Whenever I get closer to doing a seminar, I dig into my boxes of memorabilia for two reasons:
1) To look for unique items, music, etc., to share with the group.
2) To get myself back into “MJ World”, if that makes any sense.
I know this likely comes as a shock, but I don’t listen to MJ music 24/7. Particularly after a series of seminars I simply need to take a break from it and instead listen to Beck or Steely Dan or AC/DC or Gloria Gaynor (don’t laugh) for a while. I know… it doesn’t make sense, but it’s true! The seminars bring back a lot of memories and things get to be very real again… and I have to let it go. (Wow, that got deep fast.)
So I am going over last minute prep for the next series of seminars in London, Copenhagen and Frankfurt, and I opened up my memory boxes. Captain EO shirt (original!), my signed Thriller album, boxes and boxes of tapes, CDs, lyrics, scribbled notes and comp sheets, etc. Then I saw my old “Bad Mixes” CD.
After the “Bad” album was released… I mean almost immediately after it was released, Bruce Swedien and I were back at Westlake Studio D starting the remixes for singles, dance mixes, video mixes, etc. This went on for months – song after song.
Monster Cable was involved in the “Bad” album (no, I don’t get a free anything for mentioning them), and Noel Lee was an occasional visitor to the project. Noel was cool, and always seemed to enjoy his visits to the studio. We had Monster Cable all over the place, which was a mixed blessing: It does sound good, but suddenly I was having to lug cables the size of garden hoses around for speakers, and microphone harnesses with the diameter of a grapefruit everywhere we went. No need to hit the gym in those days.
So I don’t know the exact origin of the “Bad Mixes” (I’m sure there are plenty of readers who know more about it than I do), but Monster had some direct involvement – at least with the Special Edition CD. So one day Noel shows up and Bruce and I were working on something – I have no idea what – with a small box of CDs under his arm. He was very proud and pulled them out of the box. Each one had a number: 0001, 0002, 0003, 0004, 0005, and so on. Michael was on tour, and I’m not sure where Quincy was, but Noel very graciously gave us the CDs with specific instructions that Michael was to have 0001, Quincy would receive 0002, Bruce got 0003, and I received 0004. Noel would keep 0005 for himself.
Now don’t read more into this than you should because I was treated very well by everyone, but it was pretty cool for Noel to include me in the top four of receiving one of his hand-delivered, limited edition numbered CDs. They could have gone to the endless list of managers and executives and lawyers first, but Noel knew we were on the front lines of making the music sound great, and using many of his products along the way, so I think this was his way of saying “thank you”.
I still have good old 0004, sealed in it’s original packaging, as a cool momento from a long time ago. No, it’s not for sale… It represents way too big a part of my life to sell. So there you go… I’m ramping back into MJ world just by digging in a box of memories.
London, Copenhagen, Frankfurt – tickets are still available, and the new material is pretty cool. I was up late last night putting some new segments together from Dangerous – and I think you are going to like them!
Download the “Bad Mixes” or dig out your old CD of it and crank them up this weekend – “Smooth Criminal” sounds better than ever!
I hope to see you on our European tour starting next weekend. Will You Be There?
(0004 will be staying home, safe and sound).
Tickets are still on sale at www.inthestudiowithmj.com, AND – if you are already a ticket holder – I have a few T-shirts still available for purchase here – just scroll to the bottom of the screen:http://inthestudiowithmj.com/events/
Have a great week, and thank you to my guests in Europe who have already purchased tickets – we are so excited to see you in the coming days!
Keep The Faith –
Brad
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