From the mailbag…

January 23, 2020 Off By Eric O'Brien

Hi Eric,

Thanks for the efforts and the info you post on PBRTV.com.  The WTAE clip you posted today brought to mind a project I was involved in back in 1977 in Pittsburgh.  The whole process is very muddy but Jim Quinn had an idea for a parody song pointing out the horrendous road conditions we faced in the Spring of 1978.  I had been tinkering with what some call “tri-channel” audio.  Simply put, you could take the left and right channels of a stereo signal and wire them out of phase.  The result was a “third” channel which eliminated a lot of the audio but brought out other aspects of a song that were often overlooked.  The end result was “Undercover Pothole” by Jim Quinn and The Rough Riders.  The backing track was Alan O’Day’s song “Undercover Angel” I created by taking a stereo version of the song and phasing out the vocals.  Jim did most of the writing and singing – but we all know how “rough” the ride was in Pittsburgh in ’78.

I bring it up today because recently someone mentioned it-and I looked the song up on ebay.  It’s being offered for $110.  I don’t know who’d buy it -but it’s nice to know that something as -unusual – as this still has value! 

Thanks again for your posts.
Dave Mason

CategoryEric's Musings History Tidbit Mailbag

2 Comments

  • Carson says:
    January 27, 2020 at 11:32 am

    It’s still timely. We still get hellacious potholes here in Western PA.

  • Boomer The Dog says:
    February 1, 2020 at 4:41 pm

    Nice to know how it was done, using the “Vocal Zapper” method. I remember these quickly made songs that you might hear once on the morning show. I never expected something like that to have been pressed to vinyl! In the 1980s, DVE’s morning show put out CDs of their well produced morning bits.

    Jack Bogut had a set of his own songs, and Porky Chedwick did too, like Porky’s Rap. Those were made by fans or at station recording studios though.

    Boomer

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