BY MA? MAIR
LOWERY
My love of Michael Penn's music so pre-dates my interest in recording that when I was preparing to interview him for Tape Op, I returned to his records — I felt I knew them by heart, to find that I knew only one aspect of them by heart. I knew the songs. Granted, the songs are most important, or as Michael put it to me at one point, "Song is king." Still, with an ear directed towards the recordings themselves, I was astounded at how great all of Michael's albums sound. Now I knew this at a basic level all along — March and Free-For-All in particular have never left my stereo or iPod rotation for very long — but listening from the recording perspective, I discovered an attention to detail that I had not noticed before. The background vocals and guitar parts, for example, were not only memorable melodically, they sounded cool, brilliantly odd. They added so much depth without distracting from the songs — ideas swirled around, but never cluttered up the mixes. I was amazed that I was hearing new things on records I had been listening to almost constantly for 15 years. Of course, this shouldn't be surprising. During a recent performance on NPR's World Café, Michael agreed that he was but a reluctant performer. He said that making the records is, for him, the best part of the process. His care and craft are certainly apparent on his lateÌ album, Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 — yet another record full of brilliant pop songs that he recorded (and mastered) at home. My first talk with Michael, after a recent performance at Portland's Doug Fir Lounge, led to the discovery that he was a big Tape Op fan. I later caught up with him for a phone interview.
