there’s a good one at the beginning of zeppelin’s “black country woman,” where the studio mics pick up a plane going by, and robert plant and the engineer debate whether to continue the take. a bit hard to hear on the original vinyl, but very clear on the cd remasters.

Well, there’s of course the Velvet Underground’s track Temptation Inside Your Heart (1968, available on outtakes comp “VU”, 1985), which features an entire *song’s* worth of banter. After recording a straight backing track and lead vocal, backing vocals were needed, so Reed, Cale and Morrison vocalise some doo-doo-doo’s. But the fun part is of course *between* the doo-doo sections. Believing the engineer will open and close their mics at the right time, the three gentlemen exchange many hilarious phrases. But the engineer leaves their mics open all the time, resulting in several run-throughs’ worth of silly comment, because the doo-doo’s were multi-layered. Best part? Morrison discovering that “Hey, I can talk to myself this way!”

And, while we’re on the subject of the Velvet Underground, the first disc of their box set Peel Slowly and See (1995) features a complete 1965 rehearsal tape. Especially on All Tomorrow’s Parties, Reed can be heard to be quite impatient with Morrison and Cale, only to fuck up himself on the next take, which ends with an exclamation of “Fucking shit!” and abrupt switching-off of the tape recorder.

There’s a version of Don & Dewey’s “Justine” (1958) floating around that has some banter in the beginning. Here, I’ll play the track right now. Let’s all listen. [Approximate dialogue follows]

“C’mon man play the piano.”
“Naw, we don’t need no piano.”
“Will you please play the piano … we’re doin’ the number, Don.”
“Do we need a piano?”
“Play the piano man … [so we can] hear what it sounds like.”
“I’m not going to play the piano when we do this number.”
“Who gonna play the piano?”
“Don’t need no piano!”
“Oh, okay, do what you want. I ain’t gonna play no guitar on this one.”
“Well okay let’s do it just like this. That’s great. Okay.”
Control room: “Gotta have piano in the session.”
“What he say, he ain’t gonna play.”
“When you say you gonna use two guitars …”
“Okay, let’s go.”

there is of course one you probably all know — the part in _let it be_ where george snaps at paul: (I’ll play, you know, whatever you want me to play, or I won’t play at all if you don’t want to me to play. Whatever it is that will please you… I’ll do it!”). see also various other moments in that depressing film.

re: the zeppelin example, doesn’t plant (or page, or whichever of those geezers) say something like, “nah, leave it!”?

lookit me, discussing dinosaur rock. zzzzzzz

Morrissey’s “Suedehead” appeared on *both* Viva Hate (my favorite Moz album) and Bona Drag. Interestingly enough, a B-side on the Suedehead 7″ single was “I Know Very Well How I Got My Name.” There is another version, however, called “I Know Very Well How I Got My Note Wrong” which was released on a bonus 7″ with the first 1000 copies of Durutti Column’s LP “Vini Reilly,” 1989. In this version, Vini Reilly (who played guitar on Viva Hate) misses a note near the end of the tune and he and Morrissey erupt in laughter. The arrangement of this version is more subdued, which makes the breakdown that much more stark.

(info from: Passions Just Like Mine)

(Viva Hate was recently featured on Stuart Maconie’s “Critical List,” but I have yet to listen to the program.)

the zeppelin one goes like this:

(eddie kramer) “shall we roll it, jimmy? we’re rolling on… one, one again.”
[mandolin noises, airplane slowly flies overhead, plant chuckles into the mic]
(kramer) “we’re gonna get this airplane on.”
(plant) “nah, leave it, yeah.”

nerd rock discussions are what the internet was invented for.

at the end of “red,” the second track from elbow’s masterpiece ‘asleep in the back’, there’s a pretty good discussion about click tracks.

whisper: “what the fuck?”
[the click track starts up in the left channel]
someone says something like, “yeah, i don’t know what it is, but what am i’m supposed to do with it?”
“it’s timing.”
“yeah, but i can’t keep time to that. if i’m thinking about that, then i can’t beatbox.”

At the beginning of Beck’s song “Truckdrivin’ Neighbors Downstairs” on the Mellow Gold album there’s a great argument between two guys who I heard somewhere were Beck’s real Truckdrivin’ Neighbors Downstairs. He supposedly left a tape recorder on and accidentally picked up their fight.

I can think of two Bob Dylan songs off the top of my head where he giggles while singing a line, but that’s probably nothing special.

I can’t recall the specific songs offhand, but on the new modest mouse album, at the end of one of the songs you can hear brock saying “i fucked up the last line.”

One of my all time favorites is from a system of a down song on their self titled album. At one point you can hear the vocalist begin to chuckle, which is followed shortly by the most hearty snort to ever be recorded. It is sheer bliss, although I can’t be certain that it is spontaneous.

Check out ‘The Troggs Tapes’
http://website.lineone.net/~thetroggs/

Check out ‘The Troggs Tapes’
http://website.lineone.net/~thetroggs/

On Frank Sinatra’s album September of My Years, there is a song (and I can’t remember which) where you can hear his stool creak as he adjusts his posture before a verse. Plain as day: “uuurk”.

Funny thing is, I had this album for years. I had listened to it on Denon components with B&W speakers and NEVER heard it. The creak only made itself evident on an entry-level Sony walkman with cheapo earbuds.

For a Sinatra fan, that’s an epiphany. Many of us have listened to the same albums over and over again, and finding anything new is exciting as discovering where jumping backwards takes you into the secret water world in Super Mario Bros.

There’s the infamous Beach Boys/Murray Wilson debacle that occured during the Help Me Rhonda sessions. Murray is obviously a little drunk and one of the highlights is…

“I try to give you tips, and you think because you’ve had a few hits you’ve got it made.”

I just downloaded them all and boy are they craze. He also accuses them all of not “singing from their hearts.” Pretty great considering the song is “Help Me Rhonda.” Most of the pre-Smile Beach Boys sessions are chock full of crazy genius and pretty available on soulseek.

the pixies’ surfer rosa will always epitomize band banter for me.

“You fuckin’ die” I said, to her.
I said “YOU FUCKIN’ DIE”, to her.
Huh? What?
No, no! I was talking to Kim.
I said “you fuckin’ die.”
No, I was just- we were just goofing around.
No, no. It didn’t have anything to do with anything.
She said: “Don’t tou- anybody touch this is my stuff”
And I said “You fuckin’ die” like that.
I was finishing her part for her.
You know what I mean?”

Cracker’s first album has a snippet, I believe right before “Can I Take My Gun Up To Heaven” wherein the band is laughing; Lowery says something like “You got my watch?” and another guy says something about the “beginning of 60 Minutes”. I guess in reference to drums or click-track. Also, on Kerosene Hat, there’s a “bonus track” with Lowery playing a jokey version of the title track, which has some funny banter. Shit like that always makes me wish I recorded my own conversations with my friends, or had cooler friends.

The last Cub album (real album, not the Mauler B-sides comp) has a track sung by the drummer, and if you go into the bonus tracks there is another version with her screwing up the lyrics and stopping the songs and explaining how she knew she was singing the wrong lyrics but that she couldn’t make her brain change the words or something like that. I always enjoyed it…

On The Smashing Pumpkins’ song “Silverfuck”, you can hear Billy Corgan saying “Alright, this take, don’t give a fuck” at 8:43… Also, I seem to remember someone (D’arcy?) saying “I just stepped on a cord” or something similar during one of the quiet passages in the version of “Siva” from the Peel Sessions CD.

There is also a *ton* of studio banter detailed from The Beatles’ various sessions here:

http://www.stevesbeatles.com/wgo/list.asp

There was amazing studio banter between Jerry Lee Lewis and Sam Phillips during the “Great Balls of Fire” recording session.

“How can the Devil save souls? What are you talkin’ about? Man, I got the Devil in me; if I didn’t I’d be a Christian!”
“Jerry, the point I’m tryin’ to make is, if you believe in what you’re sayin’, you’ve got no alternative whatsoever.”
“Mr. Phillips! I don’t care! It ain’t what you believe, it’s what’s written in the Bible.”

This is all detailed in Nick Tosches’ biography on Lewis, and in http://www.offbeat.com/obnovember2003/masters.html

“Hot damn tamale.” — Elvis

(From here.)

At the end of The Who’s “Happy Jack” Pete Townshend calls out “I saw ya!” at Keith Moon, who was clowning around during the take.

steve albini – “josphine, do you think you’re going bald?”
jo wiggs – “no, you asked me that before and the answer was no….”

from ‘pod’ by the breeders.

The beginning of “Madman” by D.R.I. features a recording of the father of one of the band members arguing with the band for playing too loud. It goes something like:
*thump thump thump thump thump*
“Hold on… I didn’t know you could hear it”
“Well, I can. That stuff hasn’t done a bit of good. Okay. The party’s over.”
“Okay”
“Don’t you dummies ever understand anything? You gotta go to school with these ??? and dropouts. What do you care? You don’t learn a goddam bit, what’s the matter with you? And you.. I don’t who this guy is but..”
“You like him”
“Hey… I don’t need you at all. You come over and I don’t want you here at night, you understand?”
“Aww.. That’s our only time to practice.”
“Well, I don’t give a goddamn hell what the.. I come home to relax, I don’t wanna listen to you.”
“Okay, when you come home we’ll stop”
“I’m home! I’ve been home for four hours!”
“You didn’t tell us to stop then”
“Well I’m telling you to stop now…”
“Okay then, we’re stopping..”
*door slam*
Then the song “Madman” kicks in, which is lyrically about the guy’s dad being a ‘nazi’ in various ways.

There’s also plenty of studio banter on the commercially available Syd Barrett solo albums, although more on the somewhat tragic side than humorous in my opinion.

At the very end of Traffic’s Paper Sun, just as the music fades, you can hear Stevie Winwood(?) calling out excitedly “That’s the one!”, probably meaning that this is the best take of the song. This one always makes me smile.

Korn ‘Korn’

The start of “CLown” someone fucks up several times and someone ends up have a tantrum.

Two late submissions: The Wedding Present’s Something And Nothing off their debut album George Best (1987) features their co-producer Chris Allison sounding very exasperated, telling the band “There’s no point asking *me* if it sounds all right!”.
And Be Honest, the last song on their second album, Bizarro! (1989) has a false start after singer/guitarist David Gedge flubs his intro. He’s then heard to say (in a nice Yorkshire brogue I won’t attempt to reproduce):
“Aw, what a rubbish! We were gonna start with drum sticks(?), weren’t we?”
Other band member: “What?”
Gedge: (laughter)
Other band member: “God! Get on with it!”

at the end of the who’s classic “happy jack” you can hear pete townsend say “i saw ya”. apparently while recording the backing vocals, kieth moon was running around in a bummble bee costume playing his own game of hide and seek – or something, who knows. so that’s pete yelling out to moon.

Enjoyed your page of musical out-takes, and thought you might like
this. It’s from John Cale – Inside the Dream Syndicate, Vol. 3, and at
the end of a five-minute drone composition you can hear a member of
the New York Fire Department from downstairs who’s finally had
enough….

“Shut that off. Hey, I don’t wanna hear that bullshit. It’s goin’ on
and on and on. Knock it off. Right? This is goin’ on and on and on.
Hear one more peep, we’re gonna do somethin’ else, alright? Ya get the
word now? Ya gonna do that stuff, do it far far away, out in the
country. I don’t wanna hear another peep.”