TAR appreciation

81
I love Tar, but I think I already posted.

But, inquiring minds want to know:

-What kind of ride cymbal was used on Jackson and Clincher?

-How were the guitars recorded on Jackson? That's a thick assed guitar tone. Love it. Amps used? Mics?

-Did Tom actually fall off the stage at a show (I believe that Jawbox and Heroin also played this show) in Washington D.C. in the early 1990's?

TAR appreciation

83
mr.arrison wrote:I love Tar, but I think I already posted.

But, inquiring minds want to know:

-What kind of ride cymbal was used on Jackson and Clincher?

-How were the guitars recorded on Jackson? That's a thick assed guitar tone. Love it. Amps used? Mics?

-Did Tom actually fall off the stage at a show (I believe that Jawbox and Heroin also played this show) in Washington D.C. in the early 1990's?


- I Don't know exactly what kind of cymbal that was - it's on all Tar recordings - all the markings were unreadable when I bought it for $50 at Mel Elliot's Music Center. It's a Zildjian. It has those hammered marks in it, but I don't think it's a "RUDE." It has a fairly prominent bell, of course.

John's setup during the recording of the "Jackson" LP. The Fender Twin plus a Bassman, signals going into a speaker of unknown make. I don't remember how the Bassman got into the fray, or why the souped up speakers in the twin weren't used. Maybe Steve knows. Hard to argue with the results. That's a "lipstick" pickup from a Silvertone transplanted into the guitar that launched 1000 aluminum guitar fetishes. That's an original harmonic percolator on the floor. Always on.

Image


Mark's setup during the recording of the "Jackson" LP. Beat up Hondo II strat - don't know about on Jackson, but eventually the only original part left on that guitar was the body. Hiwatt 25 combo amp. An insanely heavy EV speaker in there. That's a REAL TUBE pedal on the floor, but I think it only got used occasionally for the extra push off the cliff.

Image


I'll let somebody else ID the microphones. Looks like they each got one of those ribbon ping pong paddle mics. Mark got an extra mic because he correctly answered the CRC trivia question that day which was "How many different pillows were used in the kick drum on the recently recorded Smashing Pumpkins record." Again, hard to argue with results.

A major component in the Tar guitar thing was hearing them together, the way the chords met and diverged, the bass usually handling the "riff". The guitars were always balanced one in the left speaker, one in the right, so you can hear how the guitars pretty much sound ridiculous unless you hear them combined. You get sort of a 3rd part and people have often assumed there are overdubs.

I don't recall Tom ever having fallen off stage, but we did play with Jawbox in a Church in the DC area in 1993.
Mike G.

TAR appreciation

84
cesb wrote:That's a "lipstick" pickup from a Silvertone transplanted into the guitar that launched 1000 aluminum guitar fetishes. That's an original harmonic percolator on the floor. Always on.

OMG I never knew it was a Percolator.

Now I can Be Like Mohr!

I was always too chicken to ask John if I could stroke his guitar, but did ask Tom if I could "feel up" his when he was with Just Fred. I still want one of those guitars. Very, very badly.
I make music/I also make pretty pictures

TAR appreciation

86
Hi Mike G.,

Rob A. here, a former Sieracki roomie, Chittle fan and occasional visitor to Data Base Dads when y'all was kicking it there...

Excuse this geek-out, but I notice your handle, cesb... I always wondered who exactly the Crumb-Elbowed Stew Bum was; now I know it was you.

At a time when a lot of bands were doing the Bagge or Kozik or Hess ugliness, Tar had the precision-machined, minimalist thing goin' on in the artwork which fit perfectly with the band's music. Right on.

One q: did you do any of the cover photography or was that all done by Mr. Crump?

TAR appreciation

87
Hey, I remember you, you're that one guy! I remember the Milwaukee posse as putting in quite a strong showing in Chicago back in the day. Sieracki, Manfrin, Hutler, Betzwieser, you, Johnny 13 and many many more...It was an infestation of affability.

But I digress. Let's get back to the subject at hand.

Me.

Photography for Jackson was James Crump (cover only). Steve did quite a bit of touchup work on the Jackson cover photo, there were a lot of hairs, smudges, etc. to be removed. Steve's straight gig for a while had been doing photo retouching at one of the local color houses for Marlboro ads and the like. Steve also did that text treatment on the Jackson cover. This was a world before photoshop filters, mind you. Toast and Clincher were photographed by a commercial photographer named Bob Hanson who we knew through Pat Daly from Empire Records (which spawned the publication Empire Monthly).

Over and Out photography was mostly by me and my trusty Polaroid 100 series land camera with the pack film.
Mike G.

TAR appreciation

90
sunlore wrote:Question for Tar!

What was the general feeling in the band upon finding out a certain heavy rock band from the early nineties totally stole one of your riffs and put it right at the beginning of their multi-gazillion selling record?

Thanks,
Sunny.


Who are we talking about here? The only one's I can think of are Therapy? and RHCP.
Mike G.

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