SickthingsUK

>Sorry, I meant Jack Douglas

That did occur to me (and he produced "Platinum God", I think).

"Do tell. Could you please say when & where and also enlighten us about said recording?"

He had a speaking engagement at Sweetwater's gearfest in Ft. Wayne, but I got to spend a bit of time privately with him and talked almost exclusively about MoL, although he was also highly touting Bones from the Yard, not surprisingly.
Not sure what you want to know about the discussion, A couple of tidbits, what is totally accurate and what is storytelling is up to you to decide:
He humorously reflected how the band had alcohol brought into the studio prior to the musical equipment, and felt that was reflected in the finished product.
He did spoke highly of all of them as musicians (in contraast to many of the older stories) and spoke especially flattery of Michael's "musical genius".
He suggested that the split was already in progress going in to the recording of the lp (but then, he might have reconstructed that perspective with the benefit of hindsight).
The oddest thing was that he would refer to Alice as Vince when speaking of the band, but called him Alice when talking about his solo work with Ezrin.

>He humorously reflected how the band had alcohol brought into the studio prior to the musical equipment, and felt that was reflected in the finished product.

I think he once also told a story about the the album was partly recorded in Los Angeles because John Lennon persuaded him to go there and join him in having some fun.

ahhh,that would fit the lost weekend time period to a "t"!

I always loved the violin at the end of Big Apple Dreaming and emailed Jack Douglas years ago as to its origin as it sounds like a classical piece. Jack said it was original piece.

If you listen carefully to the song you can hear the George Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue riff at the end of each chorus which of course also had a New York theme, great guitar solos on that track from Dick Wagner who also plays the solo on Working Up A Sweat.

pitkin88 wrote:

scotty wrote:Andy,to divulge the alleged famous drummer,would that be something I'd need to PM you about,or would you state that here? or neither? I know you don't do rumors so I respect however you fall on this.

The drummers name is Alan Schwatrzberg if I remember correctly. He claimed Neal wasn't cutting it and that his tracks were wiped and replaced and that Neal had no idea. I did start a thread on this and pmd Neal who responded. I don't have time to re look for the thread but it was definitely discussed here.

I do remember reading something ( maybe in Michael's book) about Jack Richardson getting really into CRazy Little Child and something about either Richardson himself playing drums or getting someone else in. Also in an interview with Shindig magazine Neal said the one ACG song he really didn't like was CLC.
On another note i think I saw a picture of the track sheet for generation landslide and the harmonica tracks were listed as Alice Harmonica. However I may be wrong.

Babysquid wrote:I do remember reading something ( maybe in Michael's book) about Jack Richardson getting really into CRazy Little Child and something about either Richardson himself playing drums or getting someone else in. Also in an interview with Shindig magazine Neal said the one ACG song he really didn't like was CLC.
On another note i think I saw a picture of the track sheet for generation landslide and the harmonica tracks were listed as Alice Harmonica. However I may be wrong.

Regarding Crazy Little Child, in the MOL chapter in MB's book it states that '...we didn't use Neal's original drum tracks. Initially he had played something with a very heavy feel to it, but later Jack Richardson had his band's drummer redo the tracks.'

Ted

Additional info in this thread:

http://sickthingsuk.co.uk/forums/viewto ... 38&start=0

From Ted Sallis:
"Regarding Crazy Little Child, in the MOL chapter in MB's book it states that '...we didn't use Neal's original drum tracks. Initially he had played something with a very heavy feel to it, but later Jack Richardson had his band's drummer redo the tracks.',"

Essentially, this looks like it means that Michael and Neal have different recollections about what happened.

maybe you should pm Neal find out who is lying/mis recollecting.

Ted Sallis wrote:

Babysquid wrote:I do remember reading something ( maybe in Michael's book) about Jack Richardson getting really into CRazy Little Child and something about either Richardson himself playing drums or getting someone else in. Also in an interview with Shindig magazine Neal said the one ACG song he really didn't like was CLC.
On another note i think I saw a picture of the track sheet for generation landslide and the harmonica tracks were listed as Alice Harmonica. However I may be wrong.

Regarding Crazy Little Child, in the MOL chapter in MB's book it states that '...we didn't use Neal's original drum tracks. Initially he had played something with a very heavy feel to it, but later Jack Richardson had his band's drummer redo the tracks.'

Ted

If that's the case and Allan Schwartzberg is the drummer on CLC, then the version with NS on CLC would have made an excellent inclusion on the Old School box set.

pitkin88 wrote:Ok I found Neal's response:

Hey Andy,



My only comment is that there are still people that think the world is flat and that the moon is made out of cheese. Alice once said that he was Eddie Haskell, and people believed him, come on give me a **** break!! It was not true, but people believed him anyway. This studio musician guy who I’ve never heard of before by the way, did play on some of Alice’s solo recordings and can say anything he wants. Just like Alice having fun with the Eddie Haskell thing. But at the end of the day it’s the legendary band Alice Cooper members; Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce, Alice Cooper, Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith who’s walls are covered with Gold and Platinum albums and are nominees to the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame class of 2011, not the studio musicians that may or may not have played on our records.



Cheers and be sure to VOTE!!!!!

Neal Smith

The Platinum God

With both drummers not being able to recall the either's name, my guess is there is no love lost between the two. Perhaps NS saw AS roaming the halls during the recording of MoL and wondered WTF is another drummer doing here? And then AS committed the cardinal sin of playing on Neal's kit

From pitkin88:
"maybe you should pm Neal find out who is lying/mis recollecting."

Who said anyone was "lying"?! I certainly did not. Read again what I wrote because as usual, you've missed the point which is that different people remember things differently. It doesn't mean anyone is "lying" (although Glem did refer to Michael's book as "Lumpy's book of lies").

From Toronto Bob:
"then the version with NS on CLC would have made an excellent inclusion on the Old School box set."

Maybe so but that's only if it isn't as bad as Jack Richardson allegedly thought it was and that's also assuming the recording still exists and that it would have been made available to the compilers of that collection.

A_MichaelUK wrote:From Toronto Bob:
"then the version with NS on CLC would have made an excellent inclusion on the Old School box set."

Maybe so but that's only if it isn't as bad as Jack Richardson allegedly thought it was and that's also assuming the recording still exists and that it would have been made available to the compilers of that collection.

Do you have a source for Jack's comment? I'd like to read. Was this requested for the box set?

A_MichaelUK wrote:From pitkin88:
"maybe you should pm Neal find out who is lying/mis recollecting."

Who said anyone was "lying"?! I certainly did not. Read again what I wrote because as usual, you've missed the point which is that different people remember things differently. It doesn't mean anyone is "lying" (although Glem did refer to Michael's book as "Lumpy's book of lies").

I agree with AMUK, there's been no statement(s) accusing anybody of lying. And to expand on his comment above, Alice himself referred to Michael's book as being fiction.

Ted

Ted Sallis wrote:

A_MichaelUK wrote:From pitkin88:
"maybe you should pm Neal find out who is lying/mis recollecting."

Who said anyone was "lying"?! I certainly did not. Read again what I wrote because as usual, you've missed the point which is that different people remember things differently. It doesn't mean anyone is "lying" (although Glem did refer to Michael's book as "Lumpy's book of lies").

I agree with AMUK, there's been no statement(s) accusing anybody of lying. And to expand on his comment above, Alice himself referred to Michael's book as being fiction.

Ted

and Alice is noted for fictional accounts. I did also put mis-recollecting.

Yes, Alice can stretch the truth or have an imagination, but not to the point that he ends up insulting or discrediting people. THAT'S the difference.

Devon wrote:Yes, Alice can stretch the truth or have an imagination, but not to the point that he ends up insulting or discrediting people. THAT'S the difference.

He was pretty nasty about Elvis despite both having serious drug problems. The pot calling the kettle black or in Alice's case crack.

From pitkin88:
"Do you have a source for Jack's comment?"

Why are you asking me when it was Babysquid who brought it up and when RemarkblyInsincere just provided a link to it?

>I'd like to read.

You already did, according to the posts at the link.

>Was this requested for the box set?

I don't know. It really doesn't sound that interesting.