Sep/Oct 1998
Welcome to issue #10 of Tape Op.
Well, a lot happens around here and each issue of Tape Op is harder to get out on time. There are changes happening too. Adam Selzer, who has been a tireless supporter and help around here, is going to take over a lot of the day-to-day work related to the magazine. That means that he'll be answering the mail, soliciting ads, and helping to keep the business end of this venture together. We moved the office out of my bedroom and into the front room at Jackpot! Recording, so we'll have a central place for contributors to drop in and possibly be able to take more folks up on their "intern" offers. Adam runs a great little studio (Type Foundry) here in Portland, and I want everyone to be nice to him.
I'd apologize for this issue being rather late, but you can read those kind of laments in plenty of other "zines". Instead, I'll tell you about some of the stuff that keeps the mag from getting done. It's probably no secret that I record music for a living, but for the new readers I'll mention it again. The studio has been incredibly busy for the last 6 months, with rock stars like Pavement, Elliott Smith, Petra Haden, Miss Murgatroid, Quasi and others dropping in most recently. I'm the main engineer there, with my lovely assistant Joanna Bolme sitting in on many sessions and getting closer to knowing her way around the board, patchbay and compressors. This means that I work a lot of 7 day weeks. I'm not complaining... I'm the one that over-books myself... but it doesn't leave much time for Tape Op, exercise, a love life or much else. Plus, being so wrapped up in playing music, recording and doing the mag gives me a strange feeling that I'm living some sort of monochromatic life.
One of the crazier things that happened recently was that Elliott bought us a mixing board that weighed over four tons (from the . We tried to lift it out of the semi that it showed up in but no way. Currently it's sitting in a warehouse outside of town and I think we're gonna sell it rather than deal with it! Anyone interested in a giant Quad-Eight mixer? Crazy...
The Rocket (the local bi-weekly music rag) just ran its annual Studio Supplement issue, with a huge listing of all the studios in the Northwest. Reading through, it was easy to see how people get lost in a sea of gear and shit, but really, I found just reading the lists of artists that studios had worked with to be much more informative! That's something to think about if you're taking your band to an unfamiliar studio. The one's that rated highly? Egg, Avast, John and Stu's, Resistor, Stepping Stone... One of the big differences I notice between my attitude and those of a lot of the recording people I meet is what I think of as the "hard line" approach. Every time someone says to me, "What you need..." or "This is the only way to do that..." I kinda laugh inside. I would think that it's obvious that there's no rules in the recording arena, but people sure forget. It seems the more gear that I pick up for the studio (which has been a lot lately), the more stuff people tell me I need to buy! Sure, there's a lot of things I'd like to own, but you know, all the recording gear in the world won't save a broken drum kit, Crate bass rigs or a Peavey guitar amp. Hell, it won't help someone write a great song. The song and the performance are the most important parts of any recording. I don't worry a whole lot about background noise, tape hiss, slightly bum notes or off key vocals if the song is great and the performance is inspired. Trying to get an artist comfortable, in a good mood and relaxed is a lot better than forcing them to play guitar for three hours to get the "right" sound.
How many records do you have in your collection just because the recording sounds great? Hopefully not very many! I mean, Steely Dan sound pretty good but not in my house. Hopefully some people out there still listen to music because it makes them feel something. I used to have a friend who would put on Lou Reed's "Street Hassle" and cry, and it wasn't because the recording quality on the record is fucked up...
