Q:
Do you guys happen to remember what the keyboard-ish instrument featured in I’ll Sink Manhattan is? I can’t tell if it’s an accordion or not, and I’m intrigued.
JF: Okay-I listened to this recording. There is:
the sound of a phone ringing
a sample of a string section
a backwards recording of a message left by a NYC policeman left on Dial-A-Song
A backwards cymbal
A vocal
A sample of my voice sining “hey” then played on a sampler as chords
A sample of a typewriter playing what might more typically be on a hi-hat or ride cymbal
A vocal sample of me signing “ohhh” played as chords
A drum machine kick and snare
This song was created in a tiny room-like a walk-in closet, in the apartment directly across the street from the Hello Studio project space where I lived and John L. and I rehearsed from the mid-80s thru the 90s (and where Dial-A-Song was housed). The man who facilitated the sample-making and recording was named John Eric Greenberg, a jazz musician and a dear fellow who had a small studio set up with a sampler right as sampling was starting up. Although the song credit says it was made at Hello Studio, I think it was fully tracked at his spot and then just mixed at my spot. Evidently Eric died in 2011 in Brazil, which came as a total surprise as I believed he was a fair bit younger than me.
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