OCTOBER 15, 2003: GROOVIN' WITH HUGH

Hugh and I getting down, adding some claps to one of his songs.

October 2003 sees the return of a collaboration with Hugh Cornwell and myself and I am loathe to count the years inbetween (okay, around 20).

We have worked together before, when Hugh was the lead singer of The Stranglers and I was asked to mix their album La Folie. This album contained the smash hit single "Golden Brown." This project began with bassist J.J. Brunel telling me, "We think producers are crap, but we like the way your records sound on the radio." Ah, those were the days when musicians used to 'tell it like it is,' to hell with this modern P.C. communication!

Hugh was more of a gentleman, he said very little. With the success of La Folie the band asked me to mix and partially record their next album, Feline. All in all, we got on pretty well by then. Hugh and I would start the day jogging on the streets of Bruxelles, where we were mixing.

After a chance meeting at the Groucho Club in London last year, Hugh and I exchanged phone numbers and e-mails. A few months later, Hugh dropped by my studio in New York and played the album in its entirety on acoustic guitar, flawlessly. I would've produced the album from the beginning, but a conflict in scheduling only allowed time for us to work on the mix. He started the album with producer Danny Kadar, a project he managed to finish in New Orleans, just before he got married (Danny, not Hugh).

Adventures in that southern capital of great music can be read about on Hugh's website.

OCTOBER 2, 2003: RECORDING THE FINN BROTHERS

The Finn Brothers production team
at Metropolis Studios in London.
from left to right: D.J. Phat Tone, homies
Mario McNulty and Richard Wilkinson.

Never before has an “audition” taken on such space age proportions for me. But after receiving a very specific URL from Neil Finn, and after several pre-Preproduction telephone conversations with him and brother Tim, my assistant Mario and I gazed at the Apple cinema monitor in my New York control room in wonderment, watching a private live webcast from Auckland, New Zealand.

Neil Finn.

Tim Finn singing "The Luckiest Man Alive."

Oh, what wonderful technology (and, oh, what you Finn fans would’ve given to have seen this webcast). This it the way that the brothers wanted me to hear their new songs for the first time and to show me that they had a new band that could really play! It went flawlessly, except for the occasional picture glitch, but I was enthralled with the new songs, the vocal harmonies and the playing.

I could see Neil and Tim switching guitars and sharing piano duties with each song and even get a good idea of how to set up the microphones when the time came to record them. Bassist Bones Hillman and drummer Ross Burge were also getting their close-ups because this not-so-simple webcast was a multi-camera shoot!

Bones Hillman (formerly of Midnight Oil) and Ross Burge.

For technical reasons, the webcast had to be buffered and sent ten minutes later, so it was almost live. What was really amusing was that I had a short conversation with Neil just before the webcast, then I could see him talking to me in New Zealand ten minutes after the conversation took place!

Well, of course there was never a question of not recording them, the Finn’s reputation is sterling for excellent songwriting and creamy vocals, so this “audition” was a token formality, icing on the cake.

from left to right: Tim Finn, Tony Visconti, Ross Burge, Bones Hillman, and Neil Finn at Allaire Studios. photo: Sharon Finn

About month later we all met for the first time in person at Allaire Studios in Shokan, N.Y. I had recorded David Bowie’s Heathen there and couldn’t recommend a better place for the Finns to have a home away from home with their families in tow. I was greeted by smiling faces all around, the band and their families adored Allaire and I could feel that we were off to a good start.

TV using a secret taiji record production technique. photo: Mario McNulty

Recording was to take place for three weeks, but we added a fourth only because it was going so well and extra songs were added to the agenda, a total of sixteen.

The recording went smoothly as we virtually lived together for the month, taking meals in the communal dining room, swimming in Allaire’s pool and just enjoying the lofty environment of recording on a mountaintop.

I don’t think Tim wore a pair of shows for the entire time we were there.

After the Allaire phase, the band did some extra recording in their newly built studio in New Zealand.

When we gathered together again I found quite a few new vocals and instruments on tape (well, hard drive, actually).

Mixing the album at Metropolis Studios, Chiswick, London.
left to right: Neil Finn, Tim Finn,
Richard Wilkinson (in background), and Tony Visconti.

We decided on mixing the album and recording strings in London. I have lived in England for 23 years and I have a special fondness for the studio life and special qualities of the string players, a tradition which started with the breathtaking playing on “Eleanor Rigby.” British string players have that rare ability for bridging the gap of classical and pop.

Neil and Tim have to make the difficult decision to choose the best twelve songs for the CD. I think I’ll stay out of this one because I’d have all of them on the CD. The CD is due out very early in 2004.