Rick Dufay's - Tender Loving Abuse

Yellow,

here's some info about Rick Dufay's first album, Tender Loving Abuse. 1980.

For posterity.


lyrics and scans:
www.aerosmith-lyrics.com/TenderLovingAbuse.html


More than 10 years ago Rick Dufay had his own official fan club which was based around a message board, quite like this.
It  has been taken down since. Therefore, this post may be of even greater importance.

For anyone in need of this infomation in the future,


this is a letter written by Eric Heilner, who played keyboards on the album.

THE MAKING OF TENDER LOVING ABUSE – BY ERIC HEILNER

READ ALL PARTS BEFORE DRAWING ANY CONCLUSIONS..A GREAT BIT OF TLA HISTORY HERE!

PART 1
I read somewhere that one of the biggest activities going on in the internet is people trying to locate friends/relatives they had lost touch with; and I have to confess that I've gotten hooked on it myself. When I first entered "Rick Dufay" into google the other week I wasn't sure what to expect. A couple of days prior I found out that a singer I worked with in the 70s & 80s had died tragically 5 years ago. So it was a great feeling of relief to me that Rick is alive, well , and still doing his musical thing, (not that I could imagine him doing anything else). And, to top things off, he has a loyal group of followers who have their own Yahoo Group. So I figured, let's join and see what's happening. That got me introduced to Terry, who asked if I would relate what things were like back in the old days. So here I am.

So, anyway, who am I? On Tender Loving Abuse you'll see Eric Holland listed as keyboards, That's me. My name is Eric Heilner, but for a few years I was using Holland instead of Heilner – mostly because my sister Deborah (who is also in the music biz) was using that name. More on that later.

Before getting into things, let me throw out some caveats. If you've ever seen the movie Rashomon, you'll know that truth is elusive. So I can't guarantee that anything I say will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; instead this will be an "Eric's Eye" view of things – filtered through over 20 years of memory. I'll do my best to be honest and accurate, but I'm sure the other members of our not always-so-merry band would give you a very different story. I'll also warn you that this will be largely stream of consciousness, so I will digress from time to time and throw in some autobiographical details that are non-Rick related.

How did I get into this? In the mid to late 70s, the New Jersey club scene was booming like it never had before or since. This was mostly due to the fact that NJ had temporarily lowered the drinking age to 18, so thousands of drunken teenagers were careening all over the state going from one club to another. I had been playing in different bands for about 10 years. I was with group called Heavy Trucking which did the college concert scene (we opened up for Springsteen among other things), for a while I played with a guy Bill Chinnock – mostly in Maine, then I hooked up with a club/cover band called Smyle. I was (at least I like to think I was...) the hot shit keyboard player on the circuit. We did Billy Joel, Doors, Beatles, etc. When you're playing 5-6 days a week, you don't get the chance to see other bands as much, but I knew there was a band that featured the Seitz brothers – Gary on bass and Jeff on drums. I can't remember the name of the band (Godspeed?), but I saw them once and was really impressed – especially with Jeff. I seem to recall that they did a lot of Yes and Pink Floyd.

Anyway, in spring 79 (I'm unclear on the year, it could have been 80) I left Smyle cuz they were going nowhere. I was debating whether to try another club band, but hadn't hooked up with anything – partly I was getting sick and tired of lugging around 1/2 ton of keyboards. One day I saw in the local music rag that Gary Seitz was doing an acoustic gig in a tavern down the road from me. So I went down, introduced myself (he'd heard of me), we chatted a little,and that was that. I thought nothing of it until a month later when I got a call from Gary asking me if I wanted to do an album with this guy Rick Dufay, him and Jeff - and working with John Lennon's producer. You can imagine my reaction – this was my big break!

Next day I'm in NY meeting people, looking over contracts, and stuff. This was the real deal. I forget who the original label was, but there was a management company, the studio was booked, we'd be flying out the California, … and I would be making the unheard of salary of $350 a week (more than I was making in a month back then). Yeeee hah!!! So I signed on the dotted line.

(To be continued)

PART 2
So how did all this happen in the first place? How did Gary & Jeff hook up with Rick? How did Rick get signed to a record deal and how did Jack get involved? I don't know. What I do know is that Rick had achieved some sort of notoriety in the rock circuit, he hung out with connected people and knew some important producers. I may not be getting this one right, but someone told me that he had dated Peter Frampton's ex – I think that's the source of the lines:

And I can't go calling you
By your ex-old man's big name
in BABY NOW I.

The guys had played together for a while; they had done at least one concert (as I recall they were double billed with Eddie Money). And most importantly, the guys had recorded a demo tape. Somehow or other they had wrangled some time in a recording studio and in a short time (no more than a week, maybe less) they had put together this tape. They had done all sorts of goofy things – I think they put an amp in a hallway and miked it from a bathroom to get an echo effect.

So about the first thing we did after Rick & I met was that he played the tape in his hotel room on a little cassette player. On the first listen my reaction was … eh, so what. On the second playing things started jumping out at me, and by the third listen through I was hooked. Rick had a real way with words – putting together simple things in a way to convey deep emotion. There was a sort of crazed energy, it was weird, exciting, and dangerous. In fact, the tape sounded very close to a completed product.

The next day or so we all met in the rehearsal studio and I met Jack for the first time. The thing that impressed me most about Jack was his personality. He had a way about him that made everyone feel comfortable, he was funny, smart, plus he knew music. However, he was could also be (or at least claimed to be) very tough. He told us a story that when he started dating his then wife, his wife's old boyfriend was lurking around. So he found the old boyfriend in a diner, sat down next to him, pulled a gun out of his pocket, and said to stay away or else.

I don't think that people outside of the music business realize just how important personal skills are for a producer. A large part of a producer's job is simply to make sure that things go smoothly and that everyone gets along; and Jack was superb at this. I think if you were to parachute Jack down in the middle of the Amazon jungle, in no time at all he'd be getting along with the natives, helping them to arrange their drum and flute music, hobnobbing with the chiefs, etc.

However, something was missing, and that was Jeff. Where was Jeff? Well he was touring with Long John Baldry – an English blues guy whose signature song was "Don't Try To Lay No Boogie Woogie on the King of Rock and Roll". Now we were on a very tight schedule. The management company Landers/Roberts had every last detail worked out. Plane tickets, motel reservations, studio rental, tape costs, equipment rental, car rental, etc., etc., etc. The whole shebang had all been worked out in great detail. But Jeff had already signed a contract to do this tour before the details had been ironed out. So instead of Jeff, here was this guy Tico; who had also been playing the Jersey club circuit and Gary knew him.

So we started going through the songs. Gary already knew them and I had learned my parts. But Tico was having all sorts of problems. Now I've seen some other messages on this group knocking Tico. Let me say for the record that Tico was (and is) a good drummer. He's very strong and has a powerful presence. However, a) Jeff is a percussion genius, he can play rings around nearly every other drummer I've ever played with. However, no one would claim that Ringo was a percussion genius, yet he was right for the Beatles, so b) More importantly, Jeff had a particular feel that Rick was looking for, and Tico couldn't capture the feel.

So we spent a lot of rehearsal time with Rick playing the tape over and over trying to get Tico to get each drum fill like Jeff had done. It was clear that Rick was frustrated.

Meanwhile, we were getting to know each other a little. You should know that I am the complete opposite of the standard rock and roll personality. I'm very shy and quiet in person, intellectual (my BA was in Physics), and my idea of a fun date is to go the art museum and have dinner at a quiet restaurant (before going back to my place - of course!) There was of course a fair amount of sex, drugs, and rock & roll on the Jersey club circuit, but now I was in the midst of these real wild men! Gary and Rick had this whole shtick going where they'd imitate drag queens – they were very funny. Rick would leap all over the equipment while we were rehearsing, and was constantly doing goofy bits – he must have hung out in some pubs in Britain at one time because he did a great British accent and would break out in obscene British drinking songs.

Rick also had a real sense of style and how the band should look, clothes, staging, what not. We had some cameras, and I remember Rick took a great shot of me from the overhead with my arms draped out over the keyboards. He was very proud of that shot, and rightly so.

Speaking of keyboards, there were keyboards on the original tape, but for some reason the original keyboard player was not part of the picture. Not sure why, his bad luck, my good. The music was basically guitar oriented, the keyboards were more for accents, flavor, and fill – but that was cool. I'd much rather play a smaller role in something good than a big role in something lousy. However one day the original keyboard player showed up. Unconsciously I turned up my volume much louder than normal - and all the guys were laughing at me – trying to show off!

Another day I was sick and missed a rehearsal. When I came back, Rick, Gary, and Tico had taken pictures of each other running around in their underwear – and Rick was in his birthday suit. As it turns out, Rick enjoyed doing this. Rick is the original "tripod man" (if you get my drift) and he was quite proud of it. On more than one occasion he recorded his guitar parts buck-naked.

Meanwhile what else was going on? One strong memory is that there was a young guy Jay from the management company – I think he was the son of Landers – and he was keeping an eye on things for Landers/Roberts. In retrospect, he was probably a decent guy, but at the time we all hated him on general principal. After all, he was born into wealth while we were all struggling. Someone asked him if he'd ever gone through any rough times and he said something like "Well once when I was crossing the English Channel I went hungry for a night". Anyway, I think we rehearsed for about 2 weeks, then it was off to sunny California to do the album. I think this was either late May or early June, 79.

(To be continued)

PART 3
OK – a couple of more memories from New York came to mind…

It's a Saturday night. Rick, Gary, Tico, and me are hanging around – and Rick decides we should go out and get some prostitutes. He had a rental car – so Gary drives, Rick is in shotgun, and Tico and I are in the back. We're careening all over Manhattan – Rick is shouting out obscenities and crazy stuff to passing women – "Hey are you are a whore? Come over here!". I was trying to make myself iInconspicuous and wondering what the hell I was doing with these maniacs. We ended up back at Rick's hotel in midtown... prostitute-less. We're walking back to the hotel and Gary starts howling like a wolf at the moon. What the heck? Oh, there's an attractive woman on the other side of the street… We all end up sleeping in Rick's room that night amidst much joking of who was going to do whom…

One more memory from the rehearsal studio. During a break I walk out into the hallway and Jack is involved in a passionate embrace with an attractive blond woman. After a brief throat clearing from me ( they were blocking the hallway) Jack introduces me to his wife. I'm embarrassed that I don't remember her name, but she came out to LA with Jack and spent a lot of time with us. In general she was a positive influence on the guys since they tended to be on their better behavior when she was around.

So on to sunny LA. Rick left separately, while Gary, Tico, and I flew out together a few days later. I think this was early June. On the plane ride, the 3 of us are sitting together, and either Tico or Gary (I forget which) says "OK, let's make a vow that we're going to stick together on this and support each other". Yikes. It was already clear to me that Tico was not going to make the final cut, and I sure was not going to risk my big chance for someone I barely knew. But what was I do? I couldn't very well say "Screw you guys it's everyone for themselves". So we put our hands together and made the promise. I felt really hypocritical about that for a long time.

Jay picked us up at the airport and took us to the motel. I forget the name of the motel but it was a rock and roll hangout place. There was a steady stream of bands, roadies, groupies, and hanger ons coming and going. I think Tom Waits lived directly behind the place. The next day we went over to Landers/Roberts and met the money men. I may be mixing them up, but my memory is that Landers was the alpha male. Big husky guy, short blond beard, domineering. Roberts sort of lurked around, his shtick was that he kept his shirt collar turned up to look cool. There were various movie posters and gold records on the wall – don't ask me who. There were also assistants – I guess you'd call them interns now – who basically were gofers and worked for nothing. All high energy personality stuff. We were really fawned over. Very heady stuff.

Next over to the studio – the famous Record Plant. Our lead engineer was Lee DeCarlo. Jack had already told us a little bit about him. He told us that he was a great guy and that Playboy bunnies hung around his house. Well, he was a great guy but I never saw any bunnies. Lee sized Rick up pretty quickly – we were shooting the breeze and Rick started complaining about something. Lee turned to us and said, "Listen to her!" Ha-ha – we all had a good laugh - even Rick. One thing you could say about Rick is that he took as good as he gave – he was great at repartee.

Anyway, we did the initial tracks in this enormous room – it could easily hold a full symphony orchestra, but it was just the 4 of us. The drums were set up on stage and the curtains were almost completely closed to keep the sound in. The piano was over against one side of the wall draped in curtains, while Rick and Gary roamed around the middle. So was started playing, but the piano was out of tune. No big deal. Don't Talk Back (?) had no piano so we did that first. The piano tuner came in and then we did Baby Now I – and here we had problems. Tico and I couldn't see each other cuz tof the the curtains on the stage to isolate the sound. We kept having tempo problems – and I didn't know what could be said or not. Finally I asked if Jack could come out and conduct to keep the tempo straight. That worked out.

So we settled into a pattern – get up around 11, lunch, go to the studio, record until about 11, then catch dinner and hang out. I think we knocked off the rhythm tracks in about 2 weeks, then started doing vocals. Most of that is a
blur to me. Meanwhile, the social scene was, umm, how shall we say.. interesting.

First of all, Tico was a chick magnet. There was a steady stream of girls going in and out of his room. Me being mister shy, it was amazing to me how these guys could just walk up to a woman and have them go off with them in no time.

A couple of days later (on an off day) I was woken up by a knock at my door. I opened it up and there was a vision of loveliness in front of me – "Hey come on Eric, we're going out for lunch" Was this one of Lee DeCarlo's bunnies? No, it was Rick's girlfriend Debbie - "my little puddle". Debbie was funny and wacky in her own right. She played a little guitar and (possible senior moment coming up here) I think she did nude dancing to pick up extra bucks. I have a memory of Lee & I going to watch her one night and she did her act on roller skates! So we went to lunch, then went over to Rick & Debbie's place and hung out. We all hung out a lot there on off hours – they had cable TV which was a big novelty to me – and we watched Jaws over and over while getting stoned and listening to music. I had made a cassette of my favorite Beatles songs which Rick liked.

That's all for this time..

PART 4
First of all, thanks for the compliments. I'm glad people are enjoying my ramblings - I was concerned that this might be a case of TMI (too much information). Getting back to 1979 here, I'm going to be jumping back and forth
in time now instead of going chronologically. There were a lot of different things going on; and this is the only way I can figure out how to tell the full story. So if occasionally something seems disconnected – e.g., like how did I
end up staying at Rick's place – eventually I'll catch up.

L'Enfant Terrible
If you're not familiar with this term, it's from a French expression. The literal translation is 'The Terrible Infant'. In actual usage it refers to a person who behaves badly, but is tolerated by virtue of his/her artistic genius. It also refers to someone who breaks the rules and/or shakes things up. You can all tell I admired Rick tremendously - it was a privilege to be a part of his life. But sometimes.....wellll.....I can't remember a lot of stuff, but here are a few samples:

The first weekend we were there, we all went driving around in the rental car - we might have gone to the beach, movies, etc. Anyway, Rick had left a shirt in the trunk. Couple days later we were getting out of the car and Rick yelled at us for getting his shirt all wrinkled - after all we should be looking after his stuff. Rick was so intense about everything, and when he got angry at you it was ... well, intense. Tico, Gary, and I exchanged glances. I didn't know this was part of the job description.

Another time, we were doing something goofy in the studio. I think we were tossing around a sandwich that was left over from lunch - the idea was to throw it without it falling apart and the next person had to catch it and keep it
together. The game ended badly when Rick really flung it hard at Gary, who had his bass guitar on at the time. Mustard/ketchup/whatever got all over his bass. "Damn it Rick, you always take things too far!"

I know there are many others like this, but I can't recall them.

Sex and Drugs and Rock n Roll
One weekend early on, I spent a few days with my sister, who was/is living in LA. Monday, I got to the studio and there's this very attractive women with a thick French accent draped all over Rick. Now I don't think anyone who's
listened to Rick's lyrics or read his explanations for songs such as Temptation, will find this surprising - and I was not very surprised either - but I was not comfortable with the situation. I mean, what would happen if Debbie found out?

So anyway, Lee and Jack were doing some technical stuff and we're hanging out. At one point the Frenchwoman compared us all to different movie stars. I forget who Rick, Gary, and Tico were, but I was Woody Allen. Then
there's a knock on the door, and Debbie pokes her head in. "Hi everyone!" "Hi!" She leaves. Dead silence. A minute later there's another knock at the door. It's the guy who mans the front desk to let people in and out. What happened next was astonishing. He apologized over and over - "Rick man, I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking clearly, please forgive me man, I'm sorry...." I then realized that the guy was seriously concerned for his job. Rick told him it wasn't his fault.

Sometime later that day (or it may have been a few days later) Rick gave sort of a speech to no one in particular. It was something to the effect that things were different now that he was recording his album and Debbie had to understand that their personal situation was changing. A day or two after the speech, we were leaving Rick's place to go to the studio and Debbie cornered Gary and me. "Is Rick seeing someone else?" I thought Gary was going to lay things out. Yet somehow, even though he talked at some length, he didn't say yes and he didn't say no, .... in fact Gary managed to not really say anything at all! It was one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen in my life; to this day I don't know how he did it. But Debbie must have read something in my face, because the next day she cornered me alone and asked the same thing. I tried my best to repeat what Rick had said without giving any
details or saying yes/no. I thought I was doing what Rick wanted.

Big mistake.

Next day at the studio, Rick chewed me out in front of everyone. "What did you tell Debbie!? What were you thinking! How could you tell her that I was seeing other women?!" I thought I was done for and that I'd be shipped out on the next plane. But no. This soon blew over and a few days later the French woman disappeared.

Eventually, Rick took up with this tall blonde bombshell who could have been a Playboy centerfold. She had been in and out of Tico's room a few times as well. I called her Tits (not to her face of course). "You mean it's my last day here in LA and the only chance I'll get to see my sister play and you loaned the car to Tits?" Eventually she ended up staying at Rick's; and Debbie was banished to the living room. By then I was staying at Rick's as well. So Debbie and I camped out in the living room commiserating with each other while Rick and Tits had the bedroom.I was miserable over it.

For a while, there was some talk that Debbie would get to play rhythm guitar on one of the songs - Debbie would practice and practice. It never happened. Years later I was watching a TV show about celebrity impersonators; there were various scenes of people walking into an office saying, "I'm Marlon Brando", "I'm Johnny Carson", "I'm so-and-so", etc. Then, for about 2 seconds, there was a woman speaking in a very timid voice, "I'm Cher". Wait! Re-wind that!! Was that Debbie??? I think it was but I'll never be 100% sure. I hope where ever she is, she's reached some measure of happiness and security.

More Sex and Drugs and Rock n Roll
Were there drugs? Well, like duh... However, it didn't take over things. It was mostly cocaine and weed. Generally Rick didn't seem all that interested in drugs. If something was available he would join in, but he didn't seek it out;
so I was surprised and saddened to learn that he had gotten involved in heroin. I, on the other hand, **really** enjoyed both; but coke was way beyond my limited means. This was after Tico and Gary had gone home. I would usually bring in a few jays; and the coke, well, somehow it was just there by some mysterious osmosis. One day my stash ran out and then I came into the studio everyone ragged on me. "Come on Eric, you're supposed to supply the weed and we supply the coke!" With 20/20 hindsight, I suppose it was good for me that I didn't become successful, I could have turned into a serious coke junkie if I had the money. (Yeah, I suppose there's a whiff of sour grapes in that statement.)

It was even more surprising to read that Jack had gotten into heroin, since Jack too seemed like he could take it or leave it. One time Jack was in the middle of some intense technical detail, and he had the coke in the spoon right in front of his nose, yet he didn't snort it for a full five minutes or so while he was concentrating. Lee was flabbergasted, he had never seen anyone do that (and as the lead engineer in one of the top recording studios in the world Lee had seen pretty much everything).

Once Jack and I were talking about drugs - what our experiences were, and it turned out that I had never tried opium. I don't know how he did it, but a few days later, Jack somehow materialized a small cube and gave it to me as a present (it didn't do anything for me....) I'm running out of steam here. Next time:

Jeff Seitz makes another appearance, Gary and Tico go back to New Jersey, and Rick tries to give me a new image.

PART 5
I'm hearing that you folks want more about the album and the recording process. I will cover a little of that this time. However, as I said in my first letter, the only way I know how to relate things is from inside of me. So please bear with me while I ramble a bit... and I promise that my next letter will go into as many details as I can remember.

Jeff Seitz to the Rescue

I don't recall the exact timing of things, but while Jeff was touring with Long John Baldry they passed through LA - we all caught the show. My only strong memory is that they had a great piano player. Now Rick was very unhappy with some of the rhythm tracks, in particular 10,000 BANDS. So after some behind the scenes pow-wow, the decision was made to get Jeff in to re-do those tracks. Jeff was flown in from where ever he was, the Midwest or something like that. I think this was after Baldry's LA show. We were still working in the big room, and the drums were still set up and miked; so Jeff just came in and we started playing. After the first run through Jeff said "Hey, can you open up that curtain just a little so I Eric & I can see each other?" Gee, you could actually say that? Like duh! So we knocked off 3 songs in a few hours and later that that afternoon Jeff caught a plane back to his next gig.

And all of Jeff's drum fills in 10,000 BANDS that Rick made Tico memorize beat for beat from the original demo tape? Jeff played them all differently. But it didn't matter, cuz Jeff had ... the feel. He probably would have played them differently each time. Now Tico came to this session, and Rick thanked him profusely for being a professional and not taking things personally. Tico didn't buy any of this. When I got back home and talked to Tico, one of the first things he said was how Jeff's playing wasn't any better than his. I hate being put in these situations, but professional courtesy dictated that I agree. And in a certain sense, Tico was not wrong. In the context of the full album, I would be hard pressed to pick out which songs Jeff played on if I didn't already know.

I'm an agnostic, but if I'm wrong and there is a heaven, one of the things I'd ask God - after the usual stuff like how does the universe work and why must innocent children suffer - would be why did you create this talented guy like
Jeff and not allow the world to truly appreciate him. Jeff's story ends up pretty decently: he got what (as far as I know) has worked out to be a lifetime gig as drum roadie/master for Stuart Copeland of the Police. And in one of those 2 degrees of separation things, Stuart formed the band Animal Logic with bass player Stanley Clarke and my sister, Deborah Holland. Jeff mixed the first Animal Logic album. My sister told me that even Stuart is amazed by some of the things Jeff can do on the drums. She also hears that Jeff is doing OK these days, he's married and has a big mobile home somewhere out in California; when Stuart needs him he takes the mobile home down to LA.

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Gary & Tico go back to NJ

I think the whole album was supposed to be finished in something like 2 months - and I think Tico, Gary, and I were only supposed to be in LA for 4-6 weeks. Well we finished the rhythm tracks in something like 2 or 3 weeks, so Gary and Tico had nothing else to do. I was still needed for keyboard overdubs, so I was in the studio pretty much every day soaking up as much as I could from Jack and Lee. I remember Jeff's wife and young daughter visited while we were out there, and Tico was doing his thing. However, musically there wasn't anything more for
them to do, plus the money that Landers/Roberts had budgeted for the motel was used up. So Gary and Tico flew back home and I ended up crashing at Rick's place for nearly two months. I think this was early July.

The last week they were there, Rick and Tico were out in the studio parking lot and Rick said something that pissed Tico off, so Tico walloped Rick in the stomach. Tico was very powerfully built, so Rick was doubled over for a few
minutes. I didn't see this, but both Tico & Rick told me - Rick thought it was funny!

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Rick Tries to Give Me a Makeover

Rick was very conscious of image & style, and his major concern with me was that I didn't fit the bill image-wise. So one day, after we had been in LA a week or two, Rick took me shopping for shoes. He picked out a pair of high heel woven alligator leather boots for $375. This was more than a week's salary for me, and more than my monthly rent back in NJ, so I gulped. But then I figured what the hell, we were all going to be rich and famous soon, so what was a mere $375? Tico tagged along and picked up an identical pair. I had never worn high heels in my life, but I teetered along in these boots for a couple of weeks. Then Rick decided that this wasn't the right image for me after all, and I really should be wearing black sneakers. I kept those boots as a memento for years afterwards until finally my roommate's cat peed on them and I had to throw them out.

Rick was also concerned that I would not put on enough of a stage show. Actually, I was pretty wild on stage; I jumped around, played the piano behind my back - show off stuff. But I didn't do that when rehearsing/recording; I
generally needed an audience in front of me. One day, we got advanced warning that the teenage son of the president of the record company wanted to see us; no one was happy about this, but it was just one of those things that you had to go along with. The kid was hanging around, but Rick hadn't shown up yet. Gary, Tico, and I were jamming and I started doing my stage act for a few minutes.

Rick showed up soon after that. Rick must have talked about his concerns with Gary, because as soon as Rick came in Gary sounded very excited - "Hey Rick, you should have seen what Eric was just doing! He puts on a great show! Eric, do that again!" I think Rick eventually came around to the notion that I'd do OK on stage - but I'll never know for sure.

Meanwhile, on a personal level, I was always a little intimidated around Rick, Jack, Jack's wife, and Lee. They were all very strong personalities, talkative, funny, and confident. I picked up a paperback book on how to be less shy; but you can't change your basic personality by reading a book. One day, Rick stumbled across the book. I was pissed at him for looking through my stuff. He apologized and then gave me little pep talk. He said that I shouldn't worry about being like other people, that I had a unique presence all my own and that I should be proud of that. Now it's funny. Be yourself. Yeah right. That's one of the oldest cliches in the book. But somehow, on that afternoon in August 1979, coming from Rick with his intense honesty, it penetrated to some deep level inside me. Even though 20 years have passed, I can still pull that memory out. Not that I'm a different person, but I have come to feel comfortable "in my own skin". So Rick, if you're reading this, I owe you one.

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The Digital "D's"
Most of you know that this was one of the very first albums ever recorded using digital technology. I'm not sure why that decision was made. But it turned into a whole funny routine. There was Rick Dufay, Jack Douglas, Lee DeCarlo, Digital. All these things starting with D. So all the non-D people had to have a nickname starting with D. I forget what Gary's was, but my nickname was Derrick. It was sort of goofy sounding but at the same time had a good ring to it from Derrick and the Dominos...

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Hanging Out with the 'Bad Boys'
The Record Plant had a Jacuzzi room which people regularly used for purposes other than taking a Jacuzzi. One day, there's a lot of winking/nudging going on, and then someone says "Let's go on the roof and hose them!" I had no idea what was happening, but I tagged along. We went outside and climbed up a ladder to the roof. There's a skylight in the Jacuzzi room - we all peer down and there's a threesome going on with one of the engineers, some other guy, and a woman who I had seen hanging around. It was like watching a live porno movie. Then someone
opens up the skylight, someone else grabs a hose, turns it on, and sprays cold water down through the skylight onto the frolicking threesome. We all go back downstairs, and the threesome came out looking all bedraggled to cheers and general laughter.

Another time, we had to join the musicians union and go to an introductory meeting. The union rep was in the front talking about medical insurance, and several serious working guys were up in the front trying to get the details. We
were in the back and Rick was goofing on the whole scene and cracking everyone up. For me, being in this environment was like getting an opportunity to re-live high school, only this time I was part of the tough/cool crowd instead of the academic types.

Next Time:

The recording process: first rock album in the digital realm - Vocals, Guitars, keyboard overdubs, and a song by song analysis.

PART 6
Tender Loving Abuse

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This is the hardest part of all to write. I've been sort of circling around it for the last few letters, avoiding it, but I can't duck any more. I wish this story had a happier ending, but I can't rewrite history or gloss things over. Things started off with such hopes. Rick had it all: great looks, tremendous charisma, fabulous singing, rock solid guitar chops, uniquely creative song writing talents. And all the people guiding Rick did the right things too.

And Tender Loving Abuse *is* a good album, a damn good album. But... it had the potential to be so much more. IMHO, it could've been a multi-million platinum seller, one of the all time great albums. But when it was all done, the final product was missing some essential ingredient that made the demo tape so great. The demo tape had this -- aura -- it had some indefinable quality to it that made it scary and exciting and moving all at the same time; it made you fall into the music.

The album didn't have this indefinable...And I felt it happening as we were recording...And I didn't/couldn't do anything...And I've carried it with me since then, second guessing myself, wondering whether I should have spoken up instead of keeping my mouth shut...

Am I being overly dramatic here? Dunno - you be the judge.

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Recording Digitally

As most of you already know, TLA (the first time I got onto the group site, it took me a few minutes to figure out what TLA was) was one of the first rock albums recorded digitally. Without getting into too many technical details, the main difference from a musical perspective is that when you record in analog (the way things were done in the past) the recording process introduces a certain distortion to the music and (up to a certain point) this distortion
actually improves the quality of the sound for certain types of music; this is especially pertinent for the rock and roll - and the all critical snare drum. To over simplify things a bit, there are 2 types of snare drum sounds, the 'fat'
sound vs. the 'crisp' sound. A good example of the fat sound might be early Led Zep, while the crisp sound is something like the Police. Each sound has it's own place. Rick's music called for a fat sound, and analog was better for getting that fat sound. So Jack and Lee spent a fair amount of time working on the snare sound to get that 'dooosh' quality to it. For a while, they considered moving the snare drum parts off the digital onto an analog recorder to fatten it up, but I believe that was beyond the technology of the day - to synch the analog with the digital. Today there are gadgets and software which duplicate analog tape distortion, but they were not available back then.

The other quality of analog is that there is a slight blurring/blending of instruments. In digital, every instrument is totally isolated. This quality also `fattens' the sound a bit.

The whole analog vs. digital thing can take on a religious fervor. There are some people who will swear by analog to their dying breath, they say that analog has a warmth which is missing from digital - that digital somehow sounds
sterile. My feeling is that the digital aspect was not a make or break type of thing on TLA, but that it played it's part and was a distraction. I'll get back to this point.

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Guitars and Vocals and Keyboards

After we finished the basic rhythm tracks (using acoustic piano), we went back and did some basic keyboard parts like the synth line in the chorus of LOVE IS THE ONLY WAY. We had fun with that. Jack had me play 2 different synths, one with my right hand the other with my left, and I switched from right to left halfway through the line, then Jack panned the 2 synths to either side.

I think we did the vocals next. Jack had an interesting way to record vocals. He would have Rick sing the song all the way through 3 times on 3 different tracks. Jack would then take the best lines from each of the 3 tracks and make one "best of" track. Then he'd have Rick listen to the "best of" track and try to top it. We went through the vocals at a pretty fast clip, I think we did them in a week or so. Rick sang his heart out. He was (and still is) one of the premier rock vocalists ever. He has a wide variety of different 'voices' which he uses to great effect, you feel that each song is coming from some deep personal level. To me, the vocals on the album were very close in quality to the demo.

We then did most of the guitars. I'm pretty sure that Rick did most of his guitar solos pretty close to the demo tape. In 10000 BANDS there's one section where the piano doubles up in a descending line behind the guitar, and I
remember learning that verbatim. One exception is the solo in DON'T WAKE ME UP. Jack kept trying to get Rick to do the demo solo, which was a ore 'traditional' guitar line, but Rick heard this low whoop, whoop, whoop thing – eventually Jack heard it too. Jack then had Rick multi-track the solo on different guitars to fatten it up (there's even my nylon string acoustic in there). It sounds pretty cool.

We did some of the guitar parts in the big room, and then switched over and did the rest in the smaller studio. I recall Rick playing through a big stack of Marshalls in the big room. Jack had rented a whole bunch of different guitars to experiment with. I'm not a guitar expert, but I think that Rick did most of his playing on his strat (My strung out Stratocaster) but I think there were some wide body Gibsons mixed in there - no Les Pauls but I could be wrong. Rick may have used some type of distortion boxes, but I think for the most part he preferred amp distortion over effects.

Rick had some problems keeping his guitars in tune. One afternoon we went to see the Who movie The Kids Are Alright which had just come out. We all loved the flick, Rick was especially mesmerized by the concert scenes. I don't know if a non-musician can truly appreciate all the things that Townsend does on stage. He puts on this amazing show, yet at the same time he's in total control of the sound. At one point Townsend is doing his windmill chords and then for a fraction of a second, (and here's the point of this digression) with no change of facial expression, his left hand flicks out, adjusts the tuning on his D string, and then goes right back to what he's doing. This floored Rick.

Eventually, Jack hired a friend of Lee's to stay in the studio and make sure the guitars were all in tune when they were needed. Landers/Roberts were not happy about this, they thought that Jack was just throwing some money at a friend.

Then came the keyboard overdubs. And more keyboard overdubs. And more. We did weeks and weeks of keyboards. With the exception of getting married and seeing my kids being born, this was the high point of my life. Here I was, working with *the* Jack Douglas in the Record Plant doing what I loved to do. Each day Jack brought in something different. Various synthesizers, electric pianos, acoustic pianos, string machines, Hammond organ, clavinet. At one point, Jack wanted me to pluck the strings on a piano. To do this, I needed finger picks, but it was 2
in the morning and all the music stores were closed. So Bill, the assistant engineer, duct taped regular guitar picks to my fingers, and Rick pressed down the piano keys on the notes I was plucking. Most of the stuff I did ended up
being buried in the mix, but Jack felt that it was important, it helped create atmosphere.

I remember one occasion where there control room was packed. Jack's wife was there, Rick, Tits, and at least several other people. I had consumed slightly more than usual and was having trouble getting a tricky the part. At one point I said that a take was pretty good. So Jack said, "OK, well if that's the best you can do, let me try it". What, let someone else do my parts? No way. I focused in and nailed it the next try. Jack knew what buttons to push.

-----

It was part way through the keys that I started feeling that the album was not turning out right. I'd listen to the demo tape at Rick's place, then go in the next day and listen to the mixes; and the mixes just didn't come up to the demo.
But I wasn't sure. The thing which finally clinched it was one evening we switched the monitor speakers in the room. Most of the time, we would listen to the playbacks through large (and loud) speakers which captured every last note that was on the tape. On that evening, someone switched the sound over to some small speakers for a few minutes, and... it didn't have any depth to it. One of the hallmarks of a truly great album is that it sounds good even when played softly or through a lousy system, and what I heard didn't work.

I didn't know what to do. First of all, who was I to say what was or was not working. It wasn't my album, my vision - it was Rick's, and my job was to help Rick achieve his vision. Secondly, even if I was right, what was I to do? My
last attempt at setting things right (with Debbie) had not gone well. Should I go to Jack? How could I do that? Me telling John Lennon's producer that the album didn't sound right? Besides, this was Jack Douglas, surely he could make everything come together in the final mix. Should I go to Landers/Roberts? Uhm excuse me Mr. Landers. This album that you've spent a hundred grand on already - well it ain't working. Yeah, right! That would go over well. Should I talk about it with Rick? I thought and thought about it, but then decided to keep my mouth shut and hope for the best. And finally (and here's what I feel guilty about) I was having the time of my life and was afraid to spoil it.

And what about Rick during these weeks and weeks? I think this must have been a terribly frustrating time in his life. Rick told me that he wanted to work on new material in the studio, he had some ideas that he wanted to develop and he had never had the chance to compose in a studio. But this golden opportunity was being lost. Even though he was ready to move on, Rick had to re-do old material. And - I'll never know for sure, but I suspect that he shared my feelings about the way the album was turning out.

In the years since, I've found out that what we were trying to do was really, really hard. In many ways, it's even harder to re-capture a feel than to create it the first time. Creating a great album is part luck, part voodoo, part
science. Timing is critical. How you feel, how people are working together, the weather, what you had to eat that morning ... every little thing can affect the final product. How do you re-capture all these fleeting moments?

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Personal Digression Coming

Several years after these events, I had recorded some material in my bedroom on a 4 track cassette. There was one song which everyone loved, so I borrowed some money, saved up some of my own, and went into a fully equipped 24 track studio to "do it right". All of a sudden I had all this equipment to work with that I didn't have in my bedroom. Long story short, 5 grand later, I had a tape which was much cleaner and professional sounding than my bedroom tape, but the result was lacking the goofy humorous quality that made the original work. When I was
done, I realized I had replicated (on a small scale) the experience of TLA.

End of Digression

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There are many ways to record an album, but these divide up into 2 basic camps. One way is to try to capture a live feel. The classic example of this is the Band's second album. They spent months rehearsing in the studio until the songs sounded perfect and then they captured a unique moment in time. The second approach is to build up the sound in layers. The classic example of this is Sgt. Pepper. Of course most albums are some blend of the 2 - but most lean towards one or the other. The key factor in all this is to make sure that the artist and material match the approach. I don't think Rick was suited for the methodical approach that Jack took; he was better suited for the spontaneous "capture the feel" approach. The demo tape was the template - it had a live, open quality to it. To a musician's ear, there were a few obvious overdubs (2 guitars playing where there's only one guitar player in the band) but it did not have all the intricate multi-tracked background details that TLA has - it had breathing space.

So what happened? My theory is that Jack did not have enough time to get to really know Rick as a person or artist. Jack told me a story about Aerosmith when they were recording Toys in the Attic. One day, they took the afternoon off and went to the movies to see Young Frankenstein. There's a funny scene in the movie where bug eyed Marty Feldman, playing Igor, gestures to the other characters and says "Walk this way". Well one thing turned into another, and eventually Aerosmith had a hit song with the same name. The point here is that Jack had the time to just hang out and really get to know the guys inside out. This didn't happen with TLA - the time frame was too compressed. My other theory is that Jack was trying to compensate for the so called 'sterile' quality of digital by filling up the background sound to achieve that sort of blending warm quality of analog.

This is all 20/20 hindsight here. At the time, it seemed like all the right moves were being made. From the perspective of Landers/Roberts, they had done everything correctly. Landers/Roberts had a great artist with great material, they hired the best producer, and put them together in the best studio. What could go wrong? From Jack's perspective he was doing everything the right way too - he had the best, most modern equipment available and he was putting together the best sounding album possible.

So OK. You're asking me, "Hey Mr. Smarty-pants. With your 20/20 hindsight, what would you have done differently?" I don't have an answer for that. Wait until Jeff Sietz got off the road? You mean wait for 4 months just for a drummer? Pay Jack to hang out with Rick for a few months before going into the studio? You mean pay one of the top producers in the world to just...hang out? Maybe do some gigs before going into the studio? The studio time had already been booked and Lander/Roberts were doing things 'by the book'; there were schedules which
*could* *not* *be* *broken*.

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There's an alternate universe somewhere, and in this alternate universe Jeff did not have the Long John Baldry gig, and instead of going directly into the studio we did a couple of month's of touring just so we all felt comfortable together. In this alternate universe we went into a smaller studio and worked on a live feel album – in analog of course! - as well as working on some new stuff to make it interesting. In this alternate universe, the album got full backing from the record company, and all the other pieces necessary for getting a new artist out in front of the public fell together. In this alternate universe TLA was released to critical acclaim and became the defining album of 1980 – starting off the decade with a bang. World tours alternated with follow up albums. Rick's song writing really started to take off once he was able to use the studio to develop his songs. Succeeding albums revealed depths that were only hinted at by his early albums, yet Rick always remained true to his rock and roll roots. In this alternate universe, Rick Dufay is the world famous revered artist and household name that he deserved to be.

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Next time: I promised a song by song analysis this time, but this letter has already gone 5 pages, so that will be for next time. And I promise I won't mention the demo tape again (well maybe only once in passing)! :->

PART 7
Deep breath in, through the nose. Slowly exhale through the mouth, relax on each exhalation. In, out. Think calm thoughts. Ah, that's better. Well. After all that depressing stuff in my last letter, all that "what might have been" and what went wrong, all the breast beating and self criticism ... it's time to lighten up a little.

For the last few weeks I've been listening to the album whenever I can, trying to cast my mind back 20 years. I've got one of those "retro" record players with one tinny little 3" speaker. Last time I talked about the problems of listening through small speakers, but there is also a positive. Since you can't let yourself be taken over by the sound quality, you are forced to listen to the essence of what's going on. And the essence of TLA is the material. And what I can say is that after 20 years the material holds up. It still sounds fresh, and the emotions still come through. So this time, no bad endings, no soul searching, no self pity. This time we celebrate.

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Aahh, but -- before I start, here's a quick caveat. I have tried to give my best interpretations of what the songs are about, but don't take my musings here as the final authority. One of the marks of great music is that it supports
different interpretations, and what I'm going to say here is only one person's opinion. If you feel differently about any of the songs, your take is just as valid as mine.

A few General Observations
---------------------------
The first is about the lyrics. With a few notable exceptions, there are no story lines or narratives. Instead, what Rick does is to piece together images and phrases to create a feeling, an image, a hint of things. I wouldn't call it poetry. He rarely says anything obscure, it's more the way the lines fit together - and the way he ties things together with his singing. It's only after the song is over that you say to yourself, "Hey, what was that?". So you go back and listen to it again. And again. And each time you listen, it sounds different, it's a surprise. And this is a rare quality. You can listen to (and I'm pulling this out at random) SMOKE ON THE WATER 30 times and you're not going
to get anything new out of it after the 2nd listen. Yeah, we know. There was a flare gun and the studio burned down. OK. What else can you tell us? Not much. Not that SMOKE ON THE WATER isn't a fun song, it just doesn't have that depth.

Second observation. With the exception of BABY NOW I (which segues into STRAIGHT JACKET), there are no fade outs, every song has an ending. I don't know whether a non-musician will appreciate this as much, but most album songs fade out. As a cover musician, one of the big "challenges" is to figure out how to play a song and give it an ending when there is no ending in the original. But on TLA, every song has a definite end. It's funny, I never asked Rick about that, I assumed that it was part of his artistic statement. With 20/20 hindsight (and this just hit me the other night) it's clear that this was part of the live feel that Rick was going for.

My Favorite Song
----------------
Of all the songs we recorded, my favorite is RESTLESS SLEEPER. Now those of you with copies of TLA are already saying that there's no such song on the album, and you're right. This is the song that didn't make the album, not that there was anything wrong with it but because there wasn't enough room. On a CD this wouldn't have been an issue, but on LPs there's only so much space.

On the last day we were in the big room, after the drums had been taken down, Jack had chairs placed on opposite sides of the stage and mikes set up. Gary & Rick brought in their acoustic guitars and proceeded to lay down a medium tempo sort of strumming thing, with a repeated melodic line in the lower register. When played back through the speakers at high volume it was an awesome sound; I had never heard acoustic guitars at this volume and the effect of the 2 guitars strumming different parts was very powerful. A week or two later Rick laid down
the vocals. It was beautiful, haunting. I'm embarrassed that I can't remember what Rick was singing about. In fact, when I started working on this I couldn't even remember the name of the song and had to get it from Jack. But I remember the emotion. In the verses, the melody was more in the lower register and more conversational. Then in the chorus, Rick's voice soared up, full of yearning and loss:

"There's no dreams, for the restless sleeper,
"There's no sleep, for the restless heart.

Or something like that. I've been trying to come up with some other song to compare it to, to give you a frame of reference (e.g., It sounds a little like blah-blah-blah) but every time I think of something, I find myself saying "Nah,
that will only throw people in the wrong direction."

Anyway, after Rick did the vocals, we did a lot of keyboards. We spent nearly a week doing keys on just this one song. I think I did my best work on RESTLESS SLEEPER, partly because it wasn't on the demo tape, so I was free to be completely creative. I remember some string lines, some synth stuff to reinforce the melodic line, and some piano fills. We all loved it. Jack and Lee both felt that it should have gone on the album instead of 10000 BANDS (maybe a heretical thought to those of you who are fans of that song) but 10000 BANDS was such a key personal statement that it had to stay.

So.

Side 1
==================================================
LOVE IS THE ONLY WAY (I GO DOWN)
--------------------------------
What a great to start an album. A stuttering guitar opens up into a rush of sound. A keyboard arpeggio floats on the top as a counterpoint, cymbal washes. Then a unison descending line into the vocal:

"Loves game's fine by me,
I can accept defeat"
"But when she marks the deck,
I just can't win, win"

The instrumentation is sparse so you can make out the lyrics. The vocal is defiant but not angry. Then the groove kicks in, and Rick comes out of left field with a great image:

"I'm one of the last fallen angels,
broke all the laws of love"
"Cuz each time my love calls,
I go down"

The "I go down" is a great double entendre hook, but it also echoes the fallen angel image - falling down out of the sky. And into the chorus, Rick doubles up on harmony:

"Love is the only way that I go down." {2 times}

When I listen to this song in my mind, the thing that stands out is the way the high arpeggio keyboard line plays off the vocal in the chorus. I wish I could claim the credit for that part, but it was someone else's (Rick or the keyboard
player on the demo?). Second verse:

"Flew into her moon last night.
my entry to quick, whoa"
"Could be why she's so uptight,
she said, 'mama no, mama yeah, yeah"

Sexual image here, also moon sounds a lot like room/womb. I could be wrong, but I think there's a typo in the album lyrics, I think it should read "my entry too quick" (i.e., "too", not "to"). In other words, he made his move too soon. But she's ambiguous. Does she like it? No? Yeah?

"I wrote this song hopin' one day,
to prove to you my point"
"With these three simple chords,
you'd understand, that."

And here Rick brings it back home into the real world and makes it a personal statement to the woman.

"Love is the only way..." {4 times}

We then go into a one verse guitar solo, doubled in octaves first time, starting from the lower register building into the middle. Then the bottom drops out and Rick repeats the chorus over and over in a pleading voice. Strings fade in and out, acoustic guitar strums. Then the whole band kicks into high gear, the guitar goes into the upper register for two more singing choruses, then ends on one more chorus with the high guitar.

Incidentally, the lyrics on the inner sleeve miss most of the yeahs and other little interjections, but that's typical and OK - you can't capture everything. However, there seem to be a lot of typos and/or missed words; I'm going to put
down what I'm hearing/remembering - but I'm not going to point these out since it would interrupt the flow. Also, from time to time I will be re-arranging the lyric lines from the way they are on the album to the way they sound to my ears.

TONIGHT
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Love and rejection. TONIGHT is musically centered around the melody of the verse. The melody is almost nursery rhyme like, but with a twist at the end. It plays off a major scale, but behind it are some complex almost Chopin-like chord changes. The bass holds things down with an ostinato line (that's fancy music talk for saying that the bass stays around one note while the rest of the instruments do different chord changes). The song starts off in high gear. After 2 times through with different guitar textures, Rick comes in, sneering (but sneering melodically):

"I can't believe no love's come true"
"Can't feel the flame and I blame you"
"She's fancy free, she only sees"
"Her zodiac and her angel's dust"

So things ain't going too good between Rick and this girl (LOL). But then the chorus goes up almost and exalts:

"Tonight, Tonigh-igh-ight" {Boom-boom-b'-boom}
"Tonight, it's a free fall flight"
"Tonigh-igh-ight"

So are they getting it on for one night? Is Rick escaping from her? Not clear. It's one of those things which doesn't make any logical sense, but works musically and emotionally.

So back to the melody line. First guitar, then the vocal:

"Tweedle dee, Tweedle dum"
"Now Cinderella now here I come"

Cinderella is not being used in the flattering sense here.

"I've seen you dance, your hard up prance"
"Things are strange and I'm born again tonight"
"Say what?!"

Say what indeed. "Hard up prance" - not very flattering indeed. But then our lovely jubilant chorus again:

"Tonight, ..."

Now comes the bridge, the music turns ominous, and we get to the heart of the matter:

"I can't believe your soft words, they're lies"
"A smile on your lips, your cold eyes they speak"

Rick also uses the "cold eyes" image in DON'T TALK BACK. Now the rhythm half-times to emphasize the message:

"Beware my sweet love when I cease to adore"
"I fell in your hands but not down to the floor"

And now it build up and up:

"And you don't know, you don't know,"
"You don't know"

Then the guitar solo mostly mid register ending in a repeating descending major scale, back to the chorus:

"Tonight, ..." {Twice}

Lifting higher and higher with organ and string swells. So the song ends positively.

DON'T TALK BACK
---------------
The angriest song on the album. The vocal kicks this one in with a yell/cry of anger - backed up by hard chords:

"Oh, you can't feel it"
"Oh, you can't hear"

Then eight note unison accents build in the verse:

"Cause all I get is your sweet double word play"
"Now I'm out and now I'm not in your way"

The melody is very simple, Mi-Fa-Mi-Re-Mi. The guitar is doing a stuttering quarter note arpeggio, the drums are accenting the off beats, the bass is sparse. So the vocal drives the rhythm. The first verse is only a partial verse compared to the rest. Then into the chorus and the center of the song – the power chords push the beat with the vocals in counterpoint:

"Don't talk back" {4 times}

Into the second verse:

"I have to get you just where you want to be"
"I have to talk you down to listen to me"

Hmmm, is there a lack of communication in this relationship? Now the rhythm shifts into a straight rock groove, only this time the vocal becomes sparse -it's as if the band and vocals switch places rhythmically:

"Jealousy got the best of me"
"I never knew how to referee"
"Shot down by your cold and thin eyes"
"Now I know how to speak my mind"

Well at least Rick got something out of the deal - he's learned how to speak his mind. And back into chorus:

"I say"
"Don't talk back" {4 times}

Next another full verse with some funny lines:

"Won't see me runnin' with my tail between my legs"
"I haven't left my balls a sitting on the shelf"

Macho boasting. This is really tame by today's standards, but Jack had to fight with the record company to keep those lines. He eventually got them to give in by telling them that there was nothing sexual about balls, that it was just tennis balls or something like that! Then more funny stuff:

"Here comes whip woman taking her place"
"A refugee from the hall of pain"
"Pain boogie, her foot in my face"
"I pardon you're past, what's left to say"

C'mon Rick, can't you just find a nice decent girl to bring home to Mom? (LOL) I think we tried getting a whip sound with a synth, but I don't hear it on my system. There's another chorus, and then into a bridge:

"Cause I don't want to hear"
"Why can't I get home?"
"I can't get away"

Vocal full of pain, he's trapped like an animal. Then the music breaks down to just the guitar power chords. "Shut up!" Guitar lines flit in and out. "Shut up!", then back into the chorus:

"Don't talk back" {Over and over}

"Don'tcha, don'tcha, don'tcha talk back"
"Don't talk back"

And it ends abruptly.

10,000 BANDS
------------
Rick's take on music biz and his career, and the emotional core of the album. It opens up with a quiet vocal:

"Don't wanna sings about dreams or..."
"Star struck plights"

Electric piano comes in, moody, sad chords"

"Rock and roll memories"
"And those burnt out nights"
"Swallowing splinters of life"
"And coughing up fear"

The bass comes in to anchor the bottom:

"Then I hear my strung out Stratocaster"

At the risk of being condescending here, the Fender Stratocaster is a guitar (I think Rick's favorite). It's a great lyric, "Strung out Stratocaster". Strings on a guitar, strung out from overwork, strung out on drugs. And Rick comes in on
his Strat with some high vibrato:

"Blues away, yeah"

And here comes the chorus with the full band:

"I played guitar in ten thousand bands"
"With nothing to show but bloodied hands"
"I played my leads, screaming high and loud"
"I've been fuzzed and phased and echoed"
"And synthesized"
"Ten thousand bands and me"
"Ten thousand bands and me"

When Rick sings "leads" he emphasizes the "e" to make his voice sound more guitar like. Again at the risk of saying the obvious, "fuzzed", "phased", "echoed", "synthesized" all refer to various ways you can modify the sound of the electric guitar. It's not clear to me whether Rick approves of this. He plays his leads, he's proud of that, but the fuzzing and phasing is done *to* him ("I've been fuzzed..."). Anyway, some descending chords end the chorus and lead back into the second verse, quietly again:

"Just wanna sing a little sing song"
"And I'll have some fun"
"But my fine fretted friends, in my band"
"They're turning me on"

Cute, instead of fine feathered friend, fine fretted (like a guitar) friends.

"They say 'stick to pop' it's gonna take me to the top"
"Ten with a bullet"

Clever the way he breaks up the phrase "top ten", with the accent on "ten". It makes it sound like a silly thing to do.

"Then I hear my strung out Stratocaster"
"Blues away, yeah"

And the chorus:

"I played guitar..."

Organ and strings swell in the background to build the emotion. Jeff does some great drum fills. Then the bridge comes in with very spacey, strange chords, almost atonal.

"My eyes to open"
"Too vulnerable"
"Too full of chemicals"
"And a lotta, lotta booze"
"With the three J's gone"
"They've left an open book"
"If I could read between the lines"
"Then I could surely make the grade"

One of the few 'obscure' lines in here - "the three J's gone". Otherwise, I think he's just saying that he just can't do the things they're asking for (stick to pop).

And now we come to one of the all time classic guitar solos. Rick had this worked out pretty much note for note. When we first rehearsed this I tried doing some block chords going up and down the octaves, but Rick didn't go for that - "Stop doing that Liberace shit" - so I kept it simple. Listen to the urgency in his voice when he breaks back into singing part of the chorus in the middle of the solo:

"I played my leads"
"Screaming high, and loud"
"I played my leads"
"Screaming higher, and loud, loud, loud, loud!"

"Loud, loud, loud, loud!" That vocal is part of the solo, it's a combined guitar/vocal solo ... and ... one of the all time high points of rock and roll.

UP TO YOU
---------
A fun song. It opens up with another one of those stuttering false starts, then kicks in with the guitar playing the melody of the verse. The band is accenting the off beats. Then the band and first verse come in:

"You keep runnin around, pay (play?) the same old bills - to me"
"You keep writing it down, I don't understand"

I don't understand either. My guess is that Rick is not talking about a woman in this song, but rather someone in the music biz - that explains all the references to bills and receipts. The business aspects of the music biz made Rick crazy (as it does most musicians). The second half of the verse has more space between the lines:

"Do I have to know?"
"Do I have to show?"
"I ain't got no receipts,"
"I don't pay no bills"

And the chorus has another one of those neat descending lines. The guitar and bass are in unison, accenting the vocal. The keys are pounding simple chords in the middle upper register, and the drums tie things together and keep the simple groove going:

"Well now who's it's up to you, no me, no you."
"Yes it's up to you, no me, no you."

Second verse, with echoes of the first:

"I keep runnin around, play the same old game"
"You keep chasing me down, wondering what's the same,"
"the same, the same"

"I don't really care."
"How you wanna know"
"Do I gotta get down on my knees"
"and pray?"

A clever, mocking line. And back to the chorus, with some twists:

"There's something up with you, no me, no you"
"There's something up with you, no me, no you"
"Yeah I guess (suggest?) it's up to you, no me, no you"

Now we got some fun, goofy pieces of business. Backwards sounding guitars, mumbo-jumbo, squeals, mutterings, yelling in the background "Say what?" "Hey!". All on top of the driving beat.

Then it breaks down to just a really distorted guitar, doing a bridge riff - power chords. Rick does this funny vocal line:

"So-so-so-so-so-so!"

The band comes in behind the guitar.

"Hang out! Hang in! I can't win!"

and then the 'Record Plantettes' come in on top of the riff:

"You don't know what to do"
"You don't know where to go"
"You don't know who to turn"
"Turn into"

Who are the 'Record Plantettes'? (I hear you ask) To do this part, Jack had a mike suspended from the ceiling of the big room, then we brought in the entire staff of the Record Plant - the secretaries, the janitors, the guy at the front
desk, the engineers in the other studios - basically anyone who was around that afternoon. We all gathered around the mike and sang this a bunch of times, so it sounds like hundreds of voices.

So the song goes back into the chorus and ends on the bottom chord of the descending line.

Side 2
===================================================

BABY NOW I
----------
This is the most 'pop sounding' song on the album and the only one where the keys are the central rhythm instrument. When I play it, my teenage kids start bouncing up and down. I'm playing your basic pounding piano chords and the left and right hands are locked together. When we first rehearsed this, I wanted to break up the left and right hands and have the left hand double up the bass, but Rick didn't care for that, so I had to respect his judgment. Gary doubled up his bass line with a fuzz bass. (For the technically oriented out there, we had some
problems when we first recorded it, all the low end was dropping out. Eventually, Jack figured out that the fuzz box was out of phase, so Lee flipped a switch on the board and everything sounded fine). Anyway, the music starts out
with just keys and drums for 4 bars, then the song comes right in:

"Baby now I, baby now I know your name"
"Baby now I, baby now I'm not the same"
"And I can't go calling you"
"By your ex old man's big name"

I already mentioned what I think Rick is saying in "your ex-old man's big name". The bass and guitars follow in:

"Baby now I, baby now I know your name"
"Baby now you, maybe now you're not to blame"
"And I don't call you my own"
"Cause when the madness hits you're gone"

Maybe "madness" reference to his 'breakdown' here? Not sure.

Now while this may be the most pop sounding song, it certainly is not commercial in any sense. For one things, there's no real chorus - unless you consider the "Baby now I" to be a chorus. Instead the song next goes into a bridge section:

"No one I knew seemed to see at the time"
"That {and?} the wait was on"
"Big woman I knew at the time"
"So bizarre at the time it was"
"That the parties and opportunities"
"That I thought were small"
"Oh-oh-oh!"

I think that these are all references to trying to get his career going, hanging out, trying to meet people, impress people, whatnot. So "Big woman" does not refer to size but importance. Next the song goes back to more "Baby now I"s:

"Baby now I, baby now I know your name"
"Baby now I, baby now I'm not the same"
"And I won't go calling you"
"No I won't call you at all"

then into the bridge section:

"Now that I see who goes out on a limb"
"That's a broken branch"
"I didn't make time to be loving the things"
"That I thought were small"
"In the deep, deep, deep, deep, deep"
"Twit recesses of my mind"
"I didn't know"

So in his climb for success, Rick gave up (or overlooked) things that were important. Next some more nifty phased guitar work - very funny stuff. Back into more "Baby now I'm", wailings, guitars cry, all over the steady beat. Then the keys and guitars drop out leaving the drums and bass, Rick mutters, the drums fade and it segues into a back and forth whooshing effect and goes into:

STRAIGHT JACKET
---------------
Someone mentioned in a thread last year that this is basically autobiographical. Rick was briefly "put away" - I don't remember the details, but I recall Rick talking about being in a padded cell with (yes) a straight jacket until he
calmed down. I think that the back and forth whooshing sound was supposed to evoke the cell door opening and closing - I think we did that on a synth. Some Chuck Berry/Keith Richards type guitar licks come in over the whoosh, then into hard rock style chords, which open up into the verse:

"Well people in the world agree"
"They say 'Hey, you got a strange, vibration'"
"They see me riding high and rockin through the night"
"They try to tame, oh tame, my situation"
"My mind was in a rage, when I flew from the cage"
"It was a great, day, for aviation"

Ha! Yet another great funny line - "A great day for aviation". By the way, one of the Rick's trademarks - which I haven't mentioned yet - is the way he starts his vocal lines in the middle of the measure. So for example, if I were to write these lines 'metrically', it might look like this:

"Well"
"people in the world agree, They say"
"'Hey, you got a strange vi-"
"bration." {music} "They"
"see me riding high and rockin through the night, They try to"
"tame, oh tame, my situ-
"ation." {music} "My"
"mind was in a rage, when I flew from the cage, It's such a"
"great, day, for avi-
"ation" {Music} "So they put me in a.. "

The musical accents fall on the first words of each of these lines, which is sort of in the middle of the way you would speak it. So this gives the singing a propulsive, rhythmic effect. Anyway, I digressed here from the song - so into the chorus:

"So they put me in a straight, oh straight, straight jacket"
"And they put me in a straight, yeah straight, straight jacket"
"They put me in a straight, yeah straight, straight jacket"

Guitar licks into the second verse:

"Well I'm sitting on top of the world"
"And I say, 'It's such a great, oh great, sensation"

Echoes of the first verse, only instead of "They say" it's "I say".

"I'm still riding high and I'm out of their cage"
"And they don't know what to do, don't know what to do"
"With my way"

Only two couplets in the second verse. Most artists would feel the need to balance things out and have the same number of lines in each verse, but Rick is free of such constraints.

"So they put me in a straight, no straight, straight jacket"
"They put me in a straight, straight, straight jacket"
"They put me in a straight, straight, straight jacket"

Then the music switches into a moody minor feel with a diminished chord, some piano arpeggios and guitar effects, then a low echoed guitar line builds up. Then it's rock and roll time, power chords, a synth swell, then another chorus leading into a high guitar solo, then out on more power chords.

DON'T WAKE ME UP
----------------
A majestic medium tempo rock ballad. The song starts with the chorus. The piano opens up with stately chords for 2 bars supported by the ride cymbal, a moaning guitar line sneaks in, then the band comes in and Rick sings the chorus with a tight harmony.

"Don't wake me up, baby now"
"Don't you wake me up"
"Don't wake me up, baby now"
"Whoa-oh-oh-whoa" {Twice}

Then into the first verse:

"There I was, twice the speed of sound"
"So high, never touching ground"
"And you turning back the clock"
"You see that you, you're in for a shock"
"Well it's a surprise, a surprise"
"What a surprise"

If we think of the second side as a narrative, then Rick's out of the hospital, but the woman with him doesn't realize what he's been through, she's trying to turn back the clock. So then back to the chorus and then into the second verse:

"Say you, standing in the sandbox"
"Please, collar the jive"
"Oh you, finger artist gangster"
"You have to love"
"Love who loves you"

I'm not sure what's going on here. My read is that the first two lines are to the woman ("Standing in the sandbox" - she's clinging to the past), but then he starts talking to himself (Rick is the 'finger artist gangster') and he needs to
return love. So next we have the bridge:

"Father Time, he's a make-up man"
"It's getting late for your telephoto face"
"When I scream, 'Get out of bed!'"
"Well you tossed and turned and said"
"To me, to me, here's what you said"

Again I'm not clear what Rick is saying here, but my sense is that he's talking about how he's changed, but the woman is clinging to the past. So "Don't wake me up" could be the woman speaking and saying "Don't wake me up to what's happening now, to how things have changed."

So another chorus. Then there's a nifty guitar solo (I've talked about that already), then the bridge repeats (unusual, but interesting). Then the chorus sung twice again - and one more chorus instrumentally with high guitars.

FOOL NO MORE
------------
Another fun song. I love the way the vocal does the yodeling sort of thing in the chorus: "I-ee-aaaeee-eee-oooh". The topic could be betrayal, by Rick, of an unsuspecting lover; but the chorus goes against that. If Rick is doing the
betraying, then why has *he* been a fool. Maybe he's been a fool to stay with her, but I don't hear it that way. So to me this song is more an emotion than an explanation.

We start with the guitar line from the chorus, then the chorus kicks in:

"I"
"Won't be a fool, no more"
"I"
"Won't be a fool, no more"

While Rick does some tight harmony work on a few of the songs, this is the only song on the album with 2 really distinct voices doing harmony. Then into the verse, with a tom-tom beat, low guitars playing parallel fifths with the bass.

"Oh baby got high"
"Then baby got down"
"Innocence"
"Unaware of my sound"
"Unopposed at the door"

Nifty vocal effects, the way Rick "shakes" the words. If I remember correctly, that's me doubling up the vocals an octave lower in the verse on a vocorder. The vocorder is a studio gadget used to alter your voice - in this case we used it to create a really low distorted growling effect. I had to sing in a completely different key which was tricky but fun. I also pretty sure I played tambourine on this song.

"Stick my foot"
"In my mouth"
"Aimlessly"
"Short of novocain"
"I cause the pain"

{chorus}

"Now I push"
"My fingerprints"
"In your back"
"See what's up, what's come down"
"When it's in, it goes out"

"Influence"
"Drops from the moon"
"Just in time"
"Steady rate of climb"
"Solid state of mind"

{chorus}

This is followed by a whole instrumental cadenza. The rhythm falls down, Gary does an octave pattern on the bass, Tico's playing off the floor toms, I'm playing pounding quarter note chords on the piano, and Rick is doing a mid range guitar thing, bending notes. Then the band shifts gears and double times. There are simultaneous descending and ascending parts. The bass and guitar go down, while another guitar line and the keys go up so the music is going in two different directions at once. The synth is doing organ/strings and female vocal chorus effects, higher and higher and higher. Finally it peaks and guitar brings it home with the same line used to start off the song.

TENDER LOVING ABUSE
-------------------
The title track and only ballad on the album. Also the most confessional. It has echoes of the old Stax recordings from the 60's, but with rock textures. It opens up with solo guitar, doing sort of a finger picking chord line, with slide guitar overlays. Then the vocal comes in on top, yearning:

"I might have treated you different"
"But I didn't know how"

Some keys start filtering into the background.

"The years that came between us"
"I didn't know why"

Then the rhythm section comes in, very simply:

"But I know"
"That I"
"Was fooling"
"Myself"

The chord changes and melody in these lines echo the "Do I have to know, do I have to show" from UP TO YOU. Then the chorus:

{Chorus}
"It's tender loving abuse"
"Tender loving abuse"
"Tender loving abuse"
"Tender loving abuse"

Weariness in the voice. I put in a simple piano line, sort of a gospel thing, to tie it together. And, coming out of the chorus, I stole an Al Kooper organ lick from Dylan's "Just Like a Woman" - Jack said it was OK. Second verse, more images of falling apart:

"Playing much too hard"
"I couldn't slow down"
"Couldn't talk out loud"
"So drowned out in silence"

"How touching"
"It is"
"When we"
"Break down"

Back to the chorus. Then into the bridge where the rhythm section is very sparse, the ride cymbal predominates. Rick goes into full confessional mode. This is like the section in the soul songs where the singer gets down on his
knees, pleads for forgiveness: "Please woman, take me back." Only, with Rick's twist, they come back knowing they're going to hurt each other more.

"How sweet it is to be hurt by you"
"What is it you see"
"To - keep, keep, keep coming back"
"For more, more..."

Pain in his voice, then

"Tender loving abuse" {over and over}

One more organ lick, the chords resolve and we're done. But then a distorted guitar cries out one more atonal chord, which gradually descends and dissolves into fade in the distance.

-----------

Now I've already written that there are very few 'standard' story lines in the songs. But if you want, you can read sort of an autobiographical story in the progression of songs on the second side:

BABY NOW I: Young, callow youth trying to make it big in show biz, but on the verge of a breakdown.
STRAIGHT JACKET: Breakdown
DON'T WAKE ME UP: Post breakdown, girlfriend still thinks of him as he was before
I WON'T BE A FOOL: Breakup of relationship
TENDER LOVING ABUSE: Regret over breakup

Well, maybe I'm reading more into this than is there. And, like I said, if you see things differently than me, your interpretation is just as valid as mine.

================================================

"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture"

There's a controversy over who first said this, but there's a lot of truth to it. Doing this was a *lot* harder than I originally thought; it's taken me the better part of a month to piece this together, but I'm glad I took the time.

Each of the 10 songs is a like a little mini-concerto, and it's been fun taking them apart and figuring out what makes each one tick. Rick molds standard song conventions as he sees fit. Songs may start off with the chorus, verses may
chopped in half, additional instrumental sections are added at the end of songs, and so on. I don't believe that any of this is self conscious. I don't think that Rick said to himself, "Hmmm, how can I break conventions here?". He just
followed his inner muse and let the music go where it needed to go.


Next time, I should be able to wrap things up.

PART 8
So, so, so, so.

I left off the chronology in the middle of berating myself and doing keyboard overdubs. There's not too much more to tell. We finished the keys, I think, in the second week of September. I then took off and spent some time with my
sister. I went back to the studio a week or so later and Jack was in the middle of doing percussion overdubs. The studio was filled with percussion instruments - conga drums, bongos, shakers, rattles, etc. There may have even been some tympani drums in there. Jack was working on a tambourine part for (and again my memory is hazy here) FOOL NO MORE. He was having trouble, so I volunteered. At first it was tough, because it was hard to make out the beat in headphones; so I had the headphone mix changed to be mostly snare drum with a little vocal and instrument. That made it easy. I hung around a little, but it was depressing for me not to be doing anything. So I booked my flight home. I came back one last time to the studio the night before I left - Jack & Lee had started working on the final mixes. I couldn't get into it, so I said my good byes to everyone and took off.

Now when I was out gigging, I would typically come home from playing and get depressed. Playing was always an incredible high for me - even without drugs - and finishing a gig was just coming down. So I was pretty sure that when I came back from California I'd be totally bummed out, cuz I had just finished the most incredible gig in my life. And... I was right. I went into the deepest depression I'd ever experienced in my life. I basically got stoned and stared at the walls of my apartment for a month or so. I knew I had to pull myself out of it, so I threw myself into a home recording project. I had learned a tremendous amount of stuff from being around Jack, Rick, and Lee, so I did some 4-track demo tapes. There was a world of difference from anything I'd ever done before - I had actually learned how to put together a sound.

I also went to see Tico and Gary play - they had formed a club band and were playing down in Scotch Plains. It was fun, Gary was singing Runaway by Dion and Tico was pounding away - they sounded pretty good. At the end of the show, Gary & I were talking, and Tico was packing up. All of a sudden, from offstage, a very attractive young woman started calling out, "Tico! Tico!" Gary & I looked at each other, how does this guy do it? It would have been fun to play with them, but I couldn't see myself going back to the club scene anymore, lugging all that equipment around, playing cover tunes for drunken kids. So I supported myself by doing part time day work and played in bands doing original music - much of which I wrote or co-wrote.

I spoke with Rick every once and a while. I remember talking to him once while we were simultaneously watching Bob Dylan on Saturday Night Live - from other sides of the continent - and we were critiquing his performance as he was playing (he was really good). The album was finished but nothing much was happening. I sensed that things were not going according to plan but I didn't press Rick for details. Whatever was going to happen would happen and it was out of my control. Eventually the album was released early in 1980 on Polydor, which was not the original label. How this happened I don't know. I suspect Jack used his influence to get a favor, but that's only a hypothesis on my part. We got a brief review in Billboard. I went out to www.billboard.com and found it. Here it
is:
--------------------------------------------
Reviews & Previews -Album Reviews: Generic

August 30, 1980,
Tender Loving Abuse

This digitally recorded LP bears the guitar-oriented stamp of one-time Aerosmith producer Jack Douglas. Emphasis should switch to tight melodies for more cohesion, and guitarist/writer DuFay could strengthen his vocals a bit. Quality musicianship is supplied by Eric Holland, keyboards; bassist Gary Seitz; and Tico on drums, among others. Best cuts: "Up To You," "Baby Now."
--------------------------------------------
I didn't even get a copy of the album, although the royalties (ha-ha!) started rolling in. I think I got a check for $7 one month and another for $4. If I had been thinking clearly I would have saved them.

Rick moved to New York in 1980 and was staying at Jack's place in NYC - this was when Jack was recording Double Fantasy. We still spoke occasionally. Rick told me that John would call up in the early afternoon and say to Rick (and this is not an exact quote but an approximation) "Tell Jack to get his lazy ass out of bed and come down to the studio".

But it was clear that nothing was going to happen with TLA, and we were drifting apart.

And then there was the terrible day in December. I heard the announcement on TV. It was a bad dream, it just couldn't be real; but the TV cameras were at the hospital and there was Jack & his wife going into the hospital. I spoke to Jack's wife briefly a few days later, but that was my last contact with either Rick or Jack (until recently).

So I did some more recording projects, but nothing went anywhere. Eventually I decided that the music biz just wasn't going to do it for me, so I went back to college, got a Master's degree, got a decent career going, met a wonderful woman, got married, settled down, had kids (boy/girl twins – they're now teenagers), yadda-yadda-yadda. Life is decent, and at my wife's encouragement I'm actually getting out and playing a little these days.

Years later after I had stopped playing, I was in a record shop in the Village with a buddy. I was idly going through the discount rack, when all of a sudden there was Rick's face staring out at my. Holy shit! Look at this! That's the
album I did! So that's how I got my copy of TLA - "Factory Sealed for Your Protection" no less!

----------------------------------

Well that's pretty much my story of the recording of TLA. Memory is a funny and selective thing. There are large portions of my life that I can only remember in broad outlines, but the summer of 1979 is still sharp. I could fill up pages with all sorts of boring/silly details --- but I've taken up enough space.

Thanks to Terry AKA TED for keeping me on track and encouraging me when my spirits flagged. Someday you'll have to tell me what the TED stands for. If any of you have questions, don't be shy; if you want to go "off group" you can contact me at my yahoo email. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and keep the flame going.

THE END