All Day and Halloween seem like they have the same synths. Same, but done differently? I had heard All Day first and then Halloween and saw some striking resemblance between the two. At the end of
the day, I like like both.
The intro cadence in All Day is a stock sound recording, which I actually owned at one time on CD. I wanted to use something similar for my own music back in '91, and I bought a random Sound FX CD at Tower Records that happened to have the exact same soundbyte (happy accident, though I’ve since lost the CD). A very similar cadence is used on R.E.M.'s “Orange Crush” in 1989.
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But back to Twitch. I burned my own version of it awhile back. Took trax from the original and Twitched and came up with an ok version of the album. At least IMO
i did that too, wanted to fill full cd-r with twitch stuff. used nature of love, twitch stuff, twitched stuff, early trax stuff… it got over 80 minutes so i had to use short version of angel!
I would guess that “All Day” was recorded first, because of the live instruments in there. Maybe the three-piece (Al, Stevo, Brad) was still together. “Everyday is Halloween” sounds like it was all programmed - drums, keys, everything.
Wempathy - thanks for your insight and recollections. Was the Arista deal already “shredded” by the time you guys reconvened at Pierce-Arrow to start recording, or were you preparing to deliver a second album to Arista? Was “Same Old Madness” ever slated for a proper single release or inclusion on an album? The video on YouTube is great.
I would guess that “All Day” was recorded first, because of the live instruments in there. Maybe the three-piece (Al, Stevo, Brad) was still together. “Everyday is Halloween” sounds like it was all programmed - drums, keys, everything.
Wempathy - thanks for your insight and recollections. Was the Arista deal already “shredded” by the time you guys reconvened at Pierce-Arrow to start recording, or were you preparing to deliver a second album to Arista? Was “Same Old Madness” ever slated for a proper single release or inclusion on an album? The video on YouTube is great.
I heard from Stevo last night…and he had this to say.
"At pierce arrow we worked on “This Game is Over” “Let’s be Happy” ? and a cover of Roxy Music’s “Same Old Scene” All of these never saw the light of day. They were recorded as demos for our second Arista LP which i assume Clive (Davis) didn’t hear any hits on it and thats why we never did the second LP on Arista. Ian Taylor was the producer of those sessions.
If Brads on Twitch which I think he is, it would be the song “All Day” (thats the only song i’m on) we recorded that at Chicago Trax when it was in a house on Wayne and Schubert."
So there it is. The Pierce-Arrow sessions were demo sessions for Arista who didn’t like what they heard and so a second Arista album was never recorded. Ian Taylor was once again at the controls. I have absolutely no recollection of recording “Same Old Scene” so that must’ve been after I left.
“All Day” was recorded at Chicago Trax, when it was still located in a house, with Stevo and Brad. But the rest of Twitch was done in London (and elsewhere) by Al.
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A very similar cadence is used on R.E.M.'s “Orange Crush” in 1989.
Correctamundo
I think that’s where I’m remembering it from.
Fascinating history here, thanks wempathy! Twitch is one of my favorites. Whether it’s Al or Adrian who deserves credit for the albums unique sound is irrelevant to me at this point, as Al’s propensity for co-opting the sounds of the musicians he works with is an old story to most of us who’ve spent any time at all on this board. It’s just such a great album that was way ahead of it’s time, and for better or worse surely paved the way for NIN and others. I even love “All Day” which even though it has that catchy dance-pop feel to it also has great social commentary that was political yet not as contrived as his later political commentary.
So no one to this day has figured out where those samples in All Day come from? I’m really curious as they just work so well with the song.
Some more Twitch history (sources: On-U Sound, Ink19, Technology Works Magazine):
In 1986 the 2nd Ministry album, ‘Twitch’, was released, and despite the contribution of several others, Al is listed as the band’s sole member. On the album Al took for the first time a more active role in the production and mixing duties, in this case alongside a certain Adrian Sherwood, who more or less oversaw production of the entire release.
After veering towards harder beats and the liberal use of sampling in his own music during the mid 1980s, Sherwood midwifed Ministry’s transformation from poppy techno-weenies into the dark, edgy industrialists, as it is known and feared today. It was Sherwood’s influence that transformed Al’s faux-English pop singing into a distorted, whispery menace, raising the electronic beats in the mix to a mechanistic assault, and bringing in a heavy quotient of noise for percussive and atmospheric effect.
Keith LeBlanc, himself a long time Sherwood collaborator and also in on the Ministry sessions, recalls Al being in London:
“Yeah. Then he came to London and all [he] wanted to do was to pick Adrian’s brain. So Adrian kept mixing these tracks I had done for him. And Al kept saying: ‘No, it’s crap, man, I don’t like that’ … A month later Al was in the same studio getting the same exact sound … and Adrian realized [that Al] had really done a number on him. As a result, a lot of the tracks I did for Al, he didn’t want. He just said: 'I don’t want 'em, keep ‘em’.”
As a little known result, much of the rejected material was re-worked and released on Keith’s monumental album Major Malfunction; in all but name, the first album release by the mighty Tackhead.
"So when I came back to London, Adrian said: 'Well, look man, all these tracks you’ve done for Al - he doesn’t want ‘em, what do you wanna do?’. I said let’s re-work them. And part of those were on Major Malfunction.
Actually, the keyboard player on [the track] ‘Move’ is Al Jourgensen. I called him up and said: ‘How do you want me to list you on the record?’. He goes: ‘just call me Dog’. So I called him Dog, right? About two years later he calls me up, very upset that I had called him Dog on the record, and why didn’t I list his proper name?"
Al’s opinions and claims of the whole encounter are, perhaps unsuprisingly, quite different:
“Tackhead was basically shit that I wrote that was recorded with Adrian Sherwood [during the sessions for Twitch]. I didn’t want to put [that material] on Twitch, because on the second side of that album I wanted to go in more of a noise direction. I wound up having all of these songs done, and I traded Sherwood five [of those] songs for three [others] … [plus] an ounce of speed and some engineering lessons. Then Gary Clail did his shit over what I had already done, and took my vocals off. So, I had the original Tackhead tracks with me singing, which are basically Ministry tracks, because I wrote them. Keith LeBlanc and Doug Wimbish … guys from the Sugarhill Gang … are on those. It’s really a cool thing.”
Ending a brief, not always mutually beneficial, but nevertheless remarkable working relationship with Adrian and associated On-U Sound crew, Dog’s final credits were for playing keyboards on the Barmy Army’s intrinsically football-themed 1989 album ‘The English Disease’.
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“Major Malfunction” has a similar sound, but “Twitch” is WAY better.
Say what you will, but it’s my firm belief that in music the means justify the ends. Al was a master at surrounding himself with talented people and pushing them to produce good art. He was a great band leader for that reason.
And without him what would you have? Most of his former cronies would be doomed to obscurity, and we as fans would never have had a solid b®and to rally around.
I think people who get off about this “artistic purity” nonsense don’t understand how shit works. In the past the role of composer etc. was clearly defined. There was a clear chain of command. Rock 'n Roll abolished all of that, so it’s a constant struggle with these bands to determine who’s boss.
Al was the young hungry guy with the record deal. He hustled and did what he had to in order to solidify his place as the figurehead of the band and he damn well deserved it.
The intro cadence in All Day is a stock sound recording, which I actually owned at one time on CD. I wanted to use something similar for my own music back in '91, and I bought a random Sound FX CD at Tower Records that happened to have the exact same soundbyte (happy accident, though I’ve since lost the CD). A very similar cadence is used on R.E.M.'s “Orange Crush” in 1989.
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the orange crush sample is in type O’s song “Kill all the white people”
Say what you will, but it’s my firm belief that in music the means justify the ends. Al was a master at surrounding himself with talented people and pushing them to produce good art. He was a great band leader for that reason.
And without him what would you have? Most of his former cronies would be doomed to obscurity, and we as fans would never have had a solid b®and to rally around.
I think people who get off about this “artistic purity” nonsense don’t understand how shit works. In the past the role of composer etc. was clearly defined. There was a clear chain of command. Rock 'n Roll abolished all of that, so it’s a constant struggle with these bands to determine who’s boss.
Al was the young hungry guy with the record deal. He hustled and did what he had to in order to solidify his place as the figurehead of the band and he damn well deserved it.
well when you put it that way he sounds like david bowie
I think people who get off about this “artistic purity” nonsense don’t understand how shit works. In the past the role of composer etc. was clearly defined. There was a clear chain of command. Rock 'n Roll abolished all of that, so it’s a constant struggle with these bands to determine who’s boss.
Al was the young hungry guy with the record deal. He hustled and did what he had to in order to solidify his place as the figurehead of the band and he damn well deserved it.
Well put.
I think the influence was an equal combination of Barker and Sherwood.
If you listen to the old Blackouts live recordings there is…
lots of repetition… saxophone… guitar feedback… predominantly bass driven…
and then combine that with all the ‘Sherwood’ elements discussed here…
and it’s pretty obvious Al had an ear for combining to relatively disparate styles to make his own unique bent on music. Most good musicians do.
Do they necessarily have to give props? Well, yes and no. It’s nice to acknowledge yer roots, but it’s not like anyone made you or told you to combine those styles.
I honestly think the ultimate conclusion of both these approaches was seen in TMIATTTT. Except for the vocals on that song Test. But we’ve been there before… [laugh][laugh]
I’ve never really gotten into Twitch too much to be honest. Still sounds a bit too twee for my liking.
But, in the immortal words of Musical Youth…“Pass the dutchie on the left hand side…”
Ya dig?
Although most of Al’s contributors likely would not have amounted to what they did without his influence I don’t think you could say the same about Sherwood whose career and sound had a brief fling with Al but was quite strong before, during and after his time with Papa J.
But back to Twitch. I burned my own version of it awhile back. Took trax from the original and Twitched and came up with an ok version of the album. At least IMO
i did that too, wanted to fill full cd-r with twitch stuff. used nature of love, twitch stuff, twitched stuff, early trax stuff… it got over 80 minutes so i had to use short version of angel!
I need to buy the original album again and burn another version. Rearrange the trax and maybe add a few like All Day. I heard nothing that different between the original or the “remix” Sounds the same except the “remix” has a demo sound quality. He’s Angry and Move could maybe also fit on there as well. Anyways Gila, what was ur track listing on ur Twitch?
I honestly think Twitch is one of the most unlistenable albums released for it’s time, even worse than LORAH or Mind…
seriously, listening to it all the way thru nonstop is an ordeal.
Which, is good in my books. [shocked]
Maybe it’s one of those situatiosn where if you were alive and listening to it when it came out and the sounds were cutting edge and current then you really liked it, but come 20 years later the synths and stuff just sound cheesy.
Kinda like how when star wars first came out everybody was all ape-shit over the amazing special effects… but then they had to update them 10 years to keep the movie current and watchable to the young-uns
like All Day. I heard nothing that different between the original or the “remix” Sounds the same except the “remix” has a demo sound quality.
main difference of twitch remix of all day from original 12’’ single version is that single has clean vocals, twitch remix has distorted vox. the “remix b” version has extra stuff all around the track.
He’s Angry and Move could maybe also fit on there as well. Anyways Gila, what was ur track listing on ur Twitch
dont remember now… cd is in the car. at one point when i was bored i made 3 different “twich” albums. 1 was original twitch (from just like you to twitch part 2). second was just collection of singles/outtakes/bsides (all day, halloween, hes angry, move, isle of man, abortive, nature of love, etc). third version had mostly longass remixes (like halloween remix, nature of love remix, nature of outtakes, etc). goal was to make every version around 45 minutes a la vinyl “LP” album". i had them as mp3s but they are long lost now 
"At pierce arrow we worked on “This Game is Over” “Let’s be Happy” ? and a cover of Roxy Music’s “Same Old Scene” All of these never saw the light of day. They were recorded as demos for our second Arista LP which i assume Clive (Davis) didn’t hear any hits on it and thats why we never did the second LP on Arista. Ian Taylor was the producer of those sessions.
If Brads on Twitch which I think he is, it would be the song “All Day” (thats the only song i’m on) we recorded that at Chicago Trax when it was in a house on Wayne and Schubert."
So, one of the last tracks the original incarnation of Ministry worked on was called “This Game is Over”? How classic is that? LOL!
Thanks Wempathy and Stevo. We are eternally grateful…