Recording of Funhouse

There's a couple of thoughts that always lingered in my head about the album Funhouse. What always gets me is that they say that everything recorded live with no overdubbs. Yet it's present on tracks such as Down on the Street, Loose, and Dirt that Ron's play a second guitar over his first one. Did the band wanna do this, or did Don (the producer) just want some extra sparkle for the listeners' sake.

Also I'm wondering what sort of tape did they use to record the sessions. To me it always sounds like a 16 track recorder because of the stereo drums, but then on Loose the drums are in mono. On the day they showed up to record Loose did they have a shortage of microphones for some odd reason, or did the engineering strategy change during the sessions (Iggy did say they recorded Loose first because they thought that it would open the LP)?

In the song 1970, during the saxophone solo, if you listen very hard you can hear a different saxophone solo leaking onto the the drums or vocal mics. This leads me back to the "no overdubbing" part. Who knows, maybe the rest of the band did a stellar job on the take but Steve felt uncomfortable about his soloing (I know how he feels).

On Funhouse, there's a couple of weird sounds on Iggy's microphone. It's sort of sounds like a harmonica playing in the background. Another weird noise is at the "We've been separaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaated" part, you hear this airy tone, almost as if someone's whistling. Who knows, the harmonica noise might've been the saxophone bleeding in and the whistling sound being feedback.

I'm not done yet. On the last track L.A. Blues, theres two different mono drum tracks playing at the same time. This might've been an experimental idea of Iggy's or the engineer's. It sounds like the tape operator delayed the drum track and recorded the effect onto the tape. On the saxophone track it sounds like it's sampled because it doesn't leak like all the other instruments (then again it's hard to tell beacuse it's all noise). And before the sax fades out, it does this weird glitching thing, like it's doing something and the sound stops, and then the noise he was doing before was repeated again. Sort of like a skipping record.

It's kind of interesting.

The album was recorded live apart from Ron’s second guitar parts. That’s not really a contradiction in terms as even the mighty Ron can’t play two guitar parts at once.

Several years before the Funhouse sessions came out, the rumour was that the album was recorded live but that Ron had played the solos first and added the rhythm parts later. Untrue, although I like the idea of the solos being so hot that Ron couldn’t wait to get ‘em off his chest.

Rigsby wrote:

The album was recorded live apart from Ron’s second guitar parts. That’s not really a contradiction in terms as even the mighty Ron can’t play two guitar parts at once.

Several years before the Funhouse sessions came out, the rumour was that the album was recorded live but that Ron had played the solos first and added the rhythm parts later. Untrue, although I like the idea of the solos being so hot that Ron couldn’t wait to get ‘em off his chest.

you just broke the magic, man...

An interesting article about the recording of Funhouse is here:


http://www.mixonline.com/mag/audio_rocking_studio_stooges/


It seems Ron Asheton and Don Gallucci have different memories!

Great article, thanks for posting. There were a couple of mistakes though.

The precise and imaginative playing of lead guitarist Asheton; the dead-on rhythm section of his brother, drummer Scott Asheton, and bassist Scott Alexander; and the provocative avant-jazz wailing of tenor saxophonist Steven Mackay all leap off the record and into your solar plexus. Oh, and the riotous songs are good, too.

He called Dave Alexander, Scott Alexander. And...

(Ross-Myring, who was middle-aged in 1970, and whose session previous to Fun House is said to have been with Barbra Streisand, is deceased, as is saxophonist Mackay.)

Says that Steve Mackay is dead.

Ungangos wrote:

it's present on tracks such as Down on the Street, Loose, and Dirt that Ron's play a second guitar over his first one. Did the band wanna do this, or did Don (the producer) just want some extra sparkle for the listeners' sake.

seeing as they did this on the s/t album as well, I'm pretty sure it was Ron's idea. Someone said that they had rehearsed the album's songs at their house with Billy Cheatham playing rhythm so Ron could develop his solos.

Ungangos wrote:

On Funhouse, there's a couple of weird sounds on Iggy's microphone. It's sort of sounds like a harmonica playing in the background. Another weird noise is at the "We've been separaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaated" part, you hear this airy tone, almost as if someone's whistling. Who knows, the harmonica noise might've been the saxophone bleeding in and the whistling sound being feedback.

Iggy's mic was a wireless handheld one that they plugged into its own P.A., and miked from there. Consequently, it could get pretty distorted, so a lot of those noises are just a result of him yelling close in it (like the part where it sounds like he caught on fire in T.V. Eye, which might be my favorite part of the whole album).

Ungangos wrote:

On the last track L.A. Blues, theres two different mono drum tracks playing at the same time. This might've been an experimental idea of Iggy's or the engineer's. It sounds like the tape operator delayed the drum track and recorded the effect onto the tape.

From what I've read, Scott played L.A. Blues so badly, Don forced him to overdub a second take. They kept both in.