Blog Six: Final Product

Artifact

Kiva Ivey

I can still remember a time in my life when discovering music on the Internet wasn’t as simple as finding a music blog and downloading a .zip file or .mp3. Many artists who recorded by themselves in their homes as a “hobby” were never heard outside of a circle of friends, and other do-it-yourself musicians who did manage to be heard, like Daniel Johnston or R Stevie Moore were considered a novelty to many. Artists often had to have a commercially accessible appeal, be signed to a “major record label”, and deal with people like managers and producers to become popular with the masses. Musicians would work hard to get their sound tight and send their demos to labels in an attempt to get a “record deal”, a phrase that seems to lose relevance year after year. Now it is 2011, and music can be accessed with the click of a button.

A few years ago, a friend of mine suggested I listen to a band called Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. As I listened I was amazed and confused. What I heard sounded like something I might find on a cassette in a thrift store. But a cassette that someone had re-recorded on his or her Walkman and stretched the tape, and it was absolutely perfect; it felt incredibly human and real. After reading how much music he had available on the Internet, I was overwhelmed, his catalog seemed to outnumber any artist I had heard before, and it was all recorded in the comfort of his own home. I started to wonder what would drive someone to record everything themselves, instead of going to a fancy studio and recording with a producer. The first thing that came to mind was lack of money. But after listening more and more I realized that if Ariel Pink had recorded with a producer telling him what to do, all the bits and pieces of his songs wouldn’t be the same, and it wouldn’t be Ariel’s music anymore, he would have somebody else telling him what they thought sounded good and putting their own ideas in.

This realization sparked my interest in low fidelity recordings, and I dug up my old Tascam four-track cassette recorder and some blank cassettes and went to work. Often times when I was sitting in my room with nothing to do, I would sit down with the Tascam and record whatever came to mind. It was freeing to be able to just sit down and record without limits. With the instruments I had at my disposal; guitars, keyboard, drum machine, etc., I could sit down and make anything I wanted, whether it was a 30 second burst of energy, or a long drone consisting of few notes.

While discovering Ariel Pink was a catalyst to an obsession with recording, it also sparked an interest with finding other lo-fi/home recording artists, discovering many in this very city. Finding great local bands like Heavy Hawaii, Crocodiles, and Wavves gave me quite a bit of inspiration, and a sense of pride for living here that I didn’t have before. The best example would be local solo act Wavves who went from high school dropout, recording songs about being bored, or having no friends in his parents’ garage on GarageBand, to playing festivals in Europe within a matter of months. This is why I find it strange when I hear kids say things like “I want to start a band and become a rockstar”, because in the times we live in, if you have ideas for music, all you really have to do is record them using the vast amounts of technology available, and the internet will take notice if you make something meaningful.