QUAD IN QUAD

[Brian.Cady@turner.com]

     I've always wondered what the deal was with the original plan to 
     release Quadrophenia in quadraphonic sound back in 1973.  I just 
     assumed that The Who or their label dumped the idea when this 
     particular "nine-days wonder" had run its course.  This weekend, 
     however, I visited my mom's house and found some old rock magazines I 
     had stored 20 years ago in the attic (Creem, Hit Parader, Stone, etc..) 
     and found a fascinating article that seems to answer my question.
     
     It's an article called "Rock Recording" in the May '74 issue of Hit 
     Parader (p.65) with a Townshend interview turned into an article.  
     Here's some quotes from the chairman:
     
     "The whole conception of 'Quadrophenia' was geared to quadraphonic, 
     but in a creative sort of way.  I mean I wanted themes to sort of 
     emerge from corners.  So you start to get the sense of the fourness 
     being literally speaker for speaker.  And also in the rock parts the 
     musical thing would sort of jell together up to the thunder clap, then 
     everything would turn slowly from quad into mono and you'd have this 
     solid sort of rock mono...then a thunder clap and back out again."
     
     So why didn't it happen?:
     
     "...we spent months mixing it and then found out that MCA was using 
     the CBS quad system and...you might as well forget it...Everyday I get 
     a piece of mail through from CBS telling me that they've got another 
     dB of separation from front to back and that, you know, if we buy the 
     new modified encoder-decoder we'll get better results.  And then the 
     next week there's another modification you can buy for another forty 
     thousand dollars which gives you another dB separation front to back 
     and a positioning encoder which puts all your sixteen tracks at 
     various points - guaranteed positional separation - and that's an 
     extra forty thousand dollars! It's a load of..."
     "We just can't spend that much time mixing albums.  Do you know what 
     they say to bands?  The record companies?  They say, 'Well, you send 
     over your sixteen track tapes and we'll mix it.'  And the Doobie 
     Brothers did that I think...and some punk engineer at their label 
     mixed it and it was horrible.  They wanted our sixteen track tapes.  
     We were going to send them over just as a joke.  They would 
     practically fill this room."
     
     I've been hoping over these months leading to the new mix of 
     "Quadrophenia" that they might consider remixing it to Dolby Surround 
     (I've tried listening to the old recordingt this way, but you don't 
     get a very separated effect).  From what I read above, however, Pete 
     might not think this system would provide enough separation.  Plus I'm 
     sure they don't still have that floor-to-ceiling packed workshop of 
     sixteen-track tapes that Pete describes elsewhere in the article.  But 
     how I wish it somehow could be done!