[Dixielandjazz] Producing Recordings

[Jim Kashishian]

Bob Ringwald wrote:
When we were done, a Rock band had the studio booked for 6-months, 24 hours
a day to do an LP.  I have often thought about what I could produce if I
were giving a budget that included 6-months in a recording studio......


Along those same lines, in the 1990's I was asked by a record company to
rent a mansion in an exclusive area of Madrid, rebuild (with real
carpenters) the dining room to convert it into a studio control room, ship
in a recording console, outboard gear, speakers, drums kit, grand piano,
guitar & bass amps, sintezizers etc., from a hire company in the U.K., fit
the whole place (which included two swimming pools & even a flamenco club
room) with rented furniture, carpets, etc., rent all the necessary cooking
gear & table settings, towels, bedding, rented satelite tvs, cars, hir 24 hr
security guards, and fly in Dinah Ross' private cook, and on, and on....

All of this gear,the house, cars & the cook were used for 3 months while a
world-known pop group recorded THREE SONGS for their next album!  The group
flew back & forth between the U.K. & Madrid on a regular basis, as did their
families, etc.  

Why did they want to come to Madrid, you may ask?  They apparently liked to
go out for our famous night life, but their particular delight was in
picking fights at the bars in town!!! 

I babysat them for the 3 months, getting them the little screws that go into
the base of microphone holders (to adapt to different stands) at
midnite...., finding babyfood for a crying baby on a Sunday...., finding a
hairdresser who could do something about the peroxed-haired girlfriend who's
hair turned green when she went for a swim!...etc.  (All terribly music
recording sort of emergencies...a bit of tape would have solved the mike
stand problem!)

When they left, I cleaned up the joint...ending up with a year's supply of
Guiness, gobs of meals that had been made up by the cook & left in the
freezer), & I could have had a superb collection of porn magazines if my
wife would have let me have 'em!  :>

Although I was actually one of those raking in the cash due to this
behavior, the thought did occur to me that there must be gobs of groups out
there that could have used some of the cash spent to record their own
albums.

Jim