“What A Performance!” – Music2MyEars

It seems that the current view of a ‘record producer’ is some strange mixture of a magician and guru. “Check it out dread – it’s Maguru (or maybe The Gurician?)”. Then apparently we also have to act as an administrator. This has changed beyond recognition since I first joined the music industry in the 70s. At that time a producer was either a shirt, tie and sports-jacket type or a mate of the band that knew ‘something’ about records – generally not much more than the fact that they were round and had a hole in the middle! My entrance as a tea boy was much more auspiscious!

What I really love doing is the actual recording and view this imposition of managing all the stuff behind the scenes as being only a necessary evil to clear the space and get to making music. I have found that the best way to deal with it is to turn the whole organising process into an art itself and so have become almost obsessive about the detail – I’m not sure if that is such a good thing!

Of course what I really want is for an artist to tell me exactly what they hear, give me an idea of what is going on in their head – then I can help them make that a reality, but often those who are most eloquent in their art cannot easily communicate in other ways. I have had to develop all sorts of extra facets of my own ‘self’ in order to manage this. Perhaps this is why so many of us producers are good at amateur philosophy and psychology! Sometimes I think that quite honestly if they want me to come up with all the ideas then I might just as well do it myself! Then I have to give myself a good talking to.

So I spend a great deal of time talking with them and trying to get them to put their music into their words and what I really want to know is how they see themselves as artists and performers.

You see I don’t think that making music is like writing books or even painting pictures – the music performer has to actually deliver in person and that requires a very special personality.

This is why I have such respect for singers, the front people, the ones who have to get used to being loved and hated in equal parts.

Singers are difficult though.

One particularly neurotic singer I worked with was very difficult and over a period of a couple of months had called me almost every night to analyze everything that had been said during the course of the day’s session. I had put a band around her and rehearsed them, helped to develop the songs, listened to hours of relationship woes but still kept as cool as possible because it was her debut album and I wanted to try to make it as good as possible for her. Eventually though she wound me up so much that I shouted at her “Why are you so f**k**ng paranoid?” and when she answered, “Who said I’m paranoid?” it took about 10 minutes before I could stop laughing. I left the project because quite frankly she wasn’t talented enough to warrant that much ‘Diva’ and sadly even after a couple of others tried to finish the album the project fell apart and ended up being shelved.

There are of course just as many other situations where I have put up with all sorts of artistic tantrum because the artist was so good that they almost deserved a break in the personality department!

I’ve spent hours and hours getting just one syllable to sound right or one note to be in tune and then other times when the singer does two takes that are so perfect I’m left trying to find something more useful to say than “Fantastic”. Mind you in the days before computers when we often only had one track to record the vocal on, necessity became the mother of invention and we had to find a way to make it really happen, regardless of circumstances.

Singers can make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck and they have the power to make you laugh and cry – it’s an immense power to deal with and not many of them can cope with it, but they deserve our utmost respect when they try. We all like to sit comfortably and judge from afar but not many of us could do better – that’s why we let them do it for us and why we should always give them that big round of applause.

I still don’t understand how people can love the droners though – can you really stay awake for a whole Coldplay concert? What is so great about Morrissey? And I get frustrated with the spin from artists supported by a PR machine – “The Extraordinary Ordinariness of Kate Nash” one recent news item opined – ordinary yes, extraordinary I don’t think so! I know so many singers and songwriters who are so much better - in fact I had meetings with some of them this week!

I find myself fascinated when watching someone like Amy Winehouse or Rufus Wainright or Tori Amos perform – not only are their voices interesting but so is the way they deliver the words. They include their audience. I think that’s important for performers, a real desire to entertain. I remember seeing Oasis at Glastonbury and wanting to get up there and shake them for turning their backs on the audience and just standing there in those stupid parka coats without making any effort at all. People paid good money for that!

I should make it perfectly clear; I like (most) singers, songwriters and musicians. I’m not like the very influential record company executive who once said to me “You know this business would be great if it weren’t for the bloody musicians” – and he actually meant it! He is part of the breed of (unfortunately) influential bigots in the music industry who fail to realise that the raw material that pays their wages comprises real people with real feelings and dreams that deserve at least chance of becoming a reality.

Music2MyEars © 2008