I would call my time at Elektra Sound Recorders (1977-1980) the epitome of "halcyon days". The era itself, particularly in terms of music and music recording, was a time of renaissance. And, working at a company studio the likes of Elektra meant a steady stream of historic artists. I remember the day I recorded comedian Mel Brooks chatting with the Chairman of the Board of Elektra/Asylum Records, Joe Smith (to promote the soundtrack album of "The Producers"). Mel I wasn't that familiar with (I was 23 years old... what can I say?), but Joe I found fascinating. The demeanor and panache of a Hollywood executive was something I'd never seen back home in Foster City (suburb of San Francisco). He was really a smoothie... the next time I saw him was around 8 in the morning at The Village Recorders, after a string of coked-up all-nighters in the final throes of completing the soundtrack album for The Rose. But that's another story I'll save for later.
Working for Elektra was also what I would call an intense learning phase, with both stellar good moments and unimaginable disasters. One significant disaster was knocking a full milkshake onto the recording console. That was a sticky situation for days afterwards. But the clincher was the day I sauntered in to a session terribly hung over from drinking (which I rarely did), to lay down tracks of a band of stellar studio pros, to be the basis of a new R&B record for an unnamed new vocalist. Regardless of my limited capacity, I set the studio up, got a sound the Producer was happy with, and proceeded to record. We did three or for tunes, and every track was smokin. Most of the musicians had gigs out of town that night, so as soon as we were done they were out the door and off to LAX. The producer and I practically skipped back into the studio, gleeful to play back the fabulous tracks. I rewound the 2" 24-track Master tape back to the head of the reel, and proudly pressed "Play". Out of the speakers came NOTHING. The tape was EMPTY. Silent. Not a single iota of sound had been recorded. And we had not stopped to play anything back during the session as everything sounded awesome, and we knew the guys had to go soon.
Oh sure, I'd pressed the BIG RED RECORD BUTTON for every take. I was certain of that. But, in my hung over stupor, what I'd forgotten to do was to put every individual track into "Ready", allowing it to actually go into record when I pressed the big red button. Oops. The Producer looked at me like, "Whaaa?". I caught on real fast to what was going on, but for one of the very very few times in my entire life, I feigned ignorance... and surprise... and incredulous astonishment. Clearly there had been some catastrophic, unpredictable technical failure (yeah... right). After I quickly and surreptitiously put each track into "Ready", as it should have been all along, I called in my boss in (Roger), who after a rudimentary inspection of the circumstance humbly apologized for the Studio's failure. I was relieved and my heart was pounding. In the end, it cost Elektra Sound Recorders about $11,000 to have all the musicians return and re-record the tracks. Although I always suspected Roger knew the true scoop, he graciously never said so. After all, upon inspection all the equipment was in fact functioning perfectly.
So much for the disasters at Elektra. On the up-side were many fun times. Like Flo and Eddie, the two singers from The Turtles (who later went on to back-up Bruce Springsteen for awhile). They were producing a demo for Elektra, and had come in for some overdubs and mixes. And they were a RIOT. Kept me laughing every minute, with phrases like, "hookers and coke... we need more hookers and coke!". They were joking, but for we of the hippie era it was good fun. More to come... next time I'll talk about working with Joe Cocker, and how my involvement with The Rose came about.
