The Intersection of Art and Commerce

The Intersection of Art and Commerce - Printable Version

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The Intersection of Art and Commerce - potsie - 11-19-2016

I’ve always been fascinated by the push and pull that occurs between the artist and business camps within the record industry. There is often an incongruity between a band following the muse in the studio and a record company with eyes on the bottom line who want the most commercial music possible to be made. I’ve often wondered how this applies to the Hip and their relationship with MCA/Universal.

The moment the Hip turn in an album to Universal must be a time of excitement, laced with a liberal dose nervousness. And this would probably apply to the corporate side as well. I would have loved to have been in the board room when the Hip handed over Fully Completely for the first listen. Dollar signs would have lit up the eyes of the executives and I’m sure it was a celebratory time for both parties. It also would have been very interesting to be there when the Hip turned in Music at Work. That would have no doubt produced a few more frowns across the table and possibly created some angst amongst the executives pondering how to sell the album.

The only time I can recall hearing of some record company influence when it comes to the Hip (other than the original title for Road Apples) was for So Hard Done By. I can’t provide a source for this but I vaguely remember reading that MCA didn’t like the sped up version produced during the Fully Completely sessions so the band re-worked it with a slower groove for Day for Night.

I recently came across an interesting article on CBC that talks about tension during the Coke Machine Glow sessions (I apologize if this was already posted somewhere this summer in the flurry of articles that were written in the media and subsequently posted here; I also apologize, to a lesser extent, for switching gears slightly and breaking the rules by talking “solo” stuff in the “Hip” forum). In the interview Jose Miguel Contreras talks about significant tension between producer Steven Drake (of Odds fame and the guy who mixed Trouble at the Henhouse) and some band members. He later suggests that Steven Drake may have been a conduit for record company interests when he labels him as “the record industry side”. As Tom Petty sung, the Universal A&R man may have said to Gord, “I don’t hear a single”. I really would have loved to see the reaction of Universal when Gord turned in CMG. They probably didn’t know what the hell to do with it because it sounded nothing like a Hip album. And that thought makes me smile.

In the end, I’m just surprised by the fact that the CMG sessions were tense. I don’t hear that at all on the record. It would be harder to get a looser feeling record than the one they produced.

The following excert is from: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.cbcmusic.ca/posts/12527/collaborating-with-gord-downie-tragically-hip">http://www.cbcmusic.ca/posts/12527/coll ... ically-hip</a>: (The full article is worth a read).

Artist: José Miguel Contreras, By Divine Right
Worked with Downie: on By Divine Right’s ‘Back To You’ and played on Downie’s 2001 solo debut, Coke Machine Glow

Can you tell me a bit about working on the solo record?

I worked on a couple songs. He invited me to play on it, but it was tense. There was tension between some of the band and the producer [Steve Drake]. It was pretty tense. Actually it was really tense, considering the fact that he was, like, "Come back every day." He was so gracious. Even though I was like, "You don’t need to pay me to be here," he just insisted on paying everyone. Even though it was a magical session, it was tense enough that I stayed away. But those two sessions were magic. Magic! He would sing different verses — he sang all his vocals live and he would sing different verses and different takes, but each verse as brilliant as the other. Like, you know, you sing a verse and you’re like, "That verse is genius, you have to put that in the next." But the other verse was just as genius! It wasn’t like the song needed more lyrics, it just seemed to be an endless pool.

The other thing is, a lot of it has instrumental sections, no one was really discussing the arrangements that much and he was just sitting there, eyes closed, strumming away at the guitar, but he was sort of conducting telepathically almost, because as long as he was there, we all just kept playin’. It was a really fascinating session and it’s crazy when I think that I opted out of more sessions. The producer tried to use me or win me onto his side, I think that’s why I tried to stay away. Both sides of the tension — the more record industry side and the more artist side, each tried to pull me in their camp, and I just opted out. But those two sessions were amazing. A-mazing.

At that point, I’d never actually been part of anything like that before. I record live now and I sing live now, but there was just so much faith in the process. He just seemed really in the moment in such a beautiful way. I don’t know if he was oblivious to the tension or rose above it, but he never acknowledged it. And not in a sort of negligent way, either. He was there to sing. The Hip is a big organization and I’m sure you have to rise about the politic to get anything done. I could learn a lot from that, not being petty. In my youth I was pretty petty. You may notice I went through a lot of band members.

Re: The Intersection of Art and Commerce - direwolf74 - 11-19-2016

From what I've read over the years in various interviews with the band members, the Hip's relationship with Universal has always been a good one, and they've basically left the band alone to do their own thing for the most part. Because their first 3 albums were such huge sellers, I think it likely afforded the Hip the kind of artistic freedom that many major label artists probably didn't have at the time.

Coke Machine Glow was actually produced independently under Gord's own label, Weiner Art Records. Universal just distributed it. Gord was a Canadian superstar by that point, so it was no skin off Universal's back to manufacture and distribute the thing. They knew it would sell just based on Gord's reputation and popularity. Sounds like any tension during recording was just between Steven Drake and the musicians.

Re: The Intersection of Art and Commerce - potsie - 11-20-2016

direwolf74 Wrote:Coke Machine Glow was actually produced independently under Gord's own label, Weiner Art Records. Universal just distributed it. Gord was a Canadian superstar by that point, so it was no skin off Universal's back to manufacture and distribute the thing. They knew it would sell just based on Gord's reputation and popularity. Sounds like any tension during recording was just between Steven Drake and the musicians.

That's a good point. Given that it was on Weiner Art Records, Gord was probably free to do as he pleased. Contreras does say that there was a "record industry side of the tension", but does also talk about the "producer trying to use him". I find his description of it being a very tense session strange given that it seems like Gord just brought together a group of friends (Atom Egoyan, Andy Maize, Travis Good, Kevin Hearn, Paul Langlois all make an appearance) to bash out some songs. You would think if it was that uncomfortable Gord would have just turfed Steven Drake out the door. It's also possible that Gord was so wrapped up in what he was doing that he didn't sense a problem or maybe the tension heightens the art. Anyway, it was an intriguing interview.

Buck 65's comments on what Gord looks for in a collaboration were also an interesting read:

Artist: Buck 65 (Rich Terfry)
Worked with Downie: on the Buck 65 song "Whispers of the Waves"

How did you end up collaborating with Gord?

The song that we recorded together just started with the main guitar riff, and although it was sort of inspired by the music of an African musician, when we were in the studio working on it, it occurred to both me and my guitarist that somehow we could hear Gord’s voice on it. I don’t know why, but it just really struck us that somehow his voice would work. My guitarist mentioned it first and I agreed and said, "Yeah, I can totally hear that working." So my guitarist, Charles Austin, said, "What do you think? Do you think it’s the longshot of the century to get Gord on this song? Is it even worth asking?" I had played some shows with the Tragically Hip already at this point, so I had a little bit of a relationship with Gord. I thought, OK, what the heck, I had some contact info for him and dropped him a line and I attached a quick, little mock-up demo of the song and asked the question, "Any interest in working together on this song?" and no hesitation, he said right away, "I’m in!" which really surprised me. I gave it a one per cent chance. Figuring, you know, he’s busy, he probably gets asked to do this sort of thing all the time, so on and so forth, but to my surprise he said yes.

But he immediately had a lot of questions and kind of wanted to know what exactly I wanted from him and how I expected that to work. It was a conditional yes, I suppose. It was pretty clear there were certain things he wasn’t going to do; if we were going to do it, it had to be — I don’t want to say on his terms, but there was a way that it kind of had to work for him, so we had to discuss that a bit. To be perfectly honest, we just thought his voice would be the perfect instrument to realize the song fully. There’s just something in the tone of his voice that we thought would really work. Gord, as a singer and a musical instrument that we were initially looking for.

What are some of those things he looks for in a collaboration?

Well, the idea, for example, that we might have a part written for him to just sing, he didn’t want to do. On the album, there are other collaborations where that’s exactly what did happen. But that wasn’t going to be the case with Gord.... And it didn’t end there. It wasn’t just that he didn’t want to sing someone else’s words. His presence on the song had to be justified. It certainly wasn’t enough to just have his name included so it could be put on a sticker to sell an album, you know, such and such with Gord Downie. He didn’t want that. It had to be about the song and there had to be not only a musical, but, seemingly, a philosophical justification for him being there. And to sort that out, it required a few very long phone conversations between the two of us. It all started, basically, and Gord would really drive the conversation by saying things, like, "OK, if there are two voices then on this song, if we’re both vocalists on it, why? What does that mean? What do our two voices represent? Is it a conversation between the two of us and if so, what’s the conversation about and what are the roles that we’re playing?" It all had to have a meaning. Quickly I realized I really gotta pull my socks up on this. This is not just going to be a matter of tossin’ something off, writing some lyrics and recording it. To be perfectly honest, in a lot of cases for me in the past, that was enough. There are songs on that same album where that’s how that worked.

After many, many long conversations, we came around to this idea that the song was going to be a conversation between the ocean and a man whose wife had drowned and the man was trying to negotiate with the ocean, essentially, and ask for his wife back. The ocean was saying, "Look, I can sympathize, I can feel your pain, but I’m sorry, I can’t do it." I don’t think at that point I’d ever worked so long and hard on a song, and that it’d required refinement. I don’t think I’d ever written a song so carefully. It was a huge learning experience for me, because I thought, OK, if this is the care with which Gord writes a song, what excuse do I have from now on to not write another song with this much care? I just realized, having learned from one of the best, that you just gotta work harder. You gotta put more thought and more effort into it. I’m really happy with how that song turned out and I’m glad that it exists as its own little artifact, but what I got from that experience, more than that song, was just the great learning experience that there’s just another level to which songwriting can be taken to.... Things changed across the board for me after that.