It's 1983, and Bruford and his King Crimson bandmate, bassist and Chapman Stick player Tony Levin had been hired by DiMeola to play on his latest album and had travelled to a residential studio in Nebraska for the session. They'd been told that DiMeola liked to start his sessions fairly late, so they arrived at the studio at midday as agreed in advance. No Al. They set up the drums and got ready to record. Still no Al. Bruford, who says that the grossest insult one musician can give another is to keep them waiting, is not amused. Nor is Levin.
Four hours later than agreed, just as Levin is wondering aloud how it might affect his otherwise sterling reputation as a session player (seriously, look him up) if he were to just leave, DiMeola arrives and proceeds to small-talk with Bruford, Levin and the studio engineer while changing his guitar strings. Eventually, he starts to run through the songs he wants to record. Bruford sits at his kit, Levin sits silently in a corner, his bass still in its case. Bruford and DiMeola run through the songs, repeat a few tricky sections, discuss exactly what is needed. Eventually, they arrive at a fast run that Al wants the bass to play in unison with his guitar, so he urges Levin to, maybe actually get his bass out so he can play it once or twice before they record. Levin declines.
When it's time to record a take, Levin gets his Stick out and plugs in, not playing a note. They play, Levin plays his part flawlessly, tricky run and all, then overdubs a perfect double-track. The process begins again for a second song. Again, Levin plays and double-tracks his part perfectly.
It's getting late, and the agreed time for the session is over so Levin packs up his gear and heads for the door. Just then, the engineer somehow manages to erase a two-bar section of Levin's part. Suitably embarrassed, he begs Levin for five more minutes to re-record the missing part. Levin agrees, and again puts the part on tape flawlessly, packs up and makes for the door again.
Oh crap, says the engineer, we're two notes short of what I erased. Tony, can you just...
But he's out the door.
Now Al DiMeola is going to have to pay his engineer to review the tape of the session (and it *is* tape- this is 1983 and Pro-Tools is distant sci-fi fantasy) to find duplicates of those two notes, copy those sections of tape and splice them in to the gap.
Which is probably going to take like, four hours.
Yeah.
