Yoko Solo ::

At this time you started recording your first solo LP, Full Term Pachiderm, a bumpy, bouncy, raw, funny album that sounded very much like straight ahead hip-hop. Meanwhile, you were laying down drum tracks and touring with Ottmar Liebert in what were pretty pristine environments. What was it like to lay down a whole album of MS-1 to DAT while simultaneously working in that whole other studio realm?

Carl Coletti ::

I was crossing those thresholds to those two worlds on a daily basis. While everyone else was down drinking in the hotel bar, I was in my room setting up my MS-1 and Ottmar’s portable DAT in the bathroom. It had power, I could sit backwards on the toilet, I put fresh towels all over it, and that was my desk.

Yoko Solo ::

The toilet?

Carl Coletti ::

I sat on the lid and everything was on the tank –I’d clean up all the water in the place so I wouldn’t get electrocuted. I was sharing a room so it was the only place I could get privacy for any extended period of time. The next minute I’m playing these pretty big venues with state of the art sound systems, highly paid engineers running around, we had in-ear monitors –and the records we were making at the time were recorded in really nice studios with a lot of attention to detail. My studio was in my backpack. I had a shortwave radio, a handheld tape deck, the MS-1, DAT, and a CD player. It was almost like an antidote for all the high-end stuff. It was nice to pound out un-editable performances and work with ideas on the spot.

Thanks for the link Dave!