Recording of Damage Done...does it fit the timeline?

[AriesPTW]

Hello folks. I've noticed a curious discrepancy in the early history of the Sisters. The story on the official site (and the Some Girls notes) gives the impression that Andrew switched to vocals and Dr. Avalanche was introduced after the first single had been recorded and released.

However it's clearly Andrew on vox on "Damage Done," and the rhythm sounds an awful lot like a drum machine. Could it be that Andrew's memory is a bit hazy and the change actually happened during the recording rather than after? Can we further assume that "Watch" and "Home of the Hitmen" were recorded before "Damage Done?"

[Nikolas Vitus Lagartija]

Hello folks. I've noticed a curious discrepancy in the early history of the Sisters. The story on the official site (and the Some Girls notes) gives the impression that Andrew switched to vocals and Dr. Avalanche was introduced after the first single had been recorded and released.

However it's clearly Andrew on vox on "Damage Done," and the rhythm sounds an awful lot like a drum machine. Could it be that Andrew's memory is a bit hazy and the change actually happened during the recording rather than after? Can we further assume that "Watch" and "Home of the Hitmen" were recorded before "Damage Done?"

The version on the official site seems to be very clear and detailed about the order of events, and the "one side each" vocals are well known. I have always assumed that the sound of the borrowed drums on DD were not produced by the drum machine as we would understand it in 1981 onwards Sisters (the live bootleg of the Stafford Futurama version of DD being an early example) but more like the mixture of traditional drum kit and electronic Linn drum as preferred by JD (witness Stephen Morris on this from the same era http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVc29bYIvCM - but I could be (and probably am) wrong. Oh, and welcome !

[stufarq]

Sounds like real drums to me. Played and produced every bit as badly as the story tells. They both did vocals on different songs, as Nikolas says, and Von played drums too. After that, Von stopped playing drums and became full time vocalist while Gary concentrated on guitars.

Von doesn't claim to have switched to vocals. On the website he says he concentrated on them; and in the sleeve notes he says that, with the addition of a bass player and a drum machine, he "became the singer, almost by default." The website elaborates that, because Von couldn't play guitar standing up, Gary was the more natural on-stage guitarist, meaning that vocals was all that was left for Von.

[bismarck]

This quote has some small information:

Andrew has repeatedly tried to distance himself from this early single, and in some ways it is easy to see why. The record, according to him, “didn’t sound like anybody else, but it didn’t sound like The Sisters either.� He called it “awful all around.� It is difficult to argue with this assessment of the songs. The pair of musicians had yet to adopt the drum machine and ferocious bass-lines that were to define The Sisters’ sound in coming months and years. Andrew even claims that, at one point on the record (he doesn’t say on which song), the sound of him dropping his drum sticks is audible. Whether this is true or not, the salient point remains that the musicianship on the record is amateurish. A small electronic metronome with rudimentary drum sounds, property of RicRac Studios, kept Andrew’s beat generally consistent, but not much more can be said in defense of his drumming.