Gary Pig Gold takes you
DOWN LANE'S MEMORY
from the liner notes to Lane Steinberg
Collection 1984-2000
It was in the extremely early Nineties, at the original Dubway Recording Studios in Manhattan's (in)famous Music Building, that I first met the self-styled recording artisan even then known, and quite widely regarded, as Lane Steinberg. I needed a simple guitar-and-vocal master already produced up at Daniel Lanois' studio in Canada embellished instrumentally, you see, and Shane Faubert from The Cheepskates had most highly recommended Lane as the man for the job.
I can still so vividly recall playing said track once, and once only, for Lane, then watching him nod intently as he sat himself behind Dubway's delightfully dumpy drum kit and calling out for Take One.
"But before you start," I interjected, "do me one favor and stay away from your snare."
Well! Any lesser man would have rightfully balked then and there at such an off-the-beating-path command, drumming sans snare being comparable to, say, driving with eyes closed down an unmarked path. But not Lane. He bravely stuck to his stool and, using tom-toms and cymbals only, cut a most highly percussive track in no more time than it took to play my recording once back through his headphones. Then he went on to add a veritable whirlwind of guitars, keyboards, vocals and, dare I say it, we were all satisfied and safely back home, track completed, before Letterman ever even began that night's monologue.
And that's only as long as it also took for me to realize this Lane Steinberg was someone who I really needed to know more about and to hear more from.