| EJ
Emmons began his career in recording in 1967 when he built his own
recording studio from scratch (tape machines and all) in his parents'
garage, and recorded kids from his high school. After attending
Princeton as a special student for showing prowess in Electronics he
migrated to Hollywood, CA in 1970, and roadied with The Doors.
He then came to rest at Artist's Recording, on Cherokee St. in downtown
Hollywood and worked on movie sound tracks, and worked with such bands
as the New York Dolls and the Berlin Brats.
Then it was on to the Record Plant for three months as a Tech, followed
by a stint at Westlake Audio where he was seconded to MGM Records (now
Cherokee) to take care of their studios and build transfer systems at
the label's offices for a large jazz archiving project.
From
there it was 4 years at Paramount Recording as head Tech and Engineer.
During this time EJ started learning the art of record production in
earnest, working with local bands.
In 1979 that all changed when the influential New Wave/Punk phenomenon, Suburban Lawns appeared on the scene. EJ produced and recorded the band, and the KROQ classic Gidget Goes To Hell was born. Gidget
found its way to airplay on all the major New Wave stations in the
country (as well as abroad), along with a coveted video spot on Saturday Night Live. In addition, a law suit was filed by the creator of the Gidget show, which caused a stir in the industry. Janitor, another quirky, off-center hit followed Gidget and became another KROQ classic in 1981. Gidget and Janitor and
the bands self-titled first album are consistently sought after by
audiophiles on eBay. When the Suburban Lawns broke up in 1983 EJ mixed
and mastered Su Tissue's solo piano works,
Salon de Musique. Su got a call from Jonathan Demme and went on to play a part in Something Wild. Demme filmed the video for Gidget, which debuted on Saturday Night Live.
Upon
the dissolution of the Suburban Lawns, The Rare Gems Odyssey, some
offshoots from Funkadelic, New Wavers Tommy Viscount, No More Houses, The Plugz (who's lead singer went on to be a regular on "Pee Wee's Playhouse" and appeared in The Talking Heads movie "True Stories"),
and a cool Rockabilly act known as Hollywood Joe occupied EJ's time.
Then Cetec-Gauss needed a contract Engineer in their R&D lab for a
couple of months, finishing off the design of their Model 2400 high
speed cassette tape duplicating system. The "couple of months" grew
into a couple of years. The work was fascinating, and expanded EJ's
electronics knowledge and ability quite a bit, but it wasn't enough to
satisfy his creative side. The project wrapped, and it was back to
Paramount Recording as Chief Engineer.
It was at this juncture that EJ decided he had to do Ian Whitcomb's
next album. He called the distinguished English gentleman up with this
inspiration only to discover that Ian didn't want to make another
record—ever. Who could blame him? He'd made lots of them. EJ loved
Ian's style and sense of humour, and was not to be put off. So dinner
in Pasadena was arranged, at the conclusion of which reality had
illuminated itself in new, roseate hues, and EJ produced the next Ian
Whitcomb albums: On The Street Of Dreams, Oceans Of Love, Steppin' Out, Lotusland, Ian Whitcomb's Ragtime America.
In 1986 EJ moved to San Francisco hoping to find something new in music, and secured work at Hyde Street Studios. At Hyde Street he met Sandy Pearlman
of Blue Oyster Cult fame, who had a thing for the famous, fabled Ampex
ATR124 multitrack. Unfortunately, there was no one local who was up to
making these beasts run properly; thus began a new direction, along
with the multifarious sessions that came by way of Hyde Street: that of
a Roving Vintage Analog Tape Machine Technician. This proved an
effective bolster to the thin recording Engineer market. At the same
time he was playing dives with his band The Space Cats,
an experience that was quite intriguing since he'd always previously
been on the backstage side of things. The band went the way bands go,
and the next venue was a stint with Jesse Colin Young to rework his console and tape machine (a very clean 3M 79), and then to engineer part of his next album. His friend, Todd Orr (now with Todd-AO),
an excellent Engineer, took his place when it was time to again enter
the R&D field with the fascinating project of re-engineering the
Ampex ATR100 tape recorder for use in the video tape manufacturing
field as a medium evaluation platform. This took the form of redesigned
servos, a computer to control the deck (using the venerable HPIB bus!),
and 12 play speeds: from 15/64 IPS to 480 IPS. The package ended up in
a tape cleaner for Tandy Corp, as well.
The
recession of 1990 had a deleterious effect on R&D contracts, thus
it was back to LA to find work in the film industry under the aegis of
a company formed in 1992 called Creative Control. Partners Marc Sosnick
and Wayne Scott joined the ensemble, doing control systems for mixing
rooms, and retrofitting projectors and dubbers with better servo
systems to allow them to move film back and forth more quickly; thus
saving precious time on the dubbing stage. Interspersed with all this
R&D work was an additional project for Ian Whitcomb, Lotusland, a live PBS radio musical and accompanying album. Also a couple of albums for the Pacific Coast Ragtimers, several projects with violinist Alex Senicki, and demos for an offspring of the old Suburban Lawns' bassist,
The Roulettes. In 1995 came a stint with the now deceased Westrex
Corporation, working in their R&D department on the Showscan 70mm
projectors.
The
death of Westrex and Creative Control hurled EJ back into the recording
industry with a return as Chief Engineer of Paramount Recording
Studios. Times had changed, however, and after about three vacuous
years of Rap and other equally unrewarding "musical" forms it appeared
the only thing to do was to build one's own pro studio in the peaceful
seclusion of the Southern California mountains.
EJ Emmons met Viir Exeter at Paramount Recording Studios, Hollywood, CA in 1998. Viir was recording some new tracks for Oradour-sur-Glane (a bridge entity overlapping Quietus—Viir's first band—and Oxygen Law).
EJ had been listening to the bands coming through the studio but heard
nothing lasting, nothing original. All the [90s] bands sounded the
same, doing their best to follow, rather than lead. EJ was pleasantly
surprised to discover that Viir's music wasn't the pseudo-alternative
pap or boy-band swill being pushed by the bubblegum machine.
Viir's music was driven by stark moods and strong filmic,
visual overtones that told a story. EJ requested to hear Viir's Oradour
cassette (recorded on an ancient TASCAM PortaStudio, with broken
meters). EJ listened to the demo and liked the music enough to produce
Viir's current bands, Oxygen Law and Biomechanic (with Mink Stole) (2006).
The
fact that Viir was a Suburban Lawns fan didn't hurt either. Viir:
"Ninety-five percent of my musical influences come from 80s Punk, Goth
and New Wave—the true Pioneers of New Music.
I bought four CDs during the entire decade of the 90s. The 90s were a
complete waste of time; nothing new developed musically." As an aside, Viir continues: "Su Tissue vacationed with EJ in 1999. I told her how much I loved her work with the Lawns, and her solo album, Salon de Musique.
She was shy, almost painfully so—very soft spoken—nothing like the
ultra-intense, 'on' persona that belted out such high-energy classics
as Gidget and Janitor, etc. Su had such a command of her
voice—full, rich, expressive, uncompromising—completely avant-garde.
Her multi-octave range was astounding. No one had used their voice in
such a unique way as Su had up until that point, especially on
'commercial' radio—if you can call the ground-breaking KROQ in the 80s
'commercial.' Su balks openly at any suggestion of a compliment, which
makes me admire her work all the more."
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