James Lowe

JAMES LOWE
 

I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) too was blessed with some amazing effects; as described in Wikipedia:  “At the time, the Electric Prunes comprised singer James Lowe, lead guitarist Ken Williams, rhythm guitarist James ‘Weasel’ Spagnola, bassist Mark Tulin, and drummer Preston Ritter.  The oscillating, reversed guitar which opens the song originated from the rehearsals at [Leon] Russell’s house, where Williams recorded with a 1958 Gibson Les Paul guitar with a Bigsby vibrato unit.  According to Lowe, ‘We were recording on a four-track, and just flipping the tape over and re-recording when we got to the end.  Dave [Hassinger] cued up a tape and didn’t hit “record”, and the playback in the studio was way up:  ear-shattering vibrating jet guitar.  Ken had been shaking his Bigsby wiggle stick with some fuzztone and tremolo at the end of the tape.  Forward it was cool.  Backward it was amazing.  I ran into the control room and said, “What was that?”  They didn’t have the monitors on so they hadn’t heard it.  I made Dave cut it off and save it for later.’” 

 

(July 2015)

 

Last edited: March 22, 2021