Floyd Murray Presents Original Rock Band: Magazine Doing Blinded By Love in1989

Описание: This little youtube clip is a long time coming. About 25 years actually. Here's how it got here.... finally.

Back in the late 80's I started an original rock band named "Magazine" with an old Navy buddy in upstate New York and a few of his friends. I commuted 1.5 hours each way 3 nights a week to write and record with these guys, and we started pumping out some fun songs and doing gigs. We did some self demos on our newly acquired prosumer multi-track recorders, then it was time to pay for a "professional" studio and cut the real tracks for our record.

We acquired the services of Jim Barge at The Barge Studio in North Jersey, and we spent a few weeks laying down the basic tracks to 5 songs or so. Everything was going great until it came time to lay down the vocal tracks, and the lead singer, Jeff Streger, left the band to pursue another band project. The tapes sat in that studio for quite some time until I decided to "purchase" the 2 inch reels and take them home. Again, they sat there, for many years.

So like a decade later, Jeff and I, who had always remained friends, decided that we were going to finish the songs and go into a studio and lay down the missing vocal parts. While researching professional studios with a recording machine compatible to our now legacy tape format, I discovered that recording on old tapes had become an industry wide problem. Quick explanation is this:

Apparently, there was an unforeseen failure of the "glue" that held the magnetic ferrite particles onto the plastic recording tape that happened over time. There was pretty much ONE manufacturer back then that produced and supplied ALL of the magnetic tape recording medium to the entire professional recording industry. As these tapes aged, the glue that held the magnetic particles on the tape, which is what "recorded" and held the sound signals to the tape, became like molasses, and would "peel off" when played on a 2 inch tape machine, sticking to and ruining the tape heads and capstans. A multi-thousand dollar damage to the recording machine that no studio owner wanted to chance on their recording equipment. So, what to do?

Further research proved that there was a method of "baking" these old tapes in a very temperature and humidity specific oven over a precise "baking" time, which would cure and adhere the magnetic particles to the tape well enough for "one pass" over the recording machine components, which meant that you could "transfer'" the recording to a new master tape... preferably "digital" as we were now in the age of digital based recording. There were not many places with the capability to bake tapes, and it wasn't exactly cheap to do, but I found a top notch facility right here in central NJ. We were determined to finish these songs after all this time, so we baked the tapes and got digital transfer masters.

Again, time has a way of slipping by, and it was years later until we finally got in my home studio and laid down some vocal tracks on these now "classic" recordings. I did some rough mixes, continuing to try and learn and hone the craft of music production and mastering, and well... this is the product so far, and the first mix out of the can. I'm still gong to work on these, and I'd like to bring in the old band members to lay down their respective background vocal parts. We'll see how that goes. But hey... look at how much fun and enjoyment and learning theses recordings have brought me for two and a half decades!

Lead vocals: Jeff Streger
Back vocals, rhythm and lead guitar, keyboards: Floyd Murray
Back vocals, rhythm and lead guitar, keyboards: Harry Crowe
Bass, back vocals: Troy Hughes
Drums: Scott Hughes

Basic Tracks Engineer: Jim Barge at The Barge Studio
Tape Baking and Digital Transfer: Steve Puntolillo at Sonicraft A2DX Lab
http://www.sonicraft.com/

Post engineer and mastering: Floyd Murray
http://www.floydweb.com
Music and Lyrics by Floyd Murray ©1989 MurMur Music/ASCAP