Ric is 58 Years Old Today

Happy birthday to the enigmatic peace loving chain smoking family man who likes to produce and make his own records from time to time. From all us Ocasek music fans we wish you a very happy and frenzied 58th Birthday.

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Ric Rumored To Work With David Robinson

Recently a unnamed source told the Daily Events Book that David Robinson has been asked to work on the next Ric Ocasek album. Whether David will be asked to work on the art for the CD or play drums on the upcoming Ocasek release is a question yet to be answered. The newest CD which was eluded by Ric in at least in one interview will be due “around" the Spring of 2007 . In the Ric time continuum that could be Winter of 2009.

But then again What is Time ?

In more David Robinson news, David has sold his Hula Moon Cafe in Rockport Massachusetts and is gearing up to launch his own Art Gallery.

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Ric Gives Confidence Boost

Ric continues to be a influence in the New York music scene. He recently got together with Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. who gave Ric an exclusive listen to some of his solo work away from his typical gig from being the guitarist for the New York City based band The Strokes. Hammond's confidence in his solo work waned a bit over the years so he turned to Ric for some encouragement. "I had things around me and people around me I admire that helped me get through it," he explained. One of those people, he said, was Ric Ocasek."

"I played him some songs, and he said, 'I never knew you were such a great songwriter.' He also said that I'd be doing this forever, and I was like, 'I love you,' " Hammond added. "He's one of my biggest idols, and it was nice to hear it from someone who had nothing to gain, telling me he liked my songs."

I will bet my bottom dollar that this conversation and one on one listening party took place at Electric Ladyland studios where Hammond record the album. Ric can be found there always tinkering about mixing and producing. Ric however does not appear on Hammond's solo project entitled "Yours To Keep" which hit stores March 6th.

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Paulina To Do ABC Show "Dancing With The Stars"

The new cast of ABC's hit show " Dancing With the Stars" was announced today on Good Morning America yesterday and will include Ric's wife Paulina Porizikova as one of the celebrity dancers. The fourth season of this very popular show is slated to start Monday, March 19th from 8:00-10:00 p.m EST.

Paulina will be matched up with season one professional champion Alec Mazo. Knowing the agreemnt between Ric and Paulina to attend each others events and endeavors we will no doubt see Ric make an appearance on the show.


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1984 Ric Remixer Lloyd Cole & The Commotions

Hey Ric is a Re- Mixer at least that's what I recently found out. It seems Ric remixed three tracks for one of the early 80's most popular UK bands Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. The three tracks appear on the bands 1984 debut album "Rattlesnakes".

Apparently Ric did this for the Geffen only for the U.S Release of "Rattlesnakes". The back story on Lloyd Cole and The Commotions is that in the early 80's in the UK they were considered on par with The Smiths in popularity. They were wildly popular in the UK college radio scene. I frankly have never heard of them and there is a good chance you have never heard of them either. So I have included one of their most recognizable songs for your listening pleasure.

Lloyd Cole and The Commotions - Perfect Skin

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Ric Is One "Perplexed" Fashionista

Ric and Paulina were at the Michon Schur show during Fashion Week held in NYC on February 7th. The photo right of Ric was snapped backstage at the occasion as well as the ones of him and Paulina below this article. In a bonus moment Francine Parnes a fashion reporter for the Associated Press had a brief encounter with Ric which she added in her full review of the Michon Schur show. Here is the excerpt from her review.

She wrote :

Backstage after the Michon Schur show, a man quietly inquired about one of the glittery coats, hand-embroidered with Swarovski crystals, that he would like for his wife of 22 years. It was musician Ric Ocasek, taking in the scene with his wife, Paulina Porizkova, one of the best-known models of the '80s.

"What brought you here?" we asked Ocasek.
"A car," was the glib response from the former Cars front man.

If Ocasek could design clothes, what would he pick?
"You know mood rings?" he asked. "I'd do mood shirts.
What would his mood be?"Probably," he said, "perplexed.

Ric Slated to Produce Motion City Soundtrack in March

Recently, Ric has undertaken producing several tracks for the pop/emo group Motion City Soundtrack. The group has been hunkered down in the Big Apple completing the writing and recording of new tracks for their new album and most likely will be headed for Electric Ladyland to record with Ric at the beginning of March.

Ric will be producing part of the album while the other part of the record will be co-produced by the tag team of Adam Schlesinger (of Fountains Of Wayne) and Eli Janney (of Girls Against Boys). As we speak Motion City Soundtrack is in the studio with the aforementioned Schlesinger and Janney.

Ric And Paulina Make Sunday Comics

Well Not really.. But here's a Cartoon with Ric and Paulina as the setup. The comic was done by Jonathan Rosenberg

Mandatory Ric Reading

Sometimes an Interviewer asks the right questions instead of asking the same generic Ric/Cars questions that we all get tired of hearing. Daniel Robert Epstein who writes for Suicide Girls.com IS one of the good ones. He interviewed Ric about a month ago on some various topics that I found both direct and noteworthy.

Here's The interview

Daniel Robert Epstein: How long has the Unlocked DVD been in the works?

Ric Ocasek: Off and on I’ve been putting it together for a couple of years now. I’d go through a period of doing it for a few months and then go back and take some time off and then go back and do some more. I had to look through a lot of footage so it took quite a long time and then the rest is just putting it together and deciding what to put there and what not to. There’s quite a bit of stuff. I must have had a couple hundred hours of footage or something.

DRE: I read your son was working on this with you.

Ric: Yeah, because he’s an editor. That’s his job. He acts too but he edits when he’s not getting any roles.

DRE: Where were all these tapes?

Ric: They were actually all in my basement. It was just stuff I collected when we were back on the road from various gigs. Some shot on VHS, some Betamax, some just things that were shot by our lighting designer. Some things that were shot by the bigger halls that we played in to show on the big screen.

DRE: I just spoke to Stewart Copeland a couple weeks ago about a movie he cut together from old footage of The Police. What is coming around that is making guys like you and Stewart do movies like this?

Ric: Everybody must have thought “Oh it’s a good time, about 20 years. Let’s just do this” [laughs]. Also there isn’t much out on DVD on The Cars. If anything. There’s just one, Musikladen, which I was never crazy about anyway. So at this point it seems like everybody switched formats and now it’s all DVD. Also being able to edit things on Final Cut Pro rather than go to a studio gives you the luxury of time, that and technology made it a much easier thing to do.

DRE: How much time did you spend tweaking all that audio and video?

Ric: The audio was pretty much stereo tracks. I didn’t really have multi-track tapes. So it’s pretty much what it was. I EQued it a bit as a stereo track like a mastering engineer would. Some of the video got color corrected or was boosted a little considering how old the footage was. If it was really horrible looking we just made it black and white, like the interview stuff.

DRE: Did this all come out of your pocket?

Ric: Yeah it pretty much came out of mine.

DRE: Who owns The Cars music?

Ric: Well I wrote all the songs so I own all the songs. As for who owns the tapes, I guess it depends on how you look at it legally. I guess I own the tapes because they’re here. You have to get permission from the other guys in the band. But that wasn’t too hard to do.

DRE: So everyone in the band gets along?

Ric: Well not great. A couple do, a couple don’t.

DRE: Is that stuff over old band stuff or is it because they’re out there doing The New Cars?

Ric: Well it was old band stuff, because the band broke up. The New Cars is just what it is. That’s a thing where you can either decide to make waves about it or you can let it go and let it stand on it’s own two feet if it will. There’s so much war going on these days it’s like, how many more wars do we need?

I never had any intentions of going back out with The Cars first of all. I do so many other things that I really didn’t want to do some reunion tour. If I would have, I wouldn’t have done it like that. I just didn’t think it was a good idea personally. Some people might think it was, but I didn’t.

DRE: Since you do have a MySpace page, has there been a resurgence in recent years with people getting in touch with you about The Cars?

Ric: I don’t know. I’m not paying attention on a daily basis. Someone writes the stuff on the MySpace page for me. But I’ll certainly look at it. I didn’t get any old lawsuits or any old people looking for me that I know.

DRE: How did you decide what was relevant for the DVD and what wasn’t?

Ric: First of all, song wise, I looked at every concert we had footage of. For a song like Best Friend’s Girl I had about ten or 12 versions of it. From that I tried to decide which one had the best overall sound and visuals. I wanted to put in something from all the different tours so I would make a decision based on that as well. That’s how I went through it and that’s what took a lot of time. But I used handheld stuff and the backstage stuff that I thought would be fun to see. I didn’t want to do a straight documentary thing. I tried to keep it a little bit obscure.

DRE: I read that the CD that comes with the DVD has four songs that never came out before. Is that right?

Ric: No, that’s not true. I knew that got into the press, but there are no songs that have never been out.

DRE: That’s what I thought. I was like, “This band broke up a long time ago.”
I was always more of a casual fan of The Cars. I never heard that there was a myth that you didn’t really sing lead vocals that much. What’s up with that?

Ric: I read that somewhere too. I think I would probably say I sang more than Ben [Orr] did, but it doesn’t matter to me. Ben was my best friend and a great friend but if you were to look at the albums, I probably sang more than him but we did try to keep it even.

DRE: Could you give me the short version on how The Cars got together?

Ric: I guess it was a potpourri of other bands. When I went to Boston in 1972 I had about three or four bands before The Cars. Some of the people in the earlier bands remained in The Cars like Benjamin, Greg Hawkes and Elliot Easton. The last member to join was David Robinson and that’s when we changed the name to The Cars. By then we started getting airplay on local radio and that’s what kicked it off.

DRE: Is there a short version of what was the final straw for the band to break up?

Ric: Well, we toured a lot. We were on the road ten years. For me there started to be some weirdness between people. It was supposed to start off as a long break but then it ended up being…

DRE: A really long break.

Ric: A real break, yeah [laughs]. So that’s the reason. There weren’t any fistfights or anything. It was just one of those things.

DRE: Earlier this year you got written up as one of the one hundred unsexiest men in the world. I think it’s jealousy because of your wife

Ric: [laughs] Yeah, it’s ok. They can say what they want.

DRE: Are you still a music executive?

Ric: No. I went to Elektra for a year to do A&R. I wanted to sign some cool bands because I was going to produce for them. So they said, “Well as long as you’re going to produce, why don’t you sign some bands with us.” I tried to bring in some pretty evil, weird stuff but obviously I found out that corporations don’t really do that stuff. I was trying to bring in Devendra Banhart and Le Tigre. They didn’t really understand that stuff so I left.

DRE: This year you produced Brazilian Girls and Pink Spiders. Did you find them?

Ric: No, I didn’t. They found me.

DRE: When someone wants you to produce, what is it they want you to bring to the table?

Ric: Probably that one hundred least sexiest men in the world image [laughs]. I’ve produced a lot of records. People know I’ve been in a band and they think that I’ll be diplomatic and probably understand what they really want. I’m going to be sensitive to their art and sensitive to their music. I’m not going to work for the record company. I’m going to be on their side. I’m not going to change their sound. I’m going to just try to propel what they’re good at and I’m going to have a critical ear and I’m not going to let them do anything silly [laughs].

DRE: Is there more Cars material out there that you could do something with?

Ric: Well, I could probably do a part two but I’m not going to do it right now. If I ever do.

DRE: How many videos did you guys do back then?

Ric: Maybe 20.

DRE: You should do a collection of those.

Ric: That would be pretty good. We did win the first MTV award ever for You Might Think. So we had some pretty good videos but most of them you wouldn’t want to see [laughs].

by Daniel Robert Epstein From Suicide Girls.com

Ric Pens Song For Berlin's Terri Nunn

Back in 1992 Ric wrote a song called “Fly By Night” for Terri Nunn who is best known for her vocal work for the Los Angeles-based synth pop group Berlin. The track appears on Nunn's only solo album to date entitled Moment Of Truth. Berlin has been aided by Cars members in the past. The Cars former guitarist Elliot Easton had lent some guitar work for them , appearing on Berlins 1986 Count Three And Pray album.

RO’s lyrics aren’t very special and I was a bit disappointed when I unearthed the track. But nonetheless It’s Ric . Here is a sample of what the track sounds like. As well as the lyrics. I will have the complete track available to you once the quite impatient Noisician Fletcher gets a package.

Terri Nunn - Fly By Night

Fly By Night

Pale dolls dancin in the street
Harlequin lovers stamp their feet
They want to fly forever
Rough and ready Romeos
Skin tight angels that never show
They want to fly forever
And when you come away
It's your holiday

You got to fly by night
Once in awhile
You got to fly by night
Fly by night
Once in awhile
You got to fly by night

Bad boys bouncin boom box beat
You better never take their heat
They want to cry forever
And when you want to play
You got to slip away

You got to fly by night
Once in awhile
You got to fly by night
Fly by night
Once in awhile

You got to fly by night
And leave us your smile
It could go on forever
And when you want to play
You got to slip away

Deftones Cover The Cars Drive

Ric wrote Drive on a keyboard in a hotel room in Chicago. Eventually it was given the Orr/Hawkes treatment and became a multi synth layered, beautifully sung track off The Cars Heartbeat City album. Drive also became a huge hit. After Drive peaked on the Billboard charts on 8/11/84 at #3 (Tthe Cars highest charting single ever) it has been covered many times by artists you may have never heard of.

But occasionally somebody with some musical cred comes along and pays homage to the tune. The last time it was covered by a prominent name was by Ziggy Marley. Now a cover of Drive comes from a very unlikely source the Deftones. The Deftones are if you had to pigeon hole them are an Alternative Metal band that has been around for quite some time. So it is kind of interesting they decided to cover Drive. The Drive cover is included as a Bonus Track only from their just released "Saturday Night Wrist" CD.

I think they did a fine job with the tune. It starts off a bit dull but finishes nicely.

Take a Listen

Deftones - Drive

Ocasek Interviewed about Unlocked In Cleveland Plain Dealer

Written By John Soeder

The irony of releasing a DVD of the Cars in concert isn't lost on singer-guitarist Ric Ocasek, who led the new-wave rock 'n' roll band. The group didn't exactly go down in history as a dynamic live act.

"We weren't doing back flips," Ocasek said. "A lot of people said we were cold and distant, which was perfect -- exactly what I wanted us to be.

"I respected bands like Captain Beefheart and the Velvet Underground. They put the music out there without a lot of fanfare onstage or a lot of nonsense talk. I wanted to stay away from saying things to the audience, because then it becomes an exercise in showmanship.

"I was more anti-show. Some people loved it, and some people hated it. But I was comfortable with it."

A new DVD, "The Cars Unlocked," captures Ocasek, singer-bassist Ben Orr, guitarist Elliot Easton, keyboardist Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson working their way up the rock food chain, from playing clubs in the 1970s to headlining arenas in the 1980s.

"I work with a lot of new bands, and they always say to me, I wasn't born when the Cars played,' " the soft-spoken Ocasek said during a recent phone interview from his home in New York City.

After the Cars broke up in 1988, Ocasek went on to work as a producer for Weezer and No Doubt, among others.

"I didn't think there was anything out there to represent what the Cars were like over the years, except the Musikladen' DVD [featuring a 1979 appearance by the band on German television], which I've never been a great fan of," said Ocasek, 57. "After going in the basement and going through these tapes, I decided to put together something we could release as a DVD."

The video features live renditions of "My Best Friend's Girl," "Shake It Up," "You Might Think" and other Cars hits, along with behind-the-scenes shenanigans. Some footage is grainy, adding a certain punk quality. The package includes a 14-track CD, too, with songs from the DVD.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer Article

The Cars Unlocked Official Site

Ric's Early Board Work : 1979

Peter Dayton

Peter Dayton was one of the founding members of the legendary punk band La Peste. The band had a huge following, with good reason. Great songs, incredible energy, and amazing "like-ability" for a punk band.

Peter left La Peste to pursue a solo project, which owed more to artists like The Cars, or Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers than to bands like the Sex Pistols or the Clash. Ric was a big fan of Peter's songwriting, and produced some demos for him.

But ultimately none of it was released with the exception of a couple songs that made it onto vinyl compilation LPs. Well we here at Daily Events Book have obtained an actual Ric Ocasek produced Peter Dayton tune Entitled “The Last Supper” This is one of Ric’s initial works as a Producer this song was recorded in 1979.

Peter Dayton - The Last Supper

The Fast

Ric also worked with NYC’s scenesters The Fast. The Fast core members were primarily made up of two brothers Miki and Paul Zone. The Fast were playing at The Rat in Boston when they were spotted by Ric O. who perhaps was searching to hone his "bare bones" production sound.

Ric brought the band to Electric Ladyland Studios, for sessions that would result in The Fast's debut LP, For Sale. This also another example of Ocasek's early works as a producer. Both these songs are over 25 years old, they even pre-date Ric's more well known work with Suicide.

The Fast - Kids Just Wanna Dance

Producing : Not Always Glamour.. Sometimes God Fear

It’s not always a perfect marriage between producer and a bands personnel or it’s management team and ultimately sometimes the bands following . Even while in The Cars Ric hated the tedious monotous work Mutt Lange had him and his bandmates did during 1984’s Heartbeat City sessions. Even some Cars fan cringe at the sometime mechanical way HBC sounds.

Ric himself has occasionally ran into problems as a producer over the years, most often typified by the publicized falling out between Ric and the group Hanson’s management over the direction of the bands sound on the 2000 album “This Time Around”.

Ric also faced a similar problem a year prior in 1999 when he went behind the boards during the Guided By Voices sessions for their album “Do The Collapse’. GBV is best known as a low fi band fronted by Bob Pollard who had and still have a diehard fan base that loved the band for their bare bones four track album releases.

When it was announced that Ocasek was taking on the GBV project eyebrows were immediately raised. Because of Ric’s big time producer cred many feared GBV would lose the essence of their sound through over production. After it’s release this proved to be true at least in the minds of GBV‘s fans. Their hardcore fans still to this day views Ocasek production on that album with mostly disdain.

The following excerpt explains what GBV’s front man and songwriter Bob Pollard thought of Ocasek's production. The song he mentions in the following article "Hold On Hope" is excellent and I have made it available for download.

Bob Pollard on Ric Ocasek.

I’m a huge Cars fan. Especially the first record—that would probably be in my top 50 albums of all time. I think he did a good job (with us). I listened to Do The Collapse the other day for the first time in a couple of years and I think it’s a really good record. The thing about Ric Ocasek is he still has the same intimidating presence he’s always had. He still comes flamboyantly into the studio with the same kind of stuff he used to wear. It was kind of an intimidating experience, but he was a really nice guy and I appreciate the fact that he showed us the ropes in a big studio. I think we learned a lot from that experience.

Was “Hold On Hope” one of those songs?

It’s weird, but that wasn’t. “Hold On Hope” was like my own embarrassment. When I was sending all the songs to Ric Ocasek, I would talk to him on the phone three or four times a week and I’d tell him I’d written these new songs and he’d say to send them. When I was waking up one morning I kind of dreamt that chorus, and I thought, “Is that mine or someone else’s?” I told him I wrote this really pretty, ballad-type song, and he said send it, and I said, “Oh, man, it might be kind of embarrassing.” Naturally, he gets it and goes, “Oh, that’s the big one, that’s the monster ballad.” I go, “Oh, shit, here we go.” It got even worse. They did a remix that was really, really, creepy and creamy. I thought it was kind of career-threatening. I went through a complete tug-of-war with the label about that song. So, though it seems like that was one of the pop songs they coerced me into writing, no, that was my own thing.

Guided By Voices - Hold On Hope

Our One Year Anniversary Special

Time Flies while your having fun. I must have to say it has been a labor of love this past year. I want to thanks the following people for contributing directly or indirectly in some way to the blog. Big Ups go to the following people: Deb M. Peter K. Fletcher Monroe, Heg and all the contributing members of The Frozen Fire List and Ric Ocasek Crackpot discussion group. In addition I want to acknowledge the Fab Four of diehard Cars fans Deb M., John M., Dave L. and Dave C.

Now that I have gotten that out of the way, lets begin with the festivities. I am making available
to the Daily Events Book readers the Supergroups In Concert which was recorded live in 1979 from Memphis Tennessee. I am also including the audio lifted from the Cars DVD from the Muzikladen also in 1979. The files have been compressed into .rar format and when extracted become Mp3's. You will need WINRAR to extract the Mp3's. Here is a page that will guide you step by step through the process of extraction.

Also keep in mind these are HUGE files even compressed. The Supergroups tops out at 100 Meg and Musikladen out at 80 Megs. So I suggest you have broadband or dsl to download these shows.

Step By Step WINRAR extraction

The Cars Live Musikladen 1979

Password when prompted : Musikladen

Songs Include:
Good Times Roll- Bye Bye Love - Nightspots - I'm In Touch With Your World - My Best Friend's Girl- Candy-O - You're All I've Got Tonight -Take What You Want -Since I Held You-Don't Cha Stop - Just What I Needed

The Cars Supergroups in Concert

Password when prompted : live

This also has two short interviews with Ric on it.

Songs include:
Got a Lot on My Head - Good Times Roll - Let's Go - Night Spots - Since I Held You Double Life - Moving in Stereo - Candy-O - Don't Cha Stop - Bye Bye Love - All Mixed Up - Take What You Want - You're All I Got Tonight - Just What I Needed - Dangerous Type

Ric's Astrological Charts

You know it's a slow news week for The Daily Events Book Blog when we dig up a a site that actually has Ric Ocasek's astrological charts. I personally don't believe in this mumbo jumbo but if you read Ric's chart some of the stuff is on target.

Check It Out .

Ric's Chart

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Ric Worked with Niki Aukema

Is Niki Aukema the hottest New York City club diva that Ric has chosen to work with ? The answer is a definitive no since Niki has been dead almost 14 years. But I have recently discovered that Aukema, a folkie turned Rocker had both Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr ( listed as Ben Orzechowski) contribute to her 1973 R&B-oriented album “Nothing Free.” Aukema was major player in the Boston scene at the time and played the same venues that Ric and Benjamin played even before The Cars. As far as her album goes, which was released by Paramount , Ric ironically does vocal work while Benjamin adds only his bass playing. Chronologically, Aukema’s LP follows Ocasek’s and Orr’s Milkwood album “How’s The Weather” which was released in 1972. The Niki Aukema release would be the second time that Ric and Ben’s names would appear on a major label.

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The Niki Aukema Story
AMG Credit Listing For Aukema's "Nothing Free"

Ric's "Everybody" On Click Soundtrack

When the credits roll on Adam Sandlers Latest DVD release Click , you will hear a newly released Ocasek track entitled "Everybody". Upon the films completion three Ocasek penned songs made their way onto the film. The movie begins with Magic and as the film progresses we hear the somewhat obscure "Feeling's Gotta Stay" off Ric's Quick Change World Album. It is no secret that Sandler is a big fan of Ocasek and the Cars. Most of his movies include Cars or Ocasek tracks. Judging by the guitar solo this song had been recorded during the Nexterday era.

I have made it possible for you to download the "Everybody" Mp3

Ric Ocasek - Everybody

Ric In Musician Magazine 1983

Should this article be refiled in Noisician Magazine ? This is one of the more fact finding interviews you are going to read about Ric and his music and his philosophy. This is not the standard interview. It's a long read but for diehard Ric Ocasek fans is there any such thing ?

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Ric Ocasek
By David Fricke

Ric Ocasek swings back and forth to some imaginary rhythm in his swivel chair in the control room of Syncro Sound Studios in Boston, his gangly giraffe legs drawn up jackknife-style under his pointed chin. In black-and-white op-art threads with his thick black hair drawn back like a plumed helmet from his long oval face, he sits at the 24-track mixing desk with its knobs, lights and jumping needles like some praying beatnik mantis at the helm of an intergalactic space ship. On the other side of the studio window, vocalist Alan Vega is preparing his band for take-off.

The song is called "Video Babe," a pumping rockabilly drone that marries the primal minimalism of Vega's work in the electronic duo Suicide with rip snorting Sun Sessions twang. While his backing trio- all heavy hitters on guitar, bass and drums-hammer down the beat, Vega whispers, coos, screams and grunts about the "video babe" and the "neutron raiders, uh-huh!" like Iggy Presley. Back at the desk, Ocasek almost imperceptibly tweaks the echo and delay on Vega's voice and the drums, already mapping Out a potential mix while the band records a few takes live.

But Vega is not happy and the oppressive heat inside the studio (the building's ventilation is on the fritz) is not helping. Buzzing around the control room like a bee on speed, Vega listens to the takes of "Video Babe" and complains that the beat is just not right, that it is not what he calls "in that p/ace." Ocasek thinks the takes are good, almost there. To ease the tension, he gives the band an encouraging word and then turns to Vega with a sly grin.

"Don't worry, Alan. If it gets too good-he gestures at his engineer and tape operator- "we'll screw it up.

But there will be none of that tonight. Not only will Ocasek cut four songs with Vega and his band before calling it quits at 5:00 am., but he will also spring on Vega seven new instrumental tracks he recorded himself the night before with a Korg synth and a live drummer-real rock n' roll Suicide stuff-to which he wants Vega to add lyrics and vocals. Alan Vega came to Boston to cut a four-track EP Ocasek will send him home a couple of days later with an album.

Ric Ocasek gets a lot of work done-writing and recording with flash popsters the Cars, producing the likes of Vega and Romeo Void and cutting his own solo LP Beatitude-because he does not spend a lot of time worrying about what critics say about him. He is not offended by complaints that the Cars are a soulless hit machine whose tenuous connections with the new wave are an embarrassment to the real thing; that his songs and sound draw on a dwindling supply of Roxy Music and Velvet Underground cliches set off by top-forty sparkle; that his outside~ production projects are his penance for raking in millions with the Cars He simply doesn't understand them.

It's like the Cars are supposed to be my AM personality and the other stuff is my underground personality,' he smiles between drags on a cigarette in the basement lounge of Syncro, the Cars jointly owned studio/clubhouse. But it's basically the same. The Cars material is just approached in maybe more of a pop fashion Yet the Cars are a thinking band. They all dig Alan Vega."

Ocasek concedes that fans who love sleek Cars singles like 'My Best Friend's Girl," "Shake It Up" and even Panorama's "Touch And Go" with its booby-trap 5/4-4/4 rhythm may not fall head over heels for recent Ocasek productions by Boston art-punks the Dark or Washington, D.C. Rasta hard-core thrash band the Bad Brains. "But that just goes to show you how we use those influences. I'm inspired by those alternatives."

In fact, he encourages them. A kind of pop philanthropist, he usually brings maverick talents like the Bad Brains, pop tart Bebe Buell, Boston band New Models and Romeo Void (whose Ocasek-produced "Never Say Never" was one of '82's great dance-club spins) into Syncro Sound at drastically reduced rates, often absorbing all the costs until the band or artist places the record with a label who will foot the bill. In the case of the Bad Brains, Ocasek even assumed the group's hotel and food expenses while they were in Boston cutting their record. At the same time, he has turned down major label offers to produce A Flock of Seagulls and German punk diva Nina Hagen.

"I feel kind of a responsibility to these other groups," he insists. "Like, Jesus, this person or group is too good to be ignored. And it's also the excitement of not having to just listen to a record after it's been done, but actually being there to watch it done.

"I pretty much pick these groups when they're pretty unique within themselves already," he adds when pressed on his production technique. "I don't like to have to enforce anything extra on them. What I often do is just sort of guide them, to make sure that the sounds are interesting and different."

A good example of his discreet influence is the second Suicide album, simply entitled Alan Vega-Martin Rev-Suicide and issued by Ze/Antilles in 1980. Previously, keyboard player Rev had been egging on Vega's vocal hysteria with nothing more than a battered Univox organ ("with maybe three or tour different sounds," according to Ocasek) and a rusty rhythm machine that sounded like it was running on squirrel-power Ocasek modestly accepts only part of the credit for Suicide II's rich keyboard orchestration and weird cathedral synth grandeur, saying it was originally Rev's idea to add a Prophet and some Moog bass lines to the basic Suicide pulse. But in fact it was Ocasek who filtered out all of Rev's possible counter-lines and counter-rhythms, brightening and enriching Suicide's stark minimalism without compromising their awesome aggression.

"Well, he would run through a gamut of sounds and then I would stop him and say, 'Wait a minute. don't lose that one.' Or maybe, 'Let's use that sound for this part.' He would be trying all these different lines and I would just be the other ear, to say, think that one fits instead of all those others.'"

More recently, he offered his services to the Bad Brains after being transfixed by the raw spirituality of their Reach Out International cassette release Bad Brains. (The band, acknowledged leaders of America's outlaw punk community. were naturally suspicious. Singer H.R. gave Ocasek a three-hour lecture out in the middle of Boston Common on his Rasta philosophy before he would do his vocals.) "It was almost a mono mix." Ocasek recalls, although he recorded the band on 24-track. 'We worked on sounds for a couple of hours and when it felt like the power was there, I just said, 'Go!' They all stood in a circle, looked at each other, and then bang-bang-hang, that was it."

The Bad Brains cut sixteen basic tracks. "all the fast hardcore stuff." in one day with a little extra time allotted for the reggae dub numbers. (Four of those songs are now out on a twelve-inch EP I And I Survive/Destroy Babylon through Important Records in New York.) The only reason the vocals took longer was that when H.R. came in to sing the next day, no one noticed the van-speed switch on the tape machine was slipped on. The backing tracks ran half a key higher and H.R., Ocasek moans, 'left his voice all over the walls." He recut H.R.'s vocals a few days later-only one take per song-at a studio in Washington, D.C.

"In recording, you can spend a lot of time to make sure every sound is the way it's supposed to be," Ocasek shrugs, acknowledging the speed and surprising ease with which he makes records, the Cars included. Both 1978's The Cars and the follow up Candy-O were finished inside two weeks, from setup to final mix. "I think it's a matter of focusing energy quickly. I just put the energy in the right place to get out of it what I want."

During a brief discussion of his favorite producers, Ocasek mentions Germany's Conny Plank and his work with electropop pioneers Kraftwerk, more recent synth experimentalists Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft and primal British post-punk dance band Killing Joke. "All those one-line keyboard touches in the Killing Joke records are Conny Plank's ideas. They're so minimal and yet they're so right. I like the rawness of those records, yet it still sounds so real."

In a sense. Beatitude-Ric Ocasek's debut solo album and now out on Geffen Records-is quite raw. The ten songs were all conceived and, for the most part, recorded solo in Ocasek's 8-track home studio. with extra parts and mixing done on the 24-track at Syncro There are actually a couple of rather entertaining mistakes left intact. You may catch Ocasek singing the word "flucked," for example, amid the mantric synthesizers and electronic eggbeater percussion of "Out Of Control." He explains that before recording that vocal at home, he toyed with the idea of changing the line "you fucked around and waited" to "you fooled around..." to spare Geffen airplay headaches. He still hadn't made up his mind when he laid down the vocal and in his indecision came up with "flucked."

"I lust left it like that because that vocal had the feeling, you know?" he says without apology. "I didn't even try to sing it over. I could have done it right, but I could not have done it better."

Raw, blemished in spots, Beatitude sounds all the more real for it, an inviting, involving record in spite of all the synthesizers and the dark shadows crossing many of the songs. Part of it may be the double teaming of a Linn drum machine with a live drummer, impressive newcomer Stephen George of the Midwest electro-funk band Ministry. Part of it may be Ocasek's use of first-take home-recorded vocals on half the songs.

But there is something about Beatitude quite contrary to the electronic robot sterility critics seem to hear in Ocasek's work with the Cars. With the intonations of nervous paranoia in his almost conversational vocal over the electronic locomotion of "Jimmy Jimmy" and the sultry techno-disco come-on of "Prove" (try playing this side-by-side with Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing"), he is flirting with that point of no return where the synthesized becomes the anesthetized, seeing just how far a little human feeling can go.

"I'm all for the computers and technology in music" he insists. "But the human element, of figuring out what particular line to play, the way to play it, that's something you can't compute. You still need a sense of what really makes a song move. That's the hardest part. Programming the stuff is simple." (Note: all of the synthesizers on Beatitude were manually played with the sole exception of a sequencer, which makes a brief appearance in "Connect Up To Me.")

Ocasek further complicated the man/machine tug of wills and wires by introducing a few extra human elements on the album. In Stephen George he found a drummer who could play "really hard" but with the meticulous syncopation of a drum machine. For the six Beatitude tracks on which he plays (the rest are credited to a "Miss Linn"-geddit?), George usually copied the original drum machine rhythm from Ocasek's demo while adding his own stylish muscle in collaboration with guest bassist Darryl Jenifer of the Bad Brains, who chipped in his own punky soul. On a few tracks, Ocasek mixed the drum overdubs with LinnDrum fills in counterpoint to the already rhythmic clip of his synthesizer lines.

Another neat trick was inviting several outside players to contribute parts to a song and then pick from their various throws of the dice. Ocasek would pass tapes of a basic track on to local Boston guitarists like Fuzzbee Morse from his old band Richard & the Rabbits, Roger Greenawalt of the Dark (whose nifty Ocasek produced Darkworld EP is just out) and New Models' Casey Lindstrom and tell them to write additional parts for the song without allowing them to hear the others' ideas.

"For instance, Roger of the Dark came in with a few guitar parts for 'Prove.' The one I used was a little clicky part (a scratchy guitar figure with a disorienting rhythm of its own). But he also put a chordal thing on it that was so strange I couldn't even use it. The chordal thing changed the key and the notes in the song so when I would sing the chorus, the melody was totally different. That was great, though, because I knew if I wanted something really different, I could get Roger to play it. I knew his parts would be real off. definitely from another place."

From yet another place is the brainbusting guitar break by Fuzzbee Morse during the heavy metallic climax of "Time Bomb." "That," Ocasek recalls, "was a one-take guitar part And he also did the feedback track that goes underneath that part of the song. I said to him, 'I just want total feedback in A, lust let it ring and don't ever let it go down.' So he was out there in front of his Marshall amp doing this feedback stuff and I think he knocked off his headphones. But he didn't want to stop, so he just sat there with the thing feeding back right in his ear. He didn't even know if he was playing to the backing track anymore. The final result, according to Ocasek, "sounds like dogs crying or something."

Only three songs on Beatitude-Time Bomb," the plucky Cars-like "Something To Grab For" and "A Ouick One," which is distinguished by a chunka-chunka guitar rhythm often at the heart of Ocasek's poppier numbers-were wholly recorded at Syncro Sound. "Out Of Control" is a home B-track number recorded with Cars synth specialist Greg Hawkes that didn't make the cut for Shake It Up. "Jimmy Jimmy" is all 8-track except for an additional keyboard played by Stephen Hague of Jules & the Polar Bears and an atmospheric female vocal. Everything else features at least keyboard or vocal parts first laid down at home and transferred to 24-track for overdubs.

"For me, the 8-track stuff is done at the real point of inspiration, things that you can never get again. At the point of inspiration, you make mistakes. But they're not really mistakes sometimes but alternative ideas, things that just pop into your head that are interesting. Something like when I wrote 'Panorama'-you're in that 'Panorama' mood for a day or so, engulfed with it. And so there's a certain feeling in it. To come in and dissect it, relearn the parts and do 'em over could just sterilize it.

"'Jimmy Jimmy' was an 8-track tape I used to listen to while I would ride around in my car. And I liked listening to it in the car I always thought, 'God, I'm just going to keep it just like this. And that was one track done." "Jimmy Jimmy" started life as a bass line played on a Korg and the tick-took of the LinnDrum machine. Ocasek says he tried adding drums to the song later, discovering instead that the monotonous click of the Linn highlighted the sparseness of the arrangement and forced more attention to the lyrics Over the Korg and Linn he next laid his vocal, followed by synth strings swelling up from his Roland Jupiter 8 synthesizer.

"That was basically it, except for a guitar in there that lust plays little notes. The background vocal drone on the Vocorder (an electronic chorus device that sounds like a bunch of hammy R2D2s doing Rudy Vallee impressions) was the main part for me. I had the attack set real slow so that when I was singing the Jimmys, the Vocorder would swell on the off-beat for a counter-rhythm. I would put my hand down on the Vocorder, say the Jimmys, and then the chorus would swell up after it. I like doing little things like that."

Ocasek suspects his Beatitude adventures will strongly influence the outcome of the next Cars album, due to be recorded in the spring. "I'm really excited about us coming back and doing another record. Everybody will be much more expanded because they have had time off to do quite a few alternative projects." Which is to say Greg Hawkes. singer/bassist Ben Orr and guitarist Elliot Easton all have solo albums in the pipeline while drummer David Robinson busies himself producing young Boston talent. When questioned about it, Ocasek admits he fears the Cars' five turbulent years together have led to an inbred programming, a dangerous predictability, in their creative responses to each other. There is a danger that the Cars have simply come to know themselves too well.

"But that's the way it works with a band." he objects. "It always will be that way. That's not to say you can't consistently come up with new things. It just depends on how far out you want to go. It depends on if you're just doing it for the sake of change. I mean anybody can make a real strange record, if you just want to go out on a limb. And it's not to say it would make everyone happy. Except yourself."

The Rio Ocasek story is not exactly one of rags-to-riches. it's more like the Poor Farm-to-his-chauffeur's bedroom The Poor Farm was the honest-to-gawd name of a Boston area studio where in 1971, shortly after moving east from Cleveland. Ocasek first got his hands on quality studio gear, trading sweat and elbow grease while the room was being renovated for free recording time. He made tapes of his pre-Cars band Richard & the Rabbits and started his outside production career cutting demo tracks for local Boston acts. In the bar located lust downstairs from the studio, he and Ben Orr also picked up spare change playing as an acoustic duo.

The chauffeur's bedroom is a tiny studio apartment under the garage of his large, stylishly furnished home (two original Warhol portraits of Ocasek greet you as you enter the foyer) in

the nigh-brow Brookline section of Boston. Since he has no use for a chauffeur (the previous owners apparently did), Ocasek has instead cluttered the room with a surprisingly modest collection-at least given his income-of electronic toys and studio curios with which he has recorded Cars song demos and most of Beatitude. He can't tell you much about his guitars except whether they are Gibsons or Fenders-the former for leads and core rifts, the latter for rhythms. In addition to using a Roland Space Echo, he is fond of the slap back he gets in the adjacent bathroom by filling the bathtub with varying amounts of water. And he absolutely refuses to move from 8-track up to 16.

"I like all the new stuff that's out," he explains, "but there's really only a few things I need. Like, eighty percent of all effects work on some sort of delay system, whether it's flanged or phased or whatever. Even harmonizers work on delay principles. Then there's your synthesized keyboards. The most refined seem to be the Prophet and the Jupiter 8. I'm not into the Fairlight or the Synclavier, which are basically 16-track tape recorders and that's eight more than I need.

"I could get bogged down with all those sounds and all the keyboard variations. I'm not really a keyboard player anyway-I only play with my right hand so I can move the controls with the other. And when it comes to writing songs, I'm basically a purist. I just usually write it on a guitar, bare, on a cassette or sometimes on my 8-track machine with a couple of instruments."

That seems strange anti-tech talk from someone who spent his teenage years in the family basement building 2000-watt ham radio transmitters and by age sixteen had passed the grueling FCC examination for a First Class Engineer's license. But Ocasek says he did not get his first cassette machine until he was in college, and although he and Ben Orr noodled around in a couple of Cleveland recording studios in their early days. he claims the Poor Farm experience was his first real interface with multitrack recording. And even then he didn't go equipment-crazy. Ocasek confesses that the 1977 Cars demos (including a prototype "Just What I Needed"), which received saturation airplay on Boston's WBCN and later led to their Elektra contract, were unmixed live 2-track tapes cut at the Poor Farm

"Back then, it was all totally off the cuff. I considered everything a demo. It was just to hear what we were doing. But there was quite a bit of tooling around with the songs, to try to get some Kind of a sound. I remember trying to get as much ambience in a room as I could on drums, just putting mikes way far away and putting a lot of compression on the ambient mikes. There were different echo effects to elongate the sound on the snare drums.

At that point, it was more messing around than even caring about the songs. Then it sort of reversed itself, where I got more into the songs and that recording experience just fell into place."

These days Ocasek busies himself while at home with a TEAC 88 8-track tape machine connected to a Sound Workshop 1280 B board in turn hooked up with two Orban 622B equalizers (the board is also equipped with its own parametric equalizers. For keyboards he swears by his Prophets and Roland Jupiter 8. using a Korg Lambda for orchestral coloring and often calling in an assortment of little Casiotones for reinforcement. He probably has more drum machines than anything else-both the old Linn LM-1 Drum Computer and the new LinnDrum. a Korg KR 55, five Roland units (including a TR808. CR8000 and a Dr. Rhythm), some old Univox rhythm gizmos and a drum machine yanked out of a Hammond organ "that has the Liverpool beat." the kind of insect clicking you hear in organ shops in suburban shopping malls.

"Guitars? My favorite ones are always Gibsons. Fenders like the Jaguar I'll use on stuff like 'My Best Friend's Girl.' clicky stuff where I'm lust playing eighth notes. The Gibsons I like for more distorted, bigger, raw kinds of sounds." One of them is a '54 Fretless Wonder; the others arc mostly late 50s and early 60s Les Paul' TV models he picked up on various Cars tours. Curiously, Ocasek's guitars all come in red, white or black finishes except for a lone acoustic Martin. "I can't use a guitar with a natural finish. I don't like the look of wood guitars." Whatever their color, they all go through a 50-watt Marshall amp. Everything else is plugged straight into the board.

(More guitar gab: he doesn't usually play it, but Ocasek is really in love with a bizarre orange Gretsch model outfitted with leather binding and little bows and arrows and guns inlaid in the wood in a rockabilly cowboy motif. For a time he' played a Dean Elite onstage and Elliot Easton also designed a black-and-white Dean for him that came with tiny light-emitting diodes in the fretboard so that on a pitch-black stage "you can tell exactly where your hands should go for the next chord.")

Outboard gear consists of the Roland Space Echo, the Eventide 949 harmonizer, a Lexicon Prime Time, a digital reverb by Ursa Major called the Space Station and an MXR digital delay, "which is great for putting drum machines through, turning it out of phase so it makes swishy sounds in the background." Speakers are a mixed bag of Ureis, JBLs and Auratones while Ocasek can't even remember what microphones he's got. "I generally just end up using the same mike for everything. And," he laughs, "a compressor over easy. There's a couple of noise gates, an Otari half-track, and"-he pauses thoughtfully-a mood. And away I go."

Beatitude aside, Ocasek should share his 8-track tapes with the public more often. I remember being particularly transported by the original demo of "Panorama," an even darker, more intimate version with a black velvet wraparound synth and stuttering guitar that Ocasek popped into a tape player during a 1980 interview. He admits he occasionally prefers his own home versions of Cars songs, citing "This Could Be Love" from Shake It Up as one example.

But there is something in Ocasek's soft whispery speech and quiet church-mouse demeanor, in the anonymous way he goes about his Cars and production business, that suggests what goes on in that chauffeur's apartment is very intense, deeply private business. For someone who is likely to record a complete 8-track demo in one night or lay down six or seven new Cars songs at a time on cassette, whipping off a couple of Bad Brains and Alan Vega records must seem like a regular vacation.

"Actually. I use those outside things as a way of escape from working at home, from writing. It's good for me to get away like that and get totally involved in some other project. And then when I come back, I feel full of ideas. Some may be inspired by groups that I work with, some lust inspired by not doing any work."

He smiles brightly, as if another good song idea has just gone off in his head. "I'm always anxious to do something constructive.

Here's the Link For you Archivists: Ric Musician Magazine 1983

Ric Helps Rock For Tots

Ric Ocasek took the time out to ink his signature on a guitar for "Rock For Tots", Upstate New York's Largest Christmas Toy Drive . Ric's signature appears with several others, mostly country artists. The guitar will be raffled off this Saturday November 18th if you're in the area. Even if your not and feel like helping out this worthy cause I have provided a link where you can reach the head of the 'Rock For Tots " program.

Rock For Tots My Space

Rock For Tots. com