D'Olivera & Giblin

[Mike.Gallaher@msfc.nasa.gov (Mike Gallaher)]

Armin Michel wrote:
>Where did you get the name of John GIDMAN? I own the German edition of TRS
>(Printed in UK) and the name of the bass player credited is John GIBLIN.
>This John Giblin also plays bass on

   Gidman was the name in an article recently posted to rec.music.gaffa,
and is presumably a transcription error.  To quote:

>       One of the distinguishing aspects of tracks such as `Rubberband Girl'
>and `Big Stripey Lie' is the pumping five-string bass sound, courtesy of John
>Gidman playing in the recording area <??Disparity Alert>.  His G&K amp was
>placed in the studio kitchen (for separation from the drums) and miked with
>an Electrovoice RE20.  "I just wound it up so it was really distorted," says
>Palmer, "and used tons and tons of compression so that is was really pumping.
>Then again, the way he plays sounds really good no matter what you do to it."

        Evidently there are differences in the credits between the
US and German/UK versions of TRS.  In the US, D'Olivera is credited
with bass on "The Red Shoes" and drums on "Big Stripey Lie."  The
aforementioned interview with Del implies that
John Gidman [Giblin] played *bass* on "Big Stripey Lie."
The US CD credits Kate (I believe) with bass as well as guitar on
"Big Stripey Lie." I don't recall Giblin's name being listed *anywhere*
on the US CD liners, but you are implying that he is credited on
the German/UK version.  Which song[s] is he credited for?  "The Red
Shoes?"  Unless everyone is completely sick of this thread, perhaps
a comparison of liner credits (if there really are any discrepancies)
between UK, German/UK, and US versions could be posted.

   In any case, D'Olivera remains a mystery man, so far as I know, and
still a reasonable candidate for pseudonymity.  May be Prince, may not
be, may be a catch-all name for anybody who, for whatever reason, is not
to be credited.  I listened to "Big Stripey Lie" quite carefully last
night, and as far as I can tell, "D'Olivera's" drums are a loop of
no more than 4, and maybe as few as 2 measures.  Sound familiar to
anyone?  To quote the article again, re: "Why Should I Love You?":

>       "He'd looped a four-bar section from the chorus of the song that Kate
>had written and just smothered 48 tracks with everything you could possible
>imagine:  Guitars, keyboards, drums, voices.  I sat there and thought, `Well,
>this is great, but what are we going to do with it?'
> [...]
>       Basically, then, a case of pick `n' mix; "Here it is, take what you
>want"?
>       "That's exactly what it was.  Because she'd said to him `I want you to
>sing this bit here and I want you to sing that bit there', and he'd sung it,
>but he'd done it over the loop that he made up.  So, we had this piece of
>vocal that she wanted but it was everywhere, all the way through it, so we
>had to take the bit that we needed and put it in where we wanted it...

        Plausible scenario: album is "finished," Kate is fooling around
with guitar, hits on inspiration for BSL (reportedly, it was recorded
as a last-minute "stocking-stuffer", and was recorded relatively quickly).
Del sets up a loop of Prince's drum part from "Why Should I Love You"
(as also reported in the above-mentioned article, Prince's drums were
eventually eliminated from the mix of WSILY), Kate jams, and voila!  A
new song is created!

--Mike Gallaher
  MSFC/ED15                     "I can't think of any reason why not."
  (205)544-1447                                           -- Kelly May