Andy Johns

No. It's from a decade before.

although their choice of producer or engineer in Andy Johns, the brother of Glyn Johns, was because he had produced Goat's Head Soup, which had the Stones album in 73, and they really liked the sort of cleanness of the guitar sound, because it was very clear that he didn't really want... lots of effects he you know he wanted the playing to be really quite quite pure and and this is sort of the difference between why this isn't punk because this isn't the ramones it isn't you know hey ho let's go and let's sort of just yeah out the court as quickly as you can it's very intricate it's almost like prog it's so it's you know it's i i can feel some of roxy music influence in all of this

you know Again, I wrote down definitely not punk.

In fact, it's more post-punk and it's prog.

Not a bad thing said about this record.

Now, it was produced by Andy Johns and Tom Verlaine.

Originally, Brian Eno, uh, produced demos of the album, but they didn't like how he recorded them, so they, uh, ditched Eno.

Kind of interesting there.

Notes disintegrate the closer they get to the receiving station.

It's a brilliant bit of production work from Jimmy Page and the engineer Andy Johns.

Having established a sound heavy on explosive power with close and distant miking on the first albums, Page finds a similar dynamic with acoustic instruments that complements the pensive and plaintive singing from Plant.

The opener launches the album with an Icelandic, Sergio Leone epic-like theme, with Plant wailing his Viking war cry over Bonham's stiff drums and Page's throbbing riff on Immigrant Song.

They recorded at A & R in New York during November nineteen seventy-six, a studio that had seen Cream, Led Zeppelin, but still managed to capture that tight yet raw feel.

Tom Verlaine took the helm as producer, and Andy Johns was engineering, so you get that honest sound without the gloss of mainstream polish.

They rehearsed for months before heading into the studio, which meant their riffs were fully fleshed out when they finally put tape to it.

And because they didn’t want to be boxed in, they let each track run almost like a live set.

that ethos seeped into their rehearsal room where they were more concerned about playing something new than hitting a pre-recorded loop though he never sat in on a tv album the cross-pollination of ideas between hell and verlaine was obvious both wanted punk to be as cerebral as it was angry Marquee Moon came out of a month-long session in 1976 that the band actually had some financial backing for because Sire was on board after they were discovered by the same manager who ran the Stooges.

They recorded at Max's studio and hired Andy Johns, known for his work with Led Zeppelin.

So they got to use a proper mixing board and four-track tape machine that allowed them to layer guitars in real time instead of relying on overdubs later.

Verlaine used a Fender Jaguar set at a very low gain, but the signal bounced through a 30-amp Marshall.

and set it so high in gain they could hear their own screams through the speaker cabinet while still hearing the room.

They didn't buy a new amp or hire a producer.

They self-produced Marquee Moon with co-producer Andy Johns, but still left all creative decisions to them.

And that DIY mindset became a blueprint for everything that followed in indie circles.

I did it with a gentleman by the name of Will Johns, who is a member of the Blues Hall of Fame.

And he's Eric Clapton's nephew, the son of Andy Johns, who produced The Rolling Stones.

And it's just a cool book about a struggling musician who finally achieves Hall of Fame status.

And then the next book after that is the McQueen book called, it's going to be called Nothing in Common.

Well, uh, before we get in [laughs] into the, into the b- beauty, all the beautiful parts in the song and everything, I just wanna, I just wanna t- s- mention a little about how it was recorded.

Andy Johns, so basically, yeah, he didn't, uh, Tom Verlaine did not like what Eno did with their stuff, but, uh, so basically he co-produced it with Andy Johns.

Do people know Andy Johns? I mean, if you don't know, he did, uh, Exile on Main Street.

He worked with The Stones.

He did, uh, Zeppelin.

But yeah, and, and there, there are some overdubs.

But most of this record w- they were just playing live in the studio, and this, this particular song, which is 10 minutes long, it was purportedly done in one take, and drummer [laughs] Billy Ficca assumed it was a rehearsal, that they were just rehearsing.

And they finished it, and, uh, the, uh, um, uh, Andy Johns wanted to do it again.

Yeah, it's him.

He and Andy Johns and Keith were in really bad shape while making Goat's Head Soup.

Yeah.

And, you know, that's barring a few other things.