The Queen Fanthology - Chapter One: Queen

scallyuk wrote: There's ( according to Neil Kernon) some unreleased Mike Stone studio banter that maybe needs a reference here.

Mike was one of the funniest people I have ever met. As Brian said, there were always hilarious comments from him, slated across all the tracks when doing backing tracks.

One I remember was originally right before "Now I'm Here" where Mike said, in his inimitable, very dry voice "Ok chaps, let's have some

*rock and roll* (emphasis mine). It was delivered in absolutely hilarious fashion, and we all cracked up every time it was played.

Sadly, at the end of the day, that got snipped from the mix in mastering.

Oh well..
I also worked on the mixing of Sheer Heart Attack by Queen, and on the song Killer Queen, the phasing on the word "laser" of "dynamite and a laser beam" was done manually by yours truly, using a Countryman phaser that I messed around with as that section played through each time. Also, much to the chagrin of Mike Stone and RTB, I suggested doing a tape phasing edit section for the "wanna try" part towards the end of the song. This wasn't a popular idea at the time as we'd all been working on the song for almost two days straight as it was and everyone was completely exhausted (actually the entire mix session for that album was like that...the days just blurred into each other) and when I suggested it Freddy said "That sounds like a good idea..let's try it". Mike and Roy were looking at me as if I'd suggested trying to break into Fort Knox or something, but once the mix was sorted Mike and I spent a couple of hours setting up the phasing again, and it did end up working out really well, although I think I had to dodge a couple of swift kicks for making the untimely suggestion.

Thanks for this very interesting story. I'll defiantly be included the version of Now I'm Here with the Mike Stone intro.

liar/ my fairy king / ogre battle emidisc acetates: once i was the owner of these three and i can confirm these contained edited bbc versions. i was never really convinced about the geniune origin of the items.. sold it via Bonhams later ...
M.

Good work, thanks!

As Japan has had many releases, it's not easy to find the info you're after. The very first pressing of the vinyl album was released in Japan 25th March 1974. The cataloguenumber is P-8427-E. The album with number P-10118-E was released in 1975.

Jam Monkey with regard to Hangman. As you rightly pointed out a question mark hung over the existence of a studio recording of this song for many years.

The conformation that an Acetate is owned by someone would seem to prove it was recorded. What I find interesting is that you say that those who speak don't know and those that know aren't saying. I'm sure this is the case, however you give a running time of 4:37 for this track. This would seem an assertive statement following the information presented. How do you know the running time of a song that only exists on one Acetate that no one seems to have heard, or if they have they are not willing to talk about.

Vocal harmony wrote: Jam Monkey with regard to Hangman. As you rightly pointed out a question mark hung over the existence of a studio recording of this song for many years.

The conformation that an Acetate is owned by someone would seem to prove it was recorded. What I find interesting is that you say that those who speak don't know and those that know aren't saying. I'm sure this is the case, however you give a running time of 4:37 for this track. This would seem an assertive statement following the information presented. How do you know the running time of a song that only exists on one Acetate that no one seems to have heard, or if they have they are not willing to talk about.

I think my 'those who speak' comment was a little tongue in cheek, but it's true that this song remains a mystery.

As for the run time, let me just say that information came from a reliable source.

Cool. Good bit of info.