Don't Bring Me Down, Bruce

I've finally finished reading the large stack of magazines I'd brought back from Anaheim (some of the best free swag from NAMM is the magazine rack), finishing up with an interview in Tape Op with the most famous engineer you've never heard of, a guy named Reinhold Mack.

Mack isn't a household name, doesn't have a blog or a recording tips website or a podcast,  and doesn't appear in any microphone advertisements. He's just a low-key guy from Munich who's engineered a lot of great records over many years, including 8 ELO albums.

One of ELO's biggest hits, and arguably their catchiest song, was "Don't Bring Me Down", a non-typical ELO product in that it was a straight rocker with minimal production. Or so I thought.

I did not realize that ELO typically double-tracked drums, usually in two separate rooms. But on this song, not only were the drums not double-tracked, they were looped using a recording from another song. Of course, this predates canned loop libraries, so the loop is actually Bev Bevan's playing and was looped the old-fashioned way, with a razor blade.

The piano, OTOH, was a triple-tracked grand.

He says Jeff Lynn hates reverb so he'd have to sneak in a little ambience when Jeff wasn't around. Listening again now to some classic ELO tracks it's apparent that reverb is indeed scarce, especially on vocals. Listen to some ELO after hearing anything else from the same era and it also becomes obvious that Lynn's preferred EQ is very mid-rangey as well as being dry. He seems to be as wary of bass as he is of reverb. Maybe this is why ELO sounds so good on the radio.

But the biggest revelation was the explanation for why the bridge goes "Don't Bring Me Down, Bruce".

Turns out, it's not "Bruce" at all. What he's singing, in glorious stacked ELO fatness, is the German word "Gruss" (the correct spelling is impossible on a US keyboard). The original title of the song was indeed "Don't Bring Me Down, Bruce", but was changed because the song was to be premiered on tour in Australia. The name "Bruce" has an unusual connotation in Australia thanks to Monty Python, who had a popular comedy sketch at the time involving Australians, all of whom were named Bruce. The name came to be a generic word for "guy", like "Sheila" has become a generic synonym for "gal". Not wanting to offend any Australians, the lyric was changed to the even more obscure "Gruss", as in "Gruss Gott!", which I think is mainly a Bavarian expression. At least it seemed that way when I lived in Bavaria.

Maybe some Aussies and/or Münchners can elaborate on those connotations.

t's great to learn stuff from working guys who aren't just getting interviewed because they have press agents working to make them famous behind the scenes playas.

Oh my Mike's really on one just now...

Bless his heart.

Rheinhold says that the British acts came to Germany specifically to dodge taxes in a legal manner.

He was the assistant engineer but one day the studio owner decided to go party and he became the engineer.

After years of being the engineer he finally convinced a few bands to give him some production credits because he was coming up with valuable ideas.

He's fairly matter of fact about the whole process.

I dig his down to earth style.

best,
mike

Jonbouy

Listen to some ELO after hearing anything else from the same era and it also becomes obvious that Lynn's preferred EQ is very mid-rangey as well as being dry. He seems to be as wary of bass as he is of reverb. Maybe this is why ELO sounds so good on the radio.

I used to think that at the time.  His vox had an almost megaphone/tannoy type quality that really carried them through.

I guess a lot of Brits at that time we're working in factory environments and I it would have been good for sales as a lot of popular music radio blared out of the tannoy systems all day long, environments that would introduce their own ambience to an otherwise dry mix.

A bit like the modern day 'playas' Mike has just dissed, record producers have always been looking to grab the biggest slice of market share from the softest targets however quaint nostalgia makes things seem.

It's the nature of something as static as a recorded work. 

The only way to be a purist is to solely play live and for the magic happen there and then, it bears little or no relationship to recorded music.

Here's a guy that pretty much defies what you are saying about producers always looking to grab a biggest slice:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Van_Gelder

I have seen on occasions that I get tagged as a Jazz guy (usually when people say things to me like "well I don't like jazz much"...) but I'm really a punk rocker... which, here in USA, is another genre that was historically produced more often "just because" rather than with any specific ambition to locate a soft target to sell into.

I worked a bunch with the Windham Hill Musicians as a live guy. They obviously wanted to sell as many albums as possible but Mr. Ackerman, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ackerman, never really cared to mold his artists to increase sales... he simply worked with people he liked and created a distribution channel that sort of worked for his artists.


I've also been inspired by guys like Chris Blackwell who made a lot of wonderful recordings for an incredibly small market way before he ever aspired to hit it big.


I think the vast majority of working producers and engineers are in it for the idea of leaving a legacy and it is a very few producers that entertain notions of becoming celebrities or legends in their own minds.

I think most recordists think of them selves as something similar to photographers who capture moments in time... even if the impression of immediacy is actually the result of a few weeks production. They help produce bodies of work.


I like the fact that Tape Op seems inclined to speak to individuals who enjoy that outlook and they gather interviews from great craftsman whom may be perfectly happy working and eating and  simply staying content that they get to do good work.


all the best,
mike

Maybe it's my bad???

It doesn't have to be yours!

I was just responding to the idea that I might be dissing every producer out there... which I'm not saying you said... but that's probably what I was thinking I was responding too.

all the best,
mike

"Shessh, TBH you are sounding a bit like Mosh just now you sounding similarly like the only person with an awareness of what is around. "

I didn't see that on my first read thru... it seems intended to insult...


I actually read, enjoyed and recommended that interview about a month and a half ago... I thought it was an excellent interview and an excellent issue of Tape Op... a magazine which any and every body (at least in the USA) can get a free copy of sent to their mailbox. It doesn't seem like anything exclusive, insider, or unique to have read it.

I am merely responding with enthusiasm because I think it was a great interview... and it was full of much more info and idea than mixing ELO in some specific manner.

Rhienhold seems like a really down to earth guy who says several times in the interview that he prefers not having or maintaining a public profile.

It included funny anecdotes about drinking beer all day until the bands acquiesced to working within confines of a studio that wasn't up to England's top flight work flows.

It included stories about setting up drum kits in stairwells.

It included stories about Queen and the Stones which I sort of thought eclipsed the stories about ELO,

It also mentioned Donna Summer, T-rex, Zep, and a few other big names.

But most importantly with regards to your criticism of my comments... it is a public document... available for nearly no cost to just about anyone to read in detail. I fail to see how my enthusiasm for the article can place me in a position of seeming like a pompous know it all.

I think it is a great interview.

Post 7 was a response to my impression that you were saying I was dissing producers... when in fact I am only dissing "certain" producers.

:-)


One final thought about the Rheinhold Mack interview and an additional insight about 45rpm.


IIRC, Rheinhold ended the interview by speaking about the fact that he and his sons now live in L.A. and are very satisfied to work as surround sound remixers for the Asian Anime market. He speaks about the joys of working semi anonymously with his sons. His son turned him on to the market and the opportunity to work in that specific field. He says he values the time spent with family and doesn't miss the hi profile gigs at all. The whole theme of his interview was that he is all about flying under the radar.


With regard to ELO and 45rpms, I find it intriguing and informative to learn that in the late 1970's that singles were still vital in England. Over here the AOR format was predominant and I don't think I, as a record buying customer, ever considered ELO as anything other than a album oriented band. The part I find interesting is how those different experiences are circumstantial and I also think that our domestic preoccupation with albums caused us to miss out on some things. The circumstance caused customers to have to become reacquainted with the single format. In the USA it required the mechanism of MTV and new genres such as Rap/Hip Hop to get our attention.


best regards,
mike

If I may,

I feel that your insights about factory settings or what I personally refer to as "blue collar music" are very interesting and pertinent.

When I, for example, make statements about mixes that sound like MTV rock made for wall to wall carpet living rooms it is directly related to the same social phenomenons you are speaking of.


If you consider the early days of electric country and rock music in the USA you might find yourself reading about Bakersfield California which was a cross roads town frequented by enough blue collar workers to fuel the development of the Fender brand.

If you consider Chicago South Side blues you can realize that it was supported by the patronage of countless factory workers looking for an evenings excitement.

The great music halls of Texas were frequented by the oil industry labor pool that spent their days in very loud working enviroments.

The music favored by all those patrons was very dynamic and full of harsh yet lovely aggressive tonality.

Records used to be made to reproduce that sense of excitement that were experienced at the bars, clubs and halls.

It is a style of music that seems almost anachronistic today, probably because so few western world listeners spend their time surrounded by high SPL industrialized noise.

Instead, we are surrounded by a dull constant noise, deadened with drywall, carpeting, acoustic ceilings, absorbent cubicle walls, plush automotive interiors, and the constant hum of HVAC.

Our tastes have changed and our threshold of what constitutes exciting sound has changed remarkably.


For example; T-Bone Walker now sounds aggressive and spikey when back in his day he seemed smooth and thoroughly polished.

I hadn't thought of it much, but it does seem that ELO sounds ballsy by todays standards.

It is interesting to consider that the Musicland Studios where many ELO songs were recorded was in the basement of a large hotel and it finally shut down because a neighboring subway train track contributed too much noise to the recordings.

It seems that the noise didn't bother the old rockers all that much. :-)


all the best,
mike




 

Being some what familiar with the sound of those old records and the playback systems we enjoyed them on I'd opine that the real import of the British Invasion was the fact that it allowed youngsters and hipsters the ability to appreciate the music making genius of people whom had been  ostracized for social reasons.

I think that the British invasion was sort of the USA's window with which it could view the genius of our very own neighbors whom lived on the other side of the tracks.

It wasn't merely a genius for recording, mixing, or multi tracking but an actual acceptance that some people's talent for writing and performing great music had been perfected over many generations despite the fact that it was assiduously ignored or ostracized as "race records" by a larger relatively conservative audience.

After the first wave of British back lash the flood gates opened and the mash up era of modern pop songwriting commenced as evidenced by truly unique treatments such as are characterized by bands like ELO.

I feel that the success was still owed far more to great songwriting and performance than to any technical development. But that's just an opinion.



I find dark satire in knowing that there is an opportunity to purchase a "Brilliance Pack".

It seems like a perfect junior high school electronics project.

It seems, to me, that we should be encouraging more people to build these types of simple circuits on their kitchen tables. It's a 50 year old circuit that should be easy for our school children to understand if we have indeed evolved as a society.  I guess I hope that we never get to the point where we think that it's funny that we haven't achieved that standard. :-)


all the best,
mike





 

I feel that the success was still owed far more to great songwriting and performance than to any technical development. But that's just an opinion.

Of course I was only speaking of a single but important aspect, the other things you mention of course all played a part.

Certainly I agree with your quote above, but what I was alluding to re. Mike Chapman was that he didn't achieve success as a song writer world wide until he dropped the UK production sensibilities to some extent. 

So it seems peculiarly that his talent for producing successful domestic UK singles in fact had the reverse effect in him being accepted around the wider world albeit Blondie were bigger in the UK than in the US at the outset of their career.

i gotta tell you tho....

as badd-ass as they were in the studio, i rented a ELO concert, Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) - Out of the Blue: Live at Wembley 


and i gotta say, they sounded almost as good live.
without the layers and layers of everything, stripped down, it was good rock and roll.

No question ELO was a great live act. Lynn was/is an almost psychotic perfectionist. A friend of mine once opened for ELO and hung out with the band after the show. Heavy drinkers, the lot of 'em - all except Jeff, who never joined his bandmates' parties but preferred to hole up in his hotel room every night, working up song ideas.

Regarding the varying levels of treble in successive ELO records, I think it has followed the evolution of technology.

They used a lot more instruments and voices than was typical of the time, which required a lot of bouncing on a 16-track machine. Multiple bounces results in cumulative tape hiss, each requiring a little high-end rolloff. You still hear a lot of hiss on many of the mid-career ELO records, even though many elements have been rolled off so severely it sometimes sounds like they're singing through a pillow. The sudden increase in treble on ELO records may coincide with the move to 24-track recording. Just a theory.

BTW, was anyone else (who's read the article under discussion) surprised to find that Brian May was such an insecure dweeb?

Astonishing topic, probably my fav on techniques ... as I've pondered compulsively on 70's ELO ... for many years ... and probably will til I die. 

70's ELO was a bit too complex and melancholic for most Americans. 

TBH, I'm forced to rate the 70's ELO as the most competent and excellent music ever produced to my crony ears;

Personally, I listen to and emulate 70's ELO more repeatedly than any other music.  Any real pearls on 70's ELO are precious for me.

(You guys are all speaking pretty deeply on ELO.  So pardon my ignorance and 2 cents.)

While I despised many of ELO's distortion guitar songs (and hated the song "Don't Bring Me Down Bruce" ... for its Zanadu-oid similarities), I suppose Bev's grooves (as Bit describes) were the core of Jeff Lynne's success in the 70's.  (Please (un)validate elaborate)

Again, I'm supposing, the percussive ELO grooves themselves, seemed tight and potent enough to 'motivate' and/or 'uplift' those ELO strings (violin and cello), rhythmic basses, acoustic and distortion guitars, choirs, and/or Jeff's poetic vibe into such diverse and excellent states.

70's ELO pearls are perhaps the 'holy-of-holy's for many of us:

1) Follows Phil Spector's wall-of-music standards: tight, punchy, chord-following, etc.

2) Often employs dist guitar carefully for tonal effects ... not too many arbitrary guitar riffs nor Jimmy-Page-like solos.

3) Cello and violin are afforded boldness in the symphonies

4) ELO used wide macro-dynamics in the grooves.  There seemed no loudness race issues

5) Incremental build up of groove, instruments, and vocs ... cascading

6) Elaborate album intros to 'expand the listener's consciousness'

7) Melancholy strains: unrequited love, memories, dreams etc.: anti-bloodshed, peace-loving, poetic, romantic

8) Simple lyrical hooks to redeem complex instruments

9) Woodstock psychedelia may maxed out?: Counterpoint melodies, lush symphonies, rich textures ... etc.

10) A song was oft a style-genre emulation, and/or eclectic on many levels ... which may have fueled Lynne's determined 'romance' with different types of music.

11) Some 70's ELO songs start to romance religion ... with John Bunyan Imagery and spiritual romancing (Blue Boy, Mister Kingdom)

bitflipper


Jeff Lynn definitely has his own sensibilities and immediately-identifiable style. In my mind, the core of it comes down to supreme precision and everything being subservient to the melody. Even when the songs are dense, there is no chaff, nothing extraneous. It is musical engineering.

I recently watched the Concert for George on the anniversary of George Harrison's death and was impressed at how spot-on Lynn's vocals and guitar playing were. No sloppy slides, no flat notes, no unintended vibrato. He knows in advance exactly what he wants to come out and delivers precisely that, no more and no less. Quite a contrast to Clapton's relaxed style but still surprisingly compatible.

I wish George and Roy were still alive. The Traveling Wilburys had so much potential.

--Fascinating!  I wondered about the Traveling Wilburys.
 
Jeff Lynne, in his latest Wikipedia photo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Lynne, reminds me of his former self ... except for the dreadful sun glasses (which I don't understand) ... many state the glasses are due to age-wrinkles, shyness, smoking pot, fame, and/or trademark ... but I don't understand them.
 
2 other bands arose who I mentally compared to ELO, Alan Parsons and the Moody Blues.
 
Each is oft extoled for pioneering the mixing of rock with classical.
 
Despite my fanatic interest in old ELO; I've detected that Jeff Lynne has decremetally lost a great deal of his vibe, motivation, and/or inspiration, in "Zoom", "Armchair", "Tom Petty collabs", etc.
 
The "long awaited 2011" solo album, I'll certainly not hold my breath for (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armchair_Theatre_(album)
 
Do you or anyone really suspect ELO will make a come back?

ELO will not be coming back. Lynn has said so many times. At least, not with JL at the helm.

But a band called ELO still tours, plays the old hits and records new material. I've seen concert footage of the new ELO and they have the same exacting precision they had when JL was leading the band. They put on a very good show that I'd pay to see. Unfortunately, what they don't have is JL's songwriting and producing skills, so  their original stuff, though pleasant, is unremarkable.