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From: peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: U2: "The Unforgettable Fire" (& producers)
Message-ID: <521@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Nov-84 22:49:38 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.521
Posted: Tue Nov 27 22:49:38 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Nov-84 23:17:12 EST
References: <518@utcsrgv.UUCP> <1229@dciem.UUCP>
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 48

>  Lanois is the Canadian who made Martha & The Muffins' "This Is The
> Ice Age" one of the best Canadian albums I've ever heard.  There are a lot
> of Eno-ish effects on that album, but I'm not sure if Brian and Danny ever
> worked together before "The Unforgettable Fire".  "Ice Age" is the only
> other Lanois work I'm aware of.
The Eno soundtrack "Apollo" was a Lanois/Eno effort, with Lanois actually
writing some of the music.  There's a good piece on Lanois in a local Toronto
free paper called "Metro"... some excerpts:
In 1978, [Lanois] began a more intense involvement with [Grant Avenue
Studio]'s sound production.  By 1981, he had given himself over to it almost
completely.  "At first", he says, "you get lost in the technology.  I did.
You add an echo here, shift a mike up under the drum, get a reverb going off
of the base [sic?] and through it through the speakers.  That's how the
'great mutation' begins.  The real music that was there in the beginning gets
distorted in the hype of the technology.  When I was playing everywhere and
anything I lost the initial enthusiasm that got me playing guitar in the first
place.  When you're a kid and you pick up a guitar its because you are moved
by it, right?  Your body says yeah, and your mind goes crazy and you want to
produce that in others.  You think of yourself as Chuck Berry or Keith Richards
or whomever, but along the way it gets lost.  Technology is often a substitute
for what got lost.  Hald the time the sound you are hearing is only one third
you.  The rest is the technology.  In some cases of course that could be a
blessing.  But generally what you come up with is diluted street music.  It
all starts on the street and if it ain't got the street in it, then its got
nothing; no guts, no heart, just syncopated white trash or some other form of
non-music".  [The writer contrasts this with L's reputation as a wizard
producer and asks...] After all, isn't technology basically what music is
all about?  "No" says Dan, "The best producers can hear the sound of the
street in the music and settle its purity in the technology.  That's
precisely what happened with U2.  We just allowed the music to speak for
itself."  [But he goes on to say...] "Admittedly, not all sounds are going to
[be what you want] so you have to bring them out a bit with the technology,
but it's knowing when to let that happen."

Dan and Peter [Gabriel] are co-producing the soundtrack for a new movie by
Allan Parker called "Birdie". ... Dan's intention is to add the moody
undercurrents to the soundtrack complimenting Peter's more punchy sound.
-----------------
One can see Eno and Lanois in the video for "Pride -- In the Name of Love"
by U2.

Finally, the best place to get the Eno deletes is Records on Wheels, 631
(or close to that) on Yonge.  They're all $3.99.  Awfully good deal!
(Sorry to you non-Torontonians for this bit of local info)

peter rowley,  University of Toronto Department of C.S., Ontario Canada M5S 1A4
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