Good Morning,

I say good morning because I couldn’t sleep and I’m up ahead of dawn. Maybe too much coffee in the studio last night while mixing or from too much excitement because I woke up at 5AM thinking about what I’m mixing. And that would be Neil and Crazy Horse from November 1990 at the Catalyst Club in Santa Cruz. This is the first time they were playing outside of the studio in front of an audience since we recorded Ragged Glory earlier in the year.

Some might say I should get away and stop thinking about all this music whether mixing it, listening to it or writing about it BUT, I really love this job (think Sedan Delivery) because the music is so pure rock ‘n roll, so in your face, and a full frontal assault on your ears. After all, this is the Catalyst, a famed nightclub in Santa Cruz off the beaten path nestled at the foot of the California redwoods and just up from the beach, some of the best of what northern California offers.

You know, the smell of the eucalyptus trees outside in a fall light wind blowing out to sea across the trees, mingled with the gritty smell of stale beer and cigarettes wafting from the street outside the club where we parked the remote truck to record. This is the kind of stage where you can hear the waitresses flinging the empties into the corner of the bar trash can whether you like it or not lending that unmistakable sound to the recording. As an engineer you can only hope it’s in time with the music. Fortunately the band played so load you can barely hear that and then only before or after a song starts or ends.

I had cut my teeth with David Briggs back in late 1982 remixing a couple of songs from ‘Trans.’ Neil was on the road and so I never met him then except through the music. Then Briggs and I worked together for 7 years in the studio together before the call came in to do Ragged Glory. He produced and I was his engineer. He had warned me about Neil. Said he was the real deal. David didn’t say that about very many artists, in fact no others that I can even remember. But he also said he eats engineers for breakfast. Well then, I would be a meal and cause some indigestion if it was up to me, lest he forgot who got the sound for him and his band, so all was good!

Besides I managed to get through Ragged Glory only six months earlier with only minor bruises, none requiring hospitalization.

The Catalyst shows were all of one night and Crazy Horse played three sets that Tuesday evening November 13th. They would not start the “Smell The Horse” tour until the next year in late January. That tour would yield Weld but this was special in a different way, it was a roadhouse bar that could hold 800 people and then some, all squeezed into 5,000 square feet of space including the stage. Can you say intimate!

Briggs and I utilized the same Record Plant remote truck that I brought to Broken Arrow ranch in April of that year to record Ragged Glory. I also used Neil’s Green Board (Universal Audio) and Neve BCM 10 consoles in the truck in Santa Cruz as I had done when recording Ragged Glory. We recorded onto Neil’s two Sony digital tape machines at the 44.1k sample rate and 16 bit depth format. Not the greatest A to D converters to say the least but nonetheless state of the art back then in terms of digital recording. I recently transferred all the digital to hard drives for remixing purposes now.

I started mixing this past week at East West Studios, which used to be Western Recorders. The Studio 3 that I am working in is the same room that Brian Wilson recorded The Beach Boys Pet Sounds in 1965 and 1966. The console is obviously now quite different than what Brian mixed on but it is actually one of my favorite mixing desks in the world, a classic Trident A Range. There were only 13 ever built and they are the greatest rock ‘n roll recording desks ever made in my opinion. They are hard to come by and they are old and need lots of care. They are also analog and extremely musical. That coupled with real outboard gear makes mixing fun. I did not get into this music engineering world to sit in front of a computer keyboard, display screen and a mouse. Screw that. Not happening with this geezer. Also the analog mixing makes for a more pleasing sound given the source as digital masters.

The Horse played twenty songs spread across three sets that they performed with a ferocity that is a sheer joy to mix. There are mistakes and warts but there is an abandon to these versions that is truthful and unstudied. No one had a “think”.

All four musicians, Neil, Poncho, Billy and Ralph were listening to each other and it is as if Crazy Horse had been locked up in a barn and finally let out but not before kicking out some of the siding. What’s a little damage….

It is a band and they play like a well-oiled machine, ready for the track.

I could go on and on about individual songs I am mixing but music should be heard, not talked about and I’ve gone on long enough. Suffice it to say I’ve gotten down all of the second set save Danger Bird. I’m saving that for Monday with fresh ears. And by the way, that is the first time they ever played the song live since they recorded it in the studio for Zuma a cool 15 years earlier.

Ohh, and Don’t Cry No Tears is sick with rhythm. Just sayin…..

I started writing this as the stars were waning in the night sky prior to dawn and as I was finishing I was “Trying to catch an hour on the sun” as his lyric in Thrasher explains.

Well, I lost and the sun won.

John Hanlon