music is medicine.”
they don’t show up.”
It’s medicine of the spirit over there in Mali - that’s Speaking of magical battles, what can
sort of how they get by.
you tell me about working with Tom
Sacred Travels
Oz has also made his own record, entitled All Around
the World. It is an audio document of sacred spaces,
capturing their acoustic and consciousness-altering
properties. It is also the creation of new ambient spaces
and new realities through audio collage, juxtaposition
and cut-up techniques. -EC
When you’re on location in another
country, do you record them in the
spaces they usually play in or do you
create an environment that’s more
controlled?
We’ve tried working in a studio, and there is a studio in
Mali that’s not too bad, for Africa. But we generally
look for a suitable location. It’s very low budget, so
[Aja]’s not renting spaces. A lot of it is outdoors. One
Waits?
Well, I need to respect his privacy because he doesn’t
like people talking about his recording style. But I
have learned a lot from him, and there are some
general things I can say. There are three producers
and musicians that I have worked with that have
influenced me more than others: Bill Laswell, Tom
Waits and someone named E.J. Gold, who’s not really
in the music industry. He’s a visual artist but he has a
recording studio in Grass Valley, so I work with him
when I’m at home. All three of those I consider
masters - a cut above ordinary people in their
abilities. Tom Waits is like a Zen master. You really
have to pay attention to what he’s doing and really
be on your toes - be prepared to record at any time.
Working with Tom completely got me outside of my
box, if “the box” is what you call your beliefs about
What I’ve Learned From Oz
* Treat yourself, the music, everyone involved and the
studio with respect and reverence like you would a
temple.
* Train yourself to be fully present, awake and aware during
sessions. Experiment and learn techniques that will wake
you up if your mind drifts.
* Pay attention to your diet. Sluggish food means a
sluggish mind.
* Use the absolute best recording equipment available.
* Be open-minded to what works and is effective, not just
what you think will work.
* Bring new things to the sessions to break up the patterns
and add variety, such as books, paintings, jokes, toys.
* Practice, practice, practice.
* Remember - you are making one sound wave.
Gear and Workflow
I took note of these while working with Oz:
* Try to work on outstanding, well-maintained equipment.
* Mix on an analog console - “It sounds better.”
* Both 2” tape and Pro Tools have their appropriate uses.
* Oz would spend a long while getting the whole mix
together and then write automation quickly in the final
couple of passes, but stresses automation isn’t necessary
- “Two of my most celebrated records were done without
automation.”
* He likes to have a full day to mix a song, but I saw him
mix three songs in a day once.
* Oz prefers analog effects to “get away from the linearity
of digital.” He used a Fulltone Tube Tape Echo and a
couple of spring reverbs.
* Oz re-amps a lot. I saw this in two ways - 1. PA speaker
blasting and two room mics recording this to a stereo
track. 2. Small tube amp breaking up and close mic’ed to
add grit to a vocal.
-compiled by Bill Moriarty
how to do things. Jason Corsaro was completely outside
of the box of how you’re supposed to do stuff. Then Tom
Waits… I had a bigger box, but I broke outside of that
working with him. I had this notion that you learn in New
York - that you always make the sound as nice, as
beautiful and as big as possible. I hadn’t been turned on
to the potential musicality of lo-fi sound, and that was a
big thing that I learned from working with Tom. All three
of those people that I mentioned have one thing in
common, which is that they really like to record almost
before you’re prepared. “Do it before you start thinking
about it.” That gets back to what I told you about the
head, the heart and the hands. The head wants to think
and figure things out, especially for a person that’s
intellectually inclined. And so if you do it so fast, before
you’re ready, you’ve just got to do it. It’s like doing live
sound in a way.
It’s like the limitation thing you were
talking about earlier.
I got asked to do a record Tom Waits was producing with
John Hammond, Jr., the blues singer, and they ended up
deciding that he was going to do all Tom Waits’ songs. The
album was called Wicked Grin. We were working at a studio
called Alpha & Omega. I don’t know if it still exists - it
was owned by Sandy Pearlman, who produced Blue Öyster
Cult. It was in San Rafael and the studio had great vintage
gear and a nice-sounding room, but it was incredibly
poorly maintained. I got there at eleven for a session that
was supposed to start at one. Because of all the problems
we encountered I wasn’t ready on time. Fortunately for
me Tom had gone away with his family and had gotten
snowed in on the way back, so he was running really late
too. The whole band was there - setting up and ready to
go. By five or six I still wasn’t ready, the band was itching
to go and Tom had shown up, and they’re playing and Tom
says, “Just start recording. Wherever you’re at, just start
recording.” I started recording. Larry Taylor was on bass
and Stephen Hodges on drums - two guys that often play
with Tom. Tom had brought an incredible keyboard player
named Augie Meyers, who had played with Bob Dylan and
had been in the Sir Douglas Quintet. These guys just had
an instant, immediate chemistry. I hit record and they
were playing, and the first thing that they did ended up
being the first song on the record. r
You can contact him at ozfritz@hotmail.com
Eli Crews runs New, Improved Recording in Oakland, CA,
www.elicrews.com, www.newimprovedrecording.com
Bill Moriarty, www.moriartyrecording.com