))<>((

Edit: After a long-winded conversation with Ilya about my blanket statement, “Who relies on a producer to oversee the creation of an album when you’re in a “indie” band?” I’d like to make a slight change to clarify my point. In my experience (two whole months of employment at a recording studio plus random acquaintances and friends with varying degrees of information), a producer is usually a vestigial part of a recording process. None that I’ve worked with or heard about through first-hand accounts have had much input in the actual process of committing sound to tape (or hard disk). Their actual artistic input has been minimal. That’s not to say there aren’t people like Roger Moutenot with Yo La Tengo, Mike McMackin with Codeine, or Nigel Godrich with Radiohead, who are–as Ilya puts it–essentially bandmembers. Folks like that are scarce on most “indie” recordings, though, and it’s my opinion that the job of choosing sounds that end up an a recording should be the job of a band and not a hired gun, trusted though he may be.

The point of my Pitchfork diss yesterday was more about their deeming something that I feel is self-explanatory as their major headline of the day. Like Snakes on a Plane is the height of obviousness, “indie band to self-produce album,” seems equally inescapable.

The comment about putting The Arcade Fire in a room with Tim DeLaughter and Sufjan Stevens remains the same. Talk about drama!

On a related note, Queen Latifah visited my place of work. Possible salutations that crossed through my head before I decided to pretend she was just another African American woman looking to enjoy an afternoon with a teenager (her son?)

“Whoa, your highness, care to lay off the jelly donuts?”
“Man, Taxi sure was a wise career move.”
“Oh! I really liked you in Sphere–especially when you died.”
“Excuse me Miss, you’re standing in my sunlight.”