Episode 484 – Engineer Ed Stasium-Part 1, Merch Sale Data, And Stradivarius Tone

My guest today is producer/engineer Ed Stasium, who was an essential element in the New York punk and alternative rock scene in the 70’s and 80’s, having worked on seminal albums by The Ramones, Talking Heads and Living Colour.  He has also worked with a wide range of artists such as Mick Jagger, Pretenders, Soul Asylum, The Smithereens, Motorhead, Joan Jett and many more.  Ed likes to say that, “I’ve seen rock and roll grow up, “ and indeed it’s true, having recorded and mixed his first gold single in 1972 with Gladys Knight & The Pips “Midnight Train To Georgia.” After spending time on the staff of New York’s well-known Mediasound getting his feet wet in the music business, Ed became the first staff engineer at the famous Power Station where he played an intricate part in the design of the room and choice of equipment. In part 1 of our two-part interview we spoke about his early sessions as a musician with some recording legends, his first big studio break, working for Ampeg, and much more. Ed was one of my first guests way back on Episode 23 in September of 2014, so it was good time for a catch up. I spoke with him via Zoom from his studio outside of San Diego. On the intro I’ll take a look at some new data on current merch sales, and new findings on what makes a Stradivarius sound so special. Also, all podcast now include full transcriptions if you’d like to read along or find a particular place to listen to. var podscribeEmbedVars = { epId: 87052387, backgroundColor: 'white', font: undefined, fontColor: undefined, speakerFontColor: undefined, height: '600px', showEditButton: false, showSpeakers: true, showTimestamps: true };