WED., OCTOBER 03, 2007
eMusic Q&A: Daytrotter
by J. Edward Keyes
Since 2006, Daytrotter, a website based in Rock Island, IL, has been fulfilling the role of stateside John Peel, capturing warm, inspired sessions from bands without artifice or pretense. The concept is simple: the artists stop off at the Daytrotter studios and record four songs live to tape — no overdubs, no special effects. The results are startling: honest, unaffected portraits of bands that feel more like memoirs than concerts. eMusic is thrilled to be hosting a series of Daytrotter samplers that cull the best tracks from these intimate sessions. If you like what you hear, you can head over to Daytrotter to grab each session's remaining three songs. An antidote to the increasingly mechanized and faceless music industry, Daytrotter brings out the best in every performer they record, creating tiny albums that are big on heart.
eMusic caught up with Daytrotter co-founder Sean Moeller to talk about the site's evolution.
So to start, tell me a little bit about how you first got into music. What were some of the first records you bought?
Remember when CDs used to come in those huge-ass packages? The first few that I got were PM Dawn, Boyz II Men and Michael Jackson's Dangerous. My parents are completely uninterested in buying records. They have a handful of vinyl, and they haven't bought anything since. My dad one day bought a 7" of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl," and that was the first thing he'd bought since the Fifth Dimension or the Association. My first real concert was seeing the Meat Puppets open for Primus, and it was just an awesome show. It's a clichéd term, but it was pretty mind-blowing. I remember coming home from that concert and telling my mom, "Well, I'm going to going to a lot more of those." I started getting into Weezer after that — in fact, when we had the Rentals in for a session a few weeks ago, that was a big moment for me. In college I'd go to the local record store, Record Collector, every day after class. I remember getting Of Montreal's Cherry Peel, and that record kind of kicked my ass. I just realized that there was a ton more stuff out there that I'd never heard before.
So how did that developing passion for music eventually lead to you starting up Daytrotter?
You know, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do at first. I was just out of college and I thought, "It would be so great if I had the money to buy a building and make it a record store during the day with a separate room for live shows." I grew up on a farm in Iowa about a quarter mile down Interstate 80, and you could sit at an overpass there and just watch tour buses go through. So I knew that everyone who was playing a show in the Midwest was driving down Route 80. I started thinking, "Maybe we could do something where we had noontime shows, kids could play hooky from school, a band could play for a half an hour and then get on their way to their show that night." That’s kinda where the core idea came from. For a while I had thought about just starting a blog, but there are so many people doing that now. I thought, "It's got to be something different, or why waste your time?"
My sound engineer, Pat Stolley, had been running a recording studio above a pizza parlor for about two years, and so he already had all this gear — the room actually used to be an old radio station — so a lot of the logistics were already worked out. The idea just kind of grew from there. All that was left was to convince bands to come in — which at first was the hardest thing about it, because we didn't have anything to show for ourselves. Fortunately, as the site's progressed, it's gotten a lot easier. It ends up working as a really nice "in-between" kind of thing for the bands; it's not quite making a record, but not quite a live show either. The thing I try to stress to bands is that this is an opportunity for them to be creative and to do something different.
What aspects of recording a Daytrotter session do you think the bands respond to?
The sound of our room is hard to beat — everyone makes some comment like "I wish we could practice here every day." But what I love about it is the friendships that result from the sessions. The guys from Dr. Dog stayed at our place after their session and when they left their singer Scott had painted a picture of our living room and left it on our table. He said he wanted it to be a "Michael Landon moment." Those are the things I remember most.
I think it helps that we're just really laid-back guys. We never get starstruck or anything — though Will Oldham made us shake a little bit. There's so much mythology that surrounds Will. People say, "Oh, he's difficult," or "He's strange," and, yeah, he is a little strange, but that's what makes him interesting. That's what makes him someone you want to talk to. I mean, after his session, we all sat around and talked about Madonna and Nelly Furtado. He just melted. And he still e-mails us to this day.
I think everybody understands that we're really out here doing this for them. I hope that by putting these sessions out there we can get people to hear these bands and to think, "Wow, these songs blew me away. I really want to buy their record," or "I really want to go see this band play."
Is there a dream session?
I want Willie Nelson in here so badly. I think he'd sound so good in our room. If we could get Willie Nelson in here, I'd suspend all sessions in a month and just live in that session. I want to bring in more hip-hop. I think the Roots would be great. I think — and this is a gigantic fish — but someone like Kanye West, that would sound incredible. Those are fantasies, but I want to think that people like him would love to try this.
I think everybody still comes in thinking, "OK, what's this gonna be like?" And rightly so — it's different. I think everyone walks up the steps thinking, "We'll see how this goes." So there's always at least a thin wall to break down. But it always happens. We really have gotten to be friends with everybody. They all want to come back and do it again. And that's the most valuable thing to me. The last thing they say when they leave the studio is "We'll see you soon!"
eMusic caught up with Daytrotter co-founder Sean Moeller to talk about the site's evolution.
So to start, tell me a little bit about how you first got into music. What were some of the first records you bought?
Remember when CDs used to come in those huge-ass packages? The first few that I got were PM Dawn, Boyz II Men and Michael Jackson's Dangerous. My parents are completely uninterested in buying records. They have a handful of vinyl, and they haven't bought anything since. My dad one day bought a 7" of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl," and that was the first thing he'd bought since the Fifth Dimension or the Association. My first real concert was seeing the Meat Puppets open for Primus, and it was just an awesome show. It's a clichéd term, but it was pretty mind-blowing. I remember coming home from that concert and telling my mom, "Well, I'm going to going to a lot more of those." I started getting into Weezer after that — in fact, when we had the Rentals in for a session a few weeks ago, that was a big moment for me. In college I'd go to the local record store, Record Collector, every day after class. I remember getting Of Montreal's Cherry Peel, and that record kind of kicked my ass. I just realized that there was a ton more stuff out there that I'd never heard before.
So how did that developing passion for music eventually lead to you starting up Daytrotter?
You know, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do at first. I was just out of college and I thought, "It would be so great if I had the money to buy a building and make it a record store during the day with a separate room for live shows." I grew up on a farm in Iowa about a quarter mile down Interstate 80, and you could sit at an overpass there and just watch tour buses go through. So I knew that everyone who was playing a show in the Midwest was driving down Route 80. I started thinking, "Maybe we could do something where we had noontime shows, kids could play hooky from school, a band could play for a half an hour and then get on their way to their show that night." That’s kinda where the core idea came from. For a while I had thought about just starting a blog, but there are so many people doing that now. I thought, "It's got to be something different, or why waste your time?"
My sound engineer, Pat Stolley, had been running a recording studio above a pizza parlor for about two years, and so he already had all this gear — the room actually used to be an old radio station — so a lot of the logistics were already worked out. The idea just kind of grew from there. All that was left was to convince bands to come in — which at first was the hardest thing about it, because we didn't have anything to show for ourselves. Fortunately, as the site's progressed, it's gotten a lot easier. It ends up working as a really nice "in-between" kind of thing for the bands; it's not quite making a record, but not quite a live show either. The thing I try to stress to bands is that this is an opportunity for them to be creative and to do something different.
What aspects of recording a Daytrotter session do you think the bands respond to?
The sound of our room is hard to beat — everyone makes some comment like "I wish we could practice here every day." But what I love about it is the friendships that result from the sessions. The guys from Dr. Dog stayed at our place after their session and when they left their singer Scott had painted a picture of our living room and left it on our table. He said he wanted it to be a "Michael Landon moment." Those are the things I remember most.
I think it helps that we're just really laid-back guys. We never get starstruck or anything — though Will Oldham made us shake a little bit. There's so much mythology that surrounds Will. People say, "Oh, he's difficult," or "He's strange," and, yeah, he is a little strange, but that's what makes him interesting. That's what makes him someone you want to talk to. I mean, after his session, we all sat around and talked about Madonna and Nelly Furtado. He just melted. And he still e-mails us to this day.
I think everybody understands that we're really out here doing this for them. I hope that by putting these sessions out there we can get people to hear these bands and to think, "Wow, these songs blew me away. I really want to buy their record," or "I really want to go see this band play."
Is there a dream session?
I want Willie Nelson in here so badly. I think he'd sound so good in our room. If we could get Willie Nelson in here, I'd suspend all sessions in a month and just live in that session. I want to bring in more hip-hop. I think the Roots would be great. I think — and this is a gigantic fish — but someone like Kanye West, that would sound incredible. Those are fantasies, but I want to think that people like him would love to try this.
I think everybody still comes in thinking, "OK, what's this gonna be like?" And rightly so — it's different. I think everyone walks up the steps thinking, "We'll see how this goes." So there's always at least a thin wall to break down. But it always happens. We really have gotten to be friends with everybody. They all want to come back and do it again. And that's the most valuable thing to me. The last thing they say when they leave the studio is "We'll see you soon!"
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