Morrissey Morrissey - Tony Visconti - The Autobiography - Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy

My ‘jolly hockey sticks’ tactic was received with audible groans and we never did get that ‘better take’; the magic created by Denny had left with him.

Undaunted we proceeded to use what Denny had considered the best take. We were using a 4-track tape and had used up two tracks for the backing. The entire drum kit and bass guitar were recorded on track one and a rudimentary keyboard part was on track two, which we replaced with a carefully played one. On the two remaining tracks we had to record the guitar solo, vocals and some special effects noises. Since the tracks had to be shared, the additional parts had to be carefully dropped into the same tracks. The guitar solo was recorded on the vocal track with fractions of a second to spare. Dropping in too early would erase part of the vocal, as would dropping out too late. In America, the same procedures are called ‘punch-ins’ and ‘punchouts’; no doubt a psychiatrist would find this mildly amusing.

Slowly the band dropped their hostility towards me, or maybe I had taken their comments too seriously. This was my introduction to ‘taking the piss’, or ‘taking the Mickey’. What I assumed to be very hurtful insults were just good-natured British sarcasm. We managed to get everything on tape: a guitar solo, coins jingling, hand claps, backing vocals, lead vocal, a second keyboard part—all on the remaining two tracks. Denny returned later in the evening and was thrilled with what he heard. The band was visibly relieved and I had a little invisible halo over my head. First blood. A few days later, after Denny mixed the track to mono, he said I’d done an amazing job with the overdubs, but left him with a very difficult mix because there were so many different elements on the two busy tracks. I think this was a compliment.

That was my first day under my belt. If this wasn’t exciting enough Denny told me I was going to meet, and work with, Procol Harum the next day. What I didn’t know was that I would bump into Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones in a corridor at Olympic Studios, and I would also see Jimi Hendrix jam later that evening at the Speakeasy in Margaret Street—a club that was the epicentre of the music industry during the early summer of ’67. God knows what would happen on my third day.

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