All Forums  Off Topic!  General Chat  Exile In Guyville, making of

Note: You must be registered in order to post a reply.
To register, click here. Registration is FREE!

Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: * HTML is OFF * Forum Code is ON Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by Erebus[/i] [br]Those who think Liz Phair’s “Exile In Guyville” is a classic of the early ‘90s indie period may enjoy these comments by producer Brad Wood. I also suggest that this could serve as a model for online interviews about indie pop icons. It starts out with interesting adminstrative trivia and goes from there. Ups to “robnashville”, and couldn’t we all use more guys like Brad Wood in our neighborhoods! Got this over at Liz Phair’s site, http://www.lizphair.forumsunlimited.com/index.php?s=7414fba5f934922f7e291cfb4b4c8351&showtopic=595 . robnashville Jun 6 2006, 11:51 PM I saw this thread got revived and it piqued my interest. So I fired off an e-mail to my old buddy, old pal Brad Wood (okay, i barely know the guy but i have exchanged a few e-mails with him in the past). Here is his reply to some questions i sent him, i'm gonna post it to my geocities site eventually. i hope to do a second set of q's with more about whipsmart and wcse. > 1. Your initial working relationship with Liz Phair > began during her sessions with John Henderson. > Can you elaborate a bit on the differences between > these sessions and the Phair-Wood-Rice sessions > stylistically? Sound-wise? The differing working > relationships? Any of those initial Henderson > sessions still laying around in a vault somewhere? Stylistically, the early sessions seemed unfocused and more traditional sounding (to my ears). John had a notion of how he wanted things to sound &, frankly, I didn't like it. As far as "working relationships", I recall not liking the chemistry between Liz, John & myself. Its no coincidence that I haven't spoken to John in ages. Working with Casey was a big improvement: he is a musician, for starters & we were pretty much on the same wavelength when it came to getting sounds. I doubt any early sessions survive: we were perpetually broke & re-used a lot of the 1" multi-track tapes that make up the Guyville sessions. > 2. A question about the Exile in Guyville master > tapes. The tapes were MIA at one point, unable to be > found in the Capitol vaults. It was rumored that you > located the tapes in storage while back in Chicago. > Can you confirm that the master tapes have been > located and are you aware of any plans for them > (remastering, re-issue, etc.)? The Guyville multi-tracks were missing for quite a while & I spent a lot of time searching for them. I went so far as to contact Atlantic & Capitol Records in advance of the 10th anniversary of the album's release, but there was no record of their being logged into any storage system. In early 2004 I had a friend ship the last of my old studio equipment from Chicago and, there in the first box, were the Guyville tapes. I felt (& still feel) like an idiot, especially after growling down the phone line at various unlucky label staff. The tapes were shipped to Liz' management in Chicago. I do not know of any plans for their use. > 3. Out takes > > The tracks that made it on to Exile have gone down in > history, but was there other material that was worked > on during these sessions? Were some tracks worked on > but tabled and were later ressurected for the > whipsmart sessions? Were others just set aside and > never used? Looking at the track sheets for Guyville, there was very little, if any, material not already in use. There is a slight chance that a DAT of rough mixes from the "Henderson" sessions might exist, but I haven't seen it. Very unlikely. > For Whipsmart, other tracks were done but not used > like Six Dick Pimp. Any other additional work from > these sessions that were tabled or that showed up on > Space Egg? No. There were no other extra tracks, as I recall. WCSE was a completely different era that began years after Whipsmart. > The Space Egg Sessions, Liz stated that you guys > demo'ed 12 songs during your work at the Velvet > Studios but i believe only five of the tracks made > their way onto the album. Any info you can give us on > these other tracks? Liz worked @ Velvet Shirt Studio before I came on board there. The songs that I worked on all appear on WCSE. There was no extra work recorded with me for that record, but Liz tracked a lot of songs in Los Angeles and in studios in Chicago. Again, I have no info about those sessions. > 4. Expectations: > The initial expectations for Guyville were low. Liz > thought it would sell 3k copies, Gerard Cosloy thought > it would sell 5k, and you and casey thought it would > hit big and sell about 30k copies. It went on to sell > 300k initially and eventually went Gold. Did the lack > of expectaion help the creative process? Did the > ensuing success of EIG hinder Whipsmart? Making Exile was a breeze, once the logistics were simplified. Liz had moved to her parent's house, making for a long commute to the studio. It was slow going, since recording had to be squeezed in around my work schedule at the studio and as a janitor. When Matador signed Liz, she sublet an apartment close to the studio & we established a good work pace. There was no thought given to sales at the time. When Whipsmart sessions began, there really was no thought given to sales either. I know I felt pressure to play the drums better, but we still spent lots of time finding fun ways to record stuff: the Casey-spun giant Leslie guitar part on Nashville, recording the Shane drums with an old dictaphone recorder, mic'ing a toy car for the ratchet sound on XRay Man, etc... I felt pretty unfettered then, but Liz seemed unhappy. > In my interview with Casey Rice he stated: > > "I think what did differ, > however, were the decisions made about how to mix the > record. I felt > like the others were second guessing who this new Liz > Phair audience > might be (since the first LP had sold quite a bit), > and trying to > tailor the sound to meet expectations. I thought we > should have just > carried on with the way the first one sounded, but I > think there was > some push to somehow "improve" things." > > Do you agree or disagree with this statement? If so > was it a function of Indie vs Major label Release? No, I don't agree with that statement, as far as it applies to me. What Atlantic or Matador or Liz' audience wanted was honestly not a concern of mine. Gerard & Chris never offered anything other than full support when I spoke to them. Atlantic never even called until after the record was delivered & David Kahne was hired to mix a radio version of Whipsmart. David was really cool to talk to & even came to Chicago to chat further. It started a friendship that has lasted for 12 years & his advice through that time has been helpful to me... I felt really happy with Whipsmart and it remains my favorite Liz record from a sonic standpoint. The second half of that album kills me. Mayqueen? I'm really proud of that. > 5. Casey decribed the creative process on EIG this > way "Listen to her four track versions of the tunes, > and try to come up with ways of doing them as a > 'band'. I do recall there being no lack of candor and > if someone wanted to do something, we tried it. If it > sucked, no one would hesitate to say so if they > believed it." Were there any songs that just didn't > translate well when attempted, or some that took many > different iterations before they reached their final > version on Guyville? The early sessions were mostly misfires, with only one song, Johnny Sunshine making the record (I think). Since most of the songs were built from the guitar and vocal, anything that didn't sound right was discarded. Mesmerizing took a few tries to get the percussion right, but most of the songs had a long time to develop, due to the time constraints in 1992 (see above). We would do a lot of thinking in between sessions... > 6. You have mentioned Fuck and Run as one of the > first tracks you and Liz worked on and how it totally > captured the sparse sound you were looking for. For > you, what are some of the other highlights that stick > out at you when thinking back on the album? One for > me is Stratford On Guy and the other worldy intro with > the drums. How did you get that sound? Fuck & Run is my sentimental favorite. It was the night that Liz & I finally got something recorded that made us both dance around & sweat. It happened quickly & pretty effortlessly, in between PBS shows on channel 11. It was right: simple, driving, direct & blunt. I was glad that the new version was so different from the Girlysound tapes- such dark lyrics tied to such a happy beat. I liked the contrast... The drums on SOG were tracked with one mic, then that track was recorded onto another track on the 1/2" 16-track that was locked to the 1" 16-track. While it was in record, I manually changed the offset of the 1/2" machine by sub-frames to slowly slow down/speed up the eventual playback giving you: flange. Sounds hard, but it wasn't... So many great moments, but it all comes down to those amazing lyrics. Just the best stories. Liz could really take you places with her words. [center][i][/i][/center] [/quote]   Check here to include your profile signature.