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Compiled Interview with Michael Coston:


Had to slick my hair back then to perform in the clubs........note the drummer's grip though!!

Born on August 19, 1962 in Queens, NY drummer/composer/producer and architect Michael Coston began his remarkable life in a South Jamaica neighborhood known as Springfield Gardens which lies just north of Kennedy airport. Influenced by musical parents who were renowned for their service at various popular churches throughout the New York metropolitan area Michael naturally began developing an ear for jazz, gospel, R&B and music of all styles and periods at a very young age. He immediately began to show signs of having an extraordinary gift for art at the age of two and would soon find another means of expression in the form of music.

“From as early as I can remember our home was always full of music during the course of my childhood, same as for many other prominent musicians I guess. Irene Coston SoloingI would be scribbling and drawing on the walls and just about any other surface that was left blank. There was something going through the air all the time though. My mother sang like a dove and my father, a respected choir director, accompanied her on the piano and organ. They helped to establish Washington Temple, a landmark church in the Brooklyn community during the 50's and 60's. My uncle had a brief stay with us following his naval service in the military and brought with him a wealth of jazz, classical and Broadway musical albums which I began delving into. Since then our basement became the Mecca for my musical ventures whether it was my father practicing regularly on his Hammond B3 or the swinging house parties thrown on every possible occasion.The Three Professors-L/R Alfred Miller, Tommy Brown (on organ) and my father (rarely not playing) Henry Coston I loved the house parties. Especially so because it was forbidden for my older brother and I to be hanging around all those adults smoking and drinking from the basement bar, talkin' that jive talk we weren't supposed to hear. But we got in so to speak. They were down there dancing in the darkness to the endless, contagious grooves of James Brown and most all of the Motown label artists twirling around on those little 45rpm records. My parents knew the value and importance of how to have a good time outside of their routine day jobs. Irene Coston conducting the youth choirI recall one quieter day listening to my father rehearse on the organ and I was led to pull out some cardboard boxes (probably left over from open Christmas gifts) and a "well-broken-in-from-chuchh!" tambourine and set them up right in front of the organ and began banging away with my hands. Well, I quickly found out that I could be much more effective against an electrically amplified organ if I had some drum sticks and, using my three year old ingenuity, got a hold of a few coat hangars with those wood sticks on ‘em to help me cut through. The rest was proverbial history as they say." 

Later in his early teens he began to further develop his passion for drawing and painting yet simultaneously being affected by his older brother’s developing talent on keyboards. 

“At this stage I was drawing a lot more, building plastic models and playing in my room with my erector set and G.I Joe and things like that, my brother discovered his new found interest in jazz as he learned to play piano. Henry and Irene CostonIn my last two years of public school I was fortunate enough to have a great preliminary music teacher in Public School 52 by the name of Carl Bartlett. He was a young musician with his own local funk band called “Bartlett’s Contemporaries” and they played everything that was known to be funky. He started our class on the recorder, a flute-like instrument, and how to read written music. Thankfully he would also follow us to Junior High School 231 as an instructor of the band where I learned to play clarinet and alto sax as a required instrument. I would take to it quickly and play the theme from "Sanford and Son" all the time. He had us learn the theme from “Shaft” for the schools concert and it totally blew the people away. Parents talked about the show for weeks. So now my dad had invested in a small rickety 3-piece Ludwig starter kit for me and I finally got off those modified cardboard boxes too. It had a worn blue pearl finish and a small 8” cymbal that sounded like a trash can lid. I’d do anything today to get those funky sounds back from that beat-up old kit! That’s also the time when I began playing drums in churches along with my dad and the musical experience came full circle."

From this point he further acquired his taste for jazz, funk and R&B of the time and began participating in local gig bands. 

“About this time my brother began playing proficiently enough to gather other local neighborhood musicians into a band and they would rehearse in our basement, with my dad's approval of course. After they left rehearsals, I would sneak down and fiddle with as many of the player’s instruments as I could get my hands on without damaging them, kind of like being locked up in Sam Ash overnight. Fortunately for me this was a time when African American music was still heavily percussive and soulful and just effortlessly funky by nature. Remember what a Farfisa was? a really used Rhodes 88? Wah-wah pedals? Vibes!?? Eventually, the band's drummer, Herbie Aikens, who became a local legend in his own right, had taken notice of my interest in drumming especially and with the intuitive help of my dad managed to work out some, let’s say, rather low cost lessons with me. Taught me rudiments and stuff. I would eventually form my own basement bands and play classic R&B tunes at block parties and clubs. Regardless of my young age I kept tuning my ear to traditional and contemporary jazz and the new bebop going on at the time thru Miles, and of course, Parker, Mingus, Trane, Elvin, Ella just to name a few. It was always a constant undertone, like office music, playing inside the house. Then funk-fusion started sprouting up from the late 60’s rebellions and I became a student of its technical wizardry and speed.” 

This wizardry he speaks of would be displayed by the likes of Return To Forever, Jimi Hendrix, George Duke, Joe Sample, Carlos Santana, David Sanchious, and John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra. He would grow to idolize drummers Elvin Jones, Billy Cobham, Tony Williams, Lenny White and Narada Michael Walden. 

“Now just in my mid-teens I was further blessed by my dad as he surprised me one birthday with a new blue fiber glass 5-piece Ludwig drum set. It actually did have two more extra drums for me to hit than a 3-piece and it also came with real cymbals as opposed to the trash can lid on my old kit. Also around this time WRVR jazz radio became the life’s blood of my inspiration next to buying LP’s and (hehe) 8-track cassettes. I would return from school and jump right on my kit with my headphones tuned in to the station and play along for hours with most every song on the playlist. It was a great way to learn our music. Only WBGO can compare to that kind of outlet today."

Not putting his gifted artwork aside he would follow his brother’s footsteps to the Fiorello LaGuardia High School of Music and Art in upper Manhattan, not for music but for art!

“I kept drawing passionately all this time. From cartoon characters to house plans I managed to use up all the free paper in the house. My brother had transferred to Music and Art High School after a short stay at Newtown and it only seemed logical that I would follow him there. He took my portfolio of drawings to the school for them to review and I was accepted shortly thereafter. I loved the school. First of all it resembled a real castle as it was known as “The Castle On The Hill”. We had to climb, like 137 steps to get up the hillside to the school from the 135th and Convent subway station. Phys-Ed should really have been optional. It was a family of gifted and aspiring students and staff with an unusual sense of closeness and mutual support for one another. One that I don’t think ever existed in high schools, even today (an understatement). And on top of that I was doing what I loved to do. (I’ll talk about sketching the nude female models another time, but let's say I definitely refined my painting and sketching skills to an incredibly high level). So, luckily in my freshman year, which happened to be my brother’s senior year, I got to meet and know his established school friends. Among them were drummer Omar Hakim, bassist Marcus Miller, guitarists Bobby Broom and Dave Moreno, horn players Dave Burnett and Ron Carter, Jr., and keyboardists Bernard Wright and Terry Burrus whom I knew coincidentally from earlier church days. One interesting point is that most of us traveled to school on the same bus and train “and” from the same neighborhood, basically Jamaica, N.Y., an area which even today has proven itself to be a whirlpool of musical talent ala marquee names like Barry "Sonjohn" Johnson, Tom Browne, Donald Blackman, LL Cool J, RUN DMC and Russell Simmons to name a few. We were all making noise in our basements back then. We couldn’t afford all the expensive musical gear so we bought cheap little 2-octave Casio keyboards to supplement our bands and played along with the latest DJ records. The good turntable mixers back then had little MC mic’s on them so brothers just started rapping as they spun tunes like “Heartbeat” and Kurtis Blow. But anyway, although I was a student of the art program in school I never missed an opportunity to sit in with the jazz band under direction of the great Justin DiCioccio or to catch our famous gospel chorus in rehearsal or even better still to find a rare and precious empty piano room where I would sit and expand on my musical ideas by sacrificing my lunch period.” 

He would go on to establish a friendship with another aspiring drummer and classmate, Tony Lewis who is also making a name for himself.

“He’s making a name for himself alright (laughs). TL and I would get consumed in drummer talk between classes about who is playing where and what magic act (Billy) Cobham did on such and such an album and how Tony Williams plays off the downbeat, etc. He would come over and jam with me on my kit and exchange riffs at the expense of a few busted drum heads. He’s definitely a leader today. I still hope one day that we can find time to take our drum kits out in the park and talk. But we do manage to connect every now and then. I have to say that Omar Hakim was also a great influence on me as well. He and Marcus Miller would perform on occasion with their band Harlem River Drive in the school’s auditorium and I actually learned a lot about playing drums liveas I figure Omar did from Lenny White. I marveled at his ability to maneuver around the drum kit given his long lanky physique. He sat real low with his hi-hats seemingly up at eye level and his knees would be protruding high above the kick drum. It gave him a kind of sinister appearance when he executed moves. Anyway, I appreciated the few times we tapped out paradiddles in study hall. But by my Junior year most of my close school and neighborhood musician friends had either moved on to college or just outright started touring and recording with major artists like Tom Browne, Roberta Flack, Bobbi Humphrey, Chaka Khan, Sting and Miles Davis simply because they were so exceptionally talented. My brother went on to attend Berklee College of Music up in Boston. I would jump on an Amtrak train to visit him on occasion just to see what Berklee was like. At that time there were some great players beginning to step forward, like drummers Tommy Campbell and Terri Lyne Carrington and Cindy Blackman, Branford Marsalis, Victor Bailey, Kevin Eubanks and some others making noise in the music booths. Thing was, that when my brother would come home from Berklee for the summer, I would be getting the same music education that he was getting by taking interest in reading and learning all of his fake books, theory materials and course manuals that he brought back with him every year. I knew that he didn't even want to look at those books  again until September, so I found it a pleasant advantage for me to attain a steady growth with both music and architecture before I was 18 years of age.” 

Another historical note: The musical movie drama “Fame” was shot and produced based on the collaborative efforts of students representing both Music & Art High School and the High School Of Performing Arts. 

“How often do you go to a movie premier featuring your high school class? The last thing we needed in our senior year was an ego boost before graduation! But also in my senior year the school introduced an architecture program that I took great interest in. I had a wonderful instructor named Bryna Eill who had such enthusiasm for the course that it easily carried over to the students. I already had a knack for technically detailed drawings and building models and things so I began to seriously turn my attention to all the facets of this profession in my senior year."


After graduating from Music & Art at the prestigious Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in 1980 Michael pursued his artistic roots into the field of Architecture at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. Yet, still his love for one art form did not diminish the other." 

Oh! The quote was from Stanley Clarke's album School Days but the guidance counselor didn't quite get it....“After graduation I decided to take the “safe and secure” career choice which I’m sure my parents agreed to. I had great interest in architecture and the steady check theory was preferable to gambling with stardom “On Broadway” as George Benson had so eloquently put it. While attending classes I still managed to gig with a group of local musician friends of mine like keyboardist Mike Crews and bassist Lennard Mendoza in a band which we ultimately named “Freelance” because that’s what we were, freelancers, sort of like bounty hunters of music. Not to be confused with freeloaders unless you inquire about the clubs complementary drinks for us at the bar, creatures of habit that we are. We became a tight musical core and played top 40 clubs mostly and supported singers and other vocal groups. It’s funny that the lead singers would come and go but we still maintained our bad-assed core unit. We eventually became known as a hit squad for many new artists. Our favorite thing to do was to viciously stretch our solos during those predictable instrumental breaks back then that were written into the middle of songs (funny). Usually the guitarist would rudely scream into the break before the downbeat and we would just ignite and release all that pent up energy to catapult into a torrid firestorm of a jam session. Those 8-bars of freedom were so HOT! you needed to wear a flame suit to watch it. A whole ten minutes later we would let the bewildered vocalist back into the song, but only long enough to take it right back into outer space for another half-hour on the tail. Man! our version of Anita Baker’s “Angel” was pretty intense! To this day I think we had a lot to do with killing the mid-song interludes (laughs). But the point was that musicians want to play, not be stuck with Sade. So we made sure we all got our chops off in one way or another and, if we actually did happen to record the gig, we cruelly edited out the artists entire performance, except for our solos that is. God, I sure miss that."

Then working full time became a priority for Mike as he discovered that if you don’t have a real job you have to stretch 20 gig-a-bucks a week for the rest of your life.

Just got Paid again!“After college I got a job with an architectural firm near Madison Square Garden and got used to getting paid regularly. It served to allow me to invest in recording equipment and other such personal luxuries not made readily available to me as when I was broke! In time I became the typical Sam Ash groupie which we all were at one time or another, groping and gawking at new equipment in the store windows with all of 40 bucks in my pocket. 48th Street between 6th and 7th Avenue was the North Pole where Santa lived and made all the toys for us to continue playing our music. But you needed real serious money to get those toys, and my elaborate after-hours glass cutter theory, or better yet robbing the truck on delivery was a little too chancy. But after a while I managed to collect an impressive amount of gear to support my songwriting skills enough so to consider serious music production. I then moved into an empty Brooklyn brownstone owned by a family friend who needed architectural plans from me, and there I set up a recording studio that made money for about two years. But I was thinking "All roads lead to Rome" and being in Manhattan was my goal like most any other artist seeking attention from the music industry."

After a streak of jazz and R&B projects with various local artists he turned to building his catalog of songs. 

Caught hangin' at the Village Underground......checking out unusual talent. YIKES!!“After relocating to Executive Plaza on 51st Street and 7th Ave. in midtown New York in the summer of '89, I continued inconspicuous club hopping and producing local talent in my studio for about seven years. The money was great and rivaling my day job, and I really took advantage of knowing the city well since I was virtually right in the middle of Times Square. In fact, I lived so close to my job which had also moved to Rockefeller Center that it only took me 5 minutes to walk to work and back. And in winter time, I would take the underground concourses to work without even needing a winter coat. So I actually could have worn my pajamas to work every day if only it were considered business attire. But I routinely went home for my lunch hour to check on my studio business and watch some TV! On some nights I would savor hanging out at Dave Grusin and Larry Rosen and Phil Ramone’s old A&R studios (which is now Local 802 Union) with engineer friend Stan Wallace to cut my teeth behind the console. I was also fortunate enough to meet Wynton Marsalis who was popping a few lines with Jon Hendricks in a rare recording session.Local Talent! Client #150 missing a note. Some of the great talent I worked with included Anthony MacDonald (Ralph's son) and George Victory, Will Calhoun (Living Colour), Tom James (Mercer Ellington), Tony Terry (R&B balladier), Kevin Dean (Al B. Sure!), Toni Seawright (vocalist), Stephanie L. Givens (Robin's sister) and Anthony Mills, Stretch (Michael Jackson's dance choreographer) and a most impressive a-capella group known as Last Appeal (now called Naturally 7). They were a 7th Day Adventist vocal group from the same cloth as Take 6. In fact, they and some of the current members of Take 6 had all known each other in one way or another from their shared childhoods in Huntsville, Alabama and that talent spilled over definitely. Crazy smooth harmonics going to tape with them! Then in 1993 I was given the exceptional opportunity through a friend Ted Howard to produce two songs for a quickly rising gospel vocalist out of Houston with astounding talent. Yolanda Adams was fast looking to complete her album entitled “Save The World” and I pulled a few cuts I had off of the top shelf. I have not heard a more confident and self-assured artist than Yolanda since the powerful Mahalia Jackson. Hearing her deliver a song made you rise out of your shoes. I was welcome to produce another song for her in 1995 entitled “My Desire” to contribute to her “More Than A Melody” album. It was an honor to be chosen again as well as being on the same album with the phenomenal BeBe Winans. The Astounding Yolanda Adams. Go Yo!Yolanda was simply destined for success and too large a talent to be restrained on a small label. Having the opportunity to make music on an international scale is a blessing in itself. It's a very sobering thing to know that people worldwide are appreciating your music and that alone compels you to give your best efforts. I recall one of the first times I heard one of my compositions in the public domain. I was put on hold by a secretary at a label and one of my songs was playing in the background on their muzak system. I got upset when she picked up the line again interrupting the song and told her to put me back on hold right away so I could finish listening to my mix! Guess that was original...."

Being a musician at heart Michael rediscovered his love of composing.

“I then turned my focus on composing a wide spectrum of music for film and commercial work. The beauty in such projects is that you are not always preoccupied with having to recreate a certain trademark sound for an artist or limit your palette of sounds by having to use trendy music formulas to market your material. Everything you create is sincere and from the heart. I found myself returning to sketching and painting also. Then I remembered that Miles also sketched and painted too and I was like "cool!". The drawback for me with producing new acts, guy and girl groups and the like is that you always have to mimic something already done and being played on the airwaves in order to make some noise in the industry. It was always like “I want that stoopid phat kick on my track too, its so dope” so after a while I had 40 or so tracks worth of “stoopid phat kick” that I had to mix 40 or so times over and over through 40 different artists. This is not to mention having to wear the multiple hats inherent in the producer’s role. It became very similar to raising children in many aspects as things tend to become very personal between group members. I found myself supplying everything from petty cash at ATM’s to ordering five sets of “(MC) Hammer pants” to multi-colored replacement hair weaves and tampons “with wings” nonetheless. Nnnot much music in that! So I stretched out and expanded my visions more inward painting the world as I saw it. When you eventually take the time to convey all of your life experiences into song then you grow tremendously as an artist and your perspective becomes completely rounded and more intuitive from that point onward.

Time makes you wiser and particularly more critical of your past works so obviously the best stuff is always yet to come. We become what “was” and what “will be” through our interpretations of life and how we choose to live it. True musicians will always respect and appreciate the freedom they have to express themselves responsibly through their instruments without restriction. It's very fortunate for one to make a living of it in our profession but our truest reward is often in just being heard."

Michael


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Michael Coston uses equipment by:

Akai, Alesis, Apple, Aphex, Argosy, Audiotechnica, Behringer, Bose, Compaq, Creative Labs, dbx, Dell, DigiDesign, Electrovoice, Emu, Fxpansion, Furman, Korg, Lexicon, Linksys, Logitech, Mackie Designs, M-Audio, MOTU, Native Instruments, Omnirax, Panasonic, Philips, ProCo, Quantegy, Re'an, Roland, Shure, Sony, SSL, Tascam, Ultimate, WAVES, Whirlwind, Western Digital and Yamaha. 


In The Studio with Michael Coston:
by Sharan Bashir Ali 1/15/01 Los Angeles

Tell us about your studio.

Mike In StudioWell as a backdrop, the traditional recording studios have always been places to capture and conceive musical ideas. They are typically equipped with the best acoustic spaces and the most expensive high-end recording gear available to the recording profession, and that remains their primary attraction today. So over time, it only made sense that the advancing technology would eventually begin to creep into the personal environments of those who use it the most, namely producers and engineers, as well as some adept artists. You tie that in with fluctuating financial economies and periods of stagnant record sales and then you begin to see how dynamic the studios have to become in order to remain in business. For example, when clients like record labels and recording artists began holding on to their money then studios began to improvise different methods to compete in the marketplace, and help pay off that half-million dollar piece of equipment they sprung out for the year before. Many of the larger studios began to fail financially and closed down as a result of the overhead they had to carry. This is the point when smaller commercial studios and more concentrated home project studios pioneered by rogue producers and engineers like myself suddenly became the new frontier. But regardless of the health of the industry I always intended to have a home project studio from the outset.

What advantages are there from having a project studio at home?

First of all, you get to sleep in your own bed after working far into the next morning on an artist that can't sing, something that I dreaded in my early session days when I had limited choices. Besides that, you can work more at a time of your leisure and manage your creativity better. It always made more sense to me to be able to roll out of my bed with a new idea and instantly capture it completely in the studio before I lost it. If I didn't have the convenience of the home studio here then I would have to keep the idea fresh in my head, not talk to anybody, jump in the car and drive a half hour to the major studio (assuming it wasn't already booked and I had no distracting cabbie accidents along the way), set up the gear from scratch with the clueless engineer, and then remember why I came out in the first place.

Did it make money?

Oh yeah! If you're in the right place logistically and keep your circle of contacts with professionally like-minded people you can stay busy year round if you wish. I remember going for long stretches without taking a vacation because the financial success of the studio became so addictive. It was the height of my entrepreneurship that I had sought for. I got a personal high from depositing studio and royalty checks in the bank on an almost daily basis, especially in contrast to my day job as an architect. In fact, I still get a rush when I see bank deposit slips today. Beautiful things to me. But on average I do about 60 to 80 percent of my music pre-production right here. Furthermore, the advances in broadband capacity and transfer speeds over the internet have made doing projects and exchanging information more practical and profitable on both ends. There are some things that I still prefer the majors for, like processing, tracking and mixing final lead vocals and solo instruments through their expensive toys, and also mastering surround 5.1 or 7.1 mixes through their heavy-duty gear.

So then, what disadvantages are there from having a project studio at home?

Well if you don't have a stable and respectable cash flow coming in then you're in trouble inevitably. You'll quickly go from having a state-of-the-art home studio to a state-of-the-art street corner studio in 6 inches of snow in no time. Studio equipment changes constantly due to continuous and relentless upgrades in technology, so you need to establish a decent, accessible cash base to stay in the game. Most equipment pieces have a relatively short life span of about two years before it's considered outdated. It's not uncommon for me to spend upwards of $3-5,000.00 in a month to take advantage of new tools and better gear that become available on the market. Then you have maintenance expenses every now and then that you need to factor in as well, aside from your girlfriend. Bulbs burn out, knobs break off, indicator lights short out, drives crash, viruses attack and occasionally things burst into flames from working them too hard because you decided not to turn on the air conditioner for 18 hours. You also can't afford to lose essential equipment like your main computer, or blow speaker monitors in front of a client without a back up set handy, so redundancy is critical. Outside of an earthquake, rescheduling should never be an option to a paying client, especially if they're paying you! They will always remember the downtime and the resulting inconvenience no matter how good things turn out in the end.

What should artists do who want to start a project studio but don't have that type of cash flow going on?

Save up. Don't borrow. Take your time. The big misconception in advertising is that you have to buy this or that right away before the prices double or triple, or that they'll run out of stock for all eternity and your quest for stardom will become perilously doomed. So I see many eager young artists and producers out there blowing their paychecks on the hottest new stuff, only to find that they have to buy something else the next week to stay current, and then the cycle of violence and insanity begins. I have to emphasize that it is far more important to be able to consistantly create good music than it is to have the latest gear collecting dust in the corner just because it looks cool. If you're not making good music without the equipment, then what is the point in having a space station up in your house after all? Write a good song and get some royalties started to finance all that gear! 

So what's it like having clients come into your home, any dangers?

Plenty. Crazy danger. Sometimes home is way too inviting for certain people, especially if its not a label or corporate client with a fixed budget and demanding schedule. Some clients get real comfortable and start helping themselves to your kitchen refrigerator, cooking up meals, watching your entertainment system with the remote, and then on to the other valuables throughout your house while you're making them a star. I don't mind that, just as long as they don't use up all the toilet paper, now that pisses me off. But I recall one client got to the point where she had three pairs of shoes, a bra, toiletries and a complete change of clothes up in my closet! In reflection I see now how I could have easily become a couch producer.

What do you mean, what's a couch producer?

A couch producer is my term for a producer that has completely lost his focus, or let's say, just focusing on the wrong things. Like ass! See, on a home studio level you are constantly approached by desperate people of all types and backgrounds trying to do anything possible to avoid having to work a day job, or any job for that matter. And they intend to make that your sole responsibility for them until you achieve their success for them. And money is always the last taboo item on their list at the end of day. Plenty of my clients were stunningly attractive young women, dancers, models, and way too many actresses, all claiming to be talented. And most were, mind you, but unfortunately not musically though! Read that? So suddenly we had a problem. Yet their claim to fame credo was "by any means necessary....", and I readily admit that I succumbed to temptation on more than just a few occasions. It's quite clear to me that the world's oldest profession will never die. Where was Nancy Reagan to "Just say No!" when I needed her? But going that route you begin to reach a point in your career where you realize that you're not getting anything of value accomplished in your life, just more stories to share at the bar with other couch producers.

Have you ever experienced drugs in the industry? 

Drugs have always been part of the industry for some, unfortunately. Some feel it is the only way to cope with the demanding pressures and emotional hardships of the business that are bound to occur. It's the deceptive side of the business that artists don't see, or take for granted when they suddenly hit a wall or get blindsided in their careers. They think that drugs are an escape from the pain of reality, but the real world is always waiting for them upon their return when they get back down, wondering where they've been all that time, and then of course they go running back up like they're gonna break the leash on the next trip. On the flip side though, there can also be a sadness and massive depression resulting from success as well. Some people reach a point where they accomplish everything they set out to do at blinding speed and then find no one else at the top of their mountain but themselves. Or they never find that true love and companionship like the high school sweetheart they left behind back over in Nowhereville. They've bought every conceivable material fantasy-thing that they could ever imagine would satisfy them but they haven't solved the most critical part of growth, which is becoming at peace within themselves. That's often the point when they self-destruct, rather dramatically. But anyone in their right mind, or should I say, anyone in their stoned-out mind wouldn't be inclined to offer drugs to the producer or engineer responsible for the successful outcome of their project, or record deal! I mean, there are some crazy people out there, but there is also this profound point of rationality at the end of their craziness too that suddenly takes over and sobers them up real quick. In my experiences though, I was always considered the sacred one being the producer, the designated thinker while others chose to put their minds and their bodies into the trash can. Sadly, I still have demo tapes of a few artists in my archive that actually managed to outlive them. I refuse to listen to them.

How do you create tunes in your studio?

I have a very unorthodox approach to producing tunes. I believe most people start with some form of a melody in mind using their primary instrument and then build up their songs around it. Me, being a quote "multi-instrumentalist" as well as an artist at heart, I can start an idea with either a simple chord progression on the keyboard or just playing around with a string section or even just a pair of maracas. You’re open to more forms of inspiration when you can look at things from a wider musical perspective. Bobby McFerrin would be a good example of one who has that ability to spontaneously draw ideas and create. And remember the scene in "Amadeus" where Wolfgang is lying on his deathbed translating his ingenious movements to Salieri? That’s very much how composers hear their creations, minus the near death experience hopefully. But being a drummer I most commonly hear a bass line or drum groove or even both simultaneously and see where it leads me. Traditionally bass and drums compose the core of today’s popular music anyway so it is a more instinctive approach to writing songs for me as an instrumentalist. The primary inspiration is mood though. I capture moods of what I want to say with what ever palette of sounds I feel are appropriate and start painting the picture right from there. In reality most great songs are inspired by real life experiences and therefore captured in creative ways. The bottom line is that you are trying to successfully communicate with someone in musical form. That’s why the music of the 1960’s and 70’s periods were so rich and powerful. It was a complete history of the era captured in song.

What impact does technology have in making music?

Today everyone’s on the digital bandwagon. Clean and quiet. But I must say this first. Technology is only a means to better deliver our musical product. Still the recorded material has to be of good quality and sincere from the source before technology becomes a factor at all. A bad song going through state-of-the-art technology will only sound exceptionally bad being processed in high-fidelity surround. And keep in mind that the same material has to be performed live in most cases so you can’t pull a “Wizard Of Oz” act on people when you go into the studio. Your followers take that CD home and play it on a pretty accurate entertainment system and expect to hear it note-for-note at live venues that they pay rather hefty fees to see. Having said that, I try to use technology in a way that is honest to the performance arena so if I use a battery of sound effects and supporting sounds on top of a tune then I want it to be able to be played by a live musician without disorienting the crowd. The 80’s were particularly guilty of this in many respects as artists embraced the technology available to them in the studio and ran away with it. Then they would perform live and have to press buttons and turn switches and knobs on what was really very temperamental gear for its time, and that usually wound up with the machines taking over the concert for them. So I say use it accordingly to the type of material you create. If you just sing and play guitar you don’t need to mix everything in 5.1 surround to be felt.

What types of music technology do you like to use in the studio?

I use either the popular Pro Tools recording software or a digital audio sequencer that I use extensively in my project studio called Logic Audio Platinum made by emagic. This is the workshop where I build my ideas in conjunction with using most of the latest production gear available in sound modules and outboard effects. But much of the traditional studio hardware in the form of effects processors and keyboard synths are being crushed down into software programs so as to be made readily available right from your computer sequencer environment. Any analog device that required physical turning of knobs and pushing of faders is being graphically mimicked and transformed into the virtual digital software domain. It gives you much more access to powerful production and editing tools right from your PC but it also limits your creativity through a rather small portal of a computer screen, and to me there’s still this tunnel vision syndrome that we have to solve better. A physical 32-channel analog mixing board is about five feet wide or so, and trying to cram the software counterpart on a 19” windows monitor is still challenging at best. But after I conceive a tune I usually drop a mix to MD or DAT. I use the MD a lot since I jumped on this format way back in 1990 when Sony first introduced it to the high end consumer market. Since it's of slightly lesser quality than a CD due to compression I just use it to archive my sessions and arrange my tunes into a play list. After I feel comfortable with finalizing a tune by mixing it down and processing it with effects inside of Logic or Pro Tools I then convert the audio tracks into MP3’s and might also burn it to CD-R if I’m really happy. I also have the option of tracking direct to my two Mackie 24-track digital hard disk recorders via SMPTE in case I really need to spread things out with more vocals and live instruments. Everything is versatile in the digital domain. Advances in software technology have also made editing tracks on these recorders much more user friendly for musicians and engineers alike so one has a great deal of production firepower available to them in the studio today.

How do you know when a song is good?

First I believe it is a gut feeling that you get based on your previous experience as an artist or musician because you eventually develop an ear for what is commercially viable in the market place to the listeners of certain types of musical styles. Especially so if you are accustomed to gigging in front of crowds and in clubs. But then again there is no sure-fire formula for success as history has repeatedly shown us, but you do have to be in tune with the people, and also with the times, and somehow that must convey itself through your compositions, and then to your audience as well. Your audience grows and matures with you. At least you hope they do! But they also want to be reminded of that “first date” when they fell in love with your music and discovered your sound, so you can’t leap too far off of the edge of common ground with a sudden whole new direction. It becomes betrayal to your followers, like leaving your wife for a younger woman. Tempting but deadly. They want to hear some of those familiar elements to help pick up from yesterday and yet be taken higher as well. So loyalty goes both ways when making a good song respectively. It really begins to parallel a religious experience with many fans over time.

How hard is it to make a hit song?

That question is usually determined by the caliber of talent that you are working with. Often when you bring together dynamic and talented individuals to create a song it becomes a very rewarding and almost overwhelming experience because everyone connects easily to your vision and the ideas just begin flowing like a broken water main. Still there must be a cohesive direction that dominates the whole process and only then does the idea materialize into an acceptable format. Then you have individuals like myself who are also capable of doing all the writing and production by themselves and it requires that one really be spiritually and mentally in tune to stay current with what the public seems to want, or is expecting to hear along the timeline of things. That’s why hits are so fickle. People want to be surprised with every release but not too surprised! 

How do you appeal to younger generations of listeners?

That's a question that every artist must inevitably face over the course of their careers. I believe that if your material is honest and sincere to your beliefs then it will stand the test of time through generations as proven by artists like Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, U2, Luther Vandross, Miles Davis, Santana and so on. Worst case, someone will sample a piece of your music or pay homage to your works in a serious recreation. Every generation wants to feel some form of reassurance through whomever they are listening to, including musicians of the time. It’s a feeling that tells them “yes, I can relate to your experiences” and it becomes a deeply physical and psychological part of their emotions. That's why we emulate their styles and attire. Overall, I think looking at the Billboard charts doesn’t lie in terms of telling us whom people feel are worthy to them. But the simplest way to stay in touch is to take your new music directly to the young people and let them decide with their heart-felt feedback. Typically everyone’s musical needs are basic. We want to feel good, cool, up-to-date, inspired, relieved and hopefully educated and informed. And I believe that a tried, tested and matured artist should automatically have established a better platform to convey these emotions in a way that is compelling enough for their listeners to comprehend.

Who was your greatest influence coming up as a musician?

Definitely drummer Billy Cobham. Aside from Soul and R&B music I began listening to jazz fusion albums in my early teens as I learned to develop my personality on drums. Fusion was a music that pulled together all backgrounds and styles of players from across the globe and melded it into one big ethnic pot. Naturally this made for some rather remarkable music as the musicians traded fresh ideas amongst themselves and influenced each others musical growth. It became a new language. This was also about the time I became mature enough to understand the sophistication of the music that was characteristic of the fusion style, and I recall being both totally perplexed and in awe of the level of astounding talent that these players had achieved with their instruments as well as with their writing ability. But any musician that started out listening to Billy Cobham, Chick Corea and RTF, Lenny White, Stanley Clarke, Al Dimeola, Jan Hammer, Jimi Hendrix, Tony Williams, Joe Zawinul and Weather Report, Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, The Yellowjackets, John McLauglin, George Duke, Narada Michael Walden, Herbie Hancock, Alphonse Mouzon, Harvey Mason, Anthony Jackson, Alphonso Johnson, Pat Martino and John Scofield would have an overbearing respect for attaining the highest levels of musicianship possible, and the importance of excelling with your instrument. This was the impact that Billy Cobham had on me as I mimicked his powerful, dominating style of drumming by playing along note-for-note with his albums. Anyone who knows Billy's music will definitely agree that I had a severe education through that process. I recall setting my drums up like he did and even buying this huge 22 inch diameter swish cymbal that he used to cut right through the high levels of amplification from guitars and other electrified instruments. I'm sure that I drove my parents nuts on countless nights as I smashed away on that hideously loud thing from down in the basement.

Did you ever feel defeated by trying to live up to such large standards?

No. In fact this particular music I found to be so engaging that I anticipated every next release because I would be learning something new each time, technically, compositionally and rhythmically. You begin to profile the artist that you are listening to and slowly start to understand their chains of thought when they navigate through passages in their compositions. That's what makes them unique, which is how they approach playing the selected material. It parallels reading books written by a certain author, they have their own unique style of telling a story to you that draws you to them.

What's your take on the whole smooth jazz controversy?

I think that so-called smooth jazz is great for what it is, that's if it is being played by real jazz musicians that have something to say through it though! Otherwise you really have to change the name of the format to something else that doesn't use the word "jazz" in it. Follow me? There is Grover Washington and David Sanborn inspired jazz, and then there are these other types of generic smooth jazz that get progressively weaker and weaker because they are being impersonated by sub-par artists. These are artists who for the most part don’t have the personal molding experience or “yard work” as I call it that is an essential part of a jazz musician's established voice and personality. Unfortunately, many of today's smooth jazz artists and promoters have added so much Clorox bleach to the format that there's hardly any more color left in it. If you remove the color from jazz then you are left with either a flat black or a stark white, and even then, that black ain't really as black as it once was yesterday, and then it keeps on fading away in the wash cycle. To me, there is nothing worse than listening to a musician or artist that hasn't put any dedication into their instrument or craft, let alone understanding the history of the music that they are aspiring to create from. That's also the reason why I support music programs in the schools which this generation appears to be losing more and more of each day. Any music can be faked, but it can't survive for long like some artists are attempting to do in this image driven business, because eventually it’s the music itself that gets put on trial by the quality scales of history.

What's your view on the industry being so image driven as opposed to talent driven today?

To me, it’s like watching a game show. We always know the answers to those stupid-assed category questions when we’re sitting at home behind the kitchen table sucking on a chicken bone with family. But if you put us up on stage in front of a live televised audience under those hot glaring lights, then that’s when and where we really have to prove ourselves under pressure. The way I see it, if you can't enjoy an artist's music sitting in a dark room with all the lights turned off, then why the hell would you care how many back flips they perform on stage without messing up their lipstick? I say that because I came up in a time when we weren't force-fed so many music videos and images on TV. We had to physically interact with selecting what music we were going to listen to as opposed to setting a 24-hour music channel on the TV and waiting for the video of the tune to pop on. We went to the store personally and bought the music in the maybe eight or nine category sections that were available to us back then. These wonderful art-covered albums, some with huge fold out posters inside, were very personal collections and we took them home like artwork and played them in a room, staring and soul searching at the four walls with nothing more than our creative imaginations for the most part. As a result we were much better informed and attentive musicians, and more importantly, a better musically informed and attentive listening audience also. Today, too often we hear a song and immediately associate it with the engrained video images we saw on MTV or VH1 last night, last week, last month, so our imaginative thinking is already done for us. Now that's not to say that this is a bad thing versus a good thing necessarily, but the video aspect of presenting an artist's music has stepped way forward from the music itself, so quality eventually suffers.

What do you do in your spare time?

Sleep is always an option. Every now and then I get asked by a friend or an associate of a friend to convert their home into a two-family or add a summer deck or extension to their home. That can keep me busy on the side depending on how busy my schedule is. Otherwise I am still trying my best to get through some 600 DVD's that I have in my collection now. Many of them are still wrapped. I've become an avid collector since I installed a home theater system three years ago. I haven't bought a pair of movie tickets in years. The music CD's sound fantastic on it as well. You can hear people scratching themselves in the audience and pick out the musicians that have asthma. I'm also a sports fan so you can bet that almost every Sunday or Monday night the game is on at full blast. I also try to catch certain artist friends that I know when they come through town to see what they have been up to.

Who do you listen to when you're not in the studio making your own music?

I like to listen to artists that are always challenging themselves to be even better than they were yesterday. Usually it's outstandingly talented musicians and artists that maintain vision and personality in their music, like George Duke, Marcus Miller, Kenny Garrett, Ravi Coltrane, Billy Cobham, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Mike and Randy Brecker, Mike Stern, Hiram Bullock, Lalah Hathaway, Chick Corea, Sting, Branford Marsalis, Jeff Watts, Joey Defrancesco, Jimmy Haslip, MeShell Ndegeocello, Julie Dexter, Prince, Chaka Khan, etc. But I really try not to consciously listen to anybody in particular when I'm in the process of making my own material though. I prefer to keep my mind untainted as best I can so that I'm sure to draw upon my own voice and inspirations during that period. Otherwise it would be like trying to sing over five people in a small room if I were listening to anybody and everything. It would be so distracting that it would take you right out of your element, which contradicts why you are creating your own music in the first place. But I think music desperately needs more innovators today instead of impersonators. 


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Tech Talk with Michael Coston:

How did your studio evolve over the years? 

I'll give you the whole equipment chronology thing. I remember buying my first synthesizer keyboard which was this little toy hand-held 2-octave Casio with tiny keys. In fact, it was a Casio VL-tone. The keys were so small that all of your fingers had to be the size of your pinky finger to play it properly. It had barely enough memory for playing back a few phrases of what you managed to record on it, and the bass sound it had was the infancy of the legendary CZ-101 bass that has been carried down in later synths even to this day. Despite that, any sound that you selected on it sounded like a swarm of angry bees anyway! I used to program Stevie Wonder's "Do I Do" on it just for kicks. So after I lost that keyboard in an arcade in Times Square I then went out and bought a bigger professional sized Cazio keyboard that was much harder to steal. I think it was theCZ-5000. It had 61 keys I think, and an internal sequencer for writing and saving song parts and a much bigger variety of sound banks to select from. So I was able to hear my ideas better by being able to match up as closely as possible the sounds that I heard in my head. Come to think of it, I even had the CZ-101 before that keyboard too! So I damn near had the whole line of the infant vintage synths. Meanwhile I had also gotten into spinning turntables on the side and started improvising on top of some of the dance LP's with the Casio keyboard sounds. So picture me in the basement with turntable left, turntable right, DJ mixer in the middle and keyboard above. I guess that was my first unofficial studio setup. 

Then what? 

Then it got even funnier! I finally discovered the two MIDI ports on the back of the keyboard after a year or so! Totally hilarious, I never read the manual. MIDI, or musical-instrument-digital-interface, allowed electronic instruments to communicate between each other to play in sync and tempo by connecting them with pin cables. So I then bought a Roland TR-707 drum machine and synced it up to the keyboard with MIDI cables and I was off and running with decent song production. The turn tables started to get dusty too. Then later I complimented the drum machine by buying an identical Roland TR-727 percussion machine, with yet another MIDI cable of course. Drums, percussion and synth sounds all at my fingertips turned me into a mad scientist down in the dark lab. I got a kick out of seeing all the equipment lit up and twinkling like a Christmas tree when I played my dance and house music. Then the FM Yamaha DX-7 keyboard came out, and back then that was considered a wonder box in the industry. In fact, I still have one preserved somewhere in the back of my closet for sentimental reasons. That was followed by some smaller Yamaha modules that I call the "Parliament Funkadelic" boxes, like the TX-81Z rack module and the car-radio looking FB-01 module. They were great for finding all of those irritating, skin-crawling solo patches that got people's immediate attention no matter how loud the band was playing. Then I got a sampler simply because I had to. Back then you couldn't call yourself a complete producer unless you met the "Hip-Hop qualification standards" which meant that you had to have some kind of a sampler in your studio for rappers to use, otherwise you couldn't have a productive session.... So I got a big clunky Casio FZ-10M which had, like, a thousand disks you had to load individually to play those atrocious 16-bit samples on. But I was more of a musician, an instrumental purist, to get knee-deep into sampling and editing loops into my grooves. So I never even got the more popular Akai S900 because a Hip-Hop friend of mine used to bring his over for his sessions with me, and we would spend pain-staking hours hunched over in front of it editing the loops until we "thought" it sounded seamless! I still feel a little back pain because of that freaking box. Then I got the Korg M1 which really allowed you to do some nice layering of voice patches and internal effects before you got to the console. It was sleek-looking and smooth to the touch like a monolith and had a cool black steel casing. It was probably the only synth I ever had that I could sit a super-sized Coke and fries on top of and still work the buttons. It even held an 18-piece bucket of KFC! It was so easy to clean also. That's probably why every major studio had one. I'd better stop before I start crying.

When did computers start to come into play for you? 

Mind you that I sub-majored in computer science in college as I studied architecture, so I spent tons of my spare time in the school's computer lab writing rather insane programs, and of course, games on the Apple II computers. I was so addicted to programming that I used to wind up leaving the lab late at night like a troll with these big telephone book sized printouts of the sophisticated programs I wrote. Come to think of it, it took two hours alone to print them out on the archaic dot matrix form feed printers. See, this was the time before good program compilers became available unfortunately. Well I wound up spending so much time in there between classes that the lab manager hired me as a paid assistant just out of sympathy more than by default. So as a result I got to test first-hand all the new computers that were being built and sent to the school by fledgling companies like Hewlett Packard, IBM, Data General, Wang, etc. and gave them feedback on improving both their hardware and software packages before they released them to the commercial markets. Luckily for me, CAD, or computer-aided-design and drafting software was just starting to impact the field of architecture at this time as well and I mastered its use in my last year of school. Turned out that the job market was craving for architects who had this brand new talent and technical capability, so I got hired swiftly at a salary that seemed astronomical to me just coming out of school. 

What was your first personal computer? How and when did you incorporate computer sequencing into your music setup? 

I started out with an Atari 1040ST computer that I first bought like back in '86. It looked like a flattened typewriter. It just came out by Atari like two days before I bought it from J&R Music, and everyone I knew raved about the massive 1mb of internal memory it had in addition to the two MIDI ports built into the left side for music production. I really just bought it for games. Just to give you an idea, the average size of the standard MP3 file that we listen to today, just the song now, is four times the size of that computer's entire total memory. The song itself would have overloaded and crashed the computer by the middle of the first verse. But back to your question, in between playing infant computer games on it, I ran this sequencer program I got for it called Steinberg Pro-24. It graphically mimicked the control buttons of a reel-to-reel tape deck and displayed 24 MIDI recording channels on the screen. It was nice for what it was and quite easy to navigate and arrange my music parts with. Then I eventually bumped up and upgraded to the more complicated Cubase programs, and then onto the ever more advancing Notator programs that came out. Notator eventually mutated into emagic Logic which is primarily where I still am today. 

Do you feel that sequencing music distracts or subtracts from your live playing though? 

To a degree, yes. It is a portion of time spent away from your instrument. But it also depends on the talents of the programmer. The better educated and accomplished the musician is, the better the song sequence will come across because the real musician "thinks" like a musician, and the music therefore sounds as transparently as if a real musician has input or played the material. For instance, when I compose strings, I have to put myself into the string section itself, and then further immerse into the mind of the player moving his or her arms and elbows across the violins, and then yet further interpret how they are reacting to the other virtual parts being played by different instruments inside of the song. You will never capture the spontaneity and dynamics involved with playing a live instrument as you would in programming a sequence. But if you think about it, when you are conceiving an idea you are not really playing it out as you would in a live final performance. You are structuring the song and molding it into a tangible thing first, giving it direction and life by repeated trial and error until it finally satisfies your point of expression. So as opposed to charting out pages and pages of manuscript paper in front of a live orchestra to perform it for you, you are instead doing the math by and for yourself, and therefore communicating back to yourself again to achieve the final results to your liking. It's a constant process of argumentative point vs. counterpoint with the creator of the composition until it results in definitive and harmonious concert. Once you have reasoned the song out to this end, then it is subject to further interpretation by other live musicians as they put their own personal spin on your ideas. That's when the real fun begins as the song starts speaking through the hands of the players. 


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On Starting Out and Living the Music Business:
by Karim Yengsep 2/4/05

Thank you very much for doing this, I appreciate it, I understand that time is important, and I hope this won't take long. Here are the questions: At the time you concluded your formal training, what were your professional goals? What was your plan? Your vision?? 

MC: In my case, since I had started playing music at a very early age, 3 years old, I had already began to develop a vision and some basic goals for myself of what I wanted to do musically, before having any type of formal training. At three years old you don't have a plan! You just enjoy the fascination of playing, listening and learning and making yourself better at your new found outlet. When I began to realize that I had a natural talent and an ear for music and art, and greatly enjoyed what I was doing, as well as receiving positive responses from other musicians and listeners, then I decided to focus on more professional goals. But mainly my initial goals were to be recognized as a great player first, then I naturally progressed into writing and recording my own ideas into songs, and then to producing, publishing and controlling my own music. 

Which of your successes do you attribute to your early planing and vision? 

MC: I have to say that all of my successes are attributed to my early planning and vision. It's pretty much related to your first question. It's the point when you finally define and establish what you seriously want to do, and you then develop your personality inside of that particular chosen direction as you achieve your goals. But it is also important that you identify and understand your strengths and weaknesses, and then focus on your strengths to achieve your success. You can always develop your weaknesses along your journey, especially when you interact with other great people along the way. 

How has networking played a role in your career? 

MC: In terms of meeting people in the industry, networking is very important. When you first start out in your career as an artist you are essentially broke, and trying to impress industry people that have no idea who you are, or any reason to find interest in you for that matter. These people are mainly promoters and talent agents, recording engineers, publicists, other established musicians and singers, major recording artists and producers, business sponsors, and even wealthy philanthropists, that you hope will assist you in exposing and financing your talent in some way. And they are always too busy working on their "sure thing" or "next thing" to consider you, so you have to break through and gain their attention. If you are fortunate enough to have any of these outlets come together "correctly" for you, then you can successfully launch your career until you can self-sustain your immediate goals. Once you reach this point though, then people start hounding you! Your answering machine, fax and cell phone are full and smoldering with pleas for help. And suddenly you become one of those "too busy" people also. So the tables turn... 

What has been your greatest challenge? How have you accomplished this? 

MC: Life issues will always be the greatest challenge in any given career. It is the source of all that you do and create, and how you handle those life issues will determine your personality and level of success. These issues are not always related directly to your music career but definitely surface within your material and influence what you say, or perform. It could be a bitter break-up in a personal or professional relationship, the untimely death of a band member, a family dispute, a natural disaster, racial discrimination, or in most cases....money! Your instrument, or voice, is your outlet to musically express how life has impacted both you, and others in your world, from your own perspective. If you are able to communicate this part of yourself emotionally to people then you begin to develop a true following. In the end, it is the buying and paying public that allows you to support yourself financially, so you have to be in constant touch with the people that give their hard earned $20.00 towards your paycheck instead of them spending it on a DVD or X-box game, so to speak. 

What would you choose: grad school in music related areas or grad school of "living the music/business, Life"? 

MC: I think that one feeds the other. They are both essential in a way, and in no particular order. Concerning grad school: I believe that the more accomplished a musician that you become, the more you will be able to adapt to changing times and the onslaught of technology effecting the music business. Grad school will afford you more options to support your career just in case you don't make the "big time" on the first shot, which by most odds, most of us clearly won't! You can at least teach music or take on other related assignments to get a paycheck until things work out, and probably meet more accomplished grad musicians in the process who can help you achieve the level of success that you are looking for. The key word here is "career" and not "Lottery"! On the other hand, there is no better teacher than life experience. An example of this would be the Jackson 5 or the Osmond's....family kids merely thrown into the entertainment machine. That was their "grad school". But there are many technically accomplished musicians that do not have the skill sets required to promote themselves to the public, so as great as they are in terms of talent, they never stand out because of this fact and remain in supporting roles. I believe part of that problem is attributed to the industry putting so much attention on image as opposed to exceptional talent. On occasion, the music business will take such an undiscovered raw talent and attempt to mold them into the spotlight, and you then witness how the artist begins to learn those ropes under pressure, maintaining their image and dress codes, postures and handling interviews, and they develop these demanding skills over time, but sometimes at the expense of their true character.... We all start out nervous and unsure about our image and public perception at first, and then gain more confidence and assertiveness as we grow and become accepted. 


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War Stories with Michael Coston:

What is it like working with a new artist? 

Well, you meet all types of people that come to you with different motives as a producer. Some clearly have "exceptional" talent and need little if any creative support. They represent the ultimate pleasure to work with because they require less artistic management and development of ideas, and therefore allow you to draw the most from yourself in the process as well. Yet, the majority have "some" talent but haven't quite defined themselves enough to make a full thrust, so they require a lot more attention with production and coaching direction, but the end result is usually quite good. Then there are all the other "Blinded by the light" artists who come in at times. These are the ones who have absolutely no clue about the music industry at all, but are certain that they can make $Millions overnight. I saw so many of these types of artists that I started creating my own profile categories for them. 

Such as? 

Ok. First you have the "great lyricists":

These are women wearing expensive lace 90% of the time oddly enough. Their identifying characteristic is to fill up pad-after-pad of bizarre scribblings and poems on reams of notebook paper, tissues and other exotic materials that snap into their Gucci purses. Lyrics which they claim to be instant "hit-makers" for me to interpret into songs "if only we hurry up and work fast enough....". None of which are long enough to form a complete or coherent chain of thought for a song, and would be preceived as total lunacy on anybody's public stage.

Then you have the "ultimate rappers":

They say that their rhymes and their style is far different than any other rapper on the scene today. But yet their first recorded lines still contain the words "Glock 9", "bullets", "bitches and hoes sippin' up all my Cristal". I remember there was this one rapper who came by with his "manager", aka lunch pal from school. He had never seen a recording studio before in his life, especially one tucked away in a luxury high-rise building. Next day, this cat shows up in my lobby wearing a fire-red sequinned leather jacket with some matching Elvis shades, and 15 of his posse to help him out with his "background rhymes".....15!

Then of course, you have the "debutante divas":

These are women and, yeah, men too, who know they could sing, but aren't yet convinced that everyone in the world got the news bulletin yesterday. They pay very little attention to any given instructions and somehow manage to brutally oversing the simplest of songs, like "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" or, "One Moment In Time" or, "One In A Million". And they loathe in correcting the other background singer's parts until the singers just get up and walk out on them in disgust.

Then, just to show that God definitely has a twisted sense of humor, you get the "William Hung's" of the world:

These artists have no reference point to the advances in civilization on planet Earth but feel that the world is just one bad note away if only they just keep believing and forging ahead. I guarantee you that "Sunset Boulevard" is their favorite movie and that they'll totally relate to Norma Desmond's character.

Then on a rare occasion you get lucky and find a "prized posession":

This is often a timid, mild-mannered and good-natured person who turns out to be a total beast of a monster talent inside. They come to you disguised as impoverished commoners wearing farmers overalls and straw hats, yellow raincoats with those connected clip-on mittens, knee-high sox with two-tone saddle shoes, and they drag their life's posessions behind them in a worn, but clean, burlap sack. Then they perform for you, and by the end of the song you find yourself down in a corner of the room trying to remember Clive Davis' number in your confusion. They consistently finish the most challenging songs in only two or three takes and then want to erase their perfection to take it to the next level. And they listen to instructions!

No further questions today. 




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