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Komandant Shamal 
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: February 02 2015 Location: Yugoslavia Status: Offline Points: 954 |
 Posted: February 09 2015 at 05:12 |
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Nice try Mister Dean but I have learned English in the schools as a compulsory subject and my English is quite sufficient for such a simple sentences quoted above that I can read well that they are without even a hint of that "invisible" ol' English irony and sarcasm.
A member who took a part in a dialogue from 2010, he was even less opponent for self-released prog rock bands at that time that were using Bandcamp and other platforms. Unlike you, he does not listen to self-released albums, but he said that it could be a good thing in the whole story ("I can't see the ability to self-release as a bad thing in any way"). You, as you can see, you listen to it but you are - at the same time - the quite opposing - with this blog - to self-released prog rock in general. And you've been theorized that self-releasing is more or less wrong way for new bands. I think this is the time that denied you.
There actually exists a certain success of some albums. You know it, and I think that you just not want to admit that you was wrong with this blog back in 2010  |
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Dean
Special Collaborator 
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 09 2015 at 06:15 |
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You are wrong on every count. I have no problem with self-released albums and it was MY initiative and determination that enabled such albums to be included into the PA database as bonafide releases on equal terms with label-released albums. Prior to MY creation of the "Free-release Policy" for band submissions self-released artists were not eligible for inclusion here. If it were not for ME self-released artists would be relegated to the "Unsigned Bands" forum and no-one would be able to rate and review their albums. If it were not for MY insistence that self-released artists be permitted a place in the database then you would not be allowed to suggest those self-released artists in the Suggest New Bands threads. At the time I was warned (in fact this was the main objection to allowing self-released artists) that this would open the flood-gates to 1000s of poor quality, amateur "bedroom" artists, whose albums would never get rated or reviewed (since that is the purpose of this site). My concession to this was the additional "rule" that the Genre Teams would be permitted the right to refuse to evaluate those artists at their discretion. If you understand irony then you will understand that these "flood-gates" have indeed opened and my "beef" with the spammers of the suggestions thread has nothing to do with any objection to self-released artists and albums (which I have none) but with the manner in which that flood of self-released bands is submitted. Hopefully, you will exhibit some self-restraint and not become one of those who floods the suggestions thread. I have never theorised that self-release is "more or less the wrong way for new bands" - quite the contrary, it is 100% the correct way. One thing I ask however, is that those bands produce a product that is of a comparable professional standard to a label-released album and they promote and market it to the same professional standard. Is that too much to ask? Edited by Dean - February 09 2015 at 06:16 |
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Komandant Shamal
Forum Senior Member
Joined: February 02 2015 Location: Yugoslavia Status: Offline Points: 954 |
Posted: February 10 2015 at 03:30 |
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On the side of this blog, which is quite contrary to that 'ideology' of self-releasing prog rock music, your above mentioned decisions about that inclusion policy of progarchives (I can see that you was an admin) should be pretty logical when we know that the preamble of this site is: *PROG ARCHIVES intends to be the most complete and powerful progressive rock resource*.
But the paradox that emerges like a geyser and sprayed in the air is that the way that you 1) assume that there are really exist two categories of young prog artists - amateurs and professionals - even though you know that 99% of young artists are amateurs as per definition because they are not able to live from their art and that they are releasing their albums just to express themself just like Van Gogh did it at his time though in another media 2) discourage people to suggest the (self-releasing) young bands ("Hopefully, you will exhibit some self-restraint and not become one of those who floods the suggestions thread."). That's inconsistent with this preamble: *PROG ARCHIVES intends to be the most complete and powerful progressive rock resource*. No doubt that it's not a good thing for both the site's preamble and for the self-signed young bands who are tagged themself *prog rock*, who are released the albums and who need to get a chance to be evaluated by this site's expert teams. I hope you don't want that the progarchives' preamble which clearly reads *PROG ARCHIVES intends to be the most complete and powerful progressive rock resource* that to become something like these stupid banners like "The best Chinese restaurant in the World"  |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 10 2015 at 06:31 |
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For the last time - this Blog is not contrary to the 'ideology' of self-releasing. I am a self-released artist myself, just one that eschews Bandcamp ... I do, however, have a SoundCloud account but I don't use it. The initiative to permit the inclusion of self-released albums into the PA was mine alone, and yes this was prompted by the infamous PA tag-line/mission statement. We can never be "complete" if we ignore those artists who release their albums only as digital downloads so I pushed for the inclusion of those artists and produced the Free-Release Policy to accommodate them. This involved convincing my fellow Admins that this was the right approach, and then convincing the Genre Teams to adopt this policy.
Erm... you can assume things of me but you cannot claim that I make assumptions myself unless I actually declare those assumptions. You also cannot assume that Van Gogh never intended to make money from his art - that he only sold one painting in his lifetime is not a declaration that he never intended to sell more. [Because of his dysfunctional mental state the Van Gogh example has always been a poor argument, many art historians believe that what he feared was fame and criticism.] To equate amateur and professional with monetary reward is narrow-minded in my opinion. An amateur artist can do things in a professional manner and a professional artist can do things in an amateur way. Some amateurs earn money and some professionals do not. Amateur and Professional alike should strive to create the same "art" and there should be no distinction between the final work they produce. I am opposed to amateurish art regardless of who makes it. I don't know whether it is in this Blog or one of the plethora of other threads I have posted in, but I actually differentiate between two classes of amateur artist that as yet do not have a clear definition. In this thread, I have sometimes used three terms "Professional Aritst", "Amateur Artist" and "Aspiring Artist". All the young amateur artists you speak of I would classify as "Aspiring Artists". An Aspiring Artist would want to be considered to be on an equal level with a Professionals Artist, an Amateur Artist would not. I class myself as "Amateur Artist".
That is a plea for common courteously and respect for the workload of our evaluation teams. Some of our team members are happy with the flood of evaluations and the backlog that creates, some are not. The more suggestions that are made in any given time-frame the more chance there is that some of these suggestions will be missed or overlooked. The more suggestions that any team has to evaluate increases the calendar-time it takes to do those evaluations, and that makes us look bad. We do not like backlogs and we do not like being made to look bad. This backlog occurs in two places - suggestions that are waiting to be evaluated and cleared suggestions that are waiting to be added to the database. Clearing both are time-consuming processes and the request that people suggesting bands (and again here) provide the information needed to evaluate (samples or links) and the information needed to add them (such as biographies, a suitable band picture, and full discographies) can alleviate that process. Flooding the Suggest New Bands threads with the former and not the latter is not helpful and only adds to the backlog. If you are unwilling or unable to provide all the information the teams require then a request that some restraint is shown in making suggestions is not unreasonable, it should NOT be seen in anyway as a discouragement to suggest "young bands".
The purpose of the site is not to evaluate and add artists to the database. This is NOT an encyclopedia of Progressive Rock; it is NOT a list of every artist and band that made music that can be vaguely seen as progressive in some subjective form or other; it is NOT a historical document; it is NOT a site that promotes artists and their latest releases. The band pages are not up to standard required to carry that level of responsibility. Simply put: it was never designed nor intended to be a comprehensive catalogue of Progressive Rock. We evaluate artists for their suitability for the site, not whether they are good or bad, or worthy or unworthy. It is a review site that allows anyone to review albums (not artists). It is a resource for Reviewers, not a resource for Artists. It is a Prog version of RYM, not a Prog Wikipedia. That's it. The sole purpose of listing artists is for people to review the albums, singles and DVDs released by those artists. Promotion of new artists is a by-product of member and collaborator reviews, it is not the raison d'etre. If no one reviews the albums then listing them here has no promotional value to the artist or the listener.
The keywords in that tag-line are "intends" and "most" and compared to every other progressive rock resource on the interweb we have long since achieved that goal but our work is not finished yet, there is much still to do. Throwing it back in our faces is churlish, if you know of a more complete and powerful progressive rock resource then I please tell us. Removing the "intends" and "most" then if "I" wanted the Prog Archives to be 'the complete and powerful Progressive Rock resource' then "I" would want to see considerably more emphasis put on the band biographies; "I" would want to see those band biographies constantly updated and more rigorously edited and managed; "I" would want to see all those biographies written by members of the site and not copied from Wikipedia or band websites (and certainly NOT written by the artists themselves); "I" would want to see more information on each album listed on each album page; "I" would want to see constantly updated tour information listed on the band pages; "I" would want to see both subjective and objective essays on each band, on the history of Progressive Rock, on each subgenre and on the current Progressive Rock scenes; "I" would want to see the reviews rigorously edited and corrected for spelling, grammar and any factual errors; "I" would want any reviews written by band-members, their friends and family members summarily deleted; "I" would also wish to see the removal of all ratings without a review; "I" would want each band page to include constantly updated links to band websites, Wikipedia entries, LastFM pages, YouTube channels, and their Bandcamp and/or SoundCloud pages. Then and only then would "I" be able to put my hand on my heart and claim that the PA is the complete and powerful Progressive Rock resource. Until such a day dawns, I am content with 'most complete...'. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ However, this Blog has nothing to do with any of that. It is NOT about adding or excluding those self-released artists from the PA. It is NOT about self-released artists and their perceived status. It is about HOW the self-released artist goes about the process of recording, producing and promoting their music. It is NOT about the concept of self-releasing or its relative worth but HOW it is used. It is not about the resources available to the self-released artist but HOW they are used. It is NOT about how successful those artists are, but MORE successful they CAN be. If I was against self-released artists I would simply say "enough" and "stop". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PS: If you want to fill your boots for free with over 24 hours of experimental/neo-classical/electronica then I can provide Mediafire links to 27 different albums that I have self-released, and if you want to put some money in Amazon's coffers I can provide links to where you can buy two of these albums as CDs (I do not earn a penny from those sales, the selling price is the lowest you can set on CreateSpace, profit=$0.00). I have another 24 albums waiting to be uploaded if that is not enough for you. Some of them may be "progressive" in some form or other, frankly I could not care any less than I do now about such pigeonholing. Since one of those albums was independently released and made available for purchase as a CD back in 2003 I technically qualified for evaluation as an artist prior to the creation of the Free-release Policy.
Peace out. Edited by Dean - February 10 2015 at 06:41 |
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progpositivity
Prog Reviewer 
Joined: December 15 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 262 |
Posted: February 11 2015 at 11:34 |
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<One thing I ask however, is that those bands produce a product that is of a comparable professional standard to a label-released album and they promote and market it to the same professional standard. Is that too much to ask?>
There is varience of competency (and committment level) even from one label to the next... even from the same label based upon their internal politics, strategic vision, and financial health at any given point in time. But, generally speaking, labels represent themselves as having professional core competencies with marketing (which includes packaging). And generally speaking (certainly relative to most self-released material) they do deliver on that promise. For that reason, I'll go out on a limb to say that (remember I am speaking only for myself here) I do think it probably is a bit "too much" for me to expect self-released artists to promote and market their product with quality comparable to that which a reputable quality label provides. But that doesn't mean I have no standards or expectations at all. And I most certainly agree that many self-released artists do not implement even the basic fundamentals of marketing, suffering to varying degrees as a result. So Dean and I have a lot of common ground I think. Pragmatically speaking, however, I just know and have come to accept the fact that we couldn't remove many of the previous Quality Assurance professionals from the distribution process without reaching this endpoint: varying degrees of relative competence and incompetence displayed in the marketplace. Even the vanity (artist paid) options of yester-year invested more time and attention in packaging than what we often see now. But whether I like it or not, 'it is what it is' so to speak. Again, speaking for myself, if the musical product is exceptional (in my subjective opinion of course) with a gigantic prerequisite of if having managed to gain and keep my attention long enough for me to recognize it, I actually have a very wide level of tolerance in all of these matters of packaging and marketing. My stance is as follows: Each artist should allocate their limited time and energy as they choose. But Dean (and everyone else) has every right to complain about those choices.  Speaking as a very tiny fish in the pond of on-line gatekeepers (on-line radio), I will say that artists who achieve at least a minimum amount of professionalism do earn their music more of my time and attention for airplay and/or review consideration. Or stated conversely, significantly sub-standard music submissions get less time to "wow" me or to "win" me over. Does that sound unfair? Let me say it like this and let's see how unfair it sounds... Each artist should allocate their limited time and energy as they choose. But I also have every right-when flooded with a deluge of self-released material- to allocate my limited time and energy reviewing such material as I choose, right? If the artist didn't bother to invest time or energy creating cover art or even a promotional fact sheet, why should I be vilified if I don't have time or energy to heavily invest in mining their full CD for moments of brilliance? I do not believe that I am alone in this line of thinking at all. Suspect analagy alert... sorry but I think this really may help an indie artist somewhere understand by point of view. Talking to guys now...
The lady who didn't wash her hair may have the most beautiful heart. She could even win my heart over. Please understand... I'm not saying she shouldn't win my heart over. (After all a band with terrible packaging can still win me over. It happens on a semi-frequent basis actually.) But before a girl can win me over, she has to gain my TIME and ATTENTION, right? I'm willing to contrast the everyday pretty woman with a professional model (who in this analagy is signed to a label). The 'signed' model benefits from professionals who style, process and present her image to me as a consumer. So I certainly don't expect every lady in the world to meet THAT particular standard of packaging. But she can still demonstrate a minimum of self-respect in packaging, right? OK, I hope I wasn't too sexist with that analagy. But as an indie artist, I really do think it is a functional one. Packaging does matter.
The analagy breaks down because fans aren't particularly jealous. You aren't trying to court the ONE perfect fan. At least I hope not... ;-) It is interesting to note that should you have the good fortune to become commercially successful, early adopters in niche music markets actually WILL tend to jump off your bandwagon, labelling you as a sell-out... even if you haven't particularly changed musically... Anyway, I certainly agree that to whatever extent self-released material attains greater quality in packaging and promotion (and let's not forget the basic product of course), it also has a greater probability of gaining more recognition. As Dean mentioned, this is true of all self released products in general (books, short stories, etc.). Not only music.
Edited by progpositivity - February 11 2015 at 16:27 |
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Positively the best Prog and Fusion 24/7!
http://www.progpositivity.com |
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progpositivity
Prog Reviewer
Joined: December 15 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 262 |
Posted: February 11 2015 at 12:35 |
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I came across this article in New York Times last Sunday and it made me think of this blog. The article isn't about Prog Rock. It isn't even about music per se. But it deals with some very similar side-effects of Internet distribution and the increasingly fleeting nature of fame attained by independent internet self-releasers of content. Perhaps you will see some parallels as well. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/style/15-minutes-of-fame-more-like-15-seconds-of-nanofame.html?_r=0
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Positively the best Prog and Fusion 24/7!
http://www.progpositivity.com |
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jayem
Forum Senior Member
Joined: June 21 2006 Location: Switzerland Status: Offline Points: 995 |
Posted: February 11 2015 at 12:58 |
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It means you enjoy it
Does it mean you'd enjoy it even more... Or is it "good" according to another standard than enjoyment ?...
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progpositivity
Prog Reviewer
Joined: December 15 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 262 |
Posted: February 11 2015 at 17:10 |
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There are indeed different ways to measure 'good' music. For an example from motion pictures, Michael Bay's fourth Transformer's movie "Age of Extinction" contained some very high quality special effects. In that regard, I think it is fair to say that there was some serious "goodness" in terms of quality in that film. But the plodding pace and pedestrian storyline became excruciating over the course of the 2 hours and 45 minute running time. At the 2-hour mark I started feeling like someone was bludgeoning me to death by boredom. So from my perspective, in that regard, there was some serious "lack of quality". (Side Note: A high-tech relatively mindless action fantasy film featuring machines changing their shapes and speaking corny jokes works better as an 80 minute diversion IMO. Come to think of it, that could be a great idea for a 30 minute TV cartoon program! Oh - wait... But I digress...) Professional music productions can be very similar to films in many respects. The production, the quantization, the compression, the studio itself, the producer, the engineer, the instruments, the computers, the packaging, the promotion, any number of different elements sparkle and shine. So they are in some ways quite naturally BETTER than what the indie artist typically can or does produce. The end products, however, can still sometimes be so lacking in elements of content which are so valuable (to you) as to render them virtually worthless (to you). Transformers 4 hired a lot of professionals with their two-hundred-million dollar budget. And they got some very high quality work from those professionals. Even so, I personally value the 1998 film "Pi" more highly, which was created with a budget of only about $60,000. Its special effects were not as 'good' but its premise, pacing, and script were far superior. So from my perspective, both films are simultaneously better and worse than each other. I can overlook shortcomings in budget, special effects, even editing and to some extent lighting IF the premise, pacing and acting are of high quality. My point? Dean's music is simultaneously both better and worse than some of the commercially produced professional music out there. And I can gladly overlook quite a few shortcomings in music production and promotion if the music itself has some content or quality that I highly value. BUT, it is also worth noting that being "indie" doesn't guarantee higher quality in film or in music or in anything else. Sarcasm mode on: "Sure, my production is crappy and my mix is horrible, but my compositions are just as lame as any commercial artists' and my performances are totally substandard. It's all part of the INDIE experience dude!" ;-) Sarcasm mode off And also of course, I should have known what I was in for with Transformers 4. Nobody decepti-conned me into renting it at Redboxt. ;-)
Edited by progpositivity - February 11 2015 at 17:24 |
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Positively the best Prog and Fusion 24/7!
http://www.progpositivity.com |
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jayem
Forum Senior Member
Joined: June 21 2006 Location: Switzerland Status: Offline Points: 995 |
Posted: February 11 2015 at 18:09 |
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Let's assume that, as similar mindsets animate both Dean and you, he'd post the same answer. Thank you...
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 11 2015 at 21:05 |
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...well something similar anyway.
I look at it this way: If you want your albums to sit in someone's record collection alongside releases by Pink Floyd and Porcupine Tree then be prepared to be held to the same standards. I said: "Is it as good as a professional produced product? No it isn't." I was not talking about whether the music was as good in terms of composition and playing, just the production of the final product. Aside from the final mastering, which I cannot do as I have neither the skill nor the equipment, the production of the music can be considered to be comparable to a professional recording. The packaging, however, is not. This is the best I can do with my A4 inkjet printer and CDR burner:  (They are fairly costly in paper and ink to make; if I were to charge by the hour for the time spent in making them they would be prohibitively expensive to produce) ...and this is what I can do if I get Amazon to do the printing and CD duping for me:  While they look superficially the same as a "professionally produced product" in these photographs, once you hold them in your hands you can easily tell they are not (even the Amazon manufactured items). For a start, they are both CDR not glass-pressed. If I was sure I could sell 500+ copies then glass-pressed would be cost effective, but I can't. Like it or not, I'm stuck in the world of CDR. Is this a bad thing? ... yes it is, CDR has a limited shelf-life due to the dyes used, there is no guarantee that these will still play in 10 years time. Now, does any of that make the music sound any better? Of course it doesn't. What it does make is something that is nice to own. I'm a materialist - I like owning nice things. No one can ever say a download is nice to own.
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Epignosis
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: December 30 2007 Location: Raeford, NC Status: Offline Points: 32524 |
Posted: February 11 2015 at 21:18 |
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I agree. |
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Epignosis
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: December 30 2007 Location: Raeford, NC Status: Offline Points: 32524 |
Posted: February 11 2015 at 21:58 |
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Once upon a time, I saw self-releasing as the opportunity to get my creative output out "there." Even now, I'm not sure where "there" is, but a lot of us saw that opportunity. I suspect that many of us felt that this platform excused us from seeking out "best practices." And so what, right? We weren't looking for a label. We weren't looking for widespread recognition. We just wanted to be heard. We wanted someone to say, "I heard your song and here is what it meant to me."
For most of us, that hasn't changed. So I don't think we were looking to get noticed with the prospect of making a fortune and touring (I wasn't- I already had a kid. Now I have three...Didn't stop me from doing a few bars, ha!). But the Internet offered us the chance to encourage one another without the fear of rejection. After I released Still the Waters, I had several people asking me to perform on their homebrew albums. At the time, I thought this was neat, even if I was not a confident picker or keyboardist. I was just glad to be asked. I felt like I was a part of something. A part of a community. These guys knew what I was about! And these projects fell through one by one. There isn't a single thing out there that I am on as a result of these sessions...that I know of. A shame. Some of the compositions were good. J.Locke, if you remember him? He had some amazing material. I worked on many of his pieces. Now? Nothing. Bandcamp wasn't around when Dean made this thread. For now I plan to release exclusively on it because I like their business model. But I follow my late grandpa's advice and I take my time and not rush things. A self-released artist has NO DEADLINE. None. Take advantage of that. I am. When you're young and doing your first album, you're eager. Eager for satisfaction and eager for feedback. I was. And there ain't a damn thing wrong with that- just don't get mad when you get criticized for the things you could have done better. Just nod, say yes sir, and then... ...Learn. -Epignosis |
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Komandant Shamal
Forum Senior Member
Joined: February 02 2015 Location: Yugoslavia Status: Offline Points: 954 |
Posted: February 12 2015 at 02:49 |
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Nursery Cryme is a great example. What if someone destroyed Nursery Cryme tapes because the quality of recording was tragic and due to very poor sound that the Nursery Crime had never been released? Nursery Cryme (btw Foxtrot original LP sound is just slightly better and pleasant moody sound of the original Trespass LP was actually due to randomness) would never been released if someone in early 70s was "the perfectionist" who believed that at the outset that everything has to be shipshape. Maybe Genesis as a young band would have not survived that checking by "the perfectionist" with an abnormal anxiety about the quality of recording? That would be a real tragic. |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 12 2015 at 04:41 |
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 Thank you Rob. I too was an eager-releaser, as I said in the release blurb for my debut album: "It will neither make me rich nor famous, but that was never the intention. In all honesty, all I want is for people to hear the 'Wake'. If they do and like it, then all the better." And people did comment on it, so I took those criticisms constructively and used them to make better albums. There is nothing wrong with making mistakes, they are only wrong if you don't learn something from them. Whenever I open this thread after long periods of inactivity and see the "arguments" I got into with Micha over it I do wonder what happened to him. It took a lot to convince him that I was arguing for self-released artists, not against them. I think a lot of the problem came from the fact that I was not interested in having the Cacophony of Light project added to the PA and he saw that as opposition to all self-released artists, especially those from other forum members. From the brief glimpses of his music that I heard I was impressed by what he was producing, it's a shame that it never materialised as an album (at least not to my knowledge). |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 12 2015 at 05:01 |
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Yes it would be really tragic. But it never happened so "what if" games are meaningless. The tapes were not destroyed and I believe that was because the production "sound" was exactly what they (Genesis and John Anthony) wanted it to sound like. Nursery Cryme was their third album and it was the eleventh album that John Anthony had produced for Charisma Records. They were not naive beginners who did not know their way around a studio. Trident was the most advanced studio in the UK at the time and a lot of great, well-produced albums came out of there before and after Nursery Cryme, many of them (such as At Least We Can Do Is Wave At Each Other and Rare Bird) were produced by John Anthony. I suspect that they were trying to reproduce the density and intensity of their live performances as shown on the later Genesis Live budget album that was released three years later.
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Finnforest
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 03 2007 Location: The Heartland Status: Offline Points: 16913 |
Posted: February 12 2015 at 06:09 |
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I enjoy the strange sound of Nursery Cryme and appreciate what you guys were saying about the sometimes overly perfected modern sheen. As with buildings I guess. In cities full of glass, steel, and pvc, I really miss aged brick and stone.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 12 2015 at 06:18 |
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I think the other key element is time. As I have noted elsewhere, Genesis were not Charisma's flagship act back then (that would have been VdGG and Lindisfarne) so their studio time would have been limited. Hackett commented in an interview on BBC Breakfast TV last year that the albums he recorded with Genesis were done quickly during the short breaks between extensive tours, mistakes were left in that they didn't have the time to re-record. You cannot conclude from that that they were rushed albums, but they weren't as perfect as Genesis would have liked them to be.
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Atavachron
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 30 2006 Location: Pearland Status: Online Points: 65250 |
Posted: February 12 2015 at 06:21 |
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^ All the better
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"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
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Komandant Shamal
Forum Senior Member
Joined: February 02 2015 Location: Yugoslavia Status: Offline Points: 954 |
Posted: February 12 2015 at 06:32 |
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London's studios are legendary without a doubt, but in the early days of prog, in these studios were employed people who were not know yet how to record the prog tracks in the right way. See that part of Peter Banks interview bellow*
By the way, that tailwind for early prog bands - and prog rock in general - were not the open-minded record companies nor good fellows who sat there and looking for gifted young & progressive musicians although they did not know yet to record them nice. The tailwind for early prog bands were such a big things like freeing middle-class British youth of Victorian discipline the early 60s, The Beatles, the British Invasion, Jimi Hendrix, Catcher in the Rye, Frank Zappa, psychedelic movement, LSD, hashish, the Summer of Love, '68, Stanley Kubrick, Miles Davis, Woodstock, landing a man on the Moon if you like...
Today''s best of young prog bands do not have such a tailwind, they are releasing their fantastic debuts in other conditions that are, let's say, "different" (lol), and that their work would be respected nothing less than great work by the prog rock bands in late 60s / early 70s. *
-In 1967, The Syn went to record the track 'Grounded' at The Marquee studios for the B-side of a single. How different was The Marquee Studios from other studios you worked at, such as Advision, Decca and Trident? Marquee studio was quite basic. I recorded there a few times with other bands as well, it was behind The Marquee Club and it was not much disconnected to The Marquee, I mean there was no window or anything but it was owned by The Marquee and I think it was just four tracks studio. You know, when once Yes recorded at Advision later, that was more stage-of the arts" recording. But certainly the studio that Decca used was nothing fantastic, I don't remember it being particularly great. But then, I didn't know much about studios, I mean, then it was very rare to be in a studio and if you were in a studio the whole idea of any kind of rock band, they wanted to get you in there and out of there very quickly, so you didn't have time to hang around, they wouldn't let you stay for the mixing. So often, they wouldn't let you come into the control room to hear what you've had done. Somebody would just say over a loud speaker: 'That's fine'. 'Can I hear it?', 'No, no, no. Let's go into the next song'. And it was always very authoritarian and of course all that changed. In my early days, still being pretty young, it was kind of intimidating cause there would be the engineer and his assistant behind the glass window and they wouldn't speak to you, they would just tell you 'Can you do it again?' or 'Can you now leave?'. Seems a bit... they were like the old guys! -I believe it was a similar situation when you first recorded with Yes. Eddie (Offord), we used to call him "Fast Eddie" 'cause he was always rushing around. Ah, no, no, no, no. That was making the first Yes album, in other Advision studio, the original Advision studio was in Bond St., in West End London. There was an engineer, I think called Gerald or Gerard, and we used to call him "the weasel", 'cause he was a little guy and he knew nothing whatsoever about how to record a rock band. And he kept saying: 'Can you turn it down? It's too loud, it's too loud!'. And he was totally unenthusiastic and uninterested in what Yes were trying to do. He took no interest whatsoever. And all he kept doing was turning everything down, you know, because we were always asking him to put the headphones mix out loud. I know it was a really kind of amateurish situation. I think halfway through making the album, I think Bill (Bruford) sometime realized that he could have a separated mix in his headphones! He didn't know that! And we had problems trying to get a Hammond organ to sound O.K. and we spent two or three days with this hired Hammond organ. The sound was horrible and it sounded like a fairground, you know it sounded like something of the merry-go-round, you know. And we were told to make an album and we were trying our best. This guy Gerrard wasn't helpful at all and the guy producing the album, I forgot his name... Link: |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 12 2015 at 10:53 |
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I'm struggling to see what relevance any of that has other than to illustrate that you continue to misunderstand the purpose of this Blog and the points I am making.
Yes, the some of studios were basic back then by today's standard, and yes, they were staffed by stuffy old men in suits who were more used to recording jazz and classical for film & tv soundtracks and jingles for commercials. So what? However with regard to Genesis and Foxtrot: Trident was also owned, built and operated by someone from the pop business (Norman Sheffield and his brother Barry) and by comparison to a lot of them, it was advanced for its time, which is why The Beatles, Elton John, Queen and a host of others recorded there. Yet, what does the standard of the studio or the attitude of the recording engineers have to do with anything? By today's standards, Abbey Road in 1973 was primitive and still staffed by men in white shirts who wore ties to work and kept their ball-point pens in plastic pocket-protectors in their top pockets, yet we still hold up Dark Side Of The Moon as the standard to which all other albums should be measured. With modern technology self-released artists ARE capable of all the things that I am saying they SHOULD be doing. If you want to be compared with professional artists then produce the goods to the best of your ability with the marvelous wonders that modern technology lays at your fingertips. I certainly am not addressing my points towards the self-released artists who are producing good products, I am talking to, (and about), those who are not or who could do better if they would only try. If, as you seem to believe, that every (relatively) successful self-released artist is already doing this then what you arguing about? Edited by Dean - February 12 2015 at 10:54 |
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Dean wrote: