06-21-2016, 01:47 PM
Very cool interview with Rob Baker :thumb: His speaking voice sounds weirdly like Brian Mulroney. Put that in your bong and smoke it.
A couple of thoughts. First, it bugs me that the interviewer didn't push him when he said that he liked ONE of the two albums produced by Steve Berlin and ONE of the two by Bob Rock. Which ones???? Always hate it when a performer volunteers a tantalizing tidbit and the interviewer lets it drop. (I'm assuming it was the first of both pairs, but that's just a guess).
I'm delighted at how frequently Rob's thoughts seem to align with my own musical preferences. He is clearly quite indifferent to the polished, clean track-by-track approach to recording that producers love. You could almost hear his irritation that the producers couldn't work with the mixes from the attic of the Bath House, for instance. He's a live-off-the-floor guy who cares more about the feel than about leakage, technical issues, etc., and I couldn't agree more. It's also interesting that 'Machine' is his favourite track (mine too) and that he wanted it to lead off the album (which I also agree with!). Go, Bobby, go!!
Intriguing to learn that the Hip are a hard band to work with ('like the UN Security Council'). More probing of that would also have been nice. Are they just five strong-willed guys, or what? In what sense are they harder to work with than your average band?
It was a telling moment when he distinguished albums for which they were 'really prepared' - a period he defined as ending either at DFN or PP - from the rest. It's at exactly the point where that ends that fan/listener consensus tends to break down and we get the much more mixed sentiments that characterize our responses to their later work. Again, this speaks to Rob's view that live performance is everything; a band is never so locked in as when it's on the road, making music together daily, and albums tend to go best when they come out of that cauldron of organic connection. But as he says, it's hard to sustain that as artists get older. That remark about physiotherapy was priceless :lol:
A couple of thoughts. First, it bugs me that the interviewer didn't push him when he said that he liked ONE of the two albums produced by Steve Berlin and ONE of the two by Bob Rock. Which ones???? Always hate it when a performer volunteers a tantalizing tidbit and the interviewer lets it drop. (I'm assuming it was the first of both pairs, but that's just a guess).
I'm delighted at how frequently Rob's thoughts seem to align with my own musical preferences. He is clearly quite indifferent to the polished, clean track-by-track approach to recording that producers love. You could almost hear his irritation that the producers couldn't work with the mixes from the attic of the Bath House, for instance. He's a live-off-the-floor guy who cares more about the feel than about leakage, technical issues, etc., and I couldn't agree more. It's also interesting that 'Machine' is his favourite track (mine too) and that he wanted it to lead off the album (which I also agree with!). Go, Bobby, go!!
Intriguing to learn that the Hip are a hard band to work with ('like the UN Security Council'). More probing of that would also have been nice. Are they just five strong-willed guys, or what? In what sense are they harder to work with than your average band?
It was a telling moment when he distinguished albums for which they were 'really prepared' - a period he defined as ending either at DFN or PP - from the rest. It's at exactly the point where that ends that fan/listener consensus tends to break down and we get the much more mixed sentiments that characterize our responses to their later work. Again, this speaks to Rob's view that live performance is everything; a band is never so locked in as when it's on the road, making music together daily, and albums tend to go best when they come out of that cauldron of organic connection. But as he says, it's hard to sustain that as artists get older. That remark about physiotherapy was priceless :lol: