I remember I was 17 and, by chance, while rummaging through Tower Records, stopped at a listening station featuring Owsley. Within the first 30 seconds I was sold, and walked the CD with the cool wallpaper artwork up to the register.

I was waiting for them to blow up...never did. At least not in my town. About a year later I heard a few radio plays, and I think a few videos... still none of my friends knew who he was.

Cut to today. Working on a mix that I think is sounding really good. Pop in the "Owsley - Owsley" CD that I haven't listened to in probably a year.

Damn... everything is just better. Songwriting, tones, production, production, production. I really just love the way this album was mixed. Commercial but not artificial. Catchy without inciting a gag reflex. Still listenable!!

Any other closet fans out there? Anyone know any inside details on the production of this album?

Love it myself....Used it as a reference for years....The Tom lord mixes on there are great...It was up for a grammy for best engineered album.

I was not as happy with the second disc..Songs are ok but no Tom lord mixes...I guess not enough $$$ from the first record.

By buddies a few years back were hannging out with him and Jason Falkner. They played a concert together. They went to denny's and Owsley was telling them all about the making of the record.

I was soooo pissed. i was out of town playing a gig and missed that night. That would have been fun gear talk. He's also a great gtr player.

hmmm, i thought you were talking about a different owsley...

Will Owsley is a genius...never quite hit his mark commercially unfortunately...

i think both albums are great....first one was recorded by owsley and some buddies and mixed by tla...the 2nd was mixed with Paul David Hager, a buddy of mine...and a fantastic engineer/producer/mixer...

Paul recently has been working with Butch Walker....but has done ALOT of really good stuff...

Owsley writes amazing pop-rock songs, and is a damn fine guitarist as well...

definitely a fan here....wish more people would discover him....

also...a plug here for Brendan Benson if you are a fan of power-pop-rock music that is actually good....from detroit....fantastic writer...Tchad Blake mixed his last release...check him out..

Nice... will deff check out Benson post-haste!

Yes, my thoughts exactly Sunshine.

Actually, that Owsley was quite the recordist with the Grateful Dead. His acoustic recordings of 'Old And In The Way' are quite excellent, as you probably already know.

The liner notes to Dick's Picks Vol. 4 have a pretty good explanation about how he recorded back in the day.

Another one to check out...Hard to find and not very good production is Millard Powers...Great songs and an awesome bass player.

He played bass on a hand full of tunes on that Owsley record.

Erm... I was hoping this was an ode to Augustus Owsley Stanley III.

I must be getting old.

I love that record too. A lot of my friends work/played on it. I love the comment about the Tascam DA-88.

We (the Frotus Caper) played a gig with Owsley - he and his band were amazing - it was just like listening to one of his records. They did a great cover of "My Old School".

Brilliant debut album - didn't it win a Grammy for production? Super nice guy, too

http://www.owsleymusic.com/content/index2.html

from Owsley's website:

"Owsley’s first album was nominated for a Grammy, “Best Engineered Album”. Owsley, as the engineer of his own release, was personally nominated for his engineering work.

This confirmed what Owsley fans had known all along, not only was Owsley an amazing artist, his first release was the “best sounding” album out there."_


I know a lot of guys that worked on that record that might have a problem with that statement!

I did love the record though.

He was actually Will Owsley's uncle or something like that. Honest.

That first record was really great. The second one was very disappointing for me. Of course, a few of songs on that first record were YEARS old. I actually know someone who has a copy of that record with Owsley's (I think) mixes on it--pre TLA. I like JR's mixes, too. That guy is no slouch, either!

If you dig Owsley, you should look for a copy of the Semantics record. It was a band that Will had with Millard Powers (the keyboard player on his first album who co-wrote some of it) and Ben Folds. It's really good and has earlier versions of a couple of songs that wound up on his record.

It is a shame that the record never got bigger than it did. I guess Giant didn't really have the power, although Will also developed a reputation for cancelling tour dates. I paid a good deal of money to get in to a local music festival to see him, only to find out that he had cancelled. Bummer.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

ahh. NOT Bear...

we were all hoping....

Yes the Semantics are cool.... Ben is a great little drummer as well.