Linda Smith is a pioneering figure in the bedroom pop genre. With her introspective lyrics and DIY approach to recording, Smith's lo-fi sound was first captured in cassette releases in the '80s and '90s. Despite a 20-year hiatus, Smith's creative spirit endures, as she continues to produce new music and collaborate with fellow artists. She chats with Lisa Machac of Omni Sound Project about her creative process, the advantages of recording to tape, and working for the circus.
You are regarded as a pioneer in home recording technology. How do you feel about that label?
At the time that I started recording with a 4-track cassette recorder, which was in the late-'80s, that wasn't the intention. To me, it was something new. I had always played in bands, and I thought, "This will be a good tool to work out arrangements for the band. I can give them a demo and they can listen to it." That was the initial aim. I wasn't even aware of any home recording movement, or of other people who did it. But later, in the '90s, I saw more people getting these little 4-tracks. I had some friends who were making recordings with those, in probably the early '80s, but they weren't putting the product out. What happened in the late-'80s and '90s was, at least for me, I was putting the product out on cassette. After the band broke up, I moved back to Baltimore from New York, and I realized there was a self-released cassette movement going on. I thought I could get some response and feedback and send it to the 'zines who were reviewing these cassettes. You didn't have to be anybody known.
Did you play music as a kid? How did you transition into the rock 'n' roll scene?
I always dreamed of having an electric guitar as a child, because I was a big Beatles fan. I listened to AM radio constantly, so I wanted to do something like that. I thought I was too young to go out and buy myself an electric guitar. Later on, in the late '70s, early '80s, when new wave and post punk came around, there were a lot of women forming bands and putting out records who weren't the flashiest musicians.
When I wanted to learn, it was important to me that I was around other women. Was that something that was important to you?
Before I started playing in bands, it was very important for me. I was impressed by The Raincoats, and I thought, "This is the perfect band here." They were all women at that time. They'd put out a couple records, and I hadn't done anything. I hadn't even bought a guitar at that point, but I thought, "I'm going to do it. I should do it now." In the '60s, when I was a kid and I wanted to have a guitar to pretend I was a Beatle, this was something that I thought I could actually do. I had never written a song. I didn't necessarily have any musical ideas in my head. I just thought, "I can't do this unless I have a guitar." The first band I was in was three women. It was me and two other friends who had already been in a band; an all-girl punk rock band who were similar sounding to The Slits. These were people I felt I could connect with, because they already knew what was going on. They were probably four years younger than I was, but they knew all about the music that I liked too. It wasn't like going in and trying to find people to play with and their references are Jimi Hendrix and classic rock. I always had the idea that I wanted to be in a band that was all female. Then the second band I was in was also an all-female band.
How often were you playing live in those days in New York?
Very seldom. The band was called The Woods, and we played some good clubs, but we only maybe played four or five times. None of us were go-getters.
You then realized you enjoyed making music and recording at home rather than performing live. When did you start to explore that side of yourself?
The first cassette that I made, The Space Between the Buildings, was all recorded in my Brooklyn apartment. The band had been broken up for a little while. My friend, Brian [Bendlin], who was in The Woods with me, had a little studio in his apartment where he could add some effects to it, so he took over that end of it. I was just directly playing into the machine, and I didn't have any effects. That was the Fostex X-15 4-track. I did some recording before I started on this cassette where I was working out some songs to get the sound quality a little better. I was listening to some of those earlier attempts, and they were not the best. But later I was able to get it a little cleaner, even with the same machine. I didn't even have a really good mic at the time. But it seemed that people who listened to the cassettes were aware of the limitations of the sound quality. Now they talk about lo-fi, but what they're doing is not really lo-fi.
Yeah, they're capturing this pristine recording and then putting a lo-fi filter on it. When did you get your own machine and have that confidence to do it yourself?
I was working for an audio/video store in lower Manhattan. I used to go out at lunch, and there were a lot of other audio video/visual stores that sold all kinds of equipment. I was walking up a street one day, and I looked in the window and I saw the X-15. It might have been one of the first versions that was commercially available to the public. I went in, put some money down on it, and did the layaway thing. I was still in the band, and I thought, "This is the next step." I got it after a few months, took it home, and started to try to use it. I started making demos for the band. It was never a conscious desire to move from being in a band to making recordings.
Your solo cassettes started in New York. What happened next?
Once I moved back [to Baltimore], I did another cassette and then a label called Harriet Records showed interest in releasing a single. That kind of thing started to happen, where people would find out about me through the cassettes that were reviewed in Option, Sound Choice, or any of those music 'zines that covered alternative music. The cassette reviews would be in the back.
When you're using the term cassette, are you referring to the whole album, or are you talking about singles?
The original cassette would be, say, eight songs; there'd be four on one side and four on another. I designed a little cover, and it was all hand done. I'd cut them up with an X-ACTO knife; I'd buy my own blank cassettes, and I'd copy them on my double cassette deck. It was very much one at a time. And there may have only been not even a hundred of each sold.
How did you handle distribution?
A lot of it was people sending me personal mail saying, "I saw your review in Option." Option would always include your address and the amount for the cassette, usually $3 or whatever. People would start to write, and they'd ask, "Can I get a copy of your cassette?" It was word of mouth. It was interesting because there were little pockets of people that seemed to pay attention to this music.
When it came time to digitize those works, what was that process like?
That was much later. I didn't have a computer until probably the late '90s. Handmade Music made some CD copies of each cassette. I'd send him the original cassette and then he transferred it to CD. In 2011, I decided to put all my music up on a free website after ten years of not doing anything.
But do multitracks exist, or do you just have the final recordings?
I do have the original multitrack tapes, but I don't have the machine or the equipment anymore.
Did you feel pressure to perform live, once people started to become fans?
I didn't go out looking for places to perform, because I wasn't interested in that. I was just interested in recording. But if a friend or somebody asked me, I tried to get it together to do it. I didn't perform that much in the '90s, but I did perform maybe ten times in different places. I performed in New York a couple times, opening for Magnetic Fields because they asked. Stephin Merritt [Tape Op #38] started out as a home recording artist.
You created some pretty lush compositions with only you playing the instruments. How did you choose the instruments that you wanted on these songs?
I was always into the simplest, easiest to acquire instruments. I already had an electric guitar. I had a little Casio. I bought a Boss drum machine. I think they're collectible now, but it was one of the original small drum machines and I could play it by hand. Sometimes I would use an actual tambourine or shakers. I played snare drum by hand. I would try to mix it up. I always started with a [drum] machine to keep things in order, even though I might not use it through the whole song. It depended on the song. Some songs were created as I was devising different parts. I might have a set of lyrics that I wanted to work with; I would arrange those to fit a certain beat and sing them in a certain rhythm. Then, I might find the guitar chords for that. That would be the basis there, then I'd start to think about how to layer the rest around it to create some interest, so it didn't all sound one way.
And, by this time, this was on an 8-track, right?
Yes, those two albums from the mid-'90s were recorded that way, and they have a very different sound than the cassette recordings. I did a reissue of the cassettes over the past couple of years, where I made new copies of them and sold them on Bandcamp, along with the digital.
What were you using at that time to capture the recording itself?
I wish I knew what microphone I had back then. I had one mic, and that was for the vocals. If I was going to record an acoustic guitar, I would use the same mic. I would maybe put a pickup on the guitar. I had a 12-channel Mackie [1202] mixer, then out of that and right to the tape recorder. I still have the tape recorder, but I don't have the mixer anymore. I had an old Farfisa [organ] at my disposal. I used it on the Nothing Else Matters album quite a bit. On I So Liked Spring there is keyboard on that, probably a Casio or something. I never had a whole lot of instruments. I might have some shakers, and a tambourine that I would play live.
Did you have other musicians come and collaborate?
On I So Liked Spring, that's all me. There's no one else playing on that. On Nothing Else Matters there were two or three friends who added either vocals, some percussion, or a violin part.
You were working full time. Is this something that you were doing when you felt like it, or were you setting aside intentional time and space to knock it out? How was your creative life structured?
I went through periods where I felt like, "I'm gonna make an album," and that would be once every couple of years or something. I'd start thinking about making an album of songs. I always thought of it as an album of songs, although there were a couple of singles. I was trying to progress from cassettes to CDs, because nobody was doing vinyl albums at the time. Something that really is transformative is the ability to do it again and again, versus having a fixed amount of real estate to record. I am able to record a vocal and then go, "I hate that," and do it again and do it again. I didn't feel like anybody was listening to the mistakes I was making. Nobody was expecting me to get done in a certain amount of time. There was no money that was being spent on a recording studio. I didn't feel like I had to rehearse anything beforehand, because I would be rehearsing while I was recording. I would play it, and then I'd get one that might be okay. With tape, I didn't know how to cut and splice tape and all that. I thought, "I'm going to get it to a point where it's acceptable," and it might not be the greatest. With tape, it was you. It's not like using a computer program now where I could take things out and move them around. I didn't know how to do that. You could do punch-ins with tape, but I never got that down.
It makes it even more impressive. Are you still recording?
Yes. I started making some new music in 2021. I did an album of instrumentals [Untitled 1?-?10 Plus 1] that was released by a small Italian label [Almost Halloween Time Records]. They released a limited 12-inch vinyl edition of that. I also released A Passing Cloud with Simon Joyner's label Grapefruit, in combo with another small label, Gertrude. It was a file swapping collaboration between Nancy Andrews and myself during the pandemic.
How was that recorded?
On the laptop. I started with Audacity. To me, it's the most similar to working with tape in a weird way. I wouldn't have started recording again unless I had found something like Audacity that was easy for me to understand. I could plug in the keyboard or the drum machine and get a track, hook up the microphone through the interface, and record the vocals. I didn't have a Mac or anything, so I had to use something for Windows. I was going to try Ableton [Live]. I had a copy of that, I put it in, and I looked at it and I was thinking, "Am I stupid or something?" It's kind of like [Microsoft] Excel. There are so many different ways to do the same thing. I was thinking, "Why can't there just be one way?" I don't need to know five different ways to do one thing! [laughter]
It seemed like you were in your late thirties or early forties when you made I So Liked Spring.
I'm 68 now. There may be periods where people don't do something. I didn't do music for 20 years. The pandemic had a lot to do with me doing it again. I started buying effects boxes, a new microphone, another computer, and an interface. I didn't have any of these beforehand. To younger people who may be in a period where they're not doing anything, don't worry about it. You'll get back to it at some point if it's meant to be. A lot of times people feel they have to be doing something 24/7. They have to put music out every five minutes. But for most people, who are working jobs, there's only going to be so much time for that. Accept the laziness part of your personality too, because that's the time when ideas are starting to formulate in your mind for the next project. That's where we build up some more experiences and some more thoughts. In retirement, I'm starting to think, "Can I write a song? What do I want to write about now?"
