Red Mosquito

stip wrote: I'm not rationalizing anything as much as I'm pointing out that not everyone thinks Binaural is overstuffed with amazing moments and LD just gave us more of them.

Your point about the presumed greater influence of the producer impacting the music is well taken (though we know so little about their general recording process), but I'll continue to take issue with your conviction that somehow the band doesn't give a shit what their music sounds like anymore. It's entirely possible I'll make leaps because I love the new material, but no more than I think you're leaping in the opposite direction.

Mine wrote:

stip wrote: I'm not rationalizing anything as much as I'm pointing out that not everyone thinks Binaural is overstuffed with amazing moments and LD just gave us more of them.

Your point about the presumed greater influence of the producer impacting the music is well taken (though we know so little about their general recording process), but I'll continue to take issue with your conviction that somehow the band doesn't give a shit what their music sounds like anymore. It's entirely possible I'll make leaps because I love the new material, but no more than I think you're leaping in the opposite direction.

They did make some very straight forward statements regarding O'Briens strong influence, Just Breath and Sirens come to mind. They have been, BOB included, quoted as saying Ed specifically used to be difficult to work with, specifically not open to their input. They describe their current dynamic as the opposite - Ed being a delight to work with, writes lyrics for everything they bring in etc. They really mentioned those things a lot during promotion. I think is safe to assume that if Ed went from "fuck off" to "sure whatever you like" he gives somewhat less shit.

Mine wrote: I'm not trying to make this about the band's inner politics - i'm just saying if the process is indeed as different as they make it sound, the music itself can't not be affected by it. It's not like i think you're wrong - because Jeff, Mike and Stone sounded very enthusiastic about their new material - so you aren't wrong there.

Mine wrote: I can understand they're older and their priorities are also different so i would accept most of the vocal melodies and lyrics (oh god) if the music around them wasn't so damn kitsch.

Mine wrote: They describe their current dynamic as the opposite - Ed being a delight to work with, writes lyrics for everything they bring in etc. They really mentioned those things a lot during promotion. I think is safe to assume that if Ed went from "fuck off" to "sure whatever you like" he gives somewhat less shit.

Birds in Hell wrote:

Mine wrote: They describe their current dynamic as the opposite - Ed being a delight to work with, writes lyrics for everything they bring in etc. They really mentioned those things a lot during promotion. I think is safe to assume that if Ed went from "fuck off" to "sure whatever you like" he gives somewhat less shit.

Source?

You've mentioned this a few times now however, and acknowledging I may be mistaken, I haven't seen anything at all to suggest this is the case.

STONE GOSSARD: I think each time we go into making a record, we go into it basically thinking we’re about to make our best record. That’s just the nature of how we work. I don’t think we do make the best record we’ve ever made every time, but we certainly go into it with that ambition. It’s just a real natural state for us to be in. Wanting to be better. Other than that, we never have any meetings about “OK, here’s what this record’s going to be all about.” Not to say that that’s a bad thing to do. I think setting goals or talking about what we all work on might be helpful, but we just never wind up having those meetings. What we end up doing is somebody says, “Well, we booked some time in January to get some ideas down,” and everyone takes their demos that they’ve been working on for the last, whatever, two or three years, and shows up at the studio. We’ll start with somebody, and we’ll move through the list. “Jeff, what d’you got?” He’ll pull out his favorite baby, and we’ll do a new version of that, and we’ll listen to the old version, and set it aside. And we’ll do a Mike song, or my song, and Ed will come in with a couple, and we’ll just kind of go through the list of everyone in the band, and everyone can present something. We’ll do that three or four times and it doesn’t take long before you have a list of 20 or 30 things…you know, a version you’ve done yourself plus a new version the band has done, and then those go and sit in the closet for six months. Everybody listens to them and goes “Oh, that’s my favorite.” “I don’t like that one.” “That one could be better.” “I wish I could re-do this one.” We have another studio session, and we either go back in and do some new stuff, or we re-do a couple of things, and pretty soon Brendan [O'Brien, the band's frequent producer] is like, “OK, let’s do it,” and we start presenting songs we like, and he gives his two bits. It’s a normal process. We don’t get to that point of “What kind of record is this?” until the record’s done. Something happened with this one a little bit differently. We did one of those sessions with Brendan and we went down and recorded six or seven songs. We felt at that time that we were almost done with the record and we just needed a couple more. I think when we got home we listened to those songs and I think, in general, it was a little down-tempo and a little bit…it felt a little bit like the first batch of songs. There was some really great stuff in there, it just didn’t feel strong enough for a record. Basically what we did was two complete processes of doing the demos and then coming back. We stretched it out a bit more in terms of the length of time, but really it was only about six weeks of recording. We did that twice with this record. We did a session, and then a year, or a year and a half later, we did another session. It was the best of both those sessions that became Lightning Bolt.

Are you very critical of the work while making an album?
Everyone in the group is doing that. We're having conversations about it, which have really become quite fascinating, because the communication level in our group is pretty darn healthy. You can fight for things. You can have someone brush off something. I might brush off the end of a guitar solo, like, "Eh, I don't know. Maybe hit that one more time?" And Mike can tell me, "There's a direction to that, you just haven't seen it through 3-D glasses." Which means I need to give it a few more listens and see it through his viewpoint. I think the key is to be hypercritical as you're making the record, and then that goes into hyperdrive, critically speaking, when you're finishing it. Then the album is its own thing. The furniture is made and arranged, you shut the door, and other people can occupy the space. Once it's done, it's done.

Of all the things that have changed with recording, that's the one thing that still kind of remains the same. You pretty much set the songs in concrete, and that can be the toughest part. Lucky for us, we have people like Matt Cameron, Mike McCready, Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard: their parts are well appointed. Once the parts themselves become galvanized, then there's space and everything gets to live in its own corner of the room.

stip wrote:
That's nonsense. Trying to be inclusive has nothing at all to do with how much you care--especially if this process means Ed has to do more work.

stip wrote: My point being some of this may not be any more significant than taste.

stip wrote: I'll need to compare it to the 6 songs S/T leak, which also had a full version of life wasted

LetMeSleep wrote:Are we talking about the Gremmie "demos"? (Cue Chud)

Mine wrote:

stip wrote:
That's nonsense. Trying to be inclusive has nothing at all to do with how much you care--especially if this process means Ed has to do more work.

I think this is probably a very unpopular point of view but it makes sense that someone with a clear idea of how a song is supposed to sound like is going to be less inclusive, especially a 90's weirdo Ed kind of character. Certain additions and changes can ruin the balance of a song. I think the extent you're willing to go in order to preserve your artistic vision is definitely related to how much you care about it.

B wrote:

LetMeSleep wrote:Are we talking about the Gremmie "demos"? (Cue Chud)

Isn't THIS now the Gremmie demos?

Kevin Davis wrote:

cutuphalfdead wrote:The difference with binaural is that album was already full of good songs. There were just more good songs left off. These leaks don't all of a sudden make life wasted and inside job good.

These leaks also aren't -- as far as I can tell anyway, I haven't had the opportunity to grab them yet -- completed outtakes. It's easy to say, "Oh, this could have been so cool if they had just made it into a proper song," but "The Fixer" should stand as evidence that even PJ's most hated, least adventurous-sounding songs can start out as eccentric, arty brainstorming sessions before ultimately being run through the filter. Best to take these kinds of things for what they are, rather than be caught with your pants down when "Only Cloud in the Sky" comes back to haunt you in the form of a song that sounds like "Amongst the Waves."

stip wrote:

EJ wrote:I'm now considering that Stone & Jeff deliberately didn't invite Ed out to Montana when they started writing Backspacer because they were so annoyed he didn't go hog wild after some of these demos and vetoed LIR and CC. But, somehow still okayed Inside Job.

Alas, the benevolent dictator still got his way with the rejiggering of Backspacer anyway. No one wins.

Don't we think Ed wrote Cold Confession? And Inside Job was everyone's favor to Mike.

stip wrote:

Mine wrote:

stip wrote:
That's nonsense. Trying to be inclusive has nothing at all to do with how much you care--especially if this process means Ed has to do more work.

I think this is probably a very unpopular point of view but it makes sense that someone with a clear idea of how a song is supposed to sound like is going to be less inclusive, especially a 90's weirdo Ed kind of character. Certain additions and changes can ruin the balance of a song. I think the extent you're willing to go in order to preserve your artistic vision is definitely related to how much you care about it.

Alternately, you can approach this from the perspective that the BAND is creating music and the BAND should make the decisions together, and that other people's contributions can just as easily enhance a song as ruin it--and that when you've been together a long time and are working with people you respect you should trust them.

This has nothing to do with commitment.