Tony Maimone and Studio G

BY JOHN DYLAN KEITH

David Minehan

BY JASON HATFIELD

David Minehan played guitar, sang and wrote songs for the Boston punk band The Neighborhoods from 1979-1992. After the 'Hoods he played guitar with Paul Westerberg on the 14 Songs tour and even filled in for Brad Whitford of Aerosmith. At his Wooly Mammoth Sound Studio in Boston, which he shares with musician/producer Dave Westner, he has recorded many great New England artists including Scruffy the Cat, Salem 66, Gang Green, The Freeze, Mark Cutler, The Figgs, The Shelley Winters Project, The Gentlemen, Lucky 57, Jabe, The Kickovers, Asa Brebner, Robin Lane and the Chartbusters, Natalie Flanagan and Willie "Loco" Alexander and the Boom Boom Band.

Jay Bennett: Wilco, Bennett & Burch, more....

BY ROBERT LOERZEL

While listening to mixes at his new Chicago studio, Jay Bennett rolls his own cigarettes, then smokes them with a Hunter S. Thompson-style filter. "It's a good prop," he says. "I have a certain mad scientist reputation that I have to uphold." Bennett earned that reputation largely during his six years as a member of Wilco. Not only is Bennett talented at playing guitar, keyboards and virtually any other instrument he touches, he is also an engineer and producer, with a knack for fixing electronic gadgets. Bennett took on some heavy recording duties in 2001, during the making of Wilco's album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, documented in the film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. He co-wrote eight of the eleven songs with lead singer Jeff Tweedy, played various instruments and co-engineered the record with Chris Buckley. Bennett says he was wearing "too many hats," causing tensions that culminated in Tweedy asking Bennett to leave. Out of Wilco, Bennett wasted no time teaming up with Edward Burch to record The Palace at 4am (Part I), taping much of it (120 tracks at times) in the basement of Bennett's home in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights. Over the past year, Bennett has recorded music by the Sun, Staggered Crossing, West of Rome, Brie Stoner, Mark Eitzel, Oh, the Stories We Hold by Anna Fermin's Trigger Gospel and others, while releasing an acoustic version of the Bennett-Burch album, Palace 1919. This spring, Bennett moved his Pieholden Suite Sound studio into an industrial loft on Chicago's northwest side, where he shares space with producer Alex Moore. Bennett is in the midst of several musical projects: a new solo album is out (Bigger Than Blue), a limited-edition Bennett-Burch tribute to the music of Rockpile, and an album with Michigan singer-songwriter Dave Vandervelde.

Jimmy LaValle: The Album Leaf Goes to Iceland

BY LARRY CRANE

In issue #28 we interviewed Jimmy LaValle, the man behind The Album Leaf, about his home recorded instrumental albums that we really enjoyed. Now Jimmy has had the opportunity to record his new album, In a Safe Place, in Iceland at Sigur Rós' studio with input from the band themselves. What a lucky guy. We sat and listened to the record as I picked his brain.