You’re Driving Me

Click: Driving Me

 

If I associate the ’80s with any one thing, it would be the over-use of reverb and echo. It may be that there just weren’t good ones to be found, I don’t know. But I sure heard a lot of foul sounding reverbs that always seemed to me to be a notch too high. When you record you are not only trying to arrange things in space, you are actually trying to create space. Reverb is a kind of synthetic version of a beautiful acoustic environment. When you look at the controls they often have settings like “Cathedral” and “Concert Hall.” Frankly, the one that says “Crowded Club” would have been ideal if it had existed.The really expensive ones start at “Grand Canyon” and expand outward into an echo-drenched universe. Putting aside whatever criticism I might have of this song, its ambiance settings and my nasal performance of it, there are still elements in this session from The R&B Cadets Top Happy album that I like. On the plus side, the slinky bass part (Mike Sieger), the very nicely played horns and organ (Bob Jennings) and the bizarre guitar solo that seems so bad it’s almost good. You live, you learn and this one goes in the “almost there, but not quite file.” It was an attempt to steal some Al Green/Willy Mitchell voodoo—I don’t think it did that, but I don’t think it’s such a bad tune.

© 2011 John Sieger