cisum sdrawkcab

[John Brawley <brawley@cbl.umd.edu>]

The mayor wrote:

Wow. How could I forget. This may not be what was used, but in the Oct. 1994
Guitar World (I think that's right) interview, Pete talks about inventing
this gadget with a friend of his.... It is actually a tape loop, that
records one way while it plays the other way. Thus, giving the *effect* of
playing backwards, without having to *really* record something and 
flipping the
tape around... This could be used live...  This was a long time ago, too.
Anybody else out there know what I'm talking about???
-the mayor

Yes, I know what you are talking about.  The following is the response 
Pete had to this question from Guitar World (GW):

GW:  Your backwards guitar work on "Armenia City In the Sky", is 
phenomenal, especially given the recording technology that existed in 
1967.  What was the inspiration for that?  What do you recall about 
recording that?

PT:  Nothing. (laughs) I suppose by then I was pretty adept at 
recording--certainly more so than the so-called producers and engineers 
that we worked with in the studio.  So I was probably quite adept at 
backwards recording because I was doing it at home.  I was certainly the 
first person I knew outside of jazz, after Les Paul, to have a fully 
equipped multitrack recording studio at home.  I think I helped break the 
ground for the idea ......{he goes on about his studio}....

{a few questions later he continues}....We (he and Todd Rundgren) 
actually invented a machine that would play guitar notes backwards.  It 
was a helical wheel with a (recording) tape wrapped around it.  The top 
part of the wheel revolved forwards and the bottom part revolved 
backwards.  There was a group of record heads on one side and a group of 
playback heads on the other side.  You would play a note and the note 
would travel from one side to the other.  Immediately after you played 
the note, it would be reproduced backwards.  And as far as I can 
remember, it worked!

*Taken out of order and without permission from Guitar World, I hope they 
don't mind.

John