executioner wrote:I'm from Texas(Dallas area) and I've often wondered why record all the way out in Uvalde, TX. How long did you all stay out there to record and what did the Uvalde experience add to the sound of the album?
I don't know how that studio was decided on, but probably was mostly up to JDB. I suppose it was a matter of cost, equipment, quality of the console, and a good place to get away from civilization and be creative or something.
We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badges
It was a really interesting experience. We stayed in town, at a rambling dusty old house owned by a guy who I suppose also owned the studio. The studio was several miles outside of town, down a dusty dirt road with a "bump gate" to keep the live stock in, but allow cars to pass without having to get out to open the gate. You just drive up slowly, bump the gate and it swings open.
The terrain was very rugged... dusty, dry and thirsty with steep rocky foothills all around, sagebrush and tumbleweeds.
It could easily have been used in the set of a Clint Eastwood Western. Maybe it was the original picture for that ancient Petra album with the rock wall?
The Institute for Petrafied Zoological Research
There were lots of creatures, including millions of jack rabbits
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/forums/thread18368.htm, mules, horses, huge
green centipedes about 1/2" thick and a couple inches long with
orange legs http://imgur.com/gallery/sIdkdNg, and plenty of buzzards which would circle the sky during the day. Maybe they thought we were out of water? There was a .22 rifle there, so when bored, we'd shoot at the buzzards a bit. I clipped one in the wing, but the wing being mostly feathers, he just barely wobbled a bit then laughed at me and kept right on circling. Never brought one down.
There were also
scorpions. On one song, the drummer was counting off "1 2 3 4..." when suddenly Mark hollered, "Whoa! Check out this scorpion!" It was just walking along a wooden rail in the sound room. No one got stung during the entire stay.
Who's at Bat?
One night, I decided to sleep at the studio so I could work on keyboard parts the next day. I stretched out on the couch in the control room. As I was dozing off, something flew by, then it did again... and again. I turned on the light and there as a bat flying in circles around the room. It lit on a wall, so I took a record album and a big plastic cup and trapped it, then let it go outside. True story.
Do the Bunny Hop
Mark had a small hatchback car and one night we left the studio to head into town. As were were driving along the dirt road, the jack rabbits would run in packs along side; if we'd stop, they'd stop, frozen in the glare of the head lights. Mark said, "I'm gonna get me one'a these rabbits!" So he stopped the car, jumped out, and grabbed Bugs by the huge ears and tossed it into the car with me. The stupid rabbit started jumping up and down between the seat and roof, like a hairy superball... funniest thing I've every seen.
So we opened the hatch and let it out.
Another time, a rabbit got into the little kitchen at the studio, and got in the crack between the wall the the 'fridge. So, I leaned in and gently poked with a broom handle to persuade him to come out. Like a shot, he sprang to life, lept at a 45 degree angle out of the crack, and literally bounced off my forehead then started bouncing around the kitchen!
I think I still rabbit paw marks on my head.
Don't know that the Uvalde experience added anything particular, but it was different from recording at the Starsong studio in "Stinkadena" (Houston), because there was no one popping in to see what was happening. The situation also provided ample private time to work on keyboard parts: I developed all the many different parts of Road To Zion in the privacy of the bedroom at the rooming house in town. I have a picture of that somewhere. Need to find all that stuff.
I also liked that studio because it had a great Fender Rhodes piano and a gritty sounding Hammond B3.