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1977 was the year I became committed to working professionally with sound. Just out of Ohio University with a degree in Radio/TV Production, I landed a job at WWNO FM in New Orleans. I had a lovely time being the jazz program director and doing most of the audio production for this NPR affiliate. I made some shockingly bad mixes of local jazz groups early on and realized that my years in school had nothing to do with the art of presenting music in a beautiful way. I shied away from the technical aspects of sound recording and fell in love with presenting jazz, classical, and new music to the Gulf South. I was fixated on finding the great performances and fine-tuning the art of the segue. I also noticed that every record label seemed to have its own distinctive sound. This became quite a fascination for me, and after a few years led me back to seriously trying to record music in a compelling way. What followed the New Orleans years was driven by a developing sense of myself as an artist, geographic restlessness, and a vague disdain for the idea of developing a career. Santa Barbara, Key West, Charleston, SC, and Columbus all had their moments and mostly half-assed jobs. In the early 80s I concluded that radio was dead and that the future was with TV and film. I followed a trail through cable TV lineman jobs and grunt work for small film-production outfits to a night in Columbus when at 3 AM, staring at 85 monitors in a master control room owned by Warner/Amex, it hit me. I had the stark realization that if radio is a dead world, these 85 monitors are telling me that media in general is the dead world. Indeed the life and power of communication is held by the artist, and that is where I need to be. During these traveling years I kept my shit together by listening to music and the birds and the railroad and now it was time to find my way into being truly a part of the sound world. The Tascam 244: For a lot of us this little cassette 4-tracker was huge. With TV production turning into a private joke, I began making Dadaist soundtracks for small personal videos I'd edited while my attention wandered during the late shift in master control. I started collecting microphones. I went to a six-week music recording workshop where I learned very little about technique, and crashed my van while listening to a particularly poor remix I'd just done of an R&B band. I graduated in the middle of my class, bolted the driver's door shut, tied the hood down, put the 224 next to the futon, and moved to Seattle. I came to Seattle in 1985 because I thought any town that can support Wagner's Ring Cycle every year must love the arts. And that is mostly true.The Pacific Northwest has one of the broadest, most quietly intense music and visual arts scenes in the world. I immediately set about recording the rather vast free-improv community in Seattle. Soon jazz and new music became very important to me. Herb Levy, who directed Soundworks Northwest, introduced me to a lot of new music. Then I met Joan Rabinowitz, who at that time was a producer at the Jack Straw Foundation. She showed me a load of new DBX digital encoders, a Sonosax mixer, and some B&K microphones that Jack Straw had recently purchased. We soon embarked on a sonic arts journey that continues today. My association with Jack Straw Productions has led to countless (because I've never counted them) audio projects, CD and cassette releases, demos, false starts, and never-should-have-tried sessions. I've learned from every one of them, including the many sessions I've done as an independent engineer. Most importantly, I've worked with an absolutely spectacular array of artists, producers, and arts supporters who have pitched their tents in the Pacific Northwest. It's a rare opportunity indeed to be able to hear the music of so many players evolve over the course of many years. I've developed this Website to put some perspective on the music and sound art of the Pacific Northwest and how I have become a part of it. It's noticeably lacking in references to the massive pop/indy-rock scene out this way because I've always operated at the perimeter of popular music. If you would like to contact me, please do: doug@doughaire.com |