#not sure why I'm still laughing

[bayetea]

seeing non-black people critique rick's portrayal of black characters is interesting sometimes. only like 30% of the critiques I see make any sense to me to be honest

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

Russ Ballard producing Daltrey's album

1975 Interview

Russ Ballard has something special. Call it professionalism, the sure touch, luck, talent, a mixture of the lot if you like, but everything he's involved in seems to turn out pretty good, even when it's something completely new to him, like record producing.

When he was fourteen, he wrote his first song and sold it to The Shadows after having had the sense to demo it after their style. Having mastered the guitar and scored quite a bit of acclaim for his playing, he turned to keyboards and now nobody hearing him play would think he hadn't been brought up on them. Argent reached the height of their success when he was with them, he gave Colin Blunstone a monster hit with I Don't Believe In Miracles and now Ride A Rock Horse is enjoying considerable favour. Its producer? Russ Ballard! The man, wearing his customary shades, exudes an air of quiet confidence. He can afford to. He's well respected as a musician and as a writer and he's now in a position many people could envy. After all, a singer of Daltrey's calibre doesn't call up just anybody and say "How about producing my album?"! What is really surprising is that Roger should ignore all the established record producers in favour of Russ, who has only ever produced one album before in his life and that was the solo one he made after leaving Argent.

How did his new role come about? "Well, I worked with Daltrey on his first album, played a little drums and piano on it, but I didn't produce that one, just put in some ideas. He must have liked them because when he was planning his second, he just asked me if I wanted to do it." Russ explained. In an issue of Beat dated April 1966, Daltrey himself described his voice in pretty disparaging terms. "I don't have a good voice, no-one needs to tell me that. I'm a screamer with a group and I'm happy. I'm not worried about my voice, though, it is developing and I can notice the change." He also added "I'd get a real kick if I could have a proper girl vocal group backing." It's taken nine years, but now he's achieved what he hoped for, a voice which no-one can deny is pretty exceptional, and backing singers led by Marsha Hunt, care of Russ Ballard! "I was involved with everything." said Russ. "Going through songs with him, deciding what musicians should be used, who would be good for this and who for that." For a reluctant producer, who admits that "I'm not really into production, even though it's a creative thing, I'd rather be an artist." Russ had some pretty definite ideas as to his treatment of the album. "I deliberately kept his voice well up because in so many recordings I've heard of Roger, he's been immersed in sound. He's got such a powerful and such a good voice which contains many aspects that people haven't heard before. What I set out to do on the album was to expose all those voices for the first time. I don't think it is a good thing for a producer to put his own standpoint on an album, the most important thing is to project the artist." Russ thinks that Daltrey's film work has given a lot more confidence and he also found getting to know him has radically changed the concept he had of The Who. "Many people would imagine Daltrey as an ego tripper, but he's not in the slightest. Before I got to know him well, I was under the impression that The Who were Pete Townshend's baby. But speaking to Roger, listening to his ideas, I think that a hell of a lot of his ideas must have always gone into The Who, a lot more than people think."

It was originally Roger's idea to record an album of his early influences. Then he changed rock horses in mid-stream. "By then we'd already recorded Walking The Dog and that Beachboys sounding song, so we were lumbered with them." The second idea was to project the different sides of Daltrey's voice in a collection of mixed rockers and ballads, including three songs of Russ's, Come And Get Your Love, Proud and Near To Surrender. "We didn't actually discuss the point but I felt he wanted to make a heavier album than the one we'd originally planned. Yet not totally heavy, but a record which would compliment the heavier stuff with lighter stuff. Right from the very first session when he sang the first song I could see his voice was so much better, I feel it's improved tremendously since the early Who days even though I think he had a good voice in 1964."

The next thing to decide on was the overall sound and the arrangements. Ex-Shadows drummer Tony Meehan was the man who worked on these. "I decided to make the sound quite sparse,-" explained Russ, "- rather than over-producing it. Some people just don't know where to stop. I decided that if a song called for piano and nothing else, that's what I was going to do." (Hence Phillip Goodhand Tait's beautiful slow rocker Oceans Away with the composer on piano.) "The most important thing in an arrangement is the song. If it's a good one you should be able to sing it with no backing at all and it should still sound great. If it's not, no matter how many extras you add it won't work." Russ reckons that having been in bands himself definitely helped him as a producer, enabling him to put himself in the artist's shoes. Yet he doesn't think he'd like to produce his own next album entirely alone. "When I was in Argent I found being produced by somebody else was very frustrating because I could tell people were veering away from the original ideas I'd had for my songs. That's why I decided to produce my first solo album, which turned out a bit of a mixture because I had a backlog of work to get out of my system. My next album will be slightly deeper, not so light-hearted. I hope to be co-producing it with Muff Winwood, whom I really admire because he's got such a good ear and can really make a musical point."

At the moment, Russ is doing very well with songs of his which are being covered by other artists. One called Heartbreak, has recently been recorded by Olivia Newton-John and yet another is currently being recorded in L.A. by Stevie Wonder's band. Russ has got a new band together consisting of the ex-drummer from Curly, Alan Wickett, bass player Tony Lester and guitarist Alan Skates- "He really does!" joked Russ. He's got three weeks booked in E.M.I. Studios to get the album done. As for his producing career, it looks like Ride A Rock Horse may be his swansong. What if Roger asks him to produce his third album? "Well… if I want to do what I want to do, that is, sing, play, write and record, I just won't have time to produce anybody." said Russ. There's nothing like getting out when you're on top!

[whirling-fangs]

Use this generator to randomly create headcanons for your muse Bold all that actually apply!

Inosuke can kill you in an instant and will.

Inosuke has chronic nightmares.

Inosuke hacks their stats in every video game they play.

Inosuke set a public school on fire and got away with it.

Inosuke likes to eat straight coffee beans.

Inosuke is a very good singer.

Inosuke has an incredible spice tolerance.

Inosuke can't handle criticism.

If the sorce media was a musical, Inosuke would be the one character that asks why everyone is singing.

Tagged by: @fallesto ♥ Tagging: @dnangelic @lavenderongunpoint (Shinobu) @arrachnes @tsukuharuko @espectres

[ecrireverie]

okay lol mini rant in the tags sorry i just HAD to get this off my chest 😭 sorry if this is very incoherent and poorly worded or structured or whatever i'm just. pretty out of it and i cannot really think to write this properly. well, that or i am probably just illiterate actually. Yeah that's it lol

[cerealbishh]

"You're pretty new at this whole relationship thing, huh?"

"... Yeah."

[k7tt1]

Sometimes I sit down to think about the true ramifications of how / what the Fizz Bots are to Fizzarolli,

Imagine robotic clones ( sexual, at that ) being made of you and they are not only modeled after you in physical appearance, but have a likeness to your personality, mannerisms and general demeanor. Imagine they say the things you would, possibly act in the same way you would.

What's worse, is that they're made in your likeness in real time; their production / manufacturing ages along with you,

Imagine you SEE these things being assaulted, used & abused in public; these clones take it all with a smile. Soulless, mindless... But as if that's not enough, then realizing that they may just have sentience. Or at least, they give off the impression they do. And on top of ALL that... they have chunks of your memories, your past; they're you, but at the same time, they aren't,

What do you do with that information? How do you treat them ( yourself? )? What's the end game?

[quaranmine]

just found my old tumblr blog i created on the dot of my 13th birthday, suffered psychic damage. no i will not be sharing the url at this time, thank you for your concern <3

[cubey-cube]

Try your best to decipher this aincent text!... 😱 get it my handwriting sucks...

Oh yeah and I'm going to actually post on my "main blog" @cubeygotlost just for rambling I guess!! 😄😆

[ilkkawhat]

turns out i'm incapable of making a mistake and coping with it like a mature adult

[momentomori24]

Calling out that renaming the already iconic app you bought to something that sounds like an already existing porn site as another example of why the name "X" is very stupid from a business standpoint (cuz it would be more likely to put off advertisers) in a classroom full of other teenagers was probably not my brightest idea this week.

[maryasmorevna]

................. not to rain down on anyone's parade but barely characterized 14 year old lucerys could never have the swag eleanor or henry had

[gamingofkenna]

Oxenfree 2 spoilers, re the 'final choice'

I played the whole game in a solid 7 hour chunk yesterday and I'm still trying to decide how I feel about it, and I'll have to do another playthrough when I can, because there's so much of the way the characters are that seems based on your choices so I wanna see what happens when I make other choices

but I'm seeing that a lot of people let Olivia go through the portal at the end, and that everyone who didn't is saying those who did are monsters for letting this grief-stricken teenager kill herself

and. i don't think there is a 'right' choice at the end there in most circumstances. but i did let Olivia take the radio, because as awful as it felt I just kept thinking that I couldn't do that to Rex

especially since we just had a ghost moment of Rex telling Riley she has to keep fighting, even though she's going to keep failing? to follow that up with 'or you can just kill yourself now to save these kids'? like it is a horrible thing to do to Olivia but it's a horrible thing to do to Rex too?

honestly, based on my playthrough, the 'right' thing seems to be Jacob going through the portal. few players forced him to because apparently the only way for him to do it is if you force him - I didn't even let him come on the island with me. I saw the prompt that I could stop him and immediately knew that if I didn't he would die. Riley kept seeing visions of her future but Jacob never did. Jacob kept talking to me about how he feels he never did anything important in life, how he likes just chilling in his hometown, how he doesn't have any grand ambition but also wants to do something important and meaningful

when that prompt popped up I thought 'if I go to that island I'm getting sucked into this loop too and I'm not coming back; Jacob doesn't deserve that' and I made him stay. I'm curious now if there's a specific dialogue tree that leads to Jacob deciding, at the end, that him going through that portal and saving everyone by doing what he's always been doing is his way of being a hero. but that wasn't the option i'd been given. instead I had two suicidal people, who both had their whole lives in front of them

[keeps-ache]

angry? peeved? frustrated? kind of annoyed? bursting at the seams with malice? want to commit a federal crime but it's (sadly) against the law? have i got the solution for you!!: put cat food in their shoes

[salty-software-engineer]

when the catholics eat the body of christ it's fine but when i bring stigmata cookies to easter dinner it's weird?

[loderlied]

posting on here is like my sisyphean boulder i'm constantly rolling tbh

[thevegetablewhichnoonedaresname]

Third time I've seen Ebisu's death scene, but that still hurts. You can't just have his last words be "I don't want to die" and then expect me to be okay. THAT'S what I mean. The characters really affect each other. And yet even where the story is now, I really don't think Yato has any idea how much of a force for good he's already been. I don't know if he knows he's succeeded. So many characters are willing to put their lives, safety, and happiness on the line because they feel like they owe him, and I don't think he knows.

anyway if anything bad ever happens to Ebisu again I'll riot