“BILL
NELSON had become a “guitar hero” in the early seventies, but later
became disillusioned with the guitar solo as the be-all end-all. I was simultaneously
realizing the same thing. BILL turned to the ebow, playing long, sinuous synthy-sounding
solos in place of his guitar hero fretwork. I recall one interview where he
called the guitar solo “a devalued currency” and mentioned that he
was playing guitar mostly with the energy bow. He said people asked him constantly
why he had given up the guitar. What they didn’t realize was that he was
playing as much or more guitar than before...only with the ebow, which to this
day most people don’t connect with as being a guitar. I believe the assumption
is that it’s a synth, or a long sustained note held and turned up really
loud through a Marshall, like on THE CARS’ “Since You’ve Gone.”
“I’ve
heard no other guitarist use the ebow with quite the skill that Bill Nelson
did in the early 80s. Others used it but it was often gimmicky. BILL took
it and developed an amazing technique, and I have an enormous amount of respect
for the work he accomplished using this remarkable little device. I love the
sound it makes. A wise man once said “any fool can play fast”...Whereas
the ebow allows me to play really, really slow...execute really, really LONG
notes...which is eminently suited to an ambient/looping atmosphere. Sometimes
it’s appropriate to play quickly with the ebow, but its strong suit is
in its long, flowing tones.”
For
all of the power of the influences of BILL NELSON and the ebow, the pivotal
moment in DAVE STAFFORD’s musical development was yet to come.
“In
1988, in a record shop that I never go into, I picked up a free music magazine
I’d never seen before. Inside was a tiny note mentioning that ROBERT
FRIPP would be giving a GUITAR CRAFT course in Malibu, and that if you were
interested in attending, you were to write a letter stating why you wanted
to attend and send it in to MR FRIPP.
“I
had heard of GUITAR CRAFT but I never thought I might participate in it. Suddenly,
there it was, just a couple hours drive away from my San Diego home. I wrote
a letter, which said that I had no plan, was badly self-taught, and that I
needed some methodology or discipline in my guitar playing. To my intense
surprise, I received a letter back from WILLIAM FORTH (later of the HELL BOYS)
indicating that I had been accepted, and naming what seemed at the time a
very large fee. And the need to purchase a very particular and expensive Ovation
acoustic guitar, a model 1867.
“Somehow
on my meager wage I managed these two feats of finance, and quite suddenly
found myself in Malibu, in a tiny cottage with five other guitarists I’d
never met. Listening to the others play, I thought “I won’t be winning
any speed contests around here!” The quality of musicians that attend
GC is generally pretty amazing. But there was one gentleman who met his guitar
at the airport, so had the benefit of no bad, ingrained habits to overcome.”
“I
remember the first terrifying evening meal with ROBERT. The stony silence
was gradually broken down. One attendee “did a runner” and disappeared
during the night – we assumed ROBERT’s comments about the inappropriateness
of drug use may have frightened him away. The next day, ROBERT asked us to
go away and retune our guitars to the new standard tuning.”
“The
moment this occurred, we were suddenly pretty much all on the same footing.
Speed and chops aside, if you suddenly don’t know how to make a “C”
chord anymore you have to start to think. I played guitar in English for 18
years, and then quite suddenly I had to relearn it in Yugoslavian.”
“I
vividly remember my first GUITAR CRAFT circle: There were 25 of us in a big
room, with ROBERT in the middle. He began by pointing at four students, and
playing them a melody on his guitar. They learned it, and repeated it. Once
established, he moved to the next group of four frightened guitarists, and
they learned and repeated their own, different pattern. Quite quickly all
25 players were working together on this enormous piece of music. Then ROBERT
gave the first group a new pattern. So the piece continued to evolve. Often
these parts were in unusual meters, such as 5 or 7 or 9 or even 13. And it
went on and on, everyone repeating the same parts endlessly. I thought my
arm would drop off. Then I’d get a second wind. Sometimes, I just had
to stop, after 30 minutes of the same five notes perhaps. Then I’d join
in again. But it was a sound that I would never, ever forget. I was part of
a living and evolving composition.”
“I realized at some point later, that ROBERT was really creating a FRIPPertronics-style
loop, but using real players to play the loop parts! What a remarkable and
totally amazing thing to be a part of.”
“The
week passed quickly, and groups formed to meet the challenge of a live performance
at the end of the week. I was a member of a large group called BROCCOLI SOUP,
in honor of one of the vegetarian delights the Kitchen Crafties had prepared,
and we learned and performed two songs. One is lost to memory, the other,
“Shower Curtain,” so named because we rehearsed it in the large
bathroom because of the fine acoustics, later became a performance piece for
THE DOZEY LUMPS. I met various characters who would later resurface in my
life: TOM FREEMAN, crazed drummer, later of MIKE KENEALLY fame. A mandolin
player named JOHN RELPH, who later became the perpetrator of a little XTC
website called “Chalkhills.” And most important of all, BRYAN HELM,
my co-conspirator in THE DOZEY LUMPS and BINDLESTIFF.”
“During
the 90s I attended a number of other week-long courses, often participating
in Kitchen Craft, wherein one works at cooking and preparing meals for the
students, hopefully with the same diligence and craft that one approaches
one’s exercises and work with the guitar. At one course, I managed to
overcome the language barrier and teach a group of four Japanese Crafties
how to play “The Illusion Of Motion,” a very quick and difficult
piece from the latter-day DOZEY LUMPS catalog. And lest it appear to be all
work and no play, I also did a solo performance of my peculiar new standard
tuning version of JETHRO TULL’s “Aqualung,” which was quite
odd to perform within the framework of a Guitar Craft circle. Also during
that circle, BILL RIEFLIN, who has a day job as the drummer from MINISTRY
(also performed with SWANS, REVOLTING COCKS, LARD, and RUBY among others—Ian)
and I successfully introduced a circus-music chromatic melody into an otherwise
melodic and pleasant improvisation. Every few bars, we launched into this
atonal Barnum And Bailey riff. That was fun...and appropriate!”
So
how does STAFFORD go about composing his own music? Is it improvised, or written
out, or something else entirely?
“It’s
different every time. Some pieces just appear, completely unrehearsed, completely
unplanned...I turn on the system, push “record” and begin to play.
On other occasions I rehearse, but I use that term loosely. Often I have a
basic idea for a piece, but am not quite sure where it wants to go. So I record
a few different versions, and sometimes on the second or third it just works
out right. Sometimes I go back and it turns out that take one was the best,
because on takes 2 and 3 I was “trying” to play. It’s really
better if I just let go, and forget everything except the action of putting
fingers to string.”
“Occasionally
I will record a basic loop, and then process it through several radically
different stereo rooms or patches to create extremely different versions of
the same “song”. I took this to extremes with one piece, producing
seventeen discrete versions. Three of them made the album. The track was “Continuum”
from OTHER MEMORY.”
“I
really enjoy musical accidents. One of my favorite pieces, “The Living
Reed” from OTHER MEMORY | SAND ISLAND, had an unusual genesis. I was
having trouble with a poor connection in my pedalboard, so I very quickly
played some random notes on my guitar into the Oberheim delay and locked a
loop, so there would be an audible signal I could hear as I tried to identify
the problematic cable. I put the guitar down, found and replaced the bad cable,
and realized that I had been listening almost subconsciously to this “irritating”
and “dissonant” loop for perhaps 10 to 15 minutes as I worked...and
I was starting to like it. So I turned on the recorder, and made a few recordings
of it with different voices. One of them, run through a radical detuned chorus
patch, sounded remarkable. It became the lead off track of the SAND ISLAND
album! It was never intended to be a song. I could never have intentionally
played that sequence. Luckily I recognized that it was MUSIC and recorded
it instead of deleting it as I normally would have.”
“Since
I loop almost exclusively now, my music has become almost totally improvisational.
Sometimes I begin with a specific structure in mind, for instance limiting
myself to only five notes in a scale, and seeing where that leads. More often
than not, I hit record and begin to play.”
I OFTEN
WONDER HOW MUSICIANS WHO USE IMPROVISATION AS A PRIMARY MODUS OPERANDI KNOW
WHEN THEIR PIECES ARE “DONE.”
“In
a live context, I just know. Sometimes a long improv is best ended suddenly.
I could just be sitting there, listening to the last minute of a 16-minute
long improv, and suddenly I just reach up and shut it down cold. At THAT moment.
I have no idea how I know this. Sometimes a fade is best, or a fade into a
huge reverb, or a sudden stop into a reverb...or reverse the loop and fade.
I have no plan for the piece other than trying to be very careful with the
beginning, very careful with the middle, and very careful with the ending.
Sometimes the nature of the piece will suggest the method of the ending.”
“When
multitracking, in a studio situation it is much harder to tell, because there
are so many options. I often create many overdubs, and then over a period
of days delete most of them because they’re not as good as the core material.
I prefer live performance over endless overdubbing, and so quite often, “less
is more”.”
What
tools does STAFFORD use to create his sounds?
“The
Oberheim Echoplex Digital Pro and the Digitech TSR24S are really the heart
of the system. The Oberheim stores up to nine different loops, for a total
duration of 198 seconds. One can switch between loops, and overdub any loop
as much as they like. It also allows one to Undo loops, to build from a simple
phrase to a very thick sound, and then strip back the overdubs to reveal the
original idea. It also allows loops to run in reverse, which is an irresistible
sound to me. It has other unique features that most loop devices don’t
have, such as a “multiply” function, which allows the looping of
loops with overdubbed material, and then the looping of looped loops with
new overdubs, etc.”
“The
TSR24S has some great ambient room sounds, really nice 24 bit patches. It’s
very flexible, easy to program, and I’ve created some really remarkable
MIDI continuous controller definitions using the Ground Control MIDI pedal.
This provides amazing control over almost any parameter, and allows for the
creation of some stunning real-time effects. For example you can slowly move
an entire piece from a completely dry sound into an enormous cavern as the
piece develops, or vice versa. Or you can take a fairly normal flanger setting,
and modulate it into the ugliest sound on earth by the mere touch of a pedal...and
all sounds in between. Another favored patch sends one pitch up an octave
and a half, simultaneously sending another pitch down one octave as you move
the pedal through its travel.”
“But
nothing is carved in stone, and if the situation demands it I completely reroute
devices until I find the sound I’m looking for. I don’t feel that
I have to use every sound in every device, I prefer to use a few really good
sounds. Most preset patches don’t sound that good, and I am constantly
tweaking them because they just don’t sound right. I try to stay flexible,
and make good use of the good attributes of the tools I have.
What
does STAFFORD record with?
“I
have the world’s cheapest Digital Audio Workstation. I dragged myself
kicking and screaming into the digital world only as recently as December
1998, so technology is still relatively new to me. I wanted to preserve the
work I had done to date in CD format, and move forward into the future using
something better than my 25 year old TEAC 3340s four track reel to reel. So
for recording I am currently using a 3-year-old plus Gateway Pentium 100,
with 82MB of RAM, running CoolEditPro, which is a truly remarkable and intuitive
product, via my Ensoniq wavetable soundcard. Since I am mainly a live performer,
I often run the stereo out of my rack system straight into the sound card
for a nice clean sound. Somehow I manage to create, store and manipulate many
large WAV files even though my largest hard drive is currently 4GB. Storage
and CD production courtesy of the Smart & Friendly CD-RW 426 CD burner,
another excellent and intuitive product.”
“Needless
to say, plans for a new system are in the works! But it is remarkable what
one can achieve with the simplest of tools. Acts of heroism and remarkable
cleanups have been performed on the old analog four track master reels. Some
of the earliest DAVE STAFFORD or BINDLESTIFF material would never have seen
the light of day if it weren’t for the remarkable capabilities and flexibility
of Cool Edit Pro. All new recordings undertaken since December 1998 have been
entirely in the digital realm. Cool Edit Pro is great for live recording,
just push record and go. It’s also great for multi-tracking. Once pieces
are mastered, which includes but is not limited to noise reduction, trimming
and normalization, I burn the tracks direct to CD. When microphones are required
I use two now-vintage Shure SM57s.
DAVE
STAFFORD’s ultimate aim as a musician is “to be open to the appearance
of music, to allow any and all music to enter my life. To continue to work
at the craft of playing guitar, and the ongoing work of looping, which presents
so many musical avenues it may take a lifetime to explore even some of them.”
Does this mean he’s eager to be a pawn in the recording industry?
“My
goal is to allow music to come into the world, available for others to hear.
This seems straightforward enough, but in reality it is actually quite difficult.
The world is not geared towards music. The music industry is set up to produce
products and market them to consumers all in order to make enormous profits
for almost everyone except the musician. Since I do not ascribe to the view
that this activity has anything to do with music, it’s difficult for
music to enter the world in this music industry-dominated environment. It
is difficult for the audience to hear and enjoy music, since they are bombarded
with product and trained through radio and video campaigns that “this
is the music [product] that is cool”...and they buy it because they are
TOLD to buy it.”
“People
unfortunately often don’t take the time to listen, and consider: does
this music speak to me? Does it make me feel sad, happy...joyous? Does it
make me laugh? Does it make me think? These are the criteria I use when considering
purchasing a CD or record. Not “this is the new SPRINGSTEEN album, so
it HAS to be good”. The music industry has used and discarded so many
artists, their actions and intentions are clear: when an artist doesn’t
sell anymore, drop them. It’s clear they are not interested in the musician
or their music, only their ability to provide large cash income to the record
executives.”
“So
in order to achieve my goal of allowing music into the world, I must work
outside the negative confines of the existing music industry, and produce
CDs of the music that has entered my life, which may connect with an audience
or it may not. My interest is in music itself. And my hope is that people
can see beyond the mass marketing strategies of the music industry, music
television and radio, and can realize that the choice is theirs alone. The
name of the artist, the number of CDs they have sold, are irrelevant. Many
of the best recordings I own are ones that I took a chance on...knowing nothing
of the artist, their reputation, their ability at playing their instrument.”
WHAT
ABOUT LIVE PERFORMANCES?
“I
do not currently perform live, though I am available for live performance
should the right moment and the right venue appear. Having said that, each
time I pick up my instrument, I perform live. Since I am primarily a looper
I have the ability to perform live. The looping tools offer essentially real-time
“overdubbing” capability.”
“Since
leaving live performance aside in 1995, I have dedicated the past few years
to cataloging the work done in the previous 15 years and making this music
available to the world through the website. I felt this needed to be done.
And as I have now honorably discharged the bulk of this duty, I am again turning
my attention more to the music of the moment. THE AUTOreverse SESSIONS CD
is the latest example of this: a performance challenge met, quickly executed.”
“Looping
allows music to occur spontaneously, and also contains a real element of danger
and hazard - anything can go wrong, and often does. One also learns to turn
even the strangest of musical occurrences into something valid, by using those
events to mold the musical path of the next portion of the loop. Loops can
be static, or constantly mutating, or something in between.”
HOW ACTIVE IS DAVE
STAFFORD IN HIS LOCAL MUSIC SCENE?
“My local community
is woefully short of venues suitable for live performance by ambient, energy
bow, looping guitarists! I have a deep interest in returning to live performance,
but the time and the place need to be right. It may be that the climate here
is turning towards more and more acceptance of music styles outside the norm.
One can only hope that that is indeed the case. One problem is the amount
of attention required to listen to ambient music. Since the works can be very
long, very quiet, it is difficult for audiences fed on high-speed films and
videos and in-your-face musical styles to sit quietly and listen to a 15 or
20 minute ambient guitar circulation. Having said that, if you CAN manage
to get people to do so, they generally find that they enjoy the performance
and experience very much indeed. Some of the last live performances by BINDLESTIFF
were attended by the most incredibly courteous, attentive audiences I have
ever had the pleasure of playing for...So this alone proves that it is possible!
Perhaps the challenge here is to locate those individuals in the local community
who would be willing to work with an artist who is different from the guy
down at the local coffee shop doing NEIL YOUNG covers. This may not be an
easy task.”
HOW ABOUT TRADING HIS
MUSIC THROUGH THE MAIL WITH FELLOW MUSICIANS? HOW MUCH DOWN-HOME “HOMETAPERING”
DOES HE DO?
“When the website was established, I began giving away free cassettes.
This went on for a year or so, and cost the studio a large sum of money. Then
the CD era arrived at last, and I continue to send out demo discs on a smaller
scale. I have traded with a few other ambient artists, but mostly they go
to radio stations, DJs, magazines etc. My schedule does not permit a lot of
verbal or written interaction regarding the act of listening to music. So
if people send me CDs, I listen. If they request a CD in return, I attempt
to accommodate them wherever possible. On the one hand I am all for the free
exchange of ideas, but on the other as a very small business operating at
the fringes of the real business world it isn’t financially practical
to give the majority of the stock away.”
LET’S TALK STUDIO
SEVENTEEN. WHO DOES WHAT?
“Studio Seventeen
Productions is a tiny, independent label. So far, distribution doesn’t
exist except via the website, which generates a certain number of requests
for promos and a certain number of CD sales. I do everything myself, from
performance through to final recorded product, and marketing thereof. I create
all the masters, burn all the CDs for Bindlestiff, Dozey Lumps + Dave Stafford,
packaging, shipping. It’s a sole proprietorship with no employees. The
other artists participate to varying degrees as their situations allow. Each
is responsible for creating their own CDs, and I encourage them to start their
own websites too to which I then just link. Since we are scattered all over
the globe, I coordinate all studio activities, and I receive excellent support
from the other artists.”
How does he decide
what to release?
“So far it hasn’t
been a problem. There was an enormous back catalog of recorded material stretching
back 10 or 15 years by myself, The Dozey Lumps, and Bindlestiff, so for the
first year or so I just tried to get caught up by bringing them into the world
of digital. Now I can pick and choose, and am mastering the The Dozey Lumps
CD ONE LUMP OR TWO?, which has awaited my attention since 1989 - 1992 when
the pieces were recorded. But eventually it will all come out.”
“There is at least
one other BINDLESTIFF CD in the can, but getting it made will take about six
months, because there are about 70 tapes to listen to. So for the time being,
the very fruitful period of late 1993 through early 1995 remains undocumented,
even though some of our best pieces were conceived and executed during that
time.”
“And of course I
am making a supreme effort to balance archival recordings with new, of the
moment recordings, which is why there I have done two solo CDs quite recently.
I felt I was concentrating too much on the past and wanted to balance out
the available titles with some more current sounds.”
STUDIO SEVENTEEN PRODUCTIONS
QUALITY CONTROL:
“It’s very difficult sometimes to decide if a track is worth releasing,
my standards seem to get higher and higher for the most part. I’ve increased
my mental threshold setting. So as time has gone by, more of my own solo pieces
have ended up on outtake storage discs than used to. Sometimes, though, one
has to make exceptions, as in the case of the CD I’m working on now.
All live acoustic guitar duos, played by two very young, somewhat inexperienced
players, in a new tuning. And most of the pieces were incredibly difficult
to execute. So I’m more forgiving under those circumstances of the odd
missed note than I would be with a current composition of my own!”
“In hindsight, I
find that sometimes the tracks selections I made ten years ago weren’t
as well-advised as my then-self thought. So poorer tracks can be removed,
running orders rearranged. The BINDLESTIFF CD catalog, for example, bears
almost no resemblance to its much earlier cassette catalog counterpart. I
went through a period back in the cassette days where I would make one official
album and then another related album of outtakes and alternates. My approach
now would be to view both cassettes as a whole, and create one CD out of the
best pieces represented. Several works in this condition await my ministrations.”
HOW DOES DAVE STAFFORD
RESPOND TO THE IDEA THAT ANYONE WITH A REVERB UNIT AND AN HOUR TO KILL COULD
MAKE AMBIENT MUSIC?
“But would it be
GOOD ambient music? Would it speak to anyone? Some measure of experience and
the ability to play an instrument to some extent must statistically improve
the chances of a trained musician making a better ambient record than the
guy with the reverb unit. On the other hand, I’m equally positive that
2 or 3 of these guys with the reverb units will and probably already have
produced ambient works of great beauty. Anything is possible.”
FINALLY. WHO IS DAVE
STAFFORD’S FAVORITE BEATLE?
“Without a doubt,
GEORGE. That’s “MR HARRISON” to you.”
STUDIO
SEVENTEEN PRODUCTIONS
PO BOX 461363 ESCONDIDO CA 92046 USA
