Mel Fairlight is the lead (only) recording engineer at Fertile Crescent Telephone Company. During college, he spend a good deal of time riding a dirt bike around the creek and writing lyric poetry instead of studying. As a result, he received an honorary Degree of Congratulation in electrical engineering from Adobe College of the Desert, a distinction given to those who show spirit and heart, if not work ethic.
He lived in his grandmother's basement after graduation and, while working as a concession vendor at the Fair of the Universe, hand-wired a 24-channel mixing board using electrical components sourced from the Krazy Kaleidoscope Ferris Wheel and an old Oppenheimer A8-200 Public Address System previously used to announce Geap Fireshows.
He has pioneered several innovative recording techniques, including capturing Joe Pasteroni's piano via a microphone taped to a Eucalyptus tree from a distance of 3/4 miles away during the taping of the Timmons, Pasteroni, & Krantz album Availability in Blue, which he claimed added a "certain kind of special feeling" to the process.
It does have a special kind of special feeling, don't you think?