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Tape Op - Bill Bottrell Interview
StoreTags: bill botrell, tape op, industry
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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. |
