Studios, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll - One Man’s Journey Recording Classic Albums

Phill Brown’s Are We Still Rolling? follows the adventures of a recording engineer and record producer, from his first glimpse of a magical recording studio in the mid-1960s up through a busy career that continues to the present day.

Early on, observing his brother’s sessions with The Yardbirds and Marianne Faithfull, Phill saw an opportunity for a life much more exciting than selling gents’ wear. As the young tape operator on sessions for Dusty Springfield, The Rolling Stones, The Small Faces, Jimi Hendrix, Traffic, Joe Cocker and Steve Miller at the famed Olympic Sound Studios in London, Phill learned the ropes from experienced engineers and producers such as Jimmy Miller, Glyn Johns, Shel Talmy, Keith Grant and Eddie Kramer.

Phill soon worked his way up, and after a stint in Canada found himself back in London and working at Island Record’s Basing Street Studios, engineering sessions for Mott the Hoople, David Bowie, Sly Stone, Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck, Robert Palmer, Bob Marley & The Wailers, Steve Winwood, Harry Nilsson, Stomu Yamashta, Murray Head, John Martyn, Dana Gillespie and even live recordings for Joni Mitchell and Pink Floyd.

Leaving Island in 1976 to become a freelance engineer/producer, Phill began working with artists such as Shakin’ Stevens, Roxy Music, Paul Carrack, Go West, Talk Talk, Throwing Muses, Fusanosuke Kondo, Mark Hollis, Dido, Faithless, Beth Gibbons, David Gilmour and Robert Plant.

This is not a technical manual (although it will certainly function as one) - it's a contemporary thriller. Phill Brown is a sound engineer. It's a mystery, even to people in the music business, as to exactly what a sound engineer does - are they part of the creative process or merely technicians? In the past 30 years, recording studios have moved from the engine room of a submarine to the bridge of a starship - baffling the outsider - although recording music will always be the same un-guessable adventure. That's what Phil Brown has written here - an adventure story.

"Look at the chapter headings. Laid out in the form of a diary, he takes us through the crazy journey that is making music. Not as an academic journal, but as a spiritual experience. With his laconic navigation we’re steered through the centre of the ego hurricanes of creative madness. He is the Jiminy Cricket of recording sessions, and his excellent recollections of the excesses of morons and geniuses involved in creating melodies and rhythms for us to enjoy are sheer entertainment. It's a “how-to” book and a love story! A self-driven need to understand why creative people do what they do, and how to survive it and them"  Robert Palmer, 9 September 1997

Tape Op Books
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www.phillbrown.net/