Would you mind sharing how you felt the first time you played in a live poker game? Was it as exhilarating as playing a really good show with Shellac?

What do you think about the commercialization or "selling out" done by bands in the indie scene, such as licensing songs for movies, TV shows, and corporate commercials? I feel there's good and bad to it as hearing "Where Is My Mind?" at the end of Fight Club led to me discovering the rest of their catalogue, but at the same time hearing the New Pornographers at the close of a commercial for the University of Phoenix Online was kinda weird and something I could do without.

Then there's the actual economic vs. art debate on it too.

Pro tools or logic? explain plz.

Why do you think you have become famous (in a relative sense) for doing something that ususally doesn't make a person a household name. How much of this was your skill in engineering vs. luck. vs recording really good bands.

Who have you worked with that you felt had the best understanding of recording?

I have played poker since I was a kid, so if home games count, I played my first money game while in high school, around 1976, and I have had a semi-regular game to play in since I was in college. My first trip to a sanctioned game with a dealer and everything was pretty cool, but not really life-changing.

The first time I played in an underground card room was more interesting. I was in New York for a conference, and I played at a club (at the time I think it was called the Broadway). I didn't know what to expect, and I was pleased that it was pretty normal. It was neat to see actual degenerates in an actual illegal gambling club. I also won a little money, which bolstered the evening.

Playing poker is great, but not really anything like playing in a band. I try to be pretty inconspicuous at the poker table, and If I don't know anybody, I would rather not have the other players thinking about me and what I'm doing. Playing onstage with a band is to the contrary, quite conspicuous, and I hope what I'm doing is communicating something.

This is a pretty big topic.

A band that willingly associates itself with some commercial enterprise is attaching itself forever to that business and everything that business does. If a band abdicates that decision to a third party, then the band is admitting that its music doesn't mean enough as art to be protected from such associations.

There is also a distinction to be made between music made for its own sake (say for records) and music made for hire for commercial use, which seems like a completely different kind of music to me. Companies choose to use the first kind of music (let's call it "real" music) because the band, the music and the audience have cultural significance that the advertiser wants to co-opt and attach to a product or movie or whatever.

There are very few circumstances where using the first kind of music (let's call it real music) as a cultural lubricant for commercial intercourse doesn't creep me out a little bit, and I tend to think less of people who sell out their art, their reputations and their audience this way.

I don't use computers to make records. I use tape machines, like nature intended. I use computers for correspondence, arguments, poker and porn.

Almost any competent engineer could have done what I have. I have been incredibly lucky to be working in a music scene that spawned a huge number of distinctive, talented bands, and I made myself available to them. There is no doubt in my mind that I get some credit I didn't earn, for working on records that were going to be incredible no matter who was in the chair at the time.

There are a few things about my approach in the studio that I think have made a positive contribution to the records I work on. I come from a band background myself, so I'm sympathetic to bands, and I understand how they work, both internally and in relation to the outside world. I know that asking a band to do things differently in the studio than they would onstage or in the practice room is bound to make them uncomfortable, and is not going to make them play well, so I try to let them play as normally as possible.

I also respect the decisions the band makes about their own music: What it should sound like, how fast it should be, etc. Whenever I hear that a producer made a band add a chorus or shorten a solo or tack-on a string section, my blood boils a little.

I also pride myself on being a bargain. A lot of people in my position try to maximize their income on every project, and eventually they price themselves out of the scene where all the good music is, and end up doing a few sessions a year for music that totally sucks. By keeping my rates reasonable, I get to work with all the good bands, not just those who have money and hype behind them at the moment.

The other thing I have is experience. I've made an assload of records, and any problem that's ever going to come up in a session, I've probably already figured out how to solve it or defend against it. I can work more efficiently than a lot of engineers because I'm not guessing and I'm virtually never stumped.

As percentage, I'd say my own contribution and tendencies are about ten percent of the value of my job. Eighty percent is the band and their abilities and ten percent is luck and market forces. That's a wild guess.

Excellent question.

I think any band has a pretty good handle on things by their third album or so, and they can start to anticipate the technical considerations. Bands with recording engineers in them are a little quicker in that regard. Neurosis and the New Year are probably the most studio-savvy bands I've worked with, in that they often have pretty specific studio techniques in mind for individual songs.

What are the remaining members of Silkworm doing nowadays since Michael's departure. What in your opinion is their best song?

Just wanted to say thanks for this thread. You seem very humble about your accomplishments. Even better, you seem like a decent cash game player. I really liked your recommendations of The Jesus Lizard and Dead Meadow, never heard of them before this thread. I've been listening to them on Yahoo Music's subscription service for the past day or two.

Do bands get a fee or residual for having their songs released on the major online subscription services? (ex: Yahoo, Rhapsody, Napster) I'd like to think I'm supporting the bands, but I can't see how thousands of bands can live off of my measly $6 a month subscription. As a band member yourself, do you have an opinion on the subscription services versus, say, pay-per-song itunes?

My question seems kind of strange now that I type it out... I just wanted to say thanks for the Dead Meadow reccommendation!

As a Chicagoan and a gambler, please lay odds on the following happening:

-Chicago is named host of the 2016 Olympics
-Chicago gets a casino within the next 10 years
-The Cubs win the World Series within the next 10 years

Did you read Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life? If so, what did you think of it, and of the Big Black chapter in particular?

(Side question: Were the Butthole Surfers hands-down the craziest band of that era, as the book seems to imply? If they weren't, who was?)

Which Chicago rock critic is a bigger douchebag; Bill Wyman, Jim DeRogatis, Greg Kot, or someone else?

What do you think of Pitchfork Magazine?

Read any good books/seen any good movies lately?

Michael getting killed was pretty horrible for everyone here in Chicago. He was such a sweet guy, and involved in so many cool projects that just about everybody was directly affected.

Tim Midgett [edit: a decent poker player who plays in the Tuesday game sometimes] and Andy Cohen are in a new band, Bottomless Pit, who have a very good record coming out momentarily.

Best Silkworm song? Man, they have a million, and none are clinkers. "That's Entertainment," "Contempt," "I Hope You Don't Survive," "Young," "Don't Make Plans on Friday," "LR75," "Into the Woods," "Couldn't You Wait"... So many great great songs.

Apologies for the incorrect URL for Pitchfork I provided in my previous post. (Above link is correct.)

There is some tiny royalty paid, but it's hardly going to be anybody's bread-and-butter.

You are supporting the band by being a fan. Over the course of your life, you'll have many opportunities to buy records, Tee shirts, concert tickets and the like. Don't worry about your downloading/listening habits. The bands are happy that anyone is listening at all, and they will make a little money off you over time. They're glad they're in the game and that someone is listening.

If you like Dead Meadow, try Om, Sunn0))), High Rise, and older bands like Blue Cheer and Budgie. If you like the Jesus Lizard, you're stuck with only them, because nobody else comes close.

You seem to have a bit of disdain for improvised music. Have you ever recorded a Jazz album? If so what was your experience like?

I am not a gambler, honestly. I play poker, and I will play games for stakes (I am a fish at Nine-ball, a shortstop in one-pocket, decent at three-cushion), but I don't like betting on things where my only edge comes from other people or objects performing as I hope they will.

That said, I used to offer Novotny a standing 5:1 on the Cubs making the post season and I made pretty good money over the years.

The rest, meh. I don't know.

Here's what I wrote about it in a thread on the Electrical Audio forums:

If you weren't there to see it, you might not believe it, but there were a lot of really effed-up bands in the 1980s, and the Buttholes weren't even particularly weird in context. Mudhead, Pile of Cows, Sloppage, the Thrown-Ups and the whole Bay Area scenes surrounding SRL and the Idiot... Now that was some weird right there.

The Butthole Surfers were easily the most selfish, childish little pricks in that scene, but not the weirdest.

Well, Jim DeRogatis is clearly the biggest, and Wyman no longer even pretends to cover Chicago, so he's immaterial. Kot generally has his heart in the right place, though he does fall for sucker bait like the Polyphonic Spree and the like. The dumbest professional music writer in Chicago though is a ****** named Jessica Hopper, whose writing is simultaneously sophomoric, vapid and excruciatingly self-satisfied. It is literally impossible to glean any actual content or criticism from her writing, which is an achievement of some sort, I suppose.

I virtually never think of Pitchfork Magazine.

Oh no, not in the slightest, and I record free players as session guys pretty regularly. It almost never lives up to its promise, but I like the idea of improvised music a lot, and experience as improvisers makes musicians better able to handle extemporaneous stuff in other studio contexts. The players in that scene are uniformly excellent, and recording them is easy and it usually sounds good.

What I am suffering is more fatigue from an established improv scene in Chicago that has a fairly set demeanor. If you're a regular at these shows, you'll understand when I say that there aren't a lot of surprises, despite everything being supposedly "free."

I'll start with just three. I may have more later depending on how these go. Thanks for doing this btw.

1. You mentioned that you play in a regular poker game. Who is the best player in that game?

2. On a scale of one-thousand to ten-thousand squirrels, how much to you like/love to play poker?

3. According to the documentary about you, posted earlier in the thread, some people have labeled you a misogynist. With that said, do you think women make good poker players and could a woman ever be a worthwhile president of the U.S.?

Limit HE: a guy named Russ. His only real competition is a guy named Devin who probably gets more value from bad players, but in a tough ring game, Russ probably wins more/loses less.

Mixed games, stud games and Swingo: me

NLHE: Devin by a country mile. He takes advantage of every weakness he sees, usually perfectly balancing his play against observant players.

Omaha: Don't be ridiculous, nobody is better than anybody else at this goofy game.

My personal nemesis: Sean. Has me clocked perfectly.

Easy 7kS. Easy. On a tear, I could go the whole 10kS.

There are so few women in any "sporting" enterprise it may take a long time for them to get a fair accounting. It is unfortunate that the ones with big teats and yappers get all the attention, since they are clearly not the best. I would welcome many of the "female pros" I see play online or on television in our Tuesday game, though Jen Harman is clearly world class, and I have sweated some excellent online players who turned out to be female.

As for President, whatever. It'll be thirty years or more before we've undone the damage of the last eight, so who gets elected this time doesn't really matter in the medium term, as long as it isn't another Republican.

Was Phil Spector as innovative and important as Rolling Stone says he is?

I have already asked a few so feel free to ignore if you don't have the time or just don't feel like answering.

I forgot the most important question...White Sox or Cubs?

Please don't let me down.

Oh hells yeah. Most record producers are parasites on the careers of bands and artists, but Phil Spector was actually the creator of everything on the records he produced, regardless of whose name was on the credits. He was also an extreme sex perv freak, gun nut and paranoid coke fiend. he was about as high-roller as dudes like that can be, and it all drove him nuts. Unique character.

If you're a Cubs fan, I want you in the Tuesday game, and please bring your whole roll.

If you're a Sox fan, well, we're suffering some variance right now...

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Somebody ask me about Swingo.

I have a theory that there is a very short lifespan for excellent rock bands. I just think in rock and roll that being young and hungry gives you a huge edge when it comes to producing kick ass music. When people lose that youth and hunger, the music suffers.

Can you think of bands that have released excellent albums more that 10 years apart? 5 years apart? If we had to destroy all rock music produced more than 10 years after a bands initial effort, what great music would be lost?

KJS