You'd asked my opinion on a few bands...
***Phil Spector produced 60's groups and the wall of sound.---I was always enamored of the Wall of Sound but I never tried too hard to track down the groups who employed it. Of course in trying to imitate it Bruce Springsteen perfected it (most notably on "Born to Run" but I always hear it shine through most clearly on "Night"). Much like Gary Glitter, Spector's trespasses forces you to separate the music from it's maker. Such was never too difficult for me, as I certainly didn't care anything for Glitter's brand of glam and though I enjoyed his work I never cared enough for Spector as a personality to be too bothered about it.
***Lame Impala.---Actually I think it's TAME Impala you're talking about here. I note that their most recent album did very well in the "end-of-year" lists and I did listen to it once. It was decent enough but not to interesting that I have felt compelled to play it again.
***The War on Drugs.---The Sun Kil Moon/War on Drugs "feud" was the source of collateral damage on both side. As for Kozelek I felt he was way out line and it was the last thing he needed during a year when his most recent album was being praised from all corners. As for Kurt Vile and WoD it was an unfortunate case of me caring too much about Koz's opinion and taste in music. Which means that I've never been able to listen to WoD without his criticisms poisoning the well. Even if they're invalid and meaningless I still find myself looking for them when I hear WoD's music. That plus the fact that WoD don't sound like what I envisioned them sounding like when I first heard people singing thier praise. For some reason they gave me the impression they were a stereotypical 4AD band but that's not what they are at all. To wrap it up, the War on Drugs is an interesting band but not quite up my alley.
***The Connells.---As you know I've been a supporter of The Connells since the mid-eighties, from the first time I saw a 30 second clip of one of their live shows on an episode of MTV/IRS The Cutting Edge. You may recall I actually wrote to their management asking about the song they had played. I forget the title but it was something they had not recorded. I don't know if they ever recorded it but the manager sent me a cassette of a self-recorded live version and that won me over completely for those guys. "Boylan Heights" was always my favorite (with "I Suppose" being my favorite track). There were a few good songs on the follow-up, "Fun & Games" but as a whole that album didn't do it for me like "Boylan Heights". Those two records and a debut album, the name of which escapes me, were my main experience with The Connells, though they did release at least a couple more after that.
***The Pixies.---I don't know why I didn't get deeper into this band than I did. I like them very much and have listened to a lot of their material but I don't think I've ever listened to a one of their albums straight through. If I have it was probably "Tromp Le Monde" which contains some of their best work, IMO. Kurt Cobain insisted that the musical template of Nirvana was always based on The Pixies (although I don't personally hear it). I know Rick Withrow had them scoped out as early as the late 80s. I knew of them long before that but for whatever reason they didn't catch my ear.
***Hole.---I can remember when "Live Through This" came out and there were people saying it was too good, that it had been written by Love's husband, Kurt Cobain. That's a loaded compliment/insult! Because yes, a good part of it is as good as anything Cobain wrote for his own band. Courtney has a genuine punk sensibility that has worked both for and against her all these years. I haven't heard "Celebrity Skin" and I think they may even have a more recent one out but I haven't heard that one either. But "Live Through This" is a classis.
***Arcade Fire.---I'm sure these guys are great, as I tend to very much enjoy Canadian contemporary rock acts...but I have not really taken the time to get to know them at all. I've seen them on TV more than I've listened to their records. I do like what I've heard, it just hasn't been enough for me to have opinion about.
***Lady GaGa.---I have not listened to her music at all so I don't have an opinion on that. But as a performance artist she keeps things very interesting, that's to be sure. I'm glad she did so well with her Super Bowl national anthem performance. There were plenty of people there hoping she'd fuck up and she didn't, she blew them away.
***Coldplay.---I can't say I'm crazy about all of Coldplay's music but what I like from them I really like a lot. Most of those tracks I like so much are from the "A Rush of Blood to the Head" album ("In My Place", "Clocks", "The Scientist"). I almost feel sorry for them they've become so popular. Mainstream popularity doth not make good bedfellows with the kind of music they make and I think that's hurt them. I used to think Chris Martin was a jerk but not so much anymore. They all seem like good guys. Not as weird as Radiohead, not as charismatic as U2, they carry the banner for post-Brit Pop/Post Pop, let's call it...Though it's conceivable that someone might come up to you and suggest that Coldplay is the worst band in the world you can rest content knowing that you have Nickelback waiting in the wings to collect that honor.
***Father John Misty.---I saw Misty on Letterman and listened to his most recent album a few times. He has sort of a Leonard Cohen sensibility about him, sort of like a man who has been to some dark, seedy places come back to tell you about it. Unfortunately the whole thing comes of slightly disingenuous and gimmicky. It doesn't help that he has decided to call himself "Father" John Misty, so you get that sort of priestly pall that's cast on everything. That said I also think that the guy behind Fr. Misty (the Fleet Foxes' drummer whose name escapes me) is well aware of everything he's putting out there, including the gimmicky aspects. So if he's in on the joke and he's letting me in on the joke I can be a bit more accommodating.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Letter to DC
Hey,
I had not had a chance to listen to any of the songs by the time I got your letter last night. Since then I have worked with the last song we did by adjusting the EQ, adding some effects and experimenting with levels. I also added another guitar part that's played with a capo and it sort of took the song in another direction so I started another version.
I am very encouraged by what I listened to, even if it was only one of what, five? Six of them? It's not perfect but a good place to start, a good foundation and that's what I've been lacking. When I compare what this is turning into with what I accomplished the last time I borrowed the Boss studio it's apparent that the former will be fleshed out and likely will sound noticeably better than the latter. I won't say the songs are "better", necessarily, but who knows. They might be. When I did the earlier recordings I chose from songs that had already been written, some were years old. Most of what you and I laid down yesterday was totally improvised. They are in a stage that is open to editing and probably some slight changes.
Also, the last Boss project I completed had no vocal tracks. One of the reasons for that is because the lyrics to most of them weren't "set in stone" and I wasn't confident that they were good enough to include in the final mix. But I wasn't in a big hurry to return the studio then, either, so I could have taken a few days and tried to iron out some decent words. I didn't because even though I did have a microphone I was having absolutely no luck getting it to sound right through the studio. Since then I've figured it out so I will definitely add lyrics and vocals. It will be a challenge because I don't want to do the typical same-old-same-old kind of realist lyrics that I've been stuck in a rut with for so long. I want to write something that people can relate to, that would touch them on a heart level instead of the head level I try so hard to reach. I make the mistake of assuming that everyone LISTENS to music the same way that I do and I should have learned long ago that this is not actually the case.
I know it had to have been frustrating to play drum lines throughout the length of songs and then as it turns out I didn't have the input levels right or for whatever reason you can't hear them back. I take responsibility for it because I have not mastered the studio console so I make a lot of time consuming mistakes. If you want to hear something back you must not hesitate to request that I play it back to you. The vast majority of the time it will not be a problem but if I can tell a take is not worth using I would much rather expend the time it would take to listen back to tracks we aren't even using by loading up the studio to try again. If you feel you have not played well even though the guitar part made it through to the end you can always go back and re-record it as many times until you are happy with it. But if both of us break down before a song ends I think we should just scrap it and start all over again. This paragraph has been an attempt to say "I feel your pain".
I'm sure I'll hook the Boss up again today and listen to the other songs we recorded. My head is clear, if you know what I mean, so I will be better able to gauge their quality. It could really go either way. I have a good feeling about them though. I have an even better feeling about what's to come. I think Jeff will let me keep the studio as long as I want it. He hadn't used it in a long, long time when he loaned it to his brother Dock, who passed away while it was in his possession. That's been well over a year ago and Jeff never touched it once in all that time. He didn't even know that the songs I'd recorded on it were on it and that's been 2 years ago so at least that long since he actually used it himself. He and I are in a really good place right now insomuch as we get along very well and he trusts me, and I've seen him give away equipment of comparable worth just because he wanted to help further the talents of his friends. He gave Bryan what was at the time it was new a very expensive Alesis keyboard for him to learn how to play on. I'm not saying I expect him to give me the studio (or should I be so lucky the guitar) but I am saying I don't put it past him to do it. He's got a big heart. It's a shame that he's sort of turned his back on music but that may well work to my advantage. When he hears some of the things we're recording he may well decide that we could put it to better use than he's ever been able to and at that point who knows? And if we get that studio on a full time basis there's so much we could do with it. It's exciting.
Once again I have to thank you for steering me back to Daniel Amos. I hadn't listened to that stuff in years. A funny thing happened after I'd been using Spotify for as long as I have. It leveled the playing field, as it were. Access to SO much music, although I would not trade it for anything at the moment, is probably NOT such a good thing in certain ways. Especially not for a person with anxiety issues. Not just SO much music but in a way TOO much music, I want to hear it all (or at least all of the good stuff) and I have to realize that not only will this never happen but I probably should be thankful it won't. Why? Because it sends me out looking for new new new new all that time and I don't take the chance to settle in and get familiar with an artist or band the way I used to. Not to say that I haven't found some artists who I was so impressed with that I listened to all of their music more than once (and I still listen to Mahler's 9 symphonies continuously. But my favorite thing has been music discovery. Then I hear Daniel Amos and it reminds me that I have a rich history with Terry Scott Taylor and the boys, having championed them, if not from the very beginning, at least from the point where they switched musical directions from the typical folk-country outfit they began as to the new wave inspired cerebral rock group that has always been at the crossroad of thinking and feeling.
I'm sure I first read about Daniel Amos in the pages of Cornerstone magazine. Or maybe from the Methodist youth director in 1980, Mark Pixley. But the first time I actually heard them, if memory serves (which is a hope, not a guarantee) was when I was working the night shift at KSLE in Seminole hosting the Gospel By Radio program (you knew I did that for a few months, right?). The stuff I played on that show was very generic, middle of the road music, the softer side of the Jesus Music movement and the records you would find in the store at Falls Creek Baptist Assembly. Some of it was good, some of it was horrid, I didn't really know what I was doing because I hadn't listened to most of this stuff (having a penchant back then for harder edged, "Christian rock" (although I hated the term "Christian rock" as I still do.
Anyway most of the records I had to play had been there forever. Every once in awhile the labels would send something new but what they sent did not always fit into the station's format of muzak (I hate to call it that because there were people like Keith Green and John Michael Talbot in the mix to up the quality but for the most part it was tripe like Barry McGuire's "Cosmic Cowboy" and Amy Grant's "My Father's Eyes"). I have grown to appreciate this music for what it is but at the time I wouldn't listen to it. I'd queue the record up, start it playing and then turn down the volume while getting the next one ready.
One night I came in a found that we had received a couple of Daniel Amos records. There was "Horrendous Disc" which had been recorded years before but was held up by Solid Rock Records because Larry Norman wasn't sure he wanted to put it out on his label. There was also a white vinyl 10 inch of the title track along with a couple other songs from that album ("Hounds of Heaven" was on it, I remember that). It was a cool promotional item which I wound up "stealing". The quotations indicate that I acknowledge taking it without paying for or asking for it. On the other hand it served practically no use to the station because no one was playing it but me. Oh, they played their first two country folk albums but the band's rock direction was alienating, they would have left it on the shelves to collect dust. So I took it.
"Horrendous Disc", if you haven't heard it, is a pure slice of late seventies rock by a group of musicians who are just discovering the "alternative" style they would eventually gravitate towards. Indeed by the time "Horrendous Disc" was released they had already evolved into a full fledged new wave band and released "Alarma!", the first of four volumes in "The Alarma Chronicles". It's a solid record with good songs but you can sense that they haven't quite mustered up the fortitude to play the kind of music they aspired to create. Compare it to any of the other "Alarma Chronicles" and you'll hear restraint, likely a result of trying to remain palatable to the ears of Contemporary Christian music fans. It may not have been so much their fault because they had signed to the Benson label, which was an established label populated by artists who were decidedly less "rock", even by the standard set by "Alarma". For whatever reason they were only on Benson for the one album before self-funding the followup "Doppelganger".
On "Doppleganger" you can hear them finally start to find a niche they are comfortable in. This evolution only continued with "Vox Humana" and "Fearful Symmetry". I fell away and didn't listen to "Christian Music" for several years not too long after "Vox Humana" so I didn't hear "Fearful Symmetry" until I found it in Daniel's record collection in 88. Those "Chronicles" records had a ton of thought put into them by Terry Taylor. Each one had a 4-page album-sized booklet that provided fodder for the concept he was trying to put forth, with song lyrics and passages from heady works by Dostoevski, Kierkeggard, CS Lewis, you know, the usual suspects, along with the obligatory scripture verses and stuff like that. The lyrics are pointed and often ironic. None of it was typical "Jesus Music" as it was intended for the mature Christian's own edification and not evangelism. For years and years these titles were out of print (at least a couple of them are still not available) and the band released a 3 CD "Book Set" which contained all 4 of the Alarma records packaged with a specially made book that I assume is an expansion of the stuff that was in the booklets I spoke of. If it gives you an idea of how rabid their cult following is, you can find that book set on eBay for $200.
I mentioned that I fell away after "Vox Humana". I didn't come back to DA until "Mr. Buechner's Dream" in 2001 so I missed what many consider to be their best work. "Darn Floor Big Bite" is heralded as a masterwork of the genre but I've only heard it casually a time or two, barely remember it. The title is interesting...it's a reference to an Old Testament occurrence in which the earth opened up and swallowed a large group of people who had not stood with Moses or something like that. The ground beneath opens up and swallows them - "Darn floor! Big bite!", you get it?
When I did finally get back on the Amos train I learned about The Swirling Eddies and Lost Dogs.
Okay, you probably didn't care anything about that music history lesson. I had nothing better to do than write it out. Let me know when you're ready to bring the drums back and do some more recording.
jc
I had not had a chance to listen to any of the songs by the time I got your letter last night. Since then I have worked with the last song we did by adjusting the EQ, adding some effects and experimenting with levels. I also added another guitar part that's played with a capo and it sort of took the song in another direction so I started another version.
I am very encouraged by what I listened to, even if it was only one of what, five? Six of them? It's not perfect but a good place to start, a good foundation and that's what I've been lacking. When I compare what this is turning into with what I accomplished the last time I borrowed the Boss studio it's apparent that the former will be fleshed out and likely will sound noticeably better than the latter. I won't say the songs are "better", necessarily, but who knows. They might be. When I did the earlier recordings I chose from songs that had already been written, some were years old. Most of what you and I laid down yesterday was totally improvised. They are in a stage that is open to editing and probably some slight changes.
Also, the last Boss project I completed had no vocal tracks. One of the reasons for that is because the lyrics to most of them weren't "set in stone" and I wasn't confident that they were good enough to include in the final mix. But I wasn't in a big hurry to return the studio then, either, so I could have taken a few days and tried to iron out some decent words. I didn't because even though I did have a microphone I was having absolutely no luck getting it to sound right through the studio. Since then I've figured it out so I will definitely add lyrics and vocals. It will be a challenge because I don't want to do the typical same-old-same-old kind of realist lyrics that I've been stuck in a rut with for so long. I want to write something that people can relate to, that would touch them on a heart level instead of the head level I try so hard to reach. I make the mistake of assuming that everyone LISTENS to music the same way that I do and I should have learned long ago that this is not actually the case.
I know it had to have been frustrating to play drum lines throughout the length of songs and then as it turns out I didn't have the input levels right or for whatever reason you can't hear them back. I take responsibility for it because I have not mastered the studio console so I make a lot of time consuming mistakes. If you want to hear something back you must not hesitate to request that I play it back to you. The vast majority of the time it will not be a problem but if I can tell a take is not worth using I would much rather expend the time it would take to listen back to tracks we aren't even using by loading up the studio to try again. If you feel you have not played well even though the guitar part made it through to the end you can always go back and re-record it as many times until you are happy with it. But if both of us break down before a song ends I think we should just scrap it and start all over again. This paragraph has been an attempt to say "I feel your pain".
I'm sure I'll hook the Boss up again today and listen to the other songs we recorded. My head is clear, if you know what I mean, so I will be better able to gauge their quality. It could really go either way. I have a good feeling about them though. I have an even better feeling about what's to come. I think Jeff will let me keep the studio as long as I want it. He hadn't used it in a long, long time when he loaned it to his brother Dock, who passed away while it was in his possession. That's been well over a year ago and Jeff never touched it once in all that time. He didn't even know that the songs I'd recorded on it were on it and that's been 2 years ago so at least that long since he actually used it himself. He and I are in a really good place right now insomuch as we get along very well and he trusts me, and I've seen him give away equipment of comparable worth just because he wanted to help further the talents of his friends. He gave Bryan what was at the time it was new a very expensive Alesis keyboard for him to learn how to play on. I'm not saying I expect him to give me the studio (or should I be so lucky the guitar) but I am saying I don't put it past him to do it. He's got a big heart. It's a shame that he's sort of turned his back on music but that may well work to my advantage. When he hears some of the things we're recording he may well decide that we could put it to better use than he's ever been able to and at that point who knows? And if we get that studio on a full time basis there's so much we could do with it. It's exciting.
Once again I have to thank you for steering me back to Daniel Amos. I hadn't listened to that stuff in years. A funny thing happened after I'd been using Spotify for as long as I have. It leveled the playing field, as it were. Access to SO much music, although I would not trade it for anything at the moment, is probably NOT such a good thing in certain ways. Especially not for a person with anxiety issues. Not just SO much music but in a way TOO much music, I want to hear it all (or at least all of the good stuff) and I have to realize that not only will this never happen but I probably should be thankful it won't. Why? Because it sends me out looking for new new new new all that time and I don't take the chance to settle in and get familiar with an artist or band the way I used to. Not to say that I haven't found some artists who I was so impressed with that I listened to all of their music more than once (and I still listen to Mahler's 9 symphonies continuously. But my favorite thing has been music discovery. Then I hear Daniel Amos and it reminds me that I have a rich history with Terry Scott Taylor and the boys, having championed them, if not from the very beginning, at least from the point where they switched musical directions from the typical folk-country outfit they began as to the new wave inspired cerebral rock group that has always been at the crossroad of thinking and feeling.
I'm sure I first read about Daniel Amos in the pages of Cornerstone magazine. Or maybe from the Methodist youth director in 1980, Mark Pixley. But the first time I actually heard them, if memory serves (which is a hope, not a guarantee) was when I was working the night shift at KSLE in Seminole hosting the Gospel By Radio program (you knew I did that for a few months, right?). The stuff I played on that show was very generic, middle of the road music, the softer side of the Jesus Music movement and the records you would find in the store at Falls Creek Baptist Assembly. Some of it was good, some of it was horrid, I didn't really know what I was doing because I hadn't listened to most of this stuff (having a penchant back then for harder edged, "Christian rock" (although I hated the term "Christian rock" as I still do.
Anyway most of the records I had to play had been there forever. Every once in awhile the labels would send something new but what they sent did not always fit into the station's format of muzak (I hate to call it that because there were people like Keith Green and John Michael Talbot in the mix to up the quality but for the most part it was tripe like Barry McGuire's "Cosmic Cowboy" and Amy Grant's "My Father's Eyes"). I have grown to appreciate this music for what it is but at the time I wouldn't listen to it. I'd queue the record up, start it playing and then turn down the volume while getting the next one ready.
One night I came in a found that we had received a couple of Daniel Amos records. There was "Horrendous Disc" which had been recorded years before but was held up by Solid Rock Records because Larry Norman wasn't sure he wanted to put it out on his label. There was also a white vinyl 10 inch of the title track along with a couple other songs from that album ("Hounds of Heaven" was on it, I remember that). It was a cool promotional item which I wound up "stealing". The quotations indicate that I acknowledge taking it without paying for or asking for it. On the other hand it served practically no use to the station because no one was playing it but me. Oh, they played their first two country folk albums but the band's rock direction was alienating, they would have left it on the shelves to collect dust. So I took it.
"Horrendous Disc", if you haven't heard it, is a pure slice of late seventies rock by a group of musicians who are just discovering the "alternative" style they would eventually gravitate towards. Indeed by the time "Horrendous Disc" was released they had already evolved into a full fledged new wave band and released "Alarma!", the first of four volumes in "The Alarma Chronicles". It's a solid record with good songs but you can sense that they haven't quite mustered up the fortitude to play the kind of music they aspired to create. Compare it to any of the other "Alarma Chronicles" and you'll hear restraint, likely a result of trying to remain palatable to the ears of Contemporary Christian music fans. It may not have been so much their fault because they had signed to the Benson label, which was an established label populated by artists who were decidedly less "rock", even by the standard set by "Alarma". For whatever reason they were only on Benson for the one album before self-funding the followup "Doppelganger".
On "Doppleganger" you can hear them finally start to find a niche they are comfortable in. This evolution only continued with "Vox Humana" and "Fearful Symmetry". I fell away and didn't listen to "Christian Music" for several years not too long after "Vox Humana" so I didn't hear "Fearful Symmetry" until I found it in Daniel's record collection in 88. Those "Chronicles" records had a ton of thought put into them by Terry Taylor. Each one had a 4-page album-sized booklet that provided fodder for the concept he was trying to put forth, with song lyrics and passages from heady works by Dostoevski, Kierkeggard, CS Lewis, you know, the usual suspects, along with the obligatory scripture verses and stuff like that. The lyrics are pointed and often ironic. None of it was typical "Jesus Music" as it was intended for the mature Christian's own edification and not evangelism. For years and years these titles were out of print (at least a couple of them are still not available) and the band released a 3 CD "Book Set" which contained all 4 of the Alarma records packaged with a specially made book that I assume is an expansion of the stuff that was in the booklets I spoke of. If it gives you an idea of how rabid their cult following is, you can find that book set on eBay for $200.
I mentioned that I fell away after "Vox Humana". I didn't come back to DA until "Mr. Buechner's Dream" in 2001 so I missed what many consider to be their best work. "Darn Floor Big Bite" is heralded as a masterwork of the genre but I've only heard it casually a time or two, barely remember it. The title is interesting...it's a reference to an Old Testament occurrence in which the earth opened up and swallowed a large group of people who had not stood with Moses or something like that. The ground beneath opens up and swallows them - "Darn floor! Big bite!", you get it?
When I did finally get back on the Amos train I learned about The Swirling Eddies and Lost Dogs.
Okay, you probably didn't care anything about that music history lesson. I had nothing better to do than write it out. Let me know when you're ready to bring the drums back and do some more recording.
jc
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)