We interviewed Mike Campbell for issue #150, right around the time he and his band, The Dirty Knobs released their second LP, External Combustion. A year on, the band has released a new collection of music, Vagabonds, Virgins and Misfits. The Dirty Knobs consists of Campbell, guitarist Chris Holt, bassist Lance Morrison, and drummer Matt Laug. Much of the album was co-produced by longtime Tom Petty studio collaborator, George Drakoulias.
Check out the video for "Dare to Dream" (feat. Graham Nash)
Why did I think I could set up my home studio in a couple of hours when it took four months to move Jackpot! to a new building? Tomorrow's shopping list: Solder, S/PDIF cables, etc... I'm amazed at how tangled and messy this quickly got. All I...
I'm in the middle of cataloging 1.5 TB of audio files. This is the work I do for the Estate of Elliott Smith. Two computers keep Pro Tools on the top one and FileMaker Pro and Excel for track sheets on the bottom one. Otherwise the MacBook Pro...
Yup. From 1985 to 1993 I was in a band with the polite name of Vomit Launch. One of our songs, "Exit Lines" is in a movie called "The Wackness", in theaters now. A pretty damn good movie, and our song fits the scene too well! Most of our back catalog...
Over the last few years we've seen an explosion of online music services. Pandora, iTunes, Spotify, Rhapsody, Soundcloud and dozens of other platforms are touted as groundbreaking ways to deliver music to listeners. But this success is on the...
A while back I had an interesting session recording auditions and providing camera audio feed over the course of three days for 24 instrumental and vocal performers, all of whom were hoping to get on the roster with Cirque du Soleil. Roger...
Ivan Anderson reviewed the Red Panda BitMap 2 pedal in the latest issue of Tape Op, but he also makes great and highly entertaining videos for many of his reviews. Enjoy!
Whether you have been a fan of The Pixies and their indie rock masterworks Surfer Rosa and Doolittle since the late-'80s, or are just joining the conversation, you'll love their new release, The Night The Zombies Came. ...
Photo: Larry Crane
The recent passing of Ed Cherney sent me to my archives. I'd interviewed Ed many years ago and he asked me not to run it. We went back and forth about it, and I never understood why he didn't want this interview in Tape Op....
In issue #62, Josh Boughey reviewed the Monome 40h, a minimalist button-and-light interface which can be used to run musical applications. It's absolutely captivating in its simplicity; I'm writing this as an outsider, but as far as I can tell, the...