In the Studio with COC During the Recording of the "Technocracy" EP
Brian Walsby has played in bands like Scared Straight and more recently Double Negative, but he is probably best known for his artwork on releases like 7 Seconds' "The Crew" and "Walk Together Rick Together" LPs, Mystic Records' "Nardcorde" comp, the Xpozez from the U.K., and various artwork for The Melvins, among others. Brian was good friends with the Corrosion Of Conformity guys in the '80s and ended up doing back ups on the "Technocracy" 12". Here he details his thoughts on the EP, "Animosity" and more regarding COC.
"Technocracy" was recorded twice, and I ended up yelling on both versions. I guess you can call it backup singing.
The first one was recorded in Hollywood at Track Recording Studios. That is where side one of "Animosity" was recorded a year earlier. It was later shelved and remixed to be released on a later version that had both versions on it. I like the first one the best. Mike Dean was singing on it. I think it was his best singing he did, and the first recording is the best sounding thing that the early COC recorded, whether remixed or not. It was vicious sounding, and I still think it holds up really well. Reed does his best playing on this first version. The whole band was on top of their game.
The second version was recorded in Raleigh with the new addition of Simon Bob Sinister as the new lead singer. Bob was sort of polarizing. Instead of caterwauling like Mike, Bob had a more melodious approach, sort of like (I only realized years later) Joey Ramone with a slight lisp. Or something to that effect. At the time, I thought Bob, with the best of intentions, was a little mismatched for COC, but I am not sure that the rest of them could really convey what they wanted from him. He was more of a singer than anyone else that had ever sung for the band. So that was new territory for COC. Not helping things was that the production was kind of weird and the performances were, although fine, not quite as good as the earlier version. But you could see why they wanted to re-do it and put that out. Most people didn't know it was recorded twice until years later.
Mike Dean had quit next year and took all of his new COC songs with him, which was at least half a record. They ended up on the Snake Nation record that I drummed on with Mike and Woody later. The rest of the band sort of ditched most of the rest of the songs, which is too bad. COC never had a chance to record that follow up album with Bob. It would have been good, and I think that Bob could have pulled out a good vocal performance on this fantasy album with some guidance and coaxing. But alas, we will never know. I can't even find this four track of all of these songs that the band made without Bob singing that sounded really cool. THAT is the missing piece of the COC puzzle and remains so to this very day. It was a really cool sounding recording for a four track. It was recorded at The Brewery, our local club at the time.
As far as my input to singing, I was just there and yelled out choruses with some other folks. I also did the same thing on the "Six Songs With Mike singing" sessions, which consisted of COC's girlfriends at the time, assorted members of SNFU and someone else, I forgot.
Photos of the "Animosity" LP (Death Records, 1985 press) with "Technocracy" 12" (Death Records/Combat Core, 1987 press) from the collection of Negative Insight staff.
Photos of "Six Songs With Mike Singing" 12" from the collection of friend of the mag Dave Voutour.
