Eddie Offord, genius or Bumbling Fool?

The Wizard wrote: His bong smoking antics added to Yes's psychedelic sound. As I have said before, I think of Yes as a very psychedelic symphonic rock band. Any from The Debut to Tormato is like some heavenly voyage to outer space.

Dont think Eddie worked on them all but he really made a contribution to those he did - like CTTE. On the back of the vinyl album of CTTE were piccies of the band members, and Eddie Offord,but all without names - when I first got the album I had no idea who was who (except Wakeman and Bruford) and at first I thought Eddie Offord was Steve Howe and vice versa (if you see what I mean). But the fact Eddie was smoking something home rolled should have given it away!

I don't think that Eddie Offord was the best choice of producer for Pallas' The Sentinel. Bob Ezrin would have been a better fit for Pallas' sound in the Euan Lowson days. I think Offord did more harm than good on that particular one.

I can't deny that he made a fair few good records with Yes and ELP however, so he's into the history books as an important producer. I don't personally rate him up there with folks such as George Martin, Mike Stone, Alan Parsons, Phil Spector, Conrad Plank, Lee Scratch Perry, Steve Hillage, William Orbit or Steven Wilson. But he's good. :)

DrGoon wrote: I don't think that Eddie Offord was the best choice of producer for Pallas' The Sentinel. Bob Ezrin would have been a better fit for Pallas' sound in the Euan Lowson days. I think Offord did more harm than good on that particular one.  I don't personally rate him up there with folks such  Steven Wilson. But he's good. :)

Nanook wrote: I'm not sure how much difference a producer can make, but I do really enjoy the Yes albums Offord produced. Until this moment I was unaware of his sexual preference. I guess that shows how unimportant it was to the music. Now the dope-smoking on the other hand...LOL

I believe you're still unaware of his sexual preference, actually.

raindance wrote: DrGoon wrote: I don't think that Eddie Offord was the best choice of producer for Pallas' The Sentinel. Bob Ezrin would have been a better fit for Pallas' sound in the Euan Lowson days. I think Offord did more harm than good on that particular one.  I don't personally rate him up there with folks such  Steven Wilson. But he's good. :) Errrrr How can you compare modern production techniques with those used 30 years ago! I'm not so sure about Wilson being that good either! From what i've heard, Porcupine Tree could have done with some serious pasting & editing! A lot of their earlier stuff is all over the place!

Well, you did snip out all his contemporaries that I mentioned, and I didn't compare production techniques, I listed people that for my ears are better producers, those I'd call geniuses of production. The question was "genius or bumbling fool". For my money - neither - he's a very good producer, but he doesn't demonstrate ground-breaking production ideas.

Since Porcupine Tree have been around in one form or another since Steven Wilson was 16 years old, there's obviously been some learning along the way, and some early equipment limitations. It's not like he worked for EMI as a producer - he's self taught. However, he's a step ahead of his comtemporaries today, and is creating some pretty wonderful sounds, not only on PT recordings.