Alan Merrill Online

Alan Merrill · Owner

The Swiss trip, and the Ron Wood tribute recording sessions that we did there are done and wrapped for the time being.
The producer and project coordinator Kurt Scheidegger may bring me back to Zurich again in the near future for some more bass parts on other songs, and perhaps another vocal. I'll be pleased to do it.
I have already laid down two lead vocals, on "Forever" and "Breath On Me," the latter a duet with Darrel Bath.
Kurt and his wife Edith were most gracious hosts, and they made us all very comfortable and at home. Kurt is a very talented musician in his own right. He produced the sessions with vision and clarity, and the band were very gifted all around. Kurt also has one of the most amazing guitar collections in the world, and I'm especially fond of his Zemaitis guitars.
Yes, the sessions went very well indeed.

Darrell, Kurt and yours truly ~ click below ~)
http://www.the-aleecat.com/DarrellKurtAlan.jpg

Let's see, where can I start? I haven't enough superlatives for guitarist Darrel Bath's playing. He is simply one of my favorite guitarists now, and he's a unique song stylist on the vocal front. He's pure rock 'n roll, and it's fresh and undiluted. Actually, it was quite a flashback for me, since Darrel reminded me of a young Terry Taylor back in his days with my band The Arrows. Darrel even had a blond girlfriend named Emily who resembled Terry's wife Eva. It was a very pleasant experience and brought back great memories. I'm glad I got to work with Darrel, we sing well together and our bass and guitar combination is pretty powerful. Darrel and Emily are both lovely people and I hope to see them again sometime along the rock n roll trails. (see photo at the bottom of this page)

(Photo- Alan Merrill, Darrell Bath, Nikki Sudden ~ click below link)
http://www.the-aleecat.com/AlanDarrellNikki.jpg

The drummer Bertram Engel is also a very gifted player, who lays down a perfect groove and is so easy to play bass with as a result. It was a very stimulating session for me, musically speaking. Oh, and there was some Rebel Yell on ice chips going around, so it might be said it was a spirited session as well.
I later found out that Bertram is the top session drummer in the Germany, Austria and Switzerland region, and has been so for years. I'm not surprised.

(Alan and Bertram laying down tracks ~ click below~)
http://www.the-aleecat.com/EngineRoom.jpg

Also, a keyboard player named Pascal came in and played some bits for a day. He was great but I didn't catch his last name. He's also a top session man in the Germany/Austria/Swiss region.

The man who put us all in touch with each other is singer/poet/musician Nikki Sudden, and I had never met him before these sessions. I had been in touch with him for a few years by email, and I knew his music through his CDs, so I felt as if we'd already met when we actually did. Nikki is a one of a kind lovely eccentric, in the great British tradition. He has masses of individual style and panache. Once you meet him it's impossible to forget him, because he makes such a very strong visual impact, and has a commanding personality. He has an air of total self confidence.
Nikki, like myself, enjoys a drink or two, or three. Who's counting?
We recorded two songs with Nikki singing lead vocal, and the tracks turned out rather well, I thought.

I don't have copies of anything we did over the past week, so I'll have to wait to hear the album I guess, before I hear these versions again. The rough mixes sound fine, and are perfectly presentable as they are. The recording engineer, named Deezl, was really good at getting the sounds down fast and efficiently. He's a real find, and a pleasure to work with.
The guide reference vocals were sometimes done by a fellow named Joe, who had a very strong voice and he played fine acoustic guitar.
Also I must give honorable mention to our designated driver, Chris, also a guitarist. Chris didn't play on the recordings but he was at every session, and part of the production team.

(Chris, Bertram, Nikki, Alan, Kurt, and Joe (l-r) ~click below~)
http://www.the-aleecat.com/ChBeNiAlKuJo.jpg

My bass playing was up to speed and I didn't have any cause to worry, but I was a bit nervous before the sessions started, since I hadn't recorded any bass parts for years. As soon as we started playing it all came back with ease and I just sat back and enjoyed the songs, and being a part of them.

(Laying down the bass tracks ~ click below)
http://www.the-aleecat.com/MrBassman.jpg

One night after a day's work we all went up to the mountains in cars and had a cheese fondue dinner. There were three acoustic guitars and we all passed them around and sang a bit in a large room with good acoustics. It started raining, lightly at first, and then the torrents came down. It was actually a bit frightening when it sounded like someone had opened an enormous spigot over the room we were in with water rushing down like a river from above. We were in some danger, but were too drunk to understand how much. Roads around us were being washed away, and people were actually dying in the vicinity. Somehow we got out of there, by going around a safe route, and got back to the hotel.
I slept like a baby.

The sessions ended on a wednesday, and Nikki and Darrel left a day before I did. I took Kurt and his wife out to dinner with my friend from New York who lives in the region, a former New York City actor named Shaw Wheeler. I hadn't seen Shaw in years, so it was great to catch up. He's bought a house with his girlfriend in Switzerland, makes loads of money now in the computer business, and is very happy.
We had a nice Chinese meal at the Hotel Lorze, then we all said goodnight and I went upstairs to pack for my return to New York the following morning.

The flight was early and the most remarkable thing about it was how thoroughly I was searched for nail clippers, files and the like in security. Taking off my shoes and belt. Removing my keys, coins, watch and rings. The usual airport securty harrassment, allegedly to "keep us safe." About an hour into the flight the meal was served, and I was provided with a metal knife for my steak, over four inches, and serated. Now I know I'm a rock 'n roller and am meant to have very little logic, but I burst out laughing out loud at the irony of my being armed with a potentially lethal steel blade by the flight crew. This was certainly more dangerous than any nail clipper could ever be.
Government officials need to communicate with each other. This communication is clearly not happening. They're overcome with war profiteering lust and seem to have forgotten the reason we were meant to be engaged in a war. Often I feel those in the Houses of Congress and the Senate should be in mental intitutions instead of positions of power, at least on hearing them speak. Do they believe the rubbish they spew forth?
I have to doubt it. It's all about grotesquely large amounts of money, grabbing it and holding it.
Not a whole lot I can do about it, but it strikes me that we are still at a very primitive stage of human development. This as a result of mankind's huge, narcissistic, self absorbed, collective ego.

Still, you have to keep your sense of humour.

Speaking of primitive, I went to see the Dead Boys at CBGBs in Manhattan.
My friend Kirk Yano knows them well, for decades, his being from Cleveland as well as the band. I met the band for the first time, at Kirk's introduction, and they all seemed very nice.
Especially guitarist Cheetah Chrome, who said he's been an Arrows fan for years, and he saw us on the U.S. TV rock show Midnight Special in 1975 when he was a young teen. I was pleased.

I also ran into rock journalist Legs McNeil, with whom I'd dined at the Broom Street bar in Manahattan in 1985. He had no recollection of it. I must have made a big impression! Spin magazine's "Legs" introduced the Dead Boys band. McNeil looks a bit like Kenneth Williams of the "Carry On" series of comedy films. If you're not English you won't know who I'm talking about, but for this reason I had to try to suppress spontaneous laughter and I felt giddy when I spoke to him. Perhaps I'm having a small nervous breakdown, who knows? I laugh at the most peculiar things lately.

Anyway, the Dead Boys band played very well, with loads of energy. This in spite of a few technical hitches that threw the pace of the show off.

I said goodnight to Hilly Kristol, the CBGB proprietor, not knowing if I'll ever see him again (CBGBs is closing down any day now), and then I took a taxi home.

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Darrel's girlfriend Emily-

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