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ROUGH MIXES. DEEP CUTS
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that a
character in a novel, a singer, did everything
right for her career that most budding musi
cians don't do and that's why their bands fail.
Easy enough to say, considering the character
in question was fictional and could be as suc
cessful as the author wished her to be. In
real life, playing music is hard work, and it
requires unique and often fragile combinations
of talent, will and powerful egos to take it
anywhere beyond one's front porch. Let's face
it, if it were that easy to do, we'd all be rock
stars.
So, rather than allow a glib statement
to sit and fester, I'll try Jo elaborate, not as
a working musician (which I'm not) but as
someone who loves music, goes to a lot of
shows and really wants your band to succeed.
Space forbids me from suggesting everything
I'd want from your gig, but if I had to pick a
top three, they'd be:
(1.) Don't name
your band something
drunk people won't
remember. (2.) If you
expect us to pay you,
then your band is your
job. Rehearse often,
on time and without
distractions. Play (rea
sonably) sober. For the
love of God, get tight.
(3.).Playing well and
sounding good are not
the same thing. You •
can write great songs
with killer hooks and
shred like Yngwie* and
most club boards will
make you sound like
you're playing outboard
motors with bags over
your heads. At every
gig, the sound guy is
part of your band, so
treat him like it. Buy him beer, get him laid,
whatever you have to do to getihe right mix
out of his board, do it.
Getting the Mix Right: This last point cannot
be emphasized enough, whether you're play
ing live or, Lord willing and the creek don't
rise, cutting a record in the studio. The band
may know what they want to sound like, and
the producer may know what he means for
the record to sound like, but it's the engineer
who makes it happen. The person who knows
the room and the board, what mics to use
and where to place them, the world of differ
ence between playing through a 30-year-old
Vox head and a 29-year-old Marshall head.
Engineers do the heavy lifting in any session .
but rarely get their props.
Enter Mixerman, a veteran L.A. record
ist and guerilla blogger who spent the better
part of a year documenting the world's most
disastrous series, of recording sessions and has
now collected those entries in a book called,
appropriately enough, The Daily Adventures
of Mixerman (Hal Leonard, 2009). Those
who followed the blog (and there were many
who tuned in for the next bombshell) will
find out how it ended. Those who are com
ing to Mixerman for the first time will find
his saga at once horrifying, fascinating and
brutally funny. And as a bonus you'll receive a
crash course in the process of making records
and learn why some people should never be
allowed to do so.
Bitch Slap (not the band's real name—Mix
erman is very careful not to name himself or
anyone else directly) is ready to cut an album.
In the two years since their label discovered
them, they've been hanging fire and writing
songs while their A&R people "develop" them,
and they're ready to go. They've been given
an unlimited budget and the best person
nel around, including ace engineer Mixerman
and top-flight producer Willy Show, so named
because he doesn't even make an appearance
until two weeks into the sessions. There's
only one problem: these guys are awful, as
musicians and as human beings. The singer
is a narcissist who obsesses on his hair and
his collection of vintage jeans. The guitarist
is depressed to the edge of comatose. The
bassist wants to sing and can't and is pretty
bitter about it. And the drummer is utterly
devoid of rhythm, feel and basic common
sense. In the absence of the producer, it's up
to Mixerman to corral “
their egos, chase their
girlfriends out of the
studio and somehow
get these guys to sound
like a band worth the
millions of dollars that
have been pumped into
them.
The sessions are
a long and torturous
exercise in Murphy's
Law. Everything that
can go wrong does,
from entourages and
film crews in the
recording space to
the sudden appear
ance of a mountain of
cocaine in the studio
lounge (Mixerman calls
coke "gak" and dope
"fatties"—apparently
there's a rule on his
blogspace against referring to drugs by name,
and it's a little annoying). The studio assistant
is somebody's nephew. The editor is a self-
proclaimed "Wegro" with a gambling problem.
The band's manager and weasels from the
label keep coming in to hijack the sessions.
The band abruptly goes on a cruise without
telling their girlfriends. As if all this weren't
enough, throw in a growing sense of dread
and paranoia as Mixerman begins to suspect
that his daily blogs have been discovered and
are being followed by the band and the label.
And still, week after week goes by with the
album no closer to completion.
The pains that Mixerman takes to conceal
his own identity and everyone else's have
called the veracity of his journal into ques- •
tion. Is this really the making of a single
album by one ill-starred band, is it an amal
gam of Mixerman's worst experiences mashed
up into one account, or is it a work of pure
fiction? On message boards Mixerman plays
his cards close to the vest and won't say, but I
lean toward the middle option—it's too much
to be a straight narrative, but rings too true
to be untrue. It's hardly important, however.
Mixerman's account is, at its core, a revealing
look at a part of the music business that rarely
makes its way into the fantasy.
John G. Nettles
’Tm not actually a Malmsteen fan. I just like saying
"Yngwie.”
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