Tales From The Vault (liner notes)

This article is about the liner notes for Allan's album Tales From The Vault.

About Allan’s liner notes for “Tales From The Vault”.

“Tales From The Vault” was delivered in two separate downloads for those who pledged. The first delivery was done at the end of August 2015, and consisted of two versions of the track “Earth”. The only difference between the two versions is that one was delivered WITH a guitar solo, and the other WITHOUT a guitar solo. Both tracks were delivered in a hi-res and an mp3 download. The liner notes for "Earth" are reproduced below as "Tales From The Vault, Part I", as posted in Allan's name on the Pledge music site.

After this delivery, it took a very long time for the rest of the material to appear. My files are dated July 2016, although I’m not sure about the exact date. Anyway, this second package consisted of 11 mp3 files. Along with this delivery was also a PDF file of liner notes, signed by Allan. These liner notes are reproduced below, as "Tales from The Vault, Part II". The text is exactly as provided, but headlines have been added for clarity. Spelling errors have not been corrected, but are noted in [brackets].

Liner notes for Earth ("Tales From The Vault Part I")

31 AUGUST, 2015

From Allan about Earth

HELLO everyone.

I am so sorry this took so long, I wont go on with excuses. I really do have a hard time with computer based recording. I am an old geezer used to another world. Anyway I hope you can enjoy the track. The reason I chose to do this first was simply because of the fact that it has been so long since I did a studio recording that I didn’t want to just dig up some older music (which actually may have been just fine). I decided to do an arrangement of Virgil’s tune Earth.

I found it compelling so I re arranged the tune (not the form that remained the same) just a little re harmonization here and there. So there you have it. The other version is very different as you will hear. In fact I think I arranged myself out of it because of all the cheese I put behind the guitar solo first (that I had to play around).

I had already done a previous solo that the computer didn’t like and torched it. Oh well. Don’t be fooled by the short (largely diatonic) solo theres plenty of guitar on the rest of the tunes. I just loved the piece..thats what this was about.

Anyway on to the next tune. I may ditch the computer, still debating…

Thank you all so much for your support, I have no words, Lots of love to you all, Allan.

NOTES FROM ALLAN: TALES FROM THE VAULT PART II

Introduction

Greetings everyone. So very sorry for the huge delay.

I had to change plans, what I wanted to do and what I ended up doing were/are two very different things. I hope you won’t be disappointed by this.

What I wanted to do was give you guys some old tracks with new solos. At the same time, I was trying to work on our new recordings and trying to balance them both was very difficult for me.

I do not work well at all under pressure. In fact, the harder I am pushed the more I put my foot on the brakes. If I get pushed really hard I tend to just Stop.

I do not think that I have ever delivered (solo records) a single record on time. But it didn't matter then because no one (besides the record company, if there was one) payed for anything before it was delivered so therefore it wasn't so much pressure. When the record came out then the fans could buy it and there it was in their hands…. Done Deal. But the Pledge thing became awkward for me because people payed in advance for something that may take a long time, a pressure I am not used to at all.

So I changed gears and decided to research really old tapes that were in my possession. My good friend and engineer Robert Fiest came to my house and I gave him a collection of 2inch and 1/2 inch masters. He kindly took them and had to bake them, a long, expensive process, and then transfer them to his computer. Which he did successfully. Then he sent me the files to review what we had.

These are some of the tracks we found. There are also 2 new tracks, New Dawn and Poochini.

New Dawn

New Dawn was written by my old friend Pat Smythe. We used to play it with Pat's quartet in the early 70s. This version I played the chords on the Synthaxe. The solo I played on the Starr Z board. A very interesting machine. I used the same instrument on Chad Wackerman's last record "Dreams Nightmares and Improvisations “ (A New Day and The Billows). I haven't quite got the hang of it yet but it pushes me in different directions which I like.

Water On The Brain

Water on the Brain with Paul Williams was supposed to be on the old IOU record… but the tape was stolen and was recovered AFTER the original album was done. So here that one is! Gary Husband, dms, Paul Carmichael, bs, Paul Williams voc. AH gtr.

The Abingdon Chasp

The Abingdon Chasp with Bill Bruford drs Francis Mose bs-(Gong) Jeff Young kbrds Ray Warliegh alto sax and me. I don't like listening to my old stuff. It sounds so lame to me but the other guys sound great! Ray Warliegh was a dear friend of mine. He was an amazing super melodic player…. Miss him.

[Ed. Note: Ray’s last name was actually spelled “Warleigh”.]

Road Games Outtakes

The Road Games Cluster*&^%$%^&*

When I was on the road with UK I met Edward Van Halen. A wonderful generous soul to say nothing of his amazing talent!!!!! He was instrumental in getting me hooked up with Warner Brothers. The issues I had with WB had nothing to do with Edward. He is a jewel.

After I was signed by WB under the wings of Ted Templeman (a fabulous producer) however, I realized that’s when my troubles began. In fact, they signed me but had no real intention of letting me do what I wanted to do. They had another agenda.

First they wanted to change my band personnel. I was in hell, my band mates were also my close friends and WB wanted to mess with it. Anyway, we started recording at "The Music Grinder" which was run by Gary Skardina and Ron Felicia, very cool people but then Ted (TT) decided that he didn't want me to use that studio and told me we had to move to a WB studio called "Amigo". Then the shit hit the fan. Ted told me I couldn't use my engineer and that I had to use an engineer he liked, directly working with Ted not me!

We were starting to mix and then we had to stop because Ted said there was another "FAMOUS" band in one of the other rooms that was having problems with the 2-inch tape machine they were using. THIS IS WB so rather than rent another 2inch they decided to steal our machine. %^&*()(*&^%$%^&*Then transfer all our 2-inch tapes to a 3M Digital machine. Quite possibly a pioneering digital machine but it sounded horrendous. (In my opinion.) That’s when I threw up my hands and basically gave up.

All the tracks labelled Outtakes are in fact all outtakes from the "Music Grinder" featuring Joe Turano, a fabulous singer in my opinion. TT would usually listen to mixes over the phone and make decisions as to approval or disapproval… usually the latter. These 2-track rough mixes were sent to Ted for his decision as to yes or no. It was NO.

Note: Jeff Berlin's amazing solo is well evident here.

I had forgotten about these tracks but once I heard Joe again I thought you guys should check him out. (Certain things, like bits of guitar solos were either muted at the time or not done yet, as they were 2 track mixes, I obviously couldn’t put them back.)

Although these were rough mixes it just goes to show how much sonic destruction happened as a direct result of TT’s decision to transfer to the 3M machine.

Road Games Remixes

The Mark Pinski mixes: (Mastered by Robert Fiest for Pledge)

During this time, I met Frank Zappa, who was very kind to me. I told him my story about the WB problems (I don't think he was a fan of WB either) and he very generously offered to let me use his amazing studio. He said go get a couple of 24track tapes from WB which I did. I had to sneak them out as they were vaulted but I managed to get a couple of reels out.

I took them over to Frank's house and he introduced me to his engineer Mark Pinski. He mixed 3 tracks in one evening. His mixes also showed the destruction that the transfer to the 3M machine at Amigo caused. However, we ended up not using them as Ted Templeman would not allow it.

Anyway, Mark’s mixes were excellent but very bright, so when I heard them again from the 2-track masters we knocked off some of the high end. That’s what you have!

[Ed. Note: Mark’s last name is actually spelled “Pinske”. Robert's last name is actually spelled "Feist".]

Poochini

Poochini. (Nickname) is a little short dedication to my Daughter Louise's hound, Daisy. She was the most beautiful sweetest hound. She was a Pit Bull mix, part Dalmatian. We miss her.

Conclusion

Once again I apologize for the huge delay and thank you all so VERY much for your patience and incredible support. It has truly meant a lot to me!!

Yours Sincerely, Allan.