Early in the spring of 2000, David and I got together to do some planning. First on the agenda was the Glastonbury festival, which David would be headlining. This would entail rehearsing and doing three warm-up gigs at Roseland in New York City, as well as a couple of other appearances in London. Second was defining the concept for the album which would become 'Toy': remaking and updating several songs David wrote in the mid 1960's prior to his success with 'Space Oddity' in 1969. David got the idea for this project from performing 'Can't Help Thinking About Me' on the '99 'hours.....' promo tour. These early songs were done over a period of three or so years, and were done with different producers in various recording studios, often with radically different approaches. So, the original versions all sounded quite ..... different (!) from one another. Using the same band and studio would provide a common thread for these songs, so we decided to continue with most of the personnel from the 'hours....' tour - Sterling Campbell (Drums), Gail Ann Dorsey (Bass), Mike Garson (Piano & Keys), Holly Palmer (Backing Vocals), Emm Gryner (Backing Vocals), and myself (Rhythm Guitar and Musical Director). We were quite tight by the time we played in Copenhagen in December '99, and David and I both liked the feeling of this particular unit. The only change would be the addition of Earl Slick. Slick was David's lead guitarist in the mid 70's (the 'Diamond Dogs' tour, 'Young Americans' and 'Station to Station' albums) and 80's (the Serious Moonlight tour), so he was an instant fit both musically and personally. We would rehearse for both the shows and the record at the same time, then head straight into the studio in New York after we returned from the British gigs and track the record as quickly as possible, with minimal after-the-fact tinkering. I thought this was a great approach, and something I considered to be very 'old school.' The piecemeal process of making records I'd experienced with many artists and producers during the past decade - writing from scratch in the studio, then layering each part individually, with a song taking on radically different shapes along the way - had pretty much become the norm over the course of my career up to that point. So, I was psyched. It was also exciting for me as this would be the first time I'd be fully sharing production with David.
*****
It didn't take long to rehearse the tour material. Songs we'd never played together as a band came together in a flash, like we'd known them for years. Tunes like 'Station to Station,' 'Stay,' 'Cracked Actor,' 'Ziggy Stardust,' 'I'm Afraid of Americans', and 'Heroes' just seemed to explode, so much so that at times I couldn't believe I was participating in it. It was unreal how quickly we tackled a complex epic like 'Station to Station.' Earl Slick helped make the 'Station to Station' era songs come to life, of course. Those are some of my favorite DB tracks, so it was a real thrill to be able to play them - especially with two of the guys who made them. (For the record, 'Station' is my favorite Bowie album, followed closely by 'Aladdin Sane' .... followed by 'Earthling'!). We expanded the duties of most band members, giving everyone extra work to do. Emm added some extra keys and sampling; Holly played bongos and percussion; Gail and I swapped instruments on a few more songs, and she tackled the 12 string acoustic; Slick played 12 string as well; Mike had some new keyboards and a lot of new sounds; I added backing vocals on a few songs; on 'London Boys', Emm and Gail would play clarinet; and, David had a lot of lyrics to memorize - we were doing a long show, and he hadn't performed some of these songs in a while.
We'd rehearse for 5 to 6 hours a day, honing our parts and sounds. Some interesting things happened along the way. 'Golden Years' became a duet between David and Gail. 'Let's Dance' got an acoustic intro. 'Fame' became a hybrid between the original and the version from the 'Earthling' tour. 'This Is Not America' got funky, and 'Absolute Beginners' got backbone. Speaking of bones ..... I had an additional complication. I'd fractured both of my forearms in a serious bicycle accident on May 10th. I was due to begin mapping out the 'Toy' songs with David and Gail on May 24th, which gave me exactly two weeks to recuperate enough to be able to play. It was tricky, but with an accelerated schedule of physical therapy (and let's face it, a lot of luck) I was able to do it ... barely.
We kept recording our run-throughs, checking our progress. Most of the '60's album' (as 'Toy' was referred to then) was taking shape, as we'd work up a different song each day. We weren't out to duplicate the original tracks at all ..... in fact, we wanted everyone to bring their natural musical sensibility to the party. We all got more psyched about the gigs, and the record, after each rehearsal.
*****
Our first show was on June 16th at Roseland in New York City. It was a real treat to do shows like these in my hometown - I even went to the gig on the subway (I would have ridden the bike, but Slick vowed to kill me if I did so before we finished our gigs). This first night was incredible - the band was supercharged, the audience was psyched, and the moon was full. Whatever the reason, this show really kicked from the opening notes of 'Wild is the Wind' - a song which had never been performed live before - to the encores, which included surprises such as 'Ziggy Stardust.' There were a number of other tunes that hadn't been played live in quite some time, such as 'Golden Years,' 'This Is Not America,' 'Let's Dance,' 'Starman,' and the epic (and personal favorite) 'Station to Station,' all of which threw the audience for a loop. From the stage you could see the look of surprise sweep across the crowd as we'd launch into a song, and of course we'd all feed off of that energy onstage. It was such a privilege to be performing these songs, many of which are significant for me, with this group of people. On this night at Roseland I couldn't imagine being anywhere else. I kept looking at Slick with a big, sappy grin on my face .... I'd steal glances at Garson, who would be completely lost in his own musical trip .... and, I'd occasionally wander over to Gail's side of the stage to hang with her and Sterling.
We played for ages that night, and we were all completely drained but emotionally at a fever pitch once we were done. Unfortunately .... David put so much of himself into that performance that the following morning he couldn't speak! As a result, Saturday night's gig had to be canceled. The high from the previous night took a bit of a turn south. After the cancellation was announced a few of the band combed the sidewalk outside of Roseland looking for friends and family we'd invited to the gig, and the fans confronted us. Some reactions were extreme. One girl was tearful - she'd come from upstate to see this show, and couldn't come back for the Monday gig as she had exams. Others were angry, demanding information about what had 'really' happened, thinking we were hiding some secret reason for the cancellation! For the most part though, people were sad about David's laryngitis and wished him well. My own family had shown up en masse - my daughter's teachers as well, long time fans, were thrilled to go to a Bowie show - so we retired to an Italian restaurant around the corner where I saw fans linger for a few hours, perhaps in the hope that the cancellation was some sort of elaborate ruse which would soon be shattered by the arrival of DB, and the faithful would be rewarded for the wait. Or, perhaps they just didn't know what to do with themselves. Neither did I.
The Monday night show (June 19th) went off as planned. This show was primarily for BowieNet members, and they were a truly appreciative audience. Though not as exciting as the Friday show (I suspect nothing could be...though that's only my opinion) it was still a great gig. We played a couple of songs which would end up on 'Toy' - 'London Boys' and 'Dig Everything,' both of which seemed to be well received. I spied my daughter dancing next to Iman, which struck me as rather surreal. And yes..... I got the teachers into the Monday show.
The next day we were off to London to settle in for a few gigs, among them the television program 'TFI Friday,' the Glastonbury festival, and the BBC Radio Theatre (the BBC gig would be recorded, I'd end up mixing it after we completed the basic tracking for 'Toy'). We'd been though the drill on TFI last fall, so we knew the routine - rehearse, coffee, dress rehearse, coffee, makeup, icky dressing room sandwiches, walk across the road, showtime. We needed to trim down the chosen tunes - ' Wild Is The Wind' and 'Starman' - to a more TV-friendly duration, such as three and a half minutes. This was a bit tricky for 'Wild Is The Wind,' a song that clocks in at 6 minutes ...... but a little musical butchery can go a long way. Again, our front of house mixer (for these gigs it was Steve Guest) and I would help the guys in the truck get through the mix in rehearsal and then hope for the best when the time came. Such is the case with live TV - no after-the-fact fix-ups! David was in fine voice for these gigs, his laryngitis a memory by now.
The bus trip to the Glastonbury festival provided an opportunity for some of us to get ill. The trip from London to Glastonbury took between three and four hours, and a bus with poor ventilation provided a great opportunity for nasty germs and viruses to find willing and able hosts. David, Emm and I all came down with 'Glasto Bus Disorder,' a nasty sort of upper respiratory infection which laid us out for days afterward. Still, Glastonbury itself was pretty cool. I'd never played - or even been to - a festival of this size before. The biggest one I'd been to previously was Lollapalooza, which didn't come close to this. It was a small city. We got there late in the afternoon, so we had a lot of time to walk around. We watched Willie Nelson on the main stage (that made Gail's day) and the Dandy Warhols on the smaller stage (it was still gargantuan). We ran into old friends and made new ones backstage, as well as in the massive catering area. There were booths with everything imaginable for sale. We shared a backstage area with the Happy Mondays, who provided some interesting moments as they fell about the grass.
Still, after doing Wembley Stadium with David for Net Aid, a show of this size didn't seem like completely new turf. Wembley was truly intense for me as it was the first time I'd ever played in front of a crowd numbering in the tens of thousands. In all honesty, I was pretty freaked. I wasn't particularly nervous about that aspect of things this time around, though I was certainly itching to play. Slick and Garson were also champing at the bit. By the time showtime came around (10:30) we were all jumpy with anticipation. The gig was fantastic, and we really played great. David had the crowd roped in from song number one - once again, it was 'Wild Is The Wind.' Only a small handful of artists could pull off a ballad as a set opener at a huge outdoor festival, but of course that wasn't a question for DB. It was an amazing sight as this entire mini-city of people began to jump up and down to 'Rebel Rebel' and sing along with 'Life on Mars'. I made sure to keep one of my in-ear monitors out so I could take it all in. By this gig Slick was right back in there and up to all of his old tricks, roaming his part of the huge stage. I just stood there for the most part in awe of both him and David, amazed that I was sharing a stage with these two legendary musical figures. Make that three, actually - I had Mike Garson right behind me, as always pulling out all sorts of goodies from his bag of twisted musical tricks. It would hit me occasionally that I was 'triangled' in by these three guys - and at the same time, legends - from the Diamond Dogs tour. As usual, I'd look to my left and see the ever-beautiful, dignified, funky, and barefoot Ms. Dorsey doing her thing, and feel right at home. I couldn't imagine being in this group without her; she's the most understated anchor around.
We then had a day to rest, and on Tuesday we played our last show together at the BBC Radio Theater. We went from the massive scale of the festival to the completely intimate. All I can compare it to would be a high school auditorium - it was tiny, and the audience was about three feet away from us. I never got that 'tuned' into this show - perhaps it was the Glasto illness creeping in, or the carpeting on the stage which inhibited movement a bit (I kept thinking I was going to trip). I could tell Emm was sick, and DB too - we had to stop and start again on a couple of songs. After it was over I thought that we did very well, but at the time it didn't seem like anything special - certainly not as exciting a show as Glastonbury or the Roseland gigs - which probably had more to do with my being sick than anything else. Besides, I was shown to be quite wrong later on when I saw and heard the playback of this show..... and realized how tight and musically in sync this group was.
*****
We returned to New York, and we all went our separate ways for a week or so. In early July we reconvened - Sterling, Gail, Slick, Garson David and I set up in Studio C at Sear Sound, a lovely space on 48th Street in Manhattan. It has windows and enough isolation for everyone. I decided to forego tape and go straight into the computer using Logic Audio, my program of choice for the past five years. It was the first time I'd try this in a full live band situation for an entire album. I'd done it piecemeal before, or only for a couple of songs, so I wasn't sure if my rig would be able to deal (it did) or if I'd have enough memory (I didn't). As far as editing together different sections of different takes, it was unbeatable. Slick tagged me with the name 'Gameboy' as I'd sit in front of the computer chopping things up, which is quite ironic as the last video game I probably ever played was Ms. Pacman around 1984. In the end, we ended up tracking thirteen songs in a little over a week.
I decided to forego engineering this time, as producing, playing guitar, running the computer and engineering would have been made any sense of objectivity on my part impossible. I brought in Pete Keppler, an engineer in New York who works with the Eels among others, to do the basic tracking. It was quite a luxury for me to say the least. Pete and I share a basic sonic sensibility, so I rarely had to tell him anything. Still, it took some getting used to as I had to put a lot of trust in someone else and give up a degree of control. In the end, it was effortless - so much so that we've gone on to repeat the experience on other projects.
David had a ball. The rapid pace, the energy of the entire band playing all together, and the immediacy of fully realized playbacks all seemed to fire him up, more than I'd seen him at any point in the studio since the initial 'Earthling' sessions in August '96. The way we were tracking, he'd sing on the first take of the song and be able to overdub himself on the bands' second take. If we needed a third take, he'd add a third harmony or double. So.... on a number of songs, his final vocals would be finished by the time the band had gotten it right! He'd emerge from the vocal booth, big Cheshire grin on his face, and say something like 'well, I guess that does it for me!'
Once the basic tracks were done, we worked on each song individually. The atmosphere was loose and everyone felt free to try whatever they wanted, in addition to what needed to be done. Slick and I added acoustic guitars, and then Slick added lead lines; Mike Garson added some keyboard textures; Gail and Emm played their clarinet parts on 'London Boys'. Tony Visconti wrapped up this cycle of sessions with a couple of wonderful string arrangements and 14 top notch NYC players, whom he conducted on the final day of tracking at Sear. We then took a break from these initial tracking sessions as David and Iman were expecting the birth of their daughter Alexandria in a matter of weeks. At that point I mixed the BBC Theatre gig, jumped into another project, and then took a break myself.
*****
In August 2000 I happened to catch the Eels at the Bowery Ballroom. Pete Keppler is also the Eels live sound engineer, so he clued me in to the gig as he knew I was a fan of the band. I'd heard that they'd expanded the lineup for this tour, and one of the new additions was multi-instrumentalist Lisa Germano. She was enlisted to provide violin, recorder, keyboards, mandolin, guitar, as well as background vocals. After listening to a few songs, and being familiar with some of Lisa's solo records and her work with other artists (John Mellencamp and Sheryl Crow among them) I knew I needed to have her play on 'Toy' - her vibe would be just perfect for us. I pitched my idea to David, as well as got Lisa to send him some of her solo CD's. After a week or so, we decided to go for it.
The next question was where. I figured I'd try to do the Lisa sessions in my home studio as I'd been working there with a number of people who all seemed to enjoy it. Lisa was comfortable with this idea, preferring my house to a commercial studio (she'd done a number of her own records at home). Travel plans were coordinated and I prepared the studio for the session in late September - which consisted of buying coffee and tidying up. We figured that two days would be plenty. At first it seemed odd having such high profile folks sitting on my goofy Ikea couch, playing with my daughters' toys and combing through my fridge for milk. David poked fun at the seashells I use for ashtrays. We settled in, I put on the kettle, and we zipped through a number of songs that first day. Lisa really took to the material, putting down all sorts of parts on an arsenal of eccentric instruments including an electric violin tuned one octave lower than usual, a 1920's Gibson mandolin, and an old, tiny tortoise shell blue-green Hohner accordion with straps so old and tired we had to beg them to stay together (assisted by duct tape) for the duration of a song.
David was completely into these sessions, having just as much fun as he did in July if not more. He'd not done any work on the album since late July, nor listened to it much. He seemed just plain READY to work, and he was thrilled with how great and fresh the songs sounded. It was a lot of fun, and very exciting - David kept pulling ideas out of the air for Lisa to play, and it was great to see how well they got on and how in sync they were from the first few minutes. For me as a record producer, Lisa could be one of my more inspired choices as far as an outside musician I've brought in to work on a project: it worked out much better than I could have imagined (I figured it'd work, but not THIS well) as her playing - especially violin - was simply magical and made some of the songs truly complete. It was as if she was a part of the band from the conception of the record, and not overdubbed afterwards.
We went out for lunch and had a good walk around the neighborhood as well. Neither of them are regulars in the East Village so they were quite surprised and impressed by the not-so-recent transformation of the neighborhood - I think both of them still had the late '80's vision of it as junkie/anarchist hell - and the good weather and the nice Italian cafe next door certainly didn't hurt.
We soon returned to the Looking Glass Studios to record backing vocals with Holly and Emm, touch up a few things, and cut some new songs. During the break, David decided that a couple of new songs should be included on 'Toy.' Once we got settled into Looking Glass and started listening to playbacks, I made the decision to mix the album there as well. Looking Glass doesn't have what I usually want in a full-blown mix room - they have a smaller & older SSL console, and no large monitors - but I found the tracks to be so alive that we figured I should just go with it, as it would definitely sound different on another desk. So, I took some rough mixes over to Sterling Sound to see how well they translated. I learned from that experience that the finished mixes would need a good mastering to get them up to snuff. But .... the vibe was there and we all really enjoyed the Looking Glass, so it seemed like the thing to do. I also learned a lot on the BBC project - the mixes on that came out amazing, and I was cranking out two songs a day - so I figured I'd go for that same approach on this project. 'Toy' was recorded really well, which was another big plus. Many thanks go to Pete Keppler for engineering the basic tracks, and to Sear Sound for having fantastic gear and a great working atmosphere.
The band for the new songs was a scaled down version of the 'Toy' band - Sterling Campbell on drums, David on stylophone and keyboards, and myself on guitars and bass (essentially, the folks who live in NYC). The first thing we tried was a version of 'Pictures of Lily' for a Who tribute record, an idea which had been kicking around for a few months. David's concept was to do this song half time, there wasn't any point in trying to ape the Who version. We did the entire thing in an afternoon, complete with stylophone solo and football hooligan chanting courtesy of the three of us (through the magic of overdubbing, it was around 30 of us in the end).
At the same time a guitarist friend of mine, Gerry Leonard, was working with Pete Keppler in Looking Glass' Studio B. Gerry has a very singular voice as a guitarist - an atmospheric, ambient yet melodic and focused sound, filtered through his rather whimsical Irish sense of humor. In addition to playing and touring with a number of recording artists (Duncan Sheik and Suzanne Vega among them) he performs solo under the name of Spookyghost, where he'll gets a few parts going through the courtesy of a battery of pedals and assorted what-not. I thought he'd be perfect on one of the songs, so I asked him to work on it on some downtime from his other session. He gave me around eight tracks of assorted noises, doodling, loops, and melodies dripping with echo and the like. David liked what he heard, and called in Gerry to add his thing to several of the other songs.
Each of them seemed to have an interesting beginning. 'Uncle Floyd' was a moody track which began its life with a semi out-of-tune piano and some grainy synth strings which sounded like they were pulled off of an old 78 RPM record. Both sounds gave the effect of someone playing in a basement of some small, sad, lonely house. This really came to life with the addition of the Gerry Leonard's guitar and Lisa Germano's violin (she returned to NYC for another round of overdubbing on the new songs).
David had been reading Andrew Loog Oldham's book around this time, where Oldham described locking up Mick Jagger and Keith Richard in a flat and not allowing them out until they came up with new songs. We decided to try this approach, and so I sent David off to the Looking Glass lounge and told him not to come back until he had the goods! It was all quite funny really, except that David really DID come up with the goods in the form of a song called 'Afraid,' which came into being courtesy of my mini Stratocaster.
Once the drums on the new songs were complete, we returned to my studio to do overdubs with Gerry and Lisa. The neighbors and the Italian cafe seemed to be glad to have us back. Gerry and David immediately bonded over the old electric meters they used to have in homes in the UK - evidently, you had to keep filling the meter with coins or your electricity would go off! If you ran out of change, tough luck - no lights, no fridge, no nuthin'.... very funny. This led us off on a number of ridiculous tangents, of course. While working at my place David also added a few vocals, some stylophone stylings, and a couple of last minute arrangement nips and tucks.
Towards the end of October 2000, all was ready to mix. We set up shop back at Looking Glass for an 11 day spree in which time I'd attempt to mix as many songs as possible, with the more than capable help of my assistant Hector Castillo, who always seemed to be one step ahead of me. Hector proved invaluable during our time at the Looking Glass, and has since gone on to engineer for David on various bits and pieces, as well as helping me keep my own studio running smooth.
We had 16 or so tracks to choose from, and it was our aim to finish what we hoped would be 12 songs intended for the album. The remaining songs would be mixed in the next available window of studio time and used as bonus tracks/B sides/etc. In the end, we mixed 14 tracks. So, which 12 would be on the album? Always a tough choice, so DB will mull that one over before we need to commit. On 'Earthling,' we changed the order a few times, and at the last minute an intended B-side, 'The Last Thing You Should Do,' ended up on the album. So.... who knows?
We began the mixdown with 'London Boys', as it was quite familiar and also fairly simple as far as arrangement and instrumentation go. Surprisingly, it was a quickie done in about 4 hours or so. This was odd because the first mix usually isn't a quickie - it takes some time to plug things in and get acclimated. This set the template for the process: get sounds together, set up a decent rough mix, then STOP - don't go too nuts trying to tweak it out, other than making sure key parts were prominent. Finally, add a couple of effects here and there but for the most part use the natural ambience of Sear Sound and leave it at that. When you sit in front of a pair of speakers for hours on end, you can lose objectivity and get lost in the minutiae of all the individual tracks, so it was important to take breaks. I got around this a bit by premixing the drums in the computer so that only 4 faders on the desk were taken up with drums. This was visually important as well, as the kit became just another instrument instead of taking up a bank of faders on the desk, and I didn't spend an inordinate amount of time on them.
We timed it so that DB would show up and offer a clear point of view and an objective ear to the proceedings when I was around 90% finished with a mix. He'd always have one or two major comments before we'd commit. In typical style, he'd pluck something out of the air that had gone completely over my head.
We had a bit of company dropping in during these sessions. Sterling Campbell was around for many of them, offering moral support and watching the mixing process; Emm Gryner dropped in on the way to see Ron Sexsmith at the Knitting Factory; Holly Palmer turned up from L.A., where she'd recently relocated; Eric Jaimes from Ultrastar filmed us playing 'Afraid' for a BowieNet 'crummie'; Coco would stop in daily. By this point everyone was really in love with 'Uncle Floyd,' so we knew it had to be on the record. We followed the example of 'Afraid' from the previous week, and David went off on his own to complete the lyric while I started mixing the track. By the time I had a decent rough mix, he was finished. In typical style, he sang around 95% of it in the first take - it gave Hector and I the chills. It was intense, a feeling not at all hindered by the haunting violin from Lisa and the many spooky-isms from Gerry. It's ended up being a favorite of anyone who's heard it so far. For the outro, we employed a chorus of people rounded up on the spot - Sterling and Holly Palmer, Coco, Sean McCaul of the Looking Glass staff (and an amazing talent on the vibes), and a band called Stretch Princess who happened to be recording in Studio B with Pete Keppler. Whoever was in the building with vocal cords got hauled in.
I'm really proud of 'Toy.' Going through this process with David was a great experience, and I felt like we pulled off what we'd set out to do - capture a band playing these great songs with passion, spirit and immediacy.
*****
It didn't take long to rehearse the tour material. Songs we'd never played together as a band came together in a flash, like we'd known them for years. Tunes like 'Station to Station,' 'Stay,' 'Cracked Actor,' 'Ziggy Stardust,' 'I'm Afraid of Americans', and 'Heroes' just seemed to explode, so much so that at times I couldn't believe I was participating in it. It was unreal how quickly we tackled a complex epic like 'Station to Station.' Earl Slick helped make the 'Station to Station' era songs come to life, of course. Those are some of my favorite DB tracks, so it was a real thrill to be able to play them - especially with two of the guys who made them. (For the record, 'Station' is my favorite Bowie album, followed closely by 'Aladdin Sane' .... followed by 'Earthling'!). We expanded the duties of most band members, giving everyone extra work to do. Emm added some extra keys and sampling; Holly played bongos and percussion; Gail and I swapped instruments on a few more songs, and she tackled the 12 string acoustic; Slick played 12 string as well; Mike had some new keyboards and a lot of new sounds; I added backing vocals on a few songs; on 'London Boys', Emm and Gail would play clarinet; and, David had a lot of lyrics to memorize - we were doing a long show, and he hadn't performed some of these songs in a while.
We'd rehearse for 5 to 6 hours a day, honing our parts and sounds. Some interesting things happened along the way. 'Golden Years' became a duet between David and Gail. 'Let's Dance' got an acoustic intro. 'Fame' became a hybrid between the original and the version from the 'Earthling' tour. 'This Is Not America' got funky, and 'Absolute Beginners' got backbone. Speaking of bones ..... I had an additional complication. I'd fractured both of my forearms in a serious bicycle accident on May 10th. I was due to begin mapping out the 'Toy' songs with David and Gail on May 24th, which gave me exactly two weeks to recuperate enough to be able to play. It was tricky, but with an accelerated schedule of physical therapy (and let's face it, a lot of luck) I was able to do it ... barely.
We kept recording our run-throughs, checking our progress. Most of the '60's album' (as 'Toy' was referred to then) was taking shape, as we'd work up a different song each day. We weren't out to duplicate the original tracks at all ..... in fact, we wanted everyone to bring their natural musical sensibility to the party. We all got more psyched about the gigs, and the record, after each rehearsal.
*****
Our first show was on June 16th at Roseland in New York City. It was a real treat to do shows like these in my hometown - I even went to the gig on the subway (I would have ridden the bike, but Slick vowed to kill me if I did so before we finished our gigs). This first night was incredible - the band was supercharged, the audience was psyched, and the moon was full. Whatever the reason, this show really kicked from the opening notes of 'Wild is the Wind' - a song which had never been performed live before - to the encores, which included surprises such as 'Ziggy Stardust.' There were a number of other tunes that hadn't been played live in quite some time, such as 'Golden Years,' 'This Is Not America,' 'Let's Dance,' 'Starman,' and the epic (and personal favorite) 'Station to Station,' all of which threw the audience for a loop. From the stage you could see the look of surprise sweep across the crowd as we'd launch into a song, and of course we'd all feed off of that energy onstage. It was such a privilege to be performing these songs, many of which are significant for me, with this group of people. On this night at Roseland I couldn't imagine being anywhere else. I kept looking at Slick with a big, sappy grin on my face .... I'd steal glances at Garson, who would be completely lost in his own musical trip .... and, I'd occasionally wander over to Gail's side of the stage to hang with her and Sterling.
We played for ages that night, and we were all completely drained but emotionally at a fever pitch once we were done. Unfortunately .... David put so much of himself into that performance that the following morning he couldn't speak! As a result, Saturday night's gig had to be canceled. The high from the previous night took a bit of a turn south. After the cancellation was announced a few of the band combed the sidewalk outside of Roseland looking for friends and family we'd invited to the gig, and the fans confronted us. Some reactions were extreme. One girl was tearful - she'd come from upstate to see this show, and couldn't come back for the Monday gig as she had exams. Others were angry, demanding information about what had 'really' happened, thinking we were hiding some secret reason for the cancellation! For the most part though, people were sad about David's laryngitis and wished him well. My own family had shown up en masse - my daughter's teachers as well, long time fans, were thrilled to go to a Bowie show - so we retired to an Italian restaurant around the corner where I saw fans linger for a few hours, perhaps in the hope that the cancellation was some sort of elaborate ruse which would soon be shattered by the arrival of DB, and the faithful would be rewarded for the wait. Or, perhaps they just didn't know what to do with themselves. Neither did I.
The Monday night show (June 19th) went off as planned. This show was primarily for BowieNet members, and they were a truly appreciative audience. Though not as exciting as the Friday show (I suspect nothing could be...though that's only my opinion) it was still a great gig. We played a couple of songs which would end up on 'Toy' - 'London Boys' and 'Dig Everything,' both of which seemed to be well received. I spied my daughter dancing next to Iman, which struck me as rather surreal. And yes..... I got the teachers into the Monday show.
The next day we were off to London to settle in for a few gigs, among them the television program 'TFI Friday,' the Glastonbury festival, and the BBC Radio Theatre (the BBC gig would be recorded, I'd end up mixing it after we completed the basic tracking for 'Toy'). We'd been though the drill on TFI last fall, so we knew the routine - rehearse, coffee, dress rehearse, coffee, makeup, icky dressing room sandwiches, walk across the road, showtime. We needed to trim down the chosen tunes - ' Wild Is The Wind' and 'Starman' - to a more TV-friendly duration, such as three and a half minutes. This was a bit tricky for 'Wild Is The Wind,' a song that clocks in at 6 minutes ...... but a little musical butchery can go a long way. Again, our front of house mixer (for these gigs it was Steve Guest) and I would help the guys in the truck get through the mix in rehearsal and then hope for the best when the time came. Such is the case with live TV - no after-the-fact fix-ups! David was in fine voice for these gigs, his laryngitis a memory by now.
The bus trip to the Glastonbury festival provided an opportunity for some of us to get ill. The trip from London to Glastonbury took between three and four hours, and a bus with poor ventilation provided a great opportunity for nasty germs and viruses to find willing and able hosts. David, Emm and I all came down with 'Glasto Bus Disorder,' a nasty sort of upper respiratory infection which laid us out for days afterward. Still, Glastonbury itself was pretty cool. I'd never played - or even been to - a festival of this size before. The biggest one I'd been to previously was Lollapalooza, which didn't come close to this. It was a small city. We got there late in the afternoon, so we had a lot of time to walk around. We watched Willie Nelson on the main stage (that made Gail's day) and the Dandy Warhols on the smaller stage (it was still gargantuan). We ran into old friends and made new ones backstage, as well as in the massive catering area. There were booths with everything imaginable for sale. We shared a backstage area with the Happy Mondays, who provided some interesting moments as they fell about the grass.
Still, after doing Wembley Stadium with David for Net Aid, a show of this size didn't seem like completely new turf. Wembley was truly intense for me as it was the first time I'd ever played in front of a crowd numbering in the tens of thousands. In all honesty, I was pretty freaked. I wasn't particularly nervous about that aspect of things this time around, though I was certainly itching to play. Slick and Garson were also champing at the bit. By the time showtime came around (10:30) we were all jumpy with anticipation. The gig was fantastic, and we really played great. David had the crowd roped in from song number one - once again, it was 'Wild Is The Wind.' Only a small handful of artists could pull off a ballad as a set opener at a huge outdoor festival, but of course that wasn't a question for DB. It was an amazing sight as this entire mini-city of people began to jump up and down to 'Rebel Rebel' and sing along with 'Life on Mars'. I made sure to keep one of my in-ear monitors out so I could take it all in. By this gig Slick was right back in there and up to all of his old tricks, roaming his part of the huge stage. I just stood there for the most part in awe of both him and David, amazed that I was sharing a stage with these two legendary musical figures. Make that three, actually - I had Mike Garson right behind me, as always pulling out all sorts of goodies from his bag of twisted musical tricks. It would hit me occasionally that I was 'triangled' in by these three guys - and at the same time, legends - from the Diamond Dogs tour. As usual, I'd look to my left and see the ever-beautiful, dignified, funky, and barefoot Ms. Dorsey doing her thing, and feel right at home. I couldn't imagine being in this group without her; she's the most understated anchor around.
We then had a day to rest, and on Tuesday we played our last show together at the BBC Radio Theater. We went from the massive scale of the festival to the completely intimate. All I can compare it to would be a high school auditorium - it was tiny, and the audience was about three feet away from us. I never got that 'tuned' into this show - perhaps it was the Glasto illness creeping in, or the carpeting on the stage which inhibited movement a bit (I kept thinking I was going to trip). I could tell Emm was sick, and DB too - we had to stop and start again on a couple of songs. After it was over I thought that we did very well, but at the time it didn't seem like anything special - certainly not as exciting a show as Glastonbury or the Roseland gigs - which probably had more to do with my being sick than anything else. Besides, I was shown to be quite wrong later on when I saw and heard the playback of this show..... and realized how tight and musically in sync this group was.
*****
We returned to New York, and we all went our separate ways for a week or so. In early July we reconvened - Sterling, Gail, Slick, Garson David and I set up in Studio C at Sear Sound, a lovely space on 48th Street in Manhattan. It has windows and enough isolation for everyone. I decided to forego tape and go straight into the computer using Logic Audio, my program of choice for the past five years. It was the first time I'd try this in a full live band situation for an entire album. I'd done it piecemeal before, or only for a couple of songs, so I wasn't sure if my rig would be able to deal (it did) or if I'd have enough memory (I didn't). As far as editing together different sections of different takes, it was unbeatable. Slick tagged me with the name 'Gameboy' as I'd sit in front of the computer chopping things up, which is quite ironic as the last video game I probably ever played was Ms. Pacman around 1984. In the end, we ended up tracking thirteen songs in a little over a week.
I decided to forego engineering this time, as producing, playing guitar, running the computer and engineering would have been made any sense of objectivity on my part impossible. I brought in Pete Keppler, an engineer in New York who works with the Eels among others, to do the basic tracking. It was quite a luxury for me to say the least. Pete and I share a basic sonic sensibility, so I rarely had to tell him anything. Still, it took some getting used to as I had to put a lot of trust in someone else and give up a degree of control. In the end, it was effortless - so much so that we've gone on to repeat the experience on other projects.
David had a ball. The rapid pace, the energy of the entire band playing all together, and the immediacy of fully realized playbacks all seemed to fire him up, more than I'd seen him at any point in the studio since the initial 'Earthling' sessions in August '96. The way we were tracking, he'd sing on the first take of the song and be able to overdub himself on the bands' second take. If we needed a third take, he'd add a third harmony or double. So.... on a number of songs, his final vocals would be finished by the time the band had gotten it right! He'd emerge from the vocal booth, big Cheshire grin on his face, and say something like 'well, I guess that does it for me!'
Once the basic tracks were done, we worked on each song individually. The atmosphere was loose and everyone felt free to try whatever they wanted, in addition to what needed to be done. Slick and I added acoustic guitars, and then Slick added lead lines; Mike Garson added some keyboard textures; Gail and Emm played their clarinet parts on 'London Boys'. Tony Visconti wrapped up this cycle of sessions with a couple of wonderful string arrangements and 14 top notch NYC players, whom he conducted on the final day of tracking at Sear. We then took a break from these initial tracking sessions as David and Iman were expecting the birth of their daughter Alexandria in a matter of weeks. At that point I mixed the BBC Theatre gig, jumped into another project, and then took a break myself.
*****
In August 2000 I happened to catch the Eels at the Bowery Ballroom. Pete Keppler is also the Eels live sound engineer, so he clued me in to the gig as he knew I was a fan of the band. I'd heard that they'd expanded the lineup for this tour, and one of the new additions was multi-instrumentalist Lisa Germano. She was enlisted to provide violin, recorder, keyboards, mandolin, guitar, as well as background vocals. After listening to a few songs, and being familiar with some of Lisa's solo records and her work with other artists (John Mellencamp and Sheryl Crow among them) I knew I needed to have her play on 'Toy' - her vibe would be just perfect for us. I pitched my idea to David, as well as got Lisa to send him some of her solo CD's. After a week or so, we decided to go for it.
The next question was where. I figured I'd try to do the Lisa sessions in my home studio as I'd been working there with a number of people who all seemed to enjoy it. Lisa was comfortable with this idea, preferring my house to a commercial studio (she'd done a number of her own records at home). Travel plans were coordinated and I prepared the studio for the session in late September - which consisted of buying coffee and tidying up. We figured that two days would be plenty. At first it seemed odd having such high profile folks sitting on my goofy Ikea couch, playing with my daughters' toys and combing through my fridge for milk. David poked fun at the seashells I use for ashtrays. We settled in, I put on the kettle, and we zipped through a number of songs that first day. Lisa really took to the material, putting down all sorts of parts on an arsenal of eccentric instruments including an electric violin tuned one octave lower than usual, a 1920's Gibson mandolin, and an old, tiny tortoise shell blue-green Hohner accordion with straps so old and tired we had to beg them to stay together (assisted by duct tape) for the duration of a song.
David was completely into these sessions, having just as much fun as he did in July if not more. He'd not done any work on the album since late July, nor listened to it much. He seemed just plain READY to work, and he was thrilled with how great and fresh the songs sounded. It was a lot of fun, and very exciting - David kept pulling ideas out of the air for Lisa to play, and it was great to see how well they got on and how in sync they were from the first few minutes. For me as a record producer, Lisa could be one of my more inspired choices as far as an outside musician I've brought in to work on a project: it worked out much better than I could have imagined (I figured it'd work, but not THIS well) as her playing - especially violin - was simply magical and made some of the songs truly complete. It was as if she was a part of the band from the conception of the record, and not overdubbed afterwards.
We went out for lunch and had a good walk around the neighborhood as well. Neither of them are regulars in the East Village so they were quite surprised and impressed by the not-so-recent transformation of the neighborhood - I think both of them still had the late '80's vision of it as junkie/anarchist hell - and the good weather and the nice Italian cafe next door certainly didn't hurt.
We soon returned to the Looking Glass Studios to record backing vocals with Holly and Emm, touch up a few things, and cut some new songs. During the break, David decided that a couple of new songs should be included on 'Toy.' Once we got settled into Looking Glass and started listening to playbacks, I made the decision to mix the album there as well. Looking Glass doesn't have what I usually want in a full-blown mix room - they have a smaller & older SSL console, and no large monitors - but I found the tracks to be so alive that we figured I should just go with it, as it would definitely sound different on another desk. So, I took some rough mixes over to Sterling Sound to see how well they translated. I learned from that experience that the finished mixes would need a good mastering to get them up to snuff. But .... the vibe was there and we all really enjoyed the Looking Glass, so it seemed like the thing to do. I also learned a lot on the BBC project - the mixes on that came out amazing, and I was cranking out two songs a day - so I figured I'd go for that same approach on this project. 'Toy' was recorded really well, which was another big plus. Many thanks go to Pete Keppler for engineering the basic tracks, and to Sear Sound for having fantastic gear and a great working atmosphere.
The band for the new songs was a scaled down version of the 'Toy' band - Sterling Campbell on drums, David on stylophone and keyboards, and myself on guitars and bass (essentially, the folks who live in NYC). The first thing we tried was a version of 'Pictures of Lily' for a Who tribute record, an idea which had been kicking around for a few months. David's concept was to do this song half time, there wasn't any point in trying to ape the Who version. We did the entire thing in an afternoon, complete with stylophone solo and football hooligan chanting courtesy of the three of us (through the magic of overdubbing, it was around 30 of us in the end).
At the same time a guitarist friend of mine, Gerry Leonard, was working with Pete Keppler in Looking Glass' Studio B. Gerry has a very singular voice as a guitarist - an atmospheric, ambient yet melodic and focused sound, filtered through his rather whimsical Irish sense of humor. In addition to playing and touring with a number of recording artists (Duncan Sheik and Suzanne Vega among them) he performs solo under the name of Spookyghost, where he'll gets a few parts going through the courtesy of a battery of pedals and assorted what-not. I thought he'd be perfect on one of the songs, so I asked him to work on it on some downtime from his other session. He gave me around eight tracks of assorted noises, doodling, loops, and melodies dripping with echo and the like. David liked what he heard, and called in Gerry to add his thing to several of the other songs.
Each of them seemed to have an interesting beginning. 'Uncle Floyd' was a moody track which began its life with a semi out-of-tune piano and some grainy synth strings which sounded like they were pulled off of an old 78 RPM record. Both sounds gave the effect of someone playing in a basement of some small, sad, lonely house. This really came to life with the addition of the Gerry Leonard's guitar and Lisa Germano's violin (she returned to NYC for another round of overdubbing on the new songs).
David had been reading Andrew Loog Oldham's book around this time, where Oldham described locking up Mick Jagger and Keith Richard in a flat and not allowing them out until they came up with new songs. We decided to try this approach, and so I sent David off to the Looking Glass lounge and told him not to come back until he had the goods! It was all quite funny really, except that David really DID come up with the goods in the form of a song called 'Afraid,' which came into being courtesy of my mini Stratocaster.
Once the drums on the new songs were complete, we returned to my studio to do overdubs with Gerry and Lisa. The neighbors and the Italian cafe seemed to be glad to have us back. Gerry and David immediately bonded over the old electric meters they used to have in homes in the UK - evidently, you had to keep filling the meter with coins or your electricity would go off! If you ran out of change, tough luck - no lights, no fridge, no nuthin'.... very funny. This led us off on a number of ridiculous tangents, of course. While working at my place David also added a few vocals, some stylophone stylings, and a couple of last minute arrangement nips and tucks.
Towards the end of October 2000, all was ready to mix. We set up shop back at Looking Glass for an 11 day spree in which time I'd attempt to mix as many songs as possible, with the more than capable help of my assistant Hector Castillo, who always seemed to be one step ahead of me. Hector proved invaluable during our time at the Looking Glass, and has since gone on to engineer for David on various bits and pieces, as well as helping me keep my own studio running smooth.
We had 16 or so tracks to choose from, and it was our aim to finish what we hoped would be 12 songs intended for the album. The remaining songs would be mixed in the next available window of studio time and used as bonus tracks/B sides/etc. In the end, we mixed 14 tracks. So, which 12 would be on the album? Always a tough choice, so DB will mull that one over before we need to commit. On 'Earthling,' we changed the order a few times, and at the last minute an intended B-side, 'The Last Thing You Should Do,' ended up on the album. So.... who knows?
We began the mixdown with 'London Boys', as it was quite familiar and also fairly simple as far as arrangement and instrumentation go. Surprisingly, it was a quickie done in about 4 hours or so. This was odd because the first mix usually isn't a quickie - it takes some time to plug things in and get acclimated. This set the template for the process: get sounds together, set up a decent rough mix, then STOP - don't go too nuts trying to tweak it out, other than making sure key parts were prominent. Finally, add a couple of effects here and there but for the most part use the natural ambience of Sear Sound and leave it at that. When you sit in front of a pair of speakers for hours on end, you can lose objectivity and get lost in the minutiae of all the individual tracks, so it was important to take breaks. I got around this a bit by premixing the drums in the computer so that only 4 faders on the desk were taken up with drums. This was visually important as well, as the kit became just another instrument instead of taking up a bank of faders on the desk, and I didn't spend an inordinate amount of time on them.
We timed it so that DB would show up and offer a clear point of view and an objective ear to the proceedings when I was around 90% finished with a mix. He'd always have one or two major comments before we'd commit. In typical style, he'd pluck something out of the air that had gone completely over my head.
We had a bit of company dropping in during these sessions. Sterling Campbell was around for many of them, offering moral support and watching the mixing process; Emm Gryner dropped in on the way to see Ron Sexsmith at the Knitting Factory; Holly Palmer turned up from L.A., where she'd recently relocated; Eric Jaimes from Ultrastar filmed us playing 'Afraid' for a BowieNet 'crummie'; Coco would stop in daily. By this point everyone was really in love with 'Uncle Floyd,' so we knew it had to be on the record. We followed the example of 'Afraid' from the previous week, and David went off on his own to complete the lyric while I started mixing the track. By the time I had a decent rough mix, he was finished. In typical style, he sang around 95% of it in the first take - it gave Hector and I the chills. It was intense, a feeling not at all hindered by the haunting violin from Lisa and the many spooky-isms from Gerry. It's ended up being a favorite of anyone who's heard it so far. For the outro, we employed a chorus of people rounded up on the spot - Sterling and Holly Palmer, Coco, Sean McCaul of the Looking Glass staff (and an amazing talent on the vibes), and a band called Stretch Princess who happened to be recording in Studio B with Pete Keppler. Whoever was in the building with vocal cords got hauled in.
I'm really proud of 'Toy.' Going through this process with David was a great experience, and I felt like we pulled off what we'd set out to do - capture a band playing these great songs with passion, spirit and immediacy.