In May of 1988, VerniaCaliper traveled up to Boxford, MA to record a four song demo at Fish Brook Music Studio over the course of a weekend. We had never recorded before so we didn't really know what we were doing.
Troy and Jimmy laid down the drums and bass for White Leather, Crazy for Love, and Let Her Go. The final song, Darkness, wasn't coming together. When I listened back to the tracks it appears that we tried it with a click, without a click, with me playing a dummy guitar track, with and without a click, and despite how well rehearsed we were, it just wasn't locking in. So, we were now working on a three song demo.
At that point, late Saturday afternoon, we broke for dinner, and despite a run in with the law, some of us returned to the studio so I could record rhythm guitars. We called it a day and crashed at a nearby motel. The next morning, the guitar solos went down fairly quickly and then the vocals took about the rest of the day on Sunday. As we were packing up our stuff, Ross, the recording engineer and owner of the studio, asked when we wanted to return to mix it. We looked at each other with confusion and I said "what do you mean?" You just gave us a mix on this really good Maxell cassette tape. After trying to explain to us what mixing and mastering was, Ross must have seen enough eye rolls and confused looks to last him a lifetime, he finally said "look, if you can scrape up another couple hundred bucks and come back on Tuesday night, I'll see what I can do".
We came back on Tuesday night and in the midst of each band member yelling out their individual wish lists for more volume and reverb, we mostly got a lecture on EQ and Compression. In short, Ross did what he could with the time and resources we had.
Fast forward to present day, I was cleaning out a closet one day and I ran across the 2" tape along with the 1/4" master and the wheels started spinning. I reached out to a local studio in Cincinnati that specialized in digitizing analog tracks. So, I handed over the tape to them and waited patiently for a day. The suspense was due to the age of the tape. Recording tape becomes sticky over time and has to go through a baking process to dry it out. So after the 2" souffle was done, I saw each wonderful track being uploaded to my Dropbox account. I eagerly loaded each file into my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and when I hit play, 1988 came rushing back to me. There wasn't as much chatter recorded as I had hoped but in those dry tracks, I heard four, very nervous kids playing their heart out and trying to achieve something close to what their heroes had done before them.
So, to say this is a remix is a bit of a misnomer because it was never really mixed or mastered to begin with. However, to say this was a labor of love is very accurate! As I built up each track I reflected on how good of a Drummer Troy was, how I under appreciated Jimmy's bass playing, and how strong of a voice that Guy had. Most importantly, however, we were four friends that really respected the crap out of what each other did. I hope that as you listen to the finished result, you'll hear and appreciate the history. Enjoy!
As tempting as it was to re-record my guitar tracks, I felt like it would have disrespected the original work. Back in the day, I apparently had an aversion to mid range frequencies (where the guitar lives) so there were days that I was convinced that I'd have to save the songs from the chainsaw-like original guitar tone. Thanks to modern day Equalizers and compressors, I was able to save the original. That doesn't mean I didn't take some liberties. I obviously took a vocal part from White Leather and created an intro. In Crazy for Love, I added the Hammond organ that I had imagined since the song's inception (sorry Jimmy) and added a vocal harmony to the chorus. I also added a vocal harmony to Let Her Go.
1.White Leather - Original Mix 05:07
2. Crazy For Love - Original Mix 07:01
3.Let Her Go - Original Mix 04:40
4. White Leather - 2023 Remix 05:21
5.Crazy For Love - 2023 Remix 07:08
6.Let Her Go - 2023 Remix 04:58
Enjoy!
Tom McElman - 12/31/22
credits
released January 1, 2023
Guy Tarantino - Vocals
Tom McElman - Guitars
Troy Sellards - Drums
Jimmy Skelton - Bass
Vernia Caliper – Vernia Caliper 35th Anniversary Remix 2023
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