Making Music #269

Spencer Albee:

highlights from this week's program. What's been very difficult in the music business is watching the executives, the record companies try, try to make the old model work. If you can't sell records, how can a record company exist?

Jonathan Wyman:

Like I said, it's about taking somebody else's work and making it as good as it can possibly be. It's like being a focusing lens.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine Radio Show Number 269, Making Music. Airing for the first time on Sunday, November 13, 2016. Maine is home to a rich and evolving music scene. Today we speak with two music makers who have called Maine home for decades, Portland based and nationally acclaimed singer, songwriter and producer Spencer Albee, and one of Maine's leading producers and recording engineers, Jonathan Wyman. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One of my early memories from the radio show was a musician who had been up all night and came in the next morning. I think he was a little bit late and he wasn't, he wasn't, he wasn't so lively and I wasn't really sure about this guy because I had heard about him, he was pretty nationally known and his name had been out there a lot. But I went ahead and interviewed him anyway and he has since become actually a good friend of mine, mine and of the magazine and he's really impressed me. So this late night musician Spencer Albee, who went on to become our audio producer for Love Maine Radio, is actually here in the studio with me today. And I'm going to officially interview you again today, Spencer, so that you can have a chance to show us more of your stuff than you were able to bring forward that day, that fateful morning when you. We're just a little tired.

Spencer Albee:

This is my makeup game.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is your makeup game. Today I have with me officially Spencer Albee, who is a Portland based and nationally acclaimed singer, songwriter and producer. Since 1995, he has toured internationally, signed multiple record and publishing deals, and worked with artists ranging from David Bowie to De La Soul. Today, he can be found finishing up his 20th studio album, relentlessly Yours, curating events like his annual Beatles night, and producing Love Maine Radio for Maine Magazine. Thanks for coming in again.

Spencer Albee:

Well, I was here. That's right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Every. Every Tuesday morning when we do Love Maine Radio, you and I get to hang out together.

Spencer Albee:

That's right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But it's interesting that I've somehow we have managed here at Maine Magazine to get such a. Such an auspicious individual to be doing our audio with us. The fact that you've done 20 studio albums, I mean, how many people can say that?

Spencer Albee:

It is a lot. I don't know how many. I kind of did like a Spotify check on other artists and it really is a lot of records. Since I've started professionally, it's almost a record a year, 21 years. About that. I've been doing this.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You were born here in Maine?

Spencer Albee:

I was York.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You grew up in York?

Spencer Albee:

Well, technically I was born in Dover, New Hampshire, but.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, we'll still let you be.

Spencer Albee:

Thanks.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah.

Spencer Albee:

Do I qualify as a native?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. Well, since you probably crossed the border at A Few Days of Egypt, I

Spencer Albee:

would imagine it wasn't my choice.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. And I was just down in York for the York Hospital fundraiser. And it was interesting to have people in the audience come up to me afterwards and say, I knew Spencer Wen. One of them was your piano teacher.

Spencer Albee:

Yeah, Ray DiMarco.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And he was doing piano for the event and he was very excited to have me mention your name during the presentation that we gave. But then also somebody that you went to high school with who was a radiologist now with York Hospital, Jenny Cutts. And you've clearly, you've maintained some. Some strong relationships over the years with your hometown.

Spencer Albee:

Yeah, I still feel very connected to it. I go back. I was recently asked to speak at the. The Honors dinner, which is for kids who have maintained. Was it a B plus or. Yeah, like a B plus or higher overall? Like, no, no, C's not an average. Just like all grades B or higher, which is really impressive. And it was also very curious that they had me speak at it because I Had a little bit more of a creative approach to my high school education. Leave it at that, I guess.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I mean, yeah, it seems like they still. When they think of Spencer Albee, they think of a person who has made a success out of himself.

Spencer Albee:

Yeah, yeah. They're very kind to say so. And it actually kind of gives me pause where I can, because I feel like if I were to look at where I'm at now through the eyes of, you know, my eyes at 18, maybe I'm not where I thought I would be or how, you know, in the specific terms of success as I defined it then, but to kind of look back now at 40 and realize that, like, I'm still, like, I'm still allowed to be a musician. I'm still allowed to primarily do what. I mean, what I feel like I'm born to do is very fortunate. And there's a lot of people who are not that fortunate. They've had to take jobs that maybe they don't like or aren't as inspiring. It comes with its own struggles, for sure. But ultimately, though, I feel very lucky. And having those moments, like, you know, some of my high school friends or former teachers or Ray DiMarco, for instance, had the unfortunate task of prepping me for USM because I didn't know how to read music. I still don't. I mean, I understand the fundamentals of it, but some people can. You can put sheet music in front of them and they can play beautifully, and I just can't make the connection between the written note and my hands get stuck somewhere behind my eyeballs. But, yeah, I do feel very fortunate. And it is a. It's a good community to be part of, for sure. I mean, there's a lot of people up here involved, even with the magazine. Matt Cosby, he's from New York. Derek Lombardi, who's also my manager. And there's a lot of us, and we still kind of, you know, band together in a really fun way.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I honestly had only ever kind of passed through York and had never been to the town itself. It's a really nice little area. You have a beautiful harbor. There's a cliff walk. There's this fascinating. This long beach, which starts with a couple of very nicely maintained mobile home parks at the entrance.

Spencer Albee:

Oh, yeah. Down at Towards. Yeah, if you're coming up from the harbor. Yeah. It's funny, my dad grew up there, so I have another set of stories associated with each of those areas. So as we see them now, my dad has a different version of what it used to be, lots of local references. You know, like the running gag is like, you know, over. You know, over. Down by the Maggie Nason road. That's like, not a road. It's just like where this woman, Maggie nason, lived in 1952. It was certainly very fortunate to grow up in a town that had guests. Like such beautiful beaches. You have the way York is organized. I'm actually from Cape Nedic, which is just south of Ogunquit, so Cape Nettock, even though it has its own post office, went to the York school system, which involved York Beach, York harbor, and then just the town of York, which extended little more west. But there's a lot of resource there. We grew up going to a beach that was, like, incredible. It's different now because of the way the sands have changed and stuff, but it was. You had a small beach and then about, say, 50ft of water when the tide was out. 50ft of water, that was about, you know, a little below your knee so the kids could play. But then as you get a little older, you could go past the rock formation and there was the deep hole. You know, like all. All this stuff like that. You would, you know, someone from New Jersey would work all year long to gather up enough vacation time and resource to come up here and have that just for a few days. And it was just kind of our backyard. Pretty fortunate. And we had a mountain. I mean, use that term loosely. It's more of a.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's Agamenticus.

Spencer Albee:

Yeah. Big hill.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you have a little lighthouse.

Spencer Albee:

The most photographed lighthouse in the world.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So small, but mighty.

Spencer Albee:

Small but mighty indeed.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It was. Being that we were there in late September, it was really striking to me how busy it was. I mean, that the town was filled. The beach had all kinds of people walking up and down. And there really was an interesting pride. I mean, there was. When I say nicely maintained mobile home park. People had. They had their lawn chairs out front. They had their flags. They had. I mean, this was something that absolutely, as you've said, this was something that they was such an important part of their lives to be at their little bit of beach for. However often they're able to get there, and it seems like people return year after year.

Spencer Albee:

Yeah, these aren't. What you're referring to are like, Lucas Seton. Not Lucas Seton. That's the funeral home, the campground. The name's escaping me. But these are people who have their plots and they come back every summer. So likely you've got a sect of people who are, you know, Maybe retired down in Florida, but as soon as it warms up, they're back up in Maine. A lot of people are from there, a lot of people from, you know, Massachusetts, and, you know, a way they come to enjoy that beach. And it does stay busy up through, like, Columbus Day. I think that's really the end of the tourist season down there. It's always stay pretty busy. But certainly up until Labor Day, it's. You have to know the back roads if you want to get anywhere on time. So

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think the reason why I keep talking about this is just because it's not unlike other places in Maine. I mean, I've lived in Maine most of my life. My family is all from here. And yet I will visit places and I'll think to myself, why did I not even know that this place existed? And I think York was like that for me. York was a place that I knew was there, but I had no sense of what the town itself was like. And I think a lot of people believe that because it's getting so close to the border of Maine, southern Maine. They just think, oh, it's just northern Boston. But that's really not the vibe that I got.

Spencer Albee:

No. York, I think it has. The old jail is the oldest existing structure built by settlers, I think. Is that right in the 1600s. So the. The downtown is very well, very well maintained in that all of the historic buildings have been restored, you know, to the 1700s specs. We have this beautiful church downtown. The first parish church, which used to face the other way, got turned around. I mean, there's so much history to the town. There's a statue downtown in the center of York Village that is a commemorative Civil War statue, which, if you look closely, the soldier, it's actually a mistake. The soldier is a Confederate soldier, you know, which. There is a lot of talk about, you know, removing that and changing it. But at this point, I think everyone's just kind of behind. It's been there for so long that I think that's kind of a neat thing too. There's a lot. There's a lot. It's a very, very old town. There's a lot of names that are still town names, families that have been there that are original settlers, which is pretty interesting. We, you know, we had, like, historic days, old York days, I think they called it, where you're assigned a character that was alive at a, you know, certain point in history, and you research them and you can go visit their gravestone. It's pretty interesting. And it does get The North Boston rap. There's, you know, there's some truth to it because a lot of people who work in Boston are. You know, you can either go up into New Hampshire over towards the coast, and York is certainly a nice town. And so it got. In the 80s, there's a really big boom in development. A lot of developments went in. Some folks from town viewed that as not a great thing. You know, I. As, you know, people who lived there a long time, they hate to see change. But the flip side was that I was able to get, not just me, anyone who went through the school system was able to get a great education as a result. For instance, my second grade teacher, I found this out all after the fact, but my second grade teacher, whom I loved, and we had such a great time. That was my favorite year of school, second grade. I feel like I learned more in that year than any other year prior or since. But he was on sabbatical from Harvard, you know, and it was all like a series of, like, called in favors because Holly McAdam was also there. And she, you know, really essentially, like, took a ginormous pay cut to be there because she felt like she could make a difference within the school system. She and her husband worked together to bring in people so that the elementary school system at that time, well, there's only one school. Now there's two. It was just a great place to be. And really, up through high school, it was very arts forward. And like I said earlier that I kind of had. I was surprised to speak at the honors dinner because I certainly didn't graduate well. I did graduate with honors, but not because every class. I didn't do well in every class, but I kind of recognized, you know, my junior year, when they're starting to put pressure on you, like, you know, get your transcripts ready for college. And I'm like, ooh, I really haven't done very well here and here. But I was able to. Well, I ran for class president and won. That helped. And then I was able to create my own independent music studies course, because I recognize that there was an independent studies course in all of the other liberal arts except music. So I wrote my own curriculum, which. And I didn't take it easy on myself, and I stuck to it and was graded well. And then I did graduate with honors, which was a huge surprise to the administration when I walked up to get my gold sash.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have an interesting mind.

Spencer Albee:

Yeah, tell me about it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I mean, it's truly fascinating to me. I think that the first time I Ever interviewed you. And again, it was very early on in the radio show, which is now five years old. We're in our sixth year. You and I have been doing this together for a year.

Spencer Albee:

That's right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think I was. One of the things that I. I was completely intimidated, and I was thinking, oh, my gosh, this guy is. I mean, he is a musician who's been on the Portland scene and national scene for years. But it wasn't until I started to work with you more that I understood that you were connecting with things that other people just wouldn't connect with. You know, from an auditory standpoint, you'd be hearing things that you hand me the headphones. You'd say, you know, this. I'm totally geeking out on this. I'm being an audio geek. But I want you to listen to this. And it's such an interesting reminder to me as to how people's intelligences vary and that a school system may not necessarily. Not through any fault of theirs, but they may not necessarily bring out those intelligences.

Spencer Albee:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

They might evolve later in one's life.

Spencer Albee:

Yeah. When I was in elementary school, it was suggested, like, all of a very short period of time. A Ritalin was very big at the time, so that R word got thrown around there. My parents weren't too keen on that. And then I think it was suggested that maybe I would be held back a year, and then that I would be advanced a year. So they just didn't really know what to do with me. And I ended up in a lot of special ed courses, I guess, and Holly McAdam ran one of those where instead of me being in class, either being distracted or distracting the other students, they would take me out and have me do my own special thing. It was like, management, I guess. I don't know. But, like, I really. I took a lot more from learning how to build an electric motor from wire and cork than I did being in the class. And it kept me more occupied and had my mind working harder and also allowed the other students to get their education without me being a distraction. But, yeah, there's some courses that. There's certain styles of learning that, like, for instance, if you were to hand me a manual and say, learn this program, I would just. I wouldn't be. I mean, I could reference it for sure. Troubleshooting, absolutely. But to really take it in and learn something that never worked for me. But if I were to watch you do it, then I would. I would take it all in. So any. Any, like, lecture course or Teaching by example. That. That always worked well with me. That's why music classes, you know, you're with an instructor, they'll show you how to do it, as opposed to, like, biology, you know, with Mr. Waters just pointing at the chalkboard and, you know, just like. It's just like 45 minutes of that tone, I'm. I'm out. And it's not to say that I wasn't smart, but it's just. That just wasn't my style. Actually, you mentioned Jenny Cutts earlier, who is. She does have that type of intelligence. She's. She's brilliant. She always has been. But we were on a team. Yeah, I know. We do, because we actually interviewed a couple guys earlier in the year that work with a program called Odyssey of the Mind. And that still, to me, is the best. That's the best education I ever got. I did it starting in fifth grade and up through eighth grade. So we did four years. And for those who don't know, it's a creative competition, they have several categories. I'm spacing on the third, but we were in more of the theatrical one. And there was an engineering one where they would build, like, you're allotted X amount of balsa wood and X amount of glue, and you have to build a structure that will hold the most weight. The theatrical one was. It's almost troubleshooting. You have A, B, and C. That's all you've got for resources. And you need to do X, Y, and Z within a certain period of time. And it has to fit into these parameter. Everyone has the same. You get the rules, but then you have to come up with your own solution to the problem. And we did. So, you know, with creativity and song, there's also another part that was brainstorming as a team. So even though Jenny Cutts and I, both of a reasonable intellect, but totally different styles, are now sitting around a table, and they put a. An object in front of you, and you're just gonna say, like, what you think that is the most creative thing. And that could be a practical use. That could be something humorous. You know, so learning how to work with other people, working in a team setting with people of different skill sets and mindsets to achieve a goal. And also not. Some people, I feel like, go through life when a problem hits, they get very like about it. I wish I had, you know, if I had a wrench, I could fix that. Okay, well, we don't have a wrench. We do have, you know, a stick of bubble gum and a paperclip and a AAA card, like, what can we do with what we've got? So that really put me in a good position to, to problem solve. And I can't tell you how many times throughout my adult life, traveling all over the country, being in arguably dangerous situations over and over and over again with a team of people that would be my band and everyone just kind of staying focused on, here's our goal, how do we get there? And if you run into trouble, you work with what you've got to get out of that trouble and into safety. So yeah, what was the question?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You answered it. You talked about different sorts of intelligence and I think it's useful to have that conversation because so often as parents we are given feedback about our children based on other people's children. You know, if your kid falls in line with all the other, quote, scholar athletes, if your child doesn't fall in line with the other scholar athletes. And then, you know, as a parent, my children are mostly grown except for my 15 year old. And so I feel like I'm kind of on the other side of it. But I remember acutely feeling this like, oh no, what have I done wrong? Or what should I be doing differently? So I think to speak to an adult who is able to say, well, you know, my experience with education worked in a slightly different way and I came in on the other side and I'm well adjusted and arguably I'm a musician and, you know, I've managed to do things to create a life.

Spencer Albee:

I think some people can get frustrated by their educational experience and understandably so if they're not, you know, if they're constantly in trouble or getting bad grades or disappointing themselves, their teachers or their parents, and just not being understood for who they are, that can be very frustrating. I was lucky in that, even though it was frustrating for me and can remain frustrating, you just kind of keep your eyes on the prize and just figure out a solution because that's all everyone's doing. I mean, even if you went through school and you are super book smart and you know, you have your own frustrations too, that's the other thing too, is like being like more inclusively forgiving of everyone around you. Everyone in life is just kind of bumbling around and bumping into things and trying to figure it out, even though you might have come out of high school with tremendous grades and gone to a great university, you might on the other end be like, ah, you know, still just trying to figure it out too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What are some of the favorite things that You've continued to put your energy towards in the last year,

Spencer Albee:

like starting in 95ish when I, when I started playing professionally up through about 2000, the music business was in really good shape. Is it almost like bubbled as. It was a balloon and then the balloon popped because no one saw Napster coming. And what's been very difficult in the music business is watching the executives, the record companies try to make the old model work rather than recognizing that the old model is now failed. But that's hard because these companies have agreements that span years and time moving forward with artists already. So like, how do they make that work if they can't? If you can't sell records, how can a record company exist, you know, and be that in the form of CDs, downloads, whatever. Because by and large people don't buy music, not like they used to. So having to, you know, at when it started at nearly 40 and now 40, like change horses in the middle of the stream has been incredibly challenging. But to answer your question, the one thing that I still love to do is to create. It's my favorite time, like to be in the studio, to be writing, to be pushing yourself to do something new to that moment where you have a song in your head and you can just kind of. You don't know exactly what it is, but you can, you can kind of just hear what it's going to be, you know what you want it to be at the end and then just kind of like pushing yourself to get to that point and take chances and then, you know, sometimes fail miserably. And you listen to a song afterwards, like, that is awful and I'm going to delete it now. I never do just because I want to go back and embarrass myself. And actually sometimes there are good ideas in there that just need to be kind of pulled out of the bad idea. But when it works and you know, you've done. Used to be, I think when I was younger, it used to be if we. You'd write a song and you know, with the band, you play it out and the audience reacts to it and you put it on a record and it goes on the radio and if it's a hit and if someone, someone reviews it, like, then there was like some sort of like justification that it was good. And as time has marched on, that's become less and less important to me. I'm always grateful that people react to it, but to me, when it comes off of my recording desk and I'm happy with it Then it is done. And that's a nice feeling, that confidence and to be able to. You're saying, I'm making videos. You know, one bad thing about when the industry was, you know, bustling was that if you wanted to make a music video, I mean, that was just to say music videos was like saying $75,000, you know, because there are people with cameras and film and developing and crews and all this stuff. And now you can legitimately shoot a beautiful piece as long as you have vision and on an iPhone and edit it on your laptop. On this one laptop to my right, I record this show. You can make a record on it, you can edit videos. You know, it's really astounding that if you want to push yourself, if you want to learn, I've never been in a better position to create than I am now. And so I always try to remind myself of that and to take advantage of it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

If people want to hear more of your music or if they want to see you perform live or they just want to know more about you, what's the best place to find out?

Spencer Albee:

I guess the. Well, I have a website which is kind of. It has a selection of videos and stuff that I've done and links to music. I'm on Spotify, I'm on all the online outlets, but I have an artist profile on Spotify. But you know, to even kind of get to know me a bit more, my Instagram is kind of where I live. So just.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Spencer Albee and we will have your website on the show notes page. And I hope people do take advantage of really the, the wealth of things that you've created and sent out into the world because it's nice to see that something that you so enjoy can be enjoyed by other people as well.

Spencer Albee:

It's very lucky.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. It's a fortunate thing that you have.

Spencer Albee:

Very much so.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've been speaking with our audio producer, but more importantly a Portland based and nationally acclaimed singer, songwriter and producer whose name is Spencer Albee. Friend of mine, Friend of the magazine. I appreciate your taking the time to revisit our early conversation from so many years ago and also taking the time to really be a part of the family that we've created here. With love Maine Radio. You're doing a great job.

Spencer Albee:

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

me in the studio Jonathan Wyman, who has spent most of his adult life in recording studios and now operates out of the Halo recording studio in Wyndham. Since returning to Maine to focus on independent records, he has collaborated with artists and labels from all over the country and the world, from northern Maine to Chennai, India. Nice to have you in here.

Jonathan Wyman:

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Did I pronounce that correctly? Chennai?

Jonathan Wyman:

Chennai, Chennai.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, I've never heard of it, but

Jonathan Wyman:

it's on the, I think it's on the east coast of India. It used to be referred to as Madras.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Oh, that makes sense.

Jonathan Wyman:

I got really super excited. It was a fun record to do, but I got really super excited to do like an Indian traditional record and it turned out to be totally western pop. It had nothing to do with Indian music aside from the guy who was singing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it wasn't like a Bollywood thing?

Jonathan Wyman:

Nope, not at all. Just a straight up pop record.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm interested in what you do because I think most of us have a sense of, okay, if you're a singer, you sing. If you're a guitar player, you play guitar. But you really, your instrument is kind of multivariate. You're working with a lot of sounds, bringing them together and creating something new out of them.

Jonathan Wyman:

Yep, exactly. And that's one facet of it too. And the other facet of it is the organizational side of it, which can be just as time consuming and often more taxing, coordinating multiple people, multiple opinions, even just multiple schedules. These days a lot of the artists I work with are independent artists who are still holding down jobs. And so getting people in the same room at the same time can be tricky. But as far as the technical side of it, yeah, the point of what I do is to take somebody else's work and bring it to its fullest potential. I think that's the best description of

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

it how did you become interested in doing this?

Jonathan Wyman:

When I was about 19, well, I guess even earlier I would rent multi track cassette recorders from Daddy's Junkie Music or Wurlitzer in Boston. And like over a school vacation I would go and like the Monday of vacation I'd go and pick it up and drop it off the Friday and spend the whole week sort of holed up little cassette 4 track in the attic and working things out. And that probably would have been when I was 14 or 15 and there wasn't an Internet. You didn't know how to do it. You just had this. Somebody behind the counter shoves this equipment in your hands and you go to it. And then in college was in a band. We decided to make a record and go into a real studio and to offset the cost of it. I was a grunt, I was a runner. And that turned into being an assistant. And then that turned into having my own sessions. Know, I was still in college at the time. And then after college came down to a commercial studio just outside of Portland. It just clicked. It seemed like the way that I could be making music all the time because I wasn't the best player. I don't think I could make it as a player, but I felt good and I felt like I could participate sort of like being a little part in every band, you know what I mean? Like I could participate in making music all the time in a studio situation.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you remember when you first were impacted by sound?

Jonathan Wyman:

Sound or music?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Sound.

Jonathan Wyman:

Sound.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Go with sound.

Jonathan Wyman:

That probably would have been, you know, getting into teenage years, recording. There's that thing that happens when you start recording and you focus more on the technical side of it and the sound than you do the actual emotional content or song content, at least for me. And I know a lot of people have had a similar sort of thing. But yeah, I think that would have been when I started again experimenting with those cassette four tracks and learning that I would always be in headphones because I couldn't disturb anybody else in the house and see how this really, really, you know, accurate representation of what you're hearing. You could hear everything. And I would move the microphone around a little bit around a guitar amplifier and you could hear the differences in sound, these tiny little movements made. So I think that's my first sort of like obsessive moment, I think.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And what about music? It's interesting that you divided it out.

Jonathan Wyman:

Yeah, well, I mean, because like I said, I think that, that people in my field can sort of divide the two terms. You Know, and you can be really into things that sound good but have no musical impact or no emotional impact. And, you know, I definitely got into recording sound because I'm a musician, because I love music. And as a way to, I don't know, broadcast is the wrong word, but just capture and translate, I think, translates the right word. Translate music into the best form possible. But, I mean, I've been involved in music forever. Singing, playing instruments. I went through a whole slew of, you know, that grade school instruments, playing cello, that wasn't right for me. And saxophone was a disaster. And it wasn't until, like, I was 12 or 13 and picked up an electric guitar that I was like, okay, I get this. I understand this so, so well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I have two questions. One is, is that your definition of music is something that has an emotional impact?

Jonathan Wyman:

I think so, yeah. I mean, good music, music that I enjoy is. People always ask, what kind of music do you do? And that's a hard question. My sort of boilerplate answer is always just rock and roll, because it's so broad. But, you know, it can be anything as long as it, you know, makes you wiggle. As long as it connects with you on some level. That's what I consider good music. It can be hip hop, it can be metal, it can be just regular old rock and roll. But as long as it makes you react and makes you feel something, that's good music to me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So then that leads me to my second question, which is, if it wasn't the cello and you knew that it wasn't the saxophone, you knew that, why was it the electric guitar? Do you have any idea?

Jonathan Wyman:

I remember seeing. So in middle school, we had this thing called stage band, and it was almost like jazz band. It was terrible, but you had to audition for it. It was the better players. And I remember watching this guy play a guitar solo. And I was in the back of the auditorium. I was in the regular band, probably playing saxophone terribly. And I watched him play a guitar solo. And my memory of it is like, he was the greatest. He was Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page and Andrea Segovia all rolled into one. And in actuality, you know, it's probably a semi teenager limping through a mediocre jazz arrangement solo. But that was. That was kind of the moment that was when I said, I want to do that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I always wonder what it is about a specific, say, sound that so captures someone. I wonder how it is that someone's brain is wired. They can hear that, and something wells up inside.

Jonathan Wyman:

Yeah. And the guitar is such a weird instrument, too, because it's like. Whereas a piano, you have one location for each note. You know, you can play the same note in the same octave in four or five different places in the guitar. And, you know, there's no one telling you where the right place to do it. And each one has a slightly different sound. And physically, the guitar is a really stupid instrument. It, like, mathematically can never actually be in tune. And so many other physical aspects of it that can alter the intonation and the tuning of it. But that. That's what makes personality. You know, you think of a guy like Bill Frizzell, who's one of my favorite guitar players, and, you know, he always plays stuff a little bit sharp, and it creates his tension that you instantly know it. It's like the sound of his voice.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it's like a thumbprint.

Jonathan Wyman:

Exactly, exactly. I mean, it's. I think it's really interesting, not just on guitar, but on so many instruments that you can identify a player within a couple of notes. I think it's a sign of a

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

great player, which is kind of funny because we spend a lot of time in music, at least initially, trying to get people to sound a certain way, to make sure that they've got the right notes and they've got the right foundation. But ultimately, you. You do have to cross over. Like being an artist, like a visual artist, you have to cross over and have your own thing.

Jonathan Wyman:

And that happens, too, in. In terms of mixing, you know, to bring it back to what I do now musically, where you spend a lot of time, especially for me in formative years, sort of aping the people who I really like and admire and trying to make things sound like Chad Blake and trying to make things sound like Rich Costi and. And, I mean, I think. I think it's a natural thing as an artist, where you start off imitating, and then it becomes your own voice and it becomes your own sound. I think a lot of people do that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So is it similar for you that you have your own fingerprint?

Jonathan Wyman:

I don't know about that yet.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This has been done by Jonathan.

Jonathan Wyman:

I don't know about that yet. I can't hear it. And in some ways, that's really good. Like, in some ways, there are the mixers that you can tell instantly. Like, that is Chris Lord algae. I know that snare drum. But there's also, like. I mentioned Rich Costi before, and he might be sort of the. The person who I sort of look at and pay attention to the most these days. Because it never. I'm never certain that it's him, but I'll always hear a record and say to myself, that sounds great. And I'll go on the Internet because that's how you find credits these days. And I'll see who produced it or who mixed it. And it's, you know, nine times out of ten, it's Rich Costi. It never screams this one identifiable sonic thumbprint, but it's always great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So that's also kind of intriguing that you don't know somebody by specifically what they are, but more globally by kind of the sense of it.

Jonathan Wyman:

And that everything on his CV is just top notch, awesome stuff. And I think that's a great example of doing this job right. Like I said, it's about taking somebody else's work and making it as good as it can possibly be. It's like being a focusing lens. And I think that's a good sign. I think not being instantly identifiable means that it's the artist that comes first. And the most important thing is finding the best things about what that artist is doing and bringing them to the forefront. And maybe, you know, if there's something weak or something that's not as successful, like either edit it out or downplay it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So is your. Because I'm assuming you're very sensitive to sound just in general as you're walking down the street. Like, what's that like for you?

Jonathan Wyman:

Yeah, I mean, it's. I think the biggest thing is. And this is sort of. It goes around the Internet now, but misophonia, the thing that happens when people are chewing and it drives you crazy like that, that actually happens to me. And like, if I'm working on something and I don't listen very loud anymore because I want to preserve my hearing as much as I can. And I think you hear better at a moderate volume. If I'm working on something and there's somebody else in the room, and even if they're chewing gum or, you know, eating potato chips, like, that instantly drives me crazy because I spend all day, especially if you're doing voiceover stuff or listening to just spoken content, you're actually trying to edit out all those little sounds. You're trying to get rid of it. But you know, as far as the. The like walking out in the real world, it's interesting. I live downtown now, so it's a lot louder. It's like traffic noise. Not so much in the house, but just walking around, I notice it a lot more. Not as bad. I used to live in Brooklyn. And I guess the subway is really bad for hearing. Like it's something like 95 decibels if you like. There are people who will actually actively wear hearing protection when riding the subway because it can cause actual hearing damage. It's that loud.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's interesting you would say that because I think about riding on boats and the boat, the motor to a boat and how loud it can really be, but because it's kind of so overwhelming that you don't even think, oh, this is a loud, this is a loud motor. And there's a lot of things like that in our everyday life. And you, because this is what you do, this is. Your ears are like your other people's hands, for example. You would have to be even more careful.

Jonathan Wyman:

Yep, I'm pretty careful about it. I try to wear earplugs when I go to show and you know, if an ambulance is going by, plug your ears or something. But yeah, you have to be careful because that's it. And once it, you know, it doesn't grow back if you have hearing loss. And it even happens naturally, even if you take perfect care of your ears. I'm 41 years old. The high frequency, you know, perception starts to dissipate a little bit. I definitely. Not scientifically, but just listening to tones, I think I hear the upper, upper echelon of human hearing a little less than I did when I was 22.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now that's a little discouraging.

Jonathan Wyman:

It's natural. It happens.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So your wife, you and your wife both teach up at Bates?

Jonathan Wyman:

Yeah, she more than. I do it once a year for five weeks at a time. And I don't think I'm gonna do it this year. I don't think they're gonna have me back. They gotta sort of ro the stock a little bit.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But you went to Bates yourself. What have you noticed about the availability of access to the type of work that you do at colleges like Bates? At Bates specifically, or colleges like Bates?

Jonathan Wyman:

Yeah, it's pretty amazing that, you know, it used to be on every laptop, but now it's even on phones and tablets. You have the technology to do the multi track recording way, way, way beyond the level of the apparatus that I talked about earlier when I would go into Boston, rent equipment that I could only afford to have for a week at a time. Like now that's on a phone. So it's pretty great. I think the, the ability to sort of learn about recording and the sort of editorial process as an artist and as a writer, that recording can give you that perspective where you can hear yourself, you can hear the songs, you can hear how you're performing it. That is, I think, a huge advantage to people who are coming up as artists today, just being able to, I don't know, like, just have access to the kind of technology that will give you that perspective on your own.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I'm thinking about the photographers who used to do film and now are digital. And there is a fair number of people who are. Didn't really like that transition and resisted it. And actually there's a fair number of younger people who now go back and they learn film. Is there any sort of equivalent?

Jonathan Wyman:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, coming up, we recorded everything to 2 inch analog tape. And you had 24 tracks or 16, depending on the kind of tape deck. And tape was expensive. It's even more expensive now because fewer people are making it. But. But it had. I mean, there's all the romanticism about the quality of sound, the actual auditory experience of, you know, magnetic tape. But I think the bigger thing comes in workflow and in the fact that. And maybe this is similar to film, where it's like, if you want to do that guitar solo again, we have to record over the guitar solo that's there. And that guitar solo is really good. And we can never get it back if we record over it, because this is the last available track. This is the last thing we're doing on this song. So if you go in again, we're gonna lose that forever. And obviously, in digital, you have nearly unlimited tracks. You have these different playlists that you can do different versions of different performances and even compile them together into one Frankenstein performance. So that. That's definitely true in my field. And, you know, in some ways, I sort of miss that level of commitment and that workf that analog tape provided less so the maintenance. And I mean, I. I think analog tape sounds good, but that's not the reason I get nostalgic for it. I get nostalgic for it. Or I not even. I think nostalgia is the wrong word because I even this morning was thinking about, man, wouldn't it be great to have a room that was just tape and a console and maybe a couple of pieces of outboard gear and not these hundreds of choices that the digital environment provides you with. You can open a menu in Pro Tools, which is the recording software I use, and you have 25 different equalizers and 25 different compressors. And I think that can slow down creativity. I think that you get way too wrapped up in all these different choices and tape made you commit. And maybe that's the same thing with film where you can't just shoot a thousand times. You only have, I don't know how many exposures you get per roll of film. But you, it's limited, right. There's a physical piece of film in there that you only can get so many exposures on and then you have to develop them and you have to, you know, as opposed to the instant gratification of the digital world.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's. As you're talking, I'm thinking about like the amount of prep time that used to be required before you would go in and record something. Because if you had a limited amount of tape, then you'd need to make sure you were pretty good by the time you got there. And now it's not that this is a good or a bad, but now you can almost prep as you're going,

Jonathan Wyman:

oh, it's definitely a bad. It's definitely a bad.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Okay, well, I didn't want to make that judgment.

Jonathan Wyman:

No, I make that judgment. It's. You get that sort of like, oh, you can fix it in Pro Tools. You can, you know, just get close enough and you can move the notes around digitally and make it right. And I don't like that. I, I think that, you know, recording is, it can be this really expensive, time consuming thing. But there was this guy, Cowboy Jack Clement. He was a record producer and he had his, his, his rules of recording. And the last rule was my favorite, and it was, it only takes three minutes to make a hit record. All you got to do is be prepared, have a compelling performance, and that's it. It's not rocket surgery like you get people who know how to play on the floor and make a recording. So I think that the digital age has sort of fostered this. Wow. I don't want to sound negative about it, but this lack of preparedness or this reliance on manipulating things as opposed to preparedness and performance.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. You think about even people who are learning music as they're coming up through. I mean, they can record themselves from the moment that they start doing music and they can start thinking, oh, well, I already sound good. I don't really have to practice.

Jonathan Wyman:

I can just rely on, there's a button that I can press that'll make all the notes be in tune. And if I, if I can press that button, why would I need to practice?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Right. When we talk to photographer Trent Bell, he spends a lot of any he photographs for Maine Home design. He spends a lot of time setting up the scene so everything is exactly right in the house that he is photographing. And he used to be his training as an architect, so it kind of makes sense that his mind works that way. But once it's done, it's done. And he does very little editing afterwards.

Jonathan Wyman:

So I would think that that's a very similar. And I think that makes the best recordings. And you know, as far as preparation in the. The analog in my world would be, you know, make sure you've got the room set up. You don't want people sitting around. You don't want people getting bored. You know, if you can have everything ready to go so they can walk into the room, put on headphones and start playing immediately when the inspiration is there and everybody's still excited. It can be a really time consuming, sometimes even boring process doing the same thing over and over again. And part of what makes rock and roll great is the vitality and the spontaneity of it. And you don't get that when you're doing 20 takes in a row trying to micromanage the snare drum sound and get it just right. So, yeah, that's a really good analogy to what my level of preparedness has to be to get a great performance out of people.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So for those of us who don't have as much musical background, what is the difference between being. Between engineering and mastering?

Jonathan Wyman:

Sure, sure. Well, so the two big dichotomies from my world are like engineering and producing. And engineering is the translation of a performance into some sort of storage medium. And it's a. It's a technical but artistic endeavor because you can affect that capture using different microphones, using different microphone techniques, using the relationship of the room to the performer. Producing is more overseeing both the creative side of it and the organizational and logistical side of it. You know, as a producer, you're responsible for delivering the record and saying, okay, on this day we're going to be done and this record is going to come out. And it doesn't always. In my world, it also involves being the engineer, a. Because I like engineering. And it's just one more tool to get the. The aesthetic I'm looking for. So within that, you've got basically, let's call it three different stages. A recording engineer who is capturing performances from artists on the floor. And then the next, maybe not the next step, but the next big step, is mixing, where you take all of these multiple tracks. Because when you're recording, you record, let's say, a Kick drum to one track and a snare drum to another track and a bass guitar to another track. The mix engineer's job is to blend all those disparate tracks into a cohesive whole into the song, and to do that both in a technically pleasing manner and an emotionally convincing. You know, you want to convey emotion, you want to bring the listener along for the ride over the course of the song. And finally, the last step is mastering. That's not something I do, but mastering is the. It's almost like the final glossy finish, the last layer of lacquer on a piece of furniture. At Gateway they describe it as. It's the last creative step in making a record and the first technical step in producing whatever is going to go to the consumer, whether that's a compact disc or these days, a download or a streaming file. Mastering, you don't have as much control. You can't in mastering say, oh, I wish the vocal were louder or I wish that the guitars were quieter. You have a fair bit of control over the overall. It's big, broad strokes. But the thing that a mastering engineer does usually is brings perspective. When I'm. I make records really fast. Like rarely do I have more than two weeks to make a record. But two weeks is a long time to be listening to the same eight or 10 songs all the time. You know, 60, 70 hours a week. In those two weeks, the mastering engineer has the ability to hear those songs for the first time and maybe hear things that I as a mixer missed. And again, you know, I work fast. So maybe one song is a little bass heavy, maybe one song is a little dull, maybe one song doesn't. The choruses don't explode the way they could. And the mastering engineer's perspective as a more or less a first time listener gets to modify that. Gets to again say, what's the very last thing that this needs to put it over the top?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I have learned a lot during this conversation. It's really very. It's good stuff because I'm lucky I have Spencer Albee to do all of the stuff to bring the radio show out there. All I have to do is talk. My job's relatively easy. I'm going to refer people who have been listening and want more information about the work you're doing to our Love Maine Radio show notes page where we will put your website. Awesome. So that they can find you here in the Portland, Maine, Not Portland, Oregon,

Jonathan Wyman:

but if you're from Portland, Oregon, we

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

can still do stuff that's okay too. I've been speaking with Jonathan Wyman, who has spent most of his adult life in recording studios and now operates out of the Halo recording studio in Windham. Thanks so much for educating me for coming in today and for the work that you're doing.

Jonathan Wyman:

Right on. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been listening to Love Maine radio show number 269, making music. Our guests have included Spencer Albee and Jonathan Wyman. For a preview of each week's show, sign up for our e newsletter and like our LoveMain Radio Facebook page, follow me on Twitter as DRLISA and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of lovemain Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Lovemain radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Making Music show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Spencer Albee:

Com.