Headliner issue 17

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Billy Bragg & Joe Henry + OCTOBER 2016 RRP $6.95 USA/$7.95 CANADA

AUGUST 2016 RRP $6.95 USA/$7.95 CANADA

ISSUE #17

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Railroading Across America

THE CARNABYS

KULA SHAKER

HEADLINER HELPS

Saving live music in the UK

20 years of K and more

Raising money for Jessie’s Fund

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VISIONARY

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Contents #17 Cover Story

P28 / Billy Bragg & Joe Henry

06

SWIVEL ON THIS

DJ Swivel gives us his take on some of the deep rooted problems within the music biz.

08

SONIC VISTA INSIGHTS

Our friends in Ibiza chat to Josh Herbert about his recent stint on the road with the Dixie Chicks.

10

KUNGS

We speak to upcoming DJ, Kungs, about making new music, and touring with David Guetta.

12

KULA SHAKER

The ‘90s psychedlic rockers are reviving their seminal album, K, 20 years on, on a global scale.

14

HEADLINER HELPS

We review our first ever event, where we raised £3,000 for the wonderful charity, Jessie’s Fund.

18

ALICIA KEYS

It’s off to London’s Roundhouse to check out Alicia Keys’ incredible new live show.

20

DONOTS

Germany’s punk rock big leaguers chat to us about their landmark 1,000th gig.

22

PLANES, TRAINS, AND ROMAN REMAINS

Three tracks mixed at three challenging locations, using only headphones? Let’s give it a go!

24

SALAR ANSARI

This Detroit-based engineer, producer, and music maker, talks us through his day in the life.

26

32

THE CARNABYS

It’s all about saving live music for this London-based four-piece and hats off to them for that.

34

JERRY HARVEY

We flew to Florida to hang out with this in-ear pioneer to talk high res audio, and rock and roll.

38

SKYE & ROSS

Two founder members of Morcheeba, and a brand new record? Yes please.

40

HARRIET

Close your eyes and it’s Karen Carpenter, but with a beautiful musical twist. One to watch.

42

STEFAN BOMAN

We take a look inside one of Stockholm’s finest recording facilities, Park Studio.

44

BRUNO POET

This acclaimed lighting designer has been busy illuminating Icelandic cult band, Sigur Rós.

46

SKA-MAN

Madness founder member, Lee Thompson, gives us an amusing interview about his musical life.

48

BERLIN: THE HOME OF NEO-CLASSICAL We visit das kapital to speak to three of today’s finest neo-classical artists.

52

RACHAEL SAGE

This songstress wrote her latest album - a fusion of music and dance - in a Camden hotel room.

54

DAVID BRENT

WORLD YOUTH DAY

28

56

COVER STORY: BILLY BRAGG & JOE HENRY

44 number ones, 150 gold, silver, and platinum discs, and blind for over 30 years. A true inspiration.

From Wernham Hogg paper merchants to global rock star?

David Brent’s debut is a belter.

Britain’s most famous musical activist has made a great record with US songwriter/producer, Joe Henry, while railroading 3,000 miles across America.

If ever the term ‘on a global scale’ was required, it’s here; the Pope spoke to 2.5m simultaneously.

ROBIN MILLAR CBE

58

GRUMPY OLD ROADIE

Robert visits St. Albans for a music festival, but it isn’t quite what he is expecting.

HEADLINER | ISSUE #17 | OCTOBER 2016

#17 From the Editor

“These past two months have been particularly satisfying for Headliner Magazine...”

September saw us put on the first of what we hope will be many charity music events. ‘Headliner Helps’ is our new initiative, which strives to raise a load of cash for worthy causes, and we certainly kicked it off in style. We raised £3k for Jessie’s Fund, a wonderful UK-based charity which helps young children with severe difficulties achieve a better quality of life using music as therapy. A big thank you to all the fantastic artists who came and played, some of whom travelled across the pond to be with us (amazing effort, Will Hawkins and Ilona!).

Check out the coverage on page 14 for all the details.

We also had the privilege of speaking to Billy Bragg, one of the true musical activists of the last 40 years. He’s made a cracking album, Shine A Light, with US producer and songwriter, Joe Henry, which saw the pair travel 3,000 miles across the American railroads, recording some fantastic music in some unique settings along the way. Billy is also supporting The Carnabys’ #SaveLiveMusic initiative; we spoke to the band’s frontman, Jack Mercer, about how the fivepiece from London are donating all proceeds from their debut album, Too Much, Never Enough, to the Music Venue Trust, in a bid to keep live music venues open across the UK. Hats off, fellas - hope it makes a difference.

All this and much more inside, including a chat with Kula Shaker lead singer, Crispian Mills, a show review on Alicia Keys’ recent performance at the Roundhouse, and a real insight into the career of the man who revolutionised the in-ear monitoring industry, Jerry Harvey.

We hope you enjoy the issue. Thanks for choosing Headliner.

Paul Watson Editor

SOCIALISE WITH US: headlinermagazine.net @Headlinerhub HeadlinerHub headlinermagazine

HEADLINER | ISSUE #17 | OCTOBER 2016

CONTACT Paul Watson paul@headlinerhub.com +44(0)7952-839296

Graham Kirk graham@gkirkmedia.com +44(0)7872-461938

Artwork Eimear O’Connor Jolien Hordijk

Contributors Adam Protz Kat Deal Jonathan Tessier Louis Henry Sarmiento II Jordan Young

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Comment DJ Swivel

Swivel on this Let’s rewind a little bit. Take yourself back to the late ‘90s, just before the Internet era of the music business. The new DMX album just dropped.

You need it, ASAP! So you get in your car, you pick up your friends, and you drive to the mall. You park. You and your friends walk in through one of the department stores and snatch up a couple of Calvin Klein cologne samplers as you make your way through the mall. You pass the food court. The aroma of pretzels from Auntie Anne’s, and MSG from Manchu Wok fills the air. You breathe it in and say to yourself, ‘maybe later.’ You catch the arcade in the corner of your eye, so you stop for a quick game of Marvel vs. Capcom.

You leave the arcade, and head to HMV (or Tower Records, if you grew up in America). You walk in to the sounds of Sugar Ray, there are posters all over the store of the newest releases, and right there front and centre is the rack with all the latest albums: R. Kelly, Santana, TLC, and… wait, where is my DMX album? Then you remember, it was a Virgin Megastore exclusive! Ha, just kidding. But imagine if that were the case, that some albums were at some stores, and other albums were at other stores, and you, the consumer, had to figure all of this out on your own? Well, fast forward to 2016.

This is the reality of the music biz today. The power players in streaming are all fighting each other to offer the best service, and one of those battlefronts has been through exclusive content partnerships. The artists love it because these tech giants are paying through the nose for those exclusives, which is turning into a whole new revenue stream for artists big and small. And in a world where every penny counts, you better believe the artists are on the side of exclusives. But what about us, the customer? How do these content partnerships improve the experience for us?

The answer is simple, it doesn’t.

It’s a bit of a catch 22 for the tech firms.

Of course you want to offer the best service, and if you can say you’re the only company to offer the new Frank Ocean album, it’s bound to drive subscribers. In the short term, maybe this makes sense, but in the long term, this only damages the customer experience.

06 Headliner

This wasn’t a problem when the iTunes store first came out. When it came to paid digital downloads, iTunes did (and still does) reign supreme. But in a world dominated by streaming, Apple made a big mistake.

They took too long to hop on the train, and created a window for Spotify, Pandora, and others to stake their claim. Now Apple is in the unfavourable position of being late to the party, and has to claw its way back any way they know how; and when you’re pockets are as deep as theirs, overpaying for exclusives is a logical solution Spotify can’t afford. On the other hand, the record labels don’t want to piss off Spotify too much as they’re the dominant player in streaming. It really is the cold war of the music business, isn’t it?

Now look, I as much as anyone believe in the tenets of the American dream ad capitalism as a whole, but I want these tech companies to compete on pricing, features, playlisting, recommendations, and search algorithms. Those things all improve my experience. But when that new Kanye album, The Life of Pablo, only showed up on Tidal, you better believe I downloaded the shit out of it. Not because I don’t want to support Kanye, but because I’m committed to the Apple ecosystem, and as far as signing up for Tidal just to get Kanye’s record, well, the juice ain’t worth the squeeze.

Lucian Grainge, chairman of Universal Music Group, recently sent out a companywide memo effectively banning exclusives for all UMG artists. And good on him for it. It doesn’t serve the customer in any way, and only incentivises honest paying music subscribers to find another ‘free’ solution.

I hope the other majors both follow suit.

As more artists become independent, and gain more control over how/when/what they release, they’re also going to make decisions that best suit them; and often those decisions will favour the monetary win at the expense of the fan. But at the moment, something’s got to give, because just about every major release is hopping between a different streaming service.

We, the people, have said it for years: the record industry needs to make decisions that support the customer first. Maybe they’ll finally listen this time?

“We, the people, have said it for years: the record industry needs to make decisions that support the customer first.

Maybe they’ll finally listen this time?”

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Sonic Vista Insights Josh Herbert

JOSH HERBERT: ON TOUR WITH DIXIE CHICKS

JOSH HERBERT is a singer-songwriter from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who recently finished his tour with the Dixie Chicks. Our friends at Sonic Vista studios met up with Josh in Ibiza to chat to him about life on the road.

So how was the Dixie Chicks tour?

It was an absolute dream come true! You read and hear all the time people saying that, but this phrase really is the only thing that can sum up my feelings. I started writing songs at the age of 10 in my room, and I would close my eyes and pretend I was on big stages in front of thousands of people. The tour couldn’t have gone better, and everyone involved, from the crew to the Dixie Chicks, were absolutely amazing.

there rocking. My drummer [Nick Baxter] and I have been practicing these songs, and working together for over two years, and although the setup is unorthodox for such a big stage, it gives Nick and I extra room for showmanship and to have fun. Since there is only the two of us up there, we both have to be entertaining.

Which venue impressed you the most?

Madison Square Garden in New York City, was a true honour. Walking down the halls and seeing all the framed pictures of legends and icons, you can feel the energy ignite in your bones. Some artists wait their whole careers to play here, and many don’t even get the chance. For me, it was the first arena I ever played!

You recently performed on TV for the Fox channel/Gibson Showroom in Las Vegas, which reached more than 4.5 million viewers. That must have been an experience..!

It was! We got there early, and had some fun playing on some gorgeous Gibson guitars. The room was relaxed, and had a wonderful vibe that felt more like a small nightclub gig than a TV station; I really enjoyed that about it. We performed my original song, Polaroid, which we shot in one take.

We noticed you have a really interesting live setup; could you tell us more about it?

The setup is super simple and easy. Where it lacks in the size of the band, it makes up for in sound.

With just drums, guitar, vocals, and a few tracks, it feels as though we have a six-piece band up

With 185k Facebook likes, 155k followers on Snapchat, and 30k Instagram fans, you obviously are very present on social media.

What’s your strategy?

Well, as I was growing, and music started spreading, I would study social media. I went to

08 Headliner

accounts similar to mine, but that had much more of a following. I would emulate what they were doing, and began to figure out what works and what doesn’t. At the end of the day, it all comes back to your music. It can be difficult nowadays because social media platforms are so overpopulated. In the end, you just have to be you, and through that originality you can stand out.

So what happens next for Josh Herbert?

I have big plans for the future. New music is in the works, and I’ll be making the move from Pittsburgh to LA this fall. I plan to support more large name acts, and keep growing, and getting my name and music out to as many people as possible.

And any plans to come to Europe?

I’d love to get back to Europe and do a tour. I have plans to get out there in early 2017, and I’m very excited to spread my music internationally! www.joshherbert.com www.sonicvistastudios.com

DJ KUNGS

original song, it’s a completely blank slate. “There is more work [on an original] because you start from nothing; it’s exciting, too, but really different, so I definitely enjoy both.”

Early Starter Kungs began his musical journey at the age of five as a djembe player - perhaps not the most orthodox place for a future superstar DJ to begin.

“My mum bought me one, and immediately we were both playing the djembe together. That was the first time I had an instrument in my hand,” Kungs smiles.

So technically, Kungs has been ‘creating beats’ since he was a toddler. And perhaps it was the humble djembe which put him on his course to becoming a DJ? “Yeah, that’s kind of funny! [laughs] Maybe that is why I’m making dance music today, because I was into all this rhythmic stuff from the beginning!”

It would be silly not to ask what it was like touring with David Guetta, one of the very biggest names in dance music.

“David Guetta is a very, very cool guy,” Kungs says, very loud and very clear. “He’s also extremely humble. It was a huge experience for me, to meet such a legend.”

Together, they played across France, Germany, and Austria; and Kungs also played at London’s Roundhouse only a few weeks ago in another big

“Today in electronic music, there are no barriers anymore.”

BEAT MAKER He recently came off a big European tour with dance behemoth and French compatriot, David Guetta, and his new single, This Girl, is leaving a big dent in charts worldwide, debuting at no.5 in the UK, and selling in its thousands across Europe. Marseille born DJ and producer, Kungs, is making his move.

Words Adam Protz

10 Headliner

French DJ and producer, Kungs, is at this time best known for his remixes – his unofficial Bob Marley and Lana Del Rey remixes racked up millions of listens on SoundCloud and YouTube when he was starting out – but with an album of original tracks dropping later this year, he looks set to enter the superstar DJ big leagues.

Kungs (real name Valentin) first got into music listening to rock and roll with his father, initially drawing influence from bands like The Who and The Kooks. He believes this set the foundations for his fascination with vocal-led, beat driven tunes.

“I remember going to a rock concert when I was like, 13 years old,” he says, in distinctly French tones.

“I always try to keep the pop and rock elements in my tracks, but I also keep as many influences as possible: from rap, hip hop, soul, blues, electronic... a lot of stuff!”

Regarding genres, Kungs succinctly says: “It’s music! Today in electronic music, there are no barriers anymore; a DJ and producer can produce a lot of different styles, and still keep this house atmosphere.”

Although Kungs started out remixing, his focus has now turned to writing original music - and it’s still a pretty fresh challenge for him. How different are the two?

“It’s not the same procedure at all. When I remix a track, it’s cool because I have the bass, I just have to add my personal touch – like the drums, the drop, and stuff like this,” he explains, adding that with an

support slot.

When it comes to production, it’s all pretty simple for Kungs: he relies on a pair of studio monitors, a MIDI keyboard, and a computer.

“I have one Mac, and then a MacBook, which I take everywhere with me; this is why I like to go to the studios sometimes, with all the guitars and different instruments,” he explains. And is there any kit on the wish list right now? “Oh yeah, I’d love to get a Korg piano. It has a lot of big sounds in it, and I love the UK house piano sound it has! That kind of UK garage sound... I think a lot of producers use this piano to get that sound.”

Would the Korg feature in the live shows, too?

“Well, I can’t actually play the piano, so this might be difficult,” Kungs laughs. A fair point, well made.

“Maybe I will play some djembe live? [smiles]” Why not, indeed? For Kungs right now, though, the key is to make sure he builds on his successes, and stays at the top: “This Girl is a hit everywhere in Europe - it’s amazing! And it’s given me a very big opportunity.

I would love for my next single to be just as big a hit, and just to stay this way for a long time. That’s the goal.”

And if he does achieve that goal, Kungs will be a name etched into the folklore of the dance music community. We wish him the very best. @KungsMusic

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Crispian Mills Kula Shaker

Crispian Mills: Shakermaker We chat to Kula Shaker frontman, Crispian Mills, about the everchanging landscape of the music industry today, and how he and his band have brought back to life their seminal debut album, K, 20 years after its release.

Words Paul Watson

In 1996, somewhere between Britpop and Post-Britpop, Kula Shaker took the world by storm with their debut album, K. A rock, pop, psychedelic epic, which shot to the top spot on the UK Albums Chart, with a handful of hit singles to boot. This was a time when guitar bands actually topped the charts, whereas today, it’s a rarity to see them enter them. Kula Shaker enjoyed mainstream success until they parted company shortly after album two, Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts, in 1999; but after a seven-year hiatus, they reformed in 2006, and started making music again: albums three and four, Strangefolk (2007), and Pilgrims Progress (2013).

12 Headliner

Skip to present day, and they’ve released another record, K2.0, which, as the title suggests, is a kind of follow-up (albeit a late one) to their debut, K. It’s been recorded in a similar way to K, and has been received very well in many musical circles; and the band has been touring it since its release. But there’s more.

Being 20 years after K, Crispian and co. have decided to commemorate that fact by playing the album in its entirety while out on the road. This sounds exciting.

And quite a challenge. Tell us more...

“An anniversary is the only acceptable time to be nostalgic, because where you are in the present is created by the past, and where you are in the present is also your next step into the future, so it’s a nice past, present, future coming together in a single moment,” Mills opens, with a smile. I think I follow... “K was a seminal album for the band, our first record; and that’s the seed for the last 20 years of our work. There is a tradition now of people playing albums – Primal Scream did it with Screamadelica, Carole King is doing Tapestry; I am only thinking as a punter, and I’m up for it, basically.”

It’s a strange thing, Mills admits. When the band started rehearsals for the show, and worked out how they were going to play and present K to the masses, it felt a bit like going into a time warp.

“We’re opening up a time hole, and the past is coming into the future rather than us stepping into the past; I think it’s all about your mentality, and how you approach it,” Mills continues.

We chat about how we like to listen to albums like a body of work, though I admit I do download bits

Crispian Mills Kula Shaker

“The past and the future are all wrapped up in how we experience things.” and pieces rather than whole records today, which is a bit of a shame. But Kula Shaker are going to force their fans to listen to the whole thing, which is great, in my book.

“Yeah, we’ll chain them into their seats,” Mills laughs. “But no, it is great to do that, and remember why you planned that album in such a way. We were influenced by all the great concept albums, so we were very idealistic and ambitious with our first album. It’s somewhere between Pepper and Revolver, so that’s where the aspiration is, I guess. But K wasn’t a song, song, song album; when the curtain comes up, you step into this other world. And that was always our goal.”

Couldn’t K2.0 have come two years after K rather than 20: the feel, the sound, the songs, and so on? It certainly feels like it.

“Yeah, and in some ways it was a conscious thing to do that, because it is the companion piece, and it is like a kind of time travel,” Mills reflects. “But K travels into the future as much as we travel into the past. We prescribed to the circular model of time rather than the linear one; we’re not starting at one point in the past, and just going randomly on this trajectory into god knows where; the past and the future are all wrapped up in how we experience things, and it’s nice to wrap this whole part of our life up in this album.

“K was a pretty hard album to make, as we weren’t an easy band to record. We were defined by our live shows first and fore-

most, and a young, energetic, psychedelic rock and roll pop band.

You don’t just stick us in a room and record – I wish it was like that! With some of the soundscape tracks, we knew what we were doing, and we could build it; but it took us a long time to feel comfortable and natural. Like Hey Dude – that came right at the end of our sessions with [producer] John Leckie. We finally relaxed. Hey Dude is a very light recording, in fact; there are not that many overdubs.”

It’s nice to hear that a record like K was made in a very live fashion. And the same can be said for K2.0, Mills explains: “A lot of it we recorded in a similar way; we knew we had to have live energy, so we all set up in a great studio called State of the Ark [in London]; we used a big old valve analogue EMI 16-track, and that’s where we did all the basic performances. Then we twiddled away in a barn in Belgium to do vocals and stuff. But to get the main protein of the songs - the drums, bass and guitar – it had to be done live.”

It was a busy summer of festivals for Kula Shaker, and they’re currently touring the US, before heading back to the UK in November. Mills seems very happy with how it’s all gone so far: “People have been so positive about the new record; and the K tour has brought a lot of fans who weren’t following us over the last 10 years out again. I think it’s joined up the dots nicely.” www.kulashaker.co.uk

13 Headliner

helps

17.9.2016

The Six Bells, St. Albans.

Last month, Headliner launched its new live music initiative, Headliner Helps, where a string of artists gathered for a day of live music to raise money for Jessie’s Fund – a wonderful charity that helps children with complex needs using the power of music, recognising that it is a brilliant tool for therapy, and aiding the communication of children. What better way to raise cash for such a cause, than with a cracking music festival?

H

eadliner Helps was held within the grounds of The Six Bells in St Albans, an excellent old tavern in the stunning St. Michael’s village area of the city, opposite the historic Verulamium Park. So with the setting being perfect, all that was needed was some top of the range audio and lighting kit, and some excellent musicians. So where to begin? We’re well aware at Headliner that companies in the music biz are inundated with requests for charity events and freebies – and with that in mind, we threw all our manpower at this with guns blazing. If we were going to do it, we were going to do it right, kick it off with a bang, and create a real initiative that people would want to be involved in, and support. And thankfully, they did.

Thanks to our musical friends and partners, we managed to turn a pub car park into, frankly, a mini-festival. Our first call was to our pal Yan Stile at SSE, who, at the drop of a hat, agreed to help us out – in a massive way. We could probably have got by with speakers on sticks, and perhaps a subwoofer per side, but that wasn’t what SSE had in mind.

Instead, they sent us a truck full of kit including a terrific sounding L-Acoustics rig (with ARCS and SB-18 subs), d&b wedges, a DiGiCo SD11i console, a bunch of staging risers, and enough cabling to... Well, to make it all work. It was a sublime gesture, and one we won’t forget in a hurry.

Huge thanks, guys. And another thanks to the guys at Fly

By Nite for helping us lug all this gear down to the venue.

Once we took the gates off the pub entrance (literally), we just about squeezed that touring truck in!

Here’s a conundrum: can you actually fit a 10m x 3m stage into a pub car park? Remarkably, yes, if you get a four-man scaffolding team in to accommodate it at the very last minute(!) Another thanks to the remarkably efficient guys at Conker Nation, and hats off to the name, too, whatever it means.

So with the infrastructure (I use the term loosely...) in place, it was down to our hard-working Headliner team to put it all together, spearheaded by our good friend, Rick Dickerson, who travelled half the country to be with us on the day, and offered his services for free. Armed with a plethora of his trusted DPA microphones, he got to work early morning, grafting to create a great stage setup, alongside long-time roadie and stage manager, and occasional Headliner editorial contributor, Colin Pigott.

As St. Albans’ ancient clock tower chimed 3pm, we

“We created a real initiative that people wanted to support.” kicked off proceedings with the superb Mark Sullivan.

This Hertfordshire-born artist just got back from the US, where he cut his first record with New Jersey-based producer, Steve Greenwell, at Lakehouse Studios in Asbury Park, the hometown of Bruce Springsteen.

And it was quick to see why. As brilliant an opening act as you could ever hope for – and with the most ‘gigged’ pedalboard we’ve ever seen - his huge voice soared beautifully through the DPA d:facto microphone and out of the rig, his effortless guitar playing complementing the vocal perfectly. Mark’s mix of original material and eclectic cover versions had the revellers spellbound from the get go; and a personal favourite had to be his rendition of Clapton’s classic, Layla, a mix of slowhand’s famous unplugged version, with his own wah-infused twist. A treat on the ears.

15 Headliner

Event Headliner Helps

“Can you really fit a 10m x 3m stage into a pub car park?

Remarkably, yes!”

Mark was followed by Roxy Searle, more proof of Hertfordshire’s thriving talent. Another great vocalist, who gave an excellent personal take on Beyoncé’s Crazy In Love and Bon Jovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name, weaving in some great original numbers, too. One to watch, we think.

Next up, Ilona, a Bulgarian-born and now Londonbased singer-songwriter. She has also just returned from the States – Nashville, to be precise – where her latest single has been receiving plenty of US airplay.

Ilona was backed by Tony Moore, one of the most hard working musicians on the circuit. The ex-Iron Maiden and Cutting Crew keyboard player looks after live music at The Bedford in Balham, London, one of the city’s finest musical hubs, and is no stranger to playing (and indeed founding) festivals. This time, Tony picked up the guitar to back Ilona, who opted for a set of original material, and with songs like That’s What a Broken Heart’s For, nobody was complaining. Her ethereal, husky voice also sounded stunning through the d:facto, and her stage presence demanded attention.

By 6pm, the crowd was really digging the whole vibe.

The rain was just about holding off, so in between sets, we decided to grab a few minutes with stage manager, Colin Pigott, who’s busy restringing a certain Headliner editor’s acoustic guitar.

Turn It Up!

“Haven’t done this for a while, mate; SSE have really done us proud,” Pigott splutters, pliers in mouth, and attaching a DPA 4099 to the body of the Epiphone jumbo. “We’ve got some fantastic Lectrosonics wireless radio kit here – I couldn’t believe it when we did a line check, I had to step out front and have a strum in front of the system to hear it in all its glory. Beautiful sound, these 4099s; and you’d never guess this isn’t a wire. I wish we’d have had this kind of kit on tap when I was touring!”

Pigott went on to reveal some hilarious ‘road tales’, one of which involved an incident with a large tub of Vaseline and a team of agricultural students in North Wales; the other, when he removed his own bootlace to create a makeshift guitar strap while said guitarist was playing a solo at a show. The rest, perhaps, should remain unpublished.

As another Hertfordshire trio, ARC, prepared to

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don the stage, we scanned the kit to see no less than three DPA d:factos (what a treat for these singers!), and four rich sounding stage wedges by d&b. The background music alone sounded fantastic through these things, so we can only imagine what a stage sound the artists were getting up there.

We made way for Anja, Cara, and Russell Rodford (ARC is very much a family affair), and dashed to front of house to watch the set alongside Rick Dickerson at his DiGiCo SD11i.

“It’s funny, you know,” opens Dickerson. “DiGiCo is always on my rider for my theatre shows, yet I’ve never used the SD11 before – I know the 7, 8, and the 10 very well, but this is a cracking bit of kit; supercompact, and highly desirable for a show like this. The brain is the same as the other DiGiCo models, and it’s very easy to use. In terms of outboard, I have zero – I’m using the dynamic processing and effects from within the console, and I have to say, I’m astounded at how much power there is in this little desk. You could do any size show with the SD11, so we’re pretty spoilt today, considering this is all acoustic! [laughs, then coughs, then nearly chokes, then shakes his head and repeats process]” Dickerson sticks on some Del Amitri – a band he used to work closely with – allowing just enough time to explain the recording rig to us. I say rig – it’s very well hidden, isn’t it? “[smiles] Yes, we’re using a DiGiCo UB MADI, which is coming out the USB port of the console, and straight into my Mac, which is running Reaper,” Dickerson explains, bringing our attention to the back of the SD11. “It’s the first time I’ve used this unit, but it’s proven to be the ultimate plug and play recording device. So simple, and the quality of audio we’re getting is outstanding. It’s some audio chain!

We should have some lovely recordings to play with, post-show. [smiles]”

ARTISTIC COMMENTS: “This was the first time I didn’t need my Neumann TLM 105 for my vocals; the DPA d:facto was fantastic, and the sound on stage was perfect for me from the word go, and out front when other artists were performing, it was amazing!”

Emma Stevens “There was such a lovely atmosphere, both on and off stage; how could there not be when the money was being raised for such a beautiful charity? And using this kit felt like being allowed to dress up in my mother’s best jewellery as a child!

Cara Rodford, ARC “The clarity out of the DPA d:facto microphone was top class; it gave me full bottom end, and a controlled top end, which isn’t easy to achieve with my vocal sound.”

Mark Sullivan

Event Headliner Helps

H

e’s not wrong – a limited edition vinyl of the best of the festival will be available later in the year; and again, all proceeds will go to Jessie’s Fund. With night starting to fall, ARC were the first group to be illuminated.

Dickerson is a major GLP fan, and has his X4Ls lit up the band with a rather haunting blue wash.

“They’re so powerful, these fixtures; and of the very highest order,” Dickerson says. “I want to get hold of some more GLP kit for the That’ll Be The Day tour I’m on, as they’re really on another level. As sound is really my bag, you could say I’m a relative layman to lighting, but the interface and overall ease of use setting these fixtures up this morning really was superb.

We had them tilting, panning, and dimming in no time - what a difference kit like that makes to an event like this. Fantastic.”

As day meets night, ARC soon win the crowd’s affections, opening with a gorgeous version of Florence + the Machine’s Shake It Up, with a show-stopping a capella intro – brave, under these circumstances, but they nailed it. They follow it up with The Beatles’ You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, and entertain the masses for another 30 minutes, putting a smile on everyone’s face, including ours.

At 7.30pm, it’s time for another St. Albans-based artist, Sinéad Quinn. Sinéad first rose to stardom on the first series of the BBC’s Fame Academy, notching a hit single or two and record deal for her troubles. These days, the Irish songstress keeps herself busy playing in various bands, including the hugely popular folk/rockabilly group, Billington & Quinn.

Sinéad was joined on stage by Stuart Wilkinson, guitarist in David Brent’s band, Foregone Conclusion (seriously). Her set included a very characteristic rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire, and she won instant rapport with the audience with her Irish charms and larger than life singing voice.

The onus was on penultimate performer, Emma Stevens, to keep things going in the latter part of the day, and the folk/pop singer did not disappoint with

“There was such a lovely atmosphere, both on and off the stage.” her lively set of mostly unique originals including Make My Day, which made use of her enchanting voice and ukulele talents. Not to mention a Jackson 5 cover, which she told us she had less than an hour to put together at a previous festival; and her touching version of Elvis’s Can’t Help Falling In Love also got the Headliner seal of approval.

US Artist, Will Hawkins, closed this fantastic show. he also had the longest to travel - 6,000 miles to be precise, from Santa Monica, CA! He’s a seasoned pro, and his country infused singer-songwriting was a delight to behold. Headliner’s editor joined him on stage to end things with a few more numbers - Oasis’ Wonderwall being the appropriate conclusion, as the crowd formed a huge circle, belting out Noel’s famous lyrics in various keys and time signatures. The Six Bells’ landlord was also onside, despite going three encores over the curfew.

As the proverbial curtains came down, an emotional Colin Pigott wrapped things up nicely for us: “Hopefully this will be the start of the Headliner festival,” he said, with a smile. “Stranger things have happened, you know.”

And based on the success of the music, the enjoyment of the attendees, and the enormous amount of money raised for Jessie’s Fund (approximately £3,000), these should turn out to be wise words. Watch this space. www.digico.biz www.glp.de www.dpamicrophones.com www.lectrosonics.com www.sseaudiogroup.com www.jessiesfund.org.uk

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Show Review Alicia Keys

ALICIA KEYS ROUNDHOUSE LONDON A blindingly good pianist with arguably an even better voice, Alicia Keys is worth all of her 15 Grammys, and capable of making any performance look effortless - and that’s exactly what she did at London’s rather intimate feeling Roundhouse on September 20th, venue of the 10th Apple Music Festival (formerly the iTunes Festival), albeit with a dynamic musical twist.

Words Paul Watson Alicia Keys has made sweet sounding music since she started out in this business - can you believe that her debut, Songs in A Minor, is 15 years old?

She’s come a long way since then, but her earliest songs such as Fallin’ and You Don’t Know My Name have become timeless anthems.

We’re used to seeing Alicia sit at her piano while doing her thing, but this show, which included songs from her upcoming record (album number six, which she has cited as “the best music I’ve ever made”) incorporated a DJ and band, including a couple of fantastic and energetic backing singers; it also saw Alicia come out of her musical comfort zone, and interact with the crowd, mic in hand, working the music, and away from the ivories. This was a new Alicia Keys. And it worked.

From the minute the Brooklyn-born songstress took to the stage with a beaming smile, her performance was as natural as her new look and it was wonderfully refreshing; the new music means a new direction of sorts, yet her songs, old and new, manage to sit alongside each other very neatly indeed. New numbers like Back to Life, and the brilliantly thought provoking 28 Thousand Days, blend seamlessly into the set alongside the beautiful R&B ballad, Un-Thinkable (I’m Ready), and epic 2012 anthem, Girl on Fire.

Alicia may have raised an eyebrow or two with her new vibe, but she really showed her worth as an artist tonight, which makes the countdown to her new record’s release date all the more exciting.

Even the older numbers were tweaked to offer that

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little bit more than just the sound of the original compositions: Fallin’ had everyone mesmerised, and Alicia’s voice was something else - she had us in the palm of her hand, and wow, was she believable.

The same can be said for her stunning rendition of one of my personal favourites, Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart. Heartfelt, touching, yet so raw, with its simple yet brilliantly effective breakbeat.

Alicia’s ability to work the crowd in this new light really worked - she showed she can move to the music just like Missy, and as effortlessly as she plays the heartbroken songstress at the piano.

Quite brilliant.

And being the proud New Yorker she is, it came as no surprise that the big city cropped up on more than one occasion, not only in her songs, but her crowd interaction - this girl is all about her roots, and speaks passionately about them. Quite right, too. Tonight, Alicia was indeed on fire, bringing the house down several times over, and to boiling point during Empire State of Mind - a song I was lucky enough to witness her play to a room of 25 people in her hometown a few years ago, just her and a piano; this time around, she did it with a real thumping groove courtesy of her formidable backing band. Nicely mixed, too, Eli, Alicia’s long-time accomplice, and tonight’s excellent front of house engineer.

Just like that intimate show in New York, I won’t forget this night in a hurry. Alicia is back with a serious bang, and I can’t help thinking that Grammy number 16 might not be too far away.

For her live shows, Alicia Keys relies on her trusted JH Audio in-ear monitors. She was one of the first artists ever to switch to JH Audio when Jerry Harvey relaunched his firm back in 2009.

www.audio-technica.com

Interview Donots

DONOTS: THE 1,000 GIG WONDERS German punk rock big leaguers, Donots, have been busy on the festival circuit in their native mutterland, and lead singer, Ingo Knollmann, tells us the typical weather for the festival season is “grey, grey, rain, rain, and more rain!” We chat to the band about the punk scene in Germany and their upcoming 1,000th gig; and also to keyboardist and live engineer, Robin Völkert, about getting the most out of the latest audio technology in the studio and on the road.

Words Adam Protz

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Let’s set the scene: Donots are on their tour bus in the centrally located town Eschwege, en route to play the huge rock festival, Open Flair. The show is going to be very special, the band’s frontman explains, because they’re doing the opening slot.

“Last year we co-headlined the festival, and nobody knew we were on the schedule until yesterday, when they told everybody we’re on the bill,” Knollmann explains, “and we’re going to get to play with Black Flag, which has been on my bucket list for a long time!”

Donots are quite easily the biggest punk band in Germany, but beyond that, they have done the impossible: breaking out of Europe.

For two decades, they’ve been prevalent in the huge punk tours in the States and in the UK. In fact, when Knollmann asks us to ‘name another German band apart from Rammstein’, it’s a bit of a struggle..!

They’ve been doing their thing since 1993, and after supporting the likes of Blink-182 and Anti-Flag, the quintet signed with Sony BMG, although they’ve had even bigger success since going independent.

They’re currently based in the beautiful city of Münster, not far from their home town of Ibbenbüren.

Part of their palatability for the English speaking world is their decision to release music in English, however in 2014, they

marked their 20th anniversary with their first ever single in German: Das Neue bleibt beim Alten (The New Stays Old). They followed the success of the track up with a full length album sung in German, Karacho, but like most international acts, they’ve had to sing in English to reach their broader audience: “Singing in German has only worked for Rammstein because they’re like cartoon characters, like the bad guy Germans in an Indiana Jones movie,” Knollmann says, with a smile. “They’re great guys, by the way, but unlike us, they fool around with being very German, which has obviously been a huge success for them.”

So we wonder what prompted Donots to suddenly release music in German, despite their international reach, and not wanting to be stereotypical Germans?

“Well, when you’re in a band for decades, and if you’re not someone like AC/DC or The Ramones, who invented a style, then to me, it’s sort of obligatory to keep moving on and trying out new stuff,” Knollmann says.

“So one day we were like, ‘hey, why didn’t we ever record songs in German?’ For the anniversary single, we invited Tim McIlrath from Rise Against to join us on the first ever German Donots song. I basically transcribed the lyrics into English gibberish so he could imitate the German language! [laughs]”

Interview Donots

Given they’ve been around so long, it’s perhaps unsurprising that this December, Donots will play their 1,000th show. Nonetheless, it’s a great milestone for them to reach to attest to their longevity.

“Yeah. Well, sort of,” Ingo muses. “Our drummer keeps a list of all the shows we’ve played, but at least 10 or 20 have fallen through, so it’s hard to say exactly. But you have to do an official show, so it will be the circa 1,000th show! [smiles] It’s cool because the venue we’re holding it at, we play around every two years, and the shows normally sell out at 6,500 people, which is a very big deal for us. And, of course, this time it will be even more special.”

MAKING SOUND DECISIONS Donot’s engineer and touring instrumentalist, Robin Völkert, has helped to enhance the band’s sound using RME’s audio interfaces, both in the studio and in concert.

“Last year, when we built our studio, we acquired three OctaMic XTCs, eight channel preamps with MADI connection, and the new MADIface,” Völkert reveals. “We have 24 channels when we rehearse, with drums, samplers, guitars, keyboards, and vocals, so we need the RME software to monitor everything for us.

“I once tried it with a Lemur interface to control the mix, but it didn’t work right out of the box – it was a little complicated to set up. Now we do

all the recording with just RME equipment, and we’re totally happy with it.”

It’s a similar story when the boys are on the road, Völkert continues: “For the live shows, we use an iBook with a Fireface 800, with Ableton for the MIDI controlling,” he states. “And wherever we are, the RME software has made everything so much smoother for us; it’s our absolute go-to, and makes workflow nice and easy.”

And what does the future hold for Donots?

“Well, it’s been 20 years already, but because we just switched to German lyrics, everything feels so brand new,” Völkert admits. “For me personally, I could go on for another 20 years, for another 1,000 shows, but only if we’re staying creative, and we remain friends. I don’t take it for granted that I get to pay the bills using money from the band; I’d just hate to ever feel like I’m on tour because I have to be. I hope we’ll make, say, five to 10 more records and see what happens. We’re not the type of band that has any five-year plans!”

Before we part ways, Völkert tells us that for some reason, the UK market has always been the toughest market to break for the band. On that note, UK readers, make sure you listen to Donots, and then show them some love afterwards.

Headliner certainly wishes them well in getting to 1,000 shows, and hopefully many more. www.rme-audio.com www.donots.com

“Singing in German has only worked for Rammstein because they’re like cartoon characters, like the bad guy Germans in an Indiana Jones movie.”

21 Headliner

Mixing On Location

PLANES, TRAINS & ROMAN REMAINS Words Paul Watson

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Three mixes, three bizarre locations, one set of headphones.

Intrigued? You should be! Welcome to the first part in this mix session series, where we descend on a 1,000-year-old pub full of loud punters and the odd slobbering dog (strictly in the animal sense, we should add), armed with a MacBook, and a pair of Audio-Technica ATH-M70xs.

Because we at Headliner support the creative community, we decided to get a little creative ourselves this issue. We’ve carried out a little experiment that we think might help bedroom producers on a budget, who don’t have the room to bring in their favourite studio monitors, to see if it’s actually feasible to mix a master using only headphones as reference. Think of it as a project studio at its very barest - a MacBook and a pair of headphones!

Now don’t get us wrong - it’s ludicrous to suggest people don’t need studio monitors. Of course they do; they’re the bread and butter of any recording facility.

But we’re going to test a particular set of headphones out to see if the accuracy of sound reproduction and overall dynamic range cuts the mustard; we’ll see how easy (or not) is it to mix at low levels, and find out if and when fatigue becomes an issue when you’re tweaking frequencies and levels for hours on end. For this test, we’ve got the stems from our recent ‘Headliner Helps’ show, which was recorded onto Reaper at 48kHz, using a DiGiCo UB MADI, straight out of an SD11 console. Mics on stage were by DPA (d:facto), and we had BSS DIs on the acoustic guitars. The

Mixing On Location

“I then realise how loud these headphones can go; the pub dogs begin to bark, and as I turn the volume dial, they soon look like they’re miming...”

headphones: Audio-Technica’s flagship M70x.

To make it more challenging, we’re going to do this in three different environments: 30,000 feet in the air; on a bustling train; and on the site of a roman burial ground! We’re then going to send the mixes to Shaun Lowe, who owns Prism Studios in Stoke, to see what he thinks, before Barry Grint, at London’s Alchemy Mastering, cuts us a master. When that’s done, we’ll put the tracks out, donating all proceeds to Jessie’s Fund.

In The Pub This issue, we’re going to concentrate on the ‘Roman Remains Mix’. I arrive at The Six Bells, an ancient tavern dating back 1,000 years, located in the heart of St. Albans. It was also the location of our first ‘Headliner Helps’ event, where we raised £3,000 for our chosen charity, Jessie’s Fund Armed with my MacBook, an RME Babyface Pro USB audio interface, and my A-T M70x cans, I spot a table in the corner, and get to work. The place is very busy, which is what I want, to see how much of a distraction it becomes, and whether it affects my mix.

It takes minutes to set up the Babyface Pro; I download the latest drivers, restart the MacBook, and I’m off. I’m a fan of Reaper, too, and it talks to the Babyface Pro seamlessly, plus I get to grips quickly with RME’s TotalMix software. I know this unit is way more than a headphone amp(!) but for this experiment, that’s what it is.

I find the ATH-M70xs very comfortable, and I am always in favour of closed back

headphones, so I’m happy right away. I also like that there are several lengths of cable to choose from; I select the shortest, mainly because there are a number of big dogs in this pub, several of which are off the lead, and capable of pulling me off my chair.

Today, I’m mixing Mark Sullivan, who opened our show. It’s a pretty compressed guitar sound from the off, which was down to Mark’s live setup – he plugged into his Marshall acoustic amp, and utilised a pedal board full of effects and comps. I decide it needa to be a little warmer, so bring up my Waves OneKnob Phatter plugin, which does what it says on the tin - instantly better. I then realise how loud these headphones can go without being painful: the pub dogs begin to bark, and as I turn the volume dial, they quickly look like they’re miming. Perfect.

The nature of live means it’s a little up and down at times in terms of level; I pull up the Waves dbx 160 – a comp I swore by in my studio in hardware format – it works identically, and with a couple of tweaks, I level the guitar out. It’s still sounding a little muddy, however - too much body - so I decide to pull up the Waves H EQ, find a default acoustic guitar setting, then give it a little boost between 1k and 2k, before rolling off a little low end. Better.

Next, I decide a touch of reverb wouldn’t go amiss, so I bring up the Waves H-Reverb, and immediately get carried away. It’s remarkable how this instantly opens the whole sound up, and the M-70s are now giving me a hell of a stereo image. I eventually settle at a reverb time of 1.55 seconds, and concede that as the show

wasn’t held at Wembley, the ‘wet’ level should come down to nearer 20% than 40(!)

Mark’s vocal is pretty tough to work with; it’s a great tone, full of dynamics, but he pulls away from the mic when he belts it. He’s got a bit of a Nirvana/Pearl Jam thing going on, so I use the doubler on the Waves Greg Wells VoiceCentric plugin, and bring up a C6, one of my favourites, to add depth and warmth. I’ve got the vocal cutting through, and adding the [Waves] Abbey Road reverb plate sounds amazing. I’ve got a great sonic picture building up, and the verbs sound pure through these M70xs, particularly in the high frequencies, an area I have often found tricky to regulate on headphones. Working in the box means I can’t get hands-on, but that vocal is crying out for some help; I bring up the Waves Vocal Rider, and almost instantly, I have the plugin riding Mark’s voice perfectly. Amazing.

Finally, I drop a Waves L2 onto the master track, to give it that extra bit of gusto; I feel it does the trick, and I’ve got a mix. I then realise that these cans have really separated me from the goings on around me - aside from the odd slobbery approach from the landlord’s Goldendoodle, of course. I decide to drop the volume down a little, realising I have been mixing loud; and actually, it still feels truly ‘closed’. I can still lose myself in the mix, no bother.

The Verdict..!

I export the file, pop it on a WeTransfer to Shaun Lowe at Prism Studios, and await his response.

Two days later, Shaun gives me a call, and this is what he has to say: “Firstly, I have to say I think it’s a great song, so nice one, Mark! Then let’s have a look at each part of the mix: the tone of the voice and the guitar, I like a lot - if I’m being honest, there is a little too much reverb for me, but this is really something to taste, I guess. But overall, it feels warm, rich, and it’s a great job well done. Now I would really love to give these [ATH-M70x] headphones a listen to see how it all fits together through them.”

I have to say, I’m pretty happy with that! Shaun doesn’t mince his words, and if it’s just a bit of reverb that’s got his goat, so be it! Let’s see what he makes of next issue’s track, which I will be mixing on a rush hour train, without the luxury of a powerful audio interface..! www.audio-technica.co.uk

23 Headliner

Music Production Salar Ansari

SALAR ANSARI: FOOD FOR THOUGHT We catch up with New Yorker, Salar Ansari, about his musical life in Detroit: Eminem sessions with Luis Resto; out of date, sour tasting yoghurt, sourced from an old market; and the importance of plugins and a solid Ethernet connection.

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At the time of writing this, Salar Ansari is busy recording a four-piece band in Detroit. It’s a classic ‘stay late in the studio, go home, come back and do it all again’, he tells us. A day in the life of a hard working studio guy then, right?

“Yeah, pretty much! But some of the plugins I use have made my life a lot easier,” Ansari smiles, adding that he has been a Waves user for over five years now.

“The studio where I started working is [long-time Eminem collaborator] Luis Resto’s studio. Besides the fact that we use Waves plugins a lot, we also have a DiGiGrid DLS. It’s great, as we use one Ethernet cable for dialling into the patch bay. We have the main computer that has I/O, and a DiGiGrid, so we connect my laptop via Ethernet to the DiGiGrid, and suddenly it dials into the entire studio. And that is one of the best things I have witnessed in music technology in the past five years.”

DiGiGrid is a rock solid system, and workflow is more flexible as a result, Ansari says. How so, exactly?

“Well, first of all, having a long single cord or wire that connects to an Ethernet port is fantastic; and then suddenly you have all the ins and outs and plugin

capabilities, plus the ability to use the [Waves] SoundGrid application,” he enthuses. “Then you’ve got all the pre-amps, the rack-mounts, the compressors, and all the other outboard gear, all through one Ethernet connection; it’s revolutionised everything, and I have complete faith in it. I now have 16 individual channels going to my Pro Tools rig, and it has made combining my whole studio and Luis’ studio totally seamless.”

Much of Ansari’s day to day work is in cahoots with Resto; when he’s not there, he’s at his own studio – and always using DiGiGrid.

“When I say my home studio, that’s really my laptop [smiles]. I have a lot of keyboards, I write a song, I take it to Luis’ studio, and then dial into his computer via Ethernet anything up to 16 channels. There is no hard drive to move things to or import and export to, and I don’t need to worry about converters either. Amazing.”

8 Miles Ahead of the Curve Resto works a lot with Eminem, Ansari tells us, and he often joins him in these sessions.

“All I know is, it’s very little mix down, and a lot of composition work; Luis is making the tracks, and he has

Music Production Salar Ansari

“Digigrid is one of the best things I’ve witnessed in music technology in the last five years.” this amazing ability to turn your humming into notes,” Ansari laughs. “They are working on some music now, and there are specifics that Marshall [Mathers, aka Eminem] likes Luis specifically to do; they’ve had a connection for some years now.

Luis wrote his biggest song, too, Lose Yourself – the soundtrack to the movie 8 Mile. So he is kind of ‘the piano man’, you know?”

How Ansari and Resto met is quite the story. It involved techno music, and out of date yoghurt...

“I moved to Detroit as I had a working relationship with techno pioneer, Derrick May; techno comes from Detroit, and in 1987, Derrick May turned it into this form of music; I came here to expand my knowledge of the music a little more, and also be able to study the actual scene that everyone was involved in. ” Ansari says. “I also used to buy yoghurt from Detroit’s Eastern Market, which dates back to 1887. Luis has a studio on the third floor of one of the buildings there, and basically, the owner of the Market was intrigued that I bought the yoghurt past its shelf time – I liked that it got sour, and he couldn’t understand why. We got talking, I told him what I did, and he introduced me to Luis, who asked me why I was in Detroit, and then I just kind of became his studio guy!”

Bizarre..! Ansari still works with Derrick May, though he estimates his studio work is a 65/35 mix in Resto’s favour. Anything acoustic with real

instruments, it’s Resto; anything else, it’s May. Conversation turns back from out of date goods to technology, and Ansari’s go-to plugins.

“I use the Waves Mercury bundle, I love them all, but I probably use 10 or so very regularly,” he explains. “The H Delay is an absolute go-to; that’s my favourite software delay, as I love tape delays in general, and it has that type of recreation that’s so suitable to the ear; also, having the lo-fi option, and being able to adjust the background noise of your analogue equipment is fantastic – it adds a real analogue vibe to my recordings, which I love.

“I also love the APIs – the API 560 graphic EQ is always my plugin of choice if I have to mess around with a drum element, or drag something out of the sound, or even enhance a separate frequency and drop certain sounds.

This plugin was passed down to me by my mentors, so if I go to the studio, immediately that’s where the drums go. It’s about drum equalising. Oh, and I use the gate, too.

“I put the [CLA] Unplugged plugin on any keyboard kind of sounds, and various instruments. I love the colouration and the sealing it provides, and you can tweak the tonality, add a bit of compression, with some beautiful reverbs and delay, too; it’s the perfect box to bring some moisture to your sound. I am also a big fan of the Q EQs, and those Waves GTR plugins I use a lot; they give me a series of sweet sounding

effects to take a synth sound somewhere else using pedals effects. Very cool.”

It’s not all about production, though, he says: “They also add a lot to my mixes. The [Waves] Vocal Doubler plugin is great when you don’t have enough layers for your vocals, and you want to create more; it’s very useful at mix stage.

“For me, it’s a lot about sound development, production, and fascination with sound. My process of production has a huge influence on the process of the mix down; you have to discover new boundaries in sound, so sometimes you have to produce it to make it happen.”

You also liken music to food, right? “[laughs] Yes! Food that is cooked in a big pot will never taste the same as food cooked in a small pot, and audio equipment applies the same way. Sometimes musicians walk into a specific room with a specific kind of technology, and it helps with the personality, so pro music recording shouldn’t ever leave the scene quietly, even though production and consumption in today’s world is very digital, and all in one box. Big studios are necessary for big experiences.” www.digigrid.net www.waves.com www.glp.de www.ironmaiden.com

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Review David Brent

DAVID BRENT: LIFE ON THE ROAD David Brent is a former manager at Wernham Hogg paper merchants (although he described his role there as more of a ‘chilled out entertainer’), and gave us glimpses of his musical talent during an office training day, when his place of work was the subject of what turned out to be a rather controversial documentary back in 2001.

“It was a stitch-up,” Brent has since said of the whole ordeal, claiming that he was deliberately put across in a negative light, and that they ‘left out all the good bits’. And he’s carried that weight ever since.

However, 15 years on, Brent is back, and has gone a step further: he’s put version two of his band, Foregone Conclusion, back together, and he’s self-funded a tour spanning almost half of Berkshire, performing songs from his debut album, Life on the Road. And better still, he’s documented it all in a touching (and at times jaw dropping) rockumentary of the same name, which showcases many of the tracks from the record, as well as backstage footage of the band on the road, an insight into Brent’s personal life, and an awkward moment with a dead bee.

In Life on the Road, Brent brings us a collection of thought provoking, listenable rock music. But is it worthy of helping the man leave the 9-5 behind? The answer is a resounding yes, and not least because of Brent’s willingness to tackle many controversial issues head on.

Although Brent’s current day job as a travelling salesman at Lavichem mostly involves repping ladies hygiene products in and around the Reading area, don’t be fooled into thinking this artist isn’t a well travelled rock and roller.

The opening lines of the album [from Ooh La La] confirm this: ‘Sold my shack in Memphis, bought me a Chevrolet / six-string in the back and a bottle of Jack, and I headed down to 26 Headliner

“This goes beyond being a great album – it serves as inspiration for office employees the world over.”

Mexico way’. Who’d have thought it?

Next up is Native American, where Brent does what few musicians would have the courage to do: put themselves in the shoes of a much maligned people. When he sings, ‘oooh, don’t call us Indians / we’re more like west Eurasians mixed with Siberians’, it’s clear that he has taken the time to get to grips with a very complex issue, albeit with a little help from Wikipedia.

Lonely Cowboy is the first track on the album to feature Brent’s bandmate and rapper, Dom Johnson, who proves he shares his frontman’s sense of poetry when he raps, ‘damage a hyena, vultures and all / don’t think I won’t kick a wolf in the balls’.

Freelove Freeway is one of the songs we got a preview of in singer-songwriter format in Brent’s first documentary – and Headliner is pleased to inform you that it has blossomed into a full and brilliant rock song with tasteful country influences. Just a handful of songs in, and it’s becoming clear that Brent’s Slough heritage doesn’t hold him back from utilising genres from across the Atlantic.

Brent has already been heard in his television appearance defending Slough against John

Betjeman’s poem about the town in which the poet wrote, ‘come friendly bombs, and fall on Slough!’ Here, he goes one further and dedicates a moving ballad, simply titled Slough, to the town that is ‘equidistant between London and Reading’. We haven’t been to Slough, but the power of this music has left us wanting to pay a visit as soon as possible.

Titular track, Life on the Road, gives the humble listener a chance to experience what the rock and roll touring lifestyle is like through Brent’s music: ‘then to Gloucester, I get a Costa / hard shoulder, coffee holder’. These are the kind of raw and real lyrics that separate Foregone Conclusion from other bands.

The album becomes increasingly vital as Brent uses his bravery to stand up against two more contemporary issues – in Please Don’t Make Fun of the Disableds, we’re warned we could be fired from our jobs if we don’t heed his worldly advice; and then on Equality Street, where Dom Johnson lends his talents as a wordsmith once more, proclaiming, ‘I’m like John Lennon, except I do imagine there’s a heaven’, Brent makes the switch to reggae seamlessly; you momentarily forget he’s a white, middle-aged man from Berkshire.

Life on the Road ends with Electricity, which features Chris Martin of Coldplay. It’s little wonder that the Fix You singer would want to be involved in this project, which could be a pivotal moment for contemporary music.

But it goes beyond being a great album – it serves as inspiration for office employees the world over. If we could all just adopt Brent’s philosophy of being a friend first, a boss second, and probably an entertainer third, then perhaps we could finally eradicate evils like racism and mistreatment of the disableds at long last. #BrentsBack

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Billy Bragg

Shine A Light

Billy Bragg is Britain’s ultimate musical activist. The political singer-songwriter has penned protest songs, punk songs, folk songs, and plenty more for nigh on 40 years, and has never been afraid to speak his mind. It’s the beauty of what he’s all about; if only more of today’s artists could be encouraged

to wear their musical hearts as proudly as he does on their sleeves.

Back in March, Bragg embarked on a new project. He boarded an LA-bound train at Chicago’s Union Station with long-time pal and producer,Joe Henry, in a bid to reconnect with the culture of American railroad travel, and the

music it inspired. During their 2,728-mile journey, which lasted four days, the pair recorded a dozen classic railroad songs, which culminated in a rather magical album, Shine A Light, which was released in September. Headliner is extremely intrigued...

Cover Story Billy Bragg

“I’ve known Joe Henry since the 1980s, and we’ve been good pals since; he produced my last album in his basement, and that sparked me on to trying to do a project where we could do a gig together; I know he has made his name as a producer, but he really makes brilliant records, too,” opens Bragg. He’s right, Henry’s voice is really something to behold. I ask Bragg to break down the Shine A Light project for me. “It was exciting; every time the train stopped in a major city for more than 10 minutes, we had to get off, do a track’s recording, and keep an eye on the train so we didn’t get left behind.”

The album was recorded digitally, using two pairs of high-end mics, and Henry brought his studio engineer with him, Ryan Freeland, who Bragg said did a great job by just walking in, and sussing out where the best spot would be to work.

“We would always try to get into the waiting rooms of the railway stations, as they were built over 100 years ago, so they had nice tiled walls, and great acoustics; but sometimes it was simply trying to find any spot where we could set up and play,” he recalls, with a smile. “Occasionally, we could get in there and have a couple of run throughs, but then at other times it wasn’t possible to get into the body of the railway station, as the platform was so far away, and we’d have been out of sight [of the train].”

In St. Louis, they found themselves recording under a footbridge, which provided a unique acoustic, whereas in Fort Werth, TX, they were next to the train on the platform, right out in the open. A bit of a mixed bag, then?

“Yeah, you could say that! You can hear a few birds in the background on that recording – grackles, as they’re called; a noisy bird in North Texas,” Bragg smiles.

“But we wanted the ambience of the trip to come out on the record; we wanted people to come on the journey with us. So we didn’t mind a bit of extraneous noise.”

The simplicity of the material, and the way the pair recorded it, really comes over on the album. And it sounds stunning.

One track I can’t stop playing is Gentle On My Mind; Henry’s vocals are spinetingling, and remarkably believable; and Bragg provides the rich low end, singing an octave below, complementing it beautifully. Amazingly, this one was “thrown in at the last minute,” Bragg tells me:

“We both realised we knew the words [to Gentle On My Mind], and it came out of nowhere; we also realised in the singing of it that the narrative is spoken by a guy in a hobo jungle in a train yard, so it was very fitting for this project.”

Beautiful is what it is, as is the rest of the record. So how did the passengers react to two guys with guitars on their backs jumping off and making music every time the train stopped?

“The build up of frustration that propels people onto the stage is no longer really there.”

“Well, the people on the train are part of that whole travelling circus with you; you sit down with them at dinner, they ask you what you’re doing, and a lot of them are getting off for a smoke at the stops, so they watch us,” Bragg says, painting quite the picture. “The crew changed several times, but they were quite supportive; they gave us a fair crack of the whip. We were on our toes, one eye on the train to make sure we didn’t miss the ‘all aboard!’”

As we chat a little more about the record, I begin to realise that Billy Bragg is a remarkably modest bloke, who doesn’t even really profess to be that great a singer; but I honestly can’t say enough about what he and Henry have captured on Shine A Light: from the opening ‘choooooo’ that kicks proceedings off before Rock Island Line, to the storytelling

Railroad Bill with its gorgeous ‘50s chord changes, to Bragg’s finest vocal performance on the record, Waiting For a Train where he – wait for it – yodels!

And bloody well, too. Other gems include Hobo’s Lullaby, Gordon Lightfoot’s Early Morning Rain, and, of course, that one they just threw in.

Currently out touring the record in the US, the UK tour kicks off in November, and will include a show in London’s beautiful Union Chapel. I was also one of the 75 lucky people that saw the guys perform at the super-intimate St Pancras Old Church, which was something I won’t ever forget.

Speaking Out Conversation turns to Bragg’s music versus writers of today: are the new generation afraid to speak their minds, hence why there are less protest artists out there today? Yes, and no, Bragg decides: “I do know what you mean, but I think it’s something else that’s made that change. In the 20th century, music was really the only social medium we had available to us, so it had to do everything: it had to communicate to each other, tell us what clothes to wear, say something about our identity, particularly by the albums we carried under our arms, and so on.

“When I was 19, if I wanted to say something about the world, there was only one medium available to me: learn to play the guitar, learn songs, and play gigs. Now if I am angry about the world, I can make a film, edit it on my phone, and put that out there. There are so many more ways of expressing your anger today, so the build up of frustration that propels people onto

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Cover Story Billy Bragg

“It’s not people’s attention that have changed, it’s the role that music plays in talking about the world.” the stage is no longer really there; and I don’t think people are looking to music to give them that information anymore.”

Bragg speaks fondly about Woody Guthrie, how when Guthrie was playing in the 1930s, he was taking the news from Oklahoma and bringing it to California, and then taking the news from California and bringing it to New York, as that information wasn’t in the mainstream media at the time; and how pop music was much more underground then, a more alternative culture, with its own way of spreading information around. It’s an interesting point, for sure.

“There were secret places that we met, like John Peel, where our parents didn’t go; now, teenagers are as likely to be listening to the same music as their parents,” Bragg explains. “So it’s not people’s attitudes that have changed, it’s the role that music plays in talking about the world. Music has gone back to being about entertainment, which is how it was before rock and roll and skiffle changed all that in the 1950s.

I think people still are angry; look at the Brexit reaction. But the idea of music having that vanguard role, the place everybody goes to talk and listen – no.

“There used to be angry people wanting to take on the world using music, now you can do that all on your own soap box on Twitter. But here’s the catch: nobody is ever going to ask you to tour America reading out your tweets. So that’s the reason you should learn to play guitar; people still want that communion, and more people than ever are going to gigs, festivals in particular, because they want that feeling of coming together. Music is a great way to get that feeling that you’re part of something bigger – you can’t get that on the Internet.”

Staying on the subject of the Internet, I ask Bragg to tell me about all the radio shows he put together for Spotify, and what he feels about the state of music streaming on the whole.

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“Spotify wanted me to do some playlists, so I asked if I could record some intros; it seems to me if you’re putting out a playlist, you need to tell people why you love those songs,” Bragg says. “I’m not against streaming, it’s where people go to listen to music; and we have got to recognise that, and we have got to build on that, and get artists a better deal.

“Most people have still got digital age contracts, or the contracts that the record labels offer bands are based on the old digital model of production and distribution. The old analogue model.

They’ve not taken on board that we’re now in a digital age. It was okay for the record company to take 85%, because they had to physically make the product, get it to the shops around the world, and get the money, and bring it back to you; now, none of that is necessary, you can do it yourself, so the idea of only paying a band 15% on a record deal is frankly outrageous. It’s when we move to 50/50 or better that people will start making money out of streaming, and it’ll balance again.”

“Music is a great way to get that feeling that you’re part of something bigger.” #SaveLiveMusic Live music is also a major problem, of course, with venues shutting not only across the UK, but all over the world. So it’s a double-edged sword we’re dealing with here, isn’t it?

“It is. Firstly, venues are crucial for young bands. What it seems to me has happened is, since the digitisation of music, middling sort of artists that could make a living never playing massive gigs - someone like myself - seems to have completely disappeared,” Bragg explains.

“I am fortunate that I had an audience before digitisation, and they’ve remained with me; but to be a new band in the 21st century seems to have fallen away, making a reasonable living out of playing music.

And that is partly to do with venues.

People still want to go to gigs, live music is still a very viable scene around the world, but obviously if there aren’t small or medium sized venues, it makes it all the more difficult.”

Which brings me onto The Carnabys – also covered in this issue. The band are making a stand through their #savelivemusic campaign, which Bragg is fully behind. In a nutshell, The Carnabys are donating all proceeds from their debut album to the Music Venue Trust, in a bid to put money back into existing live venues, to prevent them from closing their doors. Hats off, boys.

“Absolutely. I want to support The Carnabys for standing up and speaking, as I think young bands should be encouraged to do that,” Bragg says. “People say you shouldn’t talk out, as it’s bad for your career; well, you know, it’s never been bad for my career! I live on a beach, and I’ve spoken out all my life! People have a go at me for my nice house, and I say, ‘well, this is proof that you can talk about politics and still make a living and still resonate with people.’

“And I’m hoping that The Carnabys will be encouraged by this, and get support from the community, that young bands will see that expressing their solidarity around this is the right thing to do – and the punters, too, who want to come to these gigs. I think it’s a very positive initiative, and more power to The Carnabys to stand up and be counted.”

On that note, I decide I should start researching some of the origins of these beautiful numbers he and Joe Henry put together on Shine A Light. I suggest you take a listen, and try and catch the guys at one of their UK dates. This is the first tour ever that Bragg hasn’t taken his electric guitar out on, which says something about the intimacy of the shows they’ll be playing; and after witnessing them up close and very personal in St Pancras Old Church, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

www.billybragg.co.uk

Cover Story Billy Bragg

10 MINUTES WITH

JOE HENRY What were the Shine A Light highlights for you, and what made you do it in the first place?

The idea came from Billy, and I believe it would have had to come from someone outside of the USA, who has an aerial view of cultural mythology, and how it is still working on us. The impulse to record in motion was to make a record not about the railroad, but of the railroad; to take listeners on a journey rather than presenting a collection of studio songs created in a vacuum. It’s the process that was most interesting to us, leaving our personas aside as much as possible so that we might disappear into the songs, which do not live in static antiquity, but are standing in invitation, offering real-time engagement. We wanted to reclaim the poetic authority of the mythology.

Can you take us through the recording process?

As the producer of the record (it was Billy’s desire that I be), I invited my engineer, Ryan Freeland, along, with whom I have almost exclusively worked for more than a decade, save a project here and there; and it gave him the opportunity to design a rig he has been scheming for quite some time. Ryan believes in being mobile as a recording artist, and in adapting to whatever the music’s unique circumstances invite; thus, he had - within a single briefcase on wheels - a laptop with Pro Tools, four channels of Apogee interface, and four mic pres. The good people of AEA microphones in Pasadena, with whom we have been friendly for years, loaned us four prototype phantom-powered ribbon mics; and Ry designed a mount

that allowed him to configure all of them upon a single stand: one mic on both my guitar and vocals, the same for Billy; and then a pair of mics dedicated to ambient sound in the stations and on platforms.

As we approached any given station, Billy and I would rehearse the song we were to record, and Ryan assembled his rig, allowing us to spring off at a stop, hit a few takes of the song, and jump back on board before the doors closed on us.

You produced Billy’s last record, and you obviously have a really strong working relationship with him, and similar music tastes. How important is that from a production standpoint: to actually be a fan of the artist’s material?

Billy and I have been friends for going on 30 years. We met in New York in 1988, when my wife was an international publicist for Warner Bros. Records, and was organising interviews for him. I had been a great fan of his work, and came up to meet him in the office one late afternoon. Somehow, we began talking about Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, and we’ve never stopped talking about it. Of course, we learned we both were devoted to Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly, and an easy and lasting friendship formed.

How do you spend your musical time, so to speak?

It changes all the time. There are periods when producing for others takes up the lion’s share of my time; and then I might find some breathing room where I can afford to disappear into my own work that I do for myself as a songwriter and record maker, and as a performer.

But it is also true that the more I work, the less distinction I see in the two sides of my occupation. I think less about whether I am playing at being an artist or someone’s producer, and see it all as a single impulse: to make something meaningful come out of a pair of speakers, period. Regardless of whose voice it is, whose song it is.

And how have the shows with Billy been going so far?

Bill and I are early into the touring life of this project, but it has been terrifically satisfying thus far, and we are going much deeper into these songs in live performance. We open and close the shows with blocks of songs from this album, along with a few others we just want to play together, and as well, we’re each doing a five- or six-song block of our own songs in solo somewhere over the course of the evening. We want to represent the album and observe it as a contexting frame, but we aren’t going to be limited by it.

Finally, Joe, how do you find our audiences compare to yours in the US? Thus far, we have only played to promo gigs in the UK - in Edinburgh and in London - and only a handful in America, so.... I’ll have to get back to you! But I will say that thus far, audiences on both sides of the ocean have met us halfway; they have really gotten the concept, and seem enthralled by it. The audiences have responded to the songs, as we’d hoped, as living things, not artefacts; and as long as they do, the songs can go anywhere - and take us with them.

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THE CARNABYS: #SAVELIVEMUSIC

The music world has gone mad. Streaming has now replaced downloads, which in turn replaced CDs, which once replaced cassettes, which ultimately replaced vinyl (still with us?). As a result, it’s become nigh on impossible for artists to make any money out of recorded music. Granted, this isn’t ‘new news’ as such; everyone knows this is happening, the world over. However, aspiring musicians have a bigger problem on their hands these days, as it’s becoming harder and harder to find live venues to play at, because they’re all closing down. Why? Various reasons – some more jaw-dropping than others – but The Carnabys are set to put a stop to this with their new initiative, #savelivemusic. And we’re getting right behind it. We caught up with the band’s frontman, Jack Mercer, to find out more.

It’s a warm Thursday night in London, and The Carnabys have just launched their debut album, Too Much, Never Enough, in style, playing it to a capacity crowd at London’s legendary – and thankfully, air-conditioned - 100 Club.

The record is top notch, filled with great songs and musicality, but it’s this band’s live sound that really impresses. It’s high octane, melodic, raw, glorious rock and roll; a kind of modern day Ocean Colour Scene with a dollop of The Jam (no pun intended), and a smidgen of punk, and you’re getting close.

Watching them do their thing – very well, we might add – is a pleasure to behold.

Which makes it all the more frustrating

that so many of these types of live music venues are disappearing. London has already lost the Astoria, the 12 Bar, the Marquee – the list is sad and long - and it’s not just the capital where it’s happening; Leeds’ iconic Cockpit just closed its doors – a venue The Carnabys were looking forward to playing – and many cities nationwide are seeing a similar trend. The band’s lead vocalist, Jack Mercer, puts it in black and white for us: “In the last eight years, one third of the UK’s live music venues have closed, and they haven’t been replaced.”

Pretty shocking statistics. So in a bid to battle the problem, The Carnabys are pulling a big punch: donating all proceeds

#SaveLiveMusic The Carnabys

“The money will go towards keeping all current venues that are alive, thriving.” from Too Much, Never Enough to the Music Venue Trust, to help keep live venues alive in Britain. We doff our hats, gentlemen.

“Instead of opening new venues, the money will go towards keeping all current venues that are alive, thriving,” Mercer enthuses. “Be it new kit, or fucking lawyer fees; the reason venues are closing down is just stupid: not being able to pay a [legal] fee to argue with a neighbour who’s complained about the noise, so the venue gets closed down, is just one ridiculous example.

That’s the reason we’re putting our proceeds towards the Music Venue Trust.”

Ridiculous, indeed. And on an equally depressing note, unless you’re an Ed Sheeran or Adele, you can’t feasibly make a career selling records anyway.

“Yeah, exactly, to the point where we thought, ‘If we were signed to a label, we wouldn’t see any money from record sales anyway’,” Mercer laughs, somewhat ironically, we sense. “Bands like us need places to play, and the reason we have had The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Ed Sheeran, and Adele, is because they had grass roots venues to play in when they were breaking onto the scene. We just don’t have them anymore.”

Some of you may raise an eyebrow at Mercer’s mention of Adele in that statement, however, he’s right; our friends The Maccabees, recently spoke out about the closure of grass roots venues in and around the UK, recalling a certain gig they played at Hertford’s Marquee club (now closed, of course) where a then unknown singer called Adele opened up for them.

The 100 Club is also one of the endangered, which is part of the reason The Carnabys chose the venue for this showcase. 100 Club owner, Mark Davis, knows the Music Venue Trust very well, and is getting behind #savelivemusic in a big way. The five-piece have some big name fans, too: our cover star, Billy Bragg, and Steve Cradock are both backing their bold initiative. I ask Mercer how that came about.

“We just wouldn’t leave them alone,” he admits, laughing. “We met Billy [Bragg] at Camden Rocks, and we got in touch with his manager, and had a chat about the state of live music venues; and coming from such an activist, he thought what we were doing was great. Steve Cradock we’ve known for a long time – we met him in a pub in Devon that we play music in. We played a Led Zeppelin track together on stage; that’s how we met him!”

And the musical circle gets more vicious, still; Mercer points out a

fundamental problem in today’s game: sustainability (or lack of ): “The thing is, we need to sell loads of tickets to have a decent career, but in order to do that, we need a load of album sales to get in the charts. From an agent’s point of view, we don’t get major gigs or support slots unless we have had a glimmer of hope on Radio 1 or Radio 6; you need a chart position to get the gigs, but no-one buys records anymore, so how do you get in the charts unless you’re Drake?”

That’s the million dollar question. The Carnabys’ debut came out on preorder in April, so all that money has already gone to the Music Venue Trust, and now it’s available on CD and download; vinyl will follow, but being an independent band, it’s very expensive to do. And what about streaming?

“Well, if you listen to one of our tracks on Spotify, we earn 0.0043 dollars from that one listen. And that’s last year’s figure, so it will have dropped even more,” Mercer says, with more than a hint of frustration. Thank God for sync deals, then, eh? “[laughs] Yeah! Actually, our first single, Elizabeth, is on Topshop playlists across the UK, which is great. So every play, we’ll get something; we’re going to get people to Shazam it to spread the word!”

There’s something effortlessly charming about Mercer and his band members – no airs or graces in any shape or form, and no bullshit; what you see (and hear) is what you get, and we like it. A lot. And this is a bunch of lads whose attitude and hard work has led to a main stage slot at Isle of Wight Festival, we should add. Before we leave, there’s just enough time to highlight yet another major flaw in the industry: credits.

“You get artists like Rihanna and [ Justin] Bieber, and if you listen via streaming, you don’t see who’s writing the song,” Mercer sighs. “The fans don’t know that they didn’t write it themselves, and that’s because people have lost touch with that physical element. And the really sad part is, they’re losing track of what they’re actually listening to.”

Hats off to The Carnabys for having a crack at making a positive change.

And with an attitude like theirs - not to mention the talent – who’s to say they can’t? And for the record, guys, we have a Carnabys badge and album... and we bought both! @TheCarnabysUK

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ROCKING AND ROLLING

...with Jerry Harvey

Jerry Harvey is one of the modern day audio pioneers, turning the world of in-ear monitoring on its head not once, but twice, over the last 20 years.

A lightbulb moment on a Van Halen tour bus in the mid-90s led to the creation of his first company, Ultimate Ears, which would lead the way in in-ear technology for some time. He upped the ante again 12 years later with Jerry Harvey Audio, the ultimate rock and roll firm, which has taken the in-ear game to a whole other level. The company’s ethos is admirable, and the products are as remarkable aesthetically as they are sonically. We visited the team’s HQ in Orlando to find out more about the man behind the music, and the meticulous operation that he spearheads.

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As I open the front doors of what is reported to be one of Orlando’s oldest buildings, the first sensation is one of relief: 90-degree heat at 90% humidity is not normal for us Brits, so the first waft of A/C is nothing short of heavenly.

After making the most of this for several minutes, I enter the elevator (which also seems to be air-conditioned) and head up to the third floor, home of JH Audio.

Jerry and his team moved into this uber-cool building in December 2015; it’s approximately three times the size of their last base, down the road in Apopka. This is to accommodate the remarkable exponential growth that the company has enjoyed over the last couple of years, more than tripling its workforce and doubling its revenue. Much of this has been down to the rapid rise in popularity of the firm’s ‘one size fits all’ product lines, known as ‘universals’, which boast the same technology and meticulous building and planning as the top-line custom products.

This place oozes rock and roll: fantastic glass walls, original wooden beams, shiny wooden floors, and a string of JH artists donning the walls. Even the desks are bespoke at JH! “We’re at about 75 people now, which has been a massive increase in the past couple of years,” explains Jerry Harvey, as we take a seat.

“The custom growth has been steady every year - you could almost track it to the percentage point - but when we started doing the universals and teamed up and partnered with Astell&Kern, who were making high resolution audio players, we saw a huge surge, doubling our revenue and output. But the growth almost killed us!”

“

I thought I was going to die an old salty sound engineer, because you don’t retire out of rock and roll, you die out of it.

” “It took a year to ramp things up, much of which has happened since Andy Regan came in as President; he’s done a phenomenal job.

The growth of the custom was kind of getting out of hand, too; I would release a new product, and all of a sudden, I would have hundreds of orders, and people would be upset that I couldn’t build them in two weeks. But now, we have a brand new Performance line coming out next year, which will target baby bands, spares, and churches.”

So the pressure won’t relent, then; and this will bring JH Audio into a different market place, also?

“Yeah, because the Performance line will be made out of acrylic instead of titanium, the cost is going to be lower,” Harvey explains. “But the other

thing is, we’re going to do the JH13 universal, which pretty much kills anything in its category.

I think that’s going to be a great Performance piece, as we have redesigned the shell to fit, and they’re the only universals that have adjustable bass response, and for a lot of people, that’s really important.”

Indeed it is. This leads our conversation down a more technical route, and I ask Harvey to explain the ins and outs of the quad drivers he uses in his earphones. I immediately realise this is an astronomical question, and brace myself for a big answer. He doesn’t disappoint: “When I relaunched this company in 2009, I started working with dual high drivers; I’d used dual lows, and I wasn’t getting the top-end extension out of the earpieces, and the only way you can increase top-end extension in a balanced armature is by lowering the impedance in the higher frequencies; and the only way you can do that, is to double them up or to quad them up. You wire them in parallel, lower the impedance, high pass them, and take the low frequencies out, and the headphone amp starts to see a load.

“The thing about a balanced armature is that the impedance curve is like a hockey stick when you get to the high frequencies, so it’s nice and flat, maybe 4-ohms all the way to 1k; and when you start getting to 10k, it starts ramping up, and you know, probably by 10k it’s already at 50-ohms, and by 16k it’s at 100-ohms, so that’s why I doubled up the highs – for more top-end extension. The other reason is that every time you double the components, you get more headroom and dynamic range, so I wanted them to be able to

have a wider dynamic range without any chance of distortion.”

As I attempt to take that information in, I ask Harvey to tell me more about the UE story.

“I founded Ultimate Ears in the back of a tour bus on Van Halen, and by 1998, it was a serious business, and we had cornered the pro market,” he recalls. “In-ears were in their infancy, and we were there first; it was an immature market, so an easy one to get into, especially as I was selling to my peers – sound engineers that trusted me. Then in 2003, the iPod came out, so I wanted to go into one size fits all, universal, which is where the growth of UE came.”

Harvey took on a VC guy, who he didn’t see eye to eye with, and at the time, was a 50/50 partner in UE with his ex-wife. Although the pair worked well together, when the company grew, the VC wanted to sell, and Harvey was forced out.

“I had a five year non-compete, and came back into the market two years after, doing aviation,” Harvey says. “I love flying, but you can’t make any money in aviation with what I do. I was at an aviation trade show once, and an old guy said to me, ‘you know how to make a small fortune in aviation?’ I was like, ‘no, sir’, and he said, ‘start with a big one’. I wish I would have taken his advice, as I lost a million dollars in cash doing aviation.”

Harvey is a keen pilot, and owns two aircraft: a supercharged 182 Cessna, and a Van’s RV/8A two-seater. They reside at the local airport, and he uses them to commute to Key West and back.

In fact, if he’s visiting someone within 500 miles, he’ll usually take the aircraft; anything further, he’ll jump on commercial.

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A

real ‘road dog’ feel is evident at JH Audio, When chatting to Andy Regan, President, I got a great sense of unity about his ethos, his team’s ethos, and the fact that everyone seems to look out for everyone else. I ask Harvey how important that is, and how far it bleeds into the rest of his team.

“Oh, it starts at the top and rolls down,” he confirms. “We are a true rock and roll company; we hire top engineers when they want to come off the road. We just hired a girl in Nashville, Charity; she went through Full Sail, and is an honorary audio girl, but she has taken over the Nashville operation. So we try to team up with well respected people in the touring industry with anything that has to do with artist relations.

We run this ship like a rock show: think The Rolling Stones 1975, something like that, black and white, grainy... A little bit ‘not quite right’, but really good..! [laughs] “It’s kind of crazy, as my biggest insecurity when I first started was that I didn’t know if I was an in-ear guy at all, so I thought I would tell everybody I was, anyway! There was a lot riding on it. In a nutshell, there were a couple of companies out there, and there was a big hole in the market for quality. Their earphones did a good job, but both had flaws, whether it was headroom, frequency response, or a mix of both.”

Harvey remembers putting Alex Van Halen on in-ears, and how he hated them; it was his first tour with Van Halen, and Alex said to Harvey, “go find us something better.”

“I said nothing better exists, so he said to me, ‘well maybe you should make it?’ I still wanted to mix the gig, so it was a huge learning curve in real-time, as we started with single armature ear pieces in the beginning. He would sweat them out, and I would be up there [on stage] giving him a new set of ears during the show, while he’s swatting at me with a drumstick,” Harvey laughs. “I finally figured out what to do with the filter placement, found the correct set of low drivers and high drivers, and I basically hot rodded hearing aid technology and started doing multi drivers. As soon as I did the first UE5 the dual driver - Alex was happy. That was when we took the trajectory. I thought I could make a company out of this, so we were riding on a long overnighter in the back of the tour bus, and Rob Kern, Alex’s drum tech, said, ‘they’re ears, 36 Headliner

so it should be Ultimate Ears.’ I thought it was a horrible name, but by the end of the journey, that was going to be the name of the company, and it kind of went from there!”

Harvey then built six sets of ears for Van Halen’s opening act, Skid Row, and they became his first paying client.

“I walked into the production office, the tour manager handed me $3,000 in cash, and the lightbulb went on; but it was a rocky road from there,” he recalls. “It was a crazy ride with UE, which ended tragically, but I am happy it ended that way, as now I own 100% of myself, and I am in a much better position. We rebuilt it, and we rebuilt it better... and I owe a lot to Van Halen!”

ALL AMERICAN Another admirable thing about JH Audio is the company’s decision to keep the high-end manufacturing completely in the USA. “The business model is changing a little bit with high resolution players going into phones, but we are still making our flagship line here.

I’ve been doing design work and licensing the patents and the brand, and letting [partner brand] Astell&Kern manufacture the product, so they can get the cost down, but we are integral in making sure it comes out right audio wise, and look wise,” Harvey reveals. “It’s a co-brand for universals: Astell&Kern (owned by South Korean consumer electronics brand, iriver), and JH Audio. They are launching the XB10 (a high quality Bluetooth device), so I designed a product that has killer audio right at the $500 price point to suit that; they’ll be built in South Korea.”

Staying with smartphones, I ask Harvey what his take is on the omission of the headphone jack on the iPhone 7?

“Well, here’s the deal; as far as an engineer or an audiophile, I would rather have a guitar and mic plugged into a cable, because when you turn it into wireless, it sounds different. So personally, for pure audio, I would always prefer my stuff plugged into a cable. But, that being said, the technology is ramping up so quickly, the cellular pipeline is getting large enough to be able to stream high resolution, so you have these companies like Tidal who will probably start streaming at 96kHz, and you have cellphones like this LG B10 that I have, which has a high end audio file deck in it.

“I see the convergence of high resolution

players in cellphones and wireless, so we’re lucky we’re teamed up with Astell&Kern, as they have already got this XB10 wireless unit which actually streams 96kHz; it’s the first time Bluetooth has done that, so being a partner with them has given us a lot of opportunity to move into the wireless world at the same time that Apple is losing the jack. So I understand, and the functionality of the new iPhone with the wireless is amazing.

“In five years, it’s probably all going to be wireless, but wireless is just now at a point where when technology changes, you have to roll with it. Our business is a bit like software in that we are the delivery system, so as long as the source is good, our earphones are going to be good. So basically, we just keep making the best delivery system, and whatever you put on the front side is all source related. The better the source, the better the sound.”

This year, JH Audio will shift around 25,000 units, which Harvey expects to double in 2017.

“Next year should be a very good year, but the growth gets scary sometimes,” Harvey admits, with a smile. “We were 2,500 sq. ft and now we’re 8,000 sq. ft, so we had to get everybody into a better environment. This place was ABC Fine Wine & Spirits’ distribution house, so it kind of fits right into our wheelhouse – a liquor distribution centre! [smiles]” And all of this, kind of on a whim, right?

“Well, put it this way, if you’d have told me that this was going to happen in 1995, I would have asked you what kind of drugs you were on!

I thought I was going to die an old salty audio engineer, because you don’t retire out of rock and roll, you die out of it.”

Harvey is addictive to talk to, and these growth stats leave me wondering whether the current JH Audio HQ is going to be able to cut it, size-wise, in say, two years time. Is it?

“I’m really not sure; it depends how things go,” Harvey reflects. “I think there’s going to be some changes in the industry, which will be all about controlling the products, so I see a big shift in not the earphone technology, but how we process the earphones in the next three to five years. I just want to stay ahead of the curve.”

And what would need to happen to make wireless a realistic option direct to the headphone? That’s a pretty big question, I’m guessing...

“It is. The problem right now is latency; the UHF belt-packs work great, but they’re very short, and every time you put something digital in, you increase the latency, from the time it happens at the source to the time it’s received to the artist,” Harvey states. “So a few things would have to happen: first of all, there has to be a wireless link with very small latency time, then you could put it in the ear and the drummer could actually play drums in time, which is crucial; right now, you’re talking 10-15ms delay in Bluetooth at least, and there’s no musician on the planet that could do that! Battery life is another issue, because they’re low impedance, and once you start putting them into live performance, you start sucking the battery out.

You might get a belt-pack with substantial battery pack that’s the size of a packet of cigarettes, but now we’re talking something the size of a quarter, in an earphone.

“Apple get about five hours battery life, which is amazing, but on the professional side, it’s going to take a while before we get fully wireless to the ear, because of the latency. On the consumer side, it’s already happening, but for me, I’m just going to wait a little bit longer, because Apple obviously showed us that you can have independent left and right ears with Bluetooth; and although we’ll be moving along with that, we’ll be putting much more sophisticated circuits behind the technology, and that’ll be geared towards audiophiles, because audiophiles don’t know there’s 15ms-20ms of delay, because there’s no

reference; it comes in at the time it comes in.”

THAT GENE SIMMONS STORY Finally, I ask Jerry to leave me with a rock and roll story... After some deliberation, he says: “I worked for Kiss for three tours, and Gene [Simmons] and I had a very volatile relationship.

Any number of monitor engineers would tell you Gene is very demanding, and the gear of the time couldn’t give him what he wanted. He would always come and direct his unhappiness

“I lost one million dollars in cash in aviation...” to me in different forms [smiles].

“I was young, and I had quite a temper myself, so he would piss me off, too. So anyway, we were at this truck stop, and there was this cardboard cutout of Big Daddy Don Garlits - a drag racer - with an oil can in his hand. At side stage, I always had a black scrim in front of me with a light on so Gene could see my face, but he couldn’t really see me, he just knew there was an image. So every time he would come over and yell at me during a show, I would just look at my third man, Mike Leonetti, and I’d say, ‘hey Mike, put in Big Daddy’, so I had this cutout with a Kiss shirt and Kiss hat, and scuffed on his face

with a Sharpie and I would put it up there, then walk off and not come back for five songs. He would yell at this cardboard cutout, and the rest of the band was dying, then I would take Big Daddy down, and get back to the console.”

And he wasn’t any wiser to it?

“Oh, now he knows the story,” Harvey laughs.

“And two years ago, I was in LA with a good friend of mine, a movie producer called Gary Levinson, who knows Gene. So Gary asks me over a couple of glasses of wine, ‘did you ever work with Kiss?’ I said I did, then he says Gene told him the story about this guy who used to put a cardboard cutout up when he was doing his sound. I was like, yeah, that was me [smiles].

“But now we can do a good job for Gene; he is still on JH7s, in fact; as artists get comfortable, they don’t want to change. I tried to get Alex Van Halen to go from 11s to 16s, and it took him catching his earpiece with his drumstick and flinging it into the audience for him to do it!

But now he loves them.

“Whether it’s strings, drumsticks, or earphones, it’s no different; there is a comfort thing, and any time you change it, the whole chemistry changes, and it becomes something else. So I am never upset if someone says, ‘nah I’ll still use the 7s.’ If something I built in 1998 is still doing a job, that’s a good product, right?”

It is indeed. Huge thanks to Jerry, Andy, and the whole JH Audio team for their fantastic Florida hospitality. www.jhaudio.com

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Artist Focus Skye & Ross

SKYE & ROSS

Skye Edwards and Ross Godfrey are two founder members of Morcheeba. Though the trip hop band hasn’t officially split, Ross’ brother, Paul, bowed out of the touring game, which left the pair keen to do something new, representative of where they are now as artists. This has culminated in the making of a cracking Skye & Ross record, using back to basics recording methods and real instruments, with plenty of heart and soul. And it seems they still have an awful lot to say.

T

hough it’s been some time now since Morcheeba, Massive Attack, and Portishead were heading up the UK’s trip hop scene, the memories of that era are very fond for Skye & Ross. Their current musical plain, however, is slightly more straightforward.

“We wanted to make something natural and organic that felt right for us,” opens Ross. “From the start, we didn’t want to make a radio record; we made what we think is a beautiful record, and that was the only criteria.”

Initially, it was all more acoustic; it wasn’t going to have beats and synths, but as it evolved, some songs cried out for downtempo beats, “so we threw the odd Morcheeba-esque synth pad on there,” Ross says, with a smile.

“Our influences include trip hop, soul, funk and blues, and there is definitely a folkiness in there; we wanted to encompass it all,” Ross continues, and he has a point – the new album is a fusion of influences, maybe the only record I

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can think of that can move from laid back chill to country infused pedal slide, seamlessly. And at the heart of the record is Skye’s iconic vocal, of course. “We certainly let ourselves follow our own path on this record: no barriers, we just did what we wanted. And amazingly, it has a consistency. We only made 12 tracks (there are 10 on the record), and there is a centre of gravity in the middle: a slightly trippy beaty thing all about the songs... [pauses] I don’t think Morcheeba fans will be displeased, put it that way [smiles].”

“I think they’re gonna love it,” beams Skye – and after just the first listen through, I would have to agree. Hold On is beautiful, Light of Gold has a great vibe, with an awesome guitar sound for the solo, and The Point Of No Return is haunting and infectious. I could go on.

It’s a fresh challenge, Skye says, and admits she still gets anxious and nervous. But this is driven by excitement rather than fear... Right? “[laughs] Yes! And in general this is a more organic approach we’ve taken; and we have live drums, too,” Skye explains. Godfrey nods, adding: “It gives us more freedom to be less proddy and more dynamic; there is less of a hip hop element to

this album, which makes sense, as that’s what my brother used to bring [to Morcheeba].”

Paul Godfrey was also responsible for many of the Morcheeba lyrics, which brings us onto the duo’s new approach to songwriting.

“It felt really easy, actually,” Skye admits. “We did talk about who we should collaborate with, and who should we get in to write the lyrics, but then Ross sent through a lovely acoustic guitar song, and I just started working on it. And six months later, we’d finished the album!”

“I didn’t think we’d necessarily fall into a rhythm so quickly, but we did,” confirms Ross. “The process was me writing the music on the piano and guitar, I would send it to Skye, she would come up with a melody – sometimes some lyrics right away – and then we would chat about the songs.”

“Yes, melody first, refine it, and then the lyrics came after,” Skye adds. “I’d listen over and over on my iPhone recording device, sing a melody, then words kind of appeared, and the idea often comes after. With Hold On, for example, it turns out it’s all about my daughter, who was born three months early - so it’s her journey.”

People’s attention spans aren’t what they once

Artist Focus Skye & Ross

“There is less of a hip hop element to this album; we’ve taken a more organic approach”

were, however, so Ross was keen to make sure this record was nice and concise.

“I didn’t want it to be more than 10 songs, the way the industry is today,” he says, very matter of fact. “Make a record, release it, do a few gigs, and write another one; if you deliberate too much, you overthink it. Think of the ‘60s: bands would get together, write a record, tour, and do it again!”

Ross produced the album in the box using Pro Tools; although he wouldn’t describe his studio as ‘state of the art’, he cites it as ‘quite a cool room with no frills, but lots of vintage pre amps, mics, and instruments’. Sounds good enough to me!

“Yeah, it’s nice gear in a space, basically,” he smiles. “I did it all at my place, barring the drums – we went into a studio in Forest Hill for a couple of days, and did everything in a few takes; and with minimal editing, I got some good rough mixes together how I wanted it to sound, then handed it to two mix engineers who processed it all in their mix rooms, and they reproduced the rough mix balances, but made it all sound sweet and nice.

Then we got it mastered.”

You were in control the whole time, then?

“Exactly, and that’s what we wanted,” Ross

says. “I came up with the string arrangements, too; and we have a good friend, Robert Logan, who is an electronic music specialist. He made magic with them; it sounds like an orchestra, but also an Eno-esque ambient recording, so that was very cool.”

“I remember fans slagging off the strings sound on [the Morcheeba hit] Big Calm, but that was actually real players, so ‘that awful synth sound’ wasn’t anything of the sort,” Skye laughs. I ask Skye if she is involved in the recording process at all. “All the vocals I recorded in my sewing room in my house! Sometimes I would send one take, and we might redo one line, or I would give two performances and Ross would put them together.

But it was never more than two takes.”

The album came out on September 2nd, and the pairing are in the midst of a major world tour, spanning dozens of territories. Tell us more!

“We are very fortunate to have a global following; we normally start in Europe and the US and work out from there, but this record was so homegrown, we went out and found a label we could put it out on, and that’s Cooking Vinyl,” Ross says. “It’s a very personal

experience working with them. It’s hard trying to coordinate 30 territories if you’re out on the road, so the label are on that for us; we also have a lovely management company; it feels like a little pressure to make this album successful, but then again, success is relative now, so getting through this can be looked at as a success, really.”

They’re on a good path, Skye says, and she’s not wrong: not only is the music beautiful, ambient, and soulful, the tour is booked all the way up until November.

“And we get to play Electric in Brixton on November 2nd; we’ve never played there before, but it’s a great venue. My old stomping ground!

And Ross can get the bus home afterwards.”

“Yeah, any gig I can get the bus home from is great, to be honest,” Ross concludes.

We urge you to take a listen to the new Skye & Ross album – it’s a belter. www.skyeross.com

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One to Watch Harriet

It’s not often we hear a voice like Harriet’s. Although there are many strings to her musical bow, and influences aplenty, you can’t - and shouldn’t – get away from the remarkable likeness in her tone to that of the late, great Karen Carpenter. Fuse that effortless vocal with an appealing, modern twist, and a backing band of the highest (and coolest) order, and you get something quite special. We spoke to Harriet after her sell-out show at popular live venue, The Pheasantry, in London’s Kings Road.

“I actually didn’t go to university, my

HARRIET:

A CLASS ACT Words Paul Watson

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three-year education was in songwriting, really,” opens Harriet, with a radiant smile.

“It was when I met [record producer] Steve Anderson that it all started for me; I was working at the time, in and out of writing sessions with him. It taught me how to be a songwriter, and how to push myself. When I went in with Steve, it just felt right.”

Harriet, now 26, began making a lot of music, and has recently completed an album, Harriet, which was released at the start of October. New artists don’t often have ‘a plan’ as such, but this songstress and her team seem particularly prepared.

“We’ve got plans laid out for between now and March 2017; we put out the single, Broken for You, back in July, and we’re excited about the album,” she says. Harriet also has a great relationship with Radio 2, having played live for Graham Norton and Paul O’Grady, plus she’s also gained support from many regional stations. “It’s fantastic to have people coming to the shows, but we need to branch out. Rather than reach a family of 1,000 people, we now need to reach 10,000; and now we have the album, it feels like that process can now start, as there is a product.”

Smart thinking, and refreshing to see a business head on artistic shoulders. Harriet sees everything as an opportunity, and you can’t help but feel she’s

One to Watch Harriet

“There is a real expectation for artists to be performing the whole time.” very grateful for where she is, and is heading. And if you want to catch her live (we truly recommend you do), you won’t find your feet sticking to the floor, or that classic ashtray aroma; her team are focused on the right venues, not every venue: “All the music I am inspired by is from the ‘70s, a time when there was a real culture of listening

edge, thanks to not taking herself too seriously on stage, and a superb backing band. A few shows are planned in the north of England later this year - a territory Harriet hasn’t yet explored - and a February tour will follow. The theory is sensible: grow gradually, build that fanbase, and ultimately, sell more records, right?

“I am inspired by ‘70s music, a time when there was a real culture of listening to records.” to music; people would sit at home, and put a record on in their living room rather than the TV, and when I am performing, that’s the experience I want to give the people,” Harriet reveals. “I sung with jazz bands from my late teens, and that was great fun; we did a lot of bars where people were eating, but not paying attention; we were the soundtrack to someone’s evening. But we got very used to jamming, chatting amongst ourselves, and that’s a very different thing. It’s also important not to do too many shows; there is a real expectation for artists to be performing the whole time, and as much as that’s great from an experience point of view, it doesn’t make it special.”

STAYING FOCUSED

So it’s a case of being selective, and for Harriet’s sound, that makes sense. Her likeness to Ms. Carpenter can’t be denied (and should be tightly embraced), and does suit the classier venues rather than, well, the hell holes! But although it’s a classic sound, she does benefit from a cool

“Yes, basically, and my management is fantastic, which really helps; I was introduced to them by Steve [Anderson], and we just clicked; they know what I want for my career, but I am a bit of a stress pot, so they are also good at telling me when to let go – it’s a good balance.”

The second single from the album is the beautiful First and Last, which Harriet cut a great video for at Angel Studios with the Royal Philharmonic. Quite a moment, right?

“One of the best nights of my life,” she beams.

“Seeing these little songs that start as nothing, then they become something to you, and then getting to watch an orchestra put their all into it is just amazing. It’s a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, and I also try to get that feeling across in the live shows with various moments – some sad, some uplifting.”

And that showed at The Pheasantry. Close your eyes, it’s Karen Carpenter, especially on the solo piano tracks, so many of which were tearjerkers, but as Harriet hints, there are indeed

other moments: comedic interaction with the crowd and her band, and some great upbeat numbers, too. The ultimate light and shade, from an acoustic cover of MJ’s She’s Out Of My Life, to her uptempo original number, Whoever You Are. It’s cool, and both tracks are on the album, too.

Harriet doesn’t claim to be cool, however: “Steve and I listen to Barry Manilow for inspiration, and we love Gilbert and Sullivan, so that should give you some idea,” she laughs, adding that The Carpenters ‘weren’t particularly cool, but they captured something.’ “I was listening to Adele’s latest album on the train, it’s just wonderful; and then I flipped over to Tryin’ to Get the Feeling Again by Barry Manilow. During that era of the ‘70s, so many songs were about falling in love, and being in love; and now, there seems to be that perception that you can only write a good song if you’ve had your heart broken!

“Thankfully, I don’t have heartache in my life at the moment, but I have had my fair share of tough times, but right now, I want to write love songs as I’m in love. We should remember it doesn’t always have to be tears and gloom and doom.

“My dad lent me his Clifford T. Ward album, Both of Us, at a difficult time, and is of great comfort to me; he has inspired my writing so much. If there was a chord progression I liked, I would try and transcribe it, so I could work out what he was doing. And he’s not a well known artist, which makes me sad – to me, that album is sublime; how can it not be ‘out there?’”

Maybe Harriet can be the artist to put Mr. Ward’s music where it belongs? Her cover of his stunning The Best Is Yet To Come is nothing short of breathtaking. Watch this space, readers. www.harrietsmusic.com

www.rme-audio.com

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Recording Stefan Boman

Stockholm Studio Syndrome Having worked with Def Leppard, Alice Cooper, and Backstreet Boys to name but a few, Stefan Boman is at the very top of the audio game in Sweden.

After developing a close working relationship with superstar Swedes, Kent, he now co-owns Park Studio in Stockholm with the band. We caught up with the acclaimed producer to discuss his career so far, how he’s maintained all this success, and why he’s been using Genelec speakers for over 20 years.

Words Adam Protz

With producers always being musicians

themselves, it’s always interesting to find out what led them to the studio life. For Stefan Boman, it was an early discovery that the process of collaboration with other artists was what made him tick.

“I’ve always been playing instruments,” Boman says.

“But for some reason, I thought it was more interesting working with other people, and sort of directing music rather than playing everything myself. So I built a really simple home studio, but I mostly ended up recording my friends and working with them. And then I saw an ad in the newspaper for a recording school in Los Angeles, and I ended up going there.”

After that, he came back to Sweden, and “just started knocking on doors”, trying to get internships: “I managed to get into Polar Studios, which is the studio ABBA built in the seventies; Polar thought I had the right attitude, and they hired me with pay from day one!”

Steeped in history, Polar Studios is famous not only for ABBA’s recordings, but several other big names; Led Zeppelin recorded In Through the Out Door at Polar, and Genesis used the Stockholm studio for Duke. Sadly, the facility was forced into closure when the owners of the building tripled the rent.

While Stefan was very pleased to be working at such a prestigious studio, he was initially just helping out with the mastering; but even then, he was clear in his mind that he intended to one day be an in-demand producer with his own place. Boman fondly recalls spending all of his spare time recording friends in the big Studio A, whenever it wasn’t booked.

Besides working with Def Leppard, Chic, and Backstreet Boys at Polar Studios, Boman has one memory that stands out as slightly peculiar. The group A*Teens, a

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Swedish teen pop group originally formed to cover ABBA songs, somehow convinced Alice Cooper to feature in their version of School’s Out. He even flew out to Polar Studios to record his vocals.

“That was really weird, and I’m not even sure it was ever published,” Boman laughs.

Despite working with such renowned international names, a defining band in Stefan’s career has been fellow Swedes, Kent. A huge name in Scandinavia, Kent have scored a number of radio hits throughout Europe’s most northern reaches, and they’ve had consecutive number one albums in Sweden. Today, the band co-own Park Studio with Stefan. So how did Boman come to have such a tight relationship with one of Sweden’s biggest bands?

“Kent [first] booked Polar Studios just to do one track that was supposed to be a bonus track or a B-side, and we just hit it off,” he explains. “That song worked really well with their fans, so then they booked some more sessions, and then me and the guitar player [Sami Sirviö] started producing some other bands, and it just grew into something much bigger.”

Boman has been at Park Studio in Stockholm for over a decade, and has been working with Kent longer still. But a working relationship that dates back even further is with Genelec studio monitors – he first discovered them in 1995.

“That actually started in Polar Studios as well,” Boman smiles. “The big speakers were Genelecs; the smaller speakers were [Yamaha] NS10s, and I’ve never loved NS10s! [laughs] So I kept borrowing and buying different speakers just to try out, and I couldn’t find anything I really liked, until I got the Genelec 1030s. Since then, I’ve pretty much only used Genelec.

“When I’m working, I need a sound that gives me that instant kick; the Genelec products just seem to fit

Recording Stefan Boman

my ears; If I’m working on something, I think it should sound fantastic the whole way, because then you’re getting inspired. Whereas with other speakers, the work in progress only sounds good when you’re finished. Genelec really gives you the truth of the sound, and as a result, it’s very rewarding.”

Throughout his career, he’s not only stuck with the brand, but he’s rarely changed models, which I find surprising.

“It is a bit crazy,” he laughs. “I went to a trade show, and one of the Genelec guys told me I had to come and hear the new 8351s. I was just being polite and said ‘okay,’ as I didn’t think I’d be able to hear properly at a noisy trade show. But they really blew me away; they’re so accurate in the stereo width, it’s almost like you can hear each pan step. I could really hear the stereo placements.

“I also really like the precision of these monitors; it feels like I can hear anything in them. I have a big subwoofer too, so I get really fantastic low-end; and I trimmed the high-end down a little bit so that I don’t get fatigue. But I especially think the accuracy and detail of stereo placement is a big step from the previous models, for me. Genelec themselves have come to Park Studio a couple of times to calibrate the room – I can actually do it myself now, but it’s always good to get their advice.”

For someone as successful as Boman, you’d forgive him for feeling quite settled, but that’s actually not the case.

“Obviously you want to grow all the time,” he says. “I just want to keep going, and keep evolving all the time.”

And here is a man who is as evolved as they come in the world of music production – a real dynamo, who is also capable of charming rockstars into getting a studio with him. Here’s to your continuing growth and success, Sir.

"I NEED A SOUND THAT GIVES ME THAT INSTANT KICK; AND THE GENELEC PRODUCTS JUST SEEM TO FIT MY EARS.”

www.genelec.com www.stefanboman.com

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Lighting Design Bruno Poet

BRUNO POET

Whether he’s illuminating Frankenstein or Miss Saigon, lighting up an opera at Sydney Opera House, or designing the touring show for the ethereal, dreamy postrock music of Icelandic cult band, Sigur Rós, lighting designer, Bruno Poet, has a skill-set which caters for many, many disciplines. We chat to the man himself about what sounds like an extremely busy and eclectic day in the life.

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Using GLP’s award-winning X4 Bars, Bruno Poet says he has found an LED batten with a true versatility for all occasions, that gives him far more than just a conventional light curtain.

Introduced to the Bars by White Light’s Dave Isherwood, he was impressed from the get go: “I have always loved the DHA digital light curtains, but they are impractical for concert touring,” Poet says.

“The GLP Bars felt like the first products I had seen that produce a similar effect, since others I had tried weren’t capable of delivering the dense curtain of light that I was looking for.”

While prepping the Sigur Rós tour, Poet was simultaneously designing the lighting for Brian Friel’s play, Faith Healer, at Donmar Warehouse, successfully deploying 16 of the X4 Bar 20s to light a rain curtain.

“They only perform one function in Faith Healer, but they do it extremely well, lighting the curtain

am used to working with a space defined by a large physical set, whereas for Sigur Rós it is more of an environment of video and projections.”

In such a video-heavy show, the collaborations with video creators, Sarah Hopper and Damien Hale, and set designer, Chiara Stephenson, have been absolutely key: “The band were keen for a set that would appear to expand and contract with different songs, from intimate to epic, from gentle and lyrical to hardcore and distorted, moving away from the softer and more organic feel of the previous tour.”

Complementing the high use of video are 18 GLP X4 Bars, sourced from Neg Earth — nine on each of the two trusses, forming versatile curtains of light.

“Sometimes they are flickering, and sometimes they are static; we use them as effects, and also to backlight the band,” Poet continues. “I wanted some looks that

“The band were keen for a set that would appear to expand and contract with different songs.” of rain that surrounds the stage,” Poet explains. “We chose them because nothing else could produce such an intense and tight curtain beam with so little spill.”

Poet’s deployment of GLP on the Sigur Rós tour is on another level, however. He started working with the band after lighting a solo tour for lead singer, Jónsi Birgisson, back in 2010; and following the success of the band’s initial 2012-2013 tour, he was re-engaged with the team this year.

“In lighting a show of this nature, the biggest challenge is the lack of narrative; nearly all the other work I do is for a production that tells some kind of story, and lighting becomes part of that storytelling,” Poet reflects. “For Sigur Rós, the lighting is a direct response to the music; the band are in the centre of a world of light and video that should feel naturally driven by the sounds they are making. Also, in theatre and opera, I

got away from the triangular beams from point sources of light you normally get.

“The X4 Bars worked very well with the strong graphic shapes of the frames of the set design, especially when they are used to create a solid ceiling of light.”

Poet has again been collaborating with his reliable and long-term touring lighting director and programmer, Matt Daw, for whom he has very high praise: “Matt’s input is vital, and the look of the show is as much to do with him as it is me.”

Although this is the first time Bruno Poet has used the impression X4 Bars, it sounds like it certainly won’t be the last: “These are great units, and we are already in negotiations to use them on several more productions.” www.glp.de www.brunopoet.co.uk

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New Music

Ska-Man

SKA-MAN It’s the hottest day of 2016, and Lee Thompson has just got back from walking his dog. “I might have looked a bit weird,” he admits, in his strong London accent, “with my four-legged friend over Hampstead Heath with an umbrella.” Believe it or not, this rather adequately sets the tone for our conversation.

Thompson is a founding member of arguably the biggest and best known ska band on the planet, Madness; and he’s also formed the Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra, who released their second album, Bite the Bullet, on August 26th. We spoke about a range of things: ska in 2016, his recent advert for Boots, and also, Viagra..!

When I ask Lee Thompson how and why he formed the Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra, I don’t get the straight answer I’m (foolishly) expecting: “Well, the trombone player in Madness, Mike, is a practical joker,” he says. “One night, we were staying in a hotel in Manchester, and he ends up banging on the door of the room Joe Auckland (another brass player in

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“Ska has come back with avengeance this time.”

Madness) is staying in, at one or two in the morning. He starts shouting, ‘Joe! Joe!’ And Joe goes, ‘what’s up mate?’ And Mike’s shouting, ‘it’s an emergency! Let me in!’ And poor Joe is in the shower. So what happens is, he opens the door and ends up getting shut out in the hallway with just a little towel on.

Mind you, he only needs a little towel.”

I quickly find out that Thompson loves a

tangent, but as they’re so funny, I really don’t mind..! He continues: “So I see him and say, ‘Joe, what’s going on, there’s no sauna down here is there?’ He tells me Mike is up to his old tricks. So we sit down and get talking, and I find out he also plays the ukulele and the banjo. And Joe says, ‘this ska orchestra idea you’ve been going on about, why don’t we get a bunch of people together and do it?’”

New Music

The band recently starred in an advert for Boots hearing aids, which won them a hater or two, Thompson explains: “I got a bit of a bollocking for doing that from this bloke on Twitter. He says, ‘next he’ll be doing adverts for Viagra, and incontinence nappies.’ Well, I’ve got a surprise for you mate, that Viagra advert could be in the pipeline!”

Thompson lets out a wicked laugh, which tells me he’s probably joking. He also claims that finding the saxophone was just one of those natural occurrences in life.

“I was just always attracted to it; I played a bit of clarinet at school, and I tried the oboe, but that was too much on my bouche. King Curtis was a big influence, the Benny Hill theme, Johnny and the Hurricanes, Yakety Sax, Duane Eddy, and Roxy Music.

“Whenever I went to a gig, I always ended up stood in front of the bell of the saxophone, so all of this rubbed off on me. That’s probably why I’m deaf in one ear, mind you.”

But are audiences still receiving ska with the same excitement as they did when Madness first broke out in the late ‘70s?

“Yeah, I think so,” Thompson says, with noticeable conviction. “I mean, it really is a summer sound. It seems to be in a lot of adverts and stuff – it’s come back with avengeance this time. Round one was the mid to late ‘60s; round two, the late ‘70s, after the punk thing. You either went new romantic or two tone; they were the two flavours of

the month. I know myself, Mike Barson, and Suggs were ska, reggae, and motown. We started out doing rock and roll covers, worked some reggae in there, and it went down really well. We threw some ska in there, and next thing you know, there’s a band up north called The Specials playing the same sort of music; it was just the right time and the right place.”

Thompson tells me about some current ska/reggae acts he likes who are keeping the scene alive and well, including LA-based The Aggrolites; he even quotes some lyrics down the phone for me: “Hey, gringo! Why you dig your hole?”

Thompson hollers, in a brilliant Hispanic accent. “That is not a hole, that is your grave.”

And to further prove that ska isn’t going anywhere, Madness played at this year’s Glastonbury festival, on the coveted Pyramid Stage: “Yeah, that was really good. Woody (Dan Woodgate) turned up on the day and hit the floor running. Suggs, on the other hand, got there three days before, and he was fucked.

He’d been wandering around in another dimension. His daughters were there to look after him, mind you. So he didn’t really save his voice, he was a little bit croaky on stage.”

Madness are set to release their 12th studio album, Can’t Touch Us Now in October. So what will a 2016 Madness album sound like, then?

“That’s a very good question,” Thompson

Ska-Man

laughs. “If it’s anything like the Ska Orchestra recording process, there’s been a good mood, put it that way; a good atmosphere. Everyone’s looking forward to going into the studio.

Unfortunately, with Oui Oui Si Si - our last album - we moved producers, we moved studios, and it just lost its momentum. Saying that, this album has actually taken longer, but it hasn’t lost the momentum. We haven’t lost the enthusiasm or hunger.

“I need to replace some of the brass parts I’m not happy with, but the rest of the boys are on the ball. They’ve done a good job. I’m gonna give ‘em a fucking gold star... [pauses] Maybe not Chrissy Boy (Chris Foreman)...

He thinks I’m a dictator; the Mussolini of the band. What an arsehole. If I’m Mussolini, he’s Hitler! I’ve said to him, ‘for every finger you point, there are three fingers pointing back at you. And if someone else don’t, I’ll be knocking you out!’”

Thompson is suddenly interrupted by his dog attempting to eat his sofa, so I let him get off so he can get to his rehearsal with his Madness colleagues. Bite the Bullet was launched at the 100 Club in London, and was a very special night; and with a new Madness album out imminently, it does indeed seem that ska is enjoying another fresh lease of life, thanks in no small part to the legend himself, Lee Thompson. www.leethompsonska.com

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Genres Neo-Classical

BERLIN: THE HOME OF NEOCLASSICAL Genres often have a very strong tie with a place: New Orleans boasts being the home of jazz; Detroit gave birth to techno; and Bristol claims drum and bass as its own. While Berlin has always been a hub of art, creativity, and many myriads of music (David Bowie, among many others, relocated to the German capital), it has become increasingly apparent that a huge number of artists from the rapidly expanding neo-classical genre (also known as ‘indie classical’) are making Berlin their home. Headliner set off to this intoxicating city to speak to some of neoclassical’s best known artists: Lambert, Ben Lukas Boysen and Dustin O’Halloran, about their musical evolution, and how all of this seems inextricably linked to das kapital.

Words Adam Protz

A

fter getting slightly lost in Berlin, I manage to flag down a cab, which gets me to the office of 380 Grad, Lambert’s management (who also manage fellow composer, Ólafur Arnalds), based in the Kreuzberg district. Of all these musicians playing minimalist, ambient piano music, Lambert is certainly the most mysterious. He never performs without his horned mask, and his website offers no biography, home town, or personal detail. I took this opportunity to unravel the mystery, but our conversation begins by discussing how ludicrously expensive London is next to Berlin.

“It does get on my mood when I have to pay five pounds for a coffee,” Lambert admits. I ask if he at least got a decent rider for his show in Dalston, East London, in January. “Well, we organised that show ourselves, so the deal was we had to buy our own beer at the bar – that would never happen anywhere else

in Europe! [laughs] Then we went to Ireland, and everybody was like, ‘What can we get you? We have this, this and that!”

Despite Lambert’s career going from strength to strength of late, he is very modest about the success of that European tour.

“That London show we organised all by ourselves and put it on Facebook, and 80 people showed up,” he smiles. “I thought this only happened in the days of Myspace [laughs].

And even when we played small towns in Germany, we’d get 200 people coming along.”

Since then, Lambert has released The Lost Tapes, an EP of unreleased material, following on from his excellent album, Stay In The Dark.

“These songs are all just ones which I didn’t release, or were used for a soundtrack but never put out there,” he continues. “And then I have a

Genres Neo-Classical

“After spending five days in London recently, I realised Berlin is not a busy city; you can live here and make music here for very little, too.”

Ben Lukas Boysen. new album which will be out in January – right now, my management are talking to labels, doing the deals!”

Lambert’s first, self-titled album was purely piano, with a very impressionistic, Chopin style feel to it; then Stay In The Dark expanded on this with the addition of electronics and some woodwind. Album three, he hints, will break new musical ground: “This is extended again for the third album; sometimes it’s almost symphonic in character, but it always comes back to being a very plain piano record. When I started writing my music, I didn’t have a concrete plan of releasing it; I also didn’t know about this upcoming neo-classical scene, which was already there by that time. I was listening to other music, and was involved with other stuff. I was in bands, working as a hired musician, but nothing was really working out. So I was playing some of this music at my house while a friend was staying – he was still sleeping because he had been drinking the night before. He said, ‘that sounds really nice, even though you woke me up! Why don’t you release this music?’ I said, ‘nobody is interested in instrumental music! Are you crazy?’ [laughs] He told me to check out Nils Frahm (who, we should add, also lives in Berlin) and Ólafur Arnalds. In fact, we both knew Nils, as we’re all from Hamburg. He was a friend of a friend, I just had no idea he was a star already.”

Lambert’s mask is a way of easing the process of playing such raw, personal material on stage.

Although he also tells me he believes anyone who performs wears a mask, in a sense: “I was researching it, and I found this book on Sardinian mask culture during carnival. I went through it and saw the one I wanted, so then I searched the internet for ages for someone who could make it. In the end, I found a guy in a tiny Sardinian town, close to where the mask culture originated. I spoke to him about how I wanted the horns, and the patterns, and he was really happy to be part of the project.”

The artist also has an interesting take on why Berlin has become the hub for this particular style of music: “I think for some years, Berlin has been an attractive city for musicians in general because

you have space; you can live here for not as much money as other big cities in Europe, and you can find studios and working spaces for an affordable price. I think that’s why so many move here. In Berlin, there are a lot of rock bands, but people would never care about that; neo-classical and techno both fit the cliché of the German artist, someone who is really into his instrument and all the technical parts of it.”

Ben Lukas Boysen

Neukölln is the largest borough in Berlin, and homes the largest population of migrants in the city, particularly Turkish people, although recently gentrification has seen the area become more popular with students and artists. I arrive at Ben Lukas Boysen’s flat, on a pleasant side street just a few minutes walk from Neukölln’s main S+U Bahn station.

Boysen’s music does have many of the hallmarks of the neo-classical genre, although it has its own unique and wonderful sense of spaciousness, which is certainly saying something in this genre.

He recently signed with London’s Erased Tapes Records, undoubtedly the record label holding the flag for neo-classical music at this time. He’s also very serious about his coffee, as I watch him spend a good five minutes meticulously making a batch with a fancy looking machine.

Boysen made his name as a soundtrack composer, and we begin our chat in a very abstract manner, discussing the PlayStation game he recently worked on, called Everything.

“It’s an everything simulator. Very hard to explain,” Ben admits, with the strong aroma of coffee beans in the air. “It’s a very philosophical game, based on the idea of changing physical perspectives. You can be anything you want: a postbox, a planet, a galaxy, or an animal of any kind – then you can bond and communicate with other beings. It’s going to be very beautiful.”

I’ve just now watched the YouTube trailer for this game to try and wrap my head around all this, and I can now concur that Everything does look (and sound) beautiful; it’s also clear why Ben is an ideal fit for a slightly different game like this, rather than, say, Call of Duty.

Another aspect of Boysen’s work I’m not fully

clear on is his composing method – he tells me he doesn’t actually play the piano, or at least hasn’t properly for some time.

“I learned and played piano for quite a few years, and if I really had to, I could play a little, but I’m much more from the sound design background,” Boysen explains. “At this point, I’d always rather programme piano with my synthesizers and enjoy myself; and then get extra musicians on board and have them play their parts.”

Boysen takes pre-recorded acoustic piano samples, and meticulously arranges chopped up bits of the audio to create his tracks. It’s done so well that you’d never know he hadn’t played it himself. Nils Frahm, when mastering Boysen’s latest album, Spells, was so impressed that he declared, ‘If anyone asks, this is real piano.’

I decide to point out the elephant in the room: an upright piano. “Yeah, that’s a family heirloom,” Boysen laughs.

Boysen tells me he was ‘almost scarred’ by not being let in to university to study electronic music, as he didn’t have the supposedly necessary classical music skills that were asked for. You showed them though, right? “[smiles] Well, I’ll never forget the professor who told me I wasn’t getting in,” he reflects. “He was a fantastic guy, very eloquent and interesting; but I was upset at the time because he told me ‘music is a physical thing, it comes from the body; even if you want to be abstract and conceptual, you still need to know the foundations’. Back then, I didn’t want to spend more time rehearsing and proving myself, I just wanted to do music. I later realised what he actually meant is that music comes from every part of the body, especially the heart, and it’s so important to be totally engaged in it, physically and emotionally.”

Lambert mentioned ‘space’ as a big factor for Berlin being the centre of neo-classical’s universe, a sentiment that Boysen echoes.

“Berlin is just a very relaxed environment,” he says. I begin to see also that Berlin’s spaciousness, meaning less hustle and bustle, makes it such fertile ground for this music, whereas London is so high octane and stressful that you wouldn’t naturally associate it with lyrical piano music.

“After spending five days in London recently,

49 Headliner

Genres Neo-Classical

I realised Berlin is not a busy city; you can live here and make music here for very little, too.”

Ben Lukas Boysen intends to carry on his first love: designing sound and composing for films and commercial briefs. But with more albums for Erased Tapes a definite ambition, he is figuring out plans for a live tour, which should be a stunning experience – once he figures out the logistics of taking this very intricate music to the stage. I realise I’m getting too cosy in this flat, and need to shoot off for my appointment with Dustin O’Halloran. So it’s all aboard the U-Bahn once more.

Dustin O’Halloran

I find myself back in Kreuzberg, Berlin’s hippest locality. Like Shoreditch in London, Kreuzberg was the first part of the city to be touched by gentrification, with vintage clothing stores and artisan coffee shops popping up all over the place.

I meet Dustin O’Halloran in an amalgamation of the two – Companion Coffee, located inside a clothing shop called the VooStore, where I learn that if I order a green tea, I’ll receive two different infusions. You’d be mad to turn that down, quite frankly.

Unlike my previous two interviewees, O’Halloran is an international settler in the city – he was born in Los Angeles (a city that’s about as different from Berlin as it can physically be), lived in Italy for a few years, but is now very much based in the German capital, with his studio only a few minutes walk from this trendy shop. He is a film composer, and also releases albums under his own name and as A Winged Victory For The Sullen, a side project with friend and guitarist-composer, Adam Wiltzie, which has grown to become the thing he is now best known for.

O’Halloran arrives, sporting an immaculate beard and denim shirt. The barista asks if he’ll be having his usual, to which he replies, “no, I think I’ll go black today,” with a smile. I’m keen to ask how he’s been dividing up his time.

“I’ve been working on a film called Iris with Adam from our project, A Winged Victory For The Sullen”, He says. The two last worked together on the music for a ballet called Atomos by acclaimed choreographer, Wayne McGregor.

Was working on a film with A Winged Victory inevitable? “Yeah, it probably was, to be honest; I think we could definitely do another one, but we’re just trying to work on our own music at the moment.”

Which is interesting, as O’Halloran hasn’t released a solo album since 2011, his ambient piano album, Lumiere.

“Yeah, I got really busy with A Winged Victory,” he admits. “When I started that project with Adam, I didn’t realise it was going to take off the way it did. We did a lot of touring - a lot more than I thought we would. I really enjoyed playing more in a group situation rather than just being a solo artist. When you tour in a group, the focus is much more on the music; when you tour solo, there’s also focus on the artist’s personality, and I’m much less interested in that.”

So how does he juggle these three dynamics?

“I sort of just follow where the energy is, and recently, it felt like Winged Victory had the strongest energy,” O’Halloran explains. “And I kept

50 Headliner

“I just follow a muse, whatever that might be; I feel like all my different projects inspire each other.”

Dustin O'Halloran. being pulled into lots of film work, also. But I’m definitely feeling like it’s time to come back to my own work. As long as I’m feeling compelled, creative and inspired, it doesn’t matter if it’s my solo work or a collaboration. I just follow a muse, whatever that might be. I like moving around, and I feel like all my different projects inspire each other.”

O’Halloran has written music for two films starring English actress Felicity Jones – Like Crazy in 2011 ( Jones’ co star in the film, Anton Yelchin, was tragically killed this year), and Breathe In two years later. I half-seriously ask him if he thought he was in with a shout of being composer for the next Star Wars film, Rogue One, when he saw that Jones was announced for the lead role.

“No, no,” he says, laughing. “Definitely not! I’ll let someone else rip off John Williams.”

OK, but could you see yourself composing for a bigger budget action film, a departure from the indie films you’re known for?

“It depends on the context,” O’Halloran says, after some thought. “Ex Machina was one of the last film scores I really liked – that was a big film, and I thought the music was really well handled. There are ways to handle it where you don’t follow clichés.

“Jóhann Jóhannsson (a composer who is also signed to FatCat Records) has been working on some big films, and he always does it very elegantly.”

When I ask O’Halloran for his take

on Berlin becoming the heart and vital organs of neo-classical music, I notice a recurring theme, as he also says the word ‘space’ right away.

“You have a lot of space, and cheap space,” he states, referring to Berlin’s spaciousness, and the affordability of accommodation and studios. “LA is a different energy. It’s a great city, a lot of my friends and family are there, and there’s a lot of super talented people, but like everything in life, the path you choose influences your music. Being in Europe has drastically changed my music. The US is still a very rock and roll focused country, but in Europe, there’s so much more electronic music, contemporary classical music. And it really feels like Berlin is the hub of all of that at the moment.”

As I bid O’Halloran goodbye, I leave Companion Coffee and wander off for a stroll along the Berlin Wall. I’m feeling quite enlightened as to why the neoclassical genre has become based in Berlin – the relaxed, uber-creative vibe provides just the right fertile grounds for this understated music. In fact, it’s clear to me now why musicians and artists in general are flocking to Berlin, particularly from places like London and New York, who are pricing them out at this time. Least of all, it’s no surprise why the careers of these fine musicians have fallen into place so successfully in the artistic haven of Berlin.

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Interview Rachael Sage

RACHAEL SAGE: SLIDING DOORS Rachael Sage wears a lot of musical hats. Not only is she a talented singer-songwriter, she produces all her material, and looks after several international acts on her own label, MPress Records, which she has now run for 20 years.

Her latest album, Choreographic, is a fusion of song and dance, inspired by her roots in ballet, and was written in a week in a Camden hotel room last summer. And we must say, it’s very nicely put together, indeed. The big question is, did she really record all those lead vocals in her New York closet? We sit down with her in Electric House, London, to find out more.

52 Headliner

“I was two years old when my ordinarily strict mother did something pretty cool that shaped me for the rest of my life,” says Rachael. What an opening statement!

Tell us more... “[smiles] I spilt a bunch of watercolours; she had given me these plain white index cards to paint on to keep me busy, and I was in a safe spot on the bathroom floor, where I could make a mess, but I was petrified I would be in trouble. She looked at all the colours and said, ‘sweetheart, it’s okay, look at how pretty that is, it’s your first modern art painting’. And she framed it, and put it on her wall... And it’s still there! That was a great lesson to learn in life.”

Rachael has a real likeability factor, and it soon becomes apparent, a very clear focus on what she wants from music. Remarkably, Choreography is her 12th album, and although she doesn’t gig as much as she used to, she’s still performing up to 150 times every year, and running a label. The latest record is a cracker, and came out of nothing, really – just like that marvellous watercolour she threw together (literally) all those years ago.

“I had a little get together with my longtime collaborator, who I hadn’t worked with for many years; he was the guy who taught

me how to make demos as a kid, and how to refine my production with drum machines and synthesizers,” she says, with a smile. “I was quite a synth pop teen actually, very different from what I am doing now, but I was using all of those colours to pretend to be an orchestra or a band, and in my head I always wanted it to be real. But I hadn’t worked with Andy [Zulla] since my third or fourth album. He had heard me perform on the TV show, Dance Moms, and he said, ‘what about doing a whole album inspired by dance, and the resurgence in ballet in dance culture?’ I was like, ‘Yes! Oh my god, it’ll be ballet pop!’”

Rachael had a week off last summer, so put herself up in a hotel in Camden, London, and made herself write a song a day, the aim being to complete an album in around a week. And that’s how Choreography ultimately came to be.

“I used to do demos traditionally on a four-track, and then on Pro Tools at home, but I have made records for so long now that I don’t really make traditional demos unless I am pitching for someone else, so I just ran through each song with Andy in my apartment, and he had a little tape recorder, I would play it for him, and he would record it,” Rachael explains “We would stop, he would make suggestions,

Interview Rachael Sage

“There are really no bad ideas when you are working with someone who you respect and admire; the best thing you can do as an artist is be open.” sometimes I would wince, sometimes I would like it! I had been a little out of the saddle in terms of co-producing, so I had to get those chops back a bit, and realise there are really no bad ideas when you’re working with someone you respect and admire; the best thing you can do as an artist is be open, then you can refine it later.

“So we kind of brainstormed, I played through 15 or 16 songs, then we talked about arrangements, and a couple of weeks later, we’d scheduled tracking with my band, The Sequins, and we tracked the basics, which are guitar, piano, bass, and drums, in a studio in Stamford, Connecticut. Any overdubs I did when I had time on the road.”

A CLOSET RECORDING ARTIST “I recorded all my lead vocals in my closet in New York,” Rachael laughs. Seriously?

“Absolutely! We have that technology now, and if it's comfortable, then why not? Andy would come in, I have a Pro Tools rig in my living room, and my clothes have a great absorbent quality for a dead sound; we used the same mic he used on Idina Menzel and Kelly Clarkson, so that was also a bit of fun."

So is this record an evolution for you

musically, or something a little different?

“It's something more complete,” Rachael decides, after some deliberation. “I had full permission to explore every aspect of my creativity; and with the dance, as a former dancer, you have to confront some demons with that.

There were some issues I hadn't thought about for a while which I went through as a teenager, but I just put it all into the music. And that's what came out.”

Conversation turns to the tracks within the record, and one in particular: the uptempo I Don't Believe It: “On every single song, I was thinking about how it could be realised choreographically, with dance combined with it; and on a handful of songs, I have had the opportunity to do just that.

On I Don't Believe It, which is my favourite song on the record, and one I just made a video for, it was sparked by me being bullied as a kid, and those questionable parents and teachers in the dance world fighting so vehemently for their kids to succeed, but perhaps a little misguided in how they are pushing their kids, and people telling them they're not good enough. It came out as an up-tempo Florence + The Machine type feel, that I think could be performed at a big festival.”

Rachael has been performing here in the UK,

visiting dance and art schools, and inviting the kids to choreograph and improvise to some of the songs on the record. This is something she's already done in the US, and some of the dancers were so good, she says she felt truly humbled by their efforts.

Now, it's about building up that audience to sustain what she is doing, and there is no shortcut to that other than hard work: “It's respecting the people who listen to and engage with your music, and to reach out to people who can help expand your audience,” she says, softly. “I still sell CDs at the live shows, and my creative approach to making a physical album hasn't really changed; what has changed is my relationship every day with my listenership - I don't like the word 'fans', it feels too separate!

Social media has also changed things more than the ships in the music biz; it's changed the way I allocate time every day, and how I perceive walking through life, really. It's a strange phenomenon, but it kind of unifies everybody, and we sure need that now.”

Indeed we do. Headliner recommends its UK readers to grab a ticket or two for Rachael's O2 Academy show in Islington on October 28th.

It'll be £10 very well spent. www.rachaelsage.com

53 Headliner

Broadcast World Youth Day

WORLD YOUTH DAY 2016

A remarkable 2.5 million people are believed to have flocked to the 2016 World Youth Day (WYD), an international Catholic event focused on faith and youth, which this year took place at two sites in Kraków and Brzegi. Pope Francis addressed large gatherings of pilgrims, and given the scale of the event, the pressure on providing a suitable public address system and pristine signal delivery to all worshippers across the vast spaces was immense. Headliner gets technical...

C

onsidering the large number of sound towers and receivers deployed for this huge global event — and the vast distances between them (the furthest was located almost 2km from front of house position) — the only solution was to use fibre. Optocore and its OEM associate, BroaMan, uniquely have this capability, and they set up a fully-redundant optical fibre network using the advanced, protocol-independent tools.

Both the principal sound rental companies — GigantSoundLetus and GMB Pro Sound — were charged with sourcing the inventory to implement this. They relied heavily on large multi-node redundant Optocore

54 Headliner

ring networks for the two main sites: Błonia Park in Kraków, which holds 600,000; and the nearby village of Brzegi, where the site could accommodate up to three million people. The latter location saw the biggest deployment of technical gear ever put out for a single event, according to Gigant’s Jurek Taborowski.

In total, some 160 devices from the German company were deployed, with a large number of interfaces provided respectively

by French partners, Lumière & Son, and GB4D. The Brzegi Campus Misericordiae site comprised 67 audio towers (13 intercom equipped), 28 video walls, and four rings; in total, 84 cases of equipment were shipped to site.

Lumière & Son had designed and configured the set-up for delivery to GigantSound, constructing an Optocore plug and play system at their headquarters in Paris before inviting five 4Vision technicians to receive system induction and training. This enabled the Polish company to create three Optocore rings, along with 18 BroaMan Mux22 and two Route66, all supplied by Lumière & Son. Each of the audio and video towers contained a single Optocore device providing analogue out, AES out, and LAN Ethernet to Powersoft amps, which in turn drove Outline loudspeakers. At front of house, the system received direct inputs from the mixing console via Optocore’s Y3R-TP card.

A total of 108 Optocore devices were deployed. The three rings were purpose-configured

by Lumiere to meet the specific requirements; some racks containing X6R-FX devices only, some with BroaMan Mux22, Route66 and X6R-TP, while some were plugged with DD32R-FX interfaces and older X6P. In addition, three dedicated BroaMan systems were assembled — one ring with 10 Mux22 interfaces and two in a star topology, with a Route66 and four Mux22 in each. All devices provided program feed in HD-SDI format to the 27 LED screens supplied by Supervision Poland, and both BroaMan and Optocore systems used singlemode fibre infrastructure built especially for the event.

Broadcast World Youth Day

With this enormous requirement, Lumière & Son also sourced equipment from fellow French-based Optocore houses, GB4D and De Préférence.

In terms of scale, Lumière & Son president, Pierre Heyligen, confirmed: “This project used more devices than for COP 21 [Climate Change Conference] and [grand opening of the new] Suez Canal — although required fewer channels.”

The parallel event on the Blonia Park site comprised 29 towers and nine video walls, and three delay zones. The additional small site was equipped with five audio towers and two video walls. Video star connections with 11 Telebeam video walls, were connected through BroaMan’s Route66, receivers and control system. There were 34 audio towers, some of them with intercom belt-packs, with two rings for audio and a control system, in all requiring 54 equipment cases.

The site PA was supplied by GMB Pro Sound, who confirmed that all audio and video distribution was via two Optocore rings, the Route66 and nine Repeat48 — all sourced from GB4D. Responsible for Optocore design and coordination from GMB was Kamil Zajdel, who was also working as a system engineer, with Paweł Adamowicz, while Optocore’s Maciek Janiszewski assisted on site. Once again, BroaMan and Optocore routing was via purpose-built singlemode fibre infrastructure and once again, Optocore and BroaMan systems were commissioned by 4Vision.

In addition to the main distribution system, GMB purchased a further six X6R devices to complement their existing stock, which it first used at the Open’er Festival 2016 in Gdynia and then at Way of the Cross during WYD, where all nine devices were sent into action.

In total, there were 29 Optocore delay towers constructed at this site on two each with a single Optocore device providing AES out and LAN to control the d&b amps, which in turn drove d&b loudspeakers.

A total of 58 Optocore devices were connected, with AES inputs fed to the Optocore environment: some racks comprised X6R-FX only, some were X6RFX with X6R-TP while DD32R-FX were used as AES inputs.

The BroaMan network was again designed as a star system around a central Route66 equipped with 10 3G-SDI inputs providing distribution over fibre to 10 LED screens via Repeat48 converters.

GMB Pro Sound’s Remigiusz Kasztelnik sums the unique (and complex!) experience up for us: “We were very happy with our choice in terms of the Optocore devices, and there were no major problems while operating them. The biggest challenge was to connect all devices using existing fibre installation. It was a real pleasure working with the Munich

team of Maciek Janiszewski, Michal Mićka, and David Somlo: we couldn’t have asked for more; their professionalism and passion resulted in mutual success.”

And summarising the entire event, Pawel Fila, who was supported on the project by colleague, Daniel Augustyniak, added: “Apart from the weather, the biggest challenges were the last minute changes, not only in terms of required functionality, but also physical changes such as positioning of

years — but this has to be the largest of all.

“We are proud to have been associated with World Youth Day and are delighted by the way our partners worked together to ensure a world class performance.”

The next World Youth Day will take place in Panama in 2019. www.optocore.com www.broadcastmanufactur.com

“WE WERE VERY HAPPY WITH THE OPTOCORE DEVICES; WE COULDN’T HAVE ASKED FOR MORE.” towers and video walls, as well as control and power points. Also, the distances we needed to cover between the towers on both fields took about an hour, and we had several off-road Suzuki and quad cars. It was an amazing feat.”

Commenting on the strategic importance of the event to BroaMan and Optocore, BroaMan MD, Tine Helmle, said: “Our fibre systems have helped broadcast site transmission over some of the biggest and most prestigious global events over the

55 Headliner

ROBIN MILLAR SMOOTH OPERATOR One of the most successful British music producers of all time, Robin Millar, CBE, is a witty, talented, and extremely humble man. With over 150 gold, silver, and platinum discs, and 44 number ones to his name, Robin has worked with the likes of Sting, Randy Crawford, and Sade; he also happens to have been blind since 1985. As we munch on shortbread surrounded by guitars, a piano, and pictures of Miles Davis, Robin speaks of his musical journey. Words Kat Deal

56 Headliner

Smooth Operator Robin Millar

“Robin’s done a bit of soul, he’s blind, so we’ll give him Stevie Wonder!”

“I

would say the highlight of my career is Sade’s Your Love Is King appearing on Top of the Pops in the middle of the ‘80s electro synth pop era, like an oasis in an electronic desert,” smiles Robin Millar. “It sent a shiver down my spine; that was 20 years in the making. It was like a disbelief that the dreams that I’d had since I was 13 with a plastic guitar had ended up with me being one of those people that had a hit record.

Millar learnt music from an early age singing and playing piano. He badgered his dad, and eventually he bought him a £5 guitar, and Millar

purchased himself a ‘Teach Yourself Guitar’ book.

“I found that although I had a reasonable aptitude for playing the piano, I didn’t think I had a gift for it,” Millar recalls. “I couldn’t understand how a fantastic pianist could make any piano sound like them - it seems so mechanical - whereas the guitar was like a personal extension of myself. If you have a gift, you can pick up any guitar and it’ll sound like you playing it. Plus, about a year after I got a guitar, my sister turned me onto the blues. I was 14 going on 15 and I couldn’t see in the dark; I had tunnel vision, and blobs in front of my face; I wasn’t able to get a motor scooter or go out to clubs at night easily, there was a certain amount of anguish going on.

“It wasn’t just hearing blues singers, it was looking at them screwing their faces up, closing their eyes and opening their mouths and bellowing in an unrestrained unselfconscious way, and playing guitar in a basic strong way as an expression of grief. But it’s funny it’s called ‘the blues’; there’s a power, there’s a masculinity, there’s an optimism there. They’re never too far away from saying, ‘but there’s life, and a drink, and a good time.’ I related hugely, plus I was the son of two immigrants; you are looking for an identity, a home. I somehow felt that these were people a long way away but who understood.

Millar turned to music production, a move that became a pretty natural one, he explains: “I was a touring and working musician, both singing on my own and playing guitar. It came to the point where I couldn’t see the sheet music in front of me. I was putting up a front and pretending I could. I went on a European tour and I fell off the stage, broke my guitar, and hurt myself; and I felt that I was, wrongly, an imposition on the rest of the touring party.

He was then offered a job in a studio in France.

“You don’t actually have to see in a recording studio; you can learn your way around all the knobs and buttons, and so on,” he says. “I got the chance to record a French punk band. The record was picked up, released, and went to number one, so I said, ‘Oh wow, this producing lark is a doddle!” [laughs] I seemed to have a knack for directing, and people seemed to take my suggestions on board. I was given many opportunities after that.

Time to build a studio. Millar had about £35,000 of equity in his flat, cashed it in, wrote up a business plan, and got turned down by almost everyone except the last person.

“I hardly had enough money for the bus fare home and this venture capital company said, ‘We’ll back you, that’s fine, what you wanna do?’

I wanted to buy a studio, and make records, and provide opportunities in my spare time, so I did.

In my spare time, I made Your Love Is King and Smooth Operator with no record deal or anything; we got a record deal, and it became very successful.”

Millar was immediately offered Chaka Khan and

Stevie Wonder after this (as you do): “You can see how record companies think, ‘Oh well Robin’s done a bit of soul, and he’s blind, so we’ll give him Stevie Wonder!’ Fortunately, this time I just said that I wasn’t ready; I had a manager, and much to my manager’s fury and annoyance, I kept turning them down. ‘Anita Baker: for goodness sake, she’s had Quincy Jones!’ [laughs]” Millar says his biggest creative challenge has been adapting his personal take on how a track ought to sound to the commercialness of the market.

“I’ve never had a hit record because it sounded exactly like what is happening at the moment; I can’t do that. If I have successful record, it’s because there’s talent there, and because they’re supported by a strong artist: a defiant record company, a marketing person who’s determined, and a view from all of them put together that this record, if people get the chance to hear it, they’ll like it. Actually, the Sade stuff created a sort of ‘style’ of music - unfortunately mostly used in lifts and music on hold to BT!” In terms of today’s artists, Millar cites Adele as one of his personal favourites.

“I find Adele’s lyrics, and the way she sings, so moving; and I think everybody does. I’m a punter, and I like what punters like,” he says. “I can’t think of many terrible records that have got absolutely enormous, and I’ve got a healthy cynicism for certain journalists who will sit and say MJ was overrated; you’re essentially saying the 70 million people who bought Thriller have got bad taste.

The best part about his job, he insists, is that time stands still. Quite a poignant line, Robin.

“It is, and if I had all the money in the world, I’d still be doing this. Maybe I’ll start something at 11:30 in the morning, and I’ll be working; I’m not disabled, I’m not looking at my bills, it’s all soundproofed, and I’m not aware of anything on the outside,” he explains. “I’ll go, ‘I’m going to get myself a cup of tea and something to eat, it’s probably lunchtime’, and I’ll look at my watch and it’s six hours later. So the best bit of my job is doing it. Music is something I do every day; I have to.”

Finally, Robin, you’re on a desert island, and you can only take one record - what do you take?

“Let It Bleed by The Rolling Stones,” comes his instant response. “The chance that my sister started dating somebody who then became a member of The Rolling Stones meant that I got a behind-the-scenes intimate look at what it’s like to be in one of the most successful rock and roll bands.

My aspiration was therefore Mick Jagger with a Ferrari parked outside, a large mansion in the South of France, and 60,000 people screaming at him. I had big ideas, and I kept those big ideas. If I hear that record, that whole extraordinary buzz of going, ‘Gosh, how have I found myself here?’ comes back.” www.robinmillar.org.uk

57 Headliner

%!*@

GRUMPY OLD ROADIE Festival Time!

So the Headliner editor phoned me a few weeks ago, even more full of himself than normal. The conversation went a bit like this: “Robert (that’s me), do you fancy doing a festival for me?

Just helping me run the event. It’s for charity; it’ll be fabulous; loads of artists, in a place called St. Albans. Free beer.”

I stopped him there. What was that last one? Free beer?

Obviously I never drink and work (nor drive, kids - note that), but a couple of free pints at the end of a free day’s labour appealed to me. And I do like Paul, despite his nasty little habits, so I said yes.

Have you ever been to St. Albans? It’s renowned for the Verulamium, which is basically an old town built in Roman times just southwest of the current town, and largely unexcavated. That might be of interest to you, but personally I couldn’t give a fuck. I spent an hour looking for a festival site and the production gate before Paul called and told me that I should head for a pub called The Six Bells. Apparently it’s 1,000 years old. I guess the Romans went there when they fancied a pint?

No production gate, no Trakway, or Portakabins. Just a pub car park. There was a nice little stage already set up, so I lent a hand with the rest of the gear which was already coming out of the back of the truck. Obviously this had been well thought through, as the sound gear had been donated for the evening by industry specialists, SSE Audio. We all mucked in to help set it up, and it worked first time. And I’m a lampy!

The event itself went like a dream. There were eight acts, with two of them coming over especially from the USA. I doubt that Paul covered their transport costs, so they must be applauded for making the effort and walking all that way. Unfortunately I can’t remember the names of either, but they did have blisters.

The weather stayed dry (unlike the truck driver, who valiantly drank my share of the free beer on top of his own), and the hog roast hit the spot. The car park was packed with punters who were all having a glorious time. I guess they parked their cars back at the Verulamium? I didn’t really care.

The whole event was a total success; and on top of that, Paul raised close to £3,000 for the chosen charity, Jessie’s Fund, a charity that helps children with major difficulties, using music as therapy. Fantastic cause.

After we’d finished packing the gear away into the truck, we tucked the driver cosily back into his cab, and left him to sleep it off. He’d had such a good day. We then went back into the pub where Paul’s mate, Alan, the landlord, had poured a couple of night caps. When Paul spotted the piano in the corner, he was over there in a flash, and before you could say Syd Barrett, was knocking out Comfortably Numb. Which we all were!

Wouldn’t it be a good idea to do it all again next year, Paul?

Robert the Roadie 58 Headliner

“Obviously I never drink and work, but a few free pints after a day’s free labour appealed to me.”

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