In mid November we received an email from photographer extraodinaire, Robert Knight. In the letter he mentioned the new book he has out on the Rockwalk (www.rockwalk.com) that has some great Beck photos and in closing he mentioned that Jeff was in Los Angeles recently working on new material. The aforementioned project with Trent D'Arby had been dropped and Jeff was now working with Steve Lukather. Robert mentioned he had heard some of the new stuff and that it was 'fantastic'. The next day or so we replied to Robert with questions about his book and who else was at the Beck sessions. His reply was that the sessions included Beck, Lukather, Abe Laboreal Jr. and Lenny Castro. Robert also asked us not to say anything in public regarding this for as he put it, "I don't want to jinx it, so wait." "Jinx?"....hmmm. Well we were and are of the opinion that if Robert says we shouldn't mention the project, then we're not. So, we filed this information into our 'future' file and got on with the rest of the page.
The very next day we received the November issue of 'EQ' magazine, a magazine about the recording industry, and what was the cover story? A full blown article on Steve Lukather's and Tom Fletcher's new LA based recording studio 'The Steakhouse'. The article dealt mostly with the history and technical aspects of the new studio, but at the very end of the article, in fact the second to last paragraph was printed the following: "In addition to developing new bands, The Steakhouse will also host some more established artists. According to Lukather, there are 'some really big things coming in that I can't talk about even though I want to. People have strong feelings about it being bad luck to talk about a project before it's done. We'd be bumming out the artists - it might not work out, and then I'd look like an ass! But I'm doing a solo record here in the next few months and we have someone coming in who let's just say is one of the greatest guitar players that ever graced the face of this earth.'"
Gee we wonder who that could be? Anyway the line, "some people have strong feelings about it being bad luck" now that's odd. So once again we sure aren't going to bring any bad vibes down on a project we're just dying to have come off, after all a new Jeff Beck album is a momentous event for us here at the page. So, we've sat on this project for about a month and were willing to do so indefinately until Dick Wyzanski had one of his phone chats with Ralph Baker. Dick mentioned that we knew about the Steakhouse project and weren't going to say anything unless it was OK with him and the rest of Jeff's management. Ralph said, No, it's OK with us for you to announce the project, in fact we're very excited about the whole thing. Jeff will be back at the Steakhouse for three weeks in January of 1997 to hopefully complete the project with a hopeful summer of 1997 release. Besides Lukather, Ralph said that some of Lukather's 'friends' will also appear on the record. We assume they are the aforementioned cast. We asked is Pino going to be there? No, Pino hasn't had a US work permit since the last tour was the reply, although we had heard that Jeff was 'in the studio' with Pino several months ago. So there you have it, something for all of us to look forward to!!