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Michael Jackson Dead


ReZourceman

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Is it strange that all through that service I was half-expecting him to jump out of the coffin? :/ like I know he's dead really but, just still don't want to believe it... ah well...

 

It was a really beautiful memorial service and a fitting tribute to a truly amazing person, once again R.I.P Michael... you'll forever live on in the hearts and minds of many.

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Is it strange that all through that service I was half-expecting him to jump out of the coffin? :/ like I know he's dead really but, just still don't want to believe it... ah well...

 

It was a really beautiful memorial service and a fitting tribute to a truly amazing person, once again R.I.P Michael... you'll forever live on in the hearts and minds of many.

 

I know what you mean... there was an odd part of me thinking Thriller would play and the coffin would open up and he'd start dancing.

 

A world without Michael Jackson

:cry::cry::cry:

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Is it strange that all through that service I was half-expecting him to jump out of the coffin? :/ like I know he's dead really but, just still don't want to believe it... ah well...

 

It was a really beautiful memorial service and a fitting tribute to a truly amazing person, once again R.I.P Michael... you'll forever live on in the hearts and minds of many.

 

I did feel the same, I only managed to catch the old bits of it as was at work, hope to be able to catch the bits I've not seen sometime. It was great and it does feel wierd knowing that we've said good man to the legend. I grew up loving MJ and was always a massive kid as a fan. No single entertainer will have quite the same impact he did, watch any of his live performances and see the crowd scenes to truly see how much he affected fans.

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These haven't been posted have they?

 

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/4325168-post15.html

 

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/4325043-post6.html

 

2 guys who worked with Jackson, the first link has some awesome stories about Michal, and christ he was a damned good guy.

 

For folk who don't wanna click i'll spoiler tag em:

 

I was fortunate enough to work with MJ early in my career. He was an incredible artist. Talented beyond your wildest dreams. Extremely generous, and a hard worker. I actually went from a staff assistant at the Hit Factory in NYC to freelance engineer under Swedien and MJ. They were due to start in Los Angeles when the Northridge earthquake hit so they moved to New York. One room was all Bruce, the second room was the writing room. I started assisting Bruce's writing partner Rene Moore. I would track stuff with Rene, and Bruce would come in and tell me what I did wrong, sit in for a few hours and set us straight. After a couple months MJ arrived and the entire tour rig was moved in along with Brad Buxer, Andrew Scheps, and Eddie Delena. I continued to assist them until the whole crew moved to L.A., they decided to take me with them. I would assist Bruce during the day, and help out every where else at night - assisting, engineering, programming, and on one song playing guitar. We had two rooms at Record One, and two rooms at Larrabee where I met John. At one point in NYC we had just about every room at the Hit Factory. The crew was great, and I learned so much from all of them. I learned to engineer from Bruce Swedien, John, and Eddie, and got to sit in with producers like MJ, Jam And Lewis, Babyface, David Foster, Teddy Riley, and Dallas Austin.

 

I was actually asked to leave the project early on because there were too many people around and MJ didn't know me. Luckily, I was rehired about 10 days later. At the wrap party MJ apologized profusely, and expressed his gratitude. Truly the most sincere man you will ever meet.

 

Some random memories:

 

 

One morning MJ came in with a new song he had written overnight. We called in a guitar player, and Michael sang every note of every chord to him. "here's the first chord first note, second note, third note. Here's the second chord first note, second note, third note", etc., etc. We then witnessed him giving the most heartfelt and profound vocal performance, live in the control room through an SM57.

 

He would sing us an entire string arrangement, every part. Steve Porcaro once told me he witnessed MJ doing that with the string section in the room. Had it all in his head, harmony and everything. Not just little eight bar loop ideas. he would actually sing the entire arrangement into a micro-cassette recorder complete with stops and fills.

 

At one point Michael was angry at one of the producers on the project because he was treating everyone terribly. Rather than create a scene or fire the guy, Michael called him to his office/lounge and one of the security guys threw a pie in his face. No further action was needed . . . . .

 

During the recording of "Smile" on HIStory, Bruce thought it would be great if Michael would sing live with the orchestra. But of course, we didn't tell the players that. We set him up in a vocal booth off to the side. They rehearsed a bit without vocals in, then during the first take Michael sang, just about knocked them out of their chairs.

 

His beatboxing was without parallel, and his time was ridiculous.

 

His sense of harmony was incredible. Never a bad note, no tuning, even his breathing was perfectly in time.

 

Once, while we were taking a break, I think we were actually watching the OJ chase on TV, there was a news program talking about him being in Europe with some little boy. I was sitting next to the guy while the news is making this crap up. He just looked at me and said this is what I have to deal with.

 

I spent close to 3 years working with him, and not once did I question his morals, or ever believe any of the allegations. I wasn't even a fan then. I saw him interact with his brothers kids, other people's children, and at one point my own girlfriend's kids. I got to spend a day at Neverland with them. A completely incredible human being, always looking for a way to make all children's lives better. Every weekend at Neverland was donated to a different children's group - children with AIDS, children cancer, etc., and most of the time he wasn't there.

 

He was simply living the childhood he never had. In many ways he never grew up.

 

I was assisting Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis while they recorded the background vocals for "Scream" with MJ and Janet. The two of them singing together was amazing. Super tight, no bad notes. One part after another. When they took a break they sang the showtunes they used to sing as kids. Again, perfect harmony. Mj refused to sing the "stop f*ckin' with me part" because he would NOT curse.

 

I was the tape op for the recording of the background vocals on "Stranger in Moscow". Scared the hell out me. Michael was dropping in and out on syllables, rearranging the notes and timing as he put it down. No Pro Tools at the time, just 2" tape, and my punches.

 

I erased a live keyboard overdub that he played one night. He came in the next morning, replaced it, and never uttered another word about it.

 

I was there when Lisa Marie was around. They acted like two kids in love. Held hands all the time, and she hung out at the studio for quite a while. I never questioned their love for each other.

 

We recorded a Christmas song during the summer of '94 that needed a children's choir. Michael insisted that the entire studio be decorated with xmas lights, tree, fake snow and a sled for their recording. And he bought presents for everyone.

 

The last weekend of recording on HIStory he came to me and Eddie Delena, and said "I'm sorry, but I don't think any of us are going to sleep this weekend. There's a lot to get done, and we have to go to Bernie on Monday morning". He stayed at the studio the entire time, singing, and mixing. I got to spend a couple quiet moments with him during that time. We talked about John Lennon one night as he was gearing up to sing the last vocal of the record - the huge ad libs at the end of "earth song". I told him the story of John singing "twist and shout" while being sick, and though most people think he was screaming for effect, it was actually his voice giving out. He loved it, and then went in to sing his heart out. . . .

 

Later that night, while mixing, everyone left the room so MJ could turn it up. This was a common occurrence during the mixes, and I was left in the room with ear plugs, and hands over my ears, in case he needed something. This particular night, all the lights were out and we noticed some blue flashes intermittently lighting up the room during playback. After a few moments we could see that one of the speakers (custom quad augspuergers) was shooting blue flames. Mj liked this and proceeded to push all the faders up . . . .

 

MJ liked hot water while he was singing. I mean really hot !!!!! It got to the point that I would melt plastic spoons to test it.

 

Bruce and I were talking about walking to the studio everyday in NYC, and what routes we took. Michael looked at us and said we were so lucky to be able to do that. He couldn't walk down the street without being harassed. It was a sad moment for all of us.

 

The studio crew got free tickets to the Janet show so we all went right from work one night. About halfway through the show we see this dude with a long beard, dressed in robes dancing in the aisle behind. I mean really dancing . . . it was Mj in disguise. Kind of like the costume Chevy Chase wears in Fletch while roller skating.

 

He got one of the first playstations from sony in his lounge . . . we snuck in late at night to play the games that hadn't been released yet.

 

A couple people on the session hadn't seen Jurassic Park while it was out, so MJ arranged a private screening for us at Sony.

 

He was a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails Downward Spiral . . . .

 

I was lucky enough over the course of 3 years to have access to the multitrack masters for tour prep, videos, and archive purposes. To be able to pull these tracks apart was a huge lesson in production, and songwriting. A chance to look into the minds of geniuses.

 

Of all the records I've worked on, MJJ was the only company to give platinum award records.

 

One day we just all sat in the studio listening to his catalog with him for inspiration. He loved the process, he loved the work.

 

 

Pie in the Face, I like his style.

 

I worked with Michael on many occasions...first in 1979 shortly following the release of "Off The Wall", which was recorded at my old studio, Image Recording, when it was owned by its former owner, Allen Zentz.

 

I then spent some time in 1980 (or 81?) with Michael recording demo's for Thriller. This was great, because it was just the two of us and whoever Michael had coming in. "John, we have Jonathan Moffit coming at 12:00, then Greg Phillinganes at 1:00...oh, and we're recording strings at 4:00!". Wow, what a great experience working so closely with him. I had him on the mic for some days recording vocals, and it was an amazing experience...he would be dancing up a storm while singing and doing all of those "grunts, oohs, ahhs" vocal sounds that would pepper his tracks. He asked me to take up the carpet so he could dance, and in between takes, he would sing other popular songs of the day just freestyle and acapella and we would talk about the music we liked.

 

Over the next year or two, I hosted the Jacksons many times, recording various tracks, claps (we had a jacuzzi room which they loved to use for the massive white-noise claps that people liked back then). I got to know all the brothers.

 

Bruce Swedien came back to Image Recording to record a song (or two?) for the Jackson's "Victory" record in about 1983. Another great experience, as Bruce did (as I recall) a string quartet and (perhaps) Michael's vocal at the same time. Bruce IS the best of all time, by the way. BEST.

 

I believe there were a couple of sundry Jacksons sessions over the next couple of years, but by that time, Michael was hugely popular and I didn't see him as much. The next time was really in 1995, when Robmix and I worked on the HIStory album. Rob worked on this for quite a long time (2 years?), while I worked on it for a few months. We were all holed up in Larrabee North, where Bruce had a room (or were you guys at Record One, Rob?)...Eddie Delena was recording quite a lot Michael's vocals at Larrabee in one room, and I was put in another room to engineer for whomever needed it...my most memorable session being some days with Dallas Austin and on one day, recording The Notorious B.I.G. for his rap on "This Time Around". There I was, standing in a room with Dallas, Biggie and Michael. I'll never forget it.

 

The final days of that album were made interesting, by Bruce giving me the task to sequence the album and edit it down to a size that we could fit onto a CD. This was no small undertaking, as about 7 minutes needed to be trimmed somewhere. I laid this all out in Sound Tools and came to know every bar of every song very intimately. I found places where songs could be tightened up and came up with many suggestions. On the night of mastering, I was put in a room at Bernie Grundman's with my Sound Tools rig, and in this room, I would have to "negotiate" with Michael about what to take out. I'll never forget this night...Michael came in, and Bruce told MJ that we would have to remove either 1) one whole song or 2) edit the others to fit onto a CD. We chose the latter...I started with song one and played Michael my edits, "Oh no, we can't take THAT out...it's my favorite part of the album!". OK. Let's try another, "Oh no, we MUST keep those four bars". OK...let's go to the vamp, which carries on for two minutes...how about removing these eight bars, "Oh no, that's my favorite part of the vamp!". Well, you get the picture. Meanwhile, Jimmy Jam was in with us, telling Michael that all these edits were killer and actually make things better. And over the course of about 5 hours, we got it down. By this time, it was probably 3:00am, and I was wiped out. Bruce walked in..."Okay, John, I want you to make all these edits on the 1/2" masters right now!". My first thought was, "You've GOT to be kidding!" I had used some crossfades in Tools and such, plus I was worn out from "bartering" with Michael. But, into Bernie's room we went, and with Bruce over my shoulder, I cut the 1/2" tapes. As I recall, this took a couple of hours, and we were done. By the way, video footage of my "bartering session" with Michael exists, although I was never able to get a copy. Perhaps someday!

 

After that album's completion, we were all invited to The Neverland Ranch with spouses and kids for a day of fun, with Michael as our host. What a memorable day that I will recount in another post...my arms hurt now!

 

 

 

 

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That rehearsal footage is not too encouraging really. He is moving quite slow, and he is miming, despite the fact he looks quite well. Never had the best of both words though. I mean, on the Bad tour yes you had the great singing, but not as much dancing. When all the fancier routines come in on the Dangerous tour, he can't keep up as much and is out of breath so mimes a lot.

 

And people discussing what is the best MJ album? Well I don't think the albums are where it's at really. There isn't a single solid album. Each one is riddled with 'good' pop songs that have not aged well, but each one has it's shiny, shiny gems.

In my opinion, the 'best' is HIStory, because it is the most personal, and it is the most relevant, not just him singing about random shite like zombies. Of course maybe I am a bit biased, as it was the first CD I ever bought many years ago. After that i'd go for Dangerous. Bad is a top album even if I hate songs 1,2 and 7. Songs 5 and 6 are top but I don't think they've aged particularly well.

 

Anyway...

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*is listening to Bad right now* gotta say that I disagree with you there rizz :heh: each to their own though, personally I'm enjoying properly listening to some of MJ's full albums :) a lot of his work is excellent Imo.

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Don't get me wrong, all the songs are very well written and there's some epic production, but...

I don't know, maybe because i've listened to the songs so so many times i've kinda had enough of them. I mean, if I was at his concert, sure, sing whatever you want off bad, but now I couldn't just sit down and listen to a lot of his stuff. Just Good Friends and Another Part of Me however, are very overlooked imo. But like I say it's not really where it's at. Yeah I could sit and listen to Speed Demon, or I could watch the video. That video (not that it's the only one) captured the essence of MJ as a performer and entertainer at his best imo. And I think sometimes you need to see it as well as hear it.

 

It's quite strange really. I hate pop music. But I am quite a fan of the King of Pop. As any of the old timers will know.

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Off The Wall is the best disco album ever made :)

Thriller is the best Pop album ever made ;)

Bad is the best MJ album :D

 

Bad, Smooth Criminal, The Way You Make Me Feel, Liberian Girl, Man In The Mirror, Dirty Diana....All brilliant.

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Off The Wall is the best disco album ever made :)

Thriller is the best Pop album ever made ;)

Bad is the best MJ album :D

 

Personally, i believe Dangerous to be the best MJ album. Bad is a good album in its own way.

 

Bad, Smooth Criminal, The Way You Make Me Feel, Liberian Girl, Man In The Mirror, Dirty Diana....All brilliant.

 

These are indeed great songs, all of which i enjoy. Some other MJ songs i enjoy include "Give into Me", "Beat it", "Who is It" and "Earth Song".

 

I was watching the Dangerous Tour the other day, pure brilliance how he really got the crowd buzzed (ok, half fainted!!). And how he made half the songs he sang live into live performances of each music video.

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I picked my 5 favourite songs for one of those Facebook things the other day. It went like this:

1. Stranger In Moscow

2. Remember The Time

3. Money

4. Scream

5. Little Susie

 

This is because I am a miserable bastard. Those songs either speak to me, or I like the emotion behind them. Quite fitting for me, they are all sad songs really.

 

I haven't watched that Bucharest concert in years since my computer died, shocking I know, but I didn't actually buy the DVD when they released it. The thing is at the beginning, he is stood there motionless for what 3 minutes? The crowd never give up all that time. One day I will revive my old hard drive with all the MJ stuff on it.

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I picked my 5 favourite songs for one of those Facebook things the other day. It went like this:

1. Stranger In Moscow

2. Remember The Time

3. Money

4. Scream

5. Little Susie

 

This is because I am a miserable bastard. Those songs either speak to me, or I like the emotion behind them. Quite fitting for me, they are all sad songs really.

 

I haven't watched that Bucharest concert in years since my computer died, shocking I know, but I didn't actually buy the DVD when they released it. The thing is at the beginning, he is stood there motionless for what 3 minutes? The crowd never give up all that time. One day I will revive my old hard drive with all the MJ stuff on it.

 

I bought the Bucharest Tour to experience what it would have been like to see him live. His performance of "Human Nature" live complete with what i could believe to be the Robot.

 

He did stand there for what seemed a long time with the crowd cheering consistently, and getting louder with each movement he made

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Anyone see that documentary on Channel 4, The Last Days of Michael Jackson or something like that. On it they reached the conclusion that he was probably really trying to go for it with the concerts. That he was trying to clean up his drugs habbits. And that because of this, when he took what would normally have been a regular dose for him, his body didn't deal with it as well as usual and it killed him.

If that was the case, then it makes his death a whole lot sadder imo.

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  • 3 months later...

I know major bumpage...but saw This is it the other day was awesome and just seen a bizarre advert... Anyone else still find themselves thinking about him on a regular basis?

 

Tomorrow at 9pm on Sky 1 there is a program called finding Michael acksons spirit and then after that Michael Jackson the seance...wtf is that all about? Pretty disrespectful to say the least and frankyl crazy that Sky would screen something that sounds so trashy and shit.

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I know major bumpage...but saw This is it the other day was awesome and just seen a bizarre advert... Anyone else still find themselves thinking about him on a regular basis?

 

Tomorrow at 9pm on Sky 1 there is a program called finding Michael acksons spirit and then after that Michael Jackson the seance...wtf is that all about? Pretty disrespectful to say the least and frankyl crazy that Sky would screen something that sounds so trashy and shit.

 

Missed the thread?

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I don't believe This Is It will be any good. I just don't. Was he anywhere near his peak fitness-wise? I would assume not, and I assumed he'd just mime most of the concert anyway...

 

I think I'd rather they'd done that original plan of doing a strange tribute concert that would mirror how the actual show would have been.

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