Earle Mankey Explained

Earle Mankey
Background:non_vocal_instrumentalist
Birth Date:8 March 1947
Birth Place:Washington, United States
Genre:Rock
Occupation:Musician, record producer, audio engineer
Instrument:Guitar
Associated Acts:Adicts, Concrete Blonde, The Runaways, Sparks

Earle Mankey (sometimes misspelled "Earl" in credits) (born March 8, 1947, in Washington, United States) is an American musician, record producer and audio engineer. He was a founding member and guitarist for the band Halfnelson, later called Sparks. He became a record producer, predominantly for Los Angeles area bands like The Pop, 20/20, The Runaways, Concrete Blonde, Jumpin' Jimes, The Long Ryders, The Three O'Clock, The Tearaways, The Conditionz, Adicts, Durango 95, Leslie Pereira and The Lazy Heroes, and Kristian Hoffman. He is the brother of Concrete Blonde guitarist James Mankey.[1]

Mankey's route into studio work began formally with the demo recordings he engineered for Half nelson. Using two stereo reel-to-reel tape recorders (a Sony quarter-inch and a Panasonic quarter-inch) he painstakingly built up the tracks by recording onto the first recorder and then playing the results back into the second recorder along with a simultaneous performance either by himself on guitar or Ron Mael on keyboards until a finished backing track was completed, to which Russell Mael then added vocals. Mankey describes these early experiments as "fussing around with tape recorders" though he admits he took pride in the "cutting edge" nature of the home recordings he made at this time.[2]

On his approach to recording and making music, he says: "About the only thing that can excite me is to try to think of something I haven't thought of before and then try to do it - which is the satisfying part."[2]

Personal life

Earle lives in and maintains his studio in Thousand Oaks, California called Earle's Psychedelic Shack[3] and is still active in recording and producing.

Earle is the older brother of Concrete Blonde guitarist James Mankey.

Discography

As guitarist

As solo artist

Mankey launched his solo career with a 1978 single "Mau Mau" featuring b-side "Crazy".

In 1981, Mankey performed, produced and engineered some of his own music on a six-song mini-Lp self-titled: "Earle Mankey".

In 1984, Mankey issued another six-song mini-Lp: "Real World".[4]

Both "Earle Mankey" and "Real World" were reissued together on Mankey's 1998 compilation album also titled "Earle Mankey".[5] [6]

As producer

As engineer

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Sparkography . AllSparks.com . 9 August 2021.
  2. Web site: Doug Lynner . 5/2009 Earle Mankey – Doug Lynner’s World of Noise . Neat Net Noise . 2016-03-11.
  3. Web site: Earle Mankey. Discogs.com. 25 January 2021.
  4. Web site: EARLE MANKEY Guitar player with Halfnelson and Sparks. Later famous indy power-pop producer. Graphikdesigns.free.fr. 25 January 2021.
  5. Web site: Earle Mankey - Earle Mankey . AllMusic . 9 August 2021.
  6. Web site: Earle Mankey . Amazon . 9 August 2021.
  7. Web site: Discogs - Queens Of Noise 1977 US release. Discogs.com. 25 January 2021.
  8. Capitol LP SW-11640, 1977

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