Last night I interviewed Don Gallucci, the one-time keyboardplayer with the Kingsmen, who ended up a staff producer at Elektra, and who oversaw what was undoubtedly the Stooges’ most fully-formed record, Fun House.
That Gallucci is the man who managed to capture the raw, untrammelled sound of the Stooges on tape is all the more remarkable when you consider that, after seeing the band at Ungano’s, New York, on February 24, 1970, Gallucci deemed them ‘unrecordable’.
Once you told Jac [Holzman], This is unrecordable, you can’t get it on tape, what happened next?
DG: He didn’t listen to me. He said, “Do it. I think they’re good, do it.| I said OK. What am I gonna say? So I did do it.
And before you turned up at Elektra Sound Recorders, was there any soul searching or thought as to how you could make it happen?
No, ha ha. I don’t think they liked the idea of being assigned a staff producer. If I remember right they had no love or care for me at all, it was almost as if they’d been relegated to some second string kinda situation. And they were right, because the one thing that didn’t happen, is how could I, anyone, still suffrering from jetlag... all of a sudden just like that really become enthused with a vision for this new kind of music? I mean I loved things that are avant garde, I love things that take risks and seek to break the boundaries, but this was like.. here I have a hit record first time off the bat [with Crabby Appleton], and next thing I know I’ve got some guy pouring wax down his chest, and what’s the big record [right now] it’s Bridge Over Troubled Waters! You go, Wait a minute. The point is when they said you’re gonna do it, I said OK, we met, and I... I could tell they weren’t at all excited about me.. and then I think they had a couple of rehearsals, we got them a rehearsal studio some place [at SIR studios] and I went and heard the songs that they wanted to do and that’s as much background as I had.
Whose idea was it to record one songs a day, more or less same as in live set? I’ve been told it was yours.
I don’t remember.
Was it a group decision? From looking at the tape boxes, it looks like you had one day with rough takes of all songs, then multiple takes of each song, one per day.
The only thing I remember about that is they had had a deep distrust of the studio, the specific environment. What you could feel they wanted to do, is not to have anything whose studioness would get in the way of this organic, minimalist kind of experience that they felt they had playing. I don’t think they even themselves understood, it didn’t have to do with the fact they were live in a garage or whatever it was, that that was producing the effect they wanted, the effect was produced simply by their (taste) if you will. They weren’t able to separate the environment from the music, they thought, it’s not happening if we do anything that makes this sort of studio as opposed to live. That’s more words than they ever said but that’s what I could get from them – don’t do anything which dilutes this or makes it anything resembling mainstream.
And who would tell you, or not tell you, this. Jim? Or the whole band?
If I remember right it was Iggy and Ron. The two of them. Ron was the most reach-out and Iggy was the most attitude, okay. Iggy was… you know, you had to... sometimes you just wanted to tie him down he was moving so much and twitching and edgy and nervous and... you know, and just distracted... and Ron was sort of, if any them were, he was PR.
Can I tell you one other detail? Which is that Iggy said this was the first time he did cocaine in his life, so he was doing huge amounts over the session. Plus he was dropping acid every morning. Which might be why he was slightly edgy?
You know what? That’s a really good explanation hahaha. I get that!
Ironically, this mutual incomprehension forced both band and producer to stretch themselves, inspiring Don and engineer Brian Ross-Myring to experiment with shockingly unconventional techniques to capture the band’s brutal, unrestrained performances on tape. Roughly a year later, however, when Don was called in to advise on whether Elektra should retain the band’s services, the outcome was not so happy...