Yeah I don't get it. Bill Stevenson and Neal Avron are the GOATs for drum sound production imo. Bill is a godlike drummer so that makes sense lol
to be fair to Eric Valentine, Third Eye Blind’s self-titled and Queens of The Stone Age’s Songs For The Deaf are two of the best-sounding rock records of all time imo. not much else he has done really does it for me that I can recall, and I certainly struggle with the drum sounds he got with this band (S/T in particular). I do remember reading somewhere I think though that Mark really pushed for that exaggeratedly boxy kick sound, but I could be making that up.
I think some of it is a matter of scheduling not working out? (If I remember correctly, there'd been brief talks about El Paso but it didn't amount to anything in the end). For a few of the TAYF10 shows, he would come out and do his parts on those songs. They also flew Michelle out for the acoustic set they recorded in LA for that DVD (she pops up at shows in Boston from time to time and has come out for her parts if those songs are on the setlist; she did it for their 20 year tour too).
you’re not making it up, I remember reading that too. oddly enough my fav drum sounds from this band was on New Again. never cared for the rest of them.
I doubt you’re making that up, considering that almost every TBS album has terrible-sounding drums haha
This thread has taken me on a journey. I've gone from not giving too many shits about TBS for a while, to getting excited about a tour with Fred, to now me wishing we could get a New Again tour. ITS NOT EVEN A GOOD ALBUM
Learning how to play what’s it feel like to be a ghost to shake the cobwebs off on playing guitar and wow am I rusty but damn that song is so much fun to play
I pretty strongly disagree about the dual vocals being a mainstay for this band. I mean, we haven’t gotten them in heavy dose since LN. They’ve delivered five records without it (outside of an occasional song or parts of a song) & even if you don’t like those records as a whole, they’ve proven well enough that they don’t need dual vocals to write good songs. I would be curious as to why though. They can obviously do it, as evident most recently with The One, so it’s pretty clearly a deliberate effort to move away from that to focus more on harmonies and flourishes.
IMO Matt Squire’s production on Erase Me is a hell of a lot better than the production the band did on Voyuerist (one of my favorite records by them too) lol
It was Fazzi and Matt Rubano who were trying to get weird with it and I loved it personally. They needed to switch it up but between going with the wrong producer and pushing back on some classic TBS sounds/styles - they held themselves back a little bit on NA
It’s better than any of the records they’ve put out post-NA ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Happiness Is holds up pretty well though and is easily their best record with Nolan and Shaun.
As someone who religiously read liner notes back in the day (I was super cool), none of this is news to me.
Oh it’s less about the production and more the influence he had from what we could see in the studio videos. Vividly remember him listening to a demo and being like "guys all the breakdowns, we have to cut that shit out" or something lol