Stones Live Licks
Saturday, November 13, 2004
CLEARMOUNTAIN thread - complete...
Posted by: R (IP Logged)
Date: november 9, 2004 17:21
...for those wishing reference thereto:
My letter to Mr. Clearmountain, sent Friday, November 5, late afternoon EDT:
Dear Mr. Clearmountain:
I have, like many, many people been a longtime, albeit indirect fan of your work. You have produced and more often mixed and mastered a slew of very popular albums and there is no doubt your name graces the liner notes of millions of CDs in hundreds of thousands of home worldwide. Enough of my pandering however. On to my comments and questions about the new Stones live release.
I am writing on behalf of concerned members of the 'It's Only Rock And Roll' unofficial Stones fan web-site. We have hundreds of members worldwide and we've been pondering these questions for a week now:
You, and whomever else that were involved in creating the sound and feel of the new Rolling Stones live CD, have finally nailed it! You've captured what many of us longtime obsessive fans have always wanted in a live album from the modern day Stones. The guitars are grungy, dirty and wonderful! Clearly audible in the right and left channel. The full spectrum of Charlies drums are there for the percussion fascists among us and Jagger's vocals (while apparently overdubbed to some extent) are in perfect balance to the overall aural window. The ancillary players have been relegated to the background (a pet peeve of us Stones lovers who lack no other life and concern themselves with such things). The song selection could be better but that's not your department as I understand it. All in all "Live Licks" is terrific EXCEPT:
Please forgive me for asking, but why is the editing so horrific?
Brown Sugar: the guitars sound cut and pasted. A sax note from another source seems to step on the end of Bobby Keys solo which sounds flat. The "yeah, yeah, yeah woooh!" call and response simply appears out of nowhere.
Rocks Off: the most memorable verse in the song, the one that follows the bridge, has been cut and the song moves straight to the chorus. The transistion is not a smooth one to say the least.
Satisfaction: Seems to have had much of Keith and Ronnie's inspired guitar interplay excised when compared to the original, which appears to be the version found on the Four Flicks DVD (as too were most of the songs on this release).
You Can't Always Get What You Want: At 6:45 the jump from the midtempo singalong to the fast guitar solo is a blatant edit, poorly executed, and throws the whole feel of the song off. It's as though a minute was just lopped out. No crossfade. Nada.
Honky Tonk Women: It sounds as though the live guitar solos were excised and a Keith solo was dubbed over Chuck Leavell's piano solo.
Every song on "Live Licks" has been shortened and it seems inexplicable as each disc runs only an hour leaving room for longer versions and perhaps two or three more songs each. We don't get out much and we'd really been looking forward to this album. Could you, if you can, please tell us all at IORR how the wonderful SOUND of this album was compromised by the apparently amateurish editing (which I trust was not your department). I'll be please to forward your response to the site.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
R-------IORR member since 1997.
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Mr. Clearmountains response to the above letter received Monday, November 8 in early afternoon, EDT. His responses are in quotes:
"Hmmmm... you have some fascinating observations there. First of all I'd like to thank you for being so complimentary about the sound of the new Stones live album, and about my work in general. I used "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out" as a reference as I believe it to be probably the best live rock album ever released (ED: Must not have heard Live at Leeds by The Who) . If I got anywhere near that ballpark with this one I think I can feel I've accomplished something."
"You're correct in your observation that there was quite a bit of editing involved, (as there is in most live album productions) and in your assumption that I had nothing to do with that part of the production. The thing is, all the edit decisions were made by Don Was and the Stones themselves. As far as the guitars go, as anyone who has ever worked on a Stones album (studio or live) knows, for every five licks those guys play, only one or two are actually usable - and those are generally amazing. When you see them live they get away with it because there's a lot going on on stage to look at, so you don't really notice. Stones freaks like you guys may not mind hearing licks that have very little to do with the the song they're playing, but the general public, and the Stones themselves don't really want to know.*
"As for specifics, see below for answers. I can't remember all the details (I don't yet have a copy of the album for reference) and actually don't know what edits were done before it got to me, but here's what I know:
... Jagger's vocals (while apparently overdubbed to some extent) are in perfect balance to the overall aural window.
"Only one lead vocal was overdubbed, and unfortunately, I'm not at liberty to say which one. All other vocals were live. (Can you guess which one?)"
Brown Sugar: the guitars sound cut and pasted. A sax note from another source seems to step on the end of Bobby Keys solo which sounds flat. The "yeah, yeah, yeah woooh!" call and response simply appears out of nowhere.
"The BK sax solo is the original solo (as far as I know) and if you were as much of a Stones fan as you claim you'd know that Bobby Keys has rarely, if ever played a solo that wasn't flat. It's kinda part of what makes him so unique. I was momentarily tempted to tune him up (would have been simple and only taken a few minutes) but didn't for fear that it would no longer sound like Bobby Keys.
"The "yeah, yeah, yeah woooh!" is totally real, the audience mics are goosed a bit on the "wooh" as it would have sounded quite anticlimactic if you couldn't hear that."
Rocks Off: the most memorable verse in the song, the one that follows the bridge, has been cut and the song moves straight to the chorus. The transistion is not a smooth one to say the least.
"*A decision made by the band, I think because the they sort of fell apart during that verse, but I'm not really sure."
Satisfaction: Seems to have had much of Keith and Ronnie's inspired guitar interplay excised when compared to the original, which appears to be the version found on the Four Flicks DVD (as too were most of the songs on this release).
"*Band/producer decision."
You Can't Always Get What You Want: At 6:45 the jump from the midtempo singalong to the fast guitar solo is a blatant edit, poorly executed, and throws the whole feel of the song off. It's as though a minute was just lopped out. No crossfade. Nada.
"*Band/producer decision, if that's true. I think it was because it got a bit boring during that section."
Honky Tonk Women: It sounds as though the live guitar solos were excised and a Keith solo was dubbed over Chuck Leavell's piano solo.
"*Band/producer decision, if in fact, true."
Every song on "Live Licks" has been shortened and it seems inexplicable as each disc runs only an hour leaving room for longer versions and perhaps two or three more songs each. We don't get out much and we'd really been looking forward to this album. Could you, if you can, please tell us all at IORR how the wonderful SOUND of this album was compromised by the apparently amateurish editing (which I trust was not your department). I'll be please to forward your response to the site.
"I don't believe the sound was compromised at all. I'd like to add that, as I've mixed one studio album, various singles, two live Pay-Per-View cable broadcasts, a feature-length film and two previous live albums for them, I believe this ranks as one of their best pieces of work since the mid 70's. I don't think this album would have been nearly as listenable and enjoyable without the hard work and, as you've put it, "horrific editing". But of course, as an avid Stones fan myself since the early 60's, that's just my opinion."
Cheers, Bob Clearmountain [www.mixthis.com]
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My response to HIS reply sent mid afternoon EDT, November 8. Not published in its entirety in previous threads. Mr. Clearmountain's comments are in quotes.:
In a message dated 11/8/04 4:11:30 PM, bob@mixthis.com writes:
Could you, if you can, please tell us all at IORR how the wonderful SOUND of this album was compromised by the apparently amateurish editing (which I trust was not your department). I'll be please to forward your response to the site.
"I don't believe the sound was compromised at all."
I stand corrected. What I meant to say was the overall enjoyment of the album is compromised by the poor edits. As I said earlier, it's the BEST SOUNDING live Stones album since Ya Yas - which makes the edits all the more obvious - and irksome.
"and if you were as much of a Stones fan as you claim you'd know that Bobby Keys has rarely, if ever played a solo that wasn't flat. It's kinda part of what makes him so unique."
Mea culpa. Actually the "flat" observation was someone elses. The thing that bugged me was there seems to be another horn (or horns) stepping on Billy's last note as though edited from the stadium show wherein the horn section followed Billy's solo.
" The "yeah, yeah, yeah woooh!" is totally real, the audience mics are goosed a bit on the "wooh" as it would have sounded quite anticlimactic if you couldn't hear that."
It's not how they come in but rather when. Perhaps a bit of hair-splitting on the part of us Stonesiophiles who've been listening to roughly the same arrangement of the live "Brown Sugar" for thirty or so years.
Thank you very much for your prompt, professional and detailed to response to my (admittedly somewhat snarky but we do take these things seriously) letter. I've forwarded your reply 'round the world and hundreds of people are already arguing about which Jagger vocal was overdubbed as you read this. My guess is "Street Fighting Man."
You live and work in Portland as I recall? My sister lives outside of Kennebunkport and we are fond of Gritty McDuffs for lunch. I just can't get used to the sun going down at 3:30 in the afternoon however.
Thanks again.
Sincerely,R------- ------------
Mr. Clearmountain's reply to the above letter, received 5:45pm EDT, November 8:
Dear R-----,
I've really got to get myself a copy of the record to check out your observations because, to be quite honest, I just don't remember these details. As I said, I do feel whatever editing might have been done improved the-well at least-my overall enjoyment of the album. You guys might wanna just relax and enjoy it for what it is as well. The album is the Rolling Stones vision of how they want to be presented on disk at this point in time. If you really are Stones fans, you'd respect them for that and get over it. They're also quite spontaneous, and don't play the exact same arrangements every night, so some of the tunes may sound a bit different than what you've been used to for the last "...thirty or so years".
The one song that Mick had to overdub was only because there was a problem with the mic, and it was only in a few places.
I live and work in Los Angeles. My manager and close friend, Dan Crewe lives near Portland.
Cheers,
Clearmountain
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