|
Tape Op - Bill Bottrell Interview
StoreTags: bill botrell, tape op, industry
Viewed 4180 times. 23 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
People who enjoyed reading this: Squeal, Roshi, SenorFrio, mlbot, DrexonField, mixedtape, jdg, daswesen, Fredo, nagrom, BadWolf, astroid, airliner, bla, zfigz, jogn, skab, bodo, everamzah, reehc, vveerrgg, j_chot, dustmite
-->
I get the free subscription to Tape Op. Usually there's a killer interview somewhere in the middle (last issue it was Matthew Herbert). I make no pretenses at being a producer or engineer or anything, I don't really even understand the distinction really. So most of the magazine is stuff I completely don't understand (what the fuck are you going to do with 48 bits and 24 tracks of audio?) or just can't qualify (do people really care what mic you use on that snare?). But some of those interviews have some serious insight.
The May/June issue came in the mail yesterday. I started reading it on the bus and when I got home, I laid on my side to read it while my infected ear absorbed the sterile otic suspension I'm taking twice a day for a week (seems to be working well so far but still no treble in that ear since Saturday  ). I flipped over to the Bill Botrell interview and it seemed a little too long so I just kind of skimmed it, then I saw the caption: "There's a concept that's kind of been lost in the last fifteen twenty years where hierarchies and pyramids do exist, and if you're at the bottom and you want to move up, you've got to eat it a little bit. You don't walk in at the bottom of the pyramid and start making demands." Damn. Should probably go back and read the rest of this.
I was already feeling pretty existential since I got laid off from my (other) job yesterday, and I just started questioning the value of what I have to offer, with programming, music, writing, photoshop, any of this stuff I know how to do passably. And while the interview was pretty gloomy, it brought to light a lot of things that have kind of been bugging me about where music was going. Because we all love music, but it's kind of time to start thinking about what it's really worth now, as it sounds like it's hard to sell music even online anymore. For what it's worth, this is a guy that worked with Madonna, the Jacksons and Sheryl Crow, probably not the favorites of too many people on here, myself included. And I don't think he even mentions the internet, which obviously most of us depend on for everything from distribution to even the acquisition of our tools. But some of what was said seems very important to me.
Anyway, you can't read this online as far as I know. If you're getting a subscription, you'll probably end up reading it anyway. If not, borrow a friend's. If you can't do that, well, here are a few choice snippets:
I can't negotiate with the business climate anymore ... It's absolutely hopeless. Nobody is stepping up with any courage or dealing on behalf of the music or the musicians. Everybody is out for a killing. Everybody's trying to hook on to something that seems like it might be cool or profitable and everybody's guessing.
As the public's distaste for music grows, the record companies have to increasingly shove it down their throats and that costs money, and that gets counted against the producer's recoup.
TapeOp: Where do you see the music industry going?
I see recorded music being free. I see it going to live performance, which in this world is the only thing that can truly be owned anymore, and the only thing that doesn't require a big corporate infrastructure to present to the people. That's where I'd like to see it go.
The techniques were to break everything down as much as possible, keep recording one thing at a time, make slaves on analog, endless slaves, and pile them up in a locker somewhere and hire a professional to come in and just throw stuff down and sort it out later.
TapeOp: Sounds like now.
It is like now. These things come and go and I thought, "All the great records in a hundred years of recording weren't done that way" - at least the great bulk of them. They were done where you could hear the poeple in the room. You could hear that it was a moment in time. The record industry had caught the movie industry disease of "bigger and more manipulated is better" and stopped telling human stories.
Limiting overdubs, letting all the instruments bleed into each other - the most essential component of it is to stop controlling everything. Lack of control is the essence of rock and roll.
[A]s time went on, the tools became more about control and people in general became more intrigued with technology in the arts - the number of people who talk like the people behind the glass started growing. Pretty soon you had the producer in league with the engineer about the drum sounds or about getting it perfect, about controlling things and controlling wildness. By the time we got to the mid-'80s, the musicians were starting to agree. "This is what we want." They would come in and join in the chorus of people saying, "Let's make it tighter and cleaner." ... [B]y '96 we have the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and we have Clear Channel taking over such a high percentage of radio and the obvious need for them to standardize everything, and then you have radio on the wrong side of the glass, but you still had the public who love wild, free music - human beings aren't going to change. They are going to love free expression in music if it can get to them, but without radio it can't get to them, or so the record companies say.
I think anybody should get their tools together and stick with them - tools they love and sell off the ones they don't love. If they love it they should stick with it, whether it's through five years or three decades. If they stop loving any of it, then sell it off and replace it with something new that they do love.
Everyone is a producer now and so be it. It's the democratization of music and it's worse on a lot of different levels. Everybody is also a rock star now. I don't know who all these engineers and producers are going to produce because everyone is already a rock star and I don't know if it's going to become where everybody has got their CD, or let's say three quarters of the houses on any one block, the people have their own CD and they give it to the other people on the block. The other people on the block love it because it's their buddy that they see every day. This is the sort of vibe that I'm getting. It's just ultimately democratized. | |
Comments
05/17/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
license
I guess re-reading this, he kind of comes off as a geezer who might not even be aware of the sort of folk-type community that the internet, the source of most of the democratizing that he is criticizing, encourages. In a way it's pretty awesome how much good music we can all get for free now. But it does seem sad and frustrating that it's not very special to do something creative anymore.
05/17/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
Squeal
That last paragraph accurately describes this online community.
05/17/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
nagrom
Call me a snob, but I find it hard to listen to music that isn't mixed well.
I don't listen to music on this website for precisely that reason, and also because of mp3 compression. Sub-par mixing + 192kbps = unlistenable.
I think a really big technology that will develop in the coming years is AI mixing. You'll be able to record a track, do some basic mixing, and send it through a program that will make sure the bass is ok and balance out the mid and treble... and get the loudness right too.
Har Bal is the beginning of that.
05/17/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
j_chot
this man is not a fan of techno.
reguarding "not so clean" recording, I really enjoyed the white stripes last album. you really got a feel for the room and the piano.
I'd really prefer if people shelled out for recordings, because I can't tour.
edited: May 17 2007
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
nagrom
Mass collaboration (web 2.0) is very cool for sure, but experts (professional, signed musicians) still do it better. Perhaps we're in the throws of a "paradigm shift".
I have a book on my dresser waiting to be read that explores the concept: (link)
An art equivalent: link
edited: May 17 2007
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
Fredo
"not so clean"??? To me that album was BRILLIANTLY recorded. Serious. Best drum recording ever! Yes you could hear the room, but it was a very clean, hi resolution recording anyway.
05/17/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
nagrom
Fredo: I think, by "not so clean", he means "dirty", but still mixed well.
j_chot: I think techno can still be "wild, free music". I would say he probably doesn't like 'academic' music though (minimal techno, Alva Noto, Roads, Ikeda)
edited: May 17 2007
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
djugel
Nilz @ the exchange is my god... Tape Op should talk to him ... THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. No matter what gets popular .. I'm still the "elitist" that just likes what isn't popular... I hate it .. and still havn't accepted it.
05/17/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
license
Techno can totally be wild and free. Fuck, look at that last Pan Sonic record.
Truth is, part of me believes what he's saying is pretty much the inevitable truth. The other part of me is like, fuck that - people are going to get tired of hearing their friends' squeaky clean, mediocre, paint-by-numbers music, someone is gonna make some crazy nasty dripping dirty funky shit that is like a combination of all the good stuff made in the 80s and 90s, but in a totally non-obvious way, and people are gonna go nuts for it. And people will have faith in music again.
I'm sure some people are gonna hate me for saying it but when I heard "Galacticus" by Freescha I was sure that this was what had happened. And then my bro got me the CD for Christmas and I was kind of underwhelmed.
05/17/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
astroid
i love the lawn mowers, dog collars, and shopping cart sounds that drift into my tracks these days feels alive.
05/17/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
Fredo
nagrom, See I don't think that it's dirty recording. To me it seems very clean, but with character. Dirty, I think low res, noisy, inarticulate, you know?
05/17/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
jdg
working in the yard all day, you get dirty.
buying some pre-worn jeans from your fav boutique fancy-pants store... not dirty.. but it has charactor.
i dont know whre im going.. but i love tape op and its now availble for free in europe..
and anyone who thinks "music is dead" or whatever needs to find a new hobby and/or job.
05/17/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
djugel
it's sorta dead.
05/17/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
jdg
get a new hobby then off with you
05/17/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
license
I agree. I wish it weren't true but...
That doesn't mean it can't come back to life though. But I do think it's gonna take some time. I'll feel hopeful after I see the Rolling Stone shut its doors and there's no more pop trash piping in through tinny speakers at every fucking store. But there's just no place for music right now. It's become a facet of advertising. It all needs to go away for a little while so people can miss it again.
Register / login
|
^
EM411 is Copyright 2001-2008 EM411.com
All rights reserved. | Contact | RSS
|
