Joel Oliphint

Musicol update: CDR moving in

I wrote a story about Musicol Recording for Pitchfork in February, and in it I mentioned that Columbus Discount Recording’s Adam Smith is the heir apparent to Musicol’s legacy. That will become even more of a reality this summer.

Smith said he’s closing down CDR’s studio in June and moving the best gear from there to Musicol, combining the two studios into one super-studio. Smith will run CDR out of Musicol after the move. The two entities will remain separate, but Smith said that by September, “We ought to have one of the best recording facilities in the midwest in Columbus [and] we ought to be able to offer more egalitarian rates, too.”

Seems like a good, natural move for both CDR and Musicol.

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largeheartedboy:

Elliott Smith’s live cover of Big Star’s “Thirteen,” from a collection of Big Star covers at Largehearted Boy.

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I’ve long been a fan of Athens, Ohio’s Adam Remnant, the crackly-voiced songwriter for Appalachia-indebted folk-rock band Southeast Engine. He’s got a solo debut on the way, too. Here’s three songs that you’ll likely find on that, along with an acoustic version of Southeast Engine’s “Coming to Terms with Gravity.”

Also: I feel it necessary to state, in our post-Mumford world, that lumping terms like “folk” and “rock” and “Appalachia” together in one paragraph does not mean Remnant would fit in as an opener for the Lumineers. His songwriting is a cut above.

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We need music criticism because people like writing it and people like reading it. It’s as simple as that. Why do we need blogs about World of Warcraft? Why do we need people who want to talk about knitting? There’s a number of things that, if you’re outside of that culture, it seems strange or unnecessary. If you’re in it, though, it feels very necessary. They give meaning to life, they make you happy, they give you something to do.

Author Devon Powers makes a case for music writing in her conversation with Eric Harvey about her book Writing the Record: The Village Voice and the Birth of Rock Criticism. (via pitchfork)

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An editor provides a dialogue with the writer before he’s written anything, and while he’s writing. Bingham wasn’t saying, This sentence doesn’t work. But he was talking to me as I was going along. And I was a very nervous writer about my own work, and am to this day. I never have any confidence when I start out on a story. I gain confidence after the first draft is written. But before the first draft is written, I’m almost as lacking in confidence now as I was back then. Conversation with him would help that. I would also read him sentences. How does that sound? Does that sound like a good lead for a piece in the magazine? And he didn’t uniformly say yes just to say yes. The point is that dialogue was happening.

Then it hit a bizarre moment. I went through a terrible period of life when I got divorced. And if I had no confidence before that, during that period I had negative confidence. I was trying to keep a book going, I had children to support, and I was a total mess. I called Bingham up and I say, Does this sound like it will work as the lead? And then I call him up and say, Well, you know, after that there’s—And I proceeded to read to that man, on the telephone, sixty thousand words. Can you believe it? Not in one session but over a period of time. I was so lacking in confidence that I needed to have somebody say, Yeah, yeah, go ahead. And he said, Yeah, yeah, go ahead. The result is Encounters with the Archdruid.

John McPhee: Paris Review - The Art of Nonfiction No. 3 (via markrichardson)

People often think of the back-and-forth between writers and editors as antagonistic. Here’s an example of how, at its best, it can be beautiful.

(via markrichardson)

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Night Beds and the epidemic of self-deprecation

Night Beds’ debut record, Country Sleep, has been in heavy rotation in my house this year. It’s beautiful, melancholy — a good early-morning-coffee album. But this short piece over at Paste almost ruined it for me. Not that it’s poorly written or reveals Night Beds singer/songwriter/bandleader Winston Yellen to be some monster. It’s that he’s too nice. Or, rather, he’s self-deprecating, which is an interview tool that a glut of independent musicians mistakenly use to come across to readers as regular ol’ nice guys.

Yellen laughs off the power of his music because it was recorded haphazardly (one does not preclude the other). He’s preoccupied with “not having a clue” and not “trying to make ourselves sound cool.” He claims, “The strings are one of the only parts that I can listen to without cringing.”

It’s one thing to tire of your own songs. No one assumes artists spend all day listening to their own music (unless you’re Kanye). But it’s OK to be proud of it, too — warts and all. If you don’t believe in it, I won’t either. “Confidence” is not a dirty word.

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Digging this just-released TW Walsh song feat. David Bazan and Casey Foubert

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Soldier on, ladies and gentlemen. Soldier on and best wishes.

Cleveland Plain Dealer to cut back publication to three days per week and cut a third of its newsroom staff (some estimate 160 layoffs).

Awful news for one of the best newspapers still in the business.

John Mangels, a science writer and 22-year veteran of the paper, who worked with the union during negotiations, said 53 of the newsroom’s work force of more than 160 people would be laid off, in addition to members of management. He said earlier plans to start layoffs on May 1 had been delayed until this summer.

www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/business/media/cleveland-paper-to-curtail-delivery-and-cut-staff.html?_r=1&

Another reason to hate the Internet.

(via editsic)

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On the 1998 Anyway Records comp I Stayed Up All Night Listening to Records, which included tracks from Bob Pollard, Bill Fox, Mike Rep, Jenny Mae, Jerry Wick, Ron House and others, Don Howland (Gibson Bros., Great Plains) contributed a song called “Rubber Boots” and preceded it with a drowsy/druggy spoken-word intro, explaining it was the LAST time he’d do the song.

Turns out that’s not the case. Above is a new, fuzzed-out version of “Rubber Boots” by the Bassholes, Howland’s longtime collab with Bim Thomas (Obnox, This Moment in Black History). It’s from new album Bogeyman Stew, out April 23 on Columbus Discount Records with guest spots from Ellen Hoover of the Gibson Bros, Damon Sturdivant of Puffy Areolas and Tom & Dave Shannon of the Cheater Slicks. CDR’s Adam Smith says the album was recorded all analog at CDR and Musicol in bits and pieces over the last few years.

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nprmusic:

Cat Power, “Manhattan.”

I wonder if Chan Marshall will have this much fun wandering around the grounds of Hocking College when she plays the Nelsonville Music Festival next month?

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