David Byrne on Collaboration/Writing/Recording

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Winstontaneous
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David Byrne on Collaboration/Writing/Recording

Post by Winstontaneous » Wed Mar 17, 2010 11:01 am

Just saw this post at David Byrne's blog about his recent collabs (including the album with Eno) and recording habits.
http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2010/03/0 ... tions.html

Of course TapeOp'ers don't need to be reminded that it's not really about the gear, but here we go anyway:
I work in a home studio, which I?ve carved out of a larger room.

Tidy, eh?

There is no professional sound baffling, but the floors of this industrial building are concrete ? and I put industrial carpet down on the floor, and one wall is a kind of sound absorbent sheetrock. Unless a truck backfires or an ambulance goes by it is OK for recording vocals and guitars. There?s no room for drums or anything like that? but for writing it is fine. There?s a good tube mic for singing, a radio studio mic for the little old guitar amp (woops, you can?t see it), and a nice pre amp and compressor.

Serial numbers and security codes for software are pinned to the wall, along with a Tammy Wynette poster. The computer is under the desk. It?s a mess, it?s not much, but amazingly, some of the vocals I?ve done here end up being keepers. The vocal I did on the hit version of the song ?Lazy? ? the collaboration with DJs X-Press 2 ? was recorded using a decent mic into a G3 laptop! So clearly pro gear is nice but not super essential. The track they sent me sounded completely different texturally than how it ended up ? they stripped it down and made it more ?housey? after I sent in my vocal.
Also, he's releasing a documentary of the 08/09 Byrne/Eno song tour :
http://www.rideriseroar.com/

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vvv
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Post by vvv » Sun Mar 21, 2010 7:28 pm

8)

I love this quote:
"The unwritten game rules in these remote collaborations seem to be to leave the other person?s stuff alone as much as you can. Work with what you?re given; don?t try to imagine it as something other than what it is."
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roygbiv
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Post by roygbiv » Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:30 pm

thanks for posting this link!

Maybe it's the beer I'm swilling at the Green Dragon here in PDX as I surf TapeOP, but I found this to be a very cool article.

Along with the quote VVV mentions, here's a couple more cool ones:
Part of what makes words work in a song is how they sound to the ear and feel on the tongue. If they feel right, if the tongue (wooo!), and the mirror neurons of the listener (isn?t that part of why we love music and performance ? mirror neurons?) are made to feel (neurologically) the delicious appropriateness of the words coming out, then that rightness sometimes trumps literal sense.
and
Why collaborate at all? One could conceivably make more money not sharing the profits ? if there are any ? so why collaborate if one doesn?t have to? If one can write alone, why reach out? (Some of the most financially successful songs I?ve ever written were not collaborations, for example.) And besides, isn?t it risky? Suppose you don?t get along? Suppose the other person decides to take the thing in some ugly direction?

Well, as I said earlier, one big reason is to restrict one?s own freedom in the writing process. There?s a joy and relief in being limited, restrained. For starters, to let someone else make half the decisions, or some big part of them, absolves one of the need to explore endless musical possibilities. The result is fewer agonizing decisions in the writing process, and sometimes, faster results.
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Post by tendershoot » Tue Mar 23, 2010 1:41 am

I love Byrne's blog. He always writes something completely original. This is in stark contrast to most stuff posted on the internet (copy///paste).

I also love the simplicity of his studio and the fact that it's almost as messy as mine.

Thanks for posting

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Post by 2leftears » Mon Apr 12, 2010 5:43 pm

Lov dat blog entry. Byrne has a brain.

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