Postscript : Never Mind the Pollacks was fun as hell to mix. When I returned to Ann Arbor I set up my Metric Halo MIO 2882 in its other guise as my home studio interface. I have a PowerMac G4 Dual 533 tower for mixing. The MIO 2882 serves as my primary set of mic pre-amps and DA/AD interface in this setting as well. I run my mixes through the MIO and out to a pair of Genelec 1030a monitors. I typically use Waves Renaissance compressors and Altiverb reverb (but on Never Mind the Never Mind the Pollacks I used the Emagic tape delay plugin on vocals instead).

Once the Never Mind the Pollacks tracks were safely backed up to a external hard disc, I purposely let the project sit for a few weeks then went back for a handful of overdubs.

All original tracks from the session were used including Neal Pollack’s live vocals. This, to me, is amazing since: 1. He is not a singer and somehow nailed all of his first takes (granted he doesn't hit notes on par with Barbara Streisand . . . but still) - and - 2. There was absolutely no isolation from the drums, he was standing just five feet from the trap kit, yet all of his vocal takes are usable.

I left all of my guitar tracks in the mixes as well. This also amazes me since many times I was reaching over to engineer the session while I was playing my parts. But my ragged mistake-prone guitar work had character, so it stayed.

My Ann Arbor buddy Brian Lillie came in and helped out as a second set of ears. Brian did the silly Harmonica intro to the Springsteen farce "Jenny in the Car, 1972” and he contributed some of the organ tracks. He also added a crackerjack guitar solo on "Do the Ostrich". But most importantly Brian brought endless enthusiasm and the occasional brilliant idea to the equation. Enlisting a trusted second opinion is the key to mixing records in my experience. Especially if you are too close to the tracking (either as engineer or musician).

There were only two changes requested by Neal Pollack when we turned in our initial mixes:

1.) In our original mix for "Memories of Time Square (The Dildo Song)” we had duplicated the background singers on Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”; except on Lou’s song they sang Doo Doo Doo Do Doo Doo Doo -- Doo Doo Doo Doo, etc. while on our song the women sang Dil Dil Dil Dil Dil DIl DIl Dil -- Do Do Do Do ( in other words the ladies were singing ‘Dildo’). Ultimately it wasn’t the Dildo reference that needed to be changed but rather it was us ripping off Lou Reeds melody so directly.

2.) Pollack insisted on re-singing "Jenny in the Car, 1972”. I loved the original take. On the original vocal track Pollack DID occasionally sing wildly out-of-tune, but he made up for it tenfold in conviction. But my opinion lost out and Pollack re-sang it at the Mastering Studio. The mastering engineer tracked Neal’s new vocal take on a pricey Pro Tools rig then inserted it over my stereo mix of the backing music. I don’t know if it is the mic, the Pro Tools AD converters, the reverb, or the EQ but the new vocal take sounds muddy compared to the shimmering MIO 2882 tracks. I found this a little disappointing and I think it is audible to anyone who compares "Jenny in the Car, 1972” vocal with any other on the album.

Neal Pollack Invasion "Never Mind the Never Mind the Pollacks” was released October 7th 2003. The Original Neal Pollack Invasion (Neal Pollack, Dakota Smith, Jim Roll, Jon Williams, and Neil Cleary) toured from Texas thru to New Orleans, Oxford Mississippi, Memphis, Nashville, and other Southern cities; on up the coast through Eastern cities including Baltimore, Washington D.C., NYC, Boston, Rhode Island; then out across the Midwest through Pittsburgh Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis . . .

Pollack played the first couple of weeks worth of shows in a seated position with a torn meniscus in his knee. We’d have used a wheelchair if we could have found one secondhand. He had a restrictive knee brace and crutches and was on a heavy dose of muscle relaxants. It was a gutty performance that was as funny as it was intense.

To date none of the artists we parodied has filed a law suit.

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