Moviola:
Recording All Over the Place

by Stephen
Slaybaugh

©2002 TapeOp.com

At first glance
Columbus, Ohio's Moviola seems like the perfectly conventional band you'd
expect from the heart of the Midwest - a couple guitars, a bass, a drum. But
as anyone who has heard the band's records will attest, they hover far above
the heads of most conventional rock bands. Their recordings are imbued with
a post-modern sensibility, both in lyrical bent and sound. When it comes to
sound the appropriateness of their name, a piece of machinery akin to a nickelodeon,
becomes readily apparent. There are elements both old and new, rock standards
and otherworldly nuances. Often labeled 'lo-fi', they've transcended the limitations
of their homemade studios through innovative tinkering to create some of the
past decade's most immediately engrossing records, namely 1997's Glenn
Echo Autoharp and its follow-up, The Durable Dream, both on the
Spirit of Orr label out of Boston.

The band - like
other Ohio denizens Jim Shepherd, Mike Rep and Guided By Voices - recorded
with the equipment available to them, never giving credence to thoughts of
what was or wasn't suitable for public consumption.

Spirit of Orr
recently released the band's fifth album, Rumors of the Faithful, which
reveals the band eclipsing the so-called lo-fi aesthetics that for so long
had been an easily identifiable element of its complexion. Not so much a conscious
decision as the result of honed recording prowess and advancements in technology
- as well as access to better equipment - the tact also highlights the increasing
songwriting abilities of the band. While Housh once wrote the lion's share
of the band's songs, on Rumors' each member shared songwriting responsibilities
equally.

The following
interview was done in two sessions: First at the band's former studio/practice
space situated in an old mortar factory and where all the band's records were
made save for the latest one. Following that initial conversation the band
began construction of a new space in Housh's backyard (as the photographs
show), as well as began to record what would become Rumors of the Faithful.
Housh, who is employed by the Ohio State University as a videographer, was
working in an old television studio equipped with a Bellari RP583 tube compressor,
AKG C3000, Neumann mics, a Carvin 16-channel board, Alesis monitors and a
Tascam 38 8-track reel-to-reel. The band took full advantage of this goldmine,
recording the majority of the material for the album over the course of the
winter of 2000 and 2001. Only a few overdubs and guest parts from Marcy Mays
of Scrawl, Mark Wyatt of bluegrass band One Riot One Ranger (and formerly
of Great Plains), and Barry Hensley of Hensley-Sturgis were later recorded
in the band's completed backyard studio. This is where part two of the interview
took place, after listening to a few tracks near completion. Moviola currently
consists of Jake Housh, Ted Hattemer, Jerry Dannemiller, Scotty Tabachnick
and Greg Bonnell.

Part I

Why did you
initially decide to go to Diamond Mine to record Durable Dream
when it seemed, as indicated in interviews I've read, that previously you
were pretty adamant about recording yourselves?

Jake: I think
we just needed to be reminded how much we still wanted to do it ourselves.
We wanted to see how that would go. We didn't like it, which had been our
experience other times messing around in big studios. We just don't work that
way.

Was it the
studio or working with Jeff Graham specifically?

J: No, we all
like Jeff. Part of the reason we didn't like the big studio, having nothing
to do with the equipment or the facility, is that the four of us, when no
one else is around, do things in a certain way. It doesn't matter who the
other people are - it messes up the dynamic. I'm not saying that was the case
there, but usually whomever is there wants to have their input into what's
going on and I don't think we deal very well with that. It doesn't matter
whether or not it's good input - I'm not making a judgment about that - it's
that this has become a pretty tight-knit thing, even on a personal level.

Scotty: Also,
the time frame was a big factor. Here we record ourselves and if we don't
like something we've done, we can take a step back and get some other stuff
done. We can mix it down, take it home and listen, and come back the next
day and maybe try using a different instrument. At Diamond Mine we were supposed
to be ready to lay down our masterpiece right when we got there. And that
made every take more pressure-filled, especially with all the extra people
around who want to have a say.

J: And for how
much it costs to go in a studio you can obtain the tools to do a decent job.
We blew a good amount of cash on Diamond Mine and I don't think we'd want
to again. I'd rather have an asset. But I don't want to portray Diamond Mine
as making it a bad experience for us - it's just not what we do.

S: Jeff is a
great guy and he really tried to see what we wanted and to help us achieve
our goal. He wasn't doing what he normally does - he was trying to make a
Moviola record. It was just more difficult for us to do that there.

How do you
feel about the 'Kitchen Waltz Preamble' single (one of only two recordings
from the Diamond Mine sessions released)? It sounds a lot different than your
other records. It's much more bombast.

J: I think it
sounds too slick to all of us.

S: It's really
jangley and really trebly.

Ted: The guys
up in Boston that put our records out really wanted us to put that song out.
They really liked it.

So what equipment
here did you use on The Durable Dream?

J: We used an
8-track cassette machine that only has six tracks that work. We did basic
tracks on that. We have this Macintosh [computer] setup, but it's just a stereo
in-and-out so you can only do two tracks in and out at the same time. So for
most songs, we'd do basic tracks on the 8-track, where we could do several
tracks at one time, and then spend some time getting a good mix down to the
computer. We did overdubs on the Mac since it's digital and has no tape hiss.
So we used a kind of a half-ass, hybrid cassette-Macintosh thing. I don't
think that is how we're going to continue to do things though, as it was hard
to have everyone gather around a monitor and figure out what's going on. [They
haven't - Jake now uses his reel-to-reel in the backyard studio. Similarly,
the band records eight tracks, mixes it down on a Mac, then puts it back to
one of the 8-track's tracks.]

T: It became
computer class.

J: Or we'd end
up waiting for the computer to restart or optimize the hard-drive or whatever
- doing other things than recording. Then there were our own limitations.
There was a learning curve because we had never done it that way before. We
had always just messed around on the cassette, bouncing tracks.

Was that
the process on Glenn Echo?

J: Even some
of that was just 4-track before we got the 8-track. We never did a whole record
on just the 8-track cassette. It did wonders for us, though. There were times
when one or more of us would come here and work out songs on it. It's been
a nice thing. I think we're going to step up, though. I got an 8-track reel-to-reel
and we're going to try that, which should be a step up in sound production.

I think there's
a definite sound departure from Glenn Echo to Durable
Dream. Durable Dream is much cleaner than
Glenn Echo. Bela [Koe-Krompecher, owner of Anyway Records]
has described Glenn Echo to me as demos. Was there ever
any intent to go further with that album?

J: There was,
but that description is pretty accurate. We spent a lot more time on Durable
Dream - thinking about the sequencing of the songs, trying to make it
fit together conceptually - and that wasn't the case at all with Glenn
Echo. I think it's pretty obvious that Durable Dream wasn't just
knocked out or thrown together. I think we thought that Glenn Echo
was going to be a 500-copy release and it grew and got to be more than that.

What dictates
who plays which instruments? On stage you switch instruments and, judging
by the liner notes, you do the same in the studio. How is that determined?

J: The recording
dictates what we play live. We came pretty close to being able to play the
whole record in our set with one line-up. One thing we've never done is do
a record and then do anything that makes any sense as far as supporting it.
So we thought that this time we'd try to aim for the single line-up. We ended
up deciding that we couldn't use one line-up so we started switching around.
I've had a lot of fun switching around and playing bass. I think it was getting
old using two guitars as well. Scotty got the Rhodes piano and it's been a
lot of fun since that happened. It was getting too status quo.

S: We all do
different things on different songs. When we recorded, it had a lot to do
with 'who wants to play this solo?'

T: Or who had
a good idea.

S: And we'll
even take turns. If someone is on something for 10 minutes and can't figure
anything out, somebody else will take over. Jake has been playing piano since
he was a kid, but I would still play the part if I wrote it. But there'd be
other times when I wrote the guitar solo as well. So we still look at it song-by-song
and figure out who wants to play what instrument.

Before going
into work with Jeff, was working with Steve Evans on The Year You Were
Born the last time you had worked with somebody?

J: Yeah, and
that came off more like the way we do things.

T: We did that
record in Jerry's house. Steve came over and we did it on a Friday and a Saturday
- 2 days - the majority of it anyway. There were some songs we added later
to flesh it out.

S: We gave him
a digital delay and a stereo compressor for The Year You Were Born,
an agreement we made before we recorded it.

What do you
think about being tagged 'lo-fi'?

J: We've been
lo-fi by necessity. We write okay songs and that still comes through most
times. There have been times when we recorded that the limitations inhibited
a song coming through, though. I think we stepped away from the lo-fi sound
with Durable Dream. Maybe we're not all the way out, but we're on our
way out. We're getting to that point where we can do it ourselves and not
be categorized as lo-fi. Durable Dream was harder to categorize that
way. That's a played-out label anyway.

Yeah, Sebadoh
and Pavement are still being labeled that way when they're using sixty some
tracks...

J: I think anyone
who knows anything knows that that in itself isn't an aesthetic. The lo-fi
people who have gotten somewhere have gotten there because of the songwriting.
The recording wasn't so lo-fi that you couldn't tell the verse, chorus, and
bridge.

T: We're in
a transitional mode right now between supporting The Durable Dream
and starting to concentrate all of our efforts on the next thing. Jake is
building a studio in his backyard in a barn.

J: My folks
are tearing down a two-car garage so we're taking all the material we can
salvage to build a two-part building where we'll get together. This factory
space has no heat. We have a propane heater but we can't leave some of the
nicer equipment down here. It won't last.

S: The 8-track
will lose another track.

J: But we're
usually either in playing-out mode or recording mode. Recording goes in spurts
because we're not always set up to record here. Ted has a mini-disc recorder
and we'll set up a stereo microphone to jot down a song we're working on or
to run through the set and listen for errors.

Do you see
yourselves taking more time on records? Will you take two years between records
at some point?

J: I think that's
too long, but I can see it happening.

T: I think one
year is a good time.

S: It used to
be that we had to wait for the material. Ted and Jerry were writing one song
each, I was writing a couple, and Jake was writing the majority of the record.
Now all four of us are writing. We probably have enough material right now
for a full-length record. It will be just a matter of recording and getting
it done.

Part II

The
instruments on the new songs sound more natural than on The
Durable Dream. You seem to be letting them sound the way they
sound without using effects.

S: That might
just be capturing them more accurately technically.

You used
the reel-to-reel 8-track? Did you ditch the cassette with the broken tracks?

J: That's at
Jerry's house. We used it for the demos and there is a very noticeable difference
between the cassette and the half-inch format. We also used a compressor and
some dynamic microphones.

That's the
equipment you were using at the television studio?

J: Yeah, the
majority of the recording was still done there.

T: When you
actually get to hear an acoustic guitar sounding really nice, you end up wanting
to use it without putting anything on it. If you have a sh*tty mic hooked
up to a cassette, the acoustic guitar won't sound as nice so you're more prone
to put some sort of effect on it or not even record that way from the get
go because you know it's not going to sound good.

S: We also made
a change with the instruments we're using. Jake plays a stand-up bass, which
he rented. The stand-up has a more dynamic sound than a regular bass so we
ended up leaving other instruments out. Half the songs have that bass sound.

J: I think we've
always wanted to sound more pure and natural. I like having acoustic guitar
in almost every song.

You also
brought some new people in to record this time.

J: Jerry's really
good about the logistics of getting people in. He scheduled someone every
week for a month.

You
have Barry on pedal steel, Jill [Dannemiller, Jerry's wife] on trumpet, Marcy...

J: Mark Wyatt.

S: Laura, my
wife, sang on one of Ted's new songs.

So
what was the set up like at the TV studio? Were you able to leave your equipment
down there?

J: Yeah. All
the same sh*t we had at the old studio, but in a room four times the size.

S: It was nice.
It had carpet. [laughs]

J: It was well
heated.

T: And the basement
was completely sound proof.

J: Here, there's
all this refrigeration equipment (for the storage of plasma at the nearby
donation center), everything we record here has a slight hum in the background.
It was an ideal set up at the television studio, but I knew it was going to
come to an end. We were there for about six months.

How far along
are you at this point? How long till the record is completed?

J: We have about
four or five more overdubbing sessions.

S: We have all
the songs mapped out - we just need to do the final mixes.

T: We only had
8 tracks to work with but we wanted a lot more, so we would record all 8 tracks
then dump it to Jake's computer and then dump it back to a track, so we've
actually already made a lot of the mixing decisions.

J: You pull
up just two faders and you have the whole band.

How was working
on this record different than how you've worked in the past?

J: On this record,
we've all written several songs.

J: That's been
unique. Not the democracy of it, but that we've all been writing at the same
pace. It's very much a band.

T: That's one
way it has changed. It hasn't been so much about how we are going to do songs,
but how to develop your own songs and have three other people help you do
it.

J: With each
record, we've taken however much time was necessary to do something better
than the last one. I think that's been something that changed starting with
the recording of Durable Dream - making the commitment to spending
enough time to do it. Now we know how to write and play the songs, even though
the equipment is different.

Was it hard
to leave the mortar factory?

J: Not in that
we didn't want to freeze our asses off during the winter.

T: The old place
was just another wrench thrown in the mix of us getting together.

J: Yeah, and
whether or not someone got propane for the heater. We didn't talk about it
that much, but I just thought it was getting to be a pain to go down there.
The place is just piled up with crap and we don't even know where everything
is. We had to abandon it.

T: It was dirty
and everything we brought in there got ruined.

J: And the TV
studio was ripe for taking advantage of it.

T: When we got
the cassette 8-track, there was nothing wrong with it. It just sat on this
table, we never moved it and we even covered it up. The first time we took
it in to get serviced, they opened it up and were like, 'Oh my god!' There
was so much crap in it.

S: There was
pigeon sh*t in there. [laughs]

T: But the warehouse
was such a cool place to have and we got it right when we needed it.

S: Jake gave
us a deadline tonight for when we have to move all our stuff out of there.

J: We haven't
used it in forever, but we don't want to give it up.

T: It's just
getting too expensive and we don't play out that much and hence the band doesn't
generate that much money.

S: Except for
those bake sales we do twice a month. [laughs]

Are there
any other new instruments on the record?

J: There's violin
on one song. When I turned the bass in, I got a violin. The bass was $50 a
month and they let you apply the money towards buying it, but you could only
rent it for a year before you had to buy it. Well, the bass cost two grand
so after six months I figured out I wasn't going to be able to buy it so I
decided to get the violin just so I would have something that I could sell
to get back my investment.

S: I think we
should trade the violin in on two pocket trumpets. [laughs] Jerry got a cool
new instrument.

Lap steel,
right?

S: It wasn't
on the last record, but we've been using it this time and it has a nice sound.

J: We've got
it on two songs, and I play some banjo on a few songs.

Do you do
much overdubbing of specific parts?

J: Most songs
are pretty cohesive but in places it's gotten pretty fragmented. The song
where I play banjo, we had done the same chord on guitar over and over again
for about 24 measures and it didn't work. So I mixed it down on the computer
and took that part out and then put in this banjo part. But that's not typical
- usually we do it right to begin with. Still there are hardly any songs where
we start with all four of us playing. Usually we just record a few things
to set up the song and to get some sort of energy between the people. We usually
have at least two people. If you do everything single-tracked and build it
that way you don't get any dynamics.

Do
you think recording over the course of the year for this record is good for
your process? Would you ever record in a more intense setting?

S: We've done
long weekends where we've recorded four or five songs.

T: We did two
or three 7"s that way. The majority of The Year You Were Born
was done in two days and then the rest on 4-track before and afterwards. The
rest of the albums have always taken a while.

Do you ever
find that you lose a song taking that much time?

T: I think that
will occasionally happen to Scott's songs.

S: We're saving
ourselves trouble. I think we get rid of the crap because we fight for the
good ones

T: I don't see
why you would want to put yourself in the situation where you have to record
in a certain amount of time if you don't have to.

www.moviolamusic.com

http://www.tapeop.com/magazine/bonus/moviola.html