I apologize ahead of time for this seemingly endless screed, but it appears that I have stumbled upon the answers to questions about the Wall of Sound that I have held onto since I was a boy, growing up in a fundaMENTAList Pentecostal cult in Sudden California.
Some of you were THERE at the foot of the wall. You not only got to hear it, but you fixed it or sacrificed your youthful spine to hauling it around. I'd like to tell you something so you can appreciate your good fortune from a different perspective.
I should say that anybody should feel free to bail if this novel is not for you (you should know by now, I figure) with no ill will on my part. Frankly, I wouldn't read it either, but I have to, to write it. What's your excuse?
Access to the outside world in the cult was strictly controlled, but because I was the grandson of a legendary Evangelist, who had established our family band that toured alongside the likes of the Carter Family, I was allowed to read what they considered music magazines; Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy, National Lampoon, Creem etc.
You can't imagine what peering through that portal was like, in the early 70's. A couple hundred miles north, people were reinventing the human race, for the better.
That's when I read an article about the Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound. It changed my life. Sincerely. I was interested in sound, because when I was around six I was watching my dad play guitar and I suddenly realized; oh, it's a grid! Since I was the youngest of five, it was either drums or bass. I chose bass, and it chose me right back. Some of you understand.
Fortunately there was an interview with Misters Wickersham and Stanley, and it was like being able to get inside Michelangelo's mind when he first looked up at the Sistine Chapel's ceiling.
No mixer. No monitors. No soundman, except in an oblique way. Controlled by the musicians themselves. Using about a dozen incredibly-precisely placed mics (and that was with two drumsets and a grand piano!) and some kind of magic phase manipulation.
I recall Mr. Stanley (I don't like to use his nickname, out of respect. Call me old fashioned) saying that he had conceived it VISUALLY. Boy, it wouldn't be long before I saw what he meant for myself.
It was beautiful. That monolith made as much sense as the Great Pyramid must have to its builders. Anybody would guess by looking at it that it was about volume, but it wasn't. It was about enveloping the largest number of people possible in music, and doing so with absolute clarity, to focus the resulting living, vibrant miasma of sound on the musicians' fingers.
It's fortunate holy rollers play kickass music and flop around like trout. You're not only allowed to spazz out with God, it's almost mandatory. I like to say I've been saved more times than an extra on Baywatch.
But it comes from the same place as the Wall of Sound, though: a physical manifestation of the spiritual, through music. Where the musician can go from playing to BEING PLAYED.
Okay, long story short (as if it ain't way too late for that): I saw sound itself as the medium, and instruments as the tools.
Here's a weird fact: I never heard the Grateful Dead's music until years later, though I often chuckle at the thought of what exorcism I'd have had to endure if I was caught listening to a band called the Grateful Dead.
I never got to hear the Wall of Sound. The egalitarian message of it - to envelope large numbers of people with clear sound - became a guiding principle, but fortunately I was too damn dumb to realize it at the time. (You learn far more from making your own mistakes, something I had to learn for myself, apparently).
The Wall of Sound was and is Alembic. The result of what Bette Midler described in View From Abroad as; an orgy of creativity.
The aspect of striving for perfection in sound lived on in the gorgeous forms of our Alembic basses.
So a couple of weeks ago, when I saw this:
http://club.alembic.com/Images/395/208690.html?1436924480 I thought that there was a chance that it was part of the Wall. Handwritten logo, settings noted in some kind of strange, early magic marker. I wrote the seller to ask if it had a serial number. He said it didn't, but once I got it I found something that could be a serial number.
That's all I know about it, which was a tricky proposition to explain to my Scottish wife when it comes to prying her incredibly strong fingers from the purse-strings (my trust me shtick hasn't worked since she realized she married a musician).
If anybody would like to help with resizing the pics, I'd be happy to take 'em.
Let me say once again how grateful (!) I am for this community. Perhaps there are great forces at work, though since Alan Watts and Ram Das freed me from the cult I don't subscribe to any philosophy other than be excellent to each other.
Boy, am I happy to meet you guys. Nice thread you have here. Love what you've done with the place. Okay, I'll shut up n
