The Making Of Back To The Street

[LivingRock]

Wow, John's voice (speaking) sounds practically the same as it does now! The only real difference is in his singing voice. Man, I want this...

[brent]

Re: Lack of Louie....They didn't need no stink in' drummer.

[executioner]

Re: Lack of Louie....They didn't need no stink in' drummer.

It's a shame, because with the way he played on WUC & PP2 it would have added so much to the sound.

[Mountain Man]

So based on that short clip, Mark Kelly is apparently the fastidious one.

[Mountain Man]

Re: Lack of Louie....They didn't need no stink in' drummer.

It's a shame, because with the way he played on WUC & PP2 it would have added so much to the sound.

Brent is exaggerating (slightly). My understanding is that it basically worked like this: Louie would come in and lay down a drum track, then the Elefante Bros. would lay beat-for-beat samples over Louie's playing which is why drums on those albums sound really dry and punchy. So what you're hearing is Louie's playing but not an actual recording of his playing, if that makes sense. I assume the reason Louie wasn't in the video is because the drum work was already done, and Louie doesn't sing, so he really had no reason to be there.

[brent]

Re: Lack of Louie....They didn't need no stink in' drummer.

It's a shame, because with the way he played on WUC & PP2 it would have added so much to the sound.

Brent is exaggerating (slightly). My understanding is that it basically worked like this: Louie would come in and lay down a drum track, then the Elefante Bros. would lay beat-for-beat samples over Louie's playing which is why drums on those albums sound really dry and punchy. So what you're hearing is Louie's playing but not an actual recording of his playing, if that makes sense. I assume the reason Louie wasn't in the video is because the drum work was already done, and Louie doesn't sing, so he really had no reason to be there.

John Lawry told me that they mapped out the drums on a drum machine and then overdubbed cymbals, etc. Remember, back at this time, they did not have digital audio workstations yet. They barely had drum triggers back then. Roger Nichols developed the Wendell for drum replacement, but they did not have it AFAIK. John told me that they had a hard time finding computers and drum machines/sequencers that kept time. Louie told me that he hated playing the electronic drums/samples. The reason why Louie hated all of the digital crap then was because of the sounds (they were very low bit back then and the converters were terrible) but samples were recordings of single hits. Louie had to adapt his playing so that the drums did not sound so fake, like a machine gun firing.