The new Foo Fighters' record Wasting Light was done entirely without computers. No Pro Tools. What?! Even the mixing and mastering was done by hand:
We mixed manually on the API board, with me, James, Alan Moulder and Dave, all eight hands on board, all doing the faders, no automation; we couldn’t even do mutes. So every mix was a performance. Much like the recording was. I would focus on the vocals, and I’d get it done, and everybody would say, “did you nail it? Did you miss anything?” We all started sweating. We’d jump up when we got a mix. It was so exciting, and so different from how records are made these days.
The entire article is lengthy but totally worth it if you like geeking out over microphone choices and stuff like that.
By the way, the Foo Fighter's documentary is out on iTunes on June 7. I watched the first 20 minutes a few weeks ago and was totally engrossed, so I'm really looking forward to seeing the rest.
Chris Onstad writes the online comic Achewood. In his explanation of the strip's current hiatus after a nine-year run, this:
One thing that’s always made me a bit sad is how Internet presentation seems to devalue content. So much art, writing, and news is suddenly available to us that each piece seems nearly a throwaway, lost in the gullet of our now-insatiable appetite for information. Here in the future, everyone is famous for 15kb. Fifteen reTweets. Fifteen LOLs. Should I work fifteen hours on something that will take fifteen seconds to read? The answer is yes, of course, because I love what I do, but after nearly a decade one wonders if one couldn’t do more for people with that time.
As an "internet musician" aka Guy Who Writes Songs And Puts Them On The Web, I have a sense of kinship1 with online comic makers2. So this paragraph really resonates with me. Should I, too, work for weeks (or more likely months) conceiving and recording a song that will be pushed out into the ether, consumed in minutes and ultimately fall into the abyss of someone's iTunes library? Absolutely. If I stopped, I'm pretty sure my brain would eventually try to gnaw its way to freedom through my obstinate, practical, boring skull.
A few weeks ago I accidentally scrambled my Twitter password. I fat-thumbed a typo somewhere and suddenly I wasn't able to tweet or read tweets from my stream.
And then, an amazing thing happened! I got back some focus.
I'd be lying if I said I had no idea how much of my attention was being slurped up by the Twitter sponge. I've always been aware of it, and meant to do something about it. But I am weak. If you're hooked on Twitter, you know how hard it is to put down, lest you miss out on -- well, something.
Like temporal caulk, Twitter is good at filling gaps. There's never a moment's boredom. Riding the light rail, in a checkout line, during the slow parts of a presentation. I've rediscovered how much I relied on these thought-free gaps to think about other stuff. Creative stuff, like songwriting.
Days ago I was riding the SLU trolley to the city center. Normally during such a ride, I'd have my eyes glued to my iPhone. But this time, unable to immerse myself, I just stared out the window, watching the scenery. In a few moments, my brain took over, and I had music playing in my head, a tune I'd been working on for years but never could get to work. By the time I'd reached my destination, I had a new melody. By the return trip, I had completed several verses. A few days later I had recorded a demo1...
My own lack of discipline is really at fault here. And maybe I just suck at Twitter and you don't.
That said, if I've learned anything about the creative process, it's this: it's hard to make something good. Doing hard things is scary because it's almost a given your first attempts will suck. It's easier, and often more enjoyable, to spend a lunch break reading tweets instead of writing lyric ideas. Twitter and other media can make me feel connected to the world, but it's also a great way to idly kill time, and I'm reaching a point in my life where I really, really wish time would slow down, not go faster.
Anyway, I thought I would die, severed from the tweetosphere, but I didn't. Instead, I started thinking again, reading more long-form stuff, scribbling more song ideas than usual. I still like Twitter enough that I set up a system so I can still tweet from time to time without getting sucked into the vortex of odd Trending Topics. Amazingly, I still managed to hear about Osama bin Laden's death, Newt Gingrich's candidacy and just about every internet-fueled Outrage Of The Moment.
The idea that I've written an entire blog post (which will be echoed into Facebook!) about this seems completely inane and appropriate.
1 to be released right after all my work with Explone, Kirby Krackle and the secret project are done, I promise.
Tom King of the Outsiders passed away a few weeks ago. When the news flew through my personal blogotwitterfacebookosphere, some rusty wires in my brain sparked, and I suddenly remembered that I had once opened for Tom King.
Thing is, I barely remember the details. I'm gonna guess that it was around 1991 because that coincides with the release of the Outsiders' "30 Years Live" album. I can't remember the venue for the life of me. Part of me is convinced it was The Sahara Club in East Cleveland, but it also might have been JB's Down Under near Kent State. Either way, I was playing guitar with my first "real" band Cartoon Freeze Tag, and we probably got the gig because we were the ultimate college cover band at the time and always managed to draw a good crowd.
I'm pretty sure the night was billed as "Tom King and the Outsiders." At the time, all I really knew about them was they were 60s rock royalty, and me being every bit the obnoxious, self-absorbed twenty-something musician I had no idea why I should have been impressed. I had never heard their famous single "Time Won't Let Me." And why would I? My grasp of "classic rock" began and ended with ZEPPELIN, MAAAN. I admit that I didn't have much respect for these Old Guys and the older crowd that pressed right up to the edge of the stage to watch them.
I don't remember the set. I didn't know the songs. I do remember Tom King coming out to begin the set and thanking the audience for their "patience." I put that word in quotes because that's kind of how he delivered it -- pointedly. And I realized that he was probably talking about our set. I think our singer was a little miffed at that.
Looking back now, it's pretty funny. The Outsiders were -- and probably still are -- the Most Famous People We'd Ever Meet, and they had to wait for us to finish our set of R.E.M. and Pink Floyd covers.
But anyway, beware laughing too long at Old Guys, lest one day you become an Old Guy with the curse of perspective. (p.s. actually this happens whether you laugh or not.)
I've never owned a vehicle with a CD player, so I listen to radio. (It's not that I'm a Luddite, I just don't care enough get a decent stereo.) On my way to rehearse with Kirby Krackle last weekend, I found an FM station that played only 60s and 70s tunes. Turns out there's a ton variety in those two decades alone, especially if you ignore the Beatles. I tuned in just as Paul Revere and the Raiders' "Where The Action Is" started playing.
Man, what an incredible time to live through. Back when rock and roll was new and big and weird, as life-changing as television or the internet would eventually be, before corporate efficiency turned it into a profit center. That's the world the Outsiders inhabited and were a part of. Sorry Tom, I get it now!
What's my equivalent, MTV? Grunge? Maybe the web, in the early days of blogs? They don't feel like they even come close. At the moment they feel like offshoots, evolutionary branches that end with MTV Cribs, Nickleback and Gawker, respectively.
But maybe for a little while they felt as important, and as dumb as it sounds, I find I really, really long for those moments. Something nascent and positively charged, a groundswell that was going to shake up everything, something you can feel coming, hope on the wind.
This week, work on the new Kirby Krackle album kicked into overdrive. We're doubling up on weekly rehearsals to prepare for a breakneck-paced studio session in June, aiming to get the record done just ahead of the San Diego Comic-Con.
This will be the first KK project I've actually played on, so I feel compelled to bring my A-game. No "oh, I'll just rehearse along with the album and meet you at the gig" this time around.
In the meantime, Kyle is developing a talent for homebrewing that may rival his gift for composing head-bobbingly catchy major-chord nerd rock. (Shown above: a sampling of "Not Martha IPA.")
Yeah, this is occurring right alongside work on the new Explone record. Between those projects, and the still-secret songwriting project (still going! Every Wednesday!) I fully expect the creative part of my brain to be worn down to the nub like a pencil eraser by summer.
See that console? That's a 1970's Trident A-Range, rumored to have been used by Lennon and Sinatra for various projects. And, as of two weeks ago, my bass tracks for the new Explone EP, Telescope and Satellite.
Behold! The power of black and white to make one look totally competent!
Here's Patrick in front of a wall of gear and blinking lights:
This is what I love about music hubs like Seattle, every studio has a history. And sometimes so does the gear. AVAST! is also home to "Lenny," a modded API Legacy console, once owned by Lenny Kravitz. My backing vocals went through that one. There's another API that used to tour with Heart as a monitor mixer. We didn't use that one. Tons of famous PNW artists have recorded here -- Death Cab, The Shins, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes -- but I think its real cachet comes from being the place where Soundgarden recorded their breakout album Badmotorfinger.
It's hard not to hope for a little of that magic to rub off on you.
Exciting as that may be, the majority of time spent in-studio looks a lot like this:
That's us listening to probably four or five different takes of the same song at 11pm, trying to decide what parts to keep. This is also probably ten hours in, the first six of those spent setting up microphones and getting good guitar and drum tones. There's a lot of hanging around and listening. It still manages to be a blast while slowly destroying your sanity.
