Producing the band
April 15, 2008
I went to the band’s rehearsal tonight. They’re trying me on as producer; I’m trying them on as band to produce. I did a SXSW show with them a couple of months ago, and I heard something. It completely took me by surprise, honestly — I’ve been listening to them for almost two years now, but that night, with a new drummer and guitar player, I heard something:
I heard a cool record.
I often hear bands, of course. I live in austintexas. Every once in awhile I hear a band I like, even. When the moon is blue and there’s a double helix in the sky, I’ll even hear a band I love.
But I hardly ever hear a band that might be able to make a really cool record.
Look. You can record your beautiful songs, and you can play them beautifully, and you’ll have a very nice record.
Go ahead, make your nice record.
Fuck off. Bite me. Who cares.
What I heard was the possibility of a record worth making, that is to say, a cohesive, musical, memorable, unique, nobody-but-them document you might want to listen to over and over again.
So we started talking, and so tonight I biked over to the bandleader and his bass playing girlfriend’s house and sat in on a rehearsal, and I described a few different approaches, described the process I’d like to try, and then we took one song and I showed them what I meant: defend every inch of your beloved song, because I’m gonna assault it. We went through that one song, section by section, we looked at it frontwards, backwards and sideways, and then I said,
Okay! That’s what I’m talking about. I think you’ve got a killin record inside of you, and I think maybe I can help you make it. Talk amongst yourselves, and let me know.
Oh, the bike ride home was so wonderful, maybe 5 miles slicing through the creamy moomlight.
music, sweet music, I wish I could caress…
and kiss…
April 16
The thing that worried me going in last night was the drummer. None of these guys are pro, but they can all play. Fact is, if they make a record and everybody buys it, they WILL be pro — that’s how it works.
What worried me wasn’t the drummer’s skillset, but his openness. When I heard them play awhile back he did a good job — solid, good chops, good tone — but then they did this countryish sort of a song, and throughout the entire tune he was doing this 16th note triplet thing that was all about ‘watch this’ and not at all about the song.
It’s a hole we all fall into — doing what feels good as opposed to what’s right…
hahaha, oh lord, a whole series of Wretched Attributes opened up, chasm-like, in my mind as I typed that
… but it’s a huge stumbling block to making a good record, and if it’s the drummer, and he won’t budge from his chops addiction, the enterprise is fucked from the gitgo. ‘Specially given my own torturous history with drummers. Someone is gonna die, hahaha, and it ain’t gonna be me. But I knew going in if we were gonna knock heads I’d simply have to back out of the project — a drummer is hard to find, and this one is dependable, punctual, willing to rehearse constantly — all that is nearly impossible to find, so if we have a contentious relationship, it’s me that’s gonna have to go.
I operate on such an intuitive level, all the time — to the point that it’s clearly yet another Wretched Attribute – and a few days ago I gave one of my CDs to the guitar player, a particularly flamethrowey affair, with incredibly good drumming on it. the guitarist, following the path of destiny, such as it is, dropped it on his computer and gave the CD to the drummer.
Turns out, the drummer on the CD is like a major hero of my boy, and the flamethrowiness just knocked him out, so when I got there he was ready to work, man, anything you say, let’s do it, I trust you, man.
Hahahaha, sometimes, that old intuition of mine is aaaaaaall right…
