First he’ll be at the sound board, then the mike

By Joe Brown

Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009 | 2 a.m.

He was there at the birth of two of the most important rock albums of all time. But Alan Parsons would rather talk about avocados.

In 1969 Parsons was an 18-year-old assistant engineer, operating tape machines and fetching tea while the Beatles were recording their studio swan song, “Abbey Road.” And in 1973 Parsons engineered Pink Floyd’s mind-expanding epic “The Dark Side of the Moon.”

“I’m lucky to get through two weeks without talking about ‘Abbey Road’ at some point or other,” says Parson, who sounds as if he’s politely suppressing a sigh (or was that a yawn?) when pressed for 40-year-old memories yet again.

“The Beatles and Pink Floyd are part of my existence. I just look upon it as good fortune. Right place, right time — and a couple of lines on the CV (resume) that look pretty good.”

And that’s pretty much that about that. Parsons, now 60, perks up when the topic turns to the avocado crop he’s bringing in at his 40-acre mountaintop property in Santa Barbara, Calif. “But I don’t know if rock ’n’roll particularly cross-pollinates with avocados,” he says. (Maybe late at night, with headphones, salsa and chips.) Parsons brings his six-piece Alan Parsons Live Project to the Cannery on Saturday, before heading off for a European tour.

1. Concept king

Arguably the only example of progressive rock that hasn’t been significantly dated, the songs of the Alan Parsons Project are sumptuous, tasteful, tuneful and timeless. After beginning his music career as a staff engineer at London’s EMI Studios, Parsons helped construct the lush, spacious sounds of “concept albums” by the Beatles, Pink Floyd and, later, Al Stewart and Ambrosia. Later he started making his own thematically based, expertly synthesized albums, releasing 15 albums, which took inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe (“Tales of Mystery and Imagination”), Isaac Asimov (“I Robot”), Sigmund Freud (“Freudiana”), H.G. Wells (“Time Machine”) and Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi (“Gaudi”). There was even a nod to Las Vegas in a gambling-themed suite called “The Turn of a Friendly Card,” which scored a Top 20 hit with “Games People Play.”

“It was a fashionable thing to do in the mid-70s, and it was a successful formula in our case,” Parsons says. Alas, he adds, “in the iPod world, the concept album is not living a very healthy life.”

2. Stereophonic

Parsons also became the de facto king of the stereo demonstration album, with his albums vying with “Dark Side” as the most-played records at high-end audio equipment stores. Applying the knowledge learned at the feet of the masters, Parson played the recording studio as an instrument, creating the epitome of what came to be called “headphone rock.”

3. Lead engineer

Technicians don’t usually become rock stars, and Parsons may in fact be the sole example of an engineer turned brand name. Never a focus-pulling frontman, he has always been more of an auteur and aural architect, an enigmatic, reticent, Wizard of Oz-type figure, who plays keyboards and adds background vocals, leaving the stage to former partner Eric Woolfson and, over the years, Arthur Brown, ex-Zombie Colin Blunstone and the Hollies’ Allan Clarke. Parsons is currently finishing work on a six-hour instructional master-class DVD called “The Art and Science of Sound Recording,” which he says is aimed at helping professionals and home studio amateurs achieve that Parsons polish.

4. Prog on!

Prog rock is perhaps the most despised and maligned genre of rock, the secret shame of those of us with the complete catalogs of Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer on our iPods. But prog lives on in Las Vegas and other benighted pockets of the world, and there continues to be a market for Parsons’ albums, which have recently been digitally remastered and reissued with bonus tracks, so “you can buy them all over again,” says Parsons, with a chuckle. After a brief venture with more Spartan, percussion-driven electronica on the 2004 CD “A Valid Path,” Parsons says, he’s returning to a more “retro, traditional Parsons approach” on upcoming music projects, which he promises will feature “lots of big-sounding vocals and stuff like that.”

5. Let there be lasers

Laser light shows go with prog rock concerts like guacamole goes with chips. At Saturday’s Vegas show, Parsons will wear two hats: Before playing a set of his own hits, he’ll man the sound mixing board as the well-regarded Floyd tribute band Any Colour You Like opens the show, performing “Dark Side” live, accompanied by Paramount’s Original Laser Spectacular.

It’s pretty much Christmas for prog geeks.