My pleasure fellas! I offer the knowledge I possess in the name of furthering everyone's appreciation of The Band. @slaw, I forgot to offer some info concerning one point you brought up. The "house" you refer to is, I believe, the one in which The Band recorded, not Music From Big Pink, but the 2nd, self-titled one (the "brown" album).
After recording MFBP in "normal' pro studios in NYC and L.A., they wanted to make the second album in a more relaxed, organic fashion. Pro studios put up gobos (baffles) between all the players (the amplifiers often in isolation booths) to maximize separation, the players then needing to wear headphones to hear each other. Can you imagine conversing with someone having to speak into a mic, and hearing the other's voice only through headphones? Very artificial.
For the second album, The Band talked Capitol Records into loaning them a 2" multi-track recorder (8-track, I believe) and a bunch of mics. They looked for a house in L.A. in which to record, ending up finding one in the Hollywood Hills (owned by Sammy Davis Jr.). The house had a large pool cabana, which they transformed into a studio. So they lived in the house for two months, and recorded the album in about one.
The pictures on the inside of the gatefold cover show them in that studio, set up facing each other, able to hear one another without headphones. And believe it or not, they recorded the vocals live with the instruments! I can't think of another band that could, or did, do that. Well, except for Bluegrass bands.
Another thing that amazes me about the brown album is that pianist Richard Manuel is the drummer on about half the album's songs. He is an incredible drummer in the musical sense, though technically rather crude. Chops ain't everything! His drum parts make perfect musical sense, and are parts no "real" drummer would think of.
Michael Fremer always talks about the unique drum sound on the second album, attributing it to the set of vintage tubs organist Garth Hudson found in a pawn shop in L.A. Baloney; if you look again at the studio pics, you will see the drums are Levon's good ol' Black Diamond Pearl Gretsches, the same ones he played all through the 60's in The Hawks. Levon really knew how to tune drums and damp their heads (putting padding on the plastic heads to cut their high-frequency overtones and ring, to make them sound closer to calfskin heads), to get the deep, "thumpy" sound he is known for. Ringo has made a point of talking about Levon's drum sound in interviews. He was after the same sound, only partially achieving it (he came close on Rubber Soul, then lost in on Revolver).
