Important Artist Statement

I find it easy to point out what is wrong in something. Even in the things I love – I sometimes slip into simply pointing to the experience of the thing: “it is small, that is bad – why would one want a thing like that to be small? It should be larger.” This comes so clearly from a state of desire. I want a thing that is similar, but larger. There is no bad in such a case. In past I’ve too quickly made critical remarks about a thing in such a state of desire. It feels childish now. If I can’t find the good in something from now on, I’m going to chalk it up to desire. I’ve been surprised too many times in past by things I, in a more distant past, disdained with the whole of my body. I will henceforth do my best to portray my dislike for something as a dissatisfaction. (This also allows for the belief that those that create a thing were hopefully in a state of mind of enjoying that which they created).

This is about music, though, this Records. Not just things. It feels fresher to listen again without Bad. Way better.

Concerts: Too loud?

The folks over at Pitchfork have put up a DVD of Panda Bear and various artists who opened for him on his miniature 2007 tour for Person Pitch. I was living in Philadelphia at the time, so I got the chance to see one of the shows. Watching the video brought up a slew of points that I’d love to get across in a series of posts. The first of these is the most simple and will probably make me sound older and crotchetier than my twenty-three years.

The concert was too loud.

Panda Bear faithfully executed the tracks from Person Pitch as well as early versions of some of the tracks that would later appear on Animal Collective’s most-recent, Merriweather Post Pavillion. I was slightly disappointed that experiencing most of these tracks live meant a similar experience to listening to the record. I wasn’t expecting anything more than that, but one still feels let-down leaving a show having heard songs reproduced with button presses and no showy show.

The acoustics were a bit rough in the First Unitarian Church, with a bright, harsh reverb that blurred out any of the subtleties of the music. Panda Bear’s voice was EQed horribly, if at all. Everything he sang sounded quite muddy. And the volume of the show was an onslaught. There were no dynamics. A more relaxed song came across just as powerfully as one of Panda Bear’s more ebullient tracks. My ears got tired fast and so did my brain. When the music has no dynamics you get bored. It strips away a layer of emotional impact. The lack of dynamics could have been attributed to Panda Bear himself and a lack of ability to manipulate his hardware to breathe in a musical way, but even if this was the case, there was no need to have the show be as loud as it was. My fiancee and I were in the back row, center – right in front of the mixing board – so you’d think we’d have the perfect mix. Not so. I put my fingers in my ears, and it was only then that the show sounded good. The harshness of the room was filtered out and I could actually make out the music much clearer.

In summary, it was fun to go out and go to a show. I like Panda Bear and am always interested to see what he writes. The show, though, was bad. It was boring for lack of dynamics and exhausting because I had to keep my fingers in my ears the whole time. Why does it have to be common practice these days to bring earplugs to concerts? It just seems ridiculous. Some music begs to be loud to a point where you feel the sound vibrating you bones, but Panda Bear’s music did not resonate with me at such a volume.

Any thoughts on this?

Ye Olde Reckordings

This topic is wonderfully relevant to my current struggles. I have always had a looming problem in my recording history: too much too soon. I begin the process of writing songs for a full-length or EP, and before finishing the first project I begin writing for the next one. It’s especially confusing when one project or persona bleeds into the next.

That Zappa book’s pretty good, but preachy as all heck. Yeah, Zappa, you were right, the Christian right-wingers got their way and ran the country to almost two decades. Yeah. Now, explain why “Broadway the Hard Way” was such a piece of bland garbage with stock-Zappa arrangements? Politics do belong in music, but not when it’s so overt. But you knew that, didn’t you Zappa? You smug bastard.

That’s a separate conversation for a separate post.

I can easily be accused of listening to my own recordings, as I’m working on compiling The Attics Demos. Some of these songs are 3 years old. Some are barely months or weeks old. I’ve incorporated several Attics songs into other bands: Edgy Citizens, even Multiple Cyclops was supposed to be an Attics album until I convinced myself I needed a band proper to record and play with.

Multiple Cyclops was probably the first proper band I’ve ever been in. Mike and Mischa were incredible musical partners, willing to play any song I offered up and arranging parts of their instruments (guitar and keyboards, respectively) on the spot. You couldn’t ask for better band-mates. Those were incredibly focused songs, and the first batch of 14 proved to be enough to fill a whole album. As I played gigs and rehearsed, more songs came at an even quicker pace. As it stands, there are still almost 35 unreleased songs in the Cyclops vault. As of right now, those songs will never see the light of day.

I still talk to Mike and Mischa, but I’m separated by half a country. Every once in a while I’ll pop in the album to give it a spin, which is rough considering that it’s still basically unmixed. Nevertheless, you do transport back to not only the recording sessions, but the afternoons of invention that led to the songs. What I may have been eating (giant sandwiches) or drinking (giant coffees) at the time, or which episode of Law & Order was on in the background come to mind.

With the Attics, the writing has spanned over the course of all the bands and records I’ve worked with/on. Now that I’m finally getting the hang of Pro Tools (PS-I still hate you Digidesign, for putting out a product that was not ready for consumers. Apple, I slightly dislike you for the incompatibility issue, but I enjoy your interface so all is forgiven between us!), I’m ready to find the cream of the crop and try to create a definitive recording of these songs.

This of course means trudging through nearly 35 songs, actually 40. I finally recovered five “lost” songs from a scratched up data CD, with aborted Pro Tools sessions as well! Fantastic! Luckily, Evan is helping me slog through them all. There is a wonderful range of quality:

1. Embarrassing minimum- guitar part, maybe 1:00 long, with disjointed sections, sounds like it was played by an 90-year-old woman

2. Bare Minimum – guitar, voice, guitar part is almost complete but lacks any hooks, the vocals range from terrible to hilariously awful

3. Minimum – guitar, vocal, possible synth, guitar and vocals are remarkably coherent, keyboards probably involve minor dabbling before feeding back and cutting out awkwardly

4. Neutral – guitar, vox, keys, elec. drums, arrangement is fleshed out in miniature, lyrics are almost completed, drums are electronic but give a good template

5. Surprisingly decent – most of the arrangement finished, vocals are multi-tracked, bass gtr appears, and actual Pro Tools tracking can commence

Poor Evan. He has to slog through almost 40 songs of that! Psychologically, it lifts me up. After so many years of writing, one tends to lose perspective. What sounded like a great song to me two years ago now sounds like garbage. Hopefully Evan will be able to convince me not to throw everything out.

In the meantime, check out this rough transfer of Gilgamesh’s latest track, Destroy All Honda Elements. It has to be severely edited down, but check out the 19 minute track length. Everyone has a place in their heart for a little prog, no?

Yes. Yes you do.

Morning Idea: Old Recordings

A while back I read Frank Zappa’s autobiography. Not my favorite read (I was especially disappointed that the final chapters were dedicated to social/political rants rather than a look into how he felt about his ’90s work), but I remember being struck by a particular sentiment. He purportedly never listened to his own recordings. Once he was done with a record, he was done with it. Considering how prolific he was throughout his career, this may have been a protective mechanism against doubt and regret. When you’re pumping out material at the pace he worked, I’m sure there were plenty of compromises and dialed-in fixes for recording or compositional issues that came with each recording.

I could never work that way. It’s too late for me! I’ve always worked slowly. The Dionysiac Revelry record took us a good part of three years to finish. Some of the demos for that record were written a year or more before that 3 year period even began. And since we have the totally rad technological advances in music these days, I was able to listen to “Being Here…” for the entirety of the recording journey. It would be safe to assume then, that I’d be done with the record once it was completed. Three+ years of hearing the music develop into its “final” form. Not so! I occasionally go back and listen. I do it for a couple reasons:

I’ll clear the air and profess this right off the bat: listening back is incredibly ego-building. I BUILT THIS THING. HOORAY! Sure you recognize the mistakes and the horrible sections, but when you nailed a song it’s always interesting to test it. Did we nail that section? Was it as tight as I remember it? My taste has evolved. how primitive was the writing? It can be incredibly refreshing to listen back to the old material and recreate the compositional process and compare it to how you now work. I tend to notice that I completely glossed over certain compositional or engineering choices in my older material. With so many software instruments, so any musical styles, so many damn options these days, seeing how I inadvertently limited myself due to a lack of knowledge is incredibly refreshing.

There’s so much more to listening back than just considering the craft. It has personal implications as well. Music locks a  PLACE. When you listen back to that Mariah Carey record that helped you through a painful breakup, nostalgia kicks in. The emotions come back, and the memory of where you were when you experienced that record is reconstructed. The car you aimlessly drove around in and cried while listening to Mariah Carey becomes real again for the moment of listening back. I think its the way that emotional landscapes are mapped onto a recording that let you recreate that space.

So when I listen back to my old Wounded Soldier recording I remember the room! The room! That summer! Those moments of watching movies, but stopping them halfway because I got the itch! Putting together a recording seems to map even more emotions than simply listening to a final product (ala my Mariah Carey example)

Of course, the recording world of Frank Zappa didn’t allow for extreme overdubbing. They would go into the studio, smash out a recording, then move on. Good musicianship and a different mentality towards recording might have contributed to this. So maybe even if Zappa listened back to his old recordings he may not have found such a personalized nostalgia. He wrote so much music, maybe he never got that close to any of it. A crying shame!

What thinks you Ariskany Recordists? Emotional mapping? Waves of nostalgia? Specifically relating to the space in which the recording took place? I’m curious.