Interviews

MF: So when are you touring again? When is the next time?

WO: We go to Japan for the first time in March (of 2003).

MF: When in March?

WO: March 10th.

MF: Oh. I’m going to be there until the 8th. Where are you going to play?

WO: We’re playing all over. It’s like ten or 11 days where the show is maybe five or six cities, which is pretty exciting.

… or, why does it make sense for musicangle and other perceptive writers and sites to still be discussing and rating this stuff 40 years later?

Editor's note (please read!). This story was written in the late 1980's. I don't remember the exact date. At the time, Greg Calbi and Ted Jensen were working for Sterling Sound. Between then and today (2005), Calbi left Sterling and went to work for competitor Masterdisk for a few years. He later returned to the new Sterling Sound (www.sterling-sound.com), a sprawling complex on Manhattan's west side near the "meat packing district," where Ted Jensen and George Marino also work as part of one of the most distinguished teams of mastering engineers anywhere in the world.-MF

At the end of Part 1, Mr. Porter had just left RCA Studios.

MF: Why did you leave?

BP: I left RCA because they tried to dictate to me and I wasn't gonna be dictated to.

MF: Dictate to you what?

BP: I had a small publishing company and they told me it was a conflict of interest. I said, 'How can that be, everybody else has got one. Chet has one.” “yes, but you work with a lot of different clients.” “Yes, but I'm not abusing the privilege.” So they said either the publishing company or you go. So I made my decision. The legal department said there was nothing wrong, but personnel did. Steve Sholes called and said “Now Bill, please don't leave.” “ I said story Steve.”

Porter, not really blindfolded, was kept in the dark about what he was listening to, then asked to comment before it was revealed. (The subsequent identifications have been edited out of the transcript).

1)Dionne Warwick: “People Got To Be Free” Soulful (Produced by Chips Moman and Dionne Warwick, no engineering credit) Scepter (German) SHA-S 401

BP: It's not bad. It's been electronically gimmicked slightly. You can hear it on the horns and voices. It sounds like, to me, a second-or third generation tape that's been equalized to compensate for whatever deficiencies they heard.

I conducted this interview with the great Steve Albini way back in 1993, before MP3, before the iPod, back when all but a few outspoken critics like Albini, Neil Young and a few others had anything negative to say about the digital recording revolution. It's fascinating to read Albini's thoughts today. He was right on target then, as he is today.

-Michael Fremer

He's the dean of alternative rock engineers, a thirty-something (now 43) veteran of literally thousands of get 'em in, get 'em out recording sessions, mostly with young, inexperienced bands who can't spend a great deal of money, but who have something to say and who don't want to be restrained in the recording studio. More than anything, they want to recognize themselves when they hear the final product.

You won't find Roy Halee's name on many great sounding records. Not because the veteran recording engineer hasn't made them, but because Columbia Records' policy for many years was to not credit the engineer on the jacket. So, aside from the few that do credit him, the others require you to know who they are. That's one reason I tracked Roy down through Sterling Sound's Greg Calbi who has mastered many of Halee's recent projects. But more importantly, as with Bill Porter, I just wanted to sit down face to face with someone who has consistently provided us with great sound, and find out why and how he managed to do it, when so many others failed.

Some of Halee's recording credits are well known:all of Simon and Garfunkel's records, the best sounding Byrds albums (Notorious Byrd Brothers and Sweetheart of the Rodeo), and of course, Paul Simon's two fascinating and extremely successful projects (both commercially and artistically) Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints.