Does It Matter How a Record is Made?

Watching Peter Bogdanovich’s extremely thorough yet watchable documentary on Tom Petty, Runnin’ Down a Dream, I was struck by something Petty said about his work in the early 90s, during which he and producer Jeff Lynne began to use the studio as an instrument and recordings became less about a live performance. "I like whatever makes good records," he said. "I don’t care how it’s made. Nobody cares how a record is made. They care if they like it or not.”

I’ve thought about this quote often as I struggle mightily to complete my current album and employ studio tricks that would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago. Yesterday I wanted a cymbal where there wasn’t any recorded during my day-long studio session in late February, so I simply copied a cymbal from one section of the song and pasted it onto another section. On the same song, I noticed that several of the notes I sang were slightly out of tune, so I simply shifted key notes into tune. As for the acoustic guitar I’m currently recording, this I have to do section by section, and sometimes measure by measure, as my playing is so poor that I can’t complete an entire verse or chorus without accidentally deadening a string or striking an unwanted open string. Even my piano tracks – definitely my best instrument – needed a little tweaking, as yesterday I erased an erroneous low note that was clashing with the bass part.

Clearly, I’m not recording a live “performance.” Is this cheating?  Does it matter if it is?  Is Tom Petty correct that nobody cares how a record is made?

In his illuminating book, Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick writes about late-night sessions during which Paul McCartney would record bass parts over and over until he had the perfect track. Impressive, though I've no doubt that were Emerick recording The Beatles today, he would splice together various bass tracks to create one usable one. Is one technique more pure than the other? Does it matter?

For Tom Petty and The Heartbreaker’s first several albums, they would track everything live at once until they had a perfect take, effectively rehearsing until they got a great performance. This is in stark contrast to the recording of Into the Great Wide Open, during which a musician like Benmont Tench would be asked to play a particular keyboard part during a few measures of a song, and then leave the studio.

On his recent interview on the radio show Sound Opinions, Geddy Lee of the band Rush discussed recording the album Hemispheres. The band initially tried to perform the ambitious side-long title track in its entirety, but ultimately had to record it in sections. Does this fact make the recording any less impressive?

Even Steely Dan, who employed arguably the best musicians on the planet to play on the album Gaucho, used recording tricks to the get the sound they wanted, as producer Roger Nichols created a drum machine called a Wendel to perfect drums parts initially recorded by the likes of Jeff Porcaro! 

Clearly, even getting past today’s largely sterilized recording techniques, we can come up with multiple examples of musicians and producers doing whatever it took to get the sound they wanted.  But is Petty correct when he says nobody cares how a record is made?

I suspect it depends on the listener, on the band, on the era, and on the circumstances. For guys like James Taylor and Jackson Browne, who get to play with the greatest musicians known to Man, I like to think that the albums they record are more performance-based and less studio-trickery, and I would hope that studio guys like Steve Gadd and Michael Landau would insist upon it. And part of the joy of listening to, say, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, is knowing that I’m listening to a live performance. Something would surely be lost if it came to light that “So What” had been recorded track by track. 

It's also kind of sad that our ears have gotten used to hearing perfection, because there was a time when the performance was more important. Keith Richards’s fuzz guitar errors on “Satisfaction” can be heard loud and clear fifty years after the song was recorded. Would the song be any better if it had been recorded in 2015, when no doubt Richards would have rerecorded the guitar part (or, more likely, would have recorded the tune several times and then spliced together various parts for the perfect take)? Do the mistakes take away from the song, or somehow make it more endearing? I don't know.

For now, I continue to plow through what has been a somewhat grueling recording process and attempt to make the best-sounding record I can using the resources available to me. And some of those resources are digital. The Palisades will be complete by summer’s end, and God-willing, it’s going to sound great thanks in large part to modern technology. I’ll take this over a bad-sounding "authentic" record any day.

Maybe Petty has a point.

Record Night Celebrates 1975

After a five month absence, record night returned with a vengeance last Saturday night to Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, as five high school classmates converged to celebrate 1975.  For me, ’75 is a bit of an oddball year.  None of the punk and post-punk bands I admire (Graham Parker, The Clash, Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello, The Police, The Cars, The Knack, The Kings, Off Broadway, Nick Lowe) arrive until another year or two, and some of my prog-rock favorites (Yes, Genesis) are on hiatus that year.  Peter Gabriel, Rickie Lee Jones and Heart haven’t put out an album yet, the Rolling Stones are off, and so are Billy Joel and Stevie Wonder.

Nonetheless, there’s a lot of great stuff from the middle of the decade that I most admire, and much of it was unknown to me, which just goes to show you that even five like-minded white middle-class guys can surprise each other once in a while.  My favorite surprises of the evening: Ambrosia and Roxy Music.

Here’s the list (note: a few of these songs were released on LP in ’74 but charted in ’75):

Boogie On Reggae Woman, Stevie Wonder

Magneto and Titanium Man, Wings

Jesus Christ, Big Star

Superstarz, Black Sabbath

Black Diamond, Kiss

Gratitude, Earth, Wind and Fire

She Sells, Roxy Music

Travelin’ Man, Bob Seger

People, People, Tommy Bolin

Lorelei, Styx

Down the Road, Kansas

Running Out of Time, Climax Blues Band

Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen

I Don’t Know Why, Rolling Stones

Sexy Thing, Hot Chocolate

Dan Dare, Elton John

Easy Does It, Supertramp

Sister Moonshine, Supertramp

Nice, Nice, Very Nice, Ambrosia

Fame, David Bowie

Across The Universe, David Bowie

Buckets of Rain, Bob Dylan

Mystery Mountain, Journey

Love Roller Coaster, Ohio Players

Nights on Broadway, Bee Gees

Slipkid, The Who

Kojak Columbo, Harry Nilsson

Slow Ride, Foghat

Heard it on the X, ZZ Top

Lady Marmalade, Patti Labelle

Meeting Across the River, Bruce Springsteen

Custard Pie, Led Zeppelin

Beggars Day, Nazareth

Please Don’t Judas Me, Nazareth

Ballroom Blitz, Sweet

Wouldn’t You Like It, Bay City Rollers

Now Look, Ron Wood

I’m So Afraid, Fleetwood Mac

The Hard Way, The Kinks

Kung Fu Fighting, Carl Douglas

Do the Hustle, Van McCoy

I Believe in Father Christmas, Greg Lake

Deuce, Kiss

Fountain of Lamneth (part 1), Rush

Never Been Any Reason, Head East

Chevy Van, Sammy Johns

Round and Round, Aerosmith

South’s Gonna Do It Again, Charlie Daniels Band

Have a Good Time, Paul Simon

Ride the Tiger, Jefferson Starship

Something’s Coming’ Up, Barry Manilow

Sister Golden Hair Surprise, America

Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow, Joni Mitchell

Misery, Soul Asylum (a night’s end post-1975 selection)

Girls with Guns, Tommy Shaw (a night’s end post-1975 selection)

Father John Misty at the Riv

A year ago I didn’t even know that Father John Misty existed, but last night I found myself at Chicago’s Riviera Theatre (which, despite being a shithole, has its charms) to see the singer-songwriter perform before a packed house. Backed by a terrific five-piece band (and sometimes extra backup singer) the artist plowed through a powerful set that faithfully reproduced the lavish production of his most recent album, I Love You, Honeybear, and enhanced the sound of 2012’s Fear Fun.

A commanding presence on stage – tall, bold and limber – Father John Misty uttered virtually not a word between songs, but what he lacked in banter he made up for with his intensity, taking over center stage with passionate dips, angry kicks and desperate gesticulations. He knows how to get an audience excited. Midway through “Nothing Good Ever Happens at the Goddamn Thirsty Cow” I witnessed what had to be the longest and highest launch of an acoustic guitar I’ve ever seen (the stagehand caught it – but just barely), and it was met with enthusiastic approval. 

Like the production of his most recent album, the extensive layering and reverb of the live performance sometimes masked what is one of the singer’s greatest strengths – his witty, sardonic, and occasionally moving lyrics. Listening from the balcony, had I not already known songs like “I Love You, Honeybear” and “The Perfect Husband,” I wouldn’t have understood more than a few words of these performances. Perhaps it sounded clearer on the first level, though I distinctly remember Joe Jackson complaining about the acoustics of the Riv back in 2001. Judging from the peeling paint on the ceiling, I suspect the theater owners haven’t done much to improve the sound or anything else in the intervening decade and a half.

Most effective to me were the times that the band broke down and allowed Father John Misty to shine in a more intimate setting. “Bored In The USA” – a song that would have felt right at home on Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection – was the highlight for me, with the fans interjecting faithfully the canned laughter of the recording. First encore “I Went to the Store One Day” – the sparsest performance of the evening – was also terrific, along with “Holy Shit,” whose mellow first half was interrupted by such a frenzied finish that the downbeat jolted a listener to my left practically out of his seat.

These moments of potency were supported by the most impressive lighting I’ve ever seen at a small venue, especially the effective use of moody backlighting that bathed the stage with eerie reds that silhouetted the band, and the strobes used prominently in the frantic finale of “Perfect Husband.” 

Aside from a cover of Nine Inch Nail's “Closer,” the 110 minute performance consisted entirely of tracks from Father John Misty’s two albums, ignoring the repertoire of the singer’s previous monikers. Surprisingly absent to me was the song that first introduced me to the artist: “The Night Josh Tillman Came to our Apt.,” and I wonder if he’s already grown tired of its overly mocking, cynical lyrics. 

At thirty-five, the former drummer of Fleet Foxes has been recording and performing for a hell of a long time, reaching his recent success a little late in life. It was worth the wait. Here’s hoping he hangs in there for a while and releases a few more gems along the way.

When Music Meant Going to Hell

As a thirteen year-old in 1981, I was faced with the unpleasant realization that my favorite pastime of listening to rock music was leading me into the fiery depths of hell.

Word of the subliminal message craze had reached the masses, and as a soon-to-be confirmed Lutheran, this was serious shit. I’d already worn out the black Led Zeppelin T-shirt I’d purchased in sixth grade, my copy of Physical Graffiti wasn’t far behind, and now I was being told that they were devil worshipers. Just look at the symbolism on the intricate artwork of their third album, people told me. A goat’s head! Pentagrams! When I’d purchased the album I thought nothing of stars and goats. So what? Ah, but this seemingly innocuous artwork was code for something more sinister, to say nothing of the discovery that “Stairway To Heaven,” when played backwards, invited the listener to worship Satan, and – if interpreted a certain way – when played forward notified the listener of this very fact. (“In case you don’t know, the piper’s calling you to join him.”) 

This was an unwanted addition to the growing list of concerns in my life. As if acne, divorced parents and a math teacher who entered my school straight from the Third Reich weren’t enough to worry about. Now I had to fear for my very soul.

I was a good, church-going-because-my-mom-makes-me kind of kid. Sure, I’d toilet papered a few (dozen) homes, hung out with a boy who shall remain nameless who vandalized a car, and shot off firecrackers on the front stoops of people’s homes from time to time, but deep down in my essence I was a pretty decent human being.  (This would become more apparent a decade or so later – call it a long road to maturity.) So hearing that my favorite pastime of rock music was jeopardizing my cushy afterlife was extremely troubling.

I’d avoided the overtly satanic bands like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. Their covers alone were enough to put the fear of God into me. But even comparatively airy fairy band favorites like Supertramp were under fire. While driving up to northern Wisconsin with my friend Todd, his brother’s girlfriend informed me that the song “Goodbye Stranger” included the line, “Say the devil is my savior/but I don’t pay no heed,” and she said this was a sign of devil worship.

I shouldn’t have paid any heed to the stupidity of that conclusion, but as a young teen who’d been taught about the very real existence of hell and who’d made the serious blunder of watching The Exorcist on network TV a year earlier, I absorbed this information with great trepidation. After all, if Satan could enter the body of Linda Blair, what was stopping him from entering me?

I soon learned about a lecture taking place at nearby Brookfield Assembly of God, where a pastor was to discuss rock and roll lyrics. I don’t know what the heck I expected. I guess I was secretly hoping he would say, “This is all nonsense.  Don’t worry about it.” Instead, I sat through a litany of offenses committed by my favorite bands. I may have been in the clear with the hard core metal groups, but the pastor went on to attack many of my favorite artists, concluding with a long dissertation about the Pink Floyd song “Sheep,” in which an alternate version of Psalm 23 is recited. The pastor found particularly offensive the use of the word “bugger,” even reading aloud the word’s definition from the dictionary (but avoiding – if memory serves – the anal intercourse meaning).

I went home distraught, wondering how I was going to live my life without rock music, knowing full well I couldn’t, which only meant one thing: eternal damnation. My mom was in her familiar perch on the family room recliner with a bowl of popcorn in her lap, our dog Butch begging for a piece from the floor. Noticing the apparent look of dread on my face, she asked me about the evening. When I shared with her my concern, she responded with something along the lines of, “You’re a good kid.  I don’t think what you listen to matters all that much.” This was from a woman who to this day is a God-fearing Lutheran. 

Chalk one up for level-headed parenting.

I’ve learned since that lyrics are a slippery thing, often meaning little if anything at all, sometimes meaning much more than they would suggest. Just yesterday I listened to the song “Dance Hall Days” by Wang Chung, reading the lyrics to the song for the first time ever, and was floored to learn that the line isn’t “We were cool on Christ” as one of my Christian friends told me back in high school, but rather, “We were cool on craze.” 

Hey, whether it’s craze or Christ, I’m cool with all of it. Whatever. You aren’t the words you listen to, and in my case, I’m not even the words I sing, as I’m now a Jew who in my classic rock band sometimes has to sing, “Jesus Is Just Alright” from The Doobie Brothers.

As Rick Davies of Supertramp sang, “I don’t pay no heed.”

Leon Bridges in Milwaukee: Why Now?

It’s a question that must drive record executives crazy: why do some performers destined for greatness garner little more than a shrug of the shoulders while other performers who on paper should land with a thud receive accolades and notoriety? The question could easily be applied to the modern soul performer Leon Bridges. Why does a singer/songwriter whose repertoire would have felt right at home in 1965 reap the enthusiasm of music listeners in 2016? It’s a mystery to me, but a pleasant one at that, as I had the chance to see Bridges and his terrific band perform at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee last Saturday night to a full house.

Bridges, riding high since the release of his debut album, Coming Home, has had a hell of a year, receiving radio play, appearing on Saturday Night Live and participating in a Ray Charles tribute at the White House. Sporting a gray suit, red tie and black shoes, Bridges oozed class at the Riverside, from his silky voice to the smooth dance moves he employed throughout the show. Opening with his best-known number (to me, at least), “Smooth Sailing,” he kicked off a string of short, uninterrupted songs reminiscent of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding before briefly addressing the audience. In addition to playing all ten tracks from his only album, he scattered a few new compositions along the way, plus a few standards, including a short version of Neil Young’s “Helpless,” a song that was surely unfamiliar to much of the largely 20-something audience, though there were several folks in the 40-70 age range. What was disappointingly absent from the audience was diversity in race. I thought the makeup would be a similar to the one who attended Stevie Wonder’s show last fall in Chicago, but at least for this particular show in Milwaukee, Bridges attracted a decidedly white crowd.

Bridges’s backing band was stellar, with all six musicians tasteful and selective in their approach. There were times when a song begged for a fuller horn section or larger group of backup singers, but in a way the sparser band has helped to define Bridges’s sound.  Brittni Jessie’s backup singing is extremely exposed, with no one to lean on but herself, but there she was, weaving seamlessly in and out of the lead vocal lines. Sure, she leaned a little flat at times, but I love that her performance and the entire band’s performance was live – no backing tracks, no auto-tune – so a few missed pitches was cool with me. And when was the last time you heard a modern band employ a solo saxophone? For me it might have been Supertramp in 1985. It was nice to hear again.

Upon receiving his induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, Billy Joel said, “And I know I’ve been referred to as derivative. Well, I’m damn guilty. I’m derivative as hell!” So is Leon Bridges. But as with Billy Joel, I argue, “Who gives a shit, as long as it’s good?” What’s surprising to me is how young people have latched on to a modern singer that harkens back so strongly to an earlier time. I imagine a few record executives are scratching their heads, wondering if 60s soul is a trend or a fleeting blip on the charts. Time will tell, but I sure hope Bridges sticks around for a while.