Издание Tape Op выпустило сборник интервью с величайшими музыкальными продюсерами

Tape Op magazine has been running independently for 30 years, exclusively publishing articles about producing and recording music. But the Portland, Oregon-based publication isn’t some arcane gearhead concern, ruminating on minuscule differences between different microphones and speakers; rather, it’s focused on the art of recording music, and Tape Op interviewers have spoken to some of the greatest minds in the music industry since editor Larry Crane founded the bimonthly magazine in 1996. The best of those interviews are compiled in “Making Music: Conversations With Record Producers,” out this week through Akashic Books, and compiled by Crane alongside publisher John Baccigaluppi, who lives in San Rafael. “We went from 75 interviews down to 25,” Baccigaluppi said. “That process was painstaking. Like, which of your children do you tell they can’t go to the zoo?” “Making Music” features interviews with producers spanning nearly every era of the recording industry since the late 1950s and covering genres as eclectic as reggae, hip-hop, country, rock and electronic music. One memorable interview finds interviewer Geoff Stanfield trying to wade through the wigged-out ramblings of Lee “Scratch” Perry, who produced some of the greatest reggae albums at his Black Ark Studio before burning it down in an apparent spiritual cleansing. “It starts off with (Tommy) ‘Snuff’ Garrett, who was a traditional, old-school producer working in studios with record labels, all analog, all tape,” Baccigaluppi said. “He wasn’t an engineer; he was a producer. And it ends with Finneas (O’Connell), who’s recording his sister Billie Eilish in a bedroom on a laptop.” The scope of the interviews collected in the book also illustrates the way the recording industry has changed from the analog through the digital era and the subsequent home-recording revolution. “I love the fact that anyone can make a record anywhere with anything,” Baccigaluppi said. “I think it’s great that technology is no longer a barrier to the artist. And there’s no doubt that in the early days of record labels and recording studios, it was a barrier to artists trying to get anything done. The labels and studios were, for better or worse, the gatekeepers. That’s all gone now.” A Sacramento native, Baccigaluppi got into both recording and publishing through his days in the California skateboarding world of the ‘80s and ‘90s. This community was a fertile ground for creativity, producing great artists in other fields like director Spike Jonze, painter Thomas Campbell and guitarists Ray Barbee and Tommy Guerrero. Baccigaluppi and his friends embraced that enterprising spirit, forming bands and publishing zines. “The zine culture from the mid-’80s into the mid-’90s was sort of tied into skating and punk rock and independent music and all that,” Baccigaluppi said. During one early interview with Minor Threat and Fugazi frontman Ian MacKaye for one of these self-published magazines, Baccigaluppi says the punk legend told him that “once you’re a skater, you just look at the world differently.” “I think that’s true,” Baccigaluppi said. “Skating’s a very individual sport. It’s also something that you fail at a lot until you actually make something. You learn how to cope with failure but keep moving, keep progressing.” After playing enough punk shows with his friends, Baccigaluppi realized he often enjoyed the setup for the shows more than he actually enjoyed playing the music. “I realized I’m probably not going to be a rock star, probably not the best career path,” Baccigaluppi said. “But I was always the guy setting up the PA and dragging out the four-track reel-to-reel, and I really liked that part of it.” In 1999, the same year Baccigaluppi signed on with the then-3-year-old Tape Op as publisher, he took over Enharmonik Studios in Sacramento and rebranded it the Hangar. “The Hangar was awesome,” Baccigaluppi said. “We had a mini ramp, a 5-foot quarter pipe, punch ramps, street obstacles — there was a lot of skating going on at that studio.” The studio ran under that name for 14 years, hosting luminaries like Sacramento art-metal band Deftones and hip-hop innovator Kanye West, who sought out the Hangar because it had specific microphones he could find nowhere else. Faced with a crumbling building and raised rent, Baccigaluppi stepped away from the Hangar in 2013 and established Panoramic House, a scenic studio in Stinson Beach, with business partner Bobby Lurie. The new studio has attracted an enviable clientele drawn largely from the rootsier side of indie rock, with singer-songwriters like Kurt Vile and Adrianne Lenker attracted to its idyllic West Marin location. Meanwhile, with a mostly volunteer staff and a loyal readership drawn to its small niche of content, Tape Op is a success story for music-focused media in an era where even major music publications like Pitchfork and Stereogum have struggled to stay afloat. “In one sense we’re kind of making the magazine for ourselves and then hoping that people are interested,” Baccigaluppi said. “I’m still fascinated by the subject matter we’re dealing with. It’s still really enjoyable to do these interviews, to meet people, to help put the magazine together. It’s still going just because we still really like doing it.”