Our new music TV show, “Plugged In and Turned On in Paradise” got another honorable mention, this one in comments to my Britt friend and best-selling author Paul Bannister's internationally-followed blog.

The comment came from Scott Camlin, who was the BBC's top sound engineer for the last soccer World Cup.  

Scott said he "...finally got around to watching the YouTube preview of Clay Reid’s new music series 'Plugged in and Turned On in Paradise.' I’m looking forward to catching it when it is shown here in the UK."
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He continued with a little praise and a gem of a story:

"As a "Sound Tart” in the TV industry, I particularly appreciate how well the music has been recorded and mixed, and I am reminded of a show I worked on around 1990 with (Sir) Paul McCartney."

"For professional reasons, I don’t make a habit of asking people I work with for their autographs, but on this occasion I asked Mr. McCartney if he would mind signing my treasured CD copy of "Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” He smiled, signed the cover of the CD booklet, and as he handed it back to me he said (with a glint in his eye) “Next time bring something newer for me to sign, that record is ancient!” I couldn’t resist replying “I know it was produced back in the ‘60s, but I don’t know if you’ve heard - it’s considered a classic these days…”

1-11-17
 
Happy New Year 2017, all!

I’ve been getting ready for our next PITOIP episode (Aja Vu with their amazing tribute to Steely Dan and Chicago), and find myself thinking back to the weekend I spent locked up in a small Santa Monica Recording Studio – just my-22-year-old-self… my buddy Marty… and Chicago Transit Authority, as we knew them back then.

Here’s the setup:

It was 1975. An undergrad in my final year at school, I’d been teaching the audio recording lab at Northridge University, working at Winchell’s Donuts in Granada Hills, and I was married.  I met Marty in the elevator in our student housing apartments on campus.  After we’d been friends for a few months, one day he said: “I didn't know you wanted to be a recording engineer.  My uncle owns some of the top studios on the West Coast.”

Indeed, Uncle Arnie owned The Record Plant in Sausalito, as well as Sun Spectrum, right on the beach in Santa Monica.

Arnie called me the next day. “Marty says you want to be a recording engineer...” And then he offered me my dream job. The rest of that telephone conversation changed my life in big ways, but I’ll save that for another time.  Suffice it to say this was and still is one of the highlights of my life.

So I was just finishing up my 11-7 night shift at Winchell’s on a sunny Saturday morning, when my boss hands me the phone and says, “It’s for you.” With my flour-dusted hands, I grab the phone thinking it was my wife, but no, it’s my friend Marty, clearly excited, and he says “Get down to the studio!”

I said: Look Marty, I’m just getting off an 8-hour shift, all worn out and sweaty and I smell like doughnuts.

But Marty’s frantic.  ”Just get here as soon as you can!”  

Okay! I ran home and took a shower, kissed the wife and told her I’d be back, and drove the 45 minutes to the Santa Monica Exit off the 405 and down the street to the beach and the studio.

You’d probably recognize the place because the studio sat on the second story of a converted three story house, right on the sandy beach with a ribbon of sidewalk that everybody knows because it was so often in movie and TV scenes, like the opening for Three’s Company, or just about every shot with roller skaters and beach volleyball.  It’s long gone now, turned into a public parking lot for the Santa Monica Pier crowd.

I ran up the rickety wooden staircase and opened the heavy public front door to find a bunch of my childhood idols sitting on the couch in front of me, drinking beers and telling lies. Wow!  Chicago!

I loved Chicago!  I’d grown up playing piano, then trumpet, and then rock guitar in a number of popular local bands in the late 60’s and early 70’s.  We loved Chicago with their great rhythm and wall of horns and keyboards and their ridiculous hooks.  They’re still one of my favorite bands.

They were just coming back from several months of chill time, a rare break of not playing together, and they were rusty, so they’d booked the studio to rehearse for their upcoming year long tour.  They forked out the equivalent of a down payment on a nice house for several days of rehearsal at Sun Spectrum – not uncommon for the top-flight bands, since only they could afford the outrageous hourly cost of studio time in those days.

That entire weekend Marty and I sat in the control room, running sound and keeping the wrong people (except girls) out of the studio and away from these musical superstars, while the boys ran down their set-list.

It was a fabulous weekend with the CTA Boys, and one of the highlights of my youth.