By the time we got around to making “and other crimes” we were in our 8th year as a band, on our 3rd bass player, and finally had a deal with a decent sized independent label that had more than 2 employees and a semblance of an infrastructure. We had released our 3rd full length record, “Anytime, Anywhere” in late 1994, toured the country from coast to coast, and played at SXSW, where we secured European record deal. We were as tight as we had ever been as a band. Then our new German friends at Glitterhouse asked us to make a record exclusively for their popular mail order catalog. Since we had just put out a record, we were not sitting on a ton of original material and we kind of wondered how to go about things. (Tom Heyman)
With the tiny budget offered by the label we could barely afford to buy the 2 inch multi-track tape to record 13 songs let alone record and mix in the professional recording environment we’d gotten used to. My suggestion was to record “Live To 2 Track”. That means that everything has to go down at once. All the playing, the singing even the mixing would be done live to a stereo tape. No editing, no punching in, no overdubs. This method of recording was pretty much abandoned as soon multi-track options were available.
Go To Blazes was in a position to be able to do this as they were a very tight band and had a great singer in Ted Warren and bass player Ted Pappadopoulos was also a very good harmony singer. (Eric “Roscoe” Ambel)
We came from a particularly proud, 3-sets-a-night bar band tradition, of having a very deep quiver of somewhat obscure cover songs that we could draw from. This is how Gene Clark, and Lou Reed wind up sharing space with Hank Jr and Lee Hazlewood, while Gordon Lightfoot bumps up against Kinky Friedman.(TH)
On their previous record we’d used some additional players so the idea was to have those same players at Coyote to record ‘live in the studio’ with the band. Jim Duffy played organ and did some percussion, Joe Flood played a bunch of instruments including violin, mandolin and 12-string acoustic guitar. We worked out the arrangements musically and Coyote Studios engineer Albert Caiati and I worked out the sounds in the control room. I doing moves on the vocals and the solos live as the songs were performed and recorded. (ERA)
We were friends with the Mississippi band Blue Mountain (Roscoe being the connection there) and we loved their tune “Jimmy Carter”. Playing it as a ballad seemed to fit the mood of the record. (TH)
We worked out the arrangements musically and Coyote Studios engineer Albert Caiati and I worked out the sounds in the control room. I doing moves on the vocals and the solos live as the songs were performed and recorded. I played the organ on “Jimmy Carter” so Albert had to cover the mix for that one. Compared to multi-tracking with all the editing capabilities and mixing options, it really was a daunting task to get everything right on the fly, but everyone in the studio was excited about it and the results were both immediate and lasting. (ERA)
Bruce Langfeld, from the Philadelphia band Bag of Hammers was a close associate of GTB. We were unabashed fans of his incisive, impressionistic songwriting, and his slightly wild, Neil Young, crossed with Pete Townsend guitar playing. His song “Stone Mountain” seems more deeply prescient than ever given what is currently going on in the US at the time of this writing. Bruce died, unexpectedly in 2007, and this reissue is dedicated to his memory. (TH)
credits
released November 11, 2020
Side A
1.Got It Made (E. Warren/T. Heyman) Casa Diablo Music, BMI
2. OD’d in Denver (Hank Williams, Jr.) Bocephus Music, Inc., BMI
3. Stone Mountain (Bruce Langfeld) BMI
4. Waste of Time (E. Warren/T. Heyman) Casa Diablo Music, BMI
5. Out On the Side (Gene Clark) Irving Music, BMI
6. Love and Other Crimes (Lee Hazelwood) Lee Hazlewood Music Corp. ASCAP
7. She Comes Running (Lee Hazlewood) Lee Hazlewood Music Corp. ASCAP
Side B
8. Sold American (Kinky Friedman) Ensign Music Corp., BMI
9. Underneath the Bottle (Lou Reed) Metal Machine Music, BMI
10. Jimmy Carter (Cary Hudson) Roadcrew Music,Inc./Belly Rubbing Music, BMI
11. Casa Diablo (E. Warren)Casa Diablo Music, BMI
12. The Watchman’s Gone (Gordon Lightfoot) Mouse Music, CAPAC
13. Cathouse (E. Warren), Casa Diablo Music, BMI
Recorded completely live at Coyote Studios in Brooklyn, NY
Produced by Eric “Roscoe” Ambel
Go To Blazes are:
Keith Donnellan—Drums, percussion
Tom Heyman—Acoustic and electric lead guitar, acoustic slide guitar
Ted Pappadopoulos—Bass, backing vocals
Edward Warren— Lead vocals, acoustic 6 and 12 string guitar
Additional pickers
Eric Ambel—organ on “Jimmy Carter”
Jim Duffy—organ, percussion
Joe Flood—violin, mandolin, 12 string acoustic guitar
Bruce Langfeld—electric guitar, 12 string acoustic guitar, percussion
Produced by Eric “Roscoe” Ambel
Recorded by Albert Caiati, mixed by Eric Ambel, except “Jimmy Carter” mixed by Albert Caiati.
Mastered by Elliot Sharp at zOaR Music
Design and layout Brian Mello
This was recorded and mixed live to two track DAT, on May 23, 1995, between 4 in the afternoon and midnight. We drank a lot of beer, and it was fun. We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it.—GTB
Thanks (1995) —Reinhard Holstein, Rembert Stiewe and all at Gltterhouse, Rudiger Ladwig/Westworld, Brad Madison, Chris Faville, Mongrel Music, Chris Gray, Ralph Johnson for the guitar loans, Steve Daly, Mary Retzlaff, the fine folks at REP, Jill Richmond, and Susan Darnell, David Dye, Bruce Warren, Bruce Raines & the World Cafe, Mary Lee Kortes, and Joe, Jim and Bruce for staying up real late.
Special thanks Paul A. Dickman, Eric Ambel, and Albert Caiati.
We think the photo used on the cover of this reissue was taken by Kristin Tederstrom. If this attribution is wrong, we apologize. It was more than 25 years ago, and those brain cells have flown…
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