I emailed Charlie and asked him. Here's what he said:
"They picked up the band at 5:15am. When we got to the studio they had it
all set up like they wanted. A Times Square TV studio like that with an
audience and all is a very busy and complicated place. I was curious
about why they had my amp turned around, but there was no time to even
discuss it. We just had time to get straight to work. When it was over
the crew started breaking everything down with the precision of a drill
team while they hustled the band out to a waiting van. Next week when I
fly back to meet Cyndi in Cleveland to start the tour, I'll get to
discuss it because I'm curious too about the amp placement. Another thing
all those folks should know is that whatever sound I was getting from my
Cruncher, it was at the mercy of the studio before it reached the TV
listening audience. I have no way of controlling that and they can change
your sound dramatically and the player has no way of knowing about it. A
professional that's backing somebody up plays what's appropriate for who
they're backing up and what's appropriate is what the artist that hired
them wants. If you ignore what they want and just play what you
want.....you ain't going to last long in that line of work. It's not a
difficult concept to grasp. If you hired a guy to paint your house and he
decided to paint it his favorite color instead of the color the homeowner
asked for.....well that'd be plain stupid. That shouldn't be so hard to
understand unless you're the kind of person that just likes to look for
something negative to say. If you come to hear me live, you would hear
something very different. But, no matter how hard you try and no matter
how much you care, there's always some sour puss out there just waiting
to jump on you with something negative and they are, for the most part,
clueless - they weren't there; they don't know what all went on behind
the scenes, but they're not going to hesitate from blabbing a bunch of
baloney as if they're some kind of authority. Personally, when I see
anybody getting any kind of work at all in this business - I'm pulling
for them. All that negative baloney is just plain silly."
I couldn't agree more.
/Greg
http://www.blowsmeaway.com
http://www.bluestateband.net
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/duracool/id343874731