Well... thanks Jaimie for taking the time to go into a tremendous amount of details as to how this project ("It Was 40 Years Ago Today") saw the light of day... I clearly imagined the hoops of fire you and others had to jump through in order to pull this off as I used to do radio productions "back in the day" and those, as simple as they might have turned out, were moments of wonderful chaos... So thanks again for a GREAT read... I'm sure many others have enjoyed it too... Cheers, Miguel ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jaimie Vernon" To: Cc: ; Sent: Saturday, August 28, 2004 6:10 PM Subject: Re: The making of... "It Was 40 Years Ago Today"? > At Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 15:22:34 Miguel wrote: > > >First things first... the Beatles' tribute "It Was 40 Years Ago Today" is > >fantastic... I just can't add any more to that statement... If you don't > >have it... GET IT!!! > > > >(I'm ok now...) ... How about someone out there (Jaimie?) give us the > >behind-the-scenes as to how >long did this project take to put together as > >I can only begin to imagine the mammoth task of >contacting the bands... > >meetings, phone calls, recording sessions, mixing... etc, etc... Should > >make for >a good read... > > Well, we've made it a mandate at the label to release tributes as often as > we can to celebrate our favourite artists of the '60s and '70s. The first > was Klaatu in 1998. Then the Bay City Rollers in 1999. Then the Sweet in > 2002. > > It was in the midst of assembling the Sweet tribute in 2001 that we had to > decide what to do next. We had just obtained the entire Goddo back catalogue > that year and one of the band's albums "King Of Broken Hearts" featured The > Beatles "You Can't Do That". Band leader Greg Godovitz has always been a > huge Beatlephile (he has what is considered the largest private Beatles > collection in Canada). He had also recorded "Dear Prudence" while with the > Carpet Frogs and was moonlighting, during 2001, outside Goddo with Bob > Segarini in a new band called The Anger Brothers whose repertoire was pure > British Invasion. > > While mastering the re-issue for "King Of Broken Hearts" I pointed out how > out-of-place "You Can't Do That" was in the middle of this stable of hard > rock tracks (Goddo is a power trio in the true rock and roll sense of the > word)....so we left it off the re-issue with the understanding that it would > be used for a future Beatles tribute project. > > Later that year I mentioned the potential for the project to my distributor > at the time (KOCH) and they suggested we attach the project to McCartney's > Music Trust because KOCH promotions man, Eric Alper, was heavily involved > with them already. > > By early 2002 I was already working with Randy Bachman doing the Guess Who > and Brave Belt Anthologies and asked if he'd like to be involved in a > tribute of this nature.....and sure enough he was quite enthusiastic about > doing something like "This Boy" or "I Saw Her Standing There". > > Randy mentioned the project in an interview to Toronto Sun/Jam Music editor > John Sakamoto (who also happened to be my editor on the Canadian Music > Encyclopedia) unbeknownst to me. Next thing you know there's a cover story > in the Sun screaming "Randy Bachman To Appear On Beatles Tribute". Sakamoto, > who was actually interviewing Randy about the Guess Who reunion tour, pushed > the tribute as the lead story as a favour to me.....attaching Bullseye's > email address and phone number in the body of the article. > > Within hours I was beseiged with requests to appear on this thing!! As a > matter of damage control I had to scramble to make it look like we were well > into the planning stages -- the title I'd thrown at Randy was tentative (it > eventually stuck!). We scrambled to make phone calls, get distribution > scheduling happening and establish a criteria for the release. All of this > was posted on Audities within hours of the initial newspaper article. > > This mailing list became the breeding ground for submissions....with a BIG > tip of the hat to Gary Pig Gold who sent me a list of some of the biggest > names in the Power Pop community to appear....including guys like Roger > McGuinn, Kim Fowley, Bill Lloyd, Andrew Gold, Al Kooper and others. Most of > the list agreed to be part of this because Bachman's name was attached to > the project. > > Alas, by the time we got enough material together, Randy was in the middle > of a North American tour with the Guess Who and had no time to record a > track. He bowed out of the compilation, but did offer up another Guess Who > member, Donnie MacDougall, who was already finished recording a solo album > containing "I Feel Fine". > > Gears changed and we lost a few large names (like McGuinn and Fowley) so we > put out the word for another round of submissions to try and up the cache > factor. We had lots of great acts and great songs, but the name recognition > was pretty low. Meanwhile, the time lag gave some of Bullseye's roster a > chance to record submissions, which became a whole other bone of contention > because I was torn between self-interest and the interest of the project for > its own sake. > > Then we lost our distribution (and the McCartney Music Trust access) and > were in legal limbo with our former distributor and started looking for > another distributor -- street date for the disc was missed at retail. We > eventually hooked up in the Fall of 2003 with FUSION III in Canada and > Burnside in the US (thanks to Mr. Ralph Alfonso!)....but we'd lost 7 crucial > months where we almost went out of business. > > But we pressed onward...Terry Draper was retained as co-producer (according > to Rolling Stone magazine in 1977, he WAS a Beatle at one time....what with > his being in Klaatu and all)...and the aforementioned Greg Godovitz who is > "beatleboy" in his free time. > > In total, we received 341 submissions for the tribute. > > But how would we release this thing? A single disc? A double disc? Split the > content up by US and Canadian territories and bands on different titled > compilations in different countries? Gary Pig and I even toyed with the idea > of releasing 13 separate tributes -- each in homage to a different Beatles > studio album....but my business partner nearly had a coronary over that > idea!! > > It was eventually decided to be a three CD set as it's something I've never > seen in a tribute context -- a boxed set of tribute tunes (other than > Rhino's "Louie Louie"....but this was different). It still took nearly 3 > months for us to establish the final running order of the CDs once we > narrowed the set down to a more manageable 85 tracks. > > Then it took us another 6 months to clear the rights to the songs. SONY/ATV > (i.e. Michael Jackson's song administers for the Beatles catalogue) would > not cut us a deal on sheer volume of tunes....we were being made to pay full > royalties on every track. > > 75 tunes @ $0.08 per track/per CD on TOP of the master use rights to each of > the artists on the discs would have ended up costing Bullseye $1.50 above > what our sales would have been....in other words, we would have lost $1.50 > on every disc we sold. So.....we dropped the triple disc idea for retail. It > became a double disc out of necessity and we had to then go back to the > drawing board and establish what was essential and what wasn't. > > We missed another street date release. > > Due to this, songs by Terry Draper and my own sister-in-law ended up being > bumped for what I consider more solid and accessible material. And a lot of > people who we had promised spots on the CD project we ended up having to > bump as well. Apologies to Scott McCarl, Allan Merrill (he who wote "I Love > Rock And Roll"), Wendie Colter and Ed James specifically. There *is* a third > CD that is being given away FREE by Not Lame on all pre-orders containing 23 > tracks left off the final project. Only Ed James appears on that because > rights issues would have complicated the release of some of the above > artists tracks where immediate financial compensation would have been > necessary (i.e. licensing). As it is, the sampler is a lost leader for the > 2CD set, so it just wasn't financially feasible to include some of the > bigger names for free :-( > > The project was complicated further when our mastering man Michael White, > who does a track with Mr. Andrew Gold, was incapacitated in June with a > serious back injury. He had the 1st CD mastered before the injury, but the > second one wasn't. The CD release party -- which he was headlining with his > session band -- and the disc release itself had to be postponed. In early > August Michael's injuries were healed to the point where he could return to > the mastering studio and finish disc two. I believe there are one or two > suspect volume issues on the second disc, and that's because Michael was > only ever able to EQ the tracks before his back betrayed him again. I was > forced to step in at the last minute and volume adjust the final tracks at > home using some updated gear in the Sound Forge family of softwares. And in > doing so, the 2CDs took one more turn... > > We'd already sent out sales sheets, promo and an ad in Amplifier magazine > with the final running order, but when I went to resequence the second disc > of material Dave Rave's "Here Comes The Sun" seemed like the obvious choice > to start the CD just like side B of "Abbey Road" (we'd always had The > Trimatics' kitsche "Sie Liebt Dich" in that spot for sheer effect). This, > then, inspired me to dig out a previously rejected cover of "I Want You > (She's So Heavy)" by a Toronto act called The Dexters (session guys > featuring Bernie LaBarge, Peter Cardinelli of The Boomers, et al). We'd > dumped the song back in the early stages because it was a LIVE, full-length > instrumental of the Beatles song. With permission from the band we grabbed > the last minute of the song and I did a quintessential homage to the > original by fading the coda in and chopping the final notes of the track > just like at the end of Side A of Abbey Road. With that done, I spooled it > onto the end of the first CD to replicate the Abbey Road sequence. With > "Here Comes The Sun" taking its rightful place on disc 2 I also recovered > another rejected version of Donkey's "Because". The singing had been suspect > in that recording so we truncated it into a breezy and short instrumental > snippet....placing it right after "Here Comes The Sun" where it appears on > the original Abbey Road. "Mean Mr. Mustard" by RECEIVER was always in the > sequencing and we just moved it up a few places giving us an Abbey Road > trifecta before moving into the meat of the second CD itself. > > Craig Cross wrote the extensive liner notes which are excerpted from his > book/website: > http://www.beatles-discography.com > > The artwork, a re-imagining of The White Album, was created by Frank > Levin...keyboard player in Eight Seconds (and co-writer of Alanis > Morissette's first two PRE-"Jagged Little Pill" disco records). Frank had > submitted a number of graphics to me...including a recreation of "Meet The > Beatles" using guitars instead of faces. But in the end we went with the > sheer non-litigious White Album. The Beatles logo and images are > copyrighten, so this was our way around getting our asses sued. > > BTW - That's me singing on "Fixing A Hole" by HELIUM KIDS....with my > brother-in-law on drums and bass....Brian Gagnon on guitar. It's our own > homage to XTC! :-) > > More of this story and the song listing for the bonus 3rd CD will appear on > the Bullseye site Monday. > > Jaimie Vernon, > President, Bullseye Records > http://www.bullseyecanada.com > Author, Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia > http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicPopEncycloPages > >