I think some of you have missed the point.  My point was that lo-fi recordings can & will hold an artist back. There are outlets, whether it be a radio station, a podcast or even a Garage Punk Hideout compilation, where a recording will be rejected because the quality is too low. Genre is irrelevant. There are plenty of hi-fidelity Garage Punk records. The Music Machine & Love are perfect examples. They both still have attitude & plenty of soul and I can hear all of the instruments.

 Another missed point. I don't necessarly consider home recordings  made on a computer as Hi Fidelity either. I record in real studios. I understand not everyone can afford that, but even recordings done in a garage can have a good "room' sound if the microphone's are placed properly.  Garage band, & basic versions of pro-tools are good for songwriting purposes and making demo's. But when I'm recording with a full band, I prefer using a good sounding room, not a virtual room.

does anyone remember bootleg tapes off the mixing desk? or the c-86 compilations? each to his own. but if we applied the same criteria of quality control to musical styles, garagepunk, punk rock, rock'n'roll, metal, thrash, hardcore, etc. would compare very unfavorably to jazz, western swing, rockabilly or classical music. and lyrically, how many bands compare to cole porter, irving berlin, hoagy carmichael, lieber and stoller, etc. i like lo-fi cos1) i can't afford expensive recording equipment 2) i like the sound. i've got plenty of brilliantly-recorded music in my record collection, and plenty of lo-fi thrashy stuff. i adore what horror deluxe are doing!

anybody can sound like a million bucks with garageband these days,but it's still the musical ideas that count. except, of course, for equipment fetishists!

Nothing wrong with melody.  I love melody myself.

electrocute your cock said:

I love lo-fi but I don't wanna hear something that sounds like shit. A little rough around the edges is great, but I also want to be able to make out the melody.

 

Melody? Man I'm getting old.

You probably meant "the words". : )

electrocute your cock said:

I love lo-fi but I don't wanna hear something that sounds like shit. A little rough around the edges is great, but I also want to be able to make out the melody.

 

Melody? Man I'm getting old.

dear natalie...., what a wonderful citation. is that john donne, or the great bard himself?

Natalie Pryce said:

But home-recording isn't the so called 'best' recording.  As top studios will have so many new pieces of technology that are meant to act as a crucible to take out all the little errors and imperfections.  Which, of course, results in all the magic being taken out because as we know it is our imperfections and our mistakes  which make us up and give us our personality.

 

"When a scholar studies something he strives,

to kill what is already alive,

and with all the parts they've lost the whole,

for the piece that's gone is the living soul"

John Spokus said:

I don't understand why somebody doesn't want to make the best sounding record they can. The technology is so accessible now, it's easy enough (for me) to do it right at home.

I love lo-fi but I don't wanna hear something that sounds like shit. A little rough around the edges is great, but I also want to be able to make out the melody.

Melody? Man I'm getting old.

I don't personally see anything wrong with imperfections (such as going "in the red") but to take things in the other direction and just make things intolerable just seems pointless.

Natalie Pryce said:

But home-recording isn't the so called 'best' recording.  As top studios will have so many new pieces of technology that are meant to act as a crucible to take out all the little errors and imperfections.  Which, of course, results in all the magic being taken out because as we know it is our imperfections and our mistakes  which make us up and give us our personality.

 

"When a scholar studies something he strives,

to kill what is already alive,

and with all the parts they've lost the whole,

for the piece that's gone is the living soul"

John Spokus said:

I don't understand why somebody doesn't want to make the best sounding record they can. The technology is so accessible now, it's easy enough (for me) to do it right at home.

Is it just me or does this post keep coming up blank?  I'd see it for less than two seconds and poof...it's gone.

As for lo-fi, Even Billy Childish's recordings have a quality to them.  The Mummies first batch of 7 inches sounded like Back from the Grave recordings and the Makers had a low end 60s sound.  Even Supercharger's first album was pretty good.  I don't get it where answering machine quality started to become this badge of honor.

John Carlucci said:

Just to prove my point a little further... I noticed this quote from Kopper regarding the Garage punk compilation series & whether or not there will be a volume 7...

kopper said:

I don't mind continuing the series, but the quality of the submissions has to remain consistently great. Many of the songs I got this time around weren't as good, and a few sounded like they were recorded at practice sessions or were just poorly mixed in general.

So, even here on the Garage Punk Hideout, recording quality matters. As I said before, if you do not record your band to sand as good as it possibly can sound, you are holding yourself back. Wondering if any of the people I butted heads with in this forum were amongst those whose submissions were rejected?

No podcasts or recordings available - it's against the law, since we're an FCC broadcast station on FM airwaves.  The FCC requires rights licensing for internet broadcasting in addition to FM broadcasting, so our station is only able to afford the On-Air licensing.  It's a good thing, since all the artists get paid royalties for all the music we chart.

Motor is for Live performances done right in our studio which the artists personally sign over an internet broadcast release - so that we can make it available as a podcast.

So for the Wrekking Hrs you just have to tune in live.    You can also search the playlist on our site  www.whfr.fm to see what I've played.  Just search under my show name Wrekking Hours and you'll see everything from the past 12 years.

Zorch Radio said:

Motor Drive has got a girl talking and it looks like they only have recordings from Thursdays.  Are there recordings of your show?

Wrekking Hrs is ON THE AIR! tune in now online at http://whfr.fm or in Detroit at 89.3fm

I guess Bloodshot Bill's allowed in America now?

also just added: mark sultan!

so totally intense. will be there with my partners in crime wolfboy slim, shouting thomas torment and kitty b. shake. let's party, y'all!

i hate that the 4-day pass means you have to do will call. it makes me so nervous not having the tickets in my hand!!!!

Sounds good to me.

It's a total grower I think, took me a few listens. Sure not as rocking as his other releases but awesome in it's own right. The production is spot on, especially guitar sound on the solos. I also don't see the compassion between Ty & Jay, other than the pretty broad "Garage" label  both brilliant but coming from a totally different place in my opinion.

Got his album but haven't had too much time to listen to it just yet. Got to see him play in Melbourne, Australia last night..was fucking amazing. Best show I've seen in ages...consisted of a few covers, old/new stuff & one really strange drunk heckler.

I live in Europe but I must say that actualy I never liked so much Jay Reatards. Yes he was also a prolific one-man guy, but totally different in many respects...

yep, i will stick to the "Melted" and "Lemon" albums, awesome. I fond "Goodbye Bread" less intense but good.

I guess it depends on how much you trust Amazon or Google with your stuff. I created my own music archive/backup directory through my Web hosting service (DreamHost). Since I'm already paying them like $7/month for hosting GaragePunk.com and a few other domains, I figured this was the best way for me to do it, and I just access the directory via FTP (which never crashes, haha). I've done the same thing with all of our family photos, creating a separate directory for Photo Archives. It's always backed up, and with unlimited storage space, I'll never run out of room. Problem solved.

Anyone here using the Amazon and/or Google music cloud services?

I wrote a column about it a couple of weeks ago for my local paper http://steveterrell.blogspot.com/2011/06/terrells-tuneup-hey-you-get-onto-my.html

Since that was published, Amazon has upped the ante by giving UNLIMITED storage for those who on the $20 per year for 20 GB. That applied to those of us who got on the 20 GB plan for buying one $5 MP3 album from them. 

The good thing about the Amazon Cloud is that you can download your music if you need to. So basically you can store all your music for $20 a year.

Trouble is, the Amazon uploaded kind of sucks. It crashes when I try to upload my entire collection at once. So I have had to do it little bits at a time. (and the uploads are really slow.) So far I have more than 14,000 songs uploaded -- and still got a long way to go.

So what do you guys thing about this cloud stuff? 

awesome. great stuff, mate.

Tito Uquillas said:

Just heard this for the first time and love it:

 

High School Caesar - Reggie Perkins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPnhSao60D4

Actually, there is no footage of that one, but you can see some other rockers. the band's name is Bop Kings and there are quite a few tunes up on youtube. hope you enjoy it. we head out for a tour in 2 weeks, if you live in colorado or texas. we'll be going to australia in september/october. just sayin... if you're into rockabilly, we play it the old school way (no drums).

Zorch Radio said:

I tried to find you cover on the YooToob, but no luck.  Is it uploaded anywhere? I'd like to hear it.

Casey Miller said:

excellent. my band actually covers that tommy blake song. i've heard it called "all night long."

Zorch Radio said:

Here's some stompin' singles that deserve a mention:

 

"Miss Pearl" - Jimmy Wages

"Hang Up" -  Fabulous Wailers

"Lordy Hoody" - Tommy Blake

dedicated to my friends who grew up in the 90's~ http://youtu.be/7AsId-qVIb4

Icky Boyfriends!