He has a discography of over 30 albums, and is known well in Europe
and big cities and little hamlets in America. We met in 1980.
He splits his personal life between Tucson, Arizona, and Denmark.
He recently sent me the liner notes for the re release of Giant Sand's very first album
"Valley Of Rain". I am running this, because it is a story, not just album note liners.
It shows the inside of a musician determined. Very determined. The result,
from embryo to now a full blown adult. This is classic, so read on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
but a country record done a year earlier was self titled from another band name
of mine called “ The Band of… Blacky Ranchette”.
They were each recorded for 400 dollars and in a day and a half at a Los Angeles
8 track studio called the Control Center.
The previous line-up called Giant Sandworms had just broken apart in Tucson
and I wanted to make good on a gig that was already set up in Los Angeles at
a venue called Madam Wongs. so me and bassist Scott Garber headed out to
try and play it no matter what. Tucsonan Winston Watson was now living out in
LA and helped us out on drums that night and came with us the next day into
the same studio where I had earlier recorded the country record. We had 30 minutes
worth of tape like the country record and was also engineered by Ricky Mix (Novak).
Way later after both sessions were recorded, I got separate label offers for
each and decided to move to Los Angeles from Tucson to help them along.
This was also how I learned how to make records. Record them fast and improvise
through any problems, then license them out for 3 to 5 years with a small advance.
A French label called New Rose was going to release the country record and
Enigma records in Torrence (Los Angeles suburb) was going to release
Giant Sand in the states while Zippo records was going to release it in England.
We drove across the desert the 9 hours to Hollywood to accept the label’s invitation
to come to the release party of “The Screamin’ Sirens” at Club Lingerie.
When I parked my van, I got a feeling it was going to get broken into to
and told Scott. (I had emptied my stuff out of the van earlier
but Scott still had his stuff in there.)
After a night of drinking off the desert run, we found the van was busted into and
all of Scott’s stuff was gone. So we drove to Canter’s Deli to sober up.
then and there I realized I forgot to remove the master tapes from both
sessions that I had hid under the couch in the van. When I went out to
check, only 2 out of the 4 reels were there. a pot of cactus that
Jonathan L gave me to deliver for him had saved 2 of the reels that
rolled behind it and probably gave the intruder a good poke in the dark.
The final mixed master reel of Giant Sand’s “Valley Of Rain” was gone, and so
was the pre-mixed tape of the “…Blacky Ranchette” session. But I had at least
one reel of each session to work with and was able to continue on.
The next morning I decided to go back to where the van was broken into and
search the area for the stuff that was stolen, including my “address book” with
all my contact phone numbers of the labels that wanted these records.
When we got to the parking spot on Wilcox, I realized we had parked in front
of a dingy run down transient hotel. I was searching a trash container outside
when an older rail thin dude came out of the hotel and figured I’d see what he
knew about any of it. I looked him squarely in the eye and asked him if he’d
seen an address book laying around here. Yes he did. When he turned to go
back into the rank hotel, Scott excitedly pointed out that that dude was wearing
his Giant Sandworm t-shirt! (which I hadn’t noticed.)
He came out with my book of numbers. just the fake leather cover was ripped
off it. He said it was in a pile of other stuff at the bottom of some stairs in the
dark hotel. We went in with him to check it out. it was shadow land in there
and very funky. When we headed back out into the bright daylight to cut a deal
I told the man that if he could come up with any of the missing reels I would
pay him 50 bucks. He was game. As I went to pay him 10 bucks for my
address book the police pulled up behind with guns drawn and told us not
to move. (I was just able to remove a forgotten “9 hour desert drive doob”
from my pocket) and chuck it into the weeds before being spread eagle
on the squad car and searched. They thought they were making a drug bust
when I handed that dude the cash.
That was my first 24 hours of joining the recording industry in Los Angeles.
We continued our deal with the French cowboy record and with the Los Angeles
rock record, but had to add several more songs to bolster its length. And
that’s where we got Tommy Larkins to drum on the rest of the material
and met Eric Westfall at ‘Mad Dog Studios’, who would go on to co produce
and engineer the next umpteen Giant Sand records.
We had to re mix the original session tape there too and it didn’t come out
quite like we had it the first time. But this year Jim Blackwood found the
original mixes on a cassette tape that was buried in boxes of old tapes.
And then he transferred it and kept the cassette sensibilities that now sound
way more wonderful unique then the typical digital recording, especially
when the tape crumples perfectly in “Tumble And Tear” the way cassettes
used to do way back when we thought they sounded inferior, but now
sounding superior and sweet to hear in all its hissing glory.
Winston went on to drum for Bob Dylan for almost 5 years, Tommy is still
playing with Jonathan Richman, and Scott lives and plays in Austin.
Chris Cacavas who sat in on piano with the title track
is living and playing in Germany.
I changed the song order slightly because I can. Originally there was no
side A listed on the record: just side B and side C. I think it was my way of
illuminating the fact that I had officially left the desert and was then living
relatively B side the C side. Anyhow, now there is only one side. Just A side.
-Howe Gelb
