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Bryan Loren

Bryan Loren, percussion/guitar/collaborator, Myspace blog post (archived)

Philadelphia, Pa.- Wow. This is really tough for me.

 It’s always hard losing someone that you called friend. But even more when you felt that they really understood some part of you that most people don’t. For me, that was Michael.

 I spent a lot of time with Michael. Yes, a lot of time in the studio, but a lot of personal time as well. Among other times, Michael spent at least one Christmas and one Thanksgiving at my house. Just the two of us. We spent a lot of time talking. About life, music, art, movies, people, women(yes, women), and what it meant for him to be who he was at the time in which he lived. We talked about Elvis. He actually conjectured as to whether his musical legacy would be considered as great as Elvis'. I always assured him it would. I was with him in N.Y. working on ‘History’ around the time he first started seeing Lisa Marie. I was actually even a little jealous, then. I’d always thought she was very attractive(lol). I was with him when he decided he was going to the Oscars with Madonna. I stayed at, and went back and forth to Neverland. I spent many days at the ‘Hideout’. This was a condo that Michael had in Westwood, in L.A. I remember going with him into a room there where he kept a lot of the wardrobe from the ‘Bad’ tour. He showed me a jacket that I’d seen him wear on stage during the ‘Thriller’ performance. It looked like the one in the video, with the exception that it was loaded with neon lights that he would turn on during the dance routine. I put it on. This jacket was HEAVY. It seemed to have weighed 30 or more pounds. To think, he wore this during a big dance routine. It was then that I realized how strong he was for his very lean frame. On several occasions, we drove in this big white pick-up truck he used to drive, to Tower Records. Before going into the store, he would put on some glasses, a hat and these really weird teeth. Invariably, someone would recognize and watch him, but usually people would repectfully allow him to shop. I remember once being on the 101 freeway coming from the Hideout on the way to the studio in my car, with Michael in my passenger seat. At some point, a man driving on the passenger side of my car looks in the window at Mike, curly hair and Fedora in tow. Does a double-take and shruggs his shoulders as if to say ‘nah, couldn’t be’. Now that was funny. Then, there’s the people. The endless parade of high-profile people I met, just because I was with him when they showed up. From Michael Milken to Eddie Murphy, Steve Wynne, and Little Richard. I did the arrangement on the song he wrote for the Sigfried and Roy show in Los Vagas. The list goes on.

 I still have the Fedora I took off his head while he was annoyingly poking at a plate of food I was eating at the studio one day, making him recoil because he had ‘hat-hair’(lol). I remember clearly the day he brought Bubbles(the chimp) to the studio, and Bubbles hit me(open-hand) in my chest(that s$%t hurt!). I wanted nothing to do with the chimp after that. Michael said it meant he liked me. He could not have been more amused. We shared laughter about things that only we knew. We could be in a room full of people, and either one of us could make the other laugh about something that would have others thinking ‘what’s so funny?’ It really made me feel special when Michael told me how talented he thought I was, knowing what the whole world thought of him. Likewise it was a special feeling working with him.

 We recorded some twenty-plus tracks together. Sadly, many of these we never finished. But when we did do vocals, beyond his lead work it was always a pleasure to listen to this man lay background harmonies. His voice was truly unique. Really pure tone, and great intonation. On The Simpson's song ‘Do The Bartman’, the background vocals in the bridge are just me(contrary to what the press believed at that time). But, the harmonies in the chorus are performed by the two of us. We are each, singing each part harmony. We did them simultaniously. It was a quick, and painless process. I mixed the record, and I promise you all the vocals are equal gain. That’s two people, and it’s tight! It was really cool for me, as I’d never so easily before doubled with someone doing background vocals. He did the backing chorus voices on ‘To Satisfy You’ from my ‘Music From The New World’ CD because I’d written it for him, for 'Dangerous'. When it was decided he wasn’t going to use it, I told him I wanted to keep his vocals and put it on my record. He said, ‘Of course’. We actually did the finishing work on ‘Superfly Sister’ from ‘Blood On The Dance Floor’ a few years after I’d already done the track, as this was a song that I started writing during the ‘Dangerous’ sessions. Which made me feel it was always possible that we might revist some of the other music we’d started all that time ago. This was not unusual for Michael, as in the case of ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ from the ‘History’ album. This was a song that he’d started even before I joined him for 'Dangerous'. One of the first things I heard was this song, but it got bumped at that time. ‘Earth Song’ was also started during 'Dangerous'.

 'Dangerous' was a rough period for me as well. As we’d recorded so much music and none of it was used for that project, and much else occured that I won’t go into here. But, I will say that I spent a great deal of enjoyable time with Michael and made some great music with him as well. There are some songs that even in there unfinished format, you can hear their potential. And over the next few months I will be posting some of those that have enough content to hear that potential.

 When we began working, it was my hope to return to a form of feeling that you got from the 'Off The Wall' or even the 'Thriller' Lp. Where there was a very organic feeling about the content. ‘Work That Body’, is complete with Michael repeating(at my behest) the rap from The Jackson Five’s ‘ABC’. He DID NOT want to do this(lol), but realized the toungue-in-cheek fun contained in it. I produced this track, and am performing all of the music. There are no sequencers on it, as I do not generally use them in the course of my work. The two of us wrote the lyric and melody.

Ironically, I’d intended a while ago to post this and other songs that we’d done together because somehow, they’d been leaked to the internet. I would occasionally get email here at Myspace and otherwise asking if I had done this work. Well, to finally and officially answer that question: yes. A bunch of these are my songs, produced by me and co-written with Michael. It is sad that this would be the occasion to finally get to this, but I suppose people who love Michael would especially now like to hear work of his that was unreleased. There is also some amount of catharsis for me in this process.

 I am proud to have produced and written for Michael. I am also proud to have called him my peer, and my friend. We shared a friendship that he had with very few people. It was very special to me. I am deeply saddened by his sudden, and untimely passing. My best wishes and sympathy go out to his children and all of the Jackson family. It goes without saying, he will be missed. R.I.P., big bruh...

B