So proud of Tim Berne getting his due again in the New York Times with this new article.
I grew up friends with Tim and his entire family in Syracuse, and in 1985 got him signed to Columbia Records. They were looking for "New Age" music (haha), which is how I got him in the door.
I played the head of Columbia Records A&R department the intro to the first cut of an indie duo album Tim had recently put out with Bill Frisell as his sparring partner, which opened with a minute or so of languid acoustic guitar jazz chords in the clear (which sounded vaguely New Age-y).
The A&R guy started kibitzing, waiting for Tim to come in, hovering over the turntable in his office and chanting in a low whisper:
"Come on, Tim, Blow! Blow Baby, Blow!!"
Suddenly, after all this Frisell acoustic guitar loveliness, Tim comes in with a single wailing note--a cracked, strangulated, Ornette-ish cri de coeur.
The A&R guy winced--but gave me a budget--the princely sum of 5000 Iron Men, all-in, to record this album (oy!). But Tim had his foot in the door, and we were off.
This windfall enabled Tim to leave his day job at the late Tower Records on West 4th and Broadway, where many excellent musicians toiled in the vinyl vineyards trying to eke out a living in the greater New York area.
Tim turned in a spectacular album to Columbia titled Fulton Street Maul. It was recorded at Chick Corea's Mad Hatter Studios in LA, with Bill Frisell on guitar, Hank Roberts on cello, and Alex Cline on percussion.
I was the nominal producer, and my main contribution was instructing Nels Cline (who did the hands-on engineering/mic placement/mixing) to "Turn Up Frisell!" when we started mixing.
And also, writing the liner notes--a gallimaufry of surrealist stream o' consciousness pitter patter that opened with something like "Inside the glass, smoked...")--which was me trying to depict the experience of sitting inside the recording booth chain-smoking joints while peering out through the glass wall that looked onto the studio where all this phenomenal music was being created. The marketing guy read this as a reference to crack pipes (!) and tried to deep-six my liner notes.
As noted in this article, the album received terrific notice, with Jon Pareles giving it a rave review in The New York Times.
But did it click with the New Age audience?
'Fraid not--there being lots and lots of outside playing and usage of tritones ("The Devil's Interval") aplenty all over the album. Very strong and melodic heads, though--and then, psychedelic jazz-rock insanity.
Me? I thought it was the most exciting music I'd ever been involved with since my days playing with Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band.
HATS OFF TO TIM BERNE!