famous studio fuck-ups

There's a Wedding Present track on George Best wherein he scolds the engineer for fuckin' something up.

What's that Black Sabbath track where during brief lull in metal storm you hear the guitar fellow turn his amp up as hum audibly increases?

What about the Mamas and the Pappas?

Awesome link -- well played, Ken

The end of A Day in The Life where you can hear the air conditioner turn on as the last decay from the orchastra fades away.

"Bob Dylan's 15th Dream."

A Day In The Life ends with an elongated piano chord. Maybe it's my ears or overworn vinyl, and I use headphones a lot while listening and never got the a/c thing. I will listen again. 'Course I'm usually pretty spliffed out when listening so it may take awhile to get back to you, Hector. :)

Put on the first track, "Stop This Game", of All Shook Up by Cheap Trick right afterwards (it's slow fade in is supposedly the very same note as the closing note of Sgt.Pepper's..)

I will take a handful of jamaican and test this out 'all.

YEEESSSSS!!!!

...and of course, report back with the results.

bong hits for beatles!

(not a fuck-up exactly, just an outtake, but good)

Sonny (singing):  The little village is too small to be a village/Not large enough to be a town/Too small to be a -

Leonard:  Go ahead we're rolling, Take 1. What's the name-a this?

Sonny Boy:  Little Village.  (pause) Little Village, motherfucker! A little village!

Leonard:   There's isn't a motherfuckin' thing there about a village, you son-of-a-bitch! Nothin' in the song has got anything to do with a village.

Sonny:   Well, a small town.

Leonard: I know what a village is!

Sonny:   Well alright, goddamn it! You know, you don't need no title. You name it up, you, I got-get through with it, son-of-a-bitch. You name it what you wanna. You name it your mammy, if ya wanna!

[again, more of an outtake, but one featuring fatal fuck-ups]

At the end of the Byrds' Notorious Byrd Brothers CD are a squillion aborted takes of "Dolphin's Smile" where Micheal Clarke fails to deliver the rhythm required. He is urged by the rest of the band and engineer to "Try playing RIGHT!", etc. After revealing that he dislikes the song and them, he is asked "What are you even in the group for?" (for the money apparently) and is told "You're not helping us make any now, man", etc. He was ejected soon after.

Three minutes into "Armagiddeon Time," Clash-droog Kosmo Vinyl blurts into the inter-studio intercom, right over the track "there's yout three minutes right there" (supposedly, the band had instructed him to send up a flair when they'd reached the perfect song-length), resulting in Strummer's infamous retort, "Okay, OKAY...Don't PUSH us when we're HOT!"

That's the legend, anyway. I've listened to that song a quadrillion times, though, and Kosmo's exclamation remains somewhat indecipherable. Prior to hearing the story, I'd always assumed it was supposed to be the voice of a policeman or some figure of truncheon-wielding authority warning a riot-courting, vandalism-happy Clash to move along.

and then there's the time a producer (Shania's hubby I think) recorded the entirety of Graham Parker & The Rumour's Stick To Me album before realizing that there was a huge problem with the studio they were in and that the recording was unsalvagable. Nick Lowe was enlisted to rescue things and thus the man with the nickname Basher lived up to his name by recording the entire album in a mere six days.

similar thing happened with ACR's first album, "to each", according to factory lore. they recorded it out in new jersey somewhere, with martin hannett and some local engineer ...

... who zeroed all hannett's mix settings one night. apparently they never managed to get it sounding right again. funny, 'cos to these ears it's a masterpiece :)

I forget where I read this (maybe a print edition of the Trouser press Record Guide?) But supposedly in RUN-DMC's "30 Days" from their first allbum, you can hear someone flushing a toilet in the studio.

On the CD reissue of the Love Forever Changes, there a whole track of Arthur Lee tearing into the rest of the band for not getting it right.

Van Morrison "Bang Masters" a couple of tracks Van rips into the band or the engineer with some choice words.

Before one of the tracks on Roy Harper's "Flat Baroque and Beserk" you hear the engineer saying 'rolling'. Roy asks back "A joint? Well you'd better be".

Devil Doll (supposedly) had to re-record an album because the studio burned up... Of course, you can't hear a recording of that, so I don't know if it counts.

Paul Westerberg singing the second verse of "All Shook Down", dropping his papers on to the floor.

On Sonic Youth's "In the Kingdom #19" Lee Ranaldo lets out a hysterical shriek in the middle of his spoken-word bit after Thurston allegedly threw firecrackers into the vocal booth. Those crazy kids...

i think in a few parts on Slayer's "Reign in Blood" the tape glitches up or drops out a tiny bit.

Miles chastising the band at the start of Relaxin'("If I Were A Bell"). He tells all the musicians that when the red light is on, it means that they should be quiet. There's a false start when he tells Red Garland to play block chords.