Mark Doyle

Recorded in ’85, this was the first digital recording ever released in Central New York. Greg Spencer had just formed his label, Blue Wave, which I am happy to say is still in business today after 25 years. I produced a nice run of albums for Blue Wave, until about 1988 when I left town for Boston and Greg took over the production reins. Engineered by Bill Scranton at Music One, the band played live except for one song, which was recorded to 16-track and mixed digitally.
I’ll never forget the first tune we tracked on the new Sony F1 system. It was “She’s Tough” and there’s a break where it’s just Pete McMahon laughing. And with the digital, there was absolute silence except for his laugh. It was the greatest thing we had ever heard! So we were sold on digital recording (even though the record was pressed on virgin Teldec vinyl, as were all of the Blue Wave records.)
The ‘Snakes were a great live band, and they were responsible for the “Syracuse Blues Boom” of the ‘80s that sort of continues to this
day.
David Werner and I used Pete to play harmonica on Mary Fahl’s version of “Money” on “From The Dark Side Of The Moon”, finally released in 2011 as a digital-only release.