New Monday #118
Super producer Jack Douglas has died. We look at Aerosmith's Rocks and Sick as a Dog.
New Monday #118
Happy Monday -
A friend of Dan’s, producer/engineer Steve Evetts, lost his entire studio in a 14-alarm fire in New Jersey. Mr Evetts has worked with The Cure, Sepultura, Vanna, Every Time I Die, The Wonder Years, and more. His studio is a complete loss—he’s totally wiped out.
There is a GoFundMe to help him out here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-steve-evetts-rebuild-his-studio. If you can help Steve, please do.
Super producer Jack Douglas died at 80
I don’t even know where to begin trying to encapsulate the career of this brilliant man, who went from writing folk songs for Bobby Kennedy to working as a janitor at the Record Plant to engineering and then producing some of the best rock records ever made. We put together a playlist, but it doesn’t really cover it.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe6ZCJT_4KPna2nw0u9g3sCvJL29O_4hi
Jack Douglas combined engineering chops with superb musicality and an innate sense of how to get the best out of musicians and singers. He brought out the creativity in people. Indeed, the real magic of Jack Douglas was how he worked with people.
“I think the reason why we’ve had so many returns over the years is because the act and the art of making the record is always a positive one. It’s always, “Let’s talk about how we can move this record forward. Let’s see how we can expand our artistic horizons. Let’s talk about what this record is about. Let’s rehearse so we’re in the ballpark when we go into the studio, but let’s leave enough room for improvisation.” All of those things are very important, and it also makes the artist feel like he or she has a collaborator. If you need me to write with you, I’ll write with you. If you don’t, that’s fine. Let me see what your lyrics are like; maybe I can make a suggestion. You don’t need that? That’s fine too. Let’s see what the meaning of this is. Maybe the album should have a darker feel overall, or perhaps it should be brighter. Maybe we should do some songs in between keys.”
I pulled the quote out of a fantastic interview in Tape Op. Well worth the read—you will learn from it. And there’s a kind of part two interview that you can read here. Also completely worth it.
Douglas’ sidekick throughout many of his musical adventures was engineer Jay Messina. The two were so close they finish each other’s sentences.
Rocks
Jack and Jay worked extensively with Aerosmith in the 70s, and made their best albums, Toys in the Attic and Rocks. There’s a ton of videos and written things about these records, how they used sugar packets on Sweet Emotion and how they broke the vibration-slap, and how he took the band to see Young Frankenstein, and that turned into their hit Walk This Way. If you want to know more of that stuff, it’s out there. I’m going to write mainly about one album, Rocks, and one song, Sick as a Dog.
I have a personal affinity for Rocks. I was a dumb kid hanging out with a friend who was doing the overnight in a studio in NYC, and we found a safety copy of a few songs from Rocks in the tape vault. So, we broke all the rules of the studio and put it on and spent a few hours mixing it. Not that it really required any mixing because everything was so superbly recorded all you had to do was bring up the faders and there was the record. And by bring up the faders, I mean bring them up to unity—a straight line across the board. Good lord, those guys were amazing engineers.
Most of Rocks was cut in Boston at Aerosmith’s rehearsal space, A. Wherehouse. Douglas and Messina drove up the Record Plant mobile for the recording (Spectra Sonics console!). The band noodled and collaborated on songs, and once in a final form, they’d cut it live, often with a PA system blaring in their faces as a monitoring system. Two songs were also cut at The Record Plant in New York City, as were the vocals and all the mixing (API console!).
Aerosmith‘s writing on Rocks was absolutely on point, and part of the reason was that everyone in the band was contributing, not just Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. Sick as a Dog was mostly written by bassist Tom Hamilton.
Sick as a Dog
This is a really fun arrangement and production, kinda sneaky in many ways—it sets an expectation and then does something else entirely, which keeps a listener paying attention. A directing teacher in college told me that you want the audience to relax and get comfortable in their seats, and the moment they relax and spread their legs a bit, you kick them in the balls. And you do that all night. That’s what’s going on throughout Rocks.
It begins with a layered bunch of guitars, shimmering and beautiful and for a moment it sounds like we’re starting a ballad. Hamilton was a huge fan of The Byrds. Listen on the left for what sounds like a triangle.
The opening is an interesting juxtaposition to the title. Tom Hamilton wrote most of the lyrics. He said it was about being dope sick, and by 1976, the band’s drug use was excessive.
The band and vocals kick in—the guitars are played by bassist Hamilton (I think on the left) and rhythm guitarist Brad Whitford on the right. Lead guitarist Joe Perry is playing bass! The vocals and the riff work off each other—Aerosmith were masters of this.
I love the vocal production on the verses—the long held note at the start of each phrase is harmonized by two overdubs, panned wide. They drop after about a bar and a half, leaving a stark single vocal in the center. There’s a sense of expansion and contraction to it, like the song goes from wide to dead center. It is very simple and very effective.
For the chorus, the vocals and guitars follow each other as they hammer on the riff. I read a Steven Tyler interview years ago in which he expressed his songwriting philosophy: get to the hook and beat it to death. Listen for two backing vocals over to the right. Sounds like a group vocal on one mic.
There’s a quick break that sounds almost country, complete with a major pentatonic guitar break (Joe Perry overdub?), and then it kicks back into a verse and another chorus.
And another break. For a moment, it sounds like it’s going to be a repeat of the country type thing, but you’ve been set up! It flows into an almost classical harmonized extended minor guitar interlude—three guitars: the two rhythm tracks we’ve been hearing and I guess another Joe Perry overdub. The section is reminiscent of Dream On.
Another verse, but with some minor ear candy—some vocal tricks from Tyler and a fun little bass fill from Joe Perry that sets up a vocal ad lib.
Another chorus—remember the philosophy is to beat the hooks to death, and then the band floats back to the opening riff, this time augmented with a vocal over to the right. I know I’ve often mentioned a principle: diverse in unity, unified in diversity. That’s what’s going on all over this song.
And then it goes to a slow, quiet part. You can hear clearly that the drums are basically mono. I don’t recall how they were tracked on the tape I was playing with, but to my ears now, they’re in mono, with what sounds like a wide panned plate reverb.
You’ll notice there’s no bass. Why?
Because they wanted Joe Perry to play a lead part over the ending vamp. So, he put down the bass and crept over to his guitar rig, while Steven Tyler picked up the bass, which he played during the outro! Listen and you’ll hear it’s a completely different sound because it’s a completely different player.
The band kicks in—it’s the verse part. Another thing to listen for and love: drummer Joey Kramer initially comes in on the high hat and then switches over to a ride after about three and a half beats. I LOVE when drummers get lost and then find themselves. Charlie Watts does this all over the place and it’s so fun to hear it, and to imagine during the playback when someone points out the mistake and the producer says, “No, it’s cool. Leave it.”
There’s a vamp out vocal on the left, and some oddly precise, mechanical-sounding claps on the right. I’m thinking it’s from an early analog drum machine. Whatever — they work wonderfully. Claps are the instrument anyone can play, and I think they always pull the listener into the song.
Joe Perry’s ride-out guitar solo, sounding very Chuck Berry, is also over to the right.
Another quick listening note: there’s only hard left, center, and hard right panning. No 45% left, no 80% right, it’s L C R the entire record.
Rocks, by the way, was released on May 13th, 1976. 50 years of this fantastic album.
Jack Douglas died May 11th.
Beautiful Boy
One last thing to listen to. John Lennon in 1980 was fragile and unsure of himself. He never liked his voice, and was especially insecure about it while working on Double Fantasy. He insisted on doubling everything and adding reverb and effects. Douglas thought the vocals were superb and didn’t need anything, but he acquiesced to Lennon’s wishes. The two were already discussing making another record together, and Jack was hoping to showcase John’s voice without the extra fluff on it. Lennon was murdered three weeks after Double Fantasy was released. Douglas was inconsolable and retreated to his apartment and heroin.
In 2010, Double Fantasy (Stripped Down) was released. Douglas and Messina remixed Double Fantasy without all the effects. Here’s two versions of Beautiful Boy.
Beautiful Boy (full of stuff)
Beautiful Boy (stripped down)
The original vocal has flanging and god knows what on it. The stripped version... what a great vocal.
That’s all for this week. Make great records and have the time of your life in the studio.
Warm regards,
Luke
New Monday is a weekly newsletter I write for Korneff Audio. It’s different every week. Sometimes technical. Sometimes historical. Sometimes hysterical. Always musical.