This is an exerpt from something I wrote for an upcoming issue of Canadian Musician. You'll have to keep checking your newstands to get the full deal....
The great thing about technology is that it can be used to make things better. The problem with technology is that, before you can say "I forgot the music" it can also pave a direct route right around you and lead you quickly up a tunnel and into your own back entrance.
Technological advances in recording over the last 10 or 15 years have turned almost every musician on the planet into some form of recording engineer. I, for one, have waited for these salad days for my whole musical career. Anyone who hears something in their head and cannot figure out a way to get someone else to capture it for them has suffered agonizing pain. Man plays guitar in studio. Guitar sounds like angels whispering of endless sexual gratification. Man experiences performance of a lifetime. Man ventures into control room. Guitar sounds like dolphins farting through a wiffleball. Engineer says, "man this tone is sweeeet". Man is deflated and goes to bathroom to escape. Man stares balefully into toilet at his own distorted reflection and ponders the truth of Dad’s old "goodbye cruel world" bumper sticker.
I’ve always been evangelical in my belief that all musicians should learn how to record themselves. This doesn’t mean they should always do so. It just means they can learn to communicate what they want when they know what they want and defer to someone else when they don’t know what they want. The multitrack cassette machine opened up my world like a New York bus pass. I felt like the first kid on my block to split an atom. That crazy thing taught me about bussing, mixing, overdubbing, pre-amp levels, mic techniques...all kinds of things. Most rock musicians learn to play by ear (trial and error). These modern wonders made it affordable to learn to record by trial and error in the same way and in all in the same bedroom. One was limited enough by the 4 or 8 available tracks that a lot of decisions had to be made along the way. You had to throw away and combine things to get to an end result. You had no choice but to comp your 16 guitar ideas down to one or two. Sometimes you just had to learn how to play all 16 at once -- hence the popularization of two handed finger tapping in the ‘80s. Learning to make those decisions ended up being the most valuable thing I took away from each demo or experiment. Knowing how to make certain decisions can turn you into a ...God help me ‘cause I’m going to use the word... producer.
Personal multitracking entered its "stocking stuffer" era when it became available in the form of a little box and some affordable software. For the price it costs to spend one day in a top drawer recording studio mom and dad can buy junior a full recording studio. With a little elbow grease they can fit it in his or her stocking. Junior’s guitar and amp now cost more than the friggin' studio. Now people collect mics and recording peripherals like they collect stompboxes, turntables or string winders. Its a beautiful thing. I’m not saying that all these devices sound as good as the vintage stand alone stuff but they certainly can compete -- that old audio nerd debate makes me sleepy. I stopped using analog tape back in about 1995 or ‘96. I started with a couple of those first Roland hard disk units and never looked back -- they’re for sale if anyone wants them. All of a sudden I could collaborate with myself like I collaborated with other musicians. I could fly things around in time and space and copy and paste them like in a word processor. Ideas could be test driven at lightning speed and the happy accidents were glorious. The creative upside for a songwriter remains HUGE. Good ideas and performances don’t need much more than the technology that is available to anybody. Demo recordings no longer have to be demo recordings. Your first ideas can now be well recorded so freshness is sealed in and not lost to poor audio quality or the drudgery of repeated performance. Great first takes that have a note or two to fix can be fixed without compromising the original performance. That aspect of "autotuning" or "cutting and pasting" can keep a truly organic performance pure and alive. It can keep spirits up when you are, in fact, "producing".No studio clock ticking. No "red light syndrome". All the time in the world and no pressure to get it right the first time. Anyone can seize the day. We have touched the underside of heaven! Here’s the rub.
The next step was trading up to the "magic music television" of the computer based recording platform. These little flight simulators can actually fly! With this step it is possible to accidentally fall into the virtual world and NOT seize the ACTUAL day. With all the video game effects and visual aids it might be getting tougher to learn how to make decisions about what constitutes a great performance and what "mistakes" are necessary. Yes. I said, "mistakes are necessary".
Part of my heart was in a deep freeze. It lasted 23 years. That was the day my dog died. He came to us on Christmas day 1966 and left on easter Sunday 1980. I never had another dog but made room for cats -- Richard Starkey & George Harrison R.I.P. and Nigel the Cat in February 1990. Nigel has always wanted to be part of the action, comes when he’s called and bites people at random. He’s been a good substitute dog. He is probably the only cat with a gold & platinum album production credit to his name. He won best producer at the West Coast Music Awards in 1997 for his work on Odds “Nest”. He has a thyroid condition now and has used up about 19 of his 9 lives in daring feats of stupidity/adventure. He likes to be hosed down with a garden hose. Each cat has their thing I guess. He has hygiene issues.
All this lovely cat action does in no way equal having a dog. Some people make you choose. Beatles or Stones. Cat or dog. Some say, “I’m more of a cat person”. Choices like these don’t work for me. I want it all. I could fall in love with a turtle. Easily.
My dog was the second family member who ever died. This had a profound effect. He slept with me. We shared spit. I ate his dog biscuits. He ate my table scraps. He ran away. I hunted him down and brought him back. He followed me to school because he knew I needed an excuse to leave and take him home. This is all typical boy and his dog stuff. I, in fact, only read “boy and his dog” or “boy and his animal” books as an egg headed kid. Sad really -- Big Red, Gentle Ben, Old Yeller ...I used to put shaving cream around his mouth and reenact that last scene with the ol’ pop gun ( I could never do that shhhhhh ).
The time has never been right to get another dog. How it possibly could have been the right time to have three kids and not a dog is beyond me. You’ll have to ask my mate about that one. My lobbying has been strong but I live around people who are stronger than me. I also am a “leaver”. I am here in an intense way and then I leave for a while and then I come back and then I leave again. This means that all my responsibilities have to be shared by someone else to make the boat float. Well...guess what?! The responsibility sharers have floated in on their little angel wings holding a 9 week old black Labradoodle puppy. Big Standard Poodle got a gleam in his eye and bought the fetching big black Lab a drink.
All I can say is “ FUCKIN’ RIGHTS!”. Now we’re talking real life drama kids!
That little part of my heart thawed instantly.
Movie hangover. Its the length of time it takes to feel that you aren’t in some way living in the last movie you saw. Sometimes you’re living in it and other times you’re just reliving the images without being able to block them out. You’re done talking about it with the friend you saw it with and on the drive home alone you take its premise and apply it to your own life in search of some sort of truth. The hold it takes on you grows stronger with the power of good photography, well developed characters, believable acting and a plausible story line. The more holes their are in this fabric the shorter the hangover. The only antidote is the hair of the dog that bit you. Another film. I don’t know anyone who is immune. Its a visual world. Its not just like a song getting stuck in your head. Its like the meaning behind the song, the documentary on making the song and the invitation into the artist’s hotel room getting stuck in your head. Its a long song. Its an expensive first listen. There is no talking to your friend while the song is being played. Against the rules unless its Rocky Horror.
A desperate note. A plea for a few words. I hear you. Let me speak of the Motown Meltdown held this last Saturday at the Plaza of Nations in Vancouver. It was all for a good cause ( the short descriptions being programs that foster tolerance and fast money to aid those afflicted with AIDS). There was a large band made up of local 1st call studio & stage veterans. Each performer got to do a number on a Motown classic and it was all recorded by the CBC. I think it will air on Definitely Not the Opera sometime soon. When I find out I will post it. If you find out you better tell me. I sang “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honeybunch)” as made famous by the Four Tops. It felt great. In a way it was like playing road hockey as a child. Everyone used to pick the NHL star that they want to “be” for that particular game. I would yell out, “I’m Gerry O’Flaherty!” (or whatever Canuck I was into that day) and my friends would shout out their favourite. Bobby Orr and Gordie Howe were usually always there. Although many of my compatriot Motown interpreters attempted to reinvent the tunes to suit their own personalities I chose to indulge myself in fantasy and do it the road hockey way. I should have yelled out “I’m Levi Stubbs!” before launching into the tune. I was probably afraid of committing a “Motrosity” by murdering a classic.
As a fan of music I love to do great songs the road hockey way. I can’t stray too far if the original version was stellar. I once sang Split Enz “I Got You” with Vancouver’s New Waveoke band and I just had to do it like Neil Finn. A fan’s first instinct is to go to that comfortable place. I think the original take on a composition sometimes comes from one’s limitations. The Beatles couldn’t do Little Richard just right but they sure sounded like the Beatles doing a cool version of “Long Tall Sally”. It was all a big mistake. They really loved Little Richard’s version and were probably trying to emulate it. Same with the Stones. They sounded just like the Stones but they were trying really hard to remake Howlin Wolf’s old records. When I got offstage I felt like I’d taken the moment for myself and lived vicariously through the song and the original arrangement. My friend Paul Myers was hosting and I quickly told him I felt a little funny not doing something “different with the tune” -- as they had suggested we might want to do. He said , “No no ... It sounded great. It was your voice and that made it your own”. That means I’ll never be Levi Stubbs and I’ll never make the NHL but I have won the consolation prize of being the “character player” who still gets to lace them up with the pros once in awhile. I am still playing road hockey with Sharkskin and calling out, “I’m Steve Cropper! I’m Leo Nocentelli!” with every friggin’ note. If those two guys heard me play they probably wouldn’t be able to spot the similarity.
You know what? If you watch “Dumb & Dumber” with a 12 year old its really a great movie. When the 12 year old starts laughing then you start laughing. When Jim Carey sells a decapitated budgie to a blind child after duct taping the bird’s head back on ...its pretty funny. The 12 year old will have tears rolling down their face and their laughter will be beyond the loud kind and into the silent kind where the face is frozen and they’re all doubled over. When Harland Williams drinks pee from a beer bottle it has pretty much clinched the “best movie ever” slot for awhile. I hardly laughed the first time I saw it. How could I have wasted this movie on my adult, media savvy sensibilities? I’ve learned a valuable lesson.
House concerts. They’re a new thing for me. Tonight I played one out in the Dunbar area of Vancouver. The show was completely acoustic and took place in a real living room. I think its a pretty exciting idea and I look forward to trying it again. My thanks go to Tatiana Nemchin for putting it all together and gently prodding me for a year and a half until I actually showed up to play. Andras Jones was the other performer and I was suitably impressed. We share many of the same musical sensibilities and he’s a great performer. You can check him out at andrasjones.com. A lot of old friends showed up and this made it feel like I could take a few more chances. I buggered up a few things but it was all in the name of not choosing the stuff I knew well. There’s nothing that adds immediacy better than a complete flail. The record number of stumbles and mistakes seem strangely unimportant. Usually I would be concerned. Tonight it just seemed appropriate to let it go. Family matters have consumed my week so I had no time to work up completely new material. Instead I combed through a couple of Odds records just before I left for the show and quickly brushed up on how some of the old things went. Some notable set list variations were:
Oh Sorrow Oh Shame
Yes (Means its Hard to Say No to You)
Little Things (new Northey/Valenzuela)
the Last Drink
Suppertime
I don’t think I’ve ever performed “Oh Sorrow...” or “Yes..” but I’m sure one of you will correct me on that soon. I know I’ve only done “Suppertime” once or twice (even with the band). I actually reviewed a few more so hopefully I’ll get another chance to trot out the old dogs before I forget them again.
The most notable set list variation was the exclusion of “Someone Who’s Cool”. It felt right to leave it out of a night where I was lurking in the darker corners of my past. I wouldn't want to feel like I couldn’t make anything work without playing that song. At that point I would start to resent the tune. I wouldn’t want to feel that way about one of my babies because, after all this time, we’re still on good terms.
I listened to the parents at the baseball game. I tuned out the game and started my senses working on the soundscape, the smells... the general and specific at the same time. If you stop caring about the score it all changes for you. The vested interest in your own child up to bat is what usually colours the entire situation.
Baseball is about numbers and anticipation. Pure physical skill can lose to smarts. Philosophically I am all for this type of game. The right combination of these two attributes creates balance leading to pure poetry. This is what we all need in everyday life. Sport is just a science experiment in a controlled environment. Team sport is a scientific demonstration that left and right brain must meet in equal portions. If I had known this as a teenager I would have talked at least one teacher into allowing me to do a directed study in this area. Credit for working on something that doesn’t seem like work at all is really the way to go. In university I did a fair amount of directed study in the rock band area. Team sport can make for simple, cut and dried sociology, psychology, medicine, political science, philosophy and english projects. It is a gold mine of metaphor and behavioural broad strokes. When you get down to the nuances it becomes even better.
For instance ...Here’s what I took away from last night’s behavioural observation of our little league lab rat playground. Premise: parents hand down autistic linguistic patterns to their children. Baseball could be the doorway through which stuttered and repetitive rhetorical speech loops are handed down from generation to generation. Their function warrants more study but I will riff on it a bit.
“you got him swingin’, got him swingin’”. “put a little pepper in there, put a little pepper in there”, “good eye, good eye”, “way to watch ‘em, way to watch ‘em”, “swing batter swing”.
I was waiting to hear “ten minutes to Wapner, ten minutes to Wapner”. Its the rhythmic cadence and circular nature of the chants that is the most interesting. You say everything twice or more. The key phrases are handed down to the next generation. Perhaps its an attempt at hypnosis. The crowd attempts to control the play by hypnotizing their young charges. Parents relive their childhood through these phrases and its as if they never left the moment that they were at bat. In this way the egos and nerves of the kids are soothed and they begin to perform better under the power of suggestion. Parents also achieve some sort of immortality through the language as well. Maybe Raveen was the best baseball parent. “Man Raveen’s kid has got a hot hand tonight” said parent #1. “Doesn’t he ever get a gray hair in that immaculate beard and pompadour”, says parent #2.
In hockey its all shouts of, “skate! skate!” and “ref are you fuckin’ blind?!” and “get back!” and “ fuckin’ rights!”. This seems less helpful and less interesting. It all just adds to the clutter of such a physical sport and nobody gets any younger in the process. You need to PLAY hockey to stay young. I once saw an Entertainment Tonight snippet in which Mike Love of the Beach Boys claimed to not be getting any older. He sleeps with women half his age, performs self massage, takes vitamins, lives in hawaii and syphons money from his more talented cohorts in order to, in his own words, “stop the aging process”. I should write him and tell him he could become less of an evil freak if he just played hockey. It keeps you in touch with your inner child and allows you to drink a lot of life preserving beer. If he gave it a try This would also give select Brian Wilson fans a good chance to line him up from thirty feet at twenty miles an hour. But ...I digress.