RED ALERT who's got a Something Awful account

[topleybird]

"Guy who worked as an audio engineer for Billy Corgan is answering some questions about him."

https://twitter.com/tut___/status/595291752434544640
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CELmsZJUUAAOlpF.jpg

Mr Twitter-guy here says it's from the Something Awful forums; I imagine it's this thread but I'm not sure
http://forums.somethingawful.com/sho...readid=3202346

GET ON THIS, kids, GET ON THIS

[juliana]

OH MY GOD! I can't even!

[juliana]

Don't think the person is legit.

[Mals Marola]

On what grounds

[Ram27]

Why did he need gold at the studio specifically

Someone ask him about ruining songs in the studio

[bunny]

people who invest in gold don't normally get the bullion shipped to them...

the man believes in chemtrails and astrology so maybe he needed it for it's alchemical properties?

[dreams of glass]

shattering fast alchemical glass

[Grox]

dont diss astrology

[chuckhagel]

It was probably just 37 lbs of those chocolate coins with the gold wrapping. That would explain his fatness.

[seign]

Originally Posted by robinsoncrusoe

Since when is investing in gold a bad thing?

It's not. But typically, people who invest in gold do it on paper or have it in a safe deposit box somewhere. Not delivered to a recording studio.

[seign]

Originally Posted by juliana

Don't think the person is legit.

I don't know. That sounds like a totally legit thing Billy would do. This is the same guy who told Sharon Osbourne to fill seats at concerts with the ugliest people she could find "for art".

[seign]

Someone should bite the bullet and register an account to copy/paste this. I would but all my money is tied up in gold because of Obama.

[topleybird]

Just want you all to know how deeply you've disappointed me

It's going to take a lot of rebuilding and a lot of effort to regain my trust, Netphoria

I know it must be really difficult to find someone who would actually pay money to use a forum in this day and age but ask your friends, ask your relatives, ask your LinkedIn network

[Saih]

Originally Posted by topleybird

Just want you all to know how deeply you've disappointed me

It's going to take a lot of rebuilding and a lot of effort to regain my trust, Netphoria

I know it must be really difficult to find someone who would actually pay money to use a forum in this day and age but ask your friends, ask your relatives, ask your LinkedIn network

I have an account and paid $10 for it, but I paid for it over 12 years ago when the forums were legitimately funny and interesting.

1st update:

I came here to say I worked for billy as an audio engi(second) for 1 harrowing year while he was trying to make 11 eps. (2009-10). ama

Q: What's the weirdest thing you ever saw him do?
--------------------------------

He had 37 pounds of gold (bullion and coins) delivered by one of those armored trucks delivered to the recording studio because he thought (I'm not kidding, and not sure how much he was/wasn't) because he thought obama was going to drive the economy and country into a dollar failure and gold would be he only currency around.

Follows up later in the thread:

I want to believe this so much.
------------------------------------

Its true. I got there first and the loomis truck wouldn't even roll down the window for me. The work load was nuts. 8am-11 or 12 pm every day for that year with literally only thanksgiving day and christmas day off. My body broke down after a while (and I was pretty young). I was doing a lot of the striking / setting up of mics / stands / synths / console switchouts. It was the hardest job I had ever done.

Q: What is he really like? Everyone hears stories, and I guess yours (to us) will be just another one, but if you're legit, I'd love to hear it from you
Also, does he realize that his voice is mixed WAY too close to the front?
-----------------------------------

He is for the most part, a pleasant guy. He has his super rich guy things. He doesn't touch anyone, he is super worried about the food he eats. There were probably 8 of us at any given time including engis, producer, bandmates and the occasional guest. We all ate the same thing, except billy had a personal chef bring him crazy ancient grains and bizarro super foods for every meal and drank $20 water bottles which brand name changed weekly because he heard the previous brand was bad/poisonous.

Had a good sense of humor though. Very very very hard worker. Guy puts in the hours for sure. He is also a huge conspiracy theorist. Somewhere in between really believing that the illuminati is about to take action and somewhat skeptical on the existence of reptilians.

We recorded on 2" studer tape machines. The vocal process was really interesting. There were about 16 takes for any given track, all one seperate tape tracks. Then the head engineer would spend about a day listening to them all, and in a grid rated EVERY SYLLABLE in each take, and comped the entire thing, per syllable to a single, new tape track. This was this guy's "what I am famous for" skill. the process was nuts, he would hit the shit out of the studer control console thing so fast and hard to punch in punch out each syllable. And apparantly thats the way its always been done with billy. He likes the tape, but is always a collage of lots of takes, comped to tape.

Q: How was his writing process? What's the ratio (as far as you know) of songs he had prepared for the EPs versus songs he was clearly making up during the sessions. Did he seem prepared at all?
------------------------------------------------

He had zero songs prepared. At his house, he would normally just have a few chords perhaps on piano. He would come in and just fiddle with those for sometimes close to a hole day. Mind you our days were about 8am to midnight, 7 days a week.

A little backstory, this was billy's (everyone calls him that and he seems fine with it btw) personal studio, which was a 5000 sq ft wharehouse in the north chicago burbs. He had collected a lot of gear over the years that was scattered about in storage sheds, so this was it all coming together. I can post some pics. But it was serious console/synth/drum machine/guitar porn city.

So he would basically get a skeleton idea down for chords, decide on an instrument to try it on and do a few takes to get it right, so a drum track to get made. Then mike burn (kid in the back of OPs photo...sweetheart of a kid and a great drummer whos favorite drummer is questlove) would do the drumb track). At this point it got strange, it was him wandering through this vast synth collection and patch hunting on each one, then deciding he wanted a sound we didnt have, so would buy something on ebay (like a mellotron).

Most times we ended up recording completely different versions of the same song. Songs that started out being mellow and somber became quite loud and aggressive. Most of the songs you hear from billy had several different iterations (almost unrecognizably) before the final is printed. Vocals were written only after the final version was decided on

Q: Did Billy talk about the old band mates at all, or did he berate any of the current band members?
-------------------------------------

When this studio project started, Jimmy actually was playing drums with billy and they did some work together, but quickly had a falling out over writing credits (shocker...billy doesn't share those with anyone ever) and did not participate. The Producer at the time was married at one point to Darcy, and there were some snips and slights here and there. Iha never came up.

edit: At the time, there was some stress with the bass player from strawberry alarm clock (who was a million years old and not great on bass) couldnt hack it, and eventually got asked to not come back...other than that other folks were cool. Really, billy played nearly everything in himself except drums. Most of it is just mike on drums and billy, and the rest of the line up was for live. Not sure what the situation is now.

Q: Zeitgeist lists credits for both Chamberlaine and Corgan on most songs. Did Billy rant about anything that would give a clue to that change of heart?
--------------------------------------

Not really. But the head engineer and studio manager at the time told me that the re-split was about Chamberlaine being angry with billy about being a control freak and not giving proper credit where it was due.

Q: What's Jeff (SHREDDER) like? Bet he's real down to Earth.
---------------------------------------

It is not the guy from the superchrist vid, and the name escapes me...but he was the original Strawberry Alarm Clock bassist.

He was a sweetheart of a man. Very nice and cool and down to earth. He was a bit bemused as to why he was there it seemed but yeah. A complete joy of a person. There were a lot of people through there with personalities that you would expect from celebrities and cranky engineers, but he was super down to earth and very very personable. The only musician there that had sympathy for the time the engineers and studio staff were putting in.

Also, both him and billy are like 6'5. I am 6'2 and felt dwarfed by both of them.

edit, for context, this was the first song that came out of that studio with that group:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKrB3AM97Xc

Q: How was he in terms of listening to/asking for input from other people?
-----------------------------------------

I would give it maybe 20%. He was confident with his ideas for the most part. The producer at the time literally had such minimal input, but he would spit ball ideas with the head engineer a lot. Like I said, we would record like at least three different arrangements for each song, so he did a lot of trial and error, and there were a lot of ideas thrown out by the musicians/producer/engineer/studio guests (mostly hot models). He never seemed to really use any of these ideas, but I guess maybe just internalized them and listened politely

Q: Did you get any contact with Jeff? I love Billy, he's one of my heroes, but I never hear anything about Jeff despite Billy saying he had a lot of input (Although I'm not sure if that was just Oceania on) and by most accounts he's a great player and seems like a nice guy. Part of me feels like he's been pigeonholed as "The guy that's not James Iha", much like Mike was "Not Jimmy" to a lot of people.

Speaking of Mike, I really wish he stuck around even to just record the drums on Monuments. Tommy Lee may be good but compared to Mike and Jimmy his drumming is so boring and doesn't mesh with the sound in my opinion.
-------------------------------------------------------

I have never met jeff. And he was never referred to so far as I am aware. Yeah, mike is a great guy. He has a pretty avant rock band in portland now that is worth checking out. He is a really nice guy and a bad ass drummer with loads of style and chops. He exited after I did, so not sure why he ended up leaving the band.

Q: also if you won't get in trouble I'd LOVE to see pics of the studio set up.
---------------------------------------------------------

I will post them this evening. We are fine so long as billy isn't a goon (and based on his string of recent reddit AMAs, I doubt it).

---------------------------
2nd update:

Back of the studio. All top racks are filled with guitars in cases, all lower shelves filled with vintage synths, amps/cabs on bottom.

http://i.imgur.com/PFru0jf.jpg

Tracking room with Hammond C3 with leslie cab and piano. This room got messy (sorry for shit blur).

http://i.imgur.com/5WdXPqj.jpg

One of 2 control rooms. Was way smaller of the two, not sure why it was almost exclusively used. I think it was just set up better first. Frankenstein API and neve sidecar, KRKs (which got used an awful lot more than the )barefoots. Lots of fun rack gear. Patch bay by Greg Norman at Electrical Audio.

http://i.imgur.com/QgvESo8.jpg

Pretty decent modular. Or two, Mattson modular from the guy at matrixsynth.com and a fuckton of doepfer modules, rack fx

http://i.imgur.com/b6z2Kxp.jpg

There were several side car consoles (5 I think) and they had these neat-o custom cases so that they would pivot up, and be stored like this for space saving. Lots more gear porn pics of crazy things, but don't want to get out of hand.

http://i.imgur.com/ZgSYFEt.jpg

Q: It was asked but not answered as far as I could see.

Does Billy know his voice is way too high in the mix? Does he think it's good? I still like some of the new SP stuff, but damn he needs to dial it down.
-------------------------------------------

I really can't speak to that. I think the answer would probably be no. One guy who has been with him since after siamese dream does and has does 95% of his mixing. I know him and he really just knows what billy like and does it. I can say, it didn't sound that high in the studio, but hearing it now adays I see what you mean. Could just be ears, could be personal preference.

I do know that the effects used on billys voice are VERY minimal. Very little compression, and always a super super super super long reverb that is absolutely burried in the mix and that is it. I think if they compressed more and lowered, might help. But these guys are as pro as they come, and seem to have a reason for everything. I am on the other hand quite an idiot, so idk.

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

3rd update:

Q: do you have any more funny stories to share?
---------------------------------

A: Well, One time everyone was excited because "Xena" was coming to visit the studio from LA. I presumed this to be the warrior princess on the account of billy being pretty legitimately obsessed with Professional wrestling (WWE or whatevs). It was not her, but this amazingly hot young mixed race model/singer songwriter nice woman. Upon her date of departure she sobbed in the studio all day while everyone gave her the cold shoulder. This was the same day that twitter and like...gawker was stating that Billy and Jessica Simpson were hooking up...I have to leave it to the imagination of what/why/how that was all connected.

We also had some dealings with Steve Albini and some of his employees (who are really nice amazing people). Steve is a poker wizard who makes more money from playing online poker than he probably does from electrical audio, and his chief technician is seriously one of the nicest people I have met in my life and supremely gifted. No one except billy really believes that the cubs will one day win a world series.

Q: Oh man, do Albini and Corgan get along?
------------------------------------------

Yes, very much so. Billy is fairly celeb and reclusive, but they trade a lot of gear. For example, one of the Studer tape machines was bought from him, and we had his tech working a lot with us fixing stuff on the reg. Billy also lent him a few Digidesign A/D IO modules for something. Routinely Albini would hold poker night (billy never went) but the engineers all went.

[Funbags]

Originally Posted by seign

It's not. But typically, people who invest in gold do it on paper or have it in a safe deposit box somewhere. Not delivered to a recording studio.

Owning and holding physical gold/silver to hedge against "worthless fiat currency" is a common belief for the Alex Jones set.

[juliana]

Kerry's studio is at kerry's house. Did he record there?

[topleybird]

Originally Posted by Saih

I have an account and paid $10 for it, but I paid for it over 12 years ago when the forums were legitimately funny and interesting.

You are beautiful, Saih; thanks for doing this!

[in stereo]

lol @ eating ancient grains and drinking $20 bottled water. All of that effort to eat well and yet he looks bloated as fuck!

[Ram27]

the re-split was about Chamberlaine being angry with billy about being a control freak and not giving proper credit where it was due.

Hmm

The drums were the best part of ZG anyway

We recorded on 2" studer tape machines. The vocal process was really interesting. There were about 16 takes for any given track, all one seperate tape tracks. Then the head engineer would spend about a day listening to them all, and in a grid rated EVERY SYLLABLE in each take, and comped the entire thing, per syllable to a single, new tape track. This was this guy's "what I am famous for" skill. the process was nuts, he would hit the shit out of the studer control console thing so fast and hard to punch in punch out each syllable. And apparantly thats the way its always been done with billy. He likes the tape, but is always a collage of lots of takes, comped to tape.

Jesus. I wonder how long he's been doing that. And it doesn't sound like it was worth it

[Funbags]

Originally Posted by Ram27

Jesus. I wonder how long he's been doing that. And it doesn't sound like it was worth it

"All this syllable comping has cut the consonants off my lyrics! Welp...better start singing this way live then"

[myosis]

Billy Corgan buys a piece of the Gold Coast

[redbull]

Originally Posted by Ram27

Hmm

The drums were the best part of ZG anyway


Jesus. I wonder how long he's been doing that. And it doesn't sound like it was worth it

at least since MCIS. there's some mtv program (maybe ultrasound??) from 95 where they talk about BC doing this

[chuckhagel]

Fat sad fuck Billy is here reading this thread right now. This I know for a fact.

[Forgotten Child]

Well, I bet you're all sad now, it actually says Billy was a nice/normal guy...

[topleybird]

What's great about this is that we already knew about the weird bottled water obsession thing, so I have no problem AT ALL believing that he also has the equivalent of a traveling end-times survivalist panic room full of gold bullion and cans of Dinty Moore and spirit crystals and yoga DVDs

[slunken]

We are fine so long as billy isnt a goon

New forum title?

[juliana]

Anyone could have written that stuff, none of it is new info. Everything is vague and the gold thing is easily made up because of alex jones probably saying it.

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by seign

I don't know. That sounds like a totally legit thing Billy would do. This is the same guy who told Sharon Osbourne to fill seats at concerts with the ugliest people she could find "for art".

this is an amazing idea

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by Funbags

Owning and holding physical gold/silver to hedge against "worthless fiat currency" is a common belief for the Alex Jones set.

started with glenn beck who was being paid under the table by a gold broker. im sure AJ is as well

[Disco King]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

started with glenn beck who was being paid under the table by a gold broker. im sure AJ is as well

Think that separates Jones from the other reactionary pundits is that he seems sincere in his delusions. He probably spews diarrhea for free; noble, in it's own way.