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ONE love, blood, life
Lanois Brings His Sounds to Pappy & Harriet's
By Bruce Fessier
The Desert Sun
July 19th, 2004
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Forget what they say about Elvis Presley. The modern age of pop music began when father-and-son music collectors John and Alan Lomax found songs in remote regions and brought them to mainstream America.
The Lomaxes found folk and blues legends such as Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie in the first half of the 20th century.
But Daniel Lanois is perpetuating their spirit by collecting sounds from remote regions and applying them to the songs of artists he produces, including Bob Dylan, U2, Willie Nelson, Peter Gabriel and himself.
He?ll demonstrate many of those sounds tonight when he performs at Pappy & Harriet?s Pioneertown Palace to launch a tour from his home in Los Angeles to Florida, where he?ll join Dave Matthews on a larger tour.
He calls this his "Joshua Tree show" partly because he has fond memories of living at the Rancho de la Luna recording studio there in the late 1990s.
Ted Quinn, a partner at the studio, said Lanois "showed up" with a moving van of recording equipment and spent six months writing and recording demos. Some showed up on his 2003 "Shine" album. "Where Will I Be" appeared on the "Wrecking Ball" CD he produced for Emmylou Harris.
Lanois said in a telephone interview, "I was just collecting materials, doing my usual mining for soul."
Lanois, born in Quebec, Canada, to a violinist father, has been on a 52-year musical journey that he said began as "a communication of the cross fertilization my family went through."
Throughout his journey, he?d write melodies and lyrics and keep them to draw from for future projects.
That?s also what Guthrie and Leadbelly did. Alan Lomax was credited with discovering their treasure troves -- although the size of their catalogs weren?t fully realized until Rancho Mirage-based publisher Howie Richmond brought them out in recordings and songbooks -- and Lanois said he?d like to think he?s carrying on Lomax?s search for regional gems.
"I?ve always admired the Lomax endeavors," Lanois said. "I think in these post-modern times that?s a very nice way to keep charging through the fresh frontier. We may think everything?s been used up and done, but I believe we can still find new ways of intertwining music and expressing ourselves."
Lanois said certain regions at certain times develop a musical "potency," like Seattle in the early ?90s, and producers must communicate that to the world.
"Any kind of pocket that goes through a potent time, it?s kind of our duty to recognize it," he said. "Be a messenger."
Lanois came to Joshua Tree at the suggestion of his assistant, Trina Shoemaker, who knew the guys creating a musical scene there. She went on to produce the Queens of the Stone Age.
Ironically, Lanois had produced U2?s classic "The Joshua Tree" album in Dublin without realizing Joshua Tree was a "potent" region. He said U2 front man Bono conceived the title after the album was recorded.
"I believe Joshua Tree has a Biblical connotation," he said. "Bono, being very campaign oriented, saw something in it that appealed to him and they decided to run with it. But it was very much after-the-fact. I was oblivious to it."
After leaving Joshua Tree, Lanois rented a theater near Ventura to record Willie Nelson for his 1998 "Teatro" CD.
"I wanted a place that had a sense of performance about it," he said. "Willie?s been playing dance halls and theaters since he was a kid. I thought, ?Wouldn?t that be nice to get that feeling back and not be in a studio.? "
Lanois is a firm believer that even a studio has a significant impact on a recording, which is one reason he scours the world for just the right place to record.
"I find rooms are forever fascinating and curious," he said. "If a room is a nice room to play in, it?s a nice room to record in. Environment is an ongoing mystery, but I figure there?s no substitute for excitement."
Unless, of course, you want an opposite mood. He recorded Dylan?s Grammy Award-winning "Time Out Of Mind" at night because Dylan wanted a dark mood for the CD.
"Bob?s theory was that if we stayed loyal to nighttime work, we would have a consistent mood," Lanois said. "We wouldn?t think it was too slow the next day because we weren?t listening to it the next day. We were listening the next night."
He recorded jazz drummer Brian Blade in front of an audience on the last day of their session and discovered most of their best takes were live.
"It was rising to the occasion," he said. "Jazz belongs in a performance environment. It needs to be presented to listeners."
Not surprisingly, Lanois doesn?t have a favorite kind of music. And to prove it, he?ll perform music at Pappy & Harriet?s ranging from the alt-country of Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons, who died in Joshua Tree, to the ambient music Lanois pioneered with Brian Eno.
"We?re going to do sort of a Gram Parsons version of my song, ?The Maker,? to pay our respects to Joshua Tree and Gram," he said.
But he also hopes to "transport" listeners with a sonic soundscape he?s creating.
"I?m going to bring a couple of prepared CDs," he said. "Maybe two or three spots into the show, we?ll try to build on top of some sonics I?ve already prepared in the laboratory.
"It should be fun to introduce a little technology to a more organic performance on stage."
By Bruce Fessier
The Desert Sun
July 19th, 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forget what they say about Elvis Presley. The modern age of pop music began when father-and-son music collectors John and Alan Lomax found songs in remote regions and brought them to mainstream America.
The Lomaxes found folk and blues legends such as Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie in the first half of the 20th century.
But Daniel Lanois is perpetuating their spirit by collecting sounds from remote regions and applying them to the songs of artists he produces, including Bob Dylan, U2, Willie Nelson, Peter Gabriel and himself.
He?ll demonstrate many of those sounds tonight when he performs at Pappy & Harriet?s Pioneertown Palace to launch a tour from his home in Los Angeles to Florida, where he?ll join Dave Matthews on a larger tour.
He calls this his "Joshua Tree show" partly because he has fond memories of living at the Rancho de la Luna recording studio there in the late 1990s.
Ted Quinn, a partner at the studio, said Lanois "showed up" with a moving van of recording equipment and spent six months writing and recording demos. Some showed up on his 2003 "Shine" album. "Where Will I Be" appeared on the "Wrecking Ball" CD he produced for Emmylou Harris.
Lanois said in a telephone interview, "I was just collecting materials, doing my usual mining for soul."
Lanois, born in Quebec, Canada, to a violinist father, has been on a 52-year musical journey that he said began as "a communication of the cross fertilization my family went through."
Throughout his journey, he?d write melodies and lyrics and keep them to draw from for future projects.
That?s also what Guthrie and Leadbelly did. Alan Lomax was credited with discovering their treasure troves -- although the size of their catalogs weren?t fully realized until Rancho Mirage-based publisher Howie Richmond brought them out in recordings and songbooks -- and Lanois said he?d like to think he?s carrying on Lomax?s search for regional gems.
"I?ve always admired the Lomax endeavors," Lanois said. "I think in these post-modern times that?s a very nice way to keep charging through the fresh frontier. We may think everything?s been used up and done, but I believe we can still find new ways of intertwining music and expressing ourselves."
Lanois said certain regions at certain times develop a musical "potency," like Seattle in the early ?90s, and producers must communicate that to the world.
"Any kind of pocket that goes through a potent time, it?s kind of our duty to recognize it," he said. "Be a messenger."
Lanois came to Joshua Tree at the suggestion of his assistant, Trina Shoemaker, who knew the guys creating a musical scene there. She went on to produce the Queens of the Stone Age.
Ironically, Lanois had produced U2?s classic "The Joshua Tree" album in Dublin without realizing Joshua Tree was a "potent" region. He said U2 front man Bono conceived the title after the album was recorded.
"I believe Joshua Tree has a Biblical connotation," he said. "Bono, being very campaign oriented, saw something in it that appealed to him and they decided to run with it. But it was very much after-the-fact. I was oblivious to it."
After leaving Joshua Tree, Lanois rented a theater near Ventura to record Willie Nelson for his 1998 "Teatro" CD.
"I wanted a place that had a sense of performance about it," he said. "Willie?s been playing dance halls and theaters since he was a kid. I thought, ?Wouldn?t that be nice to get that feeling back and not be in a studio.? "
Lanois is a firm believer that even a studio has a significant impact on a recording, which is one reason he scours the world for just the right place to record.
"I find rooms are forever fascinating and curious," he said. "If a room is a nice room to play in, it?s a nice room to record in. Environment is an ongoing mystery, but I figure there?s no substitute for excitement."
Unless, of course, you want an opposite mood. He recorded Dylan?s Grammy Award-winning "Time Out Of Mind" at night because Dylan wanted a dark mood for the CD.
"Bob?s theory was that if we stayed loyal to nighttime work, we would have a consistent mood," Lanois said. "We wouldn?t think it was too slow the next day because we weren?t listening to it the next day. We were listening the next night."
He recorded jazz drummer Brian Blade in front of an audience on the last day of their session and discovered most of their best takes were live.
"It was rising to the occasion," he said. "Jazz belongs in a performance environment. It needs to be presented to listeners."
Not surprisingly, Lanois doesn?t have a favorite kind of music. And to prove it, he?ll perform music at Pappy & Harriet?s ranging from the alt-country of Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons, who died in Joshua Tree, to the ambient music Lanois pioneered with Brian Eno.
"We?re going to do sort of a Gram Parsons version of my song, ?The Maker,? to pay our respects to Joshua Tree and Gram," he said.
But he also hopes to "transport" listeners with a sonic soundscape he?s creating.
"I?m going to bring a couple of prepared CDs," he said. "Maybe two or three spots into the show, we?ll try to build on top of some sonics I?ve already prepared in the laboratory.
"It should be fun to introduce a little technology to a more organic performance on stage."
