Then! (album)

"Then!" is a 2003 live album by Allan Holdsworth. Allan’s second official live album followed close on the heels of “All Night Wrong”. It was also recorded in Japan, but feature the “Hard Hat Area” band (Gary, Skuli and Steve) touring in 1990, prior to recording that album. The centerpieces of the album are the three improvised “Zones”, that Allan would regularly do in his live sets. Note that this album is credited to the "Allan Holdsworth Group".

Track listing

Allan Holdsworth Group: Then! (D - S) (YT)

	Track title	Composer	Length
1.	Zone I	Holdsworth/Husband/Hunt/Sverrison	4:08
2.	Proto-Cosmos	Pasqua	5:42
3.	White Line	Holdsworth/Brown	9:39
4.	Atavachron	Holdsworth	4:42
5.	Zone II	Holdsworth/Husband/Hunt/Sverrison	5:30
6.	Pud Wud	Holdsworth	8:05
7.	House Of Mirrors	Holdsworth	4:26
8.	Non-Brewed Condiment	Holdsworth	5:44
9.	Zone III	Holdsworth/Husband/Hunt/Sverrison	7:39
10.	Funnels (Bonus Track For Japan)	Holdsworth	7:10

Allan Holdsworth: Guitar
Gary Husband: Drums
Jimmy Johnson: Bass
Steve Hunt: Keyboards

Allan did not make many references to this album, but he might have been referring to it here:

On The Level (IM&RW 1991)

IM - I heard rumours of a live album that you were doing or that you had in the can.

"We did do one but I didn’t like it. I’m gonna try another one. We did it in Japan and I was using these little tiny speaker boxes. There is a law of physics, if stuff gets too small it just sounds like that. It sort of interferred with my playing. It was alright but it wasn’t what I wanted out of a live album. I just wanted it to be really happening."

Creating Imaginary Backdrops (Innerviews 1993)

What about the possibility of a live album?

Well, we did a live album, but nobody liked it. We recorded it in Japan one year and the general consensus was that it wasn’t happening. It’ll never come out.

Is that something you’d like to do eventually?

I would like to yeah! Especially with all the bootlegs. In fact, we were thinking about releasing an official bootleg record. Since there are so many bootlegs out there, we figured we might as well give the guys in the band a choice of what nights were okay as opposed to the ones which weren’t. So Gary Husband recorded some gigs with his DAT player. Some are pretty good too. I mean they’re live—that’s the thing I like about them. They’re not like the studio-live albums—in other words, you get a supposedly live album that sounds like the worst studio album you’ve heard in your life. That is definitely something I want to avoid. In fact, the microphone in the back of the room seems to be a good way to go for me. You always get that feeling of a live performance. From now on, I think we’re going to carry DAT machines around and record gigs.

Co-producer Chris Hoard on Then!

Chris Hoard, co-producer of the album writes about the track "Proto Cosmos" on the "Then!" record:

Did Allan ever experiment with splicing different live group takes into a mix?

He did at least once, and as far as I know it this track was the only time. When we worked on the mixes in the studio, he had recorded three nights in Tokyo, and we compared the two versions on nights 2 and 3; the latter was definitely the version he wanted, but we both thought the ending of prior night and thought the ending with awwas special [sic]. This record wouldn't have happened if Gary Husband hadn't brought my attention to some cassete tape copies of the recordings, originally from a digital 32 track machine. Gary had sent the tapes over to Allan, and had asked me to check them out and talk with Allan about them. Allan was very reluctant at first--he remembered he didn't like the guitar sound. Apparently Gary had been lobbying Allan for some time to revisit that recording. Soon I joined in as well trying to convince him that bassed on the cassette copies, we had to see if we might conjure a better sound with his latest mixing setup. His manager, Akira Yada had the masters transferred so Allan could mix them in his home studio. After he'd gotten the mixes up, there was another short section early in the track Allan wanted to see if he could replace, where he wasn't happy with his playing. I remember saying "I wish we could substitute that ending from the prior night," and he pondered for a moment, and said, "we can try and maybe I can fix that section on the head." I remember we joked about it being a "Frankenstein" track which had been re-animated from dead parts. Fortunately as it turned out Gary Husband and band perfect time. Allan worked a lot to "tweeze" (as he called it) his guitar sound, but once he got the mixes up the magic started to happen. Allan both was a master musician, and a expert recording engineer, having worked with greats like Stephen W. Tayler. On his records he did a lot of his own engineering--particularly on his guitar parts, as he tended to experiment with them alone. I remember when we finished this mix, the only track on the record with two brief sections replaced from the prior night. It was a joyous moment, we were both laughing and ebullient. Eventually he came to appreciate the live guitar sound he worked hard to "optimize." It was one of those happy occasions in my life in which I was privileged to witness and participate in witnessing his creative process--an experience which I'll forever enjoy remembering.

Links

Album playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hpu-shkUtP0&list=OLAK5uy_keef6R2bNcDF7bfLiiXHiNtycPsqWm8Es

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Then!

Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/master/931707-Allan-Holdsworth-Group-Then

Ed's blog: http://threadoflunacy.blogspot.no/2017/09/24-wardenclyffe-tower-1992-and-then.html