Tom Scholz, recorded "More than a feeling" in his basement. Not in a recording Studio

[Wwcd]

A story that'll make you want to say, "Fuckin - A"

MARCH 2016

Here's the most incredibly humble & respectable story of how a basement make-shift music studio, became one of the greatest rock bands of its day.

http://ew.com/article/2016/03/13/more-feeling-boston-tom-scholz/
More Than a Feeling': Tom Scholz recalls the creation of Boston's enduring debut single



"[b]If the idea of an unknown — and deliberately anonymous — band having such an impact with its first ever release is incredible, then the way the song was crafted is no less so.
In a rare interview, Boston founder, guitarist, songwriter, and producer Tom Scholz recalls the crazy creation of “More Than a Feeling” in his own words below"


Great Band, Very Cool Read:

[FreepFryer]

1. Brilliant inventor, engineer and audio recordist, and his basement IS a studio :) (nt)

[Eko]

2. Yup.

[Wwcd]

3. I heard this about Scholz as a trivia bit, on the local Rock Radio Station, last week.

My entire 20's were all consumed by those beginning years of Boston, Kansas, REO Speedwagon, ...
I went to a party at age 18 & it lasted 9 years! Ha! That's the actual truth!


This story he tells about when he finally realized they were somebody, ( duh, Black Sabbath!), is pretty cool.
He is a genius

[NBachers]

4. Yup- Every day was just another installment of a party that had been going on for years.

I'm glad this was posted here - a great read.

[bdtrppr6]

5. that's the coolest thing

i've read in a while. had no idea. knew he was a genius but didn't know the extent. i'll appreciate that song much more the next 3,000,000 times i hear it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. My fave song from my fave band!

[Dave Starsky]

7. Great read.

I am not exaggerating when I say that album was life-changing for me. Just absolutely blew my mind, the first time I heard it.

Tom Scholz also invented the Rockman, the revolutionary way to practice playing your guitar at 3:00 a.m. without waking up your roommate.

[Wwcd]

8. Indeed. The guitar riffs in "Smokin" were a credit to Boston's rapid rise to the top

'Smokin'

[DFW]

9. First time I heard that, I freaked right out, thought they had stolen a recording I made

I recorded a gig album in 1974, and one of the pieces was an instrumental I had composed in Massachusetts 1970 at age 18 on the 12 string guitar. Then, six years later, I hear my piece, NOTE FOR NOTE, as the introduction to "More Than A Feeling." If I ever meet Tom Scholz in person, I intend to ask him where he got that melody from, if he ever heard me play it somewhere in the Boston area, because if not, this was one hell of a musical GMTA.

[Wwcd]

10. Wow! MTAF's intro is your recorded music?

Damn that's messed up.
Why didn't you ever confront them? You had your recording!
Omg I would have had to do something, no matter the results.
Sorry that happened DFW.
I don't know the copyright laws back then but dang, that intro became one of the most recognizable tunes.
Quite an honor to your artistry, but you should have had the credit too.

[DFW]

11. But I had never heard of them!

Sure, we were both in the Boston area at the same time (1969-1970, and again 1975-1979), but hell, in 1970 I was 18! MTAF didn't become a hit until 1976 or so. At the time, I thought, wow THERE'S one hell of a coincidence, and they even did it on a 12 string guitar like I did.

What was I going to do six years after the fact? I never copyrighted my music back then. I never figured anything I wrote would be good enough for someone to make a top ten hit from, and to be fair, it's just the slow introductory part. The rest of the song resembles nothing I've done.

Maybe Tom Scholz dropped in on some informal jam I was at somewhere and heard me, and thought, "hey, that's a nice riff" and just remembered it without remembering where he had heard it. Even if he did, he never talked to me, and he couldn't have known who or where I was, even if he HAD intended to give me credit. And there's always the small chance it WAS a total coincidence, although the note for note similarity combined with the use of the 12 string guitar is REALLY a stretch.

I never even got around to recording my own version of my piece until 1974, and the last copies of that vinyl were bought up by some boutique antique record shop in Oregon somewhere. Ironic that something I did as a vanity/posterity project at age 22 now gets minor cult status when I'm 65. Shades of Fred Neil!