Tom's recalls visions

I haven’t made records in a long time. During the past twenty years, I've worked in film, TV, animation, games,
mobile content, and so on. But you know, I really miss recording and producing music, and hanging out with musicians.

For 25 years I made records. In the summer of '67 I produced and engineered Prufrock at Two:Dot studios, Ojai, Calif.
I had made an album at Two:Dot on a four track earlier that year. When the owner upgraded to an 8-track, he asked
me to make a recording that could show the studio’s new capability. By October, Prufrock had made what we
thought was a pretty good album called Visions. There was one major problem, the band wasn’t a band. We loved to
record, but two of us didn’t want to perform.
In late '67, I was hired as an Assistant Engineer at Gold Star Studios. At the time and for many years it was the "hottest"
independant studio in Hollywood. It was the home of the Wall of Sound. So that we all had something to remember,
when no one was around, I made 6 acetates of Visions. [Acetates are records that are cut one at a time, and are very
soft, tending to deteriorate very quickly when played more then a few times, and decompose over time]

Each of us, the guitar player, and Two:Dot got one. I also made a few for a couple of publishers who liked the songs.

Prufrock ‘s Visions was never released. That was the end of it, or so I thought until a few months ago.

It seemed one of the publisher demos had found its way to Europe, and a few years ago one song, “Too Young” was
released in Austria on a sampler of rare recordings of the '60s'. A couple of years later, the acetate was pictured in a
record collector’s book. The Gold Star label had the titles and my name as producer. So, from an acetate label seen in
a book, to a Google Search, I was found and contacted by e-mail.

“Dear Sir
Are you the Tom Lubin who produced and engineered the band Prufrock in 1967 that resulted in an acetate from
the Goldstar Studios? I know of four songs. As far as I know this project never came out officially. What’s the story
of the band Prufrock? Who were the members? Do you still have a copy? Or more songs than on this acetate?

Many thanks for your help
With kind regards,
Raymond from Switzerland
RD Records”

I have two spam filters and a firewall and I still get 300 e-mails a day. Only on a slow day will I open something
unknown. If the first sentence doesn’t get me, it’s deleted.

The first sentence of this e-mail got my attention. I was floored. It seems Raymond was an avid fan of 60s music, and
had a label that re-released recordings of that era. In fact, Raymond from Switzerland had heard only one song of
Visions.

Over the years I had kept copies of work I’d done. But time and situations make things disappear. Old tapes
decompose, acetates and records warp and bend. But a few years ago I went into a studio and transferred all the
tapes I had in a box to digital, and Prufrock’s Visions was one of them. So, my answer to Raymond must have been as
surprising to him, as his question had been to me.

I sent him a CD. Once he heard it, he wanted to give it its first release. And to be completely authentic, on vinyl.

I hope Prufrock’s Visions will stand on its own, not as just an interesting artefact.

But have a thought that the studio had no digital effects, the sound mixer had no equalisation, and everyone played
for free.

We made a recording in the middle of nowhere while inside our heads was raging the times in which we lived. The
Vietnam War, the Draft, Civil Rights, assassinations, social unrest, the Cold War, the bomb, political protest, free
love, the pill, getting stoned, the British Invasion, Timothy Leary, Haight-Ashbury, LSD. Every camper van over five
years old had a peace symbol painted on it. The Baby Boomers were coming of age and when we were in charge, we
would change things. Such passion. One wonders what has changed when today’s leaders from our generation still
pursue winning with armies.

Postscript- With the interst in the vinyl release of Visions in 2007, both it and the 1982 Revisions albums have now
been released on CD. [Tom's story of Revisions]