Subject: music equipment ad
Date: Mon, 04 May 1998 23:55:47 -0600
From: superego@io.com>
Organization: Nickel $ Dime Records
To: luvdoc@auschron.com
'94 MARSHALL JCM-900 100 Watt 2x12" Tube
Combo
w/Channel Switching, Reverb, 2 master volumes, footswitch, 10 ft. power
cable, new tubes, power transformer and heavy duty road case w/casters
and stickers. All Good Condition. $750, 474-2987, superego@io.com.
Comes with Free Story:
I played with Beaver Nelson who was signed to Lightstorm Entertainment¨ in 1994. It is the production company owned by director James Cameron, who was working on a film called "True Lies" at the time. They had no other recording artists, but claimed to be serious about releasing beaver's music, as well as some songs we had written together. A&R weasel randy gerston came down to check out our hole in the wall SXSW showcase and promptly told beaver to fire the bass player and drummer. I got to stay because he liked the way i stepped in front of beaver on the extension platform to play a solo. Then they brought us out to LA to meet some musicians.
They brought in Joe Blaney (engineer for keith richards, tom waits, the clash, prince, etc.) to produce and they bought me this marshall at moneytakers for the recording project and live show. we did a month of pre-production at ARC and then went to the legendary ARDENT studio in Memphis to record. For this record, the bass player was Tony Scalzo, and the drummer was Joey Shuffield. Tony had come from LA with family, Joey's band with Miles Zuniga called "Big Car" had just folded, at my suggestion he replaced LA drummer Jamie Riedling, who quit to go back to his beloved orange county beaches. In Memphis, we worked 12-15 hour days and heard great stories of Big Star, ZZ Top, and Replacements.
The sessions were hard work, and the living arrangements were kind of tight, and once the tracking was complete, Beaver inexplicably fired the rhythm section again. Then we went to LA to finish the overdrubbing and mixing.
i think it was generational differences. the guy was 21 at the time, Joey and Tony are slightly more mature. One time the A&R stooge saw a video of one of our gigs, called us all over to Beaver's house for a long distance conference call, and told us reproachfully "There is NO live show." In the end I think it was for the best.
We finished the album and came back to Austin to play every Tuesday at the Electric Lounge backed by the Sleestacks, featuring Kevin Carroll, now in Clovis. After months of waiting, despite all my efforts to talk sense into all these freaky people, the goddamn record NEVER came out. Go figure.
Now in summer 1998, Scalzo's worldwide hit single "The Way," also featuring Shuffield and Miles, is taking their band Fastball to uncharted territory for any other Austin band ever. And James Cameron's latest effort "Titanic" is just that, a huge unstoppable beast, unlike the original ship.
I think the motto of this parable is to just stay in the game until your time comes and then play your best. Miles has always bludgeoned me with that fucking baseball analogy, ever since Big Car broke up and he decided that he should keep stepping up to the plate, instead of forfeiting the game. He hit it one out of the park this time, yesiree.
I never use the Marshall anymore, it sounds better with a les paul, the strat i bought from Rosie Flores and my 50 watt bassman are a matchless made in heaven.
And the money from the Marshall happens to be just enough to cover some recent legal and tax expenses that kind of blind-sided me this month. i guess i need to check that blind spot more often. I wouldn't mind trading it for a guitar or some kind of original artifact like a sculpture or an Ethan Azarian painting that would look good on the wall and remind me of my time in the trenches.
As for me and the beav, we're still neighbors, good friends, and hole in the wall mainstays. If I can talk Beaver into it, I plan to use one of the songs from those pre-production sessions on the next compilation. We have discussed it before but it seemed like a hassle with Sony owning the rights to those tunes, but now seems like the right time to just do it and screw it.
And Beaver's new album on local indie Freedom Records is honest-to-god brilliant.
Fastball, Superego, and Beaver Nelson will do a show at Liberty Lunch together sometime in the future, if there's any justice.
This story gets better over a beer at the free for all sometime...
