Image © Jose & MidJourney
I came to the US first time when I was 18, did my 12th grade at Montgomery High School in San Diego CA via an exchange program, while at school joined a rock n’ roll band called Phoenix as their singer, we did a few shows and that is where it all started. I returned to Portugal, did my military service and when out, didn’t really know what to do. I started working in a small design studio, and realized I really liked it, wanted to go to design school but it was expensive. Along comes a rock n’ roll band inviting me to sing with them, Banda Kroll (don’t ask…), I ended up doing that for three years and paying my design degree with a pretty successful covers band for Portugal in the late 80’s. Once I finished my design degree, I felt I had to make a choice, design or music, and I chose design. I used to say those two were competing love affairs and wouldn’t work, I also thought I didn’t have a lot to give to music, didn’t go to school for it, my voice was not that remarkable, and I didn’t think I could make a decent living. I did my last show with the band (they are still playing btw) and started my design career. The reason why I am sharing this is because I might have wanted to leave music, but music never left me. I’ve been joining musicians in different set-ups, on and off, love Karaoke, will see all related documentaries. And this past Friday I saw The Immediate Family, so if you are planning to see it, there might be some spoiler alerts in this post.
This is about a group of musicians, that didn’t start off being a group, rather professionals that played as studio musicians on everyone that became anyone in the 70’s and 80’s, you name a band and they probably played with them, in some case they toured with these big names, as a group or individual contributors, like we like to say in design 😉 The numbers are astounding, the bassist Leland Sklar played in more than 2,600 records, but they all had a huge impact in the music of that time, they are still recording and touring today, some of them over 70.
A couple of things made me reflect, one of them is that sometime before they started this activity, band musicians were not listed on music albums, and the fate of a previous well known group of studio musicians, The Wrecking Ball (another great documentary )was very different because they were not typically listed in the albums they played in, a practice that started in the 60’s with Phil Spector. The Immediate Family musicians credit the fact that they were made visible in these albums as an important reason to their success, go figure.
The second was a part in the documentary when they talk about the introduction of electronic instruments in music, like the Synclavier II and the Linn Drum Computer, adding digital synthesis and sampling capabilities to music. Niko Bolas, an engineer & producer said “technology, until you learn it, it’s terrifying and it’s threatening, the musicians either embraced going forward with new technologies, or didn’t work as much. The sounds that got created from the technology influenced both the writing and the production, and so you were either part of it, or you weren’t working”. ‘Kootch’ Kortchmar asked himself “is this the end of rock n’ roll?”. Sounds familiar when you think of what is happening now in design with generative AI? Rock n’ roll didn’t die, musicians had to adapt, and it changed, and though some might like to look back and miss that rock n’ roll, we still have pretty good music and musicians, that know how to use technology to their benefit, using their artistic talent do give us great rock n’ roll.