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    WB's 'Hey 19 Rap' of the Week

    1. Walter Becker Media Forum
    2. Rarities & Unreleased
    3. Lost Whack Liner Notes
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    Moderator: D-Mod
    Dec 16, 2020
      ·  Edited: Dec 28, 2020

    Lost Whack Liner Notes

    For every SD/WB record release I was around for, the record company asked for a “bio”, and other promotional materials. These things are usually generated in-house at the record companies or by their publicity agents…but they may have been conditioned, through baleful experience, to ask W+D to provide the material themselves because of W+D’s early “feedback” on the dreck generated by the so-called publicity professionals. For instance, they started writing their own press releases starting with the ’03 EMG release, and had heavily edited those before then.


    Some of you may recall (or even own) the result of what might have been Walter and Donald's finest hour in producing the promotional material so lusted after by the suits: the bio produced for 2 Against Nature, in time-wheel form (below right; for the wheel content, see this page on the SDArchive site). We enjoyed each time an interviewer asked a question indicating they had taken the "bio" information seriously; this happened most frequently in Japan as I recall...


    Flash back to the 11 Tracks of Whack days. Walter wrote a few little confections that were never used (and probably never even submitted) — at least as far as I can tell. Here’s one he must have considered, for a minute anyway, as some liner notes for Whack.


    Most of us could probably read this text with identifiers stripped out and immediately recognize the author. Does our boy have a distinctive “voice”, or what?

    • When, in the course of a checkered twenty five year career in and out of the music business, having blazed through the good years and persisted through the less-than-good, giving no quarter and taking none, but smiling, always smiling as you go; having reclaimed one’s dignity and fine-tuned one’s appreciation of the keen pleasures of life, and after all miraculously finding oneself in a mild and sunny clime, surrounded by peace and abundance; hunkered down in the midst of a delightful and loving family, would now, in the midst of his middle years, undertake the writing and recording of his first solo album - then God help him. Let him lean heavily on the sparkling talents of his loyal and generous colleagues, let him learn to grab the good things as they occur and be grateful for the result, whatsoever it may show itself to be at the end of the long and proverbial day. Let him complain noisily at every setback, and let him rejoice mightily when the damn thing is finally ruined beyond all repair. The typical product of just such a bold but misguided enterprise is contained herein.

    Walter Becker

    Maui HI

    psue788
    Dec 16, 2020

    This is terrific.Thank you.The day is now brightened considerably .

    Tony Favia
    Dec 16, 2020

    I can SO hear Walter saying and thinking those things. I’m struck by how relieved he sounded at having survived his tough years and come out strong on the other side. He was ready to begin Phase 2, wherever that would lead. And we are all so much richer that he did. Sigh...

    Lary Dixon
    Dec 17, 2020

    I hope that everyone has some extra insight into how Walter was thinking during the recording of this, and every record.. So much creativity goes into these projects, and a certain amount of over spill always occurs.. But that's the big fun of it.. You can work like the devil on a project, and there are no guarantees that it will work out the way you planned it.. But half the fun of recording is in the details, and this is Walter at work.. I have been there, at least in the early years.. It's great fun !

    Hope you like it.. Lary.

    jjmckay
    Dec 31, 2020  ·  Edited: Dec 31, 2020

    Thanks! Nice stuff. Also, reminds me to dig my 2vN wheel out! Happy New Year!

    Lary Dixon
    Dec 31, 2020

    Wishing everyone a Very Happy New Year and the hope for some kind of Normal Life by the end of this new year... Lary

    jwcraftz
    Jan 2

    And what an album it is!

    babafearn1
    Jan 2

    one of the finest albums I own .

    I am glad I came to it late , for me it’s all the more poignant .

    Happy New Year .

    Paul Inglis
    Jan 4

    I heard Walter's voice when I read that!

    Walter Becker Media Forum