What exactly is/are "trombone-propelled electronics?" The backwards guitar pieces were fun to watch because of all those "horny guitars" (as my wife dubbed the highly pronged pawnshop specials that...
Hey, wait a minute — weren't all the great records supposed to be recorded in somebody's bedroom by now? By people in their twenties, on cheap software, with consumer-level gear? Wasn't there...
When I found out that I would be moving to Minneapolis, my friend Peter Holmstrom gave me Ed Ackerson's number. He told me Ed was a guy that I would have a lot in common with. In Portland, I had...
The recording of my interview with Scott Hirsch begins with a swelling synth note that slowly decays into a repeating delay that gradually fades out. This abstract beginning flows well into our...
For the last 20 years Seattle's Green Pajamas have been cranking out great records. Since their debut album, Summer of Lust, in 1984, to their latest releases of Northern Gothic and Through Glass...
About one hour from Christchurch, New Zealand, the small village of Mount Somers is located just before the steep and pristine beginnings of the beautiful Southern Alps. A green, mostly...
People never stop surprising me. A couple of years ago, a neighbor of mine came over to my house and handed me a record he'd been working on. I hardly knew he played music. He never talked about it. I...
Camper Van Beethoven was one of the first 'indie' bands as we know the term to imply. They were releasing their own records in the mid 1980s, a very unusual thing at the time. The band incorporated...
Whenever a rave flyer adorned with hentai-anime lasses, regurgitated-Lifesaver colors and fudged-up vector shapes blows onto my leg, I think of The Books and exhale. The NYC/Massachusetts duo make...
I first met Dave Amels of Bomb Factory and Vocé in Nashville at the NAMM show last year. People kept telling me "You need to meet Dave and interview him for Tape Op." We ended up chatting for a...
Would you first give your definition of mastering and why it matters? Mastering is the last creative process in the chain and the final technical check before duplication. Creatively, an artist can...
Between 1979 and 1998 Bob Mould put out 14 records with his two amazing bands, Hüsker Dü and Sugar, and five solo records, influencing the course of music with his enraged, swirling guitars...
