Keepin The Vibe Alive $0.15

About Keepin The Vibe Alive

I woke up one morning in my London flat (Sept 20, 1972) to the sound of my doorbell..it was a telegram..my first. All I knew about telegrams was from the movies and they were usually bad news.I was sure that someone had died..Much to my surprise it was from ALICE COOPER'S manager Shep Gordon, asking me to contact the office, "very urgent." I did, and I was told that they wanted me to play on the new album, within 5 days I found myself in First Class on my way to New York. This was for the BILLION DOLLAR BABIES album.

After a couple weeks of rehearsing, the Record Plant mobile truck showed up at the Cooper mansion and we began recording BILLION DOLLAR BABIES. We had a pretty difficult time getting any decent takes. Things were going so poorly that Bob Erzin wanted to pull the plug..but it was decided to press on once the band got to London for their European tour.We arrived in London (Nov 4th) and started recording at Morgan Studios the next day. Name any famous English artist and they all recorded at Morgan. Morgan was the site of the infamous SuperStar jam with Alice Cooper,Keith Moon, Marc Bolan,Harry Neilson and Rick Grech. Even though I started that jam, as usual I am in none of the pics.It began during a break while I was talking with Marc. I started playing a riff similar to his hit "Bang a Gong" and he asked if could play Michael Bruces guitar . I said yes and off we went. Rick Grech picked up Dennis Dunaways bass and Neal Smith sat down at his drums. We had been playing for about an hour when a highly inebriated Keith Moon, HarryNeilson and Alice showed up. Bob Ezrin was very excited!! This was the era of SuperGroup jam records and he figured he had one of his own beginning to form..

Well, he set up a mic for the three singers, started rolling the tape..here comes GENIUS!! Well, the first thing out of Keith Moons mouth as a singer, (I was bummed he wanted sing instead of playing drums..I think Neal would have given up the drum chair for Keith.. no problem...) was "I b**w a dog"!! and it all went down hill from there. Ezrin got pissed off , stopped the tape and threw everyone out of the studio!! So much for that Superduper Session... After a couple of more weeks we went back to New York and finished the album. Then it was time to get ready for the BILLION $ BABIES tour..

GO FORWARD A COUPLE OF YEARS..LOL.. AND IT WAS TIME FOR ME TO DO MY OWN RECORD "KEEPIN THE VIBE ALIVE"..THE DRUMMER,DONALD LINDLEY AND I HAD TALKED AS WE WERE WORKING UP THE TUNES FOR THIS RECORD THAT OUR INTENTION WAS THAT WE WANTED TO MAKE A RECORD THAT SOUNDED LIKE IT CAME FROM THE 60'S AND WAS ON VINYL...NOT THE PILED ON GUITAR, SUPER COMPRESSED SOUNDS OF THE 90'S..WE AGREED TO LET OUR BRITISH INVASION INFLUENCES SHINE THROUGH. NOT CONSCIOUSLY BY SAYING "LET'S MAKE THIS SOUND LIKE A WHO SONG," BUT BY LETTING IT HAPPEN AS WE WENT ALONG..AND IT DID....WE WERE FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO BRING IAN MCLAGAN (ROLLING STONES, SMALL FACES) IN TO PLAY B3 ON A COUPLE OF TUNES. PART OF MAKING THE RECORD SOUND AS IT DOES IS THAT IT WAS RECORDED ON 24TRK 2" TAPE,THE WAY ALBUMS WERE RECORDED BACK THEN. THANKS TO MY FRIEND ALAN PARSONS (WHO LENT ME THE USE OF HIS STUDIO AND OPINION )I WAS ABLE TO MIX AND MASTER THE ALBUM IN A WORLD CLASS STUDIO..I'M SURE YOU'LL ENJOY SOUND AND VIBE OF "KEEPIN THE VIBE ALIVE"

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