The Nic of Time #5: Mixing "Ark," The 1983 Animals Album on I.R.S. Records
Eric Burdon & his mates were coming in for overdubs and mixing! Nic: "Somehow, I managed to keep my cool. However, under the surface, my webbed feet were going ten to a dozen!"
“The Nic of Time”: Periodic short excerpts edited and “carefully adorned” from the original essays by early-’80’s Trident Studios/London assistant engineer,
🅝🅘🅒 🅑🅡🅘🅢🅒🅞🅔🖋🎸🎵🎥🎙, (shown above), from his The Song’s the Thing!
“The Nic of Time #4” can be found here:
This excerpt is taken from Nic’s recent “Just Another Day at the Office…1983”:
Mixing Tracks for The Animals' Ark Album
Nic turns the studio datebook page to a Monday in late spring: In 1983, I was twenty. I was working as a freelance sound engineer in London, based mainly at Maison Rouge Studios, in Fulham Broadway, under the guidance of its studio manager, Tony Taverner (shown below in the ‘70s).
I’d usually come to work, not quite sure who I’d be working with, and my boss, Tony would tell me. And that’s how my week mixing tracks for The Animals’ album, Ark, began. It was the second and last reunion attempt by the band’s initial lineup, and the album release was followed by a tour.
[Editor’s note: According to the album’s Wiki page, “This album follows a recent trend of many veteran acts such as Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt and Queen, where they either augmented their classic sound, or swapped it out entirely, for a punk/new wave sound. The Animals were no exception with Ark displaying a prominent new wave/post-punk sound.”]
“Today you’re working with The Animals, Nic. You’ll be finishing off and mixing some album tracks for them.”
“Ok, who’s the producer?”
“The band produced all the tracks, but you’ll be doing everything—you’ll be working with them, overseeing the overdubs, and you’ll be overseeing all the mixes.”
Holy Shit! Talk about in at the deep end! I was at the same time totally petrified and absolutely elated. Somehow, I managed to keep my cool and visually come across like it was all just a walk in the park…however, under the surface my webbed feet were going ten to a dozen!
I’m not 100% sure how exactly it happened. I don’t know if it was totally my boss, Tony Taverner, who put me forward for this work. Or if someone at I.R.S. Records (The Animals’ label) suggested me.
One of my close school friends, Neil Brett, was working with a music artist booking agency called Wasted Talent (which I think was somehow linked to concert promoter, Harvey Goldsmith, though I could be wrong). Neil was booking gigs for The Alarm at the time. I think Wasted Talent’s office was next to the I.R.S. Records office.
Anyway, I’d been there with Neil, and met one of I.R.S. founder Miles Copeland’s label managers — Steve Tannett (pictured above, and who was also working with The Alarm), and I’d told him I was working as an engineer at Maison Rouge studios.
Neil “bigged me up” in front of Steve, and actually, I think Steve had also seen Neil’s and my kind of Indie/New Wave/Punk band playing live in The Rock Garden, in Covent Garden. So, it’s possible Steve greased the wheels a bit because apparently, The Animals wanted to add some New Wave flavour to their sound for this album.
I asked Tony, that first morning, why I’d been given this opportunity to work with The Animals. For me, for any young engineer, this was an incredibly big deal. Tony just laughed as he was walking away with his back to me, and simply said, “Nobody else wanted to do it.”
Forty years later and I’m wondering — maybe he wasn’t joking?
Anyway, there I was, twenty years old, about to meet the legendary Chas Chandler, the bass player on the classic recording of the hit record “The House Of The Rising Sun” (which was probably the first complete song I learned on the guitar), the man who discovered Jimmy James and The Blue Flames (the short-lived band fronted by Jimi Hendrix, who was going by the name Jimmy James in 1966), to talk through a plan and schedule for that week, for recording overdubs and mixing five tracks from The Animals’ forthcoming album, Ark.
Before Chas arrived that day, Tony, my boss, gave me a heads-up:
The band members weren’t all talking to each other. Tony didn’t know the exact details about what had happened, or exactly who wasn’t talking to whom, but The Animals would never all be at the studio together at the same time in the same room.
OK, so no pressure, then. No communication issues with the band, just NO communication.
At that time The Animals were still the original five members:
As it would turn out, the only person who came in every day was Chas Chandler. He didn’t ever stay the whole day, maybe an hour or two, however, he always put in an appearance at some point. He was very tall, ever so slightly taller than me, I’d guess. I liked him. He wasn’t hard work at all. Straightforward. Down-to-earth. Clear. Reasonable. Mild-mannered.
Chas explained to me the situation regarding the work I’d be doing for him: The album had been recorded a month or two before at Country Lane Studios in Germany, in a town near Munich: Germering (nearly 20 km apart, or 12 miles):
All the tracks for the album were co-produced by all five original members of the band. Most tracks (seven out of the original twelve) were recorded and co-produced by the band and the great all-round producer, engineer, musician, and songwriter, Steve Lipson (a recent interview video of Steve on how he got his start and his career):
The remaining five tracks were NOT co-produced with Steve Lipson, and it was these five tracks I was to finish off with The Animals during that week at Maison Rouge.
To be clear, some of these five tracks were unfinished, or lacked a usable lead vocal, or needed some keyboards, guitar or bass part replaced or added.
The vast majority of the recording was already done, however in one working week (so six or seven days), I had to record all of these overdubs and mix five tracks. That’s a hell of a lot of work! To give you some idea, normally (if there is such a thing as ‘normally’ in recording studios!) I would allow at least, at the bare minimum, one full day to mix each song.
It’s difficult for me to remember exactly what happened that week; it’s forty years ago. More or less, this is what I do remember—The tracks I worked on are as follows:
Track 1: “Loose Change” (Steve Grant, songwriter)
Track 6: “Hard Times” (Eric Burdon, John Sterling)
Track 8: “Trying to Get to You” (Rose Marie McCoy, Charlie Singleton)
Track 11: “Gotta Get Back to You” (Danny Everitt, Terry Wilson)
Track 12: “Crystal Nights” (M. Anthony, Eric Burdon, M. Lewis, John Sterling)
I can’t be certain, however, I seem to remember that there may have been one or two other tracks that I worked on that never made it onto the final album.
Eric Burden came in once and replaced two vocals, I think, on “Loose Change” and “Trying to Get to You.” I know we used a Neumann U87 microphone and BeyerDyamnic DT100 headphones — I can still see him in my mind’s eye: He had a very bright Paisley shirt on.
He was very monosyllabic with me. He just came in, listened to the tracks whilst I set up the headphone mix, and then he sang the songs. It took just a few hours. Then he left. Hardly any practice runs or drop-ins (repairs on something just recorded), just a couple of straight takes, and choose the best one after.
For me, this was a relief, for two reasons. Firstly, there were hardly any completely empty tracks available on the twenty-four-track, two-inch master tapes. Secondly, some lead vocal sessions, just on one song, could last days.
Both Alan Price (seated in photo above with signatures) and Zoot Money (standing) came in to replace some keyboard parts. They came in with a small group of people who were drinking in Maison Rouge’s bar whilst we worked. Both were larger than life, very gregarious and seemed to like to be at the centre of attention.
They both used a Hammond Organ and a Leslie speaker (which had been hired in). With Alan Price, well, I found it a bit difficult to take him 100% seriously because I kept hearing his “Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear” from 1967 in my head when he was in front of me!
Stupid of me, because Alan Price is one of the best Hammond players in the business, as is Zoot Money.
I think Alan Price replaced or played Hammond on “Hard Times” (above). I don’t clearly remember what Zoot Money did — I know he played Hammond on one of the tracks, and he may have also played some synth parts, too.
Chas Chandler recorded the bass on “Gotta Get Back to You” and “Crystal Nights” (below). I think he used a Fender Precision through an Ampeg amp.
The guitar session is a blur. I think Hilton Valentine came in once and recorded rhythm guitar on “Crystal Nights,” however, I can’t be sure about this; it could have been another track, and don’t fully recall what guitar or amp he used. It could have been a Fender Telecaster or Gibson SG, through a Vox AC30.
I mixed all of these tracks on my own (so not with the band or members of the band in the control with me). At some point, Chas would come in and listen with me. He’d maybe suggest making some parts slightly quieter or louder, however, apart from that, he’d leave me to it.
Here below is a link to the entire “Ark” album on YouTube. Note that this version of the album was a re-release from some years later, with an additional bonus track added (track number 13). The original vinyl album from 1983 only had twelve tracks. To remind you, I recorded overdubs and mixed tracks 1, 6, 8, 11, and 12:
And, of course, I had to talk to Chas Chandler a little about Jimi Hendrix... not the most original topic, as I think probably most new people he met asked him about Hendrix.
I think that part of Chas Chandler’s career is now very well documented. However back in 1983, prior to the Internet and Google, even though the information was available (from interviews in magazines, by word of mouth from other musicians, etc), it was much more difficult to come by, and therefore much more folklore-like.
So, to be able to get a first-hand account from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, was rare and precious. There was nothing that Chas told me back then that was new or revelatory. It was just a five-minute chat, in Maison Rouge’s Studio One control room.
A chat with the man who basically discovered Jimi Hendrix in Greenwich Village, organized for him to come to Britain, introduced Hendrix to other members of The Experience, and paid for the recording of their first single, “Hey Joe”!
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Given the combative relationship they had with each other during their original hit making period, it was probably for the best that they were never together all at once!
Outstanding stories!