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 You see him riding down the street on his big Harley hog, sitting swagger style with his black small billed helmet pulled low down on his forehead just above his black shades; blue jeans, holes in the knees, ass kicking, steel toed, Neo-Commando boots, a Marlon Brando type black leather jacket hanging open over a red and white T shirt that says, "Glock’s Rule," and you’d think he was some bone head biker from Tujunga headed to a hard head rally.
Hardly.
Get him down off that bike and you find yourself facing a man who can play so much guitar, so effortlessly, birds hang out in the trees around his house hoping to learn a couple new riffs. And sing? Big, fat, grooving, high energy, tear your head off blues one minute and the next, soft and gentle as a child’s first word. He can write a song in the time it takes to say thank you. And that ain’t the half of it. He’s a genius level engineer and a highly inventive producer. And the fact of the matter is the records I been producing are really produced by me and him.
I walked into the semi lit studio. Al hunched over the small Pro Tools control console had a track up we’d just cut of a tune called, "A Dog Like You." It was just the right amount of notes in all the right places and made me think of some black back alleys I’ve seen in New York that I’d never wander into.
"Great track," I said and jumped right into it. "You write half of all the songs." I stuck up my little finger. "You engineer." Two fingers. "You basically, mostly, produce all the vocals." Three. You play all the guitar. Do all the demos. We mix it together. Make all the decisions together so like who am I fooling? Huh? From now all we’ll be co-producers."
Al sat sorta smiling for a moment. His reading glasses were down on his nose and he turned and looked over the tops of them.
"Oh I get it. Now the next thing you’re gonna tell me is there’s really no reason for you to come down here anymore."
"Exactly."
I was the best man at Al’s last wedding. We’ve worked so much together in the studio over the years we mostly communicate now by osmosis and the occasional grunt.
And mostly because Al is so versatileÐone time he even fixed a Richard Cousins bass lineÑand so experienced what used to take us the better part of a month to do working twelve hour days we can do now working from ten am til two in the afternoon.
I don’t know what Al’s I.Q. is, but I’d guess about 190. Exaggeration...not a bit. Genius...absolutely...at least in regards to anything musical. I sat one time when he got his first McIntosh board, smoking a stogie, and watching him solder the whole kit and kaboddle together.
I said, "Son, why don’t you let me hire a couple flunkies from "Soldering Is Us," to do that so we can write some songs. He was laying there on his back, soldering iron poised for yet one blast and said, "Sometimes you learn something from being a flunky." Hmmm...Ok.
Another time we were working on some sort of record...most of them are a blur to me now..and I told him these words, "Son this has to be the loudest most audacious album we’ve ever made. Big. HUGE. When folks buy this album I’m hoping about half of them blow out their speakers when they put it on. Boom. Like that."
He thought about for a minute. Excused him self and went to the phone and ordered up Dilopter 1690 or some shit and came back and said, "Pops. It’s only $1200 and will make all the difference in the world." Cool. But that ain’t the story.
See I was sitting there a couple weeks later working on the mixes and being very amused. Sounding good to my ear hole. Big time good.
Then this guy from like somewhere east of South Houston comes up and delivers that gadget Al ordered. Cool, I’m thinking. But check this out.
Al gets it out. It’s about the size of a stack of Denny’s waffles except it’s bright orange, the casing, and the front is solid black. It had three knobs. Al plugs it in and sits down to read the manual.
Now me. I approach a manual with the same trepidation I would a live rattler. Consequently I pick up neither.
Einstein couldn’t make heads or tails outta that stuff.
Ok. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there ain’t one manual in regards to...Well...anything...that your normal person can understand...Am I right? You know I am.
But not Al.
He peruses the pages, plugs in this here and that there and lights begin to light and he refers to the manual and pokes this dial and turns that dial then turns and taps the play button. All at once what was once a cry in the forest now sounds like King Kong rampaging down the side of a mountain pounding his kettle drum sounding chest and knocking down forty foot tall sugar pines. Loud.
"Wow. How’s it work? What’s it do?" I knew I shouldn’t ask.
"Well there’s a low frequency thermanoid attached to a voltage enhancing synopter that turns the desteloid energy into comtalliman which is ten times more..."
"Ok. Ok."
Alan Mirikitani. If you haven’t heard him play or sing, or if you haven’t really listened close to his songs, you might want to take the time to do that. Heaven knows you don’t want to get up there and face St. Peter at the gate and have him say..."Well...what’s your opinion of Mr. Mirikitani?"...and you have to say, "I didn’t take the time to listen." Believe me Peter is gonna tell you, "Sorry. That’s a sin that can’t be rectified now. Enjoy the heat."
Alan Mirikitani.
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Alan Mirikitani Discography
Betty Lavette
A Woman Like Me (2003)
Frankie Lee
Standing At The Crossroads (2006)
Grady Champion
2 Days Short Of A Week (2001)
Scott Ellison
Bad Case Of The Blues (2003)
Scott Ellison
Cold Hard Cash (2001)
Craig Taubman
Friday Night Live (2007)
Philipp Fankhauser
Talk To Me (2004)
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