And then it was time to head off to camp at Gigatone.

Right, then the concept had to be worked out to conform first to the recording camp concept. That dictated that the songs had to be at least familiar to the campers because they were going to participate. And they weren't going to get copies in advance. They were pretty much going to have to take a crack pretty much when they got to camp.

So we picked out two or three of the tunes most familiar to people and that became basically the audition tapes so we could find a drummer or singer or bass player, and that they could contribute in some relatively concise part of the project because the whole camp just lasts a few days. But we had some challenges because as we had some pretty good players and wanted to find things for them to do.

Is there any chance of seeing you perform these songs live in this updated style?

If the record took on a life of its own, maybe, but I'm not going to put a tour behind it and promote like that if an audience doesn't appear for it on their own. And I know I'm not going to be able to create one out my own audience. They're not all of a sudden going to go hit the dance floor and start boogieing around [laughs]. A lot of them are getting on in years. They might dance for one or two songs and then have to rest for the next three!

On your current tour, you've dusted off some of your more popular classics, like 'Hello It's Me' and 'Can We Still Be Friends.'

It's born out of a practicality and realization of how the music business has changed and how live performance fits into it. This tour I'm doing now is at the behest of management. There's critical mass now of what they call performing arts centers where people buy season tickets so it's good to have a show that appeals to your core audience but isn't offensive to season ticketholders. You have to do a fairly healthy dose of material familiar to a fairly dilettante audience and then fill it out so it's not too lopsided. The whole nature of touring has changed and so one has to be flexible. It's just the nature of things today.

How has the producer's role changed since the '70s, when your name as a producer on a record seemed to get as much attention as the artist?

I think it still means something but in a different way. People still want to get Will.i.am on their record or just get his name associated with it because he's hot. The difference nowadays is, if you look at production credits for an artist like Rihanna or Katy Perry or Ne-Yo, it's never one producer anymore -- it's like three producers for each song! An album can have two dozen producers on it [laughing] so there isn't that sort of bond between artist and producer. Now, making records has become like high science. People get called in because of their levels of expertise. The marriage between an artist and a producer is no longer there also because of how the material has changed. Many of the productions I've worked with, these are actual songwriters and the songs are very personal to them so the thing you're striving for is some bridge of how they feel about the song and how the audience feels about the song. Today, the songs are written totally to audience specifications. "We already know what the audience going to like so let's just create that!"

There's no really deep personal messages anymore in a lot of popular music. More than anything, they're trying to out-do each other. What is the outrage that will get people buzzing and tweeting? "She said c--- five times in a row! Wait, the song's called 'Peacock.' I get it!"

In the mid-1990s, you started sharing snippets of an interesting autobiography on your PatroNet website whereby you told a story from three distinct points of view. Many fans have wondered about the status of that project.

I've attempted to get back into it. I've gone back to re-read what I've done but the problem is -- and I have to get over this somehow -- psychologically it reminds of homework, which reminds me of being in school, which turns me off too much. So I have to develop a different attitude about it, probably because a little isn't enough. It's one of those things where you have to complete the whole thing or it's not a book, it's just a bunch of pages. I just have to get a fire under me or resolve myself to whatever weird head that it puts me in, but I do need to get back to it because there's a lot of stuff that other people have related and its not the way I remember it -- which was one of the principle purposes for me doing it in the first place [laughs].

Track List (originally produced for)

Prime Time (Remix) - (The Tubes)
Dancing Barefoot - (Patti Smith)
Two Out of Three Ain't Bad - (Meatloaf)
Chasing Your Ghost - (What Is This?)
Love My Way - (The Psychedelic Furs)
Personality Crisis - (The New York Dolls)
Is It A Star - (Hall & Oates)
Tell Me Your Dreams - (Jill Sobule)
Take It All - (Badfinger)
I Can't Take It - (Cheap Trick)
Dear God - (XTC)
Out of My Mind - (Bourgeois Tagg)
Everything - (Rick Derringer)
Walk Like A Man - (Grand Funk Railroad)
Nothing To Lose - (Hunter / Dragon)


Music for adventurous listeners

tA

Tribal Records

I had heard about this record. Gotta admire the dude for still experimenting even if it's covers of songs he wrote/produce this time around lol

Highly intelligent.... I enjoyed reading the interview, I couldn't careless about techno music though

While i'm not a fan of the techno/dance production approach either, I enjoyed all the tracks simply because the songs themselves are good.


Music for adventurous listeners

tA

Tribal Records

The Tubes & (re)Production...



...Prime Time


Music for adventurous listeners

tA

Tribal Records

Bourgeois Tagg & (re)Production...



...Out Of My Mind


Music for adventurous listeners

tA

Tribal Records

XTC & (re)Production...



...Dear God



Music for adventurous listeners

tA

Tribal Records

This guy never ceases to amaze, he lives & breaths music.