dey don’t let no Wegro live in Nashville

May 8, 2003 11:01 AM

The Daily Adventures of Mixerman is the hilariously brutal daily blog of an anonymous studio engineer, recording an anonymous major-label rock band. As Ink19 says, "What Spinal Tap did to Heavy Metal, Mixerman does to The Recording Process."
posted by Espoo2 (27 comments total)

i stumbled across this a few months ago (i thought it was already posted here, but i can't find it using the search) and i have to say, if you are at all curious about the recording process or any kind of rock music geek, it is absolutely hilarious. i couldn't stop reading, and devoted some time over several evenings to read the entire thing. highly recommended and great fun! thanks for linking it, espoo2!
posted by quonsar at 11:23 AM on May 8, 2003

Eh, I started reading and while there were some funny moments, the "Mixerman" himself comes off as one biggest pricks on the planet as well based on his know-it-all writing style and his insistence on calling pretty much everyone childish names. Makes me glad we recorded our CD in my basement with nobody else getting in the way.

It also makes me wonder why people even go to such a huge expense of recording anymore (in relation to what they're obviously spending based in the article), when people are doing tiny-studio (and home) recording that sounds just as good. Take that can of gloss and shove it up your arse, big boys.
posted by almostcool at 11:30 AM on May 8, 2003

Yeah, he does come off as an ass, but that's half the fun. And you start to realize, halfway through it, that he's a push-over, and never really stands up for himself... All bark.

And as far as why people go to recording studios, well, I don't think these guys could do it on their own...They just don't sound quite bright enough.
posted by Espoo2 at 11:37 AM on May 8, 2003

Yeah, now that I've plowed through a little more if it, I realize that he talks a lot of shite, but that's just his way of dealing with things without outwardly exploding.

Still, the huge waste of time and money staggers my mind, knowing some of the music that has moved me the most in the past year was recorded in basements/barns/etc.
posted by almostcool at 11:52 AM on May 8, 2003

Great post - thanks! Very, very funny stuff.
posted by trigfunctions at 12:06 PM on May 8, 2003

Recording a record in your basement will give you one type of sound – recording in an expensive studio with a professional like Mixerman will give you another type of sound. If a label wants an album to have a "big studio rock" sound, they simply can't get that with a Mackie and a DAT system in someone's basement.
posted by Spacelegoman at 12:16 PM on May 8, 2003

Considering this is probably the career I'm looking into the most, thank you very much for posting it. It's informative, on a couple of levels. Time to work on my people skills ;)
posted by Be'lal at 1:12 PM on May 8, 2003

find out where the $$ goes when your band gets signed.the problem with music by steve albini
posted by lsd4all at 1:56 PM on May 8, 2003

this is awesome, i've been addicted to reading this, in fact, i am seeing parallel's to this in my very life right now. sort of The Bastard Operator from Hell meets the music industry.

About music production, the stuff that professional engineers like this guy work on is going to sound GREAT. with home stuff, and small stuff you can get a long way there, but i think there is always gonna be room for guys like this to work on the big productions.

That said, almost all I listen too is recorded small scale, my favorite recent records were all done by non-professionals, and i dont think that the extra bit of fidelity is worth the price that it sounds like they are spending.
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 2:16 PM on May 8, 2003

Jesus, what a baby. I guess I thought that it was going to be some indie cat working on a major label record, instead of some persnickety insider.

That being said, it is a fascinating read. I kinda wanna give the drummer a hug, though.
posted by mikrophon at 2:28 PM on May 8, 2003

Oh, and what's the deal with the title on this page? "Dey don't let no Wegro live in Nashville?" What the fuck?
posted by mikrophon at 2:31 PM on May 8, 2003

mikrophon:
For your answer, keep reading.
posted by Espoo2 at 2:41 PM on May 8, 2003

It's a quote from the diary. From Fingaz the Wegro editor. It's quite funny in context.

I'm still not totally convinced that it's real, but I think it's very funny (needs a lot of editing, though). It could be the first really good comic novel about the music industry.
posted by Grangousier at 2:43 PM on May 8, 2003

see also the rec.audio.pro thread
posted by Dean King at 2:46 PM on May 8, 2003

Can anyone guess who the band is, who the big-name producer is, and how the album turned out? Anyone? If it is real, this would probably be easy to guess and make this guy's job and career a lot harder.
posted by cell divide at 3:01 PM on May 8, 2003

The interviewed him in the most recent TapeOp magazine.
posted by Espoo2 at 3:26 PM on May 8, 2003

Mixerman was huge on music lists, back when he was still posting regular updates. There were endless efforts to guess, confirm, guess some more who he really is, who Bitch Slap are, etc. It was a hell of a fun read while it lasted. Seeing this here reminded me I hadn't been back to look for updates in awhile; sadly, there weren't any.
posted by jacquilynne at 3:39 PM on May 8, 2003

man killed my work day
posted by bitdamaged at 5:45 PM on May 8, 2003

I'm sitting here in the studio reading this. I'm only up to day 14, but so far it's par for the course- like "Spinal Tap" for me, it stops being funny after a while as it hits too close to home. All of the situations and stereotypes and wasted time are painfully familiar (including the pissy, accident-prone engineer who inevitably ends up being the biggest pain in the ass of the whole project).
posted by obloquy at 6:23 PM on May 8, 2003

It's not real. It's based on reality. Good effort tho.
posted by skinsuit at 11:51 PM on May 8, 2003

Couple of hours and several beers later. That was most excellent. I spent quite a while in various fringes of that business, and that story of 8 weeks of chaos rings very true.

Thanks for the link, Espoo2. What MeFi is all about, in my humble.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:14 AM on May 9, 2003

That was some fun reading. Someone should fax this, along with a copy of Steve Albini's "The Problem with Music", to any band considering a major-label record deal.
posted by Mars Saxman at 7:37 AM on May 9, 2003

The story continues here two months later. Now they are in NYC.
posted by filchyboy at 2:07 PM on May 9, 2003

UPDATE I have it on good authority there is a strong likelihood the band in question is Lifehouse. Still digging. Clue One: Magnolia, the manager of the first recording studio may be named after a street.
posted by filchyboy at 10:32 AM on May 12, 2003

dey don't let no wegro catch a cab neither!

this is without doubt the best link i've read on mefi. i'm in a band myself yadda yadda and frankly, real or not, if you're in the business in some way that it just makes some sort of horrific sense.

entertainment/fiction/inside scoop - it matters not. this is just great.
posted by triv at 2:06 PM on May 12, 2003

filchy-- according to their website, lifehouse's album came out Sept 2002-- supposedly the same time this diary was created, so unless they changed the dates to protect themselves, it couldn't be lifehouse.
posted by cell divide at 2:56 PM on May 12, 2003

Cell I'm still talking to people but from what I am being told this is a fictionalized account of real events which took place over the course of the recording of the first two releases.
posted by filchyboy at 8:20 AM on May 13, 2003