TONE WORLD "NEWZ"
09/30/08
“Hopping Around With My Friends On A Misty Mountain.”
The Led Zeppelin Project.
Part Three: “Friends, Romans and Countrymen.”
3A: The Preamble.
For our second tune on this CD I wanted to do something experimental and explore a blending of Western and Eastern musical styles the way Page & Plant did on “Un-Leded”. Mark Hitt suggested we do “Friends” from “Led Zeppelin III” as the original version lent itself open to that sort of interpretation. Jimmy Page & Robert Plant did an updated version of “Friends” on “Un-Leded” as well. We were going to aim for a vast combination, of Mediterranean, Moroccan, Klemzer, Kawali and Far East influenced sounds.
3B: The Pre-Ramble.
The original plan for this song in it's earliest stages was to have Mark Hitt, Felix Hanemann and Steve “Budgie” Werner record the original acoustic guitar, keyboards and percussion parts of the song as it originally appeared on “Led Zeppelin III” and then add the other international and exotic instruments around them.
We decided to use the song's title as it's theme and invited many of our “Friends” (and family) to play on the track, and in many cases play an instrument they don't usually play. Slashtones’ bass player (and "Riot" lead vocalist) Tony Moore and his friend Rich Campbell were going to play a hand bellows pumped harmonium from India. (It needs two people to play it, one to prime and pump the bellows while the other plays the keys.) Tony's wife Anne was going to sing backing vocals. Slashtones’ saxophonist Arno Hecht was going to play the clarinet and invited his two daughters to sing backing vocals. Occasional studio guest Mac Gollehon (trumpet & trombone) was going to play the piccolo. Mark Hitt invited his friend Marianne DeAngelis to play harmonica and Budgie's son Keith Werner was going to add percussion.
Besides my planned gravel-throated lead vocals I was going to play a 3-string Japanese Shamisen I was borrowing and invited several of our friends to play including two longtime Honorary Slashtones. Gregg Gerson, (drummer for Billy Idol, Mick Jagger, Roger Daltry, Steve Stevens’ Atomic Playboys, ...), was asked to play the flute and I had spoken to Joe Lynn Turner (vocalist for Rainbow, Deep Purple, ..) about either playing the accordion or adding a second acoustic guitar.
With the help of The Slashtones original bass player, Even Steven Levee, I tracked down a friend from "back in the day", Taso Karras. Taso. known as a drummer and percussionist that’s worked with many International artists, and the bands Badlands, Law & Order, Johnny Thunders and others was asked to play the Greek bouzouki and baglama. Also through Gregg Gerson I had a contact to two violinists if we needed and another friend also knew a cello player. I’d also put the word out that I was looking for a really good banjo player or a mandolin player, and accidentally found two local Kawali musicians, that were playing at a Bangladeshi nightclub/restaurant in NY, to play sitar and tabla. There was also an open invite extended to everyone brought in to invite others which is how we ended up with two different father & son drum combos on each track. (More on that later on.) My goal was to record a version of “Friends” with about 24 or more people either playing an instrument or singing on it,.
“24 people?” “I guess I picked the wrong time to stop sniffing glue.” - Co-Producer Tarik Solongi 2006 (quoting a line from the movie “Airplane”.)
“OK, I could see how that could work, but you're not doing anything to convince me that you're not insane.” - Felix Hanemann 2006
3C: The Ramble On and on and on and on....
Due to schedule conflicts i couldn't get Mark, Felix and Budgie together at the same time so we started off the recording of this song with just Mark Hitt’s acoustic guitar played to a click track in late June of 2007. We had to because we only had a small window of opportunity to have Gregg Gerson play on the tune while he was in-between tours . (Remember, this CD was originally going to come out in September of 2007.)
Gregg Gerson was up next and added his flute tracks in early July of 2007. Flute is not normally recorded so early into a track and Gregg played several different variations of his part so that it would allow us to pick and choose the right parts after everything else was recorded From then on when I would contact the other folks that were going to play on this, all i would supply them with was what Gregg had to work with, a copy of Mark’s guitar track and a list of the other possible instruments that may be recorded on it. “Just play what you feel.” is what I’d say. A few days later I added a vocal track and recorded the 3-string Japanese Shamisen I had borrowed and played for the first time that day. That was a brutal session on the ears, but somehow Tarik and I got a usable track with that instrument. Versailles Records then moved the Led Zeppelin tribute back in their schedule to an April of ‘08 release and we took a break from working on the Led Zep stuff to record another unrelated project.
We resumed working on the Led Zep tunes in early October of 2007 when we recorded the bulk of “Misty Mountain Hop” during one evening's session (as reported). Although I’d assembled a rather eclectic list of instrument I was planning to record on “Friends”, the bass guitar wasn’t one of them. The original version didn’t have a bass track and with Felix on keys, Tony playing the harmonium, and the possible use of a cello. I didn't think we needed a bass. But the opportunity for experimentation presented itself so I invited our friend Even Steven Levee, The Slashtones’ first bass player, to come into the studio and try and find a bass line that might work.
(“When I approached this track, I really did not think about what I was going to play because I was not worried about that detail. I was worried about what it was going to sound like surrounded by a ton of other undetermined instruments which had not yet been recorded. I tried a few different basses, but once I plugged in my trusty custom built Even Steven "The Bass Master General" 5-String Fretless it was obvious, there was just no other way to go. Using the fretless opened up the opportunity to explore the use of quarter tones not normally heard in western music. The funny thing about it was hearing reports of everyone asking, “Who played the cello?”.” - Even Steven Levee)
Then we took another long break from Led Zeppelin to record two songs for a Kiss tribute CD, (The label’s first release order switch.) We made an attempt to combine sessions during that time, but massive road construction delays on the various days that Joe Lynn, Felix, Arno and Mac were coming in to record “Detroit Rock City” caused us all major delays getting to the studio and everyone’s session ended up overlapping. Working on two entirely different projects on those days was not an option. Arno did have that horn chart for “Black Mountain Side” with him at one session, but we were all too fried after a few days of 12 sessions to really get into it and stopped recording after only one or two of Arno and Mac’s projected 28 tracks. (As I said before, “This almost happened, but shouldn’t, and didn’t.”)
As previously reported on this site, the Kiss tunes turned out great. “Detroit Rock City” by The Slashtones turned out better than expected and the “live homage” of “Shock Me” by Reckless Fortune & Kiss Alive! was a show stealer. We wrapped up those sessions in early January and i had to take a couple of months off from recording to work on another unrelated project. The Led Zep tribute was now solidified in the schedule for a November 2008 release and we had plenty of time to finish “Misty Mountain Hop” and “Friends” and record “Custard Pie” by Reckless Fortune and maybe a fourth song as well.
Reckless Fortune was in a bit of turmoil back then, missing several band members that they had let go for, let’s say, “creative differences”. But just as we’d brought in ‘Kiss Alive!’ to be the backing band for Frank & Joey Fortune on “Shock Me”. Tarik and I had lined up a possible monster backing band for them on “Custard Pie” that would have included former members of Vanilla Fudge, The Firm, and Frehley’s Comet. (On past projects they ended up using members of The Slashtones to fill the player gaps, but because this was a Led Zeppelin Project we wanted to make sure both bands were looked at as entirely separate entities.) ‘Reckless Fortune’ decided that doing this project with musicians that weren’t full time band members was not in their benefit and dropped out of recording “Custard Pie”. I could understand that, but why anyone would pass up a chance to record a Led Zep tune with a few guys that played with Jimmy Page (and Jeff Beck) was beyond me so Tarik and I were still planing to record a version of “Custard Pie” with those folks. Even though Frank & Joey wouldn’t be recording their own song on this CD, I still wanted them to be a part of this project and join the small town of musicians that would be appearing on “Friends”.
The Kiss tribute came out on April 1, 2008. Yup, April Fools Day. It’s become a bit of a ritual among us since we started doing these tribute projects to call each other up the day a CD is released and congratulate or wish each other luck and what have you. (Jake calls me, I call Tarik, Tarik calls Budgie....) I also got a call from Reckless Fortune that day, but it had nothing to do with the Kiss tribute CD that was being put out on store shelves across the county even as my phone was ringing.
April 1, 2008 was also the same day that ‘Reckless Fortune’ called and told me that they had decided to go in a, let’s say, “retroactive direction” with their band’s future. (I honestly thought they were playing a huge April Fools Day joke on me, but they weren’t...) Due to let’s say “creative differences”, Frank & Joey would not be appearing on “Friends” or involved in any other future projects with the extended Slashtones, Prime Time Studios and Versailles Records families. We all wished them well on all of their future endeavors.
(I picked the wrong day to watch the season one conclusion of "Rome".)
Tarik and I spent some time in early April going over what we already had recorded for the Led Zep tracks, and then scheduled sessions with Felix, Budgie, Arno, Tony, Anne, Rich, Taso, Joe Lynn and several others during May and June to wrap up the Led Zep sessions. Then Versailles pulled another “switcharoo” on us. The Zeppelin tribute would still be coming out in November, but they moved the Guns N’ Roses tribute up to an August ‘08 release. We still recorded with Felix, Budgie, Arno and Joe Lynn, but on the GN’R song "14 Years" and not the Led Zep tunes. The GN’R tune wasn’t going to be credited as a “Slashtones” recording (even though it really was) and didn’t include Tony, Mark, or Mac. It was listed as “The Prime Time Players”, a non-band comprised of members of The Slashtones and other musicians from various other bands that are associated with Prime Time Studios in Yonkers NY.
(Tarik and I also produced an unrelated “Top Secret” song during that time that featured myself on guitars and vocals, Felix Hanemann on keyboards and vocals and Paul Heyman on vocals. But it’s “Top Secret” so I won’t say anything more about it.)
A few days after the GN’R tune was completed, a transformer fire and underground power outage in the area put the studio out of commission for almost a week. Tarik and Artie Dillon then decided to rewire and upgrade the entire studio as well, but by the time the studio was ready the following week I had gotten involved in working on a quick film project that would take up most of my time for a few more weeks.
By the time we were all able to finally resume recording the Led Zeppelin songs in early August, several things had happened that in the interim that would change the final direction of the songs. As reported, Tony Moore and his wife Anne Pierce had just moved to California. Now with the advent of digital technology it was possible for Tony to still be on this, but the harmonium he was going to play was still in NY, so that was out. Joe Lynn Turner was originally asked to play acoustic guitar or accordion on “Friends”, and while we’d already worked with Joe on two other projects this year, his schedule was now so tightly booked that he wouldn't be able to record with us again until a few weeks after the deadline, so Joe was out. Also, the two local Kawali musicians I found last year to play sitar and tabla had since been deported, (no, I’m not joking). so they were out too.
Bringing in Taso Karras was the “X-Factor” on this tune and he became a co-producer. I originally only wanted Taso to play bouzouki and baglama, but when I called him to finally schedule a session, I informed him of the instruments that would no longer be on this song. Taso told me about all the international percussion instruments he had that could replace many of the melodic instruments I could no longer use. Budgie was still going to play percussion based on John Bonham’s original and Taso (and Budgie’s son Keith) would add some stuff around him.
Then “an act of god” happened and lightning hit the building the studio was in the night before Felix and Budgie were going to come in and record. This shut the studio down for about three days without power as the Yonkers power authority once again had to fix a blown transformer. Most would freak out because we were so close to deadline, but I was no longer planning to record a small town’s worth of musicians on “Friends” and dropped doing “Custard Pie” (for now*). There was no need for drama or freak-outs, we’d be fine. The studio was back up and running and we’d work overtime to catch up.
(* We’re still planning to record some songs with that monster lineup down the road.)
But those darn schedule conflicts kicked in again and Taso would now have to be recorded before Budgie and Felix. Over the course of almost a year and a half of talking with Taso, (Scheduling his sessions and then having to cancel and reschedule. oh so many times...), he and I talked at length about Greek music. (Taso is the only other Greek musician I’ve worked with since starting The Slashtones.) We both have the utmost respect for works of the renowned Greek composer, the late Mikis Theodorakis, and a huge passion for this one particular style of Greek music, the Rembetes or Rembeticos of the 1930s, originally known as the music of the Greek underworld. Rembetico is a bit of “The Blues” with elements of what would one day become known as “psychedelic music” embodied in it.
When Taso was (finally) coming in to record his bouzouki and baglama (and “just add a little percussion”) he brought in three cases of some of the most insane sounding percussive and melodic drums we've heard and the song took another direction. We did several days worth of sessions with Taso playing every percussion instrument he had (and variations of the bouzouki and baglama tracks) to see what worked the best. At the end Taso had recorded 15 some odd tracks of what we call "Insane World Percussion" that includes African, Egyptian, Latin, Turkish, Moroccan and Greek percussion instruments along with his bouzouki and baglama tracks. “Friends” was still multicultural, but with more of a Mediterranean Rembetico sound and this huge “drum orchestra”.
Arno Hecht then came in and recorded all of his clarinet and soprano saxophone parts, dropping previous ideas in favor of the song’s new direction, and adding an Egyptian element in his playing. (Mac Gollehon’s schedule and ours didn't vibe at all at that point, so between that and the time we lost because of the power outages Mac’s planned piccolo parts on “Friends”, the trumpet & trombone tracks on “Misty Mountain Hop”, and the all horn version of “Black Mountain Side” unfortunately had to be dropped.)
At that point the sound of the Japanese Shamisen no longer blended in well with the other instruments and the percussion that were added in after it. My playing on it didn’t suck that bad, (thanks to Tarik’s creative editing), but we had recorded it very early on to just the guitar and flute tracks, prior to the song morphing into it’s Mediterranean region “Rembetico” style. The Far East sound of the instrument itself no longer worked with the other instruments so we scraped my track. (At this point I was in my full “producer mode” and not my “self absorbed band leader with a god complex mode”.) Tarik also had a banjo player lined up, but the song no longer called for use of that instrument either.
I finally got Steve “Budgie” and his son Keith Werner into the studio to record their tracks. (Budgie’s drums on “Misty Mountain Hop” were already completed.) When we listened to the percussion we already had going on in “Friends” he realized that it was good the way it was and didn’t need the original Bonham percussion added to it. Budgie chose to sit out on that tune and had Keith play percussion on “Misty Mountain Hop” instead. (“Father & Son Drum Duo # 1”) It was right after this session that I had to submit the “projected” updated and final credits for both songs to Versailles Records.
All that was left now were harmonica and keyboards. Marianne DeAngelis added some nice texture parts on the Harmonica, much in the same manner we were originally planning to use the accordion. Felix Hanemann then came in and took an interesting approach to his playing. With the way the song had evolved there was no longer a need for him to play the original keyboard parts, but rather fill in certain tones and sounds that would enhance the other instruments. Felix used natural sounding drones, organ and string patches that blended perfectly within the all acoustic multicultural sound of the song. Even’s bass was the only other instrument not recorded acoustically with a microphone, but his performance made it sound more like a cello than an electric bass.
Now aside from my own “Tom Waits meets The Cookie Monster” lead vocal track I had Charlie Sabin, Arno, Felix and few others record Gregorian style chants and backing vocals for this song. We realized that all of those voices were at times overshadowing what was going on with the instrumental backing tracks. So I scrapped all the other vocals (including my own lead) and had Charlie come back in and give us a very cool blues based solo lead vocal track which perfectly complimented all the instrumentation behind him. Arno Hecht’s two daughters, Ava and Elena, were still scheduled to come in at some point and record backing vocals, but since i had scrapped all the other chants I was going to have them just sing some very subtle harmonies behind some select parts and key lines of Charlie’s lead. And once again because of scheduling conflicts, that didn’t end up happening. (Arno’s daughters have hectic lives too. No pun intended.)
We did one more session with Taso to record an “old vinyl” sounding intro on “Friends” and he brought his seven year old son with him. At the end his son asked if he could just play to the song. We had an open track and said “Let’s record him”. The kid already has a great ear for music at his age so Taso gave him two mini shakers and put him in the overdub booth with a set of headphones “like all the other musicians”. What started as a fun thing for Taso’s son to do became a “one take keeper” track as he had better timing then some of the other bands we’ve worked with over the years. Parts of his track were kept in the final mix and seven year old “One Take ‘Niko” became the youngest musician to ever play on a Slashtones track. (“Father & Son Drum Duo # 2”)
At the end we mixed it to sound like an old 1930s live recording from the Mediterranean region that someone found and remastered. (We even added a few “dust crackles” and “pops” on some parts.) And again, what we ended up doing with the song was slightly different than the track credits i had already submitted to Versailles Records,
The correct track listing is:
Mark Hitt: Guitar, Felix Hanemann: Keyboards, Arno Hecht: Soprano Saxophone & Clarinet, Even Steven Levee: Fretless Bass, Gregg Gerson: Flute, Charlie Sabin: Vocals, Marianne DeAngelis: Harmonica, Taso Karras: Bouzouki, Baglama & Insane World Percussion, "One Take ‘Niko”: Mini Shakers.
And there you have it. The irony is that what may possibly be the final mix of the last song ever recorded by a band called “The Slashtones” doesn't even have a single track on it performed by band leader Harry Slash. I kinda like that.
Regards,
Harry Slash
Next in “Coda”, some final thoughts, useless facts, trivia, instrument lists, ECW comparisons, and a personal look back at the last few years and the folks that have come and gone through the doors of ‘Slashland’.
PART I: “An Epic Tale. Two Years In The Making!”
PART II: “Happenings Ten Months Time Ago.”
PART III: “Friends, Romans and Countrymen.”
PART IV: “Coda.” (forthcoming)
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