Out Of The Shadows, Into The Spotlight [or so they hope]
May 23, 2024 5:42 AM Subscribe
Hired Gun: The Untold Stories Of Your Favorite Musicians [1h40m] is the "Twenty Feet From Stardom" for the guitarists, bassists, drummers... the hired guns. You've heard them on albums and tours, but probably don't know their faces or names. Well, now they're speaking out.
Mark Rivera’s book is also a great read and glimpse into this world. Adding to the watchlist, thank you!
posted by dr_dank at 5:58 AM on May 23
posted by dr_dank at 5:58 AM on May 23
I went to the same high school as Daniel Farris, and he was active on our mailing list while that was still a thing. He had been the engineer on a solo artist's album, where the artist had promoted themselves as playing all their own instruments. All the studio musicians who worked on the album signed NDAs, but he hadn't, so he decided to spill the beans. It was an interesting revelation. He'd written an article about it for general consumption, but google's failing me right now.
posted by Spike Glee at 6:47 AM on May 23 [2 favorites]
posted by Spike Glee at 6:47 AM on May 23 [2 favorites]
Well! If ever there were a place to trot out my unlisted bona-fides, here are the tracks I worked on for which I received no credit:
Doh Stop The Carnival by The Mighty Sparrow - I was the tracking engineer for this album. It was recorded at Krystal Sound Recordings in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn in the fall of 1998. Sparrow was a jovial fellow. His music director, Erroll Ince, was a quiet man who communicated mainly in grunts and growls. Soft grunts for assent, loud growls for dissent. Every track began which what felt like an hour of fiddling with an EMU SP-1200 sampler to get the perfect beat, each of which ended up sounding surprisingly similar to the previous beat. I have no doubt that some of the work I did was re-done, as I was wholly unqualified for the job. I also got let go after my car got towed and impounded on a Saturday and I had to call my boss to come bail me out because my mom was giving me Very Low Confidence vibes re: her ability to drive into Brooklyn, something which she absolutely never did. (The release dates listed for the album are all over the map - I can confirm that the 1994 date is completely wrong, and it appears it was re-released as an EP in 2019 or 2020)
Who Is A Thug? by Big Pun (RIP) - I played keyboards. At the time (late winter, early spring 1999) I was working at a fledgling recording studio owned by producer Ty Fyffe, whose biggest hit was the Wrex-n-Effect banger "Rump Shaker" which he made while working with Teddy Riley. On that particular day I had been at the studio and gone back home to Long Island when I got a phone call from Ty, telling me to come back in. I whinged loudly, as it was a long drive, but he said it was imperative and refused to elaborate. So I drove back to Queens and we loaded into his white Mercedes CLK. We ended up driving to a big studio in Manhattan where it was revealed that we'd be doing a track for Big Pun that would be on the "Whiteboyz" soundtrack. Exciting! So Ty laid down a beat and I went to work on the keys using a Korg Triton. First was the piano, which I'll readily admit sounds suspiciously like the piano line from "Still Not a Player", and then a marimba line, followed by some strings. Once I was done, they brought in a girl group to do the vocals for the chorus. The initial idea was to riff on Bernard Wright's "Who Do You Love?" but they were open to having an original melody written so they could avoid licensing fees. I'm sad to say that I did not come up with anything better.
The wait for Pun to arrive was very long - he was on the way, he was getting a sandwich, he was hanging out with some friends. I excused myself to use the restroom and when I entered there was this absolutely enormous man standing in front of two sinks at once. It was clearly Pun. I did my business and made the executive decision to delay using the sinks because he was muttering to himself and I didn't want to bother the guy. Also he was intimidating. I got back to the studio and said something along the lines of "Pun is here!" and then he appeared in all of his Pun-ness, saying hello and walking into the vocal booth. He laid down his vocals in successively shorter segments as he kept running out of breath. Once he was done he came out and we took a group photo with him - a photo I absolutely want a copy of but have not been able to get from Ty. If I manage to get it, I'll share it here.
By the time we were done it must have been 6:30am. I called my old roommate from college, who got me interested in hip hop, to let him know that I had just done a track for Big Pun. He was thrilled.
Rolling Disclosure by The Paranoid Style - I played bass and provided some backing vocals. I'm listed on the Bandcamp page, but not on AllMusic and not on the actual, physical LP. If you've seen me go on rants about properly crediting people, this is one of the reasons I'm so cantankerous about that. It was even reviewed by Robert Christgau, who didn't mention me by name but said my bass playing "buri[ed] all hope of indie decorum," a phrase which I might just have inscribed on my gravestone. Anyway, if you make an album, be sure to credit everyone who played on it on all of the forms of media to which it is pressed.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:52 AM on May 23 [25 favorites]
Doh Stop The Carnival by The Mighty Sparrow - I was the tracking engineer for this album. It was recorded at Krystal Sound Recordings in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn in the fall of 1998. Sparrow was a jovial fellow. His music director, Erroll Ince, was a quiet man who communicated mainly in grunts and growls. Soft grunts for assent, loud growls for dissent. Every track began which what felt like an hour of fiddling with an EMU SP-1200 sampler to get the perfect beat, each of which ended up sounding surprisingly similar to the previous beat. I have no doubt that some of the work I did was re-done, as I was wholly unqualified for the job. I also got let go after my car got towed and impounded on a Saturday and I had to call my boss to come bail me out because my mom was giving me Very Low Confidence vibes re: her ability to drive into Brooklyn, something which she absolutely never did. (The release dates listed for the album are all over the map - I can confirm that the 1994 date is completely wrong, and it appears it was re-released as an EP in 2019 or 2020)
Who Is A Thug? by Big Pun (RIP) - I played keyboards. At the time (late winter, early spring 1999) I was working at a fledgling recording studio owned by producer Ty Fyffe, whose biggest hit was the Wrex-n-Effect banger "Rump Shaker" which he made while working with Teddy Riley. On that particular day I had been at the studio and gone back home to Long Island when I got a phone call from Ty, telling me to come back in. I whinged loudly, as it was a long drive, but he said it was imperative and refused to elaborate. So I drove back to Queens and we loaded into his white Mercedes CLK. We ended up driving to a big studio in Manhattan where it was revealed that we'd be doing a track for Big Pun that would be on the "Whiteboyz" soundtrack. Exciting! So Ty laid down a beat and I went to work on the keys using a Korg Triton. First was the piano, which I'll readily admit sounds suspiciously like the piano line from "Still Not a Player", and then a marimba line, followed by some strings. Once I was done, they brought in a girl group to do the vocals for the chorus. The initial idea was to riff on Bernard Wright's "Who Do You Love?" but they were open to having an original melody written so they could avoid licensing fees. I'm sad to say that I did not come up with anything better.
The wait for Pun to arrive was very long - he was on the way, he was getting a sandwich, he was hanging out with some friends. I excused myself to use the restroom and when I entered there was this absolutely enormous man standing in front of two sinks at once. It was clearly Pun. I did my business and made the executive decision to delay using the sinks because he was muttering to himself and I didn't want to bother the guy. Also he was intimidating. I got back to the studio and said something along the lines of "Pun is here!" and then he appeared in all of his Pun-ness, saying hello and walking into the vocal booth. He laid down his vocals in successively shorter segments as he kept running out of breath. Once he was done he came out and we took a group photo with him - a photo I absolutely want a copy of but have not been able to get from Ty. If I manage to get it, I'll share it here.
By the time we were done it must have been 6:30am. I called my old roommate from college, who got me interested in hip hop, to let him know that I had just done a track for Big Pun. He was thrilled.
Rolling Disclosure by The Paranoid Style - I played bass and provided some backing vocals. I'm listed on the Bandcamp page, but not on AllMusic and not on the actual, physical LP. If you've seen me go on rants about properly crediting people, this is one of the reasons I'm so cantankerous about that. It was even reviewed by Robert Christgau, who didn't mention me by name but said my bass playing "buri[ed] all hope of indie decorum," a phrase which I might just have inscribed on my gravestone. Anyway, if you make an album, be sure to credit everyone who played on it on all of the forms of media to which it is pressed.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:52 AM on May 23 [25 favorites]
Scary Pockets are a modern day version of the Wrecking Crew. It is/was a project for the session and touring players to do quick one-shot recordings on Youtube for a bit of cash, and kept going even through COVID.
posted by bonehead at 7:44 AM on May 23 [4 favorites]
posted by bonehead at 7:44 AM on May 23 [4 favorites]
twenty feet from stardom, I think, is the backup vocalist doco.
posted by j_curiouser at 7:48 AM on May 23 [1 favorite]
posted by j_curiouser at 7:48 AM on May 23 [1 favorite]
Trent Renzor (NIN), Billy Joel, and Richard Patrick (Filter) come off as terrible people in this documentary, and the Disney crew, with stipends and heath insurance, ie: Miley Cyrus come off as decent people. Alice Cooper too.
Billy Joel fires his long time band for cheaper people.
Trent Renzor 'helps' his touring band member Richard Patrick (Filter) in the industry by getting him a job delivering pizza.
Richard Patrick, instead of learning from Renzor and doing the opposite, treats his touring band members the same way.
It's a pretty good movie. A distant relative was involved in making it, and also worked on similar projects with Ray Parker Jr about his session work and Stevie Wonder about his studio albums. Not sure if the other two have been released yet.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:56 AM on May 23 [5 favorites]
Billy Joel fires his long time band for cheaper people.
Trent Renzor 'helps' his touring band member Richard Patrick (Filter) in the industry by getting him a job delivering pizza.
Richard Patrick, instead of learning from Renzor and doing the opposite, treats his touring band members the same way.
It's a pretty good movie. A distant relative was involved in making it, and also worked on similar projects with Ray Parker Jr about his session work and Stevie Wonder about his studio albums. Not sure if the other two have been released yet.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:56 AM on May 23 [5 favorites]
METAFILTER: "buri[ed] all hope of indie decorum,"
posted by philip-random at 9:15 AM on May 23 [5 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 9:15 AM on May 23 [5 favorites]
I ve always been agog at just how much music there is.And how many bands, successful or struggling. I know cream rises to the top, but It seems an uphill battle just to get noticed...and then actually get paid. But then I remember the young ste strong and hopeful.
posted by Czjewel at 9:46 AM on May 23
posted by Czjewel at 9:46 AM on May 23
I was always a person who read the credits on album covers. I did notice certain recurring names and think “I thought he was in that other band.” Turns out, he probably was.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 1:07 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 1:07 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]
Great documentary that I enjoyed very much. Highly recommend to anyone interested in the business side of the industry.
posted by jordantwodelta at 4:49 PM on May 23
posted by jordantwodelta at 4:49 PM on May 23
I was the roadie in the '60s and '70s for a band called Sons of Champlin. After they broke up in 1977, double-Grammy front man Bill Champlin took a gig with the band Chicago, for the next 28 years, during which he wrote and sang several hits for them.
He never made any secret to me of his contempt for their musical ability. Since he was not a founding member, his status was "sideman." When they fired him, it was by email.
posted by Repack Rider at 5:09 PM on May 23 [4 favorites]
He never made any secret to me of his contempt for their musical ability. Since he was not a founding member, his status was "sideman." When they fired him, it was by email.
posted by Repack Rider at 5:09 PM on May 23 [4 favorites]
He never made any secret to me of his contempt for their musical ability.
Did he think they were hacks?
posted by grumpybear69 at 5:35 PM on May 23
Did he think they were hacks?
posted by grumpybear69 at 5:35 PM on May 23
Following up on the recommendations, if you like music docs like this, watch Muscle Shoals.
posted by fings at 7:13 PM on May 23
posted by fings at 7:13 PM on May 23
Doonesbury, of all things, was my first exposure to the idea of session musicians (not in real time - my mother's high school library had several Doonesbury collections)
They had Jimmy Thudpucker record a song for the political campaign of one of the other characters so there were a series of strips in the studio and even had noted session guitarist Jay Graydon as himself in some of them.
Graydon, David Foster and Steve Lukather were among the artists who helped make Doonesbury's Jimmy Thudpucker: Greatest Hits .
posted by LostInUbe at 6:03 AM on May 24 [2 favorites]
They had Jimmy Thudpucker record a song for the political campaign of one of the other characters so there were a series of strips in the studio and even had noted session guitarist Jay Graydon as himself in some of them.
Graydon, David Foster and Steve Lukather were among the artists who helped make Doonesbury's Jimmy Thudpucker: Greatest Hits .
posted by LostInUbe at 6:03 AM on May 24 [2 favorites]
Trent Renzor (NIN), Billy Joel, and Richard Patrick (Filter) come off as terrible people in this documentary
It's worth pointing out that we hear about how awful Reznor is from Patrick, but Patrick is sort of offering it as an excuse for why he, by his own admission, treats his own hired guns like shit.
(As an example of the lesson a decent person might have taken away from this, I'm reminded of the story Geddy Lee tells in his book about being ready every day they were opening for Aerosmith for their sound check, which they were assured over and over they would get, but which never once happen. As a result Rush made a point to get their opening acts sound checks whenever they could.)
posted by The Tensor at 7:29 PM on May 24 [2 favorites]
It's worth pointing out that we hear about how awful Reznor is from Patrick, but Patrick is sort of offering it as an excuse for why he, by his own admission, treats his own hired guns like shit.
(As an example of the lesson a decent person might have taken away from this, I'm reminded of the story Geddy Lee tells in his book about being ready every day they were opening for Aerosmith for their sound check, which they were assured over and over they would get, but which never once happen. As a result Rush made a point to get their opening acts sound checks whenever they could.)
posted by The Tensor at 7:29 PM on May 24 [2 favorites]
I never know exactly how to sort out all the different stories about Reznor, but Trent was going through his full addictive phase during the time Patrick was a part of the band. Patrick left NIN in 1993 and it wasn't until after Reznor toured with Bowie in 1995 that he started to try to get his shit worked out, and he didn't really get sober until 2001.
So Patrick was part of NIN during part of the worst part of Reznor's addiction. I'm not sure it's fair to judge Reznor by that standard, and I have no idea what Patrick's substance use was like during the time mentioned either.
Addicted people are hurt people, and hurt people hurt people, as they say.
posted by hippybear at 8:54 PM on May 24
So Patrick was part of NIN during part of the worst part of Reznor's addiction. I'm not sure it's fair to judge Reznor by that standard, and I have no idea what Patrick's substance use was like during the time mentioned either.
Addicted people are hurt people, and hurt people hurt people, as they say.
posted by hippybear at 8:54 PM on May 24
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posted by mykescipark at 5:49 AM on May 23 [12 favorites]