Prog-rock in Portland in 1976! There is a longer version of this text here: [ Ссылка ]
Now that Fred is having health problems, I wanted to make this video about some of our music.
In 1976 my great-aunt Pearl died and left me a little money. I was 26. It was enough to fund a recording session, buy Fred a Rickenbacker bass (which he paid me back for) and generally, lift my spirits. One of the songs we recorded was this one, one of mine called “The Bastard & The Baboon”.
Fred and I had studied music together at the same school under an absolutely terrible teacher, but while I didn’t emerge unscathed, Fred did. He went on to do all sorts of indy things that were far more challenging than my music, with far more scintillating names involved. Now that he is having health problems, I would like to show some of those people just how good this guy was when he was only 21 years old.
Anyway, on to the topic at hand. The Bastard & The Baboon was recorded in a couple of days (with some other tunes) at Recording Associates on southeast Powell, although we rehearsed it mercilessly beforehand. And it wasn’t just me and Fred - we had recruited another CC alum to play the drums - Jeff Moore, who deserves the credit for putting up with me during this whole thing. (I was unable to find Jeff for info while making this video.) Jeff was a jazz drummer and Fred and I listened to Yes or other things, but not much jazz, so this was a stretch for him. Since this was some 40-plus years ago, I really want to get things straight and credit people; I am not Led Zeppelin, LOL. Later, we played the tune live, patterned off this version, but at the time, it was all new.
Over the years I have vacillated on just who the Bastard was, and who the Baboon. Drunk audience members, crappy politicians, all sorts come to mind. In the end, it doesn’t matter. They are just names for sections of the song, which follows the classical Sonata Allegro form.
The occasional synth parts are me on a Micromoog, a single (monophonic) voice synth which required me to record all four lines separately. How 70s!
When you listen to this tune, check out how solid Fred was, even then. And then, listen to his bass solo at the end [starts at 6:34 in] (overdubbed, as we basically recorded what became our live version of the tune and then allowed some overdubs - we were learning about recording technology, which was quite different then) and see how good he was already. By the way, that bass solo was played on his Rick, through an Ampeg STV CRANKED to the max. Loudest amp in the world at the time. It shook the room, and it still sounds damn good to me now. It’s so obvious when he returns to the “normal” mode that now I wish we had just let him go. The rest of his bass parts were done with the same SVT, but at a normal level.
But you know what? Listen too, to the section in the middle with the kalimbas (3:23). I play the lead kalimba, but Fred plays the so-called “second” there, a part which is just as difficult. We actually played four kalimba parts, doubling the first two at half speed and then playing back at full speed to shift a pair up an octave; that’s where the music-box effect came from. The video shows the kalimba I used on the recording, which I still have. I wonder if Fred still has his somewhere.
At its best, this is an interesting excursion into some musical areas that may seem awfully 1970s, but it is also a document of Fred’s beginnings, which I am so glad to say that I was party to - as little as I had to do with the ability that he eventually showed.
Some things are beyond us.
Tyrannocaster
PS: I had very few photos to work with here. I later became a professional photographer, but at the time, I was just a guitar player without even a camera. So I have filled in with the spirit of the times. Also, I want to credit Jim Felt with the photo of me playing the Jazzmaster; he was omitted from the credits, unfortunately. My fault.
