1. Forum
  2. Usenet
  3. REC.MUSIC.BEATLES

  • Aronowitz Drops In On Walls & Bridges Session

    From Norbert K@21:1/5 to All on Sun May 22 05:06:05 2022
    "John was wearing shades, his chestnut hair glistening in the studio lights, big ones over his ears, sitting in a booth by himself, looking at his session band through a plate-glass partition, changing on a solid body electric, grinning, laughing,
    smiling, and chattering like some mad coachman who keeps whipping the horses, kerrraaack, kerrraaack, kerrraaack, scaring the shit out of all his passengers, except he knows perfectly well he's going to get everybody home safe. He's just in a hurry.

    "Jim Keltner was bushed and didn't mind dropping hints about it. Klaus Voorman never loses his cool but he was starting to pale around the fringes. Nicky Hopkins always looks like you could blow him over but now he was invisible. Even Indian Ed (Jesse
    Davis) was starting to droop and you know what an ox he is. It was one of the most dynamite bands ever to put locker- room stink into a studio and how could John help but enjoy playing with them? The trouble was he was enjoying it too much.

    "He had been running them ragged. They had been going for days: John, of course, looking as bright, cheerful, fresh, and alert as a toadsticker dancing on a cue ball. Mad coachman? He was Ben Hur winning the chariot race. When I walked in they were
    doing the seventh international marathon take of some instrumental with a tricky break, and their speed left me, old fart, gasping. Over and over again they did it, sometimes blowing it in the middle somewhere, and John would just start counting off
    again, "Two-two-three-four," and off they'd zoom, with hardly enough time for a swallow of air. Finally they got a take, or at least one John had gotten off on. He wanted to get off again, right away, "Two-two-three-four," but Shelly Yakus, the
    engineer, cut in over the talkback and told him they'd have to wait a minute because he had run out of tape and they would have to change reels.

    "Aaaaagh!" John cried out, his head jerking upward, like the executioner had just pulled the switch on him in the electric chair.

    -- From an article by Aronowitz in the August 29, 1974 issue of Rolling Stone

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From geoff@21:1/5 to Norbert K on Mon May 23 13:25:00 2022
    On 23/05/2022 12:06 am, Norbert K wrote:
    "John was wearing shades, his chestnut hair glistening in the studio lights, big ones over his ears, sitting in a booth by himself, looking at his session band through a plate-glass partition, changing on a solid body electric, grinning, laughing,
    smiling, and chattering like some mad coachman who keeps whipping the horses, kerrraaack, kerrraaack, kerrraaack, scaring the shit out of all his passengers, except he knows perfectly well he's going to get everybody home safe. He's just in a hurry.

    "Jim Keltner was bushed and didn't mind dropping hints about it. Klaus Voorman never loses his cool but he was starting to pale around the fringes. Nicky Hopkins always looks like you could blow him over but now he was invisible. Even Indian Ed (
    Jesse Davis) was starting to droop and you know what an ox he is. It was one of the most dynamite bands ever to put locker- room stink into a studio and how could John help but enjoy playing with them? The trouble was he was enjoying it too much.

    "He had been running them ragged. They had been going for days: John, of course, looking as bright, cheerful, fresh, and alert as a toadsticker dancing on a cue ball. Mad coachman? He was Ben Hur winning the chariot race. When I walked in they
    were doing the seventh international marathon take of some instrumental with a tricky break, and their speed left me, old fart, gasping. Over and over again they did it, sometimes blowing it in the middle somewhere, and John would just start counting
    off again, "Two-two-three-four," and off they'd zoom, with hardly enough time for a swallow of air. Finally they got a take, or at least one John had gotten off on. He wanted to get off again, right away, "Two-two-three-four," but Shelly Yakus, the
    engineer, cut in over the talkback and told him they'd have to wait a minute because he had run out of tape and they would have to change reels.

    "Aaaaagh!" John cried out, his head jerking upward, like the executioner had just pulled the switch on him in the electric chair.

    -- From an article by Aronowitz in the August 29, 1974 issue of Rolling Stone

    Coke or 'uppers' ?

    geoff

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Norbert K@21:1/5 to geoff on Mon May 23 03:53:40 2022
    On Sunday, May 22, 2022 at 9:25:09 PM UTC-4, geoff wrote:
    On 23/05/2022 12:06 am, Norbert K wrote:
    "John was wearing shades, his chestnut hair glistening in the studio lights, big ones over his ears, sitting in a booth by himself, looking at his session band through a plate-glass partition, changing on a solid body electric, grinning, laughing,
    smiling, and chattering like some mad coachman who keeps whipping the horses, kerrraaack, kerrraaack, kerrraaack, scaring the shit out of all his passengers, except he knows perfectly well he's going to get everybody home safe. He's just in a hurry.

    "Jim Keltner was bushed and didn't mind dropping hints about it. Klaus Voorman never loses his cool but he was starting to pale around the fringes. Nicky Hopkins always looks like you could blow him over but now he was invisible. Even Indian Ed (
    Jesse Davis) was starting to droop and you know what an ox he is. It was one of the most dynamite bands ever to put locker- room stink into a studio and how could John help but enjoy playing with them? The trouble was he was enjoying it too much.

    "He had been running them ragged. They had been going for days: John, of course, looking as bright, cheerful, fresh, and alert as a toadsticker dancing on a cue ball. Mad coachman? He was Ben Hur winning the chariot race. When I walked in they were
    doing the seventh international marathon take of some instrumental with a tricky break, and their speed left me, old fart, gasping. Over and over again they did it, sometimes blowing it in the middle somewhere, and John would just start counting off
    again, "Two-two-three-four," and off they'd zoom, with hardly enough time for a swallow of air. Finally they got a take, or at least one John had gotten off on. He wanted to get off again, right away, "Two-two-three-four," but Shelly Yakus, the engineer,
    cut in over the talkback and told him they'd have to wait a minute because he had run out of tape and they would have to change reels.

    "Aaaaagh!" John cried out, his head jerking upward, like the executioner had just pulled the switch on him in the electric chair.

    -- From an article by Aronowitz in the August 29, 1974 issue of Rolling Stone
    Coke or 'uppers' ?

    geoff

    I believe this was the happiest period of Lennon's post-Beatles life -- perhaps the happiest post-1966 (or so) part of it. The Robet Hilburn article I excerpted a few days ago, May Pang's book, and a few other sources support this.

    I believe John was merely fired up on adrenaline on this particular occasion. He was scrambling to finish W&B, and he liked working fast in the studio anyway. He finished recording the album at about the time Al Aronowitz dropped in on the sessions --
    and IIRC, had the record out the very next month. Yoko and hard drugs were largely out of the picture, and John was working at almost the pace he had in the pre-LSD Beatles days.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)