The Wind's legendary first album from 1982, a power pop classic.

14 MP3 Songs in this album (35:21) !
Related styles: Pop: Beatles-pop, Pop: Power Pop, Mood: Fun

People who are interested in Big Star Motown The Beatles should consider this download.


Details:
Every album has at least one amusing story attached to it. âWhere Itâs At With The Windâ has enough charming anecdotes to fill a careerâs worth of subsequent boring releases. Maybe thatâs why we never got past the third record. The three original members, Steve Katz, Steve Burdick, and myself lived an isolated existence in the tropical backwater trench that was then Miami Beach. We met in high school and shared a common love of the Beatles and mostly everything else from the early to mid-Sixties.
The extreme heat has a tendency to breed a fanaticism of one kind or another, and this was our particular obsession. Collectively, we came to the conclusion that western civilization as we knew it, had peaked with the Beatlesâ Second album (American version), and was now in a perilous decline. Besides Motown (which we worshiped), the Windâs early sound was based primarily on this record. We practiced several nights a week in Steve Katzâs house, working on five or six new songs a week. Steve & I were writing like crazy and in two years had amassed nearly two hundred songs. Even today, weâll quiz each other on songs only the three of us know.
The music scene in Miami at that time couldnât have been further away from where we coming from, aesthetically. Then, it was all about punk: loud, fast, & sloppy. Personally, we got on great with the other bands, but musically, we felt completely isolated. By some dint of fortune, we scored a Wednesday night slot at Finderâs Lounge, a dilapidated club on Collins Avenue, down at the beach. There, we would play for two or three drunks and talk in the parking lot between sets about how we were going to transform popular culture within the next six to eight months. Though optimistic, we did sense at the time this would be an uphill struggle.
It soon became apparent that we would live & die a tropical death if we didnât make some attempt to gain attention beyond our sphere. Back then, it was still a fairly novel idea to put out your own record, but it seemed like the only way for us to break through to a wider audience. After making some calls (home), we were able to raise some money to book some studio time. We took out the Miami yellow pages and started to look for a place to record.
First, we ended up at a small studio with an engineer/owner who I was reminded of many years later when they caught the Unabomber. We went there armed with the aforementioned Beatle album and Shirley Basseyâs recording of âGoldfingerâ. We told the Unabomber that this was the sound we were looking for. We wanted to make a record that sounded like the early Beatles, but âGoldfingerâ also had a huge sound that we were enamored of. Besides, everyone knew the Beatles, but you had to be pretty hip to appreciate âGoldfingerâ, especially back in 1981.
As Shirley Basseyâs voice filled the room, the Unabomber nodded knowingly, but his work in the studio was abysmal. We did one recording of âWhatâs The Funâ which, thankfully, has been lost.
After more searching, we finally found a place that would cut us a package deal. Miami Sound was located in the heart of the then burgeoning âLittle Havanaâ district of Miami Beach. Its proprietor, Carlos Granados, was already in his forties and had behind him a failed career as a singer named Chuckie Day. He now exclusively recorded salsa bands in this little studio, day in and day out. There was some sort of mention of a silent partner who owned all the studio equipment, whose value I wouldnât appreciate until years later.
Miami Sound had what are today considered some of the most coveted pieces of vintage studio gear: a Neve recording console, a full array of Pultec equalizers, ancient Altec compressors, Neumann tube microphones, and supposedly the same tape machine that recorded âI Shot The Sheriffâ. This seemed plausible because Eric Clapton recorded at Criteria Studios, Miamiâs premier recording complex.
At our first meeting, Carlos was an affable father-like figure. His enthusiasm, which would later manifest itself intermittently with bouts of moodiness and anger, was in full force. He, too, nodded approvingly as âGoldfingerâ blared out of the huge red Urei monitors that hung from the walls. He understood Goldfinger, and we wanted to believe that he understood us. Carlos was our man.
We handed over the cash and went to work. Basic tracks went smoothly enough. We ran through the fourteen songs in the order that they appear on the record; with some additional overdubs the following week. Mixing, however, was a big problem. Early attempts did not meet our standards. The mixes sounded weak and tinny. We were crestfallen. Why didnât our baby have the same wild excitement the Beatles 2nd album had? Our drummer, Steve Burdick, came up with the answer when he put one of Carlosâ lousy mixes through an old Superscope cassette deck with a built in limiter. The tracks suddenly jumped out as if by magic. âCompressionâ, he said. âWe are missing compressionâ.
We went back to Carlos and told him we wanted to throw the entire mix through a compressor. He looked at us like we were insane. We also told him we wanted absolutely no equalization on anything, and we wanted it mix it in mono. First, he started to laugh. Then he made a face and said, âYea, sure. Whatever you guys want, heh, heh.â. He had grown totally sick of us by this point. So, with a smirk, he ran the entire mix through two old green Altec tube compressors and it sounded amazing. It was so squashed, the meters on the Altecs werenât even moving. I asked Carlos why the needles just sat there, and he said, âBecause that shit is TIGHT, baby!â Steveâs instincts proved him right: the record took on a totally wild sound. When we listened to the whole thing back, even Carlos was blown away.
Mastering and pressing proved just as harrowing an experience. The first run of discs came out with the hole slightly off-center, which made it sound seasick. Also, there were little bumps on the vinyl, a defect that became apparent under close examination. The receptionist at the tiny record pressing plant assured us that all the records passed the âwhite glove testâ. To prove this, she escorted us into the back of a stiflingly hot back room where the records were packaged and, sure enough, there was a lady with a white glove on her left hand giving a final stamp of approval to all the records before they went into their cartons. When we mentioned the little bumps, she re-assured us that âthe little bumps were on all the recordsâ. Horrified, we took the tapes to Criteria studios to have the whole thing re-mastered and re-pressed.
After everything was finished and we had cartons stacked up in Steve Katzâs room, we wondered, âNow what?â Because I had family in New York, I volunteered to take some records up north and pass them around to âimportant peopleâ. I arrived carrying 20 copies of âWhere Itâs At With The Windâ under my arm and went to all the record companies and magazines to give them out.
In an oft-told story amongst our circle of friends & family at the time, I went to Rolling Stoneâs 5th avenue offices and got in the elevator. A bearded gentleman who was riding up with me asked me what I was carrying. I proudly told him that I was bringing up my bandâs new record to Rolling Stone. He introduced himself as Kurt Loder, a writer for the paper (this was before his MTV days), and asked for a copy. I gave him one, and scribbled my momâs phone number on a piece of paper. I went back down to the lobby without ever leaving the elevator.
When I got back to her apartment, my mom said that someone named Kurt called and wanted me to call back immediately. When I dialed the number, his secretary, Susannah, said that I should come back to Rolling Stone NOW. I hung up the phone, ran downstairs, and hailed a cab to Rolling Stone. I was escorted up to Kurtâs office where he was blasting our record, smiling ear to ear. He told me it was the freshest thing he had heard in ages and he wanted to write a story about us for an upcoming issue. He took out a pad and paper and interviewed me on the spot. I was in shock. Rock Stardom beckoned! I remember thinking, âCould it really be this easy?â
The next few months were a blur. When I got back to Florida, the guys could barely believe what happened. Only when a photographer was dispatched to Miami to take pictures of us on South Beach did reality sink in. The story appeared the next month in an issue with John Lennon on the cover, which we took as a good omen. Soon, we were getting mail from all over the world and every major record company wanted to hear us.
We decided to move up to New York and try our luck. We played some great shows, but having so many songs, weâd never play the same set twice. With no management or any real game plan, our momentum eventually stalled, and the crest The Wind was riding on finally broke. Rock bands are fragile organisms. If success doesnât come at some point, the organism turns in on itself and eats away at its very essence. This is what happened to us. We went through bitter recriminations, and our drummer, Steve, finally couldnât take it any more and moved back to Florida. We soldiered on, but our original British-Invasion-meets-Motown vibe was lost.
Now, 25 years hence, the three of us have been involved in a multitude of projects (solo albums, outside productions, TV and theater works, etc.). We went through periods of barely being in touch. But after years apart, Steve Katz (now Barry, due to a threatened lawsuit: a story too long to go into here) and I have made four CDâs under the name Tan Sleeve (an acronym of our first names). Steve Burdick even plays drums on some of the tracks. It may not be the Wind anymore, but itâs still unmistakably us. The great part of the story is that the thrill has never faded. We still love making records, and most importantly, weâre still great friends. Success may be measured on a balance sheet, but some things donât fit on a ledger.
âWhere Itâs At With The Windâ is where we started. It contains the first flush of youth with all the wild hopes, dreams, and stubborn idealism only a young band can have embedded within its grooves. Back then, anything seemed possible, and in the most important of ways, all these years later, it firmly remains so. It was an exciting and inspired time for us and we hope that some of that feeling still comes through. Thanks so much for listening!

--Lane Steinberg,
New York City