Flim & the BB's - The Case Of The Disappearing Debut Album

A couple of months ago I was reading the new issue of Record Collector magazine.  It's by far the best magazine on the planet for vinyl collectors, with dozens of reviews of new and re-released vinyl, extensive notes about upcoming releases, regular columns about rare and unusual vinyl, features on vinyl collectors, as well as in-depth articles about music and musicians.  Since the magazine is based in London and gets mailed from the UK, my copies tend to arrive about a month after publication.  That's usually not a problem.  But from time to time, I'll open the magazine and find out about a new release -- maybe an obscure pressing or limited edition -- and break into a cold sweat that I may have missed my chance to grab a copy.  At the very least I'm likely to yell "Why wasn't I informed that this was coming out on vinyl?" and sprint to my computer to see if I can find a copy of the release before the Ebay resellers buy them all up and double the price.  

My most recent shriek came after seeing an ad announcing the release of a vinyl version of a 1983 CD-only album called Tricycle by the terrifically-talented group Flim & the BB's.  Flim and the what?  Exactly.  In the 1970s in Minneapolis, bass player Jimmy "Flim" Johnson hooked up with a couple of other studio musicians named Billy Barber (piano) and Bill Berg (drums), and created a jazz group they whimsically called Flim & The BB's. (Billy Barber, Bill Berg - BB's - OK, you got it.)  Woodwind/reed player Dick Oatts was an integral part of the group as well, but his name wasn't part of the group's name because (I'm guessing) Flim & the BB's and Oatts just didn't have the right ring to it.

Their music is best described as fusion or contemporary jazz, which would normally make me run for the hills.  But these guys are different: They are inventive, technically superb, and seem to always inject a touch of whimsy into their playing.  As one reviewer put it, "They're playing is the perfect combination of tight and loose."  The whimsy shows up in the band's name of course, but also in their album titles and artwork.

Tricycle was the first release by Flim and the boys on the DMP (Digital Music Products) label, created in 1982 by Minneapolis-based engineer and digital music pioneer Tom Jung.  Jung was a veteran recording engineer and producer, who, along with partner Herb Pilhofer, founded Sound 80 Studios in the Twin Cities in 1969.  [Fun fact: In 1978, Bob Dylan rejected the over-produced New York sessions for his new album Blood On The Tracks and decided to re-recorded the entire album at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis.  Bill Berg was the cat called in to play the drums.]  Between 1983 and 1988, Flim & the BB's released five studio albums (Tricycle, Tunnel, Big Notes, Neon, and The Further Adventures of) and one best-of collection on the DMP label.  Their last two albums (New Pants and This Is A Recording) were released by Warner Brothers in 1990 and 1992.  None of their catalog has ever appeared on vinyl before, which is why I was so excited to see that Tricycle was being released as a two-disk set cut at 45 RPM.  

Flim & the BB's seven studio albums in chronological order starting at top left.

I quickly went online to find a copy of the LP and discovered it was being reissued by the in-akustik (sic) label from Germany.  Copies were scarce, and I couldn't find any offered by a dealer in the U.S.  There were several copies available from Germany and the U.K., but with postage, the price was going to be upwards of $70-80.  I sent off a couple of email enquiries to dealers in Germany about shipping times while I kept looking.  After a couple of days I found a copy offered by a dealer in California and immediately ordered it.  It arrived about a week later.  The sound is incredible.  I already knew that the CD had stunning sound, including some of the lowest bass notes I've ever heard on record.  (Flim Johnson plays a five-string bass, and the lowest string is tuned to low B at around 30 Hz.  Combined with Berg's kick drum, the bass will give your subwoofers a great workout.)  But as paradoxical as it sounds, converting the digital recording to vinyl somehow adds a layer of realism, warmth, and texture that makes the music even more wonderful and compelling.  It's the kind of listening experience that leaves me shaking my head and muttering "Wow!" over and over.  

There is no indication of where the disk was pressed, but I suspect it may be MY45, a facility based in Tiefenbach, Germany that specializes in limited, high-quality releases.  The Direct Metal Master was cut by Hendrik Pauler at Pauler Acoustics in Northeim, Germany.  Pauler Acoustics is owned by Hendrik's brother, Gunther, who also owns Stockfisch Records.

Back to our mystery story.  In the 80s and 90s I bought all of Flim & the BB's CDs and assumed I owned the entire catalog.  So imagine my surprise when about 20 years ago I was at a used record store and came across an LP titled Flim and the BB's (note the 'and' instead of the '&'), which was released in 1978 on the Sound 80 Records label.  What the heck?

The copy I found was in NM/NM condition, and though it was a little pricey, of course I had to have it.  (I don't recall what I paid, but it was nothing like now, when NM copies are going for $150 or more.)  The front of the jacket hypes the record as "A Special Direct-To-Digital Recording."  It was one of the earliest digital recordings released in the Unites States, and the liner notes contain a lengthy explanation of the technology.  All well and good, but my real question was how come I never heard of the album or knew that they had released a record before they signed with DMP?  And why does Sound 80 Records sound vaguely familiar?

A little sleuthing turned up the answers.  In the mid 1970s, a few years after Flim & the BB's got together, and just a few miles down the road, the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (better known as 3M) was hard at work trying to develop a digital recording system for use in music studios.  According to the liner notes in Tricycle by Flim Johnson, "When 3M techs got tired of listening to oscillator test tones, they would ask us to come down and play some music into their latest box of integrated circuits.  Early results were . . . well . . . interesting."

In the spring of 1978, 3M was ready to test their creation and installed a prototype digital recorder at Sound 80 Studios.  (Aha!)  The first recording they made was of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra playing Aaron Copeland's "Appalachian Spring" and Charles Ives' "Three Places In England."  The LP was supposed to be a direct-to-disk recording, that is, a live recording cut directly to a lacquer.  (The lacquer is what is used to create a metal master from which stampers are made to press records.)  The direct-to-disk process cuts out the transfer from a tape recording to the lacquer.  Skipping this step can create a more immediate and realistic-sounding recording.  (I have a number of direct-to-disk records, and the sound is generally fantastic. )  However, recording direct-to-disk means there is no way to remix or correct anything.  What you hear is what you get.  If the orchestra makes a mistake, they have to start all over again.

  

To test the new 3M digital recording console, it was set to run in parallel to the direct-to-disk recording so that 3M's technicians could compare the digital sound to a state-of-the art analogue pressing.  Apparently everyone was blown away at how much better the digital copy sounded.  No doubt it was the first time most of them had ever heard the startling effect of digital's wider dynamic range and vanishingly low signal-to-noise ratio, as well as the absence of any surface or background noise.  So they decided to scrap the direct-to-disk record and release it as a digitally recorded LP.  The result (above) was the first digital recording issued by Sound 80 Records (catalog number S80-DLR-101).  It became the first digital LP ever to win a Grammy award.

Next up for the studio was a planned direct-to-disk recording with Flim and the BB's.  Once again, 3M's techs ran the digital recorder in parallel with the analogue recording.  And once again the digital copy was judged to sound better than the direct recording and was used to cut the lacquer for the record.  The album Flim and the BB's was put out as a limited release and became the second ever digital LP from Sound 80 Records (catalog number S80-DLR-102).  Flim Johnson explains why the album became so rare in the liner notes to Tricycle: "In '78 we actually did a 'direct-to-digital' recording using one of these prototype (digital) machines. That machine worked quite well, but was soon dismantled, making our master tape obsolete.  No machine could decode that particular code. The record (Flim & The BB's) became a collectors item by default."  

Since the digital master tape could no longer be decoded, there was no way to reissue the album or convert it to CD.  It would be interesting to know how many copies were pressed, but however many it was, there will never be any more.  So, there you have it:  The mystery of the disappearing debut album is solved.

Let's hope that in-akustik in Germany releases more of the original DMP catalog on vinyl in the future.  I've sent an email asking them to please keep me posted so I won't have any more surprises.  My heart can't take it.

Last fun facts: 

Bassist Jimmy "Flim" Johnson (below) has played on countless standout sessions with everyone from Stan Getz to Ray Charles.  Since 1991, he has recorded and toured regularly with James Taylor.

Drummer Bill Berg (below), who was never credited for his work on Blood On The Tracks, is a native of Hibbing, Minnesota, birthplace of Bob Dylan.  He now lives in western North Carolina where he plays gigs from time to time.

 

Pianist, composer, filmmaker, screenwriter (etc., etc.) Billy Barber (below) wrote the theme song for the long-running ABC soap opera All My Children, along with a whole bunch of other stuff you've probably heard of.

Enjoy the music!