Whatcha' Readin'?
I just got done reading a wonderful book by Dave Eggers called
What is the What.
Eggers is a marvelously skilled writer. The 500-plus pages of non-fussy literary art simply fly by. He tells the truthful story of Sudanese refugee Valentino Achak Deng in such a lovingly precise way. While Eggers is known for playful, postmodern turns in his previous books like
A Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius and
You Shall Know Our Velocity, this novel treats a sobering story of a man and a country in crisis with the utmost respect and care. There is something really cool about a writer with mad technical skills practicing restraint—holding off on the metatextual machinations and florid passages of description to simply
tell a story.I would definitely recommend that you read this book, but only if you like books that are awesome.
The Tulsa Run
Saturday was probably the last great milestone of the year for yours truly. I ran in the Tulsa Run 15k. (Answer to the Most Frequently Asked Question: 15k=9.3 miles.)
I decided this was something I wanted to try about a month and a half ago when I first jogged all the way around Lake Hefner, which is 9.5 miles. I had done a couple 5ks and enjoyed having goals to work toward. My chip time on Saturday was 1:59:52, which is pretty slow compared to a lot of people in the race, but there were still quite a few people finishing well after me. Anyway, being absolutely noncompetitive, I try to avoid comparisons to others like one might avoid the plague. So the best part for me was that I beat my previous best pace by twelve minutes!
It was a beautiful course and the weather was pretty fantastic.
Here's to health and goals fulfilled!
Ghost in the Machine
My dad used to say that technology, at its most beneficial, should be indistinguishable from “magic.” I, on the other hand, have thought that explanations of how technological things work are most effective when they start with the phrase: “Well, there’s this little man…”
At any rate, I have lately had this hunch that my computer is trying to tell me something. What if there really is a ghost in my machine- a “maschinegeist?”
Here’s what I know: whenever it’s on shuffle, iTunes plays an awful lot of the song “Hope” by Robert Fripp String Quintet. It’s a lovely instrumental tune, no doubt, and I’m certainly not complaining.
But I am suspicious.
What if my computer is subtly trying to get a message to me? What if it’s not just
describing hope over and over, but being more forceful? What if it’s a
command? What if that song title has an understood (you)? As in “Hey Mike. (You) hope.”
OK. I guess I have to hope now.
(Of course the fact is, dear readers, I now live my life with much more hope in the future than at just about any point in the past. I don’t really need a computer to encourage me…)
An Interview With Steven Stark
From the very opening notes of the meandering guitar melody that begins "I Heard My Name again," it's apparent that Steven Stark's new album A
is for Airplanes, B is for Baseball, C is for Cats is a departure from the norm. Seeming to occupy some strange midpoint between tonal and atonal, this introductory salvo is the sound of a classical mind working in a pop world. Or is it a pop mind working in a classical world? Either way, the first track is an appropriate aperitif to an album full of infectiously subtle, thinking person’s pop music. The tunes are memorable, (yet not gratingly so), the arrangements are tight and the influences vast, from Paul Simon to Steely Dan to Randy Newman to The Beatles to Bernstein and Gershwin.
And with this album Steven has departed from his previous aesthetic of dry, spare acoustic music and painted with an expanded palette- incorporating all sorts of instruments to create his most varied and full-sounding record in many years.
I asked this consummate musician-artist some questions on the new album and the act of songwriting. Here's what he had to say:
Q: The first thing I noticed about this album is a return to the sound of a "band" after a few albums of mostly stripped down acoustic/ chamber orchestra type sounds. It's almost as if you're shooting for the next Brian Wilson with pianos, recorders(!), layered vocals, etc. What's behind that decision? Steven Stark: I've always wanted to go into a full out, "real" studio and do an album. Costs made me compromise on this of course. I still did a lot of the work here at the home studio (Galloping Cat), but the rhythm section plus a bit more we recorded at Bell Labs. Most importantly, Trent and I mixed the record entirely at his place. The imminent arrival of [new son] Severin gave me the incentive to get busy on the project. I knew that once he was here, any recording would be much more difficult, so I wanted to work really hard and complete the project before his birth. Trent and I finished the last mix a couple of weeks before he arrived.
Q: Do you ever have any thoughts of practicality, like "How am I going to pull off this new material with all of the instruments in a live situation?"SS: I have thought about a live lineup, but I don't know how it would work out. Mark Vollertsen played bass and piano on many tracks and of course I played different instruments as well. It would be a challenge - I would probably just have to hire some players to do some shows. Maybe at some point! The old solo show sounds tempting again, though.
Mostly when recording, however, I find you just have to worry about the recording. Live issues have to be saved for later!
Q: Creating those kinds of larger arrangements also appears to have involved you with more musicians than usual. How did that process work for you? Did you go in the studio with fairly specific ideas about instrumentation? And how did Trent Bell figure into all that? Did he function as the guy who just "pushed record" or was he involved in more "producer"-type ways? Do you get anything out of collaboration or would you rather write the material yourself and try to get people to accomplish your personal vision?SS: This album was a definite attempt at collaboration for me. Originally I even wanted to work on lyrics with other songwriters and involve a lot more singers on lead vocals. Then I wanted to put the album out under a band name. Obviously, I ended up making different choices. None of the lyric collaborations worked out, mostly because the other writers, who are all quite accomplished, just didn't know what I wanted them to say. Of course I wanted them to say what THEY wanted to say, but that was tough with someone else's music. Then I started writing lyrics and that was the end of that! I'm really glad I tried it though.
The singing was a similar story. I have a limited voice and I wanted to involve different ranges and timbres, but other singers seemed to have a hard time getting any personal ownership over their interpretations. I do think that Matt Brown's contribution to the duet "Running the Bases" came out great, though! And the other singers who contributed harmony sound wonderful. In the end, they were my songs and seemed to need my voice this time around, for better or worse. I'm not always happy with the technical way my voice came across, but I am happy with the feeling communicated.
As far as the instrumentalists, I picked very good players, and I gave them charts. I had Ray and Mary in the studio to record "Running the Bases" and I thought, “man these are great players, I need to use them more!” So I came up with chord charts and tempos for what ended up being "By Candle...." and "Who's in Charge". I had them lay down rhythm tracks and then I wrote the other parts over it.
Jacob and Mark and I practiced a few times and they are so versatile that with a little tinkering we got the right feel on all the tunes. With Mark's piano playing, I just gave him a chart and a suggestion and he'd nail it in a take or two. With my piano playing, I had to practice like crazy. [My wife] Susan must've heard me play "Ansty" sixty-seven times the week before recording.
Trent is a wonderful sound engineer, always making suggestions. The vision is yours, but he helps you execute it and his aesthetics on recording sounds is always present. In mixing, I gave him some reference tracks (Steely Dan, Paul Simon, more) and he tailored the sound to that. I think that his work on the drums is absolutely outstanding. He was able to get all the pitches and rings out of them. They just sound perfect to me. They
sound small, but present, and super tight like the great drum sounds of a lot of late 70's records: Talking Heads, Dire Straights, Steely Dan, etc.
Q: The song "Antsy" uses ants and anthills as a great metaphor for U.S. foreign policy. Are you channeling one of your heroes Randy Newman with this song? Do you think songwriters have any RESPONSIBILITY to voice political views in their music or is politics just one of the seemingly infinite things to write about?SS: Definitely channeling Randy Newman on this one. From the ragtime feel to the arrangements, though, I think my approach is slightly more aggressive musically. His is usually laid back and then he kills you with the lyrical bite. I think politics is one of many subjects a songwriter should consider, though it must be in some sort of universal way if the song is going to have any shelf life. I don't think of “Antsy” as very political though. I think it's about the media AND the Bush administration marching our country into war with misleading reasons. It's about the ant-like mentality that was prevalent at the time. Going to war was a good story; the media ate it up. I remember stories on TV analyzing different pieces of weaponry, and I thought, “Man, if you make that stuff, sooner or later you are VERY tempted to use it, even if you have to invent a reason.”
“Antsy” is NOT about the military. It's about the civilian leadership and the media and the public at large.
Q: Speaking of responsibilities of songwriters--I have gathered from reading your blog that you place quite a bit of importance on "faith." As I think about the absolutely beautiful melody and string arrangement of "Hey Charlie" and its mentions of the "outstretched hand of God" and "cosmic moments" and such, I wonder--do you feel any responsibility to express your faith in your music? Or does the mere act of creating art take care of that?
SS: I think that the "mere act of creating" speaks more about faith than any lyric could convey. However one defines "faith", honest exploration and attempts at communicating an aesthetic through techniques that you've worked on - that is what exhibits your mindset towards life. And of course, the ultimate art form is your entire life, though the act of expression and communication through the arts or through more vernacular language is a big part of it for everyone.
Q: You are obviously a student of the art of songwriting. Do you ever have an ideal audience in mind for your music and strive to communicate with them? Or is the act of songwriting just a means of self-expression?
SS: I do have an audience in mind when I write. I'm going to be stuck listening to this stuff off and on for the rest of my life, so I am the number one audience. I think about what I really want to hear from someone and then I try to write it. Sometimes it comes out just right and other times, not so much.
The second audience consists of my friends and other musicians. The third audience is people who like music. That may sound obvious, everyone likes music right? But I’m talking about music fans here. Everyone enjoys music but not everyone is a big
fan.
I think cars are great. They help you get from point A to point B and I appreciate an aesthetically pleasing design, but I am not a car fan. It's not a big part of my life. No big deal. It takes all kinds of people to make the world work.
So, if someone is not a big fan of music, I don't consider their opinion too carefully. If someone actively seeks out music other than what the current pop culture gives them, and if they enjoy the act of thoughtfully listening to music, AND if they are fans of the particular genre in which I am working, then I care about their opinion. Finally, I care about more casual fans as well--people who are thoughtful about their opinions, though perhaps their music collection isn't as extensive as the big time fan.
Q: Finally, let's talk about lyrics. When writing lyrics, how tight are your filters? Do you self-edit a lot? Do you think a song is only as beautiful as it is vague?SS: Lyrics are much harder to come by for me than music. Lyrics tend to "lock down" meaning more concretely than the more abstract (but still tightly organized) music. In the past I feel I have been far too abstract, but a lot of the time I didn't have anything more concrete that I wanted to say. I just wanted sounds and images that were musical.
On this album however, I tried to focus the lyrics more. I wanted to write songs that other people might want to perform someday. Songs like “Antsy” and “Running the Bases” and “An Airplane Disappears” are extended metaphors that I hope are focused and work. Others are still more abstract like “Lazarus” or “A Black Cat.” “Francesca Faye” is another song that I wrote hoping that it would communicate lyrically in a more broad, classic kind of way. Abstraction can be great, sometimes it is just perfect for the
feeling of a song, but way too often, it can become lazy writing. Your subconscious has led you half way, now YOU have to figure it out and focus it into a song that communicates to others.
Steven’s new album
A is for Airplanes, B is for Baseball, C is for Cats is available on his website (
http://www.stevenstarkmusic.com/products.html) and iTunes.
