Michael Beinhorn is a North American record producer, composer, author, and musician. He has produced albums for Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Hole, Violent Femmes, and Marilyn Manson.
Career
1977–1983: early years, Material, Herbie Hancock
Beinhorn began his career as a Synthesist. His first instrument was a Moog Micromoog, after which he began working with a Sequential Circuits Prophet 5, an EMS Synthi AKS, Oberheim OB-Xa and Rhodes Chroma, as well as other instruments such as a Roland TR-808 drum machine, Roland SVC-350 Vocoder, Oberheim DMX drum machine and Oberheim DSX sequencer. Later, he began using such instruments as ARP 2600, as well as Moog modular and Serge Modular systems. He received formal training in synthesizer programming on the Buchla 200 series modular systems at Public Access Synthesizer Studio in New York City.
In 1977, Beinhorn met bassist Bill Laswell and together, with his friends Fred Maher and Cliff Cultreri, they formed the Zu Band (so-named by legendary European music impresario, producer/manager Giorgio Gomelsky- whose primary claims to notoriety were as manager/owner of London's infamous Crawdaddy Club, former manager and producer of The Yardbirds and manager of The Rolling Stones for a weekend).
After Gomelsky produced the Zu Band's first recording, the group ended their relationship with him and began self-producing. About a year following their first release and their first shows in New York City (at such legendary nightclubs as CBGB, Mudd Club, Hurrah and Tier 3), they changed their band name to Material.
By 1980, Maher and Cultreri had left Material. As a duo, Beinhorn and Laswell collaborated on various projects with a variety of musical artists, such as Nile Rodgers, David Byrne, Sonny Sharrock, Nona Hendryx, Bernie Worrell, Patti LaBelle, Tony Thompson, etc.
One ongoing collaboration was with musical luminary Brian Eno and eventually yielded the track Lizard Point from the 4th and final recording in Eno's Ambient series, Ambient 4: On Land. The following year, the duo recorded a young up-and-coming singer named Whitney Houston on a version of the Soft Machine song "Memories" which also featured the legendary free jazz tenor sax player, Archie Shepp.
That year (1981), they produced and composed "Change the Beat" by Fab Five Freddy which became the source of the infamous "Fresh Scratch"(which included the sound of a voice controlling the Oberheim OBXa synthesizer through the Roland SVC350 vocoder reciting "Ahhhh...this stuff is really frrreshh"). This led to Beinhorn's work in 1983 on Herbie Hancock's record Future Shock which included the groundbreaking track, "Rockit" (which featured the first ever usage of the "Fresh Scratch" as a turntable scratch. Another element was its usage of programmed drum fill breaks as thematic motifs). Beinhorn co-produced, co-wrote, and programmed the Oberheim DMX drum machine, synthesizers and Lexicon M.93 Prime Time sampler on the track. As a result of its usage in "Rockit", the "Fresh Scratch" has subsequently become the most sampled sound in the world.
Along with such seminal recordings as "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, "Planet Rock" by Soulsonic Force and "Numbers" by Kraftwerk, "Rockit" was one of the most important recordings from the early 1980s that helped elevate the nascent form of hip hop from an underground music genre, into the international spotlight. Having the distinction of being one of the earliest videos on MTV, "Rockit" also had a much greater reach and success than any of its predecessors. The track went on to win Best R&B Instrumental Performance at the 1984 Grammy Awards (also receiving a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition), as well as five VMA's at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards where Herbie was the show's most awarded artist.
1984–1989: leaving Material, work with Red Hot Chili Peppers
Beinhorn set out on his own, leaving Material in 1984. Two years later, he found himself in a speeding van with a struggling Los Angeles band called Red Hot Chili Peppers who were late to a gig in Dallas, Texas. The result of that van ride was 1987's The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, which finally put the band on the map. The record was as much a chronicle of Los Angeles- the city the band loved- as it was of their lives and the unlikely journey everyone went through to get the record made. Bass player Flea later referred to the album as "the 'rockingest' record" the band has ever made.