Introducing ANALOG PLANET

Hello folks! Well I have some big news! I have started my own company - a web-boutique called Drew Townson's Analog Planet. Yazoo! The Planet sells high-end analog recording gear, including lots of tube stuff. I call it "The Audio Hardware Store...in space!" Great idea, starting a high-end business in this economy, right?

What am I thinking?

Well, I'm thinking I want to start a a genuine high-end thing, based on my own deication to quality, as well as creating a legacy for my family and son. Plus, I was getting sick of the guys I was working for driving in to work at 11 am in their Beemers and Benzes and coming up to me with, "Sold anything today Drew?" "What have you done for me lately Drew?"

What I had done for them is a lot. Made happy customers. Brought in a lot of money...which was not trickling enough back down to me. So I said, "screw it!" and started my own business.

The site's young and buggy and still in development, but hey, go check out Analog Planet!

Blowing Joey's Ears...

OneTwoThreeFaw! Joey and Johnny Beating On The Brat, 1979

Of course, over the years I've had my less-than-stellar moments in the studio (and elsewhere). One of the first, and worst, was before I even moved to Boston.

It was the time I fried Joey Ramone's ears.

It must have been late '84 or early '85 when the Ramones came to Dallas to play at The Twilight Room, which was a decent size club with a nice stage. I'd say there were 800, maybe 1000 people there.

My band-mate and production partner at the time, Lisa, was an old pal of Joey's, having been in cutting-edge college and commercial radio for some years.

So we had access to Joey.

My sister and I had a nice studio called "Castle Audio" in nearby Carrolton. Lisa and I were working on a studio project under the name White Noise. We had tracked this sort of ska-punk version of Led Zepplin's "D'yer Mak'er", which would have been perfect for Joey to sing on. Astonishingly, when asked if he'd add a couple layers of vocal tracks, he agreed.

So after the show at the Twilight, Joey Ramone showed up at my studio. It was about 2:am, and in comes this bigger than life geek, wearing the pink granny-glasses, leather jacket and Chuck Taylor sneaks. He was this too-tall, bent over sloth of a guy; a slow-moving gentle giant. With the play-doh face and thick lips, re really did look like a cartoon of himself. And what a sweet sweet man. In his syrupy, nasally Queens drawl, he agreed to everything we were telling him was about to happen. He was so eager to please, even though he had the sniffles.

I had everything all cued up and ready, including a nice Neumann recording mic, on a stand and live. Headphones were hangin' there, too.

First, we played him the track a few times over the JBL studio monitors (a move that would later prove our undoing). After he got the hang of the part, we thought it was time to roll tape. That's when Joey made one small request.

He wanted a Shure SM57 on a straight mic-stand, so he could stand in his exact stage-pose. Y'know the one: feet wide-apart, head forward, soulders back with one hand at the mic and one way down the stand, and the mic jammed right up there, lost in the mop of black hair. The stage-mic didn't need to be plugged in, mind you. I already had a $2000 recording mic on a boom, all ready to rock. So the $100 Shure would be simply a dummy. It would be Joey's "Linus Blanket".

This was not a problem. I quickly obliged. But in doing so, I forgot to do somehing else.

I forgot to extinguish the studio speakers. Something I had never ever forgotten to do.

So Joey put the headphones on, leaned in, and in the control-room I hit the big red button on the tape recorder.

What happened next was the loudest, most shrill, most siren-like feedback the world has ever known. Ice picks. Flying knives. To poor Joey, with his headphones on, it must have felt like power-drills boring through his ear-drums, straight to the pain-receptors of his brain.

He instinctively threw the headphones to the floor and covered his ears. It took me a few seconds to figure out where the Gawd-Awful din was coming from, but I did, and in about 5 seconds, it was over.

Joey had been deafened.

I felt like shit warmed over. Full shame and embarrasment.

He stood there, rubbing the feeling back in to his ears, which were ringing like a firehouse bell, I'm sure. And to his credit, he offered to go ahead with the session. "I'm awright," he said, "I can do it."

But after that, the magic was gone; the moment was lost. We let Joey go back to his hotel to bed. I'm sure his ears were still buzzing as he tried to sleep.

Sweet wonderful Joey.

And I blew out his ears....

Nowhere Man: How Christopher Moore went from Bean-town to No-Scene-Town

While I was working at that Hellhole whose name shall not be uttered (go back 1-year on this blog), I became acquainted with one Mr. Chris Moore, a part-time helper there who was, well there's no better word for it, Chris was cool. We're talkin' wrap-around shades, the latest in hair-spikage, mod clothes, and a rave-club pallor. Young Chris had an air about him, that is for sure. Didn't take long for me to find out that the kid was funny, too, in a dry, ascerbic way. Smart kid, Chris Moore.

Because he was sort of the lone hipster among a bunch of long-toothed rockers, he caught more than his share of ribbing from the gang. But he laughed right along with everybody and returned the abuse in-kind. All the while, Chris was learning audio engineering and live sound. Turns out he was a singer and was beginning the process of getting a demo together. Chris was even planning a trip to Cali to track and mix with a very well-known veteran producer/mixologist. Yep, that Chris was on his way up in life. He had big plans. Big dreams. He was on the launchpad. He was ready to ignite. He was on the Road....

...to Nowhere.

Or, more accurately, he was on the Rotary to Nowhere. For those of you who don't live in Massachusetts, a Rotary is a traffic circle. They're all over the place up here, and they're scary as-hell. Where three or four or more roads converge/intersect, instead of a traffic light, there's a rotary. You enter the one-way mixmaster, circling until the road you want comes up and then you exit. And it's not just one lane, either. There can be two, sometimes three cars side-by-side. So all these vehicles are getting on and off and going 'round and 'round. What sometimes happens is, you might be in the outside lane, and the car on the INSIDE lane (to your left) decides to exit (to your right). This was the unlucky position Chris found himself in last summer. He was on the notorious Fresh Pond Rotary in Cambridge, one of the busiest and craziest in the area.

CCRRASSSHHH!

In an instant, Chris's life changed, and not in a good way. He didn't have health insurance and ended up with a bad doctor. The story goes down hill from there. But I'll let Chris tell it himself. Instead of Hollywood, he's out in the middle of Cow-cake Ohio, surrounded by a sea of mud, trying desperately to get back to civilization through his laptop. So, check out his site, TheQuarterProject, watch his video, and maybe flip a couple Washingtons his way...

Feelin' it With Joe Ely

Ely Tellin' Texas Tales as Tall as a Ten-Gallon Hat

One of the best gigs I ever had with the Derangers was in 1997 at Mama Kin on Landsdowne, when we opened for the great Texas Balladeer, Joe Ely. Joe Ely Homepage

We got to hang with him back stage and got his autograph. He signed my (vinyl 12") copy of Lord of The Highway, writing, "Beware of El Tarantula!" Bern and I had recounted to him the story of how we had just moved to a new apartment, and how I had gotten produce boxes from a local grocery store, and how when I opened the banana box, now containing CDs, there was a giant hairy tarantula in there. Ely was like, "Didja keep 'im? What didja name 'im?"


Times They Were a-Twangin' with The Derangers and My 1961 Stratocaster!

The best part was, we were to play first of three bands, but the middle band didn't show up, so we got bumped up to right before Ely. By the time we went on, like ten-ish, the place had filled up with Ely fans, who really dug what we were doing. We were at the top of our game by that point, so that was a really good night for us.

And Ely and his band were amazing, of course.