PunBB

Escape@Hand Wrote:

chris Wrote:

Escape@Hand Wrote:Here's hoping they don't self-produce another album. TATH may be their worst album sonically (other than the EP). I LOVE how IBE sounds - very raw and powerful - and I think they should work with Adam Kasper again. Or Daniel Lanois. That would be awesome...

The "sound" of an album, in my opinion, has more to do with the Recording Engineer and the Mixer than the Producer.

Um...no offense, but do have any idea what a producer does??

Rather than scoff at our suggestions (mine based on my limited time in a recording studio) why don't you enlighten us?

While the line between producer and engineer is often blurred (as many producers are also engineers), there is a distinct difference between the two. Engineers (generally) just work the equipment. They'll do mic placement (usually where the producer tells them), possibly work the mixing board, and if analog tape is being used, they'll work that equipment to make sure it's maintained, do the splicing, etc.

Producers will often do a lot of that work too, but so much more. They work with the artist(s) in a more hands on way than an engineer. They bring an outside perspective to the music, play pyschologist so the artist can perform at their highest level, find different ways to record (whether that means recording in an unusal room, or finding the right microphone to use on a vocalist), etc. For instance, Gord Downie mentioned in the interview on the Edge radio station that Bob Rock really challenged him lyrically, and didn't just assume that Gord could handle all the lyrics on his own. They talked about what Gord was doing lyrically and it was one of the few times that's ever happened for Gord. I remember when World Container came out, Johnny Fay talked about how Rock pushed him and encouraged him to play like the drummers that influenced him. I remember Johnny specifically mentioned that Rock challenged him to play more like Keith Moon, and that the drums sounded a lot like Stewart Copeland (The Police), who was a big influence on Johnny growing up. It's these types of things that producers do that separate them from engineers.

Now, like I said, those lines get crossed sometimes. When you record at a local studio, the engieer often becomes the defacto producer (at least that's what's happened in my limited recording experience), but when you're talking about professional artists, the producer has a much bigger impact on the overall sound than the engineer. That's why they get paid the big bucks.

Anyways, I hope that makes some sense, and I didn't mean to scoff...

So what you are trying to say without writing a book on the subject is that Bob Rock sucks right?

i had hotdogs with bob one day - he's an alright guy (despite being about to produce an album with Michael Buble)...

Gord is singing back up vocals on that one as well.

Phil Spector.

BakersBrew Wrote:So what you are trying to say without writing a book on the subject is that Bob Rock sucks right?

Well Bob Rock is a fantastic producer; whether or not you LIKE his style is another thing.

Escape@Hand Wrote:While the line between producer and engineer is often blurred (as many producers are also engineers), there is a distinct difference between the two. Engineers (generally) just work the equipment. They'll do mic placement (usually where the producer tells them), possibly work the mixing board, and if analog tape is being used, they'll work that equipment to make sure it's maintained, do the splicing, etc.

Producers will often do a lot of that work too, but so much more. They work with the artist(s) in a more hands on way than an engineer. They bring an outside perspective to the music, play pyschologist so the artist can perform at their highest level, find different ways to record (whether that means recording in an unusal room, or finding the right microphone to use on a vocalist), etc. For instance, Gord Downie mentioned in the interview on the Edge radio station that Bob Rock really challenged him lyrically, and didn't just assume that Gord could handle all the lyrics on his own. They talked about what Gord was doing lyrically and it was one of the few times that's ever happened for Gord. I remember when World Container came out, Johnny Fay talked about how Rock pushed him and encouraged him to play like the drummers that influenced him. I remember Johnny specifically mentioned that Rock challenged him to play more like Keith Moon, and that the drums sounded a lot like Stewart Copeland (The Police), who was a big influence on Johnny growing up. It's these types of things that producers do that separate them from engineers.

Now, like I said, those lines get crossed sometimes. When you record at a local studio, the engieer often becomes the defacto producer (at least that's what's happened in my limited recording experience), but when you're talking about professional artists, the producer has a much bigger impact on the overall sound than the engineer. That's why they get paid the big bucks.

Anyways, I hope that makes some sense, and I didn't mean to scoff...

It does make sense, but it also doesn't make what Chris said untrue.

Some producers are much more 'hands-on' in the engineering / mixing process than others. From what I've gathered, Rock is one who likes to roll up his sleeves and involve himself in many of the more technical aspects of production; but I would imagine that he mostly communicates his concepts to the guys who are hired/contracted to do the technical work (engineering/mixing), and these individuals use their skills and expertise to bring Rock's vision to fruition. Rock may evaluate what he hears on tape and either approve it or order some adjustments, but the technicians abilities are key to the process.

That would mean that those individuals have a direct impact on the sound of the record, yes?

The Horrible Esthete Wrote:It does make sense, but it also doesn't make what Chris said untrue.

Some producers are much more 'hands-on' in the engineering / mixing process than others. From what I've gathered, Rock is one who likes to roll up his sleeves and involve himself in many of the more technical aspects of production; but I would imagine that he mostly communicates his concepts to the guys who are hired/contracted to do the technical work (engineering/mixing), and these individuals use their skills and expertise to bring Rock's vision to fruition. Rock may evaluate what he hears on tape and either approve it or order some adjustments, but the technicians abilities are key to the process.

That would mean that those individuals have a direct impact on the sound of the record, yes?

That's kind of like saying when you build a house that the contractor had a hand in the design. You hire an architect to design the house, and the contractor to build it. Producers design the soundscape of a song/album. Engineers do the "hands on" work to make that vision come true, but they are not the originator of that sonic idea. You wouldn't walk into a house that you love and say "I love how the contractor made the floorplan so open", or whatever. If you wanted a similar style house, you would find the designer/architect. Any (capable) contractor can follow the blueprints, but it takes an architect to make the design.

Now I'm not saying that engineers aren't important (at all!), but when we're talking about the "sound" of WATS, or any other album, the producer plays one of the biggest (if not the biggest) role in that. That's why bands always talk about what producers they like to work with, not engineers.

I'd agree that the producer plays the biggest role in the overall "sound" of an album.

But I'm not buying your analogy at all.

Designers draw up specific plans that must be offically approved by a thrid party, and the contractor must build precisely whats on the plansheets -- or get their asses sued off.

Well I guess the third party could be the artist, as (hopefully) they have final say in the musical direction of a project, and it's not supposed to be an exact analogy. No one is going to die if an album is recorded poorly; a building on the other hand...

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CD Review: The Tragically Hip "We Are the Same”
Buzz up!
Published: April 24, 2009

ROCK
(Zoe Records)

They’re one of the biggest concert draws in Canada. But south of the border, they’re still largely unknown, which is too bad because this Kingston, Ontario, quartet has made about 25 years’ worth of melodically memorable and lyrically potent rock ’n’ roll. If you’re uninitiated, The Tragically Hip’s 12th studio album, "We Are the Same,” provides an excellent introduction.

This is the Hip matured to perfection, delivering powerful odes to the working class in a setting of relaxed tempos and rich sonic textures centered around acoustic and electric guitars and Gordon Downie’s distinctive, yearning warble, which at turns is reminiscent of the Call’s Michael Been and R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe.

On the country and folk-seasoned, pedal steel-laced "Morning Moon,” he sings of a man’s search for one small something about the day to make him feel better about his lot in life. A mournful trumpet solo is effectively dropped into the middle of "Coffee Girl,” Downie’s melancholy ballad to a "beautiful and disaffected” waitress suffering the pangs of an unhappy relationship, while epic strings add fuel to the emotional power of the anthemic "Now the Struggle Has a Name,” the singer’s call to carry on because "we are all the same.” Tragically addictive stuff.

— Gene Triplett

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The Hip's acoustic efforts 'gorgeous'
MUSIC REVIEW
Posted By DAVID REED



The title of the new Tragically Hip disc is misleading because they are not just tossing out another album of what the fans have come to expect -- a mix of arena rock and indie rock.

The new album features a healthy dose of acoustic guitars, coloured by subtle strings and splashes of mandolin and slide guitar. The songs are beautifully written and arranged, and tastefully produced by Bob Rock.

The Hip have never included too many guests on their recordings, but We Are the Same features John Webster (Hammond B3), Derry Byrne (trumpet) and Barenaked Ladies keyboard wizard Kevin Hearn (piano/accordion).

The die-hard beer-drinking fans may not find many rock anthems to pump their fists at, but one could easily imagine singing these songs around a campfire (as the image on the album cover suggests). The vibe of this album is similar to songs like Thompson Girl, The Rules and Bobcaygeon off of their 1998 release, Phantom Power.

Morning Moon opens the album with gentle acoustic guitar and immediately sets the tone that this is no regular rocking Hip album.

Morning Moon almost sounds like a Blue Rodeo song, except for Gord Downie's iconic voice. Further to that, Downie seems much more mellow than in the past, refraining from disturbing rants and snarls, opting instead for more intimate delivery.

The Last Recluse is shimmering and dreamy, with Hearn's accordion adding colour and texture.

The Depression Suite is the longest song the Hip has recorded, weighing in at 9:27. Listening reveals there are three short connected songs making up the suite. The Rock and NewOrleansWorld run seamlessly together with Don't You Wanna See How It Ends following. The suite works in the same way that Mean Mr. Mustard, Polythene Pam and She Came in Through the Bathroom Window string together on the Beatles' Abbey Road.

Honey Please has prominent mandolin and piano parts, a tribal drum pulse, thick vocal harmony and a Skynyrd-esque slide guitar solo.

Coffee Girl references "classic Beck" and sounds a bit like a classic Beck song, with a trumpet solo by Byrne.

The Last Recluse will stick in your head, and repeatedly mentions "the last Canada goose." I'm a sucker for nationalistic references.

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Liner notes go digital
By Mike Doherty, Canwest News ServiceApril 22, 2009



There's a moment in the new Tragically Hip album, We Are the Same, when Gord Downie sings, "Bring on the requisite strangeness / It always has to get a little weird." The music shifts gears from driving rock to string-laden prog balladry, and the Hip show they've evolved from a band that writes charging anthems about hockey players to one that writes songs about writing songs; next thing you know, they might, say, hire a prize-winning novelist to pen liner notes.

Which is, in fact, is what they've done. Earlier this month, music journalists were greeted by the 21st-century version of the liner essay in their inboxes. Accompanying a download of "We Are the Same" was a 750-word text about the band penned by Joseph Boyden (whose Through Black Spruce took the Giller Prize last year) and his wife and fellow novelist, Amanda. While the piece does conclude with the rather lofty phrase, "this album is bread, water, love," it wouldn't be fair to castigate Downie and his pals for pretension. Instead, credit them with giving a boost to the vanishing art of the liner-note essay.

Nowadays, such essays are common only in the classical and traditional jazz genres, and of course in reissues -- in all three cases, they offer a historical angle on the music. In the '50s and '60s, the golden decades of the LP, liner notes had a contemporary feel and strove to be cool, gracing the backs of record sleeves and offering a writer's take -- whether analytical, zany, or oblique -- on the music inside.

Many LP liner notes, as York University music professor Rob Bowman observes, were essentially promotional "puff pieces," but others offered a creative perspective. Bob Dylan's own notes for releases such as Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited, for instance, have a crazed, poetic energy, and reading them, says Bowman, is "like consuming Dylan in another medium."

Some of Dylan's peers also contributed memorable notes to record sleeves in the '60s. Consider John Coltrane's mystically spiritual notes to A Love Supreme ("in the bank of life is not good that investment which surely pays the highest and most cherished dividends," he writes) and Frank Zappa's militantly countercultural notes for Freak Out! ("Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system.") More often, musicians preferred to hire others to add their own perspectives, occasionally resulting in gems such as Ralph J. Gleason's forceful notes for Miles Davis' Bitches Brew ("it's not just the horn. it's a concept. it's a life support system for a whole world"), and Johnny Cash's ode to Dylan on the back of Nashville Skyline ("So where are your mountains / To match some men?").

In the '70s, liner notes lost their cachet. As singer and songwriter Robyn Hitchcock recalls, "When we moved into stoner culture, and everybody got hairier, and gatefold sleeves developed, and the music got longer, the old days of 'Hey friend, have you heard The Byrds?' gradually gave way to pictures of the artist as a star and sort of druggie doodles or photographs."

Since the '80s, Hitchcock has been one of the few musicians who regularly contributes liner-note essays -- or short stories or poems -- to his albums. They have allowed him to spin out his singular surrealistic narratives at greater length than in his songs, or, in the case of his major-label debut, 1987's Globe of Frogs, to alert new listeners to the kind of music they would hear. "I was aware of the fact that people could accuse me of living in my own world or not being relevant to the issues of the day ... or of being oblique or opaque, so I put that down as a sort of manifesto. A bit like, 'Warning: this contains nuts.'"

Such a warning constitutes the opposite of the panegyric "puff piece" liner note essay. Says Hitchcock, "Those notes would usually be written by somebody else, not the artist themselves. You have to be quite immodest to sit there and say, 'I have just written the most fantastic 10 songs you will ever hear. ... Your money back if your pleasure-o-meter does not go through the roof by track four!'"

The best liner-note essays allow the artist a degree of modesty while providing a kind of cachet, conferring significance on the music.

Famous names have been commissioned: Douglas Coupland wrote a story for Saint Etienne's Good Humor (1998); Dave Eggers produced notes for Still Ravished, a tribute album to the '80s band The June Brides (2006); poet Simon Armitage composed a reverie for Paul Weller's 22 Dreams (2008) and even the super-secretive Thomas Pynchon contributed an irresistibly zany piece to Lotion's Nobody's Cool (1996).

Such writers, more often than not, are genuine fans and/or friends of the bands involved, as is the case with the Boydens and the Tragically Hip. Joseph has been close to Gord Downie for a few years; the singer approached him and Amanda to write a piece introducing listeners to We Are the Same, offering no direction or parameters.

Amanda's concern, she says, was that they might be "going too overboard" and writing a "love-fest. You don't have to figuratively kiss (the band)! But we were so blown away by the album that it was almost impossible for us not to praise it."

According to Joseph, they didn't feel pressure to sell the album, as "the Hip have a built-in audience"; instead, they wanted to put forward "the idea that you're going to be really surprised and pleased by this album: What the band has to say and how they say it, and how the band has come together to play."

The Boydens' text, "Coming Clean at the Bathhouse," is unconditionally positive, but its idiosyncrasies are welcome -- officially it's a band bio, but it sidesteps that genre's banal platitudes and affectedly bubbly prose. Its existence as an e-text on the band's website signals that the concept of an album as a physical artifact is disappearing; gone are the days when one would pore over an album sleeve, or a CD booklet, while listening to the music.

Downloadable "digital booklets" in .pdf format exist, but they don't seem integral to the music, and they've yet to catch on. Still, Rob Bowman, who has written liner notes for reissues for over 20 years and won a Grammy for The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles, Vol. 3 (1996), holds out a degree of hope: "Space is unlimited on the Net, or when you're including something digitally (with a purchase). So you could actually get even more in-depth liner notes, if record companies are willing to pay for them."

As Hitchcock notes, cross-platform creativity might flourish: "You can download artwork, and there would be no difficulty downloading a novel or a novella" along with an album.

For that matter, if downloading enables us to combine art forms in new ways, why not hire a musician to write a song that would be packaged with, say, Amanda Boyden's next novel?

"Oh, wouldn't that be good!" she laughs, "but that would take somebody way too long."
© Copyright © Canwest News Service

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CD Review: The Tragically Hip "We Are the Same”
Buzz up!
Published: April 24, 2009

ROCK
(Zoe Records)

They’re one of the biggest concert draws in Canada. But south of the border, they’re still largely unknown, which is too bad because this Kingston, Ontario, quartet has made about 25 years’ worth of melodically memorable and lyrically potent rock ’n’ roll. If you’re uninitiated, The Tragically Hip’s 12th studio album, "We Are the Same,” provides an excellent introduction.

This is the Hip matured to perfection, delivering powerful odes to the working class in a setting of relaxed tempos and rich sonic textures centered around acoustic and electric guitars and Gordon Downie’s distinctive, yearning warble, which at turns is reminiscent of the Call’s Michael Been and R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe.

On the country and folk-seasoned, pedal steel-laced "Morning Moon,” he sings of a man’s search for one small something about the day to make him feel better about his lot in life. A mournful trumpet solo is effectively dropped into the middle of "Coffee Girl,” Downie’s melancholy ballad to a "beautiful and disaffected” waitress suffering the pangs of an unhappy relationship, while epic strings add fuel to the emotional power of the anthemic "Now the Struggle Has a Name,” the singer’s call to carry on because "we are all the same.” Tragically addictive stuff.

— Gene Triplett

Thanks for posting this. Always nice to see some love for the Hip in a Midwestern publication (The Oklahoman).