Behind the Music: What the Dog Said
My engineer, Fred Katz, and I were going over some tapes of songs I had
recorded as guitar solos. As was normal, his faithful dog Mickie was hanging
out with us in the studio. Rather, Mickie was snoozing in the corner on top
of my usual array of "stuff" - papers, strings, food wrappers, etc.
Things went along per the routine that we had been following over
the several months of recording. We listened, analyzed, took notes, discussed ideas.
Then this song came on. At that point, I had not come up with a title for it.
An odd thing happened next. Mickie's head popped up, his ear cocked. Halfway through the song,
he stood up and began howling. His tail wagged furiously.
And then... he barked.
Fred and I looked at each other and smiled.
It was a short, determined, rather percussive bark.
"Fred, I believe we have found a guest vocalist."
As we listened again, and listened to Mickie's "accompaniment", it became clear that
we had actually found a guest "percussionist". We quickly set up some microphones and
proceded to capture Mickie's performance.
"He should sound like a drummer, but, well, Fred - he's a dog. He
shouldn't sound like he's a GOOD drummer."
Fred took the cue and we went to work.