I first learned of Shaking Through via an email from Sharon Van Etten, who once played at my old home studio/house/show venue, The Habitat, in San Diego, CA. It turns out she was the first artist chosen to be a part of the unique web-based documentary series co-created and produced by Brian McTear and Peter English. Shaking Through is the first project from the non-profit McTear formed called Weathervane Music, which seeks to advance the careers of musicians while creating a healthier independent music ecosystem, all in spite of disappearing revenue streams in the music industry. The program invites artists to record a brand new song at McTear's Miner Street Recordings in Philadelphia. The entire recording session is video recorded and edited down to a handful of short videos showing the creative and technical process behind the making of the song. Heading into their third year now, I chatted with Brian to uncover the secrets behind the success of this project.
After years of recording and producing at Miner Street, what was the inspiration behind co-creating Shaking Through?
I was recording an album in 2001 with my friend, Matt Pond. On the drives to and from the studio we began to talk about writers and artist retreats; those idyllic places where someone receives a grant to work on their art for some extended period of time. I continued exploring the idea with a friend from high school named Bill Robertson. We could tell that the music industry was a bubble and file sharing was the needle about to burst it. While people imagined it would only hurt those at the top, we knew that it would ultimately lead to a situation where the industry wouldn't invest in new artists anymore. We thought that was pretty grim for the first several years, but in 2009 — when we started Weathervane Music — we realized it could actually be a great opportunity to make artists and audiences "partners" in the creation of new music; a relationship that could be great for music... maybe even "save" it.
I know you are raising money through Kickstarter, but what other groups or companies are lending support?
The support comes from the public. That's a key distinction about non-profits. It makes sense to us because what we do is intended to benefit artists, audiences, other non-profits, and even for-profits. The work is not proprietary. Hopefully it will yield new models that will benefit all arts and culture. Weathervane has also received financial support for Shaking Through from WXPN, an NPR affiliate in Philadelphia, as well as The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and The Hauswald Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation. Miner Street, the studio I own and operate, provides free studio time, as well as lodging accommodations. We get pizza from Rustica Pizza — and it's excellent! In the long run we hope to establish a membership program and attract corporate sponsorship for the series too. There's a lot of great potential here as we build a big community!
With the studio time donated, where are the rest of the raised funds allocated? The engineers and video crew? The audio and video quality is really impressive.
The money pays the studio engineers, the video camera operators, field audio operators, and editors to work at about half of their going rate. Our staff; currently two full time people and about three part-timers, don't get paid at all. Of course, none of this is sustainable — eventually even the most dedicated staffers have to stop working for nothing. So we need to improve our revenue streams. Any non-profit is two businesses under one roof: The first is the business of setting and achieving their mission. The second is the business of funding their mission. Our mission, I feel, we hit out of the park. Revenue streams and fundraising, well, we're working on those.
You always include a technical video about the recording session, along with the video of the band recording their song, plus you offer up the raw tracks/stems of the session. What were your thoughts behind doing these things?
There are two components: Firstly, it's part of our vision to help bring about a greater audience investment in the music they love. Deeper understanding of what goes into making that music — the ideas, the creativity, the excitement and, let's face it, hard work — will help people understand that music isn't automatic. It's a product of collaboration and dedication. We want to increase the general awareness of these things and, perhaps by doing so, this will increase the overall value of music within our culture. Secondly, the inclusion of the technical information is for the musicians and aspiring engineers out there. I spent a good decade or so reinventing the wheel. If only I could have heard and manipulated raw tracks that were recorded professionally in 1998, I would have progressed so much faster! Part of it was my fault. I spent so much of my energy not trusting what was out there on a purely aesthetic basis. It was stupid. But I also had no exposure to anything but what I recorded myself. Giving access to quality recordings to people who can learn from them is awesome. Encouraging them to do whatever the hell they want with it from there — and perhaps even share it with others around the world — is even more awesome. And that's how it's turning out. We've had over 8,000 downloads in 45 countries, around the world!
Tell us about some of the amazing gear you've had on loan for your Shaking Through sessions.
In 2009, from the beginning, we were lucky to get equipment from my long time friends George Hajioannou at Studio Logic Sound and Joel Morowitz at Ecstatic Electric Audio. We've also been given items to use directly from manufacturers such as Doug Fearn at D.W. Fearn, Andrew Roberts at Purple Audio, Alan Veniscofsky at Telefunken-Elektroakustik, and Wes Dooley at AEA. Initially, for me at least, it was less about the equipment itself and more about wanting these people to understand and support our mission — to be a part of a community who know music should be better than it is for artists and audiences today. But then, as we started using this gear, it became about sharing the eye-opening experiences we've had. I think our sponsors feel this way as well. As George Hajioannou has always said, he was lending me equipment valued in the tens of thousands of dollars to "educate my ear." Telefunken knows that their C12, ELA M 251 and U47 are extremely special microphones. AEA also knows that about their entire line of ribbons. That high quality comes at a price, but having worked with all these people now, we can see that they wish everyone could have the experience of using their gear. They know that giving it to us is a step in that direction since we'll be sharing our track sheets, as well as the raw tracks themselves, with the public — before we ultimately have to send the gear back!
How do you go about selecting a group to be featured in Shaking Through?
We have a small selection committee made up of Weathervane and WXPN staff members, as well as a couple of other helping hands. That group is mostly focused on selecting and contacting "guest curators," i.e., well known members of the music community. These could be well-known musicians, respected music critics, radio personalities, etc. When guest curators are musicians themselves, we usually offer the opportunity for them to co-produce the music with the artist and our production crew. The guest curators nominate three or four bands to the selection committee. The committee vets the artist eligibility first, then we consider which music and songs we like the best, as well as which artists will rise to the occasion and give it their all. We really want participation in Shaking Through to be the thing that pushes an artist's career over the top, as it did for Sharon Van Etten, Reading Rainbow [now called Bleeding Rainbow], and recently Snowmine. I think the curation process is the thing that sets this apart from other web series. It's another part of a system that is loaded with positive people, truly altruistic motives, and one that reaches out into several networks and directions at once. Past curators have included Daniel Rossen from Grizzly Bear, Scott McMicken from Dr. Dog, Daniel Smith from Danielson, and Peter Silberman from The Antlers.
Tell us a little about Jon Low and Amy Morrissey. They're on duty most sessions, right?
Yes. Amy is my partner. She and I have lived together and have owned the studio together for ten years. Her background is sculpture, so she has always had a particularly unique approach to recording. I've always attributed it to her ability to equate sound with positive and negative space, something that makes all the sense in the world when placing microphones. Amy engineered all the sessions in 2009, and most of 2010. She has since turned her focus to painting and sculpture again. I love the work she does there. Even if she wasn't my partner in life and business, I think she'd still be my favorite artist! In late 2010 we handed over the engineering for Shaking Through to Jonathan Low. At 25, he's an extraordinary talent; he's extremely smart and thoughtful. I handed over the mixing of the sessions to Jon in 2011 as well.
What's your vision for the future of Shaking Through and Weathervane?
I hope we're able to attract more organizational and corporate partners for the Shaking Through series, and I hope we see a tipping point where more and more guest curators come out of the woodwork for the opportunity to help artists that are in the position they once were. As for other project ideas, there's a lot in the pipeline, but it's too soon to get into them. We need to take it one step at a time. We do know that we want all the artists that participate in future Weathervane endeavors to enter via Shaking Through. We may have five or six other projects some day, but everyone will start as a Shaking Through artist. For Weathervane, we're working on a membership program — something that further defines and solidifies the community in all this. For everything we do, the benefits for the audience should always equal the benefit for the artists. It's the core of our vision — "A healthy music ecosystem where audiences and artists are equally important and equally committed to the creation of music." It means that art finds its way into our culture in much more wholesome ways than it has in the past. I personally believe that this is the only way it can work in the future.
