Remixing Family Man Comment

michelej1 · #1 03-15-2011, 09:33 PM

[This is an excerpt from a January 1988 Remixing article in Q by Phil Sutcliffe]

Arthur Baker and Shep Pettibone, two of the top half dozen remixers in the world, would certainly not want to have anyone like Badarou around while practising their craft — and maybe interfering with his.

Rule number one for both of them is Keep The Artist Out. Pettibone takes a particularly fierce stand on this. Since he broke through with his work for Pet Shop Boys and Level 42 in '86, he has scratched and spliced for a roster including Whitney Houston, Madonna, Pointer Sisters, Lionel Richie, George Michael and New Order. The only people who, at first, refused to steer clear were Huey Lewis and Diana Ross. Lewis he persuaded and with Ross, he says, "I lucked out. She got pregnant."

Baker has the same instincts, but hangs a little looser. "Usually the artist being there makes me feel uptight; it's too personal for them," he says, and goes on to a few anecdotes that mostly prove his point. "Bruce [Springsteen] was there when we did overdubs for Dancing In The Dark. We had a lot of fun and after that he trusted me to do the other tracks on my own. Dylan — he was around one time. He got a little antsy. I told him he wouldn't have liked it if someone had been looking over his shoulder when he wrote ‘Like A Rolling Stone’. I said, Bob, why don't you go see a movie?

"Jagger, he was the one that bummed me out the most. I remixed ‘Just Another Night’, I think it was called. I could have changed his whole career! I gave it a Keith Diamond-Billy Ocean contemporary sound with horns, strings, and backing vocals. He'd been in Peru or wherever. He got back and said, I hope you didn't add horns, strings, and backing vocals. Rejected the record.

"Lately I remixed ‘Family Man’ for Fleetwood Mac. Now Lindsey Buckingham really doesn't understand what makes a record danceable. I featured Stevie Nicks much more than he had. He didn't like that. Well, I always tell people before we start, Anything you don't want used, erase it. I changed the bass line too and he said, You've created a different tension to the chord. I said, But Lindsey, does it groove?"
Baker speaks generously of other producers, especially Pettibone, his former apprentice, who he now describes as "the best. He's the most consistent. I'm pretty erratic. Probably lose a lot of gigs because of it, though when I get a record that really inspires me I do a great job."

Unaware of the compliment, Pettibone too presents an image of cheery freemasonry at the console. "There isn't room for ego. I never have trouble with the producers of the records I work on. I'm starting to do original production myself and I have no problems with someone else remixing my stuff."

TrueFaith77 · #2 03-16-2011, 04:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michelej1

[This is an excerpt from a January 1988 Remixing article in Q by Phil Sutcliffe]

"Lately I remixed ‘Family Man’ for Fleetwood Mac. Now Lindsey Buckingham really doesn't understand what makes a record danceable. I featured Stevie Nicks much more than he had. He didn't like that. Well, I always tell people before we start, Anything you don't want used, erase it. I changed the bass line too and he said, You've created a different tension to the chord. I said, But Lindsey, does it groove?"
Baker speaks generously of other producers, especially Pettibone, his former apprentice, who he now describes as "the best. He's the most consistent. I'm pretty erratic. Probably lose a lot of gigs because of it, though when I get a record that really inspires me I do a great job."

I wonder which remix that was--the ext guitar mix that I used for Book of Miracles? And lol poor Lindsey. He's a genius, but he really doesn't get groove too much. And remember that interview in the 70s when he poo-poo'd disco as being fun but not art.

shackin'up · #3 03-16-2011, 06:47 AM

Hmm, I think the album Go Insane has some great grooves, rythms and danceable beats.

TrueFaith77 · #4 03-16-2011, 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shackin'up

Hmm, I think the album Go Insane has some great grooves, rythms and danceable beats.

I am no music expert, but I disagree. Lindsey can do rhythm and beats and he works them to elicit a dance response with Go Insane, but there's no groove. It's Lindsey's response to New Wave and Thriller, but it's not disco or funk.

RickRobert · #5 03-16-2011, 12:03 PM

Tusk is a great groove. Though I wouldn't say the beats/grooves on Go Insane are that good either. Loving Cup had a cool groove and some parts of Play In The Rain too, though they would've benefited from backing some stronger material.

michelej1 · #6 03-16-2011, 12:26 PM

And in more recent years, I don't know if Lindsey arranged the version of World Turning that they've been using live that's got a beat, as does EFO.

Michele

shackin'up · #7 03-16-2011, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TrueFaith77

I am no music expert, but I disagree. Lindsey can do rhythm and beats and he works them to elicit a dance response with Go Insane, but there's no groove. It's Lindsey's response to New Wave and Thriller, but it's not disco or funk.

OK, but I say groove can be more than disco and funk. The comment was about that he doesn't know what makes music danceable. I say that especially I Must Go, Slow Dancing and Loving Cup are highly danceable. And to me that's not only made by a disco or funkbeat/groove.

TrueFaith77 · #8 03-16-2011, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shackin'up

OK, but I say groove can be more than disco and funk. The comment was about that he doesn't know what makes music danceable. I say that especially I Must Go, Slow Dancing and Loving Cup are highly danceable. And to me that's not only made by a disco or funkbeat/groove.

The comment was, "But Lindsey, does it groove?"

And I certainly was not limiting the "groove" to disco or funk, though they are certainly styles that can readily illustrate the concept of "groove"--especially as disco/funk-based music was the kind to which he was responding with the Go Insane album, to which I was referring.

I think those songs are highly danceable too, despite not having much of a groove. That's partly Lindsey's limitation that he doesn't construct songs with groove in ear-or-mind, but he compensates by being a master of assembling rhythms and beats for all kinds of affects, not least of which is to move. Just not, to my ears or feet, to groove.

But again, look @ the Lindsey and Baker discussion. Baker changed the dynamic between the bass line and the lead guitar in order to achieve a "groove." I don't understand what exactly that means, cuz I'm no music expert, but I can hear what he, who does know music, means when I listen to the remix of Family Man compared to the original. I hear the difference--and the difference is the groove.

ETA: I wonder what Lindsey's response was.

Cammie · #9 03-17-2011, 12:25 AM

Well...now...Groovey to you Phil!
I like it as Lindsey intended it to be !!!
Family Man is his tune and it's my fav!

michelej1 · #10 05-02-2011, 12:36 PM

Liked this comment from Stevie's Newsweek interview regarding TITN:

"Klonopin is in the Valium family, but Valium is fuzzy and Klonopin is insidious because it’s so subtle that you can hardly tell you took it. I got through 1986 and 1987. Thank God I’d already written the words for my record The Other Side of the Mirror. But what started happening was that if I didn’t take it, my hands started to shake. I felt like I had a neurological disease or Parkinson’s. I started not being able to get to Lindsey Buckingham’s house on time, and I would get there and everybody was drinking, so I’d have a glass of wine. Don’t mix tranquilizers and wine. Then I’d sing horrific parts on his songs, and he would take the parts off. I was hardly on Tango of the Night, which I happen to love."