Well, dear readers, here it is, Friday, and soon I will be spending a glorious weekend doing nothing but writing. I will, of course, have to leave early tomorrow because she of the Evil Eye is coming to clean my very own home. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too?
Yesterday, because of all your excellent Hainsies/Kimlets good vibes, I finally put an end to some of the residual evil that was the cause of the primary evil which I have been dealing with for the past two years. I hope that none of you dear readers ever have to be put through the sort of thing I was put through. I know that in the long haul, karma will work it’s lovely magic. I rest easy in that knowledge. The most amazing thing to me about this past two years is that, despite what was going on, I have a) been able to survive, b) been able to write three novels (well, I’ll be finished with the third soon), c) been able to adapt Nudie Musical for the stage, and d) been able to produce a new CD (with more to come). And, on top of all that, I was able to create this here website, and am blessed that it has become a gathering place for some amazingly wonderful folks. Yes, we’ve had our Uncouth Interlopers (some as a result of the above-mentioned evil, and some for other reasons), but we get through the minimal annoyances. I have hated newsgroups and chat boards on the Internet for so long, and the pleasure of having this site is that it is a role model of how the Internet can work – that we can have disagreements, and have differing opinions, but never attack people and disrespect people (even though the Uncouth Interlopers have done their damndest to cause trouble). You dear readers are bright, articulate, funny, clever and a barrel of fun – no matter what the age of the dear reader. So, I thank you for your support, I thank you for making haineshisway.com a safe haven for smart people, and I thank you for being loyal and true Hainsies/Kimlets. Onward and ever upward, say I.
My goodness, that was a gooey and endless paragraph, wasn’t it? But I get sentimental sometimes and damn them, damn them all to hell, what’s wrong with a little sentimental paragraph every now and then. Sentimental me, with an emphasis on the mental. However, now I shall tell you the story of The Randy Vicar and the Refried Beans. Oh, that is a fine story, but perhaps we should all just click on the Unseemly Button below because it is a rather randy story and it might make more than a few dear readers blush.
How about The Randy Vicar and the Pair of Socks? No, I’m afraid that’s a bit too randy as well. I’m so glad today is Friday and that soon my glorious weekend will begin. I shall prance about merrily, doing whatever I merrily please. Why I shall even roll along merrily if I please.
Yesterday, I listened to the new cast recording of Gypsy. It was recorded at Right Track Studios, where I did Bells are Ringing. I had to laugh when I saw the credit “cue mix”. Once upon a time, when we were doing Bells, I said to everyone, how can we avoid the one problem that always throws us behind, that always mucks up the works. The headphone mixes. Normally, the headphone mixes are patched through the mixing board, and Vinnie would have to waste so much of his time trying to please everyone – the actors, the conductor, the musicians, who all want to hear different things in their headphone mix. It makes everyone edgy and if there are problems it can throw you hours behind schedule. Luckily, on cast albums we’ve been fairly lucky, but on Play On! we just lost hours at the beginning because the headphone situation was terrible at The Hit Factory. Plus, it pulls Vinnie’s concentration from his real job. So, I said to everyone, what can we do to fix this problem, so Vinnie doesn’t have to even be concerned. And the solution Vinnie and I came up with was to hire a separate person and a separate mixing board patched into our board – and this person’s entire job all day would be to fix headphone mix problems and deal with what everyone needed. I went in to the musicians at ten and I said, “Boys, we’re never stopping for you – if you have a headphone complaint meet so and so who will take care of it for you.” And guess what? That session was smooth as silk and we wrapped a major cast album by eight at night. Now, it’s not as if that sort of thing had never been done, but it had never been done on a cast album. I told my friend Bill Rosenfield, who was then at BMG, about my discovery, and he told his producer, who happens to be the producer of the Gypsy album. And, lo and behold, and also behold and lo, he’s using the system we did. The other thing Vinnie and I brought to the cast album business was to put the lead singers in a booth or give them enough separation from the band so we could do fixes with just the singer, rather than have to rerecord the whole track, or get behind doing little pickups with the full orchestra. It gave the singers a comfort zone knowing they could easily fix something, like if they fumbled a lyric for one line of an otherwise great take. They’d done it on less than a handful of cast albums before we started, and those were pop-oriented. Most cast albums were recorded with singers and band all in the same room, which gave you very little control in the mix. Now, many producers put the singers in a booth or give them enough separation from the band. It makes everyone’s life easier.
So, how is Gypsy? Well, how can it be bad? It can’t really. The score in undefeatable, a brilliant fusion of Mr. Styne’s music and Mr. Sondheim’s lyrics. All the fifteen year old kids who post to other boards are saying this is the best Gypsy recording ever done. Of course they are, because this is the Gypsy they’ve seen and/or know about. It doesn’t come close to the Merman, in my opinion – the Merman is simply one of the best-sounding albums ever produced. There is a certain brittleness to the sound of this Gypsy (this seems to be what Mr. Jay David Sacks favors, but it tires my ears). Miss Bernadette Peters is fine, but she tends to yell all her big notes. Everyone else does fine, too, but no one really stands out. John Dossett is best as Herbie – an excellent singing actor. Tammy Blanchard comes off okay, although I prefer our very own Christa Moore. The orchestra sounds good, although even though they’ve beefed up the strings for the recording, the strings still sound thin. However, if you love Gypsy you’ll want to have it – it’s got more material than other recordings and one should have any Gypsy recording, is the way I look at it.
What am I, Ken Mandelbaum all of a sudden?
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must work all the livelong day and then I must sup, oh, yes, I must sup. I must go to and fro and also fro and to. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/video player? I’ll start – the new cast recording of Gypsy. DVD player – Night of the Following Day, A Fistful of Dynamite (aka Duck, You Sucker), and The Outer Limits The Second Season. Your turn, and let’s have loads of lovely posts, shall we?