The sign outside the big room at Olympus Studios reads “All sessions start on time.” Can that be true? No. It’s about respect. Signs can do that. “Ladies will kindly remove their hats.” “No spitting.”
When Olympus’ founder and main producer Dennis “X-Max” Keynes got his first chance to sit in on a professional recording session at a well-stocked studio, in a distant land he chooses not to identify, “I’d never been so prepared for anything in my life. I’d badgered this guy who worked there to let me sit in, like literally just be in the room.” For him, the room was enchanted, and he felt he needed to earn his entrance through its hallowed portals. “I had charts, arrangements, diagrams” for every conceivable thing that might happen. “I knew every knob, I lugged in my own back-up equipment in case anything went wrong. This band had two albums out already, and I studied their sound, slowed it down and sped it up and just took those records apart, studying. And I wasn’t even the producer!
“I was barely considered an assistant. I was just in the room. It wasn’t even a big-deal studio, just a good one in a good location that’d gotten a reputation. But I’d never been around so much expensive equipment before, and I didn’t want to blow it. I was basically just in awe.
“So I show up at the studio early, like hours before the session, and there’s nothing to do but wait in the waiting room. Finally it’s time, and the band that’s there leaves the studio. I go in there and it’s just more waiting. I don’t even want to touch anything. I’m just looking at my notes, going over my homework, expecting this life-changing experience. “And I wait a really long time. So long that I’m sure that something’s gone horribly wrong, like I’m in the wrong place or the band had a car crash. What else could be keeping them? One of the engineers would sometimes look in at me, but nobody said anything. They must have thought I was crazy.
“Like two hours later—really, two hours, of course to me it seemed like 20 but two is a lot—the musicians finally arrive. They’ve got their manager with them, and some guys who I think were just friends, not anybody, you know, important to the organization. And girlfriends. They brought girlfriends! That was just a mindblower for me, an abomination, the most unprofessional behavior I could imagine. Like, who brings their girlfriends to work?
“They talk forever, about nothing, at least nothing to do with the recording. One of them had just bought a car, and couldn’t get bucket seats because they were being phased out—I remember the exact stupid details, all these years later. I get introduced, but nobody seems to want to hear my ideas and I’m too intimidated to offer any. They finally can the chit-chat long enough to, no shit, order lunch. I’m dying. Every illusion I’ve ever had is shattered. Telling it now, it seems extreme, but I was a kid and I was that kind of passionate. I couldn’t imagine anyone walking into a place like that, where every treasure I’d ever wanted was just lying around waiting to be used, and not bow down in gratitude.
“I spent four days with that band: running out for coffee, cleaning up spilled drugs, fixing mic stands with duct tape. I think maybe they recorded one song in that time, and it was one they hadn’t even written when they’d shown up. Now I know you could see that a different way—the creative mood striking and all that. But I thought it was bullshit. You know, the nerve! To waste the session by sitting on a couch writing something you could have written at home.
“The whole experience was like slopping hogs in hell. I didn’t resent my, uh, lowly position. I would have done anything they asked to be part of that process. I’d dreamed about being in a proper recording studio for years, and I though it may be years before I’d be trusted to work in one as an engineer, forget producer. I thought there was this long, slow learning curve, like becoming a priest or something. Seriously.
“It was the attitude that killed me. The jaded taking for granted thing. I won’t tell you who they were, they were well-known and a couple of them are still in the business. I might find myself working with them again someday, though believe me I’ll try not to. It took me years to get over—myself, partly. To get over myself. Now, of course, I understand why an artist would be casual about just about so much of what he does, there’s just so many pieces, so many things beyond their control, whatever. But then? I mean, Jesus! How dare they?”
That’s our little holiday meditation for all you Rock Gods readers. Respect others. And rock out responsibly.
Out and about: The Ask Tells kiss and make up for the holidays, sharing a bill with Treaty Spoilsports at Government Center Garage Thursday… Student Squeeze says they had nothing to do with that “riot” at Dollaire’s last week, and to show what a tame, safe, fun-loving, frolicsome act they act, they’re playing out three times this week: acoustic Wednesday at the Bullfinch, Thursday on the showcase bill at Hamilton’s and Friday at the campus student center. Dollaire’s will have them back, they say, once all three bands on last week’s ill-fated “College Nite” bill have apologized and agreed to do a bit of public service clean-up duty at the club. Student Squeeze both they and The Gilmour Memorial are up for doing the penance, which makes Camilla’s Car the only hold-out—and the likeliest instigator of the onslaught, during which (ho-hum) a chair apparently got thrown… Not many local shows to look forward to this week, eh? Well, what’re you complaining to us about? Go book yourself somewhere already!..