Rob MacKillop
Edinburgh Correspondent
My favourite quotation from the jazz legend, Miles Davis. It's directed at John McLaughlin, an English jazz-rock guitarist. John does not come out of this well, and I suspect his memory of the occasion is quite different!
"So I was trying to record some sh*t, you know, Bitches Brew, and it just ain't happening. 'Cos we had too much heavy black sh*t goin' down, so I said to Teo, hey, we need to mix some dumb-ass white sh*t into this. So I'm thinking, who is the whitest, stiffest, dumbest cat who can do this? So I called John, and I said, hey John you motherf***er, I'm doing a record and I need you to come over and lay down some real white, stiff sh*t, you know what I'm saying? And he says 'sure Miles, I'd be honoured' in that cute British accent. So we get to the studio, and John says, 'what do you want me to do?' So I look him right in the eye, and I say, 'Play the guitar like you only know how to play like some totally incoherent, white, dumb, pointless motherf***er.' And John went kind of quiet for a couple of seconds, but then he started to play. So when he did his white, soulless sh*t and mixed it up with my heavy black sh*t, well man, it all came out just the right consistency of sh*t. You dig what I'm sayin'?"
It's all in the mix...Keep this in mind next time you do a mono conversion
"So I was trying to record some sh*t, you know, Bitches Brew, and it just ain't happening. 'Cos we had too much heavy black sh*t goin' down, so I said to Teo, hey, we need to mix some dumb-ass white sh*t into this. So I'm thinking, who is the whitest, stiffest, dumbest cat who can do this? So I called John, and I said, hey John you motherf***er, I'm doing a record and I need you to come over and lay down some real white, stiff sh*t, you know what I'm saying? And he says 'sure Miles, I'd be honoured' in that cute British accent. So we get to the studio, and John says, 'what do you want me to do?' So I look him right in the eye, and I say, 'Play the guitar like you only know how to play like some totally incoherent, white, dumb, pointless motherf***er.' And John went kind of quiet for a couple of seconds, but then he started to play. So when he did his white, soulless sh*t and mixed it up with my heavy black sh*t, well man, it all came out just the right consistency of sh*t. You dig what I'm sayin'?"
It's all in the mix...Keep this in mind next time you do a mono conversion
