I’m still amazed by the process of recording.
I’m always writing my own music, recording my own music, even if I am 9/10 of the time recording stuff for other people. I’m still working on my own creative endeavors.
During the time that my recording career seemed to be in a slump a music called disco came on the scene and literally took over radio stations as well as having radio stations created to play it which sort of negated my music as well as that of some of my peers.
I’ve built an 8-track studio in my house that’s virtually identical to what they used at Abbey Road, and I also own the 16-track set-up that Led Zeppelin used to record ‘Houses of the Holy.’ I’m interested in producing, but I’m mostly recording my own stuff.
You go into any recording studio in the world, and you see candles, lights, and that Apple light from a Mac.
I think that technology has both introduced new sounds but also allowed an increasingly painterly approach to recording music as you can now paint over what you’ve done and more and more refine an existing performance.
We’re a band that keeps writing and recording – we don’t know when it’s over.
I usually know the general emotion of a song, or the general feeling of it, and then I think I just get so excited by the act of recording. I love that process so much that I feel like if I knew exactly what I wanted I’d arrive at something too soon.
And, you know, I think the original recording of Ravel’s Bolero, probably whoever played percussion on that, will never have It played better than that.
All broadcasts on Periscope need to be archived for playback permanently, unless the broadcaster chooses to delete the recording. So many treasured moments have been shared on Periscope only to vanish a day later.
I knew that I could be more creative onstage, to state my own case and deliver my own interpretation of the role much more aggressively than in the recording studio.
When I broke 20, I said to myself, ‘I will give concerts until I’m approximately 30.’ And I made it a year and a half late, but, nevertheless, that’s what I did. When I broke 30, I said, ‘I think I should be recording until I’m about 50.’
Working as a teaboy may have helped my confidence, but not everyone else was so pleased. I could never remember who had milk or how many sugars, and I had an unusual talent for spilling tea on the recording console.
The Audio Home Recording Act directly says that noncommercial copying by consumers is lawful.
When you come to L.A. as a kid with your mom, you’re lured into doing things that you think are cool and fun and a good idea, but they’re cheesy and awful. And recording a pop single was one of them.
People are so into digital recording now they forgot how easy analog recording can be.
No one is making extraordinary things alone. They might be alone in their bedroom while they’re recording or writing, but they didn’t actually conjure that thing out of nothing – without influence – without assistance – without anything.
I never stopped recording, but I went through a period where… The one thing that a lot of people don’t know is that for as long as I’ve been as artist, I’ve been a writer and a producer.
I don’t feel guilty about the music I love. If you feel guilty about something you dig, then you should stop feeling guilty about it. One of my favorite albums to this day is the 10th anniversary ensemble cast of ‘Les Miserables,’ the ultimate cast recording, and it is still something I love listening to top to bottom.
So how does Liz Phair feel about Lana Del Rey? Well, as a recording artist, I’ve been hated, I’ve been ridiculed, and conversely, hailed as the second coming. All that matters in the end is that I’ve been heard.
There was segregated unions, which was a real problem for me because – especially as I was working in the recording scene, I had flack from the white union for hiring black musicians. I had flack from the black musician by hiring white musicians.
I think when you sign a recording deal, you think, ‘I’m going to put out a song and have a hit right away. I’ll be a giant superstar. I can take over the world now.’ But I put out a song, and it did OK. It wasn’t like leaps and bounds.
After moving to England I did some recording and eventually formed an English band, this was together for quite a few years with only a keyboard replacement. The band had no name, just my name.
I really enjoy recording right after a tour. We’re tired, but the songs are really lived in by then.
I get very deep into the writing and recording process.
People started recording my songs. Later, I was offered songwriter contracts. And then, finally, I could take the time to work on my own project. I worked hard for this all by myself.
I think I’m the only singer who doesn’t have a temper. The only time I got angry was at a music studio when I was made to wait for three hours without being informed about the delay in the recording.
I approach writing stories as a recorder. I think of my role as some kind of reporting device – recording and projecting.
I grew up seeing my sister in the studio. I would go to recording sessions and take notes.
What do I think of digital recording? Well, it’s all right. But those old thorn needles, now, that was a sound.
Sound preservation is not only the history of our culture and our country but also a document of life in the world. There is something with sound that is so extraordinary that it can be preserved, that we can listen to a recording made in 1925 and be transported back to that time.
This is an album of songs that I’ve always loved, tunes that I heard. For the first time in 53 years of recording, I really had control over an entire album, start to finish.
I want recording to be fun.
One thing I’m doing on the new Titanic recording is actually bringing in different acoustic spaces.
In 2004, when I started recording my first CD, I was coming right out of yeshiva. So I had spent two years completely immersed in the Hasidic culture, disconnected completely from the secular world – movies, music, people.
A lot of our tracks have sounded a lot better than I thought they would because of recording, mixing, and because I probably didn’t hear it that way. I’m not a songwriter.
I do like to be creative and I’m very lucky that I’ve been given different areas in which I’m able to do that – whether it be film or television or theatre or whatever. I’m also still into music and recording.
I felt that, in retrospect, there was a time in the late Seventies, after I had a string of hits and successes, as a performer and a recording artist, that I wasn’t saying anything.
The measure of success was writing a song, recording it and for it being in the hit parade in England. Success was about the postman walking up the garden whistling my song. I wasn’t trying to conquer the world.
I taunt and provoke, but you have to understand that I do that for a reason. I want to elicit a response. Remember that my mission is to capture on film and digital recording devices evidence of the paranormal. Many times, I can’t do that by being nice.
When I started to recording, I gave the name of Honeyboy, but my people only knew me by Honey.
I’m recording another demo for another batch of record labels that we’ll shop it around to.
I’ve walked with very famous people down red carpets over to the crowd of thousands of people, and you’ll reach out to shake their hand and they’ve got a camera in their hand. And they don’t even get their hand out, because they’re recording the whole time.
When I sat down with all the songs before recording, I realised I’d written a few songs specifically about places in America – there was this song about Detroit and another about Yellowstone National Park. My dad is actually American, so I wrote another song about that side of my family.
I was in school with Dweezil Zappa, Frank Zappa’s son, and we had a band. Only in L.A. could stuff like that happen. We would hang out in Frank Zappa’s studio, and we released a single in 1982 on his label. I was 12, and that was the first recording experience I had. To top it off, Eddie Van Halen produced it.
I’m nocturnal when it comes to recording – I’m just more creative at night.
I recorded with Sinatra, but the recording business is a very strange strata right now.
You make sure that there’s a structure that’s interesting for them to play on top of, then do temp versions and try it on the film. By the time the players come to the recording session, I’ve found what works. So I’m not wasting their time.
Being a recording artist, selling music, selling concerts out, having a reality show, starting film; it’s great, it’s beautiful.
I hope someone thinks I sing good. I’m always working hard to sing better. I sound the way I sound, but I can always be better. I work hard at singing and being a better recording artist.
A lot of bands, they take a lot of planning to do a live record. They have to hire a crew, and they have to have a recording truck and all this equipment, and they record every single show.
And for me the only way to live life is to grab the bull by the horns and call up recording studios and set dates to go in recording studios. To try and accomplish something.
I don’t have any particular goals in making a recording. In a way the recording is itself the goal. The music comes into my mind, and from there the main job is to give form to it.
