Brand X - Product

[Rand Kelly]

Hello all,

This is Neil Kernon.

Reading through this thread I can certainly vouch for Robin Lumley’s description of everything. At the time of Product I was the chief engineer at Startling Studios. I was also managed by Hit and Run as a producer, so I ended up being the co-producer and engineer of the night band's stuff, but also did some additional recording on the day band's stuff, and some mixing of the day band's material once the recording process of everything was complete.

A couple of things which were not mentioned were:

First, at the end of the Startling tracking we had a couple of days left that were booked and basically paid for, so rather than just leave and waste the time we decided to set up both bands together (well, almost both bands - Mike had had to rush back to NY, so there was only Phil on drums, but there were two bass players and two keyboard players along with John Goodsall on guitar) and record some jams for as long as we could.

I found a few spare reels of multitrack tape, aligned the tape machine at the slowest possible speed, and then bussed all the inputs to the first 12 tracks on tape. I can't remember the exact track allocation (it is 35 years ago after all) but it had to be done that way in order to maximise recording time. After recording on tracks 1-12, as the tape finished in one direction I'd immediately turn it over and punch it in again, also on tracks 1-12 (thus recording the next stuff on tracks 13-24.) This process saved tape, and we only missed a few seconds during the changeover that way.

Once that was done and sounds were sorted we got going on the recording.

Something else that wasn't mentioned was the fact that during the album proper the day band had been set up in the living room (the night band being in the actual studio, which was quite small) so for these jams I moved Peter Robinson and Percy into the living room with everyone else. The living room was about 100 feet away from the control room, and was connected by multicore snakes that we'd laid down for the project.

This was loads of fun! Over the next couple of days we recorded and recorded stuff until we basically ran out of tape and / or money.

Not all the basic tracking for both albums was done during those Startling sessions. Once up at Farmyard we mixed all the tracks that we had recorded at Startling, and selected the ones that would appear on Product and those which would go on the next record.

Then, probably six months later the band and I re-convened at Farmyard and recorded several new songs (upon reflection we didn't feel that we had quite enough for another complete album) all of which appeared on Do They Hurt.

Those new songs were "Act of Will", "Cambodia" and "DMZ".

I had been hoping that something from the Startling jams might end up being usable - there were some incredible moments, but we were somewhat hamstrung by the fact that we only had access to one multitrack tape machine, so things didn't work out as we had no ability to add further colours or overdubs without losing stuff on the other “half” of the tape.

The jams did end up being useful as inspiration though - there was an hour or so of incredible bass and drum jamming featuring Phil, Percy and John, and that ended up being the inspiration for the more focussed "Wal to Wal" which was recorded at Phil's house on 8 track, I think.

Anyway, once those new songs were tracked and mixed, we added them to the ones left over from the Product sessions and thus Do They Hurt? was born.

Hopefully this sheds a bit of light on things.

WOW! Thanks so much Neil that was like going to Brand X school. I have a few questions: All that jamming is that how T.M.I.U.A.T.G.A came about? On Do They Hurt? why is Phil not credited but it says it's all Mike Clark? Again back to those jams would that also explain why the B-Side to Soho,Pool Room Blues has John Giblin and Percy Jones? and lastly,how much did Percy use his Fender Precision Fretless on any of the BX recordings prior to going with the Wal?

[calyx]

how much did Percy use his Fender Precision Fretless on any of the BX recordings prior to going with the Wal?

Maybe Neil can help with that specifically, but here's an interesting quote from Percy about changing to the Wal bass -

"I was approached by Ian Waller just before we recorded Masques, at the time I was playing a Fender Precision. His bass had a much richer response especially in the high mids so I immediately liked it. There was quite a bit of on-board eq and they made their own pickups. It took a few changes to come up with a workable model involving a better balance and an op amp that did'nt fall out of it's socket as you were playing. Over the next few years they refined the design even further. I used his 4 and 5 string basses up until about 5 years ago [this would be ca. 1997 - ed.] and still have them at home. Wal sadly died several years ago but the company is still going strong under his partner Pete "The Fish" Stephens. Their basses are some of the best around in my opinion."

[LASERCD]

Neil,

Many thanks for the additional background to the Brand X sessions. The interview with Robin I quoted from was done about twelve years ago for a Brand X retrospective article that never happened, but I hope to do something with those eventually.

I've just checked your Discogs page and see that you've worked with other bands and artists many at PE like - Jon Anderson ("Animation"), Kayak ("Merlin"), Kansas ("Drastic Measures"), Random Hold etc.

Maybe we can hope for interesting stories from those sessions too !

Anyway, thanks again for dropping by...

Aymeric:

Neil is a fountain of knowledge regarding many bands of interest to this forum. He's worked with Yes, Jon Anderson, Peter Gabriel, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Brand X, VDGG, Magma, Kayak, Kansas, and many more.

He's got a great book inside him...or at least a great long interview. I tried to get Progression magazine to interview him some years ago but they weren't interested. The man has stories...

[Auslander]

Neil,

Wow, thanks for all this - it's a privilege to have you around.



This would be around the time Patrick Moraz joined and they recorded "Relayer" at Chris Squire's house ? This was when both Chris and Jon had their own studios built, Jon's being the now legendary Mobile Mobile operated by Mike Dunne and Brian Gaylor on which "Olias" was recorded, and later served the glorious purpose of recording Hugh Hopper's "Hopper Tunity Box" and the first two National Health albums, while Yes were away on American tours (or Swiss tax exile).

What was your exact capacity with Yes ? Did you do their live sound ? Operate some of these studio facilities... ?



I'd be curious to know if you have any insight into why, according to Moraz himself iirc, "The Story of I" was rushed for release before it had received a proper mixing, and he was always unsatisfied with the album's sound as a result ?

Also, any memories of what it felt like hearing the brilliance of a young, almost totally unknown Jeff Berlin playing bass on that album ?

I was the new "6th member" of Yes. At the time I met Brian Lane (Yes's manager) I was the resident engineer at Le Chateau, and had flown back to London to get a deposit cheque for an upcoming Rick Wakeman album (No Earthly Connection) which was to be recorded at LC.

During that meeting, Brian played me some stuff on acetate from FOOW in his office, which I thought sounded great. Brian asked me my background, and I told him about my years at Trident etc. and he said that they were no longer going to be working with EO, and would I be interested in meeting Jon to discuss the possibility of a job with the band. Of course I said yes, and a couple of days later went to Jon's house in Maidenhead where he was just getting under way tracking Olias at the time. Jon said he'd let me know, and a few weeks later I got a call from him in Paris asking me to come and work for the band.

As Yes's new engineer, I ended up working on lots of leftover bits and pieces of things - some overdub tracking on Olias, lots of tracking on "I", I did some audio work on the video of "Hold Out Your Hand", plus I mixed the old Bodast stuff with Steve. Those were just the first things I did. After that I recorded about three months of songwriting jams / rehearsals with Yes, and those recordings ended up being the demos for GFTO and Tormato.

Regarding your question, this was after Relayer, which EO had worked on of course, but I did a great deal of work at Chris's studio in Virginia Water - Moraz's "I" immediately comes to mind. We spent weeks there working on that. I also spent a few weeks there mixing several live shows from a US tour that I had done FOH sound for, in '76. The shows were recorded at Cobo Hall, Detroit and Fort Wayne, IN. I think that was the last stuff I worked on at Chris's before we all headed to Montreux to start work on GFTO.

At Jon's place, we were using his Mobile Mobile setup, before it was called MM I think. At that time it was installed in a small building in the grounds of his house in Maidenhead. Years later I produced "Animation" for Jon, and we used the same gear, but at that point it was on wheels and was set up in his squash court in the grounds of his house in Kensington. I might add that all the Yes rehearsals we recorded in '75-76 (before the US tour in mid '76) were all tracked on Jon's mobile setup at Lee Studios (I imagine that Jon's rig became MM after Olias was completed, and it was needed for other things. Mike and Brian would both pop in now and then - Brian mainly for the maintenance work, and Mike was probably off engineering mostly other projects at that point.

Regarding the "I" mix, I'm not really sure what happened. I know that Patrick worked with Jean Ristori on a lot of that record, from tracking the Brasilian percussion in Rio to the main tracking. I did work on lots of overdubs, and then Patrick worked again with Jean on the mix. I don't honestly think it was considered a rush mix at the time, but I agree that it could have sounded better. I also don't remember there being a huge rush to get it out, other than the fact that the tour was coming up in the summer of '76, so that might have had something to do with it. I did go to the mastering of "I" with Patrick, but don't remember there being any rush at any point during that time. Perhaps for PM there was a feeling of "I have to get this done" simply because his album was the lst to be released of all the solo albums?

As far as the lineup on "I", yes, it really was something else. Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to work with Jeff or Andy or Alphonse, but I did meet finally Ray Gomez at that time, whose work I had first heard when I worked on the mix of Venusian Summer, and he and I became great friends. I still speak to him all the time, and have used him on numerous sessions through the years (including playing some solos on Hall and Oates songs, haha.)

[Auslander]

Maybe Neil can help with that specifically, but here's an interesting quote from Percy about changing to the Wal bass -

"I was approached by Ian Waller just before we recorded Masques, at the time I was playing a Fender Precision. His bass had a much richer response especially in the high mids so I immediately liked it. There was quite a bit of on-board eq and they made their own pickups. It took a few changes to come up with a workable model involving a better balance and an op amp that did'nt fall out of it's socket as you were playing. Over the next few years they refined the design even further. I used his 4 and 5 string basses up until about 5 years ago [this would be ca. 1997 - ed.] and still have them at home. Wal sadly died several years ago but the company is still going strong under his partner Pete "The Fish" Stephens. Their basses are some of the best around in my opinion."

I worked with Percy using his old Gretsch bass (early days) and I think his Fender, but for the later BX records he had moved to Wal. Wal also made me a lefty fretless bass around the time of Product. I do remember that during the tracking of DMZ, Percy actually split the neck of his Wal, and Wal had to come to studio with a replacement for that song, along with a stern warning not to grip the neck so hard next time

[Auslander]

Aymeric:

Neil is a fountain of knowledge regarding many bands of interest to this forum. He's worked with Yes, Jon Anderson, Peter Gabriel, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Brand X, VDGG, Magma, Kayak, Kansas, and many more.

He's got a great book inside him...or at least a great long interview. I tried to get Progression magazine to interview him some years ago but they weren't interested. The man has stories...

Thanks Ken! It's nice to be back at PE again.

[ThomasKDye]

Neil, thanks so much for stopping by! And while I hate to derail a "Brand X" thread, do you have any insights on "Drastic Measures?" I know Kansas was basically breaking up at the time -- was there a darker vibe in the studio or was it just business as usual?

[Paulrus]

Yeah, thanks so much for the insights and trip down memory lane, Neil -- you're a treasure!

Here I go derailing the thread even more (perhaps we should start a new one?)

I guess my question would be: You were around all these guys when the whole scene shifted in the mid to late 70s. Were you all just too close to what you were doing to be aware of what was happening, or when did everyone sort of poke their heads up and go "Gee, the times they are a-changin'"?

On a related note, there was a neat documentary someone linked in the OT forum about the rise and fall of the the album and how much the history of art rock and prog music is tied to that arc. Two things really stood out as affecting everyone's lives during the mid to late 70s: one, the oil crisis affecting the cost of vinyl and the push by record companies to cut costs; and two, the switch from AOR to AOR. That is, from "album oriented rock" to "adult oriented rock" (i.e., from Yes to Fleetwood Mac). Were you aware of folks like Brian Lane directly pushing their artists to get more radio-friendly?

Cheers!

[Auslander]

Neil, thanks so much for stopping by! And while I hate to derail a "Brand X" thread, do you have any insights on "Drastic Measures?" I know Kansas was basically breaking up at the time -- was there a darker vibe in the studio or was it just business as usual?

Well, to be honest, there was no real feeling of the band breaking up *during* the record. There were definitely two different camps within the band - Christian and non-Christian - which had been slowly eroding the band since the prvious record, I believe. On DM, Kerry started to withdraw a bit, and John pushed to have more songs on the record as a result.

My role as co-producer / engineer was based on my having done loud, bashy new wave type stuff, as well as working with Peter Gabriel on his live record, and doing mixes for singles from the Security album, which those guys had heard and liked - the drum treatments I was using were more along the lines of PG III (think "Intruder") which is the way Kansas wanted to go from a sonic viewpoint, hence that type of "gated" drum sound on numerous tracks, or parts of tracks, on DM.

[Auslander]

Yeah, thanks so much for the insights and trip down memory lane, Neil -- you're a treasure!

Here I go derailing the thread even more (perhaps we should start a new one?)

I guess my question would be: You were around all these guys when the whole scene shifted in the mid to late 70s. Were you all just too close to what you were doing to be aware of what was happening, or when did everyone sort of poke their heads up and go "Gee, the times they are a-changin'"?

On a related note, there was a neat documentary someone linked in the OT forum about the rise and fall of the the album and how much the history of art rock and prog music is tied to that arc. Two things really stood out as affecting everyone's lives during the mid to late 70s: one, the oil crisis affecting the cost of vinyl and the push by record companies to cut costs; and two, the switch from AOR to AOR. That is, from "album oriented rock" to "adult oriented rock" (i.e., from Yes to Fleetwood Mac). Were you aware of folks like Brian Lane directly pushing their artists to get more radio-friendly?

Cheers!

Well, I started in '71 and have been working in the biz ever since (I'm still making records today) so I suppose I *was* around during that time, but I've always been keen to try working on different styles of music, so I might not have been terribly deep in the prog world in the late '70s.

After my time with Yes I took time off to put another band together, and after that I started engineering at a little 8 track demo studio in north London, just to keep busy, and during that period worked with a lot of punk bands.

After that I got a call from an old producer friend of mine who wanted me to engineer a Neil Diamond record for him, so I jumped at the chance of that, which led to numerous other opportunities.

I honestly don't think that I was rooted in any one type of music, or even old enough at the time to worry about how things were changing. For me, things were ALWAYS changing, and I was always busy, so I never really noticed any downturn, change of heart in anyone.

I do remember that in the mid '70s that the whole UK punk movement sprung up out of the disgust of kids not being able to break into the business, because it had become too corporate.

I remember there being severe repercussions about how many felt that the industry had become lazy and fat, which resulted in the kick against it and the punk boom, which I thought was healthy overall (although not terribly appealing musically, to some perhaps.)

In the late '70s I started producing full-time, and it was around then that I was asked to join the H&R producer's group, which included Peter Hammill, Robin Lumley, Rupert Hine and Jack Lancaster. That's when I worked on the Random Hold record with Peter Hammill (who I'd worked with a few years before on Nadir.)

So, basically, I've always kept moving along, doing different things. I moved to the US in '79, and ended up producing 3 albums for Hall and Oates which fortunately had some huge hit singles, so for years I was busy making pop records as a result of that exposure.

[Paulrus]

After my time with Yes I took time off to put another band together, and after that I started engineering at a little 8 track demo studio in north London, just to keep busy, and during that period worked with a lot of punk bands.

Thanks for the reply, Neil. It must have been interesting in the mid-late 70s when the old barriers between the producer and artists started to come down (though I guess that started with Phil Spector). But with people like Alan Parsons and the 10cc guys (and later Trevor Horn) it seems like so many producers weren't content with staying behind the desk anymore.

[Auslander]

Thanks for the reply, Neil. It must have been interesting in the mid-late 70s when the old barriers between the producer and artists started to come down (though I guess that started with Phil Spector). But with people like Alan Parsons and the 10cc guys (and later Trevor Horn) it seems like so many producers weren't content with staying behind the desk anymore.

It was an interesting time. When I started the producer had a specific job, and the engineer had a specific job. Sometimes the producer hardly touched the desk. I used to see pictures of producers and engineers wearing long white coats, as if they were in a lab instead of a studio.

That all changed in the early '70s with the new breed of producer/engineers - people who had an engineering training, but also a musical background. Not all the engineers at Trident were like that, but I certainly fit into that mould. Having experience on "the other side of the glass" can be really valuable, especially in helping keep a session free of things like "red light fever".

[Stickleback]

Hi Neil. I am a big fan of Brand X and Phil Collins, so it's really great to read these insights. Product was my first BX album and I still love it. I wish I would have been around at the time to enjoy the band live. I read somewhere that Mark Brzezicki saw some BX shows and that PC was a beast on the drums.

I used to work at Westlake Audio. Dennis Mackay was doing a session there and relayed a story about a Mahavishnu Orchestra session at Le Chateau. I believe it was the inaugural session and there were some serious issues with the mixing desk that delayed the session for days. And then some incident with a coffee pot. Were you perhaps on this session???

[Progatron]

What a terrific thread! I just love reading insightful behind-the-scenes stuff like this. This calls for a New Year's Eve Brand X listening party!

[Auslander]

Yes, I certainly was there for those sessions. It was for the "Inner Worlds" album. It was the last Mahavishnu album I worked on, because I broke my Trident work contract by going to France to do it, and subsequently got sacked due to that.

Funny really looking back of course, but I had been told that I would be getting a promotion in Jan '75 to engineer at Trident, but it didn't happen because an engineer that had originally planned to go freelance got cold feet and stayed in the fold instead. So, I was told that in July I would get my promotion, but in July something else happened - I forget what now - and I was told it wasn't going to happen again. I wasn’t very happy about that.

So at that point I decided to take my summer holiday. On the second day of my holiday I was sitting at home playing guitar and Dennis Mackay phoned me, asking me if I wanted to go to Le Chateau to work with him on the new MO album. I was thrilled of course, especially because he said that as he was moving into more of a production role, he would be needing me to take over some duties on the engineering end of things for him. That was all I needed to hear - in my mind I was already halfway there.

Then he asked me if I spoke French, which I happen to speak fluently. He'd been having communication problems out there because he didn't speak a word of French, so it seemed like I could help out on several levels. Dennis said he'd pay my plane fare, so the next day I was on my way.

Things got off to a good start, but there were some teething troubles with the new desk in the control room. It wasn’t an “inaugural event” per se, but having a new desk is something of a celebration, but this one was probably brought online a bit too soon, and we had numerous hiccups.

Anyway, at one point when the desk was acting up, one of the office staff, a lovely woman of about 50 or so, called us and said to relax - she was bringing up a nice pot of her best coffee, which was amazing, as a sort of peace offering to offset the problems with the studio.

She arrived and very slowly walked into the room with a silver tray, upon which was an elegant coffee pot and lots of small china cups. At the time she walked in, John was in the middle of talking to the band about the song we were working on. The woman with the tray came in behind John, so he didn’t see her and she didn’t make a sound, in order to not interrupt John who was tlking pretty intensely.

Anyway, she parked herself - as in stood there with the tray - right behind John who was finishing up his instructions. John was sitting right next to the desk, slightly off to one side from centre.

As he finished, he smiled, sat back in his chair, and with a flourish of his hands said “Ok, that’s it! Let’s run it down!”

Unfortunately, the woman holding the tray was right behind him and the wave of his hand hit the bottom of the tray. I was sitting right behind John, right next to the tape machine, and I can still see this whole thing in horrible slow motion.

John’s hand hit the tray which the woman tried to move out of the way really quickly, but she lifted it too fast, and lost her grip on it. As a result the whole thing, tray, coffee pot and lots of fine china cups all ended up flying up in the air and landing on the desk, upon which sparks started to fly out. We immediately rushed to power everything down, but basically there was a full pot of strong French coffee with chicory that ended up being poured directly into the last 10 or so channels of the desk, along with a pile of smashed fine china cups all over the desk. Absolute insanity.

As a result everything stopped for about five days. We spent the next few days getting sun by the pool and hanging out with the lovely French girls who worked there.

Things eventually got back to normal, but there were a lot of tensions cause by the schedule change - extra plane ticket costs, the studio lost days of studio time, pushing other bookings back etc. On top of that, one of the MO road crew had a torrid affair with the wife of the chef, and when he found out he went crazy and quit.

So, the chef had quit, and we’re all at a residential studio outside Paris with no one to prepare meals. One of the two owners got his brother to come in to be the chef, but all he could cook was steak au poivre vert, which got a bit old after 3-4 days, so things went from bad to worse, and there was a massive food fight at one point.

In any event, we did get the album done, although it was a bit of a struggle at times. As a result of flying in at short notice to help Dennis out, I was offered the engineering job at LC, so that worked for me, especially as I got sacked by Trident for doing the album in the first place Bonus!

[rapidfirerob]

Great MO story. I really like that album, though not everyone does, I know. Hanging out by the pool with the French girls must have been rough! Ralphe on bass, Narada on drums and Stu on keys.

[Auslander]

Great MO story. I really like that album, though not everyone does, I know. Hanging out by the pool with the French girls must have been rough! Ralphe on bass, Narada on drums and Stu on keys.

I always loved the album, simply because there were a lot of chances taken. The more mellow songs by Michael were a bit odd (in the context of MO) but some of the other, more experimental stuff was really excellent.

Speaking of Ralphe, there was another really weird Le Chateau story that only he and I experienced, but I'll wait until after the new year to talk about that, perhaps in a MO thread where it would be more appropriate.

[rapidfirerob]

Ralphe is one of my favorite bassists. Saw him with Ponty numerous times. I look forward to that story! Thanks in advance.

[Stickleback]

Man. that MO story cracks me up. I never heard the bit about the roadie/chef debacle. So Rock and Roll. Dennis said something about the new console not having the attenuators (?) installed. The band was really jamming. They went to record, and... nothing. Someone had to go explain to John that it would take a few days to get the console running. John was in his room meditating, and took the news very calmly. After sitting around the pool for a few days while the console was being attended to, the band starting to get back it's energy and was ready to record when the coffee incident happened. Someone had to break the news again to the meditating John that the studio was going to be down while it was thoroughly cleaned. So, that's like a double whammy to John, the band and crew.

[no.nine]

Aymeric:

Neil is a fountain of knowledge regarding many bands of interest to this forum. He's worked with Yes, Jon Anderson, Peter Gabriel, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Brand X, VDGG, Magma, Kayak, Kansas, and many more.

He's got a great book inside him...or at least a great long interview. I tried to get Progression magazine to interview him some years ago but they weren't interested.

confused.jpeg

[LASERCD]

Listen be serious - you don't want to take away space from William Shatner.

[highaltitude]

Really?,

To me, Moroccan Roll is the best Brand X album ever. This album is explicit, clear, understandable and powerful.

The second one in my list of preferences is Livestock, tremendously atmospheric Live album.

[Auslander]

My favourite has always been Masques. Brilliant record.

[highaltitude]

Ok. I'll hear a bit of masques to tell my opinion about.

[Auslander]

You might try living with it for a couple of decades - helps get through those "first impressions"