|
Tape Op - Bill Bottrell Interview
StoreTags: bill botrell, tape op, industry
Viewed 5133 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
05/18/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
everamzah
crabster said: "Nagrom: The only reason mp3 compression makes music "unlistenable" is bcause you have your head so far up your ass I'm amazed you can hear anything at all apart from your own heartbeat."
i cracked up AGAIN this blog is the lol
edited: May 18 2007
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
nagrom
astroid, I have a lot invested in HCI right now. I'm very very excited about electronic music being a more natural extension of the human body (like an instrument) in the future.
05/18/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
delete
i look up to some of the people here, and it breaks my heart, honestly, when people try to knock the wind out of the whole community.
no such intentions astroid  it's just my own point of view, i'm not trying to force it on anyone. it's also my point of view that 90% of the music written today isn't art. to me art was what all those great pioneers you mentioned did. i feel today's music is mostly comprised of sound tricks that can get you in a mood or a mental state. the same applies to all types of modern art imo. the reason for this could be that we have reached a point where the remaining possible combinations between the elements of each art are almost 0. the solution to this is to add more elements, but then art isn't the same anymore.
05/18/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
nagrom
sound tricks that can get you in a mood or a mental state.
Why isn't this art?
I agree with you somewhat (that a lot [not all] of modern music isn't art [I think]), but I have a different rationale. Modern music seems to lack *effort*. You can put less work in and get more out, and it shows.
I'm a flaming example.
But, as others (ricemutt, etc.) have mentioned, there is still art. There are still people doing brilliant things. You just need to find them.
05/18/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
delete
note: although i don't see today's music as art, i know of many great musicians and plenty of good music produced. i'm not dissin anyone, i just feel that art is something really revolutionary, like the movement astroid described before.
edited: May 18 2007
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
delete
sound tricks that can get you in a mood or a mental state.
Why isn't this art?
because in my opinion, art should change your life permanently, not temporarily. i'll always remember the first time i watched tarkovsky's stalker, disney's fantasia with all that beautiful music or read orwell's 1984 and how these changed me as a person. unfortunately, i don' t come across modern art that can affect me so radically. true, maybe i don't know how/where to look for them, but why can't i find something the same way i found the ones i mentioned above?
05/18/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
quip
what a fucking misery guts. jesus. if i had been working with madonna and sold shit loads of records
and been that pissed off with the industry then i wouldn't do it. simple as.
i love the people that are hugely successfull then moan about it in magazines. please just fuck off.
05/18/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
crabster
quip: I can understand if he's pissed, I mean, I would if I were, say, a writer and suddenly I'm replaced by a million monkeys/bloggers hammering out trite, inane bullshit and another million monkeys eat it all up in a giant circle jerk, shit eating grins all around.
To me, he comes off as someone who sees his livelihood going down the drain, and his skillset becoming less important, and reacting accordingly.
OTOH, I haven't read the whole thing, perhaps there's a shiny happy ending?
delete: Sven Lindqvist - Terra Nullius. Perhaps not art per se, but it might just do what you asked for.
edited: May 18 2007
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
crabster
Just to make my position clear: I love democratization. I love being able to suck at many different things, and for others to have that opportunity too, and being able to produce, polish and distribute whatever I feel like doing for (in relative terms) next to nothing.
I just don't expect to create a masterpiece, or for others to perceive my inane scribblings as masterpieces, or to change lives. And when I run across people that truly believe they create masterpieces on a regular basis, and their circle jerk buddies cheer the poor sods on, it makes me die a little inside.
Edit: Fixed spelling.
05/18/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
djugel
^^everything crabster said..
05/18/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
quip
boo hoo so the gravy train has stopped. big deal. madonna and her latest producer rip off the undergound. the mainstream feeds from the little
people in their rooms. this process is becoming more apparant as culture accelerates with the mainstream spending more and more money trying to catch up with wots hot. they do not invest in the people pushing the boundaries but are happy and content to rip it off and package it as their own.
okay so someone like this guy is probably incredibly skillfull at what they do, and its a shame that he will be out of work. but you know i ain't gonna cry cos you have had your day.
the music industry is fucking shit. any change has got to be good no?
05/18/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
astroid
"hammering out trite, inane bullshit and another million monkeys eat it all up in a giant circle jerk, shit eating grins all around."
milli vanilli, vanilla ice, the spice girls, john tesh, yanni, the spin doctors, billy ray cyrus, collective soul, candlebox, insane clown posse...
05/18/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
crabster
Hey! Mock me all you want, but don't mess with the Yannman, actually half-man, half-moustache.
link
But I see your point.
05/18/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
astroid
fuck
and just from this site:
fredo, ruin, the killer whales, adc bicycle, hecanjog...
05/18/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
deltasleep
link
here's a song in response to this thread.
Register / login
|
^
EM411 is Copyright 2001-2008 EM411.com
All rights reserved. | Contact | RSS
|
