BOC,BRAIN: Sound (what Carl said)

[John A Swartz]

Carl sez:

>    I'm not saying the music isn't great--definitely a lot of my favorites
in there--I'm saying I think the sound is too thin.  Sounds like it was
recorded in a closet on a spool of tin foil.  Part of that may be the CD
mastering, but a lot of it is the way it was done.  Perhaps Sandy had some
brilliant reason for doing it that way--I just don't think it was a good
one.

I think part of it is the CD - I think part of it was the times (while
there's alot of *good* albums from that time period, real *heaviness*
wasn't there on most of them - even those early Black Sabbath albums
with some really crunching tunes didn't have that "wall of guitar"
sound that started to become more prevalent around the 80's I think),
and perhaps part of it is that BOC didn't start out as a "heavy metal"
group -- SWU was more like the Grateful Dead and the Doors, and SFG
was sort of a bit like the Byrds.  Listen to the mix of tunes on the
first BOC album even -- Last Days of May is more jazzy than rock;
Redeemed is more country, and She's as Beautiful as a Foot is just
weird (but I like it).  Tyrannay and Treaties were a bit more focussed
on the heavy metal angle.  And as far as whether Sandy had some sort
of brilliant reason for anything, I'm starting to think more and more
that maybe Sandy's positive contributions were more luck than genius.
Either that, or his creative well dried up.

>     Conversely, I'm not sure IMO the band ever got their production quite
were I like it.  The went from thin and gritty to full and polished.  I
would have like to keep the grit and add the fullness :)  Imaginos was very
heavily produced, of course, but the sound there is pretty good--the
guitars are full and heavy yet it doesn't sound too glitzy.  FoUO was
close--a little glitzy but some great moments.

True.  I think there is some fine stuff in terms of production/heaviness
on AOF/Spectres too.  Tattoo Vampire has a great guitar sound, as
does R U Ready 2 Rock.  Godzilla too - sure it's been overplayed by
the band, but when it first came out back in '77 it was something quite
special in terms of sound IMHO. (BTW, was it someone on this list who
pointed out the opening guitar chords to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen
Spirit" sound pretty close to the main riff in Godzilla?).

>     Luckily, the Brain Surgeons have been turning out some very decent
sounding material, as well as some good music.

Hear hear.  Trepanation in particular has a definite "wall of guitar"
sound to hit, not to mention a nice fat drum sound.

>And it may be mild heresy,
but I though the sound on the recent 3OC recordings was pretty good apart
from too much percussion occasionally and the slightly sloppy sound of
_Cult Classic_--the tones was still good even if the reverb sounded a bit
ragged to me and some of the vocals were kinda mailed in.


Agreed.  Cult Classic had a bit of a thin-ness to it in part though,
more due to improper use of digital recording techniques I suspect
(contrast it to the Brain Surgeons' use of digital on Eponymous).
The Bad Channels tunes had a nice heavy feel to them.  Chuck Burgi
goes a bit overboard on the drums somewhat.  Lets hope that if the
new album comes off, BOC will do a good job mixing it.  Otherwise,
BOC might be sitting around a la' Spinal Tap saying, "Well, if only
it had been mixed right...


John