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hargerst
05-04-2009, 08:45 PM
I had to go out to California a few weeks ago on business and I had a bit of free time, so I met up with Alan and Brent at PMI Audio. I even went out and met Ted Perlman, since I dissed him pretty badly over the C1/U87 statement he made, and I felt I should mend some fences.

PMI was hopping, as usual, with a load of Toft ATB boards sitting by the shipping door. Man, it was tempting!! Brent showed me some of the new mics he's working on, and the styling was gorgeous.

I called Ted Perlman, and met him at his house. He has a nice home studio set up, but I gotta tell ya, it's his guitar playing that knocked me off my seat. Amazing doesn't begin to describe it. Plus, he's a very gracious host, especially when I just popped in, yet I was there for about 3-1/2 hours listening to a wide variety of stuff he recorded - all lush and detailed.

The next day, I met up with three old friends at Village Recorders (from my time living in L.A).: Ed Cherney, Al Schmitt, and George Augspurger. Al arrived first (about an hour earlier than planned) and he played me some tracks off the unreleased Barbara Streisand album and the new Diane Krall album.

I'd settle for being 1/10th the engineer and producer that Al is. (I was an RCA artist in 1963 and Al was our producer. We became friends, and I got to hang out at some of his Jefferson Airplane, Pablo Cruise, Dave Mason, and Jackson Browne recording sessions.)

Ed showed up about 45 minutes later and though he was late; actually, he was right on time. Ed and Al and I talked for a while, and then George walked in, You would have thought God walked in from the reception that George got. It wasn't a big deal for me since George and I worked together at JBL in the mid 60's, and shared both halves of a duplex apartment, but George went on to be a major player in studio and monitor design, and both Al and Ed said they were honored to met George.

Apparently, the idea of Ed Cherney, Al Schmitt, and George Augspurger all being in the same room was enough to bring Jeff Greenberg, the owner of Village Recorders, down to the studio and he too, shook George's hand and said it was an honor to have him there. All told, we spent about 4 hours there, listening to new tracks and stuff, and afterwords, I got the VIP Tour of the studio complex from Jeff personally. Their client list is the envy of most other studios.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip, and everything turned out really well. Sorry for the rant, but it's sometimes really nice to just hang out with very old friends.

Alan Hyatt
05-09-2009, 09:52 PM
As always, it was good to see Harvey. I am very glad he came down to visit us. It seems Harvey has a knack for getting the biggest names in this industry under one roof all as a result of a phone call... Impressive Harvey! ;) ;)

hargerst
05-27-2009, 08:00 PM
It seems Harvey has a knack for getting the biggest names in this industry under one roof all as a result of a phone call... Impressive Harvey! ;) ;)
Actually, it wasn't too hard; I go way back with Al (he was my producer at RCA in 1963) and George (we worked together at JBL in the 60's and lived next door to each other). Ed was gonna be at the Village anyway, so it seemed like a good place for all of us to meet. Al helped design the Village complex, so Jeff (the owner of the Village) showed up to see what the hell we were all doing there. Brent Casey came by to sit in on the listening session.

And Alan hooked me up with Ted, so I could properly apologize for dissing him.

I've known George Massenburg for years through Linda Ronstadt (going back to the Stone Ponys) and the R.A.P. forum, and I've talked to Bruce Swedien over the years on the old PAN network and I actually had one of his Michael Jackson SM7's (which I returned to him). I knew Brent Casey and Stephan Paul before Alan did. Eveanna Manley I've known since her dad worked for Ampeg. I can still pick up the phone and talk to the heads of Peavey, Fender, MusicMan, Gibson, and Rickenbacker, and a few others.

I've been in the professional music business (as a musician, equipment designer, songwriter, producer, engineer) for almost 55 years; you meet a lotta people over that time frame. Some, you do favors for, and they remember it.