System of Love EP by The Swimming Pool Q's- MP3 Album
Jeff Calder's Personal Archive > Living By Night in the Land of Opportunity: (9) > Living By Night Section 5
In 1979 we released our first single titled "Rat Bait"/"The A-Bomb Woke
Me Up." We recorded it in Florida at a small studio that had been converted from a produce market. In the New Wave strategy dominant at the time we released it on our own label, Chlorinated Records. An Atlanta entrepreneur, Danny "The Anti-Mogul" Beard, who had backed the B-52's independent hit, "Rock Lobster," helped us plug "Rat Bait" in a growing national underground rock network of retail stores, small radio stations, and alternative press. It brought us some attention outside the Southeast. An A&R representative from EMI Records, a major label, flew in to record a demo tape with the band. It was a typically pitiful though not catastrophic session. Eventually EMI rejected the group ("not focused"). Other major labels gave us the characteristic deaf
ear. Undaunted, with our more extensive recording and performing experience, we were ready to make The Album.
To make a first album requires three things besides a pile of cash: a record label, a producer, and a studio. First, I flew to Vegas with my life savings and generated a small fortune which I lost the next night in Reno. That left my family and friends. I "borrowed" about ten grand from an old pal who was heir to a supermarket chain. I was set for a return flight to the Green Felt Jungle when I was stopped by the aforementioned Anti-Mogul. He had started his own label and agreed to put out our record. The Anti-Mogul would serve as executive producer, and even vaguer concept that producer. In this case the executive producer would fetch soft drinks, tell jokes from Humpty-
Dumpty magazine, and run interference between the band and the producer.
At this point none of us was very sure what a producer actually did. We used a fellow who had done some other projects for the Anti-Mogul. He stopped by and heard the group at practice one night. Like most bands' first producer he was a glorified engineer who impressed everyone with incomprehensible gizmos and tried to keep as many overdub ideas off the record as possible. Also, he kept the show running because it was obvious we didn't have a clue. We used the studio of his choice, and old Christian broadcasting facility. We had an enourmous pipe organ at our disposal, which we fired up like a lawnmower whenever possible.
We began recording on the night John Lennon was murdered. It took about two weeks to make the record. We played the songs just as we would in a nightclub-with no alterations. The guitar solos, vocals, and pipe organ were overdubbed. Except for a few instances of meaningless tension (Bad Head), things went smoothly. The resulting
product, titled "The Deep End," sounded nothing like we thought the band sounded, but we were pleased. Leaping foward, here is the standard trajectory of a recording career:
ALBUM ONE: Sounds nothing like the band.
ALBUM TWO:More thought given to arrangements and playing in advance of the recording sessions. Still perform the basic tracks as on Album One for "the live feel" (it should be noted here that every band in the world sounds terrible live, but it's always important to get "the live feel" on tape.) Over-dub experimentation is allowed. More time and attention paid to the mix.
ALBUM THREE: Band is now ready for daring "in-the-studio" moves. Vast amounts of time and money are seemingly squandered by Zen-like producer, but with often fantastic results. Studio Burn sets in; it's like being in a submarine for sixty days.
Result A: Band makes first record "taking the listener into account."
Result B:Just when band becomes capable of making a record that sounds like itself, it makes a record that sounds nothing like the band, curiosly returning to Album One though with different consequences.
ALBUM FOUR: Since the other records have failed at the cash register, there's no budget to make another Album Three, so the strategy now is to "go for the live feel" and "get back to the roots" and try to make a more sophisticated version of Album One which never sounded "live" or even like the band in the first place, and which you only learned to make by going through the process of Albums Two and Three.
Ten years after your first record is released you'll adore it because it has "charm." Meanwhile-back then-some of your first fans will hate it because you've gotten new fans and you're no longer their little pocket-pal to rub. However, radio stations will play the album and new faces will turn up at the gig. You might get more money from
the club owner who regarded you as a joke only six months before (this is the same clodhopper who'll ask you ten years later if you've "considered doing something else?")
Some records get sold, but no one knows where the money goes so you can't pay back your friend. Your record gets to distant cities to which you begin traveling. The reporters' questions become a little more serious than "Where did the band get its name?" or "Are you New Wave?" Your personal lives become a metherworld of sex and drugs without the sex and drugs; clubs in towns that you can't find on the map rip you off; your records aren't in the stores and the ad wasn't in the paper; personnel changes occur because somebody told the bass player that the band wasn't popular anymore back home. In short, you need more money, better organization, equipment, bookings, and, above all, respect. In long, you need a bigger paddle with which to beat people who you wish would go somewhere and involuntarily explode.
Me Up." We recorded it in Florida at a small studio that had been converted from a produce market. In the New Wave strategy dominant at the time we released it on our own label, Chlorinated Records. An Atlanta entrepreneur, Danny "The Anti-Mogul" Beard, who had backed the B-52's independent hit, "Rock Lobster," helped us plug "Rat Bait" in a growing national underground rock network of retail stores, small radio stations, and alternative press. It brought us some attention outside the Southeast. An A&R representative from EMI Records, a major label, flew in to record a demo tape with the band. It was a typically pitiful though not catastrophic session. Eventually EMI rejected the group ("not focused"). Other major labels gave us the characteristic deaf
ear. Undaunted, with our more extensive recording and performing experience, we were ready to make The Album.
To make a first album requires three things besides a pile of cash: a record label, a producer, and a studio. First, I flew to Vegas with my life savings and generated a small fortune which I lost the next night in Reno. That left my family and friends. I "borrowed" about ten grand from an old pal who was heir to a supermarket chain. I was set for a return flight to the Green Felt Jungle when I was stopped by the aforementioned Anti-Mogul. He had started his own label and agreed to put out our record. The Anti-Mogul would serve as executive producer, and even vaguer concept that producer. In this case the executive producer would fetch soft drinks, tell jokes from Humpty-
Dumpty magazine, and run interference between the band and the producer.
At this point none of us was very sure what a producer actually did. We used a fellow who had done some other projects for the Anti-Mogul. He stopped by and heard the group at practice one night. Like most bands' first producer he was a glorified engineer who impressed everyone with incomprehensible gizmos and tried to keep as many overdub ideas off the record as possible. Also, he kept the show running because it was obvious we didn't have a clue. We used the studio of his choice, and old Christian broadcasting facility. We had an enourmous pipe organ at our disposal, which we fired up like a lawnmower whenever possible.
We began recording on the night John Lennon was murdered. It took about two weeks to make the record. We played the songs just as we would in a nightclub-with no alterations. The guitar solos, vocals, and pipe organ were overdubbed. Except for a few instances of meaningless tension (Bad Head), things went smoothly. The resulting
product, titled "The Deep End," sounded nothing like we thought the band sounded, but we were pleased. Leaping foward, here is the standard trajectory of a recording career:
ALBUM ONE: Sounds nothing like the band.
ALBUM TWO:More thought given to arrangements and playing in advance of the recording sessions. Still perform the basic tracks as on Album One for "the live feel" (it should be noted here that every band in the world sounds terrible live, but it's always important to get "the live feel" on tape.) Over-dub experimentation is allowed. More time and attention paid to the mix.
ALBUM THREE: Band is now ready for daring "in-the-studio" moves. Vast amounts of time and money are seemingly squandered by Zen-like producer, but with often fantastic results. Studio Burn sets in; it's like being in a submarine for sixty days.
Result A: Band makes first record "taking the listener into account."
Result B:Just when band becomes capable of making a record that sounds like itself, it makes a record that sounds nothing like the band, curiosly returning to Album One though with different consequences.
ALBUM FOUR: Since the other records have failed at the cash register, there's no budget to make another Album Three, so the strategy now is to "go for the live feel" and "get back to the roots" and try to make a more sophisticated version of Album One which never sounded "live" or even like the band in the first place, and which you only learned to make by going through the process of Albums Two and Three.
Ten years after your first record is released you'll adore it because it has "charm." Meanwhile-back then-some of your first fans will hate it because you've gotten new fans and you're no longer their little pocket-pal to rub. However, radio stations will play the album and new faces will turn up at the gig. You might get more money from
the club owner who regarded you as a joke only six months before (this is the same clodhopper who'll ask you ten years later if you've "considered doing something else?")
Some records get sold, but no one knows where the money goes so you can't pay back your friend. Your record gets to distant cities to which you begin traveling. The reporters' questions become a little more serious than "Where did the band get its name?" or "Are you New Wave?" Your personal lives become a metherworld of sex and drugs without the sex and drugs; clubs in towns that you can't find on the map rip you off; your records aren't in the stores and the ad wasn't in the paper; personnel changes occur because somebody told the bass player that the band wasn't popular anymore back home. In short, you need more money, better organization, equipment, bookings, and, above all, respect. In long, you need a bigger paddle with which to beat people who you wish would go somewhere and involuntarily explode.