Strength in Numbers was our 2nd album and because our first album was critiqued for being too studio “clean” and not having the energy of our live show we decided to record about 3/4 of the album “Direct to Digital Stereo”, which in 1984 meant to Beta tape! This means we did not overdubs, no post-production mix, no repairs, as the tunes were played, so they remained. My fondest memory is recording Aaron Davis tune Rewenzori, which was 14 minutes long. Ralph Bowen played a remarkable solo on Soprano. He was 23 years old. We did three takes right in a row. I was playing 3 sets of clay drums crouched on the floor and when I got up I thought to myself, “wow, that felt good… I guess we have 14 minutes of the record done, merci, bonsoir!”
Jeff Wolpert recorded this record in 1984 as he did our last record The Twelfth of Never in 2016, making Jeff and I the only two Mantecians to last this long! Matt Zimbel. We have five of these on vinyl still factory wrapped!
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