The brutal math of operating a recording studio

There's a fun online trend involving people tracking down obscure musicians or half-remembered analog recordings from the 1990s, which for whatever reason never made the transition to streaming. One of the best podcast episodes ever recorded, Reply All's The Case of the Missing Hit, is an example of someone who took the search to the next level.

But there's another story lurking in the background: even if the CD or LP can't be located, or is super-rare, surely the original recordings must be somewhere, right? 

Indeed they are! The multitrack reel-to-reel tapes and two-track masters from such lost masterpieces are likely sitting in boxes in someone's basement or storage unit, along with scores or hundreds of other recordings from the same studio (or record label, if they took possession). They are eventually forgotten as the original owners pass away without ever finding a new home for them.

Music studios are (or were) terrible businesses. Typically they were started by a certain type of musician who liked the process and maybe invested in the gear to record his or her own music, and then decided to turn it into a business. If you've been in bands before, or worked in the industry in any capacity, you'll eventually run into these types. They're not just gearheads, they are obsessed with recording perfection. Lindsey Buckingham (Fleetwood Mac) and Andy Partridge (XTC) are examples of the type, and both built home studios, although to the best of my knowledge they did not attempt to start commercial recording businesses.

For those who did open a studio, they quickly learned about the constant, expensive technology upgrades required. I'm talking about reel to reel recording devices, digital effects, computers and other gear that might have to be completely replaced every 5 years, with limited resale value for now-obsolete equipment (anyone remember DAT recorders?)

The studio ownership also had to figure out how to maintain a steady stream of clients. This is hard, as music evolves and new up-and-comers choose or are steered toward other studios. 

I worked, briefly, in a London recording studio. It had a good run because its co-owner - Hans Zimmer - had a steady stream of Hollywood work and could afford the upgrades to the latest technology, which in turn attracted the latest pop artists like the KLF. 

But even Zimmer's studio struggled with the analog to digital conversion wave. Further, a problem with the property derailed operations for months in late 1991, and it never recovered after that. 

The arrival of PC recording software is often cited as the death knell for professional studios, but I think the model died decades earlier and was only sustained by constant supply of briefly successful and competent musician/producers who thought they could make a business out of their talents and gear. 

If you're interested in this type of thing, check out "Sound City" (2013) which tracks the journey of a Neve console through LA recording history and eventually to Dave Grohl's private studio.

Blade Runner's opening sequence: it's not just the typography

I'm a big Blade Runner fan since it was released in 1982. Read the book by Philip K. Dick in the early 80s when I was starting high school. Director's Cut on DVD. Rabbit hole on filming locations, set decoration, and obscure cast members. So Rands' stirring homage to typography in Blade Runner's opening title cards caught my attention:

"Unlike our functional fixed-width typefaces, the role of typography in this title sequence is partly functional — to set the story — but the primary purpose is establishing mood. Director Ridley Scott expertly drops us into the middle of a dystopian future where we’ve enslaved the robots and, duh, they are rebelling." 

Well, yes. But dropping us into the story with descriptive text and careful typography is not the only thing that's going on.

The audio consists of two parts: the minimalist score by Vangelis, and sound effects that include distant booms, twinkling computer notes, and a crescendo that builds to loud explosions and the whoosh of futuristic vehicles. It effectively immerses viewers into this incredible world and story.

This is very different than Star Wars' title sequence 5 years prior which also had an amazing score (by John Williams), but was firmly anchored in the tradition of Holst and contemporary Hollywood orchestral scores.

Keep in mind that a typical viewer entering a theater in 1982 to watch Blade Runner was stepping out of Chevy Nova with an 8-track cassette players loaded with Juice Newton, The Charlie Daniels Band, and Kool & The Gang. The typography, the score, the sound effects, and the images on screen would have been mind-blowing. 

A deep dive into the history of The KLF

I've talked before about my early career in the music industry, working for KLF Communications (see An education with the KLF Communications). I just stumbled upon a really solid article about the history of the British art-pop duo on Discopogo, and I learned a few things that I hadn't know before.

Author Joe Muggs has done a fine job, interviewing many people in the KLF's orbit, including Cressida Bowyer (Jimmy Cauty's former partner) as well as Bill Drummond's earlier Liverpool colleagues like David Balfe. 

Muggs also avoids the trap that so many journalists can't help but fall into when it comes to describing The KLF's more outrageous stunts in breathless tones. Instead, he explores the creative crucible that led to the formation of The KLF in the mid to late 80s, and summarizes the impact of the music to the present day.

So, what was in the Disco Pogo article that I didn't know before?     

First, the pseudo-mystical lyrics and imagery wasn't something picked out of a book, like Jimmy Page digging into old writings by Aleister Crowley. Muggs writes: 

If there’s an origin story for all this madness, it comes in the mid-1970s when Drummond, down from Scotland to study art in Liverpool, became a carpenter and scene painter for the notably progressive Everyman Theatre. It was here that actor and anarchist provocateur Ken Campbell put on his 24-hour production of ‘The Illuminatus! Trilogy’ by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson – and Drummond was drawn into the worlds of both Campbell and the serious-not-serious pseudo-religion Discordianism, which surrounds all things ‘Illuminatus!’ Pyramids, golden apples, secret societies, lost continents, the number 23 and the idea that the fabric of reality could be an artistic medium all entered the mix.

Second, the early KLF seemed to be gravitating toward a factory pop model, and at one point even fashioned themselves after The Beastie Boys, which kind of makes sense if you listen to 'Whitney Joins The JAMs' or ‘1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?)’:

“I think they were trying to be the Beastie Boys,” says Iain Baker, later of Jesus Jones. “You could see it with them calling themselves King Boy D and Rockman Rock. They probably wanted to be popular. But I was working in a record shop then, and I can tell you they were only selling to chin-stroking, John-Peel-listening, art-rock-type guys.”

Third, Trancentral was not a state of mind or a fictional place, as I had assumed. It was a squat in Stockwell:

Drummond moved into the Stockwell squat that would soon become known as Trancentral, and as he and Cauty became thick as thieves the weird symbolism started flowing, starting with the JAMs name, which came straight out of ‘Illuminatus!’.

It was here that a lot of musical experimentation took place, feeding off and contributing to the energy of the emerging Acid House scene. One witness described it as "a five-storey squat ... they just ripped out every internal wall, the place was full of acrow props holding up the ceilings. Their parties were a bit terrifying."

Trancentral was also the headquarters of KLF Communications for a few years. This was before I became a contractor/employee, first at Lillie Yard studio (cofounded by Hans Zimmer in Fulham when he still was based in London) and later in the Brixton Enterprise Centre.

Finally, there's a summary of post-KLF activities by Cauty and Drummond. Some I had heard about, including K2. Other activities were unknown to me, such as the donation of music masters going to the British Library and film material to the BFI. There was even a bit about Jarvis Cocker singing ‘Justified and Ancient’ at an event in 2017, plus other connections to younger artists and collaborators.

Read Muggs's article here.  

 

An Amish farmer's struggle with drought

“We need the rain."

I’m talking with Eli, the Amish owner of a farm in northern New York, not far from where my grandfather was born. At 11 am, it’s already 88 degrees, with not a cloud in the sky. It’s been so dry this month that the entire county is under a no-burn order. The fields of corn look parched.

 Eli is in his late 30s. He looks like actor Jesse Plemons, except he’s wearing a blue work shirt and trousers and no shoes. Eli’s straw hat has seen a lot of use, and at one point was repaired with a squiggle of pink yarn.

The fruits and vegetables in his family’s roadside stand look fresh. A box of green beans and a cantaloupe cost $1 apiece. A pint container of pickling cucumbers is $2. I offer $3 for a dozen enormous eggs, but he’ll only take $2.50. He says if the melon isn’t good, to bring it back and he’ll give me another one.

I point at the other melons on the shelf. “Don’t those need a lot of water?” I ask.

“We fill up a tank from the well every day, so the water is warm,” Eli explains. “Then we water the front garden after dinner.”

Nearby, a ewe and her lambs urgently bleat from their small piece of shade, an open-sided loafing shed constructed of sheet metal. Beyond lies an old wooden barn. Ancient farm equipment is arrayed outside: a manure spreader, a stalk chopper, and wagons that might have been featured in the 1908 Sears catalogue. I spot two of Eli’s barefoot sons wrestling a giant bale off of a hay wain.

Eli and his family are living a life not much changed from the 1800s. Everyone reading this has parents or grandparents or ancestors further back in time who tilled the land. They would surely recognize the scene: a sprawling rural property with a farmhouse, barn, and a dozen outbuildings. Farm animals. Sturdy work clothes and dresses hanging from a clothesline off the porch. Horse-drawn farm equipment. A workshop to repair furniture and tools, and make things that can be resold.

Our ancestors paid close attention to the weather, and feared extended periods of dry weather. A lack of water could ruin a harvest, or even cause a farm to go bust. In the 1930s, the Dust Bowl led to millions of people migrating out of the Great Plains, mostly to California and other West Coast states. 

Eli is likes to chat, but there is concern in his voice. He and his wife have 7 mouths to feed. If the weather doesn’t cooperate, they will harvest less corn and hay. In recent years, there have been more hot days and long stretches without rain. Winters have been milder. 

Around Eli’s farm are yellowing fields. Selling produce and repairing furniture brings in a little cash, but it’s the crops and pastureland that are the foundation of the family’s income. Hay has been harvested early from one field. The stacks look shorter than usual. 

And then there is the land itself. “The soil is not deep here,” Eli complains. “My plow often hits rock.”

But it was cheap. Around here, farmland costs just $1,000 to $3,000 per acre. It’s not just because the soil sits on a shelf of rock 18 inches down. The population of northern New York has been in decline for decades, and few English families stick with farming.

Eli and many other local Amish were originally from Ohio. “There was no more land there,” Eli explains. “You needed millions of dollars to buy a farm.” Even if it were a sale within his Amish community in Ohio, the minimum price would be $6,000 per acre, he says.

I glance at my phone. “Forecast says a 65% chance of rain tomorrow,” I tell him.

“Really?”

“Yes, around midday,” 

“Let’s hope,” he says.

Before tech, making a living in the arts was hardly a utopia

People in the arts and creative media have been bemoaning the impact of new Internet and digital technologies upon their careers and businesses. Many of the criticisms I agree with, and have covered elsewhere on this blog - see Google's news vision misses "boots on the ground" (2010) and Amazon cracking down on newsletter recommendation services? (2017).

But I take issue with statements like this, portraying the pre-1995 arts and media world as an unfettered opportunity to connect with audiences and build successful businesses:

... The cultural infrastructure has been falling away for decades now, and there isn't much left. At this point literature has been "captured" by the University, but it's for a good reason: you can't survive as a fiction writer without it. People complain "but they're so insular" but the truth is: they don't have an alternative. You can work at a University or you can not be a full-time writer: that's your choice.

This is true of other industries too. Music: you used to be able to support yourself as a studio musician. You might also be the guy who was the resident expert on classical music for the neighborhood at the store, who would recommend operas conducted by Karajan and the best recordings from Deutsche Grammophone (I remember those guys). Art: you could paint signs or design posters, back when there was a real demand. Writing: you could write for the alternative weeklies (I'd read those) or be a regular journalist, writing as little as one story a day. Movies: you could be a video clerk (I also remember this). And those 'subcultures' were incubators. Quentin Tarantino graduated from the video store in a sense. Who can follow him, if there are no video stores anymore?

As someone whose first job in media was working for an independent record label, wrote for a weekly newspaper arts section, worked as a movie theatre projectionist in Harvard Square, wrote music and performed as a musician, and now operate a profitable independent publishing company, I have a few thoughts to share.

In many areas of the arts in the 20th century, "the cultural infrastructure" was dominated by oligopolies: local broadcasters with allotted bandwidth, record distributors who only worked with certain labels, an insular book industry that favored certain types of literature and nonfiction and poetry, and magazines which promoted a "cultural conversation" but overwhelmingly favored artists who happened to live in or near New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Tokyo.

Some great art came out of that environment, but there was a lot of garbage that made its way past the gatekeepers because of laziness, broken incentives, bias, and outright bribery. 

The artist's "day job" is nothing new

Few artists made a living solely from their art in the 20th century. Almost everyone had a day job - Phillip Glass driving a taxi, Cormac McCarthy doing odd jobs, Gene Wolfe editing Plant Engineering magazine. And those are the ones who eventually hit escape velocity.

The interesting stuff was happening at the margins - the alternative weeklies, the independent presses, the music scenes in second and third tier cities, the artists in remote locales driven to do what they needed to do and hopefully could connect with audiences, albeit small ones. 

I was a participant in these scenes as a creator and a consumer. The photo at the top of this page was taken from the top of my apartment building in Kenmore Square, Boston, in 1990. Kenmore Square is a luxury dead zone now, but 35 years ago it was the center of Boston's underground music community with venues such as The Rat and record stores like Nuggets and Planet Records. This environment birthed groundbreaking and influential bands such as The Cars, The Pixies, and Mission of Burma, as well as thousands of others that were hardly known outside of a 25-mile radius.

Later, I lived in London (the picture above is from my apartment building near Earl's Court) and Taipei. I can tell you making a living as a musician or indie publisher was extremely hard. Everyone had day jobs (hopefully in an arts-adjacent industry) and expected little or no remuneration for their creative activities. Recording an album or publishing a fanzine or operating a small music venue cost real money, too, and sales could hardly be expected to cover these costs. 

Why bother, if we couldn't make money? We did it for love ... of creation, of camaraderie, of community. Getting read or noticed was the immediate reward, creating something that influenced others was the gift that kept on giving, sometimes years or decades later.

As for the claim that literature has been captured by the University, I don't know what to say. For the most part, university presses (and university employment) are not reliable sources of funding for creative projects.

Moreover, despite the rapacious nature of Amazon, it does provide an opportunity to bypass the oligopolies of old. Every year, out of the millions of new books that are published on Amazon (or spewed out by AI), several thousand great new books by self-published authors rise to the top of Amazon's algorithm. It provides an opportunity for talented new authors to start careers or at least a promising side gig that might turn into something big. They don't need to be in New York, playing the game involving agents and slush piles and paying a PR agent to suck up to the books editor at the Village Voice.

Text and Images copyright ©️ Ian Lamont