Film Director Joe Viglione on Visual Radio with author Gillian Gill, biographer of Agatha Christie and Mary Baker Eddy
Doug: You've spent 14 years on this project, how does it feel to have your production out worldwide after all that time?
Joe: Well, I consider it a team effort, "our" project. Without the musicians, the great work of Marty Balin with his fantastic catalog and his stage presence, all the people at Oldies 103.3, Pretty Polly, Bergsten Sound, the great people at Music Video Distributors...the camera people...and, of course, disc jockeys like you, Eli Polonsky at WMBR, Barnes Newberry at WUMB, Carmelita at WAAF...so supportive of everyone...it took a team to create the project, it takes a team to get the world to know about it.
Doug: There are so many great women vocalists in Boston rock & roll, it must have been difficult to choose someone to sing the songs of Grace Slick?
Joe: Didi Stewart was the first choice...and if she didn't say yes I would have begged her. There are so many great ladies of Boston rock & roll, Doug, and you've interviewed many of them on Trax Of The Town, but Didi is an original Jefferson Airplane fan...plus she was supposed to be on the 1992 Better Generation album along with Ellie Marshall...this made perfect sense. And the fact that so many New England fans of Girls Night Out and Didi Stewart and the Amplifiers have picked up on the YouTube is an added plus, something we didn't expect.
Doug: The Boston Esplanade, the Hatch Shell in particular, is a great sounding place.
Joe: Exactly! I think of it as a big room with lots of space...if it's good enough for Keith Lockhart and The Boston Pops...
Doug: But it was Visual Radio, your TV show, that was the genesis of this project.
Joe: That's a funny story. In 1979 we had a show called TV Eye broadcast at the old Warner Cable studio on Day Street in Davis Square. I really wish I continued the documenting on tv as my band played so many shows in and around Boston...but when the band thing ended I decided to get back into tv, around 1992...and in 1995 I launched the new program. Marty Balin was coming to town and I called him up. He said "I'll be in Harvard Square for a few days buying books ...find me in the book stores." Like I'm going to go to bookstores to find Marty Balin! So I called up his father and Joe Buch gave me Marty's phone # at the hotel! Then the House Of Blues in Harvard Square, where the Jefferson Starship was playing, wouldn't let us videotape in the dressing room because they have their own national TV show. The manager of the club, the late, great Teo, apologized that he couldn't give us permission to tape and asked if he could come the hotel to listen and watch. We said sure. Jason Brabazon & I set up the camera and we just let the old High 8 tape roll! Jason used to do the WBCN rare tape nights with Tommy Hadges and he's actually one of the camera guys from the Esplanade show...so he's been with this project from the very beginning.
Doug: Where's the Harvey Wharfield interview from WZLX? Didn't I read that you were going to put that on the DVD?
Joe: We ran out of space! We have both the interview that aired and the unedited interview...that Channel show that Marty was promoting in 1989 was actually videotaped by Mark Page's friend...he was in the opening act, Purple Stars Sound, a very Jefferson Airplane-like act. We originally wanted to use some of the Channel footage for this DVD but Mark couldn't find it. It would've brought the DVD back 20 years instead of just 14!
Doug: So the concert on the Esplanade wasn't the first idea for this DVD?
Joe: Originally we were going to use the Visual Radio interview and surround it with all sorts of footage...Rick Martin gave Craig Fenton some DVDs for us to utilize...and there are some tracks from those concerts in the Bonus Material section, that material and the old Channel tape would've been a nice package; then I said to Marty "Let's do MARTY BALIN'S GREATEST YOU TUBE HITS"...and Marty loved the idea. We could've put Gordon G.G. Gebert's "Rocket Launcher" from Tarrytown on the DVD and other versions of "Miracles", "Hearts" and the Balin classics that proliferate on YouTube. The problem there is that the resolution on YouTube would've translated much, much too grainy...even though we feel Marty has the right to every single performance of his that's up there... There was also the possibility of using the original Jefferson Starship footage from Toad's Place 1995 that Franchot Lubin taped for me in Connecticut...the very first Visual Radio outside taping! But that would mean negotiating with the Jefferson Starship and...well, there are plenty of J.S. DVDs around...for this to be really special it had to be Marty Balin solo.
So the Oldies 103 Concerts offered Marty the bill with Johnny Rivers in 2007, but the Jefferson Starship had a gig in Long Island and Marty gave them a commitment to play that. It's too bad because the Rivers gig on the Esplanade would've been this DVD out a year earlier...the Starship then came to Boston and played Harper's Ferry two nights later on a Monday night and the gig was not very memorable...so I think Marty should've played the Johnny Rivers show...but that's all water under the bridge...I'm giving you all the deep history of the process behind this. Meanwhile, mind you, the label wants a Marty Balin DVD --- I'm so thankful that MVD was patient throughout this process. The America/Marty Balin gig was scheduled for June 14, 2008, we went to Newbury Media in Wilmington the day before and the band tracked nine songs at the studio...on digital and on camera...and those are three of the bonus tracks. "White Rabbit" and "With Your Love" were tracked in that session along with "Count On Me", "Somehow The Tired Reach Home" and Essra Mohawk's lovely "Shaping The Night"...we put the latter three songs on the disc...Ken Kanavos does such a great job with the audio and those bonus tracks sound superb.
Doug: You don't get tired talking about this, do you?
Joe: It's a real labor of love, Doug. I wish we had a million bucks to bring in trucks and cranes and high-tech cameras, but for the spirit of the project - doing what the band Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven did - just having tapes from the audience and cameras on the stage rolling, getting the soundboard CDR and putting it all together, I think we did a great job with the parameters of the budget and all the other hard work that went into building the show and negotiating the contract.
Doug: Thanks for sending the CDR to WMWM
Joe: When Eli Polonsky played "Somebody To Love" on WMBR 88.1 FM on November 24, 2009 and it sounded terrific on the air I knew the audio would work by itself as a compact disc or download. I think Rob Fraboni's mastering makes this real audience-friendly and we would love to put all the music on the DVD out as an audio disc...Marty Balin Live In concert and Live in the Studio...
Doug: You can put "With Your Love" and the other tracks from Newbury Sound on the audio disc?
Joe: That would be great, wouldn't it? Ken Kanavos is going to post "With Your Love" on YouTube...he's working on a video with the DVD cover...I would love to have a CD out with the audio as a companion piece to the DVD. I'm hoping Marty agrees and we at least have 100 copies for radio stations...and a prototype for the mass market version!
Doug: How did you get Donnie Baldwin from Starship in the band?
Joe: Originally I was talking to Steve Holley from Ian Hunter's band. Steve won a Grammy with Paul McCartney for the Wings album "Back To The Egg" and played on Elton John's "A Single Man" album as well as a lot of Kiki Dee stuff. We were talking to Holley, bassist Greg Tarbox, keyboard player Dave Maxwell and others about being in the group. Then Marty decided to stay with a band he played with on some gigs in the mid-west since they knew the material ... Gordon G.G. Gebert who played in Angel, bassist Dave Trupia ...and Marty flew Donnie Baldwin in from California to play drums. Didi Stewart came to the Newbury Sound rehearsal and the rest is history.
Doug: How did Gordon and Dave run cameras as well as playing onstage?
Joe: You know, we'll have to ask them! I think Gordon had a friend running his camera in the audience, and Dave set up the camera behind the group while they are onstage...there were nine cameras we know about. Gary Bockser went into the hospital and we couldn't get his footage in time for the edit; another cameraman refused to give us the tape! But 7 source tapes is plenty, although I would like to have all the angles to choose from, especially if we ever go back in and re-edit...which we very well could do for the 25th Anniversary Edition Boxed Set!
Joe V's additional liner notes on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Marty-Balin-Live-Boston-Esplanade/product-reviews/B002M9FXLS/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending#R3P7G7JT4MAN5L
The Ultimate Fan package, | By | J. Viglione "producer/director" (Boston) - See all my reviews |
The cover photo is not from this America/Balin concert...that's a picture that former Jefferson Starship lead singer Darby Gould took from the stage when Marty was in the latter-day J.S....and we thank her for such a beautiful and mysterious shot. Marco Centola and Rob Fraboni remastered the two-track soundboard audio...D.J. Eli Polonsky at WMBR in Cambridge/Boston played "Somebody To Love" on the air and it sounded great coming over the radio. Marty Balin was interviewed by Polonsky on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 and when the DJ noted that singer Didi Stewart is a legendary Boston figure Marty said immediately "She's a great singer!" As producer/director I would love to see an extended version of this DVD a few years from now...and maybe an audio CD mixed from both the soundboard and the multiple cameras. The August 1976 hit "With Your Love" was performed in the studio practice at Newbury Media on 6-13-08 the day before the show and is probably up somewhere on the web as a trailer for this project, though that classic wasn't performed the next night at the show. Those songs were digitally recorded, multi-track, at the world class facility which has gold and platinum for Marky Mark, New Kids on The Block and other major recording artists. Three of the Newbury Media rehearsal sessions are on this DVD - Essra Mohawk's "Shaping The Night", a second version of the Jesse Barish classic "Count On Me" and Balin's own "Somehow The Tired Reach Home". The audio on those three bonus tracks was mixed by Ken Kanavos at the studio and the quality is superb.
It is my hope that everyone gets to see the genius of Marty Balin 39 years after he performed at Woodstock and enjoys this presentation that we put a lot of time and love into, released on the 40th Anniversary of the Woodstock event. Four of the songs the Jefferson Airplane performed at Woodstock appear on this disc recorded 4 decades after the Summer of Love.
As noted above I'm the producer/director of this document. The 5 star rating I give it is for Marty Balin's performance and the performances of singer Didi Stewart, keyboard player Gordon G.G. Gebert (of a latter day version of the group Angel), bassist Dave Trupia (also on Marty's upcoming CD) and the extraordinary Donny Baldwin, drummer with Elvin Bishop Group and the latter day Starship (the Mickey Thomas version of the band after Marty Balin went solo). It was an absolute honor to work with these talents and it is my hope that the public enjoys this recording for what it is: an historical record of a rock & roll hall of famer with no frills and lots of bonus material including interviews with Signe Anderson, Jeff Tamarkin and Marty Balin himself.
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