an appetite for destruction

I’m sitting here listening to a mix of a new song and something strikes me.  The music industry now exists in the internet age.  Now, there are plenty of topics that I could write about with regard to the changes that the music industry and all those involved have had to endure, but I want to bang on about the one that I am playing out today.

So I’m sitting here in my little studio listening to the new song – and I have to say it sounds great – but there’s a problem.  I grew up watching documentaries about the recording sessions for great albums.  There’s a film out there about the recording of Imagine, any of the Beatles behind the scenes clips, in fact any of those great grimy old clips about old hoary rock bands recording classic albums in the midst of pure, unadulterated self-destruction.  I love watching the atmosphere in those old recording studios.  The intensity of everyone clashing.  In fact you can even see it as recently as Some Kind Of Monster.  It was very rarely a bad thing… okay, some bands split… but on the whole you’ve got a lot great music to thank that old studio system for!

So what have we got now?  Well, now there are a trillion more bands/artists – and they can pretty much all own a studio.  Seriously, when it comes to the recording of music, we have never had it so good.  I have more ‘power’ in my little studio than anything the Beatles ever had at their disposal.  By a factor of hundreds!  So why do I hanker after what I see on these documentaries?  To see John Lennon leaning back in his chair with a drink and shouting at someone who’s played a wrong note.  And what was Jim Morrison up to in that vocal booth during the recording of Touch Me? I think the fact that it was originally titled Suck Me might be a giveaway.  But the point is that music used to be such a communal activity.  Everyone would get together and play the song they had been practicing – together.  And then they would sit together and dissect it – and then smack each other in the teeth and quit the band.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for multi-track recording.  We wouldn’t have any modern music without it.  But I just yearn for the sights, the smells, the sounds of a hard-working rock and roll band.  Ha ha.

So, I’m sitting here in my little microcosm.  No cigarettes.  No cigars.  No hookers.  I have been drinking Pepsi though!  I’m off the JD in the studio.  It’s banned!!!  I just wish I had a Producer to kick in the bollocks when he messes up my tune.  And I want someone filming it.  Oh and I want to go to India and hang out with the Maharishi – but, hey, that can be a story for another day!