Murray, Mark 2009-09-18
Growing up in Lubbock, Texas and recording
General Interview Information
Interviewee Name: Mark Murray
Additional Parties Recorded:
Date: September 18, 2009
Location: Carrolton, Texas
Interviewer: Curtis Peoples
Length: 02:20:33
Abstract
Background, Born in Lubbock in 1961, Father was a building contractor, Mother was a house wife, Father: Virgil Murray from Spur, Mother: Janice Murray from Gerard, Grew up middle class on the west side of town, Brother and Sister, Sister married when she was 18 years old, Sister was a really great singer, Brother joined the marines at 17 and went to Vietnam, A lot of kids in the neighborhood, Great childhood, Had a lot of friends, Safe, Wire haired doxen, Was around music from his father’s side of the family, Family of 12 kids, Spur, Texas, Grandfather was a rancher (maternal), Grandfather was a blacksmith (paternal), Father was a WWII vet, Met his mother during the war and were married after, Moved to Brownfield then Lubbock, Father’s family was very musical, Back porch music, Uncle Cleo used to pay him a quarter to sing, Cousin Marshall became a singer, Beginning of musical interest, Started with his brother, He went to Vietnam, Columbia House Club member, Used to send records, Late 60s and early 70s, Used to go into his brothers record collection, Liked the psychedelic music, Jimmy Hendrix was a huge influence, Iron Butterfly, Frank Zappas Freak Out, Ana Davita, Rolling Stones: Satanic Majesties Request, Huge Jimmy Hendrix freak, Wanted to learn to play guitar, Begged his parents for lessons, Yamaha classic guitar, He got lessons, The first song he learned to play was sugar sugar by The Archies, He got discouraged, Friend’s older brother turned him on to Switched on Bach, Electronic realization of Bach’s music, Huge turning point for Murray, Had a wealthy friend, Got hooked on Hi-Fi, Four speakers, 8 track tape machine, Played quad, Aseo Tomida, Japanese artist, Classical pieces, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Where you could find synthesizers that rocked, Electronic, Loved to tinker with electronics and music, Really becoming a Hi-Fi addict at this point, Was saving nickels and dimes to buy new components for his system, New hobby, Really wanted a synthesizer, They were really expensive, Parents told him that if he played the piano for a year and got really good at it that they would buy him a synthesizer, Phillip Higginbotham, Concert pianist, Played in the U.S and Europe, Was Murray’s teacher, Eccentric, Scared off a lot of students, Very inspirational, Taught him how to play Bach, Became really interested in Organ, Yamaha console organ, Parents found a good deal, First electric instrument, Big and clunky, Started looking for a band, Chris Carson, 1st band, Met him his last year of middle school, Merlin Angle: Drummer, Darren Welch, Tried out different guitar players, Parents finally bought him a synthesizer when they saw he was serious, Roland SH3A synthesizer, Bottom of the line, $600-$700 dollars, Bands, Darren Welch had a band, Live Wire, Ken Collier, Richard Rico, A singer Brett Haney, Monterrey High School Rock and Roll Band, Went to play at Coronado, They were really good, Heard about the singer getting kicked out, Talked to Richard to see if they were interested in a key board player, Murray wanted to try out with the band, Donny Alson tried out for the band as a singer, Made it into the band, They had a gig set up a week after they had joined, Murray didn’t really know a lot of the songs so he fumbled around on stage, Didn’t really like playing with that band after awhile because it wasn’t the type of music that he liked, New Band, He left the band and got back together with Chris Carlson, Donny played with the band for another year, Tom Blackburn, Guitarist, Chris thought he was really weird, Didn’t really connect, Greg Drysdale, Played with him in bands throughout high school, Went to school at Coronado, Still was interested in electronics, Started building synthesizers, Company in Oklahoma called Paella, Had a whole series of modular synthesizer kits that you could buy, Got rid of the Yamaha organ and got a Farfeeza which was more portable and cool, Bought a Roland electric piano, Senior Year, Lubbock tried to encourage attendance into their minority schools, High Schools were Estacada and Dunbar, Eastside schools, Primarily black and Hispanic, They did not want to bus in Lubbock, Dunbar was a dying high school, Set up a magnet program there, Put all of the technical and vocational programs into Dunbar, Senior year Murray transferred to Dunbar so that he could take electronics, Program was really cool, The state had pumped a lot of money into the program, Built a radio station, Could broadcast all over Lubbock, Met Mark Mantos, Bass player, Followed the electronics program to Dunbar, Tom Blackburn, Tom and Mark had been playing together, They all started playing together, Mark was the director at the radio station, Had a great time, They were learning how to play together, Band called Dude, Johnny Ray, Tom Blackburn, Mark Murray, Mark Mantos, Played all the way through the last part of High School and into college, Went to Texas Tech, Music composition major, Studied music, Played in his rock band, Band members were getting fed up with Johnny Ray, Gave Ray the “boot”, Added a new percussionist that Murray had met at Tech by the name of Allen Lawrence, Got more serious about playing, Ron Pellegrino, Studied composition with him, Electronic music lab, Top of the line synthesizers, Recorded the band in the lab, Music composition class taught by Mr. Cutter who was notoriously known as the slicer, Was failing his music theory class because he didn’t pay attention, He excelled in the music composition class, Made an A in “Slicer’s” class when most were lucky to make a C, It was a chore to sit down and notate things, Sophomore year it was pretty apparent that he didn’t have a future at Texas Tech, Heard about a program out at South Plains College, South Plains College, Went to go check the program out, Big multi track machine, Wayland Jennings Studio, MCI console, Went to South Plains, Program was really skinny in 1981, Had barely gotten off the ground, Teacher was Randy Ellis, Taught all the recording engineering classes, Ed Marsh, Taught the electronic music class, Told Murray to walk up to the synthesizer and see if he could use it, He pretty much taught everyone how to use it, Jim Rawlings, Big Hi-Fi guy, Alls Audio, Big Hi-Fi repair, Would get components for you, Murray did the full program, Had a light schedule, His band had broken up while he was at Texas Tech, Went back and played with Chris again but never really had anything solid, Internship at South Plains, Required you to work in an audio field, Worked at Cisco sound, Worked there part time until he finished his last year of school, Learned a lot about wiring and building racks, Learned about crossovers and nuts and bolts that he didn’t learn in school, Lloyd Manes, Taught production classes, Harland Cathy, Went to school with Murray, A year older, Worked at Don Caldwell studios as an engineer, Was one of the first guys to graduate from South Plains College and work as an engineer, Lloyd saw potential in Murray, Built a connection with Lloyd, Finished School, Went to work full time for Busie, Did a lot of concert and sound work for him, 5 to 6 months after Murray graduated he got a call from Lloyd and said that they might need an engineer at Caldwell’s, Harland Cathy (the other engineer) was really sick, Had a serious spinal deterioration disease, He couldn’t work anymore, Murray signed up for an interview, Murray really wanted the job, Went in for his interview and the boss was smoking, so he pretended to as well, Called him the next day and gave him the job, Said the only reason he hired Murray was because he smoked, At first he was only something like an errand boy, He watched and learned, First job Murray worked on at Caldwell, Homer, Church of Christ a cappella guy, Homer sang all the parts by himself, That was the first album that Murray got to engineer, Such a great experience, Got paid equivalent to minimum wage, Hooked back up with Mark Matos and Tom Blackburn, Johnny Ray was back on the radar again, Put a band together called the Asparagus Nightmares, Progressive rock and punk spirit, Branched out, Strong band, Never a money making band, Made an impact, Had a lot of exposure, Started working with Don in a recording studio, What made a good album at Caldwell’s, They had just finished the album “Boys are back in town, “Had really good microphones, KM84 Normans, 451 AKG condensers, Good collection of equipment, Lexicon 224, High end digital reverb system, Harmonizer, Acoustic construction, Made the sound different in the studio, This is where Murray started to get attention as a producer, Started having bands that heard Murray’s bands album and wanted him to do the same for their album, Band out of Amarillo, Gemini Intense, Murray learned to hone his ear for tuning purposes, Murray started bringing in his own business, Favorite project, Wasn’t really under any ones command, He got turned loosed to work on this project, Recorded Bucka Allen “Every three minutes”, Theme was child abuse, Recorded and interviewed kids who had been abused, Him and his mom put together statistics, Put together songs, Kenny Manes on bass, Bucka was playing piano and singing, Lloyd on guitar a, Steve on drums, Cream of the crop west Texas musicians, Worked on a bunch of Terry Allen projects, It was a lot of fun, Terry Allen, Bad mouthed Lubbock, Couldn’t wait to get away, When he left Lubbock, all he did was write songs about it, Worked on really cool projects with Terry, Pedal steel, Really cool radio projects, Torso Hell, Was like a scary movie, Turned it into a musical radio show for San Francisco, One scene where Vietnam soldiers with missing limbs coming back to the torso, Directed the soldiers with his mind to terrorize the town, David Siegler was the second engineer, Had a lot of sound work, Sounded like his Honky tonk music, Jessie Taylor, Guitar player, Had a really funky amp, Would bring 1 six pack for the engineers working on his album and about 4 for himself, After he drank his first six pack, his guitar playing started getting better, After the 2nd it was as if he reached his optimal playing level, By the time the last 6 pack was almost gone he began to get really sloppy and then they would just call it a night, Weird Terry Allen moment, Worked on a project called Roll Back, Twyla Tharp dance troop, Built sets, Old drive in movie type, The guys from the Planets, Joe Don, Davis McCarty on drums, A girl singer, Only there for two days, Marathon session, Richard Boutin, Terry ripped part of his finger off in an art class and had it splinted with carrots from Davis’ garden, Doug Smith, First album called Mixed Emotions, Cheesy, Had his first mini sequencer to play with, Had a Mac Plus computer with a program called mitty paint, Paul Bullock was sort of Doug’s manager, Late 80s, Wanted more money for the work he was doing, The first tax year was an eye opener, He didn’t know he had to pay taxes on the money, He owed the IRS a lot of money, Had a mini studio at his house, Had a 4 track, Had a cord drum machine, Had a sequence called passport____ on his commodore computer, People were calling him so he could work on their album, Decided he should go out on his own, Lloyd was his role model, Soon after he married Cindy, they talked and Murray said he wanted to start his own business, Don was really receptive to the idea, Don let Murray have one of the office spaces, Taught at South Plains College, Film score for Terry Allen, Amerasia, A movie a German director had done about a Vietnam vet who wanted to go back and see what happened to his buddies, Panhandle mystery band, Richard, Lloyd, Murray, Murray’s own business, Took out a very sizeable loan, Murray productions, Still has the receipts from gear he bought, Bought a Mac, the very first color computer for 256 k of ram, Upgraded to 1 meg of ram, Paid 7,000 dollars for it, Yamaha drum machine, Made some interesting music partners, Got to meet really great song writers, Kelly Sinclair, Had hung around the studio a lot, Don had done some work with her, Had a lot of talent, Didn’t really have a lot of money, Don sent her to Murray to work with because he didn’t know what to do with her, Wrote unbelievably good songs, they were really deep, Sinclair wanted someone to produce her songs and make them sound good, Hardest job, Friendship school district decided to do little abner for a musical, The music for the play is pretty impossible and difficult to play, Thought about the movie, Thought he could easily recreate the cutesy songs, The choir director for the play bout Murray the score for the musical, Wanted to do 12 different pieces, The Sadie Hawkins day ballet, Complicated dance piece, Most complex tempo change and meter change, Big Broadway musical type, Worked on one piece for 20 hours, Caldwell offered Murray a salary job, Wanted Murray to manage the books, book studio times and book all the musicians, Wanted him to work full time, Murray had to quit teaching full time, Wanted to keep his production job alive, Right after Murray took the job, he found out that his wife Cindy was pregnant, 2 months after Steven was born, the studio started to hurt, Soon after Don had to let him go, Murray was crushed and it was rough with the new baby, Murray still kept his business, Sometimes he would come home and the lights would be off, Never really trusted Don there after, Lost faith in the studio, Lloyd lost faith in the studio as well, Started talking to Jimmy in Jungle Studios, Norbert Neebie, Was the creator of Jungle Studios, Came to Lubbock with a group of German Investors, Bought up tons of supermarkets, Super market moguls, Norbert was their advertiser, Set up an advertising business, Played the drums, Had a band called Radio Zebra, Jay Lennon played keyboards, Tony Adams playing guitar, Well equipped studio, Norbert was independently wealthy, Had a lot of money, Maybe from inheritance, Murray went in to work for Norbert’s studio, Good amicable situation, Fun studio, Worked on cool projects, Murray brought a lot of business, Murray liked making jingles, Sold them to radio stations, Mosquito Bites, Tom Blackburn, Murray, Allen, Kevin Powell, Did an album before Murray left Don’s place, The light, Band from California, Ken Bolagna, Bass player for the band, Was looking for an engineer, Contemporary progressive rock, Jungle was the only studio with 2 2 mix machines that could sync together, 48 track album, Murray’s first huge production project that he got to mix, Block rate of $400 a day, This is where they met Dave, Murray’s band, Going through some changes with Mosquito Bite band, Didn’t like his voice singing on the album, Soon after album release David came up to them and said they needed a singer, David became a part of the band, David and Allen didn’t mix well, Rehearsals were a good time, Allen quit the band, They added Jason Ferguson who was a drummer to the band, Great addition to the band, Young and fired up, Heavy metal, Greatest memories was they synergy and writing music, Norbert shut down the studio with little notice, Made Murray disenchanted with Lubbock, Murray wanted to go back to teaching, Band name was the Pointe, The Lusk brothers, Scott McMullen, Got an offer from a AV company in Dallas, Murray was producing jingles for a company named Access Broadcast, Scott told Murray about an AV company looking for workers, Hired as a project manager, Would go to the construction site and get people to wire these big complicated systems, Media retrieval systems for high schools, System of a lot of VHS tape machines tucked away in a library, Computerized system that’s hooked up to all the teachers’ terminals, Librarian loads movies into decks, Audio router, Was a horrible job, Belly crawled under the school, Pulling wire, Miserable hours, Customers always thought they were in the way, Made the most money, Displaced his family for the job, The Richards Group, Company that did systems for the conference rooms, Wanted to build an in house recording studio, Engineers asked Murray to do a design for the studio, Met with Mike Hadley he helps start up businesses, Hadley looked at Murrays drawings, Company didn’t have an engineer, Talked to Glenn Dady, Director, Finally they asked him in for an interview, Took him into a conference room with all the creative writers coming in one at a time, The creative writers asked him a lot of questions, Did that for 2 hours, A week went by and they asked him for another interview, Did the same process, Then they started bringing in producers, Another week goes by and Murray thought he wouldn’t get it, Glen called him in November and said he could start at the first of the year, Then said that he could start the next week instead, Ordered gear for the room, Soldered and wired and assembled the studio, Did well with the Richard’s company, Lived in Dallas for 12 years, Wants to do this job until he can’t anymore
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