when it rains, it pours. nothing could be more true right now. lately i've had a lot of artists talking to me about producing them. i just spent a week traveling around to different cities starting pre-production with a few bands and i start a brand new project on tuesday - all of which i'm very excited about.
i've heard that a producer is only as good as his last project. whenever i finish a project i'm always evaluating and trying to figure out what i did right and wrong and i've learned a hard lesson a few years ago about putting your best foot forward in every project that you do. a few friends of mine had a side project for a libertarian punk band called Ill Patriot. i did the recording completely for free in my spare time because i liked the guys and thought it would be fun. looking back, i didn't put my usual 100% into the project because it's was just a favor for some friends on the side. well, those guys ended up being a bit of a buzz band and went on tour with underoath for a bit and were featured in AP. people liked the stuff, but i can still hear things that i could have done better and i'm forever kicking myself for it. ever since then i've decided that no matter how big or how small a project, everything gets my best. i mean, it seems simple enough, but it's so easy to only put as much effort as your enthusiasm warrants instead of committing to chronic excellence.
one person who is great at this is max hsu. he's the writer/producer/keyboard/DJ extraordinare in my wife's band Superchic[k]. you can check out his blog at http://homepage.mac.com/maxwax11/iblog/. everything max does is the peak of excellence. i'll bet that if he were to decide to pick up some random hobby like woodworking, he would build himself a ridiculous woodshop with the best tools and would personally fly to the amazon to harvest rare and endangered woods and smuggle them back in his suitcase. this guy decided to shoot his first music video for superchick about a year ago and what he turned out was on par with legitimate hollywood directors. check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U092ClcY8M
it took max about a year of research, harness trials, shooting, and post editing to come up with the final product, but what was left is amazing and last i heard he's being flooded with requests to do other bands' videos - all after his first try. recently he did the artwork and layout and decided to learn how use 3D modeling software and fully model the superchick robot just so that he could then convert it to a 2D image so that the perspectives would be correct.
so anyway, on the discipline note, i'll leave you with a quote from Somerset Maugham
"I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp."
i've heard that a producer is only as good as his last project. whenever i finish a project i'm always evaluating and trying to figure out what i did right and wrong and i've learned a hard lesson a few years ago about putting your best foot forward in every project that you do. a few friends of mine had a side project for a libertarian punk band called Ill Patriot. i did the recording completely for free in my spare time because i liked the guys and thought it would be fun. looking back, i didn't put my usual 100% into the project because it's was just a favor for some friends on the side. well, those guys ended up being a bit of a buzz band and went on tour with underoath for a bit and were featured in AP. people liked the stuff, but i can still hear things that i could have done better and i'm forever kicking myself for it. ever since then i've decided that no matter how big or how small a project, everything gets my best. i mean, it seems simple enough, but it's so easy to only put as much effort as your enthusiasm warrants instead of committing to chronic excellence.
one person who is great at this is max hsu. he's the writer/producer/keyboard/DJ extraordinare in my wife's band Superchic[k]. you can check out his blog at http://homepage.mac.com/maxwax11/iblog/. everything max does is the peak of excellence. i'll bet that if he were to decide to pick up some random hobby like woodworking, he would build himself a ridiculous woodshop with the best tools and would personally fly to the amazon to harvest rare and endangered woods and smuggle them back in his suitcase. this guy decided to shoot his first music video for superchick about a year ago and what he turned out was on par with legitimate hollywood directors. check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U092ClcY8M
it took max about a year of research, harness trials, shooting, and post editing to come up with the final product, but what was left is amazing and last i heard he's being flooded with requests to do other bands' videos - all after his first try. recently he did the artwork and layout and decided to learn how use 3D modeling software and fully model the superchick robot just so that he could then convert it to a 2D image so that the perspectives would be correct.
so anyway, on the discipline note, i'll leave you with a quote from Somerset Maugham
"I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp."
2 comments:
You do have to admit that the background vocals in that Ill Patriot record are really strong.
yes, the background whoah's were definitely the highlight of the project. the fine gentlemen involved should be proud of themselves
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