Q&A with Tull Sound Engineer Chris Amson

[Deleted]

Jul 24, 2013 18:11:27 GMT -5 @tulltapes said:

Jul 24, 2013 13:59:56 GMT -5 camson said:

Hi Jeff (from Connecticut)

When I started with Tull the only keyboards on stage were a Grand Piano and a Hammond Organ with one Leslie. In the early days the piano would have been provided by the promoter. Later on we carried one around with us in a huge flight case which was a technological marvel complete with steel cables and winches to get it from it's upright position in the case down onto the stage horizontally. We also had a piano tuner who travelled with us in my later years.

A note about micing up the grand piano: In the early days we only had mics on the piano. Later we also had a Helpinstill piano pickup.
The mics that we used originally were 2 pretty basic Sony condenser mics and each day I would make 2 sets of saddles out of Gaffer Tape across the top of the harp and tape the mics in place so that they lay parallel to the strings. I don't know what kind of pattern these mice had. Probably fairly Omni-directional, and this was not necessarily the best position for them but we needed to get them completely inside the piano so that we could put the lid down in order to get the level needed without feedback. When the Helpinstill pickup was added it was a great addition because now we could get the Piano to cut through more. There would have been a mix of the 2 mics for warmth and the pickup for penetration!
I wasn't mixing the sound back then. The FOH mixer was a gentleman called Alan Mc.Kenzie who came from the Polydor Records studio world.

Later in 1972 or early 1973 the band all moved to Montreaux, Switzerland and I remember that Claude Nobs, who founded the Montreux Jazz festival set us up with a rehearsal area in an old brick factory in Montreux. (Claude recently passed away duo to a Skiing accident last Christmas) These were the rehearsals prior to the recording of the 1st Passion Play album, and I had a VCS3 synth in London and brought it to Montreux to show the band.

John checked it out and it was quickly determined that it was a royal pain keeping it in tune. These early analog synths were notorious for being affected by the ambient temperature which threw the tuning off. It was decided that the VCS3 would not be suitable for live performance but at that time the Mini Moog also just came out and that was tried as well.
The Mini Moog was also a bit susceptible to tuning problems but it was felt that this could be used live on stage and so the band got one originally, and later got another one. So now the Hammond Organ had a Mini Moog on top of it, and I think John Evan quite liked paying it.

I do remember times after the sound check where he would spend quite a lot of time every few days with his headphones on tweaking all the little preset potentiometers inside trying to to get all the tuning back in line. A VCS3 was never used on stage.
I do remember seeing a Mellotron in the Tull workshop, but whilst I was with them there was never a Mellotron on stage. It was probably used in the studio as you mentioned on those songs. I don't have any idea as to Ian's reasoning for not using one on stage. I never heard it discussed.
He's an independent thinker and would have done whatever he felt was needed to get the music across. However, they did seem to be fairly fragile with all those tape loops hanging down inside. I know that the Moody Blues must have used one successfully on stage as it's the cornerstone of their sound.

I think the mellotrons were much more of a hassle to take out becuase of tunings and tape loops speeding up etc.. I have heard this before from other bands. Nowadays you can get the original authentic mellotron loop samples and use them on stage (as a VST) with just a laptop.

Chamberlin has the M4000D now with out the tapes and is wide use. As far as the old days they were definetly a hassle to transport, but Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues actually started out working for Chamberlin and was able to customize and work on his constantly. So you had the head tech playing one in a band. Word was King Crimson went to Pinder more than once for help. I heard somewhere John Evans said something like "they're a wonderful pain in the ass" (Paraphrasing)
www.mikepinder.com/?page_id=159
I think the beginning of Cross Eyed Mary is delicious because of it.
Darin

[camson]

Regarding Darin's question about sound checks and foot switches. Covered the foot switches.

When I started in 1972 the PA system consisted of up to about 6 Tycobrahe cabinets either side of the stage for the UK and Europe. We were mainly playing colleges and theaters then. The cabinets had blue carpet on them were direct radiating - not horn loaded, and all the components were JBL. They were 3-way cabinets and consisted of: 2 x 15" speakers, 1 x JBL lense throat (but no lense on it). 2 x 075 bullet tweeters.

At that time we used Crown DC 300 Amps to power the system with the 3-way crossover out at the mixer. Later used DC300A amps. The mixing console at the time was no more than 24 channels with rotary knobs for the main faders! No sub groups.
This console apparently had been bought from the Beach Boys. The cabinets could have come from them as well. I don't know, as these were there when I joined.
I just read now when doing an image search for the speakers that these cabinets were used at the California Jam. This is the only image I could find in Googles Images.



As I said in a previous post, Alan MacKenzie was the FOH mixer at that time, and Ian always did the sound checks himself. Of course Alan would do Ian's vocals and acoustic guitar. When I started mixing it continued like that for a while and then Ian let me do the sound checks. I remember one time when the equipment trucks in the States got really delayed for some reason and so the doors had to be held. But the start of the set-up was so late that after a while they had to let the audience in and Ian still went out to the FOH mixer and did the entire soundcheck with the audience sitting in their seats! I'm sure that was quite a bonus event for them! More anon…

[Deleted]

Jul 25, 2013 20:33:35 GMT -5 camson said:

I remember one time when the equipment trucks in the States got really delayed for some reason and so the doors had to be held. But the start of the set-up was so late that after a while they had to let the audience in and Ian still went out to the FOH mixer and did the entire soundcheck with the audience sitting in their seats! I'm sure that was quite a bonus event for them! More anon…

That's great, Ian at the mixer doing a soundcheck with the the audience?? who needs an opening act!

[Deleted]

I have to say I'm really enjoying this.

[Deleted]

Jul 26, 2013 16:14:35 GMT -5 @quizzkid said:

I have to say I'm really enjoying this.

I agree and I can't wait to read more! One of the bests guests ever. Thanks again Chris Amson and Erin for arranging the whole thing.
Darin

[youngpumpkin]

I believe that at that time the equipment was maintained by IES (International Entertainment Services) who were based in a large warehouse amongst some residential buildings in Chalk Farm close to Primrose Hill North London. One of the first Mini-Moogs I ever saw was brought in for Keith Emerson of Emerson Lake and Palmer and delivered to the IES warehouse in Chalk Farm. On the opposite side of the rail bridge was The Roundhouse which at the time many bands played there on a Sunday afternoon. It was an old engine shed were many of the popular and also less popular bands played.

[TM]

Aug 9, 2013 6:50:44 GMT -5 youngpumpkin said:

I believe that at that time the equipment was maintained by IES (International Entertainment Services) who were based in a large warehouse amongst some residential buildings in Chalk Farm close to Primrose Hill North London. One of the first Mini-Moogs I ever saw was brought in for Keith Emerson of Emerson Lake and Palmer and delivered to the IES warehouse in Chalk Farm. On the opposite side of the rail bridge was The Roundhouse which at the time many bands played there on a Sunday afternoon. It was an old engine shed were many of the popular and also less popular bands played.

Hi youngpumpkin and welcome to the board. Thanks for your post. Did you see Tull play there?

[youngpumpkin]

I can not remember if Tull played at the Roundhouse but I do remember bands such as Pink Floyd, The Who etc. did play there. There was the well known water ice cream shop - Marine Ices opposite. The house D.J. at the time was Jeff Dexter. Am I correct in thinking that the Tull p.a. split up the sound in to Treble, Medium and Bass before putting them back together again? There was a clever device which could tell if the speakers where in phase a bit like a signal generator and a handset which would light up a green bulb if the speaker was in phase or a red bulb if out of phase. Also seem to remember that they went through a lot of double pole double throw switches.

[camson]

Hello youngpumpkin,
I don't remember Tull doing any shows at the Roundhouse when I was with them. I did go the Roundhouse once or twice. I saw the Stones there in the early 70's.
You are right about IES. That rings a bell. There was an technical design engineer there called Bill Hough (not sure of the spelling on his name).
We did have some involvement with them. They were also the people that built the quad sound system for Emerson Lake and Palmer around the Brian Salad Surgery time.
I filled in on one ELP tour and mixed on 1/2 of the FOH mixer. I'm not quite sure how we managed that!
With the early Tycobrahe system there was a stereo 3-way crossover on the output of the mixing console and those signals were amplified separately for the Highs, Mids, and Bass, Left and Right.
Cheerio for now, Chris.

[youngpumpkin]

I am trying to remember who the Putney VCS3 Synthesizer you tried out belonged to? Was it from a British band called BB Blunder? The VCS3 Synthesizer did not have a keyboard. I also remember going through a large number of double pole double throw switches. Was it Martin that used them? Do you remember the large underground rehearsal studio in the caverns below Leicester Square in London?

[camson]

Hi flutecake!

With regards to your question above...

When I toured with Tull there wasn't a lot of emphasis on making audio or video recordings of each show. In the days when I was mixing Front of House we didn't have any video equipment set up by the mixer on a nightly basis. The only time that I was aware that video was being recorded was when we were asked to give a film crew a feed from the mixing console.

The mixing position was about 250 feet out into the arena and I always mixed on one side in front of one stack of PA. I mixed in Mono. I never mixed in the middle because of the interference from the 2 point sources of sound. Also it never made sense to me to mix in stereo because the purpose of the PA was to distribute the sound all around the venue. So every time there was a speaker pointing at a section of the arena it was delivering the full mix.

If we had been mixing in stereo and you sat in the middle of the arena I'm sure that it would have sounded spectacular!
Looking back, I often think it was ( and possibly still do) very primitive to blast sound at high levels from one end of an arena to get it to fill the whole arena.
But of course these buildings were designed primarily for sports, and also the sound systems were brought in and out on a daily basis. It would take forever to rig for speakers all around the arena with time delays on them.

More anon.
Cheerio for now, Chris.

[camson]

Hello Claghornist!

I just spotted your reply above...

I remember all the double pole, double throw switches, they were a push button type, right? Dave Morris who joined us fairly early on as a tech was always building little foot switches etc. and I think that he used them in those. Some might have been for Martin and others were maybe for Ian's foot switch control box that I mentioned in a previous post.

How were you involved at this time? I don't think we met back then.

It's interesting that you mention BB Blunder and the rehearsal space in London.
One day I went to a rehearsal space in a large basement area in Covent Garden with a friend of mine called Jonny Gems. It used to be a nightclub called Middle Earth but I never visited it when it was a nightclub.
Jonny's father owned a waxworks in London and was looking for new premises to move his waxworks into, so we went by this rehearsal studio to check it out.

Incidentally to digress, Richard Branson and Jonny Gems used to have a magazine in the UK in the early 70's called Student Magazine. When Richard Branson finished that project he started Virgin Records and I had the unique experience of getting a job at the very first Virgin Records office at 10 South Wharf Road, Paddington!
Richard and his partner Nik Powell shared an office upstairs and there were a total of 4 or 5 employees of which I was one! Our job was to put LP's into cardboard mailing sleeves and send them out. At that time Virgin Records was just a mail order record company that advertised in Melody Maker and New Musical Express.

So, various bands used to rehearse down in this basement such as Van de Graf Generator and Steamhammer.
On the day that Jonny and I went by there was a band called BB Blunder rehearsing and I ended up chatting with their sound mixer. I think his name was David Jacobson. As I was showing some interest in being a "roadie" David asked if I wanted to help out at some gigs around the UK, which I ended up doing.

It turned out that David with BB Blunder knew a man called Eric Brooks. Eric was the Tour Manager and lighting person with a band called Jethro Tull.
Some time after my gigs with BB Blunder I got a phone call out of the blue from Eric and he asked me if I wanted to be an "assistant sound engineer" with Tull. I said that would be fine with me. Incidentally, the person who had been doing this work had disappeared and couldn't be found, so they were looking for a replacement!

So he asked me a few questions and hired me on that phone call. I was to be paid £25.00 per week plus 50% extra when we were touring plus Per Diem.
I can remember after putting down the phone thinking that this was a significant day in my life and that my life was now going to get very interesting!

The following Sunday a Rover car pulled up at 39 Goodge Street in London, where I was living and I jumped in. We drove to the Colston Hall in Bristol and I joined the other 2 Tull crew members there. They were Roy Bailey and Fraser Aitken. Tull owned a 3 Ton Mercedes lorry with tail lift and 3 custom aircraft seats in the cab which we travelled in. It seemed that most bands who owned lorries did that conversion to make the long drives more comfortable. So that was how I joined Tull!

As a matter of interest in the central underground cavern area of what used to be the Covent Garden flower market there was a man called Dave Martin who had a workshop and he designed and built P.A. systems there. He was coming out with very new and innovative folded horn systems which was a big step forward at the time. Martin Audio soon built some for Supertramp and I think that they continued to have a long working relationship.

Cheerio for now...!

[youngpumpkin]

Chris Do you remember Jenny Bier who used to run the Help advisory service at Virgin in South Wharf Road ? They then moved Help to behind Victoria station. Virgin then Moved to Vernon Yard Notting Hill Gate. Also Virgin opened a shop above a shoe shop in Oxford Street and one in Liverpool.
Jenny and Don's flat was in Endymion Road Finsbury Park. What was their shaggy dog called?
Another person around at that time was James Strangeways (Lemon Pseudio Phenominum).
He had a couple of vehicles a van which he sign painted Grubbs Boots co and an ex RAF Crash Rescue Vehicle (which was used to take the Rolling Stones in to Hyde Park for their 1979 Concert).
Was it Terry Ellis of Chrysalis/Island Records that was managing Tull at the time?

[camson]

Hi youngpumpkin,
Sorry I called you Claghornist last time!

It's amazing that you mention Jenny at Virgin. She is the person who got me the job there.
I used to sell leather belts and bags etc. on Oxford Street after I hitchhiked down to London from Scotland in 1970 to seek my fame and fortune. I had heard that the streets were paved with Gold (Dick Whittington)!
A family friend's sister was living in London on Haverstock Hill just up from Chalk Farm and she let me sleep on her couch after I arrived. She also kindly set me up with the job of selling belts and bags etc for some Indian (Eastern) street traders. I did that for a while and after getting arrested a couple of times because we had illegal pitches I decided to look for some other meaningful employment.

I remember walking along Oxford Street near Bond Street and came across an old car showroom that had been closed down. In the showroom there was a hippy fellow with cases of jewelry on display and paintings on the wall. I walked in and got chatting. It turned out his name was Don and he was a painter. He had got a job of selling jewelry some chap was making. Don was told that he could also put his paintings up on the walls for sale too. I went in there a few times an chatted with him and we became friends. A little later Don invited me to come back and have some dinner with he and his girlfriend, Jenny.
I think I ended up moving into their flat on Endymion Road.

It's funny that you should mention James Strangeways (AKA Lemon Precario Phenomenum) I met him at 10 South Wharf Road when he arrived one day in a commotion in that ex-RAF Crash Rescue Vehicle. I think he misjudged his landing and knocked over a parking meter! As far as I know he was friends with Richard and was dropping by for a visit. He was wearing a white judo outfit and had a bundle of cameras hanging around his neck! Quite a strange sight!
Anyway, to make a long story short, we became friends and I moved in with him on his father's farm in Sussex where we started to make strange experimental electronic music. That's when he decided we should go on the road as the Precario Road Show and the topic of posters came up.
So we headed up up to London to visit a friend of his who was an artist who could make them for us. His name was Jonathan Gems and now we are back at the other story in the earlier post…
I remember that Liverpool was the first Virgin Shop (in the world!), then Oxford Street at the Tottenham Court Road end was Shop #2. I worked there for a short while.

Yes, Terry Ellis was managing Tull at this time.

I'm very interested to know what your connection was/is with Don and Jenny and the flat in Endymion road. I would love to chat with you some more about that. Just PM me here for my email when you have time.
I was interested in getting in touch with Jenny recently and sent a tweet to Richard Branson about that. Got no reply!
Are you in touch with them?
Strange, small world!

Cheerio for now.
Chris.

[Sparty]

Don't know about the rest of you, but I'm finding this conversation fascinating!

[youngpumpkin]

I seem to remember that the leather belt pitch was outside Mothercare and opposite Selfridges in Oxford Street. There was also the Italian Water Ice Cream Man and of course the Hari Khrishna that went past twice a day in their bright orange robes. Also the man with a sandwich board which stated ' Too much protein causes lust'. Buy a booklet for 2 Shillings and Sixpence. (Sadly he died about 10 years ago) but the sandwich board is in the Museum of London.
I asked Richard Branson and Penny Pyke what happened to Jenny and they told me that she had a job at a recording studio in France. Sadly I never managed to track her down. I often wonder what happened to her and Don as they were very nice people.
James Strangeways parents lived in Iden near Rye in Sussex and James used to sleep in an enormous Tipee Tent. Again I don't know what happened to him.
I think that Jonathan, James and Nick all went to school with Richard at Stowe but I might be wrong.
Do you remember the Rainbow Restaurant above Bibba in Kensington High Street? Also the flat above the electrical shop in Goodge Street. James left his Crash rescue vehicle outside it despite numerous parking tickets being put on it but then one day they sent a giant pick up truck (the ones they used for double decker buses when they broke down) to remove it and take it to the pound.

[Deleted]

What a great thread and what great memories. Thanks for this.

My wife was one of the 'Biba' girls for a time, spending a lot of time up around Kensington Church Street shop and later 'Big Biba', she has some very fond memories of Biba, The Rainbow Room and a few of the parties hosted there and the people who attended them. I've been trying to persuade her to write them down, she still has a wardrobe full of Biba and Ossie Clark dresses that she won't part with.

I remember the Oxford Street Virgin store on the first floor, accessed via the staircase at the back of Shelly's shoe store. We'd go up there sit in the old aircraft seats they had instead of listening booths, don a pair of Koss headphones and listen to whatever took our fancy. So, laid back and relaxed, it really was a different world than the mega stores of today.

At the other end of the scale was the record stall in Soho Market which had a curtain hung across the back, where after a while as a known customer you were invited through to a sort of Narnia world of bootlegs.....Like my wife is with her Biba stuff, I still have those vinyl boots and won't part with them any time soon.

[camson]

Hello youngpumpkin,

More amazing details from you...!

You will no doubt know about Ken Elliott and Seventh Wave.
I did some Synthi AKS sequencer stuff on the "Things to Come" album.
If you feel like it, would you PM me. I would be very interested to chat with you some more about these early days in London. We must have crossed paths...

Cheers,
Chris.

[youngpumpkin]

Quzz kid your post has brought back many more happy memories to me.
Chris do you remember the auction for the house in Phillamore Place?
I used to deliver the new stock of records from South Wharf Road up to the Virgin shop above the shoe shop in Oxford Street. There were people sitting on the floor listening to albums on headphones.
Richard Branson bought a Manor House from the grandmother of a school friend of Chris Amson's which Richard Branson then turned in to a recording studio called The Manor. It has it's own chapel in the grounds and I can remember us painting the swimming pool which was in the grounds. The Grand Union Canal went through the grounds. Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield was recorded there. It was a very different recording studio to that of the rather dull EMI studios in Abbey Road. Bands and artists could stay there. There were plenty of parties there and Ricard Branson an Nick Powel appeared on the roof dressed up as Bonny and Clyde complete with toy sub-machine guns.
Getting back to the double pole double throw switches I remember delivering some to Martin Barre's house. Do you remember the groupies bursting out of the wardrobe in the hotel bedroom at the Maddison Square Gardens concert. They got the wrong room!

[youngpumpkin]

Chris! What was the name of Jenny Biers dog? I also asked Richard what happened to Jenny Bier and apparently she went to manage a recording studio in France. I also never managed to contact her which I regret as she was such a nice person. I hope that you are keeping well Chris. Are you still in Navado City and if so where?