Jack Conte is an Internet musician who makes his living from selling MP3s online and generally running around like a madman making great music. I was introduced to him through Electro-Harmonix but I was amazed when I found the rest of his great music online. I met with him at a cafe in San Francisco where we drank huge bowls of coffee and talked music, technology, and hardware. He makes videosongs of himself recording his songs and sells his music online. Oddly enough, he also Tweets.
CG: So from a hardware perspective, and I know you use a lot of gear, it’s interesting how far things have come from your Dad’s old amp in the basement to a box that does everything for you. How have things changed in your experience so far and in terms of being a musician trying to get an authentic sound?
Jack: I think my ear is pretty good, but I don’t have formal training so my ear isn’t that good. I know when I like a sound. I’m pretty confident knowing when I like something… sometimes it’s the “wrong thing” but in terms of gear I always like the old stuff. My philosophy is that if it’s still around, it’s stuff people couldn’t bear to throw away.
The thing that’s cool about Electro-Harmonix is that they still make all those old pedals and old tubes. It’s tempting to get those electronic guitar boxes that does everything – I’ve had those before – but instead of opening doors they kind of close doors. The limitations imposed by that gear, using certain analog pedals, adds creative stimulation.
A certain number of musicians won’t be using the pedals, they’ll use the electronic stuff. But there’s a huge contingent of people who love the analog stuff. A lot of the modelers are really good, but I would rather use a pedal than a model of a pedal.
What would be the metaphor here for a non-musician? Something like a zoom lens vs. a prime lens?
If your options are limitless it can really hinder you. You don’t know which sound to choose.
People like knowing they’re using the original gear and the original sound. Another metaphor is computer animation… think about animated movies that include real people. Computer animation is good, but it’s not that good. It’s not the real thing. It’s kind of like that with the gear.
The main thing for me is just how it feels. It feels better to have a button you can stomp on. You can mess with analog stuff, which you can’t really do with computerized stuff unless you’re really familiar with the software.
What about overproduced music? Top 40 stuff? Is it too much?
I love well-produced stuff. The craft and the art of production is something I really, really love. I guess it’s about what the goal is. I listen to a lot of top 40 stuff on the radio that’s incredibly crafted — I don’t necessarily love the songs but I love the production for the skill level.
On the other hand, someone like Bon Iver recorded an album in a cabin in Vermont and that’s really raw and human. I love that as well.
You use mostly acoustic instruments that you run through pedals and other good stuff. Tell me about that.
I don’t love using synthesizers, but I do use synthesizers. I’m more inspired by acoustic instruments — as long as there’s something making the sound it’s something I really like. I like that I can unplug my Wurlitzer and still hear hammers striking the tines.
I’m not sure you can hear the difference but I feel the difference when I record.
How does it feel being an Internet music celebrity? How has it helped your career? How would things have been different if you did this 10 years ago? 5 years ago?
It couldn’t be done ten years ago. I wouldn’t be writing this many songs. You have to be careful because you have to be sure you’re making something for yourself while making something for the audience. I don’t want to be making something and asking the question “Will other people like this?” I’m asking “Will I like this?” That said, the incentive is that people will want to listen to the songs I make and it’s a business incentive because I’m making my living selling my MP3s.
That wasn’t possible 10 years ago. The infrastructure wasn’t in place. That is an exceptional transformation. I communicate with people through Twitter and MySpace. What I’m doing now probably wouldn’t be possible then. I’d be touring, trying to make a living. Now I can make music.
Will young musicians be following your footsteps? Will there be touring musicians?
There are going to be guys doing it like this. Lots of people think the record industry is falling apart. It’s not, but it’s changing. I think there’s always going to be a place for labels and there’s always going to be a Bono.
Finally there are people on the outside who get to say something. I’ve always felt like I’m on the outside of the music industry. I don’t know anybody who can get placement on TV or radio. But now I’m really glad that it can happen this way, completely outside of the traditional industry. It’s a great experience.
He and Coulton ought to have an nerdtastic faceoff.
i LOVE jack conte, and highly recommend checking him out live. puts on a great show. but i feel obliged to point out that bon iver recorded his album in wisconsin . . . not vermont. badger state love.
Jack is a genius. Great to see him getting recognition.
By what definition? He is definately NOT a genius.
If you get a little education you will see that he is just a guy making mediocre music.
Steve?
I think they’re saying that he’s a pop culture genius, not an academic genius. Pop culture geniuses are truly unique, gifted people that gain popular appeal, by just being themselves (i.e Prince, Alanis Morisette, Sting, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell). Type are essentially masters at multiple idioms (i.e. music, video, storyboards concepts, pop culture concepts, etc.), without having to take any formal training. I think there is plenty of evidence that Jack is definitely in that category, right? Major pro-video editing shops in LA, have long since declared him as such :-)
It would be great if we could work with Jack via RouteNote!
RouteNote is a digital music distribution service for unsigned and independent artists. Artists from anywhere in the world can signup for free and then upload their album and get their songs listed on iTunes, eMusic, Amazon Mp3 and more.
Very cool. I would say Bon Iver’s production quality is also very good, and more importantly appropriate to his style of music; it’s it own way, just as skillful as the top 40.
I think he’s probably wrong on the music industry thing. What he’s been able to do by himself is exactly why the industry used to exist. If artists can live and get paid without it, they will and more importantly should.
I’ve been a fan of Jack’s (and Pomplamoose) for a while and think it’s GREAT that he’s getting more attention!
Kudos to what he is achieving, but… hey, where is the music exactly?
You can check out his YouTube page, on which he just uploaded a new VideoSong. http://www.youtube.com/JackConteMusic
Good on this guy. His arrangements don’t appeal to me though. I like more complex themes instead of layeres of effects on top of 4 different notes.
I agree & I can appreciate his creativity but I don’t hear anything special. This is why musicians are severely limited when they have solo projects where they resort to controlling every aspect.
He talks about production but he doesn’t mention the equipment he uses to record. Plus, he works with Mp3s, so, if he uses a PC to record, how much could he possibly appreciate about pro engineering. AND, what does that really say about his “ear”??
I love Jack Conte. I have the pomplamoose super useful dongle with their video songs album. It has enough of a beat that it gets me going on the treadmill.
In the Eighties (yes, that was last century, kids), I was involved with very early MIDI hardware and software projects. I even worked for a company that is still one of the major players in the area of DAWs today.
Well, back then, many of us believed that computers and digital synthesizers as recording tools would liberate both musicians and music itself. People would finally be able to turn the original, unheard music in their heads into reality. Virtual orchestras! Algorithmic composition! Multi-layered, polyrhythmic beauty! There would be a revolution, we would smash the Pop Establishment and live happily ever after.
What we got instead was the Cher effect and incredible amounts of generic dreck. Innovative technology was raped and used in the most trivial, foreseeable way. There was no new music (except for the Techno scene, which was rather a separate planet/dimension than a musical movement). Instead, digital music technology was used to mass-produce the old sh*t more effectively.
The CEO of said music software company (formerly a prog-rock dinosaur who believed in songs, not sounds) once said to me: “When we saw how our stuff was used in the early Nineties, it was a collective ‘Oh God, what have we done?’”
Fast forward into the here and now, where people like Jack Conte have stopped caring about technology on an ideological level. He takes his pure musical genius, his curiosity and energy, throws in instruments both old and new, virtual and real and publishes his stuff on Youtube just like an early, innocent, tape-overdubbing Mike Oldfield (before he became a pathetic sellout).
And what is so wonderfully refreshing here (at least for me as someone who has worked with and thought about music technology for almost three decades) is Jack’s pragmatic approach to this zoo of tools and possibilities. There’s no self-aggrandizing “I am holier than thou because I only play guitar / Hate the majors” nonsense. It’s just pure fun, talent and curiosity.
I am so glad to see how the technology is literally becoming invisible in front of our eyes, so that artists can be artists again.
David, first off, many thanks for the kind words. I really appreciate it. Second, you couldn’t be more spot in your analysis of music technology. The intention behind its invention was pure! Yet somehow, it was used, in a lot of cases, without discretion.
I think the awesome thing about the “music industry” right now, is that when you write about it, you have to use quotation marks! It’s been turned upside down and been given one of the swiftest kicks in the pants that any industry has dealt with since Al Gore gifted us the internet. This interview is a perfect example: Crunch Gear is a huge blog, and I’m a small nobody. It used to be that media outlets only focused on the Britneys and Jessica Simpsons of the world, and things are changing. The internet has allowed niche markets to surface, diffusing some influence to the little guys who otherwise would have never gotten any exposure. It’s more than a musical phenomenon, it’s a complete uprooting of social focus and media.
Anyway, long live technology, limitation, and discretion! Hooray! And thanks again to Crunch Gear for showing some love to the little guys!
Jack
can i just say that the appeal of analog pedals is not that they are analog, because ultimately, digital/analog,,, who cares? The appeal is that they do one thing and do it very very well…
the digital multi-things will do a lot of things, but none of them very well, and not intuitively.
EH seems to get this..
@ aaron: True.
I am not a great Brian Eno fan, but he has made some very smart comments about music and technology. One of them was (I’m paraphrasing here) that it’s the *limits* of our tools which make them useful.
A universal (in the Turing sense) music machine is not a dream come true, but a nightmare, because “no limits” also means “no direction”. A guitar, on the other hand, is a beautiful instrument because it has six strings – and that’s it. If your song doesn’t work on that instrument, it’s probably not good.
Sadly, I can’t play guitar due to a handicap, so I ended up in synth world. And while I still love all those bizarre, wonderful toys, I learned the hard way that the more possibilities they offer, the harder they make it to focus on your music.
In Jack’s videos, you can see him tweaking knobs on single-purpose machines, and it’s all very physical: one cable in, one cable out, make some noise, tape it, move on. This is a kind of innocence that “fat” DAWs such as Logic, Cubase and Reason do not encourage (this is also a very interesting field for UI designers).
Matthew Herbert, (early) Underworld, Radiohead: The people who are willing to make mistakes, who treat even the most expensive digital systems without respect come up with great stuff. A studio shouldn’t be an altar, but a playground.
Let’s make mistakes, and yeah; let’s celebrate simple, effective tools.